Nice, Cindy and connie. Thanks!

Stolen from cleolinda, "How to Write Good" should amuse.

Oh, and I need some ideas for a good last name for someone who's very proud of the fact his ancestors came to England with William the Conqueror--i.e. French roots, but sufficiently anglicized to not get confused with the handful of reallyo trulyo French characters running around in my story. So far all I've come up with is Delacorte, but I don't think that's quite what I'm looking for. His first name is George, FWIW.

Fitzhugh? Fitzgerald?

De Vere? Defoe or Dafoe?

I found this: [link]

Hmm. Fitzgerald and Dafoe don't fit him, but Fitzhugh or De Vere has potential.

OK, sliding a degree drabble in under the wire. I don't know if I'm breaking the rules here, but this is a direct follow-up to the under the bed drabble I did back in September.

A Lady of High Degree

“I’m telling you, Ned, he has a woman in the village.”

“Our sergeant? Never.”

“You’ve not noticed? Half the nights he’s gone from his bedroll for half the night. That’s what he’s took that book for, and why he won’t even let us look at it.”

“Truly? Then I hope he brings her along when we march. Need more women around here.”

“She’s not that kind of woman, or he’d have brung her already. I’m telling you, he loves a lady of high degree.”

Ned snorted. “You’ve gone soft in the head. There ain’t no ladies in that village. He may be with the miller’s wife or the butcher’s daughter, but a lady? Don’t be daft.”

I need some ideas for a good last name for someone who's very proud of the fact his ancestors came to England with William the Conqueror--i.e. French roots, but sufficiently anglicized to not get confused with the handful of reallyo trulyo French characters running around in my story. So far all I've come up with is Delacorte, but I don't think that's quite what I'm looking for. His first name is George, FWIW.

Susan...

Chandler
Beauchamp(s) (possibly pronounced Beecham)
Calvin (although a lot of readers might not know it is a Norman name)
Norman
Cambernon/Cameron
Roche/Roch/Roach(e)
Bertrand
Blaise
Arsenault
Amirault
Baril
Burke (from Borque)
Deveneau
Tremblay/Trembley
Thibault (Tee-boe)
Thibodeau (Tib-ah-doe)
Savoy (fr. Savoie)
Laramie
Langley (from Langlais)
Lamore

Please tell me I've not wasted six months on a Chandler badfic.

Susan, in Famous Flower, Maddy Holt's maiden name was Valroy, which somewhere over the centuries had metamorphised and been anglicised from Villeroi.

I feel your pain. Believability in one of those transitions, keeping the feel of the root without making it too confusing with other characters, can be tricky.

Believability in one of those transitions, keeping the feel of the root without making it too confusing with other characters, can be tricky.

Yup. I'm looking for something with identifiable Norman roots so that my more educated readers will think, "Wow, this writer did her homework." And I want it to have enough of an aristocratic ring that even readers who don't think, "Aha, he traces his roots back to the Conquest," will feel like it's a little incongruous for him to be lower on the chain of command than guys with names like Murray, O'Meara, and Wilcox, and will nod understandingly when they learn he's of aristocratic family that's fallen on very hard times. For now I'm waffling between Montmorency (too French?) and Langley (not aristocratic-sounding enough?).

ION, I'm no longer feeling like such a goddess for my editor/agent chair skills. One of the agents agreed to do it so quickly that I didn't have time to do my complete spiel on what we ask of them, and now that I've emailed her all the info she's balking at judging the finalists in our writing contest--says she has a policy of not judging contests. I have an email in to the conference chair asking what to do, but I'm really afraid I'm going to end up having to rescind our invitation. Which I'd really hate to do, because even though deep down I know they're human beings just like me, and it probably wouldn't make a difference one way or another for my career, I still think of editors and agents as demigods, keepers of the Holy Grail of Publication who must be flattered and placated at all costs.