A Raging Madness

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Danger on WIP Wednesday

pexels-photo-110089I’ve been summarising the scenes in A Raging Madness so that I can map them against the internal and external journey of my hero and heroine, as I did with Revealed in Mist. I came across the excerpt below, and decided to share it with you. A moment of danger for my heroine; and this is only the first in a book of them.

Please share your excerpts showing your hero or heroine putting themselves at risk, whether physical risk, risk of rejection or scorn, or whatever you like. Here’s mine.

As soon as the key turned in the lock, Ella slid out of bed to find the chamber pot, and spit the remaining laudanum into it. She washed her mouth once, twice, three times. She had ingested a little—enough to further fog her brain, but not enough to douse the sharp flame of purpose. She had to get away. She had to escape. She had no idea why her brother and sister-in-law were keeping her alive, but she could not count on it continuing.

The room moved a little, wavering at the edges, and Ella wanted nothing more than to crawl back onto the bed and let the dreams come. Did it matter, after all? What good did it do to struggle?

No one in this village would help her, as she had found when they brought her out to display her before the squire and, on another occasion, the rector. She had been drugged both times, of course. She had been drugged these past four weeks. But when she told them, they patted her hand soothingly, looked at her jailers with sympathy, and went away shaking their heads.

But this evening, standing in the shadow of the curtain peering out to see the funeral goers returning to the house, she had seen him. Major Alexander Redepenning. Alex. Perhaps he was just a dream sent by the opium to torture her with hope, but if he were truly here, he would help her. She had to escape now. Tonight.

Alex was a stubborn, opinionated, arrogant fool—and what he had said to her last time they met still scalded her with shame and anger every time she thought of him. But he had known her since she was a child, and he would not abandon her to whatever the Braxtons planned.

She could not run away in her shift, but they had left her no clothes. A blanket? She could wrap a blanket around herself against the chill air.

If she could just open this window without making a noise… So. One obstacle overcome. She dropped the blanket to the ground below. Now she needed to climb from the second floor, dizzy and confused as she was, walk to the village, and find Alex. He would be staying at the inn, surely? He would not have gone on tonight?

She had heard he had been injured; seen the difficulty with which he had descended from his chaise, leaning heavily on his groom. He would not want to travel on tonight. He had to be there at the inn. He had to be willing to help her.

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Entertainments on WIP Wednesday

_DDI5334At the weekend, I attended a workshop on Regency dance at the Romance Writers of New Zealand conference. And on the way home, I read Mary Balogh’s Only Beloved, which is partly set at a house party, where people find ways to entertain one another and themselves.

No tv, no internet, no radio. If you wanted music, you sang or played an instrument. The local sporting events were keenly followed. And gathering together often meant long journeys, so once people arrived, they made the most of it. The tutor at the dance class suggested that balls finished in the early hours of the morning, because people didn’t want to go home until dawn lit the sky and made travelling easier, and I’ve read that many country assemblies were scheduled for the two or three days around a full moon.

For today’s work-in-progress Wednesday, I have an excerpt from A Raging Madness. Alex and his family are taking Ella out in London. But any type of leisure activity anywhere in time or place is welcome. I’ll show you mine and you show me yours.

The event was a ball at Haverford House, a monstrous palace of a place and the home of the Duke of Haverford and his duchess. The Duchess of Haverford was an old friend of Lord Henry’s and welcomed Ella warmly.

“Henry has told me what you did for Alex, Lady Melville, and,” she gave her hand to Alex who bowed over it with courtly grace, “I can see for myself how much improved you are, you rogue. Lady Melville, you have my gratitude and my support.”

Her Grace was supported in the receiving line by the notorious Marquis of Aldridge, who greeted Alex with a nod, Susan with a peck on the cheek, and Ella with an elegant bow.

“I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Lady Melville,” he said, and Alex stiffened beside her, but the man’s flirting did not bother Ella. It was an automaton’s reflex, with no predator’s purpose behind it. Lord Aldridge was not interested in her.

Ella’s mourning precluded dancing, but she enjoyed watching the colourful couples turning and swooping in the patterns of the dance.

“Dance if you wish, Alex,” she told her escort when Susan had been swept onto the floor by a naval captain she knew. But Alex demurred. “I am claiming privilege of injury, Ella, and will beg you to come sit by me and keep me entertained while I rest.”

He did not look strained, or in pain. “Is your leg troubling you?” she asked, but he did not answer directly.

“Last time I danced, I could not walk at all. Did I tell you? I took to the floor in an invalid’s chair, with Jonno to provide the push.” He grinned at the memory. “Great fun, it was, with my partner standing on the platform of the chair to be twirled. It did not end well, sadly. A villain sabotaged the chair while I was at supper, and it collapsed as I threaded the line.”

He chose an alcove where they could continue to watch the dancers, and he told her more about his adventures in the resurrected chair.

“You may meet the maker when you come to Longford for Christmas. She is a frequent guest at the Court, I understand.”

Ella was intrigued. A maker of invalids’ chairs who was not only a welcome visitor to an earl and his countess but also a woman?

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The villain’s sidekick

Ella's attacker The Maid George Lambert 1915Do you have a villain or villainess, out to wreak havoc in your protagonists’ lives? Or even just a slightly negative character who throws stumbling blocks in the way of their desires and intentions?

We’ve had villains before, so I thought today, I’d go down a step. Just as heroes and heroines have secondary characters to support them, so do most antagonists. Share an excerpt about one of the people who backs up your spoilsport, gossip, or outright villain.

Mine is from the first few pages of A Raging Madness. As you’ll see, Kerridge is dresser to Constance, Ella’s sister-in-law, and the wicked woman’s accomplice.

laudanum1Kerridge brought Ella’s evening dose of laudanum. Presumably Constance believed that Ella was still under the influence of the measure forced down her throat this morning, and would swallow Kerridge’s without offering a struggle.

Even though she’d managed to dribble at least part of what she secreted in her cheeks onto the pillow without Constance noticing, she was still mazed. Another dose would take her under, but Kerridge resented being forced to a task so beneath her dignity as a dresser, and would do no more than watch to see that Ella took the dose into her mouth. She would not insist on waiting until Ella swallowed, would not pinch her nose and hold her jaw shut.

Being too meek would be suspicious. Ella turned her head away from the spoon, her teeth clenched shut, but yelped at Kerridge’s sharp pinch and the dresser immediately forced the spoon into Ella’s mouth.

Glaring sullenly, she stopped struggling, and the dresser withdrew the spoon, stretching her thin lips into a smug smile.

Ella asleep“There, Lady Melville. This would go more easily for you if you would just do what you are told,” she said.

She turned to measure a second spoonful, and Ella let the first out of her mouth. The pillow reeked of the pernicious stuff, and still had damp patches though she dried it by the fire at every chance she had. She accepted the second mouthful without a struggle. Had she swallowed the first, she would be totally compliant by now, and Kerridge did not question her sudden obedience, but picked up the bottle and left the room.

As soon as the key turned in the lock, Ella slid out of bed to find the chamber pot, and spit the remaining laudanum into it. She washed her mouth once, twice, three times. She had ingested a little—enough to further fog her brain, but not enough to douse the sharp flame of purpose. She had to get away. She had to escape. She had no idea why her brother and sister-in-law were keeping her alive, but she could not count on it continuing.

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Scandal and gossip on WIP Wednesday

VFS109732 Ladies Gossiping at the Opera (oil on canvas) by Barnard, Frederick (1846-1896) (attr. to) oil on canvas 39.3x37.4 Private Collection English, out of copyright

Ladies Gossiping at the Opera (oil on canvas) by Barnard, Frederick (1846-1896) 

One useful trope in the historic romance writer’s arsenal is scandal. In the highly structured societies many of us write about, social censure was a powerful sanction. It could ruin lives—not just the lives of the women gossiped about, and occasionally even the men, but also those of their families.

Have you used scandal, or the threat of scandal, as a plot point? Share a bit with us, if you would, in the comments.

Here’s mine, from A Raging Madness.

When Alex finished, Lord Henry turned to Ella. “You have shown exemplary courage, Lady Melville. Thank you for what you did for Alex. This family owes you more that we can ever repay. What are your plans? You may call on our help for anything you need. ”

Ella blushed. “Alex helped me first, my lord. He saved my life, I believe, and certainly my sanity. But I would be deeply grateful for help. I must work for my living, and I thought perhaps Susan might advise me on how to find an employer? I thought I could nurse, perhaps, or be a companion to someone elderly, as I have been these five years.”

“Oh, but…” Susan began, then fell quiet, her eyes sliding to Alex.

Lord Henry frowned. “There may be a more immediate problem, Ella. May I call you ‘Ella’, as my children do? You saved my son’s life and so I quite feel you are part of the family, my dear.”

Ella nodded her agreement, lost for words. The man was the son of an earl, and a brigadier general, and he wanted to include her in his family?

“I have met your brother-in-law, I am sorry to say. He is here in London, and he called on me to demand that I tell him the whereabouts of my son.”

“Edwin is here?” Ella said at the same time as Alex said, his mouth curving in a predatory grin, “I would be delighted to meet with Braxton, the hell-spawned bastard.”

At Lord Henry’s raised eyebrow, he muttered an apology, which Susan ignored, saying, “Braxton? You are Braxton’s mad sister!” She patted Ella’s hand again. “Not that you are, of course, I do not mean that. I mean Braxton and his wife have been spouting that story all over town. That their sister is not in her right mind, and that she has been abducted by a…” She trailed off. “Oh dear.”

“Yes,” Lord Henry murmured. “That is the problem.”

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Some like it hot, on WIP Wednesday

Some like their romance hot. Some prefer as few flames as possible and skim over the grubby bits. Some like the warmth so mild that it’s hard to believe the couple are more than just good friends.

Whatever your preference, I’d love for you to share an excerpt that convinces me that your hero and heroine are attracted to one another.

Most of my stories stop at the bedroom door, and even if character development or plot requires a sex scene on the page, I tend to focus on what the couple are feeling rather than what they are doing.

This scene that may or may not end up as part of A Raging Madness is about as explicit as it gets. Ella has just given Alex a great idea about what he can do now that he has left the army.

She heard him shift and drop to the floor, and before she was aware of his intent, he was bending over her. Perhaps he meant to kiss her cheek, but she had turned her face towards the sound of his movement, and his lips dropped on her mouth, paused, and then moulded themselves to hers.

She had been right to be afraid. One touch of his lips and she burned for more, shifting to allow him better access, opening her mouth to welcome his invading tongue. No. Not invading; no conquering assault to batter down her defences, but the long-awaited and cherished advance of a caress that set her aflame, so that she moaned and locked her hands behind his head as if she feared his escape, and he stretched above her on the narrow bed and placed his own hands gently either side of her face.

“Ella,” he said, into her open mouth, and crushed his lips to her again before she could speak, though what would she say? Alex? Yes? Stop?

He was aroused. Though he took most of his weight on his elbows and his knees, still she could feel the length of him poking into her belly. If she shifted, even a little, it would rub the place that burned. Only the cotton of her shift and his shirt kept them apart, and all the good reasons for not lifting both garments out of the way had melted in the heat of his kiss.

Thoughts scattered. She pushed herself up against him, her nipples so hard that the cotton hurt, and it was a good hurt, like the burning he both relieved and heightened as he rubbed his male organ against her, setting her squirming and moaning.

Suddenly he shifted, moving down the bed so he could move her shift sideways down one arm, freeing one breast, and seizing on the nipple with his mouth, his teeth, his tongue.

She moaned again, helpless to keep the sound from escaping, as he used one hand to tease the other nipple, and the other to gather the hem of her shift until her woman’s place was uncovered, and his hand was doing delicious things that narrowed her world to him. To Alex, and his hands and mouth and body, and what was happening to hers.

Until Alex tensed suddenly and raised his head, his hands stilling. Ella suppressed a whimper, caught and subdued the involuntary movement to draw him back, surfaced from the sea of sensation, and finally heard what he had heard. Voices, speaking low. Footsteps. The soft clap of a hand on the roof of the cabin—Jonno’s nightly salute, too soft to wake them but an acknowledgement that they heard more evenings than not.

Jonno and the O’Haras were back from the tavern, and the spell was broken.

She dropped her hands from his shoulders, trying to cover her breast and pull down her hem, blushing furiously in the dark. “I am so sorry, Alex,” she said. Though whether she was sorry to stop or sorry that they had ever started, she had no idea.

After a moment, he pulled away, swinging his legs around so that he sat beside her on the bed.

“I am not that kind of woman,” she said, trying to sound convincing to herself when her whole body was screaming to complete what they had begun.

“Right.” He sounded strained. She could hear him sucking a breath in, then letting it slowly out through his teeth.

“I cannot apologise enough…” Ella began, but Alex interrupted, his voice as courteous as ever, though she could hear the edge in it.
“The fault is mine, Ella. I meant only to salute you for the gift of my future, and I forgot myself. I..” He stopped, and took another deep breath. “I cannot bring myself to apologise. For any impression of disrespect, yes, indeed. I beg your pardon with all my heart if I have offended. But for offending you, not for kissing you.” He stood, and moved away from the bed. She could not make out what he was doing, but he had not returned to his own bed.

“It was everything I have dreamed this age,” he said, almost under his breath. This age? He had been dreaming of kissing her this age?

But she had to correct his misconception. “Each other,” she said.

Whatever he was doing—it sounded as if he was putting on his boots—he stopped. “Each other?”

“We kissed each other,” she explained.

The amusement was back when he replied. “We did, and very nicely too.”

“And we cannot do it again,” Ella warned, hoping her regret was not obvious.

“No, I suppose not. I am going to take a short walk, Ella. I won’t go far, but the cold will be… beneficial.”

He had opened the hatch and was leaving before she spoke again, giving him a gift of words in return for hers.

“It was better than I dreamed.”

His only response was a catch in his step before he continued, but a few minutes later she could hear him begin to whistle as he walked the canal path. It took her only a few bars to recognise the tune, and she smiled in the dark, mouthing the lyrics in time to his whistling.

And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I’ll not look for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.

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Sidekicks, Henchmen, and BFF on WIP Wednesday

jiltedI’m writing romances, so my stories need two main characters. And most of them have an antagonist or two to throw barriers in the way of my protagonists’ happy ending. But few indeed are the stories—mine or other people’s—without other people important to the plot because of their supporting role. Today’s work-in-progress Wednesday is dedicated to those others: to the confidants, the best friends, the offsiders, the sisters, even the rivals.

Usual rules. I show you mine, and you show me yours in the comments. This is Jonno Price, the teenage valet of my injured Major Alexander Redepenning (retired). The piece is from the first chapter of A Raging Madness.

Out in front of the house, Alex’s chaise waited, with his man Jonno—stripling boy, rather, barely out of his seventeenth year—leaning against a tree at the head of the horses. Alex was nearly up to him before he jerked fully upright.

“Major!” Jonno’s brain woke a second after his tongue, and he corrected himself. “Mr Redepenning, sir. Are we off, then?”

Alex ignored the slip and the stab of regret it caused. “Back to the inn, Jonno. I’d like to make an early start of it. There’s heavy weather coming, they were telling me, and if we have to hole up until it is over, I’d rather do it in a decent sized town than in an inn at the rear end of nowhere.”

“Right you are, sir. Close lot they have here, sir.” Jonno kept up a comfortable patter as he put down the modified step that allowed Alex to drag his bad leg up into the chaise with the minimum of help from his man. Jonno’s conversational overtures had been rebuffed, no refreshments had been offered to man or beast, and Jonno had been directed to water for the horses only reluctantly, after a direct request.

Alex let the boy’s words wash over him as he settled into his seat stifling a groan. Eight hours on the road followed by all this standing around had inflamed the constant ache he lived with into active knives of pain. Jonno, having folded away the step, led the horses around to face the carriage way, then leapt up beside Alex, released the brake, and chirruped the pair into movement. His unconscious ease of movement made Alex’s command sharper than Jonno deserved.

“Give me the reins. I’m not dead yet.”

Jonno handed them over, wisely saying nothing, though his face spoke for him.

“I don’t drive with my legs, Jonno,” Alex said, trying to sound more conciliatory. With Jonno on the brake, and a tired pair of not particularly fine post horses, he was putting less strain on the damned limbs than he would sitting tense beside Jonno fretting about his incapacity. He had a flash of memory: a carriage race in Syria, every bone and muscle in his body called into glorious service as he and his colonel’s four blood horses swept to victory against the competitors from three other brigades, his own screaming support from every hillock along the track.

Never again. Those days were behind him.

Jonno whistled. “What a beauty!”

The colt paced them in the half light of dusk, whickering at the stranger horses on the other side of the stone wall that closed him in, then tired at the lack of response and kicked up his heels, racing off into the gloom.

Jonno and Alex shared a smile. “A fine yearling,” Alex observed, “and bidding fair to be a racer, I would say. Are we still on Melville lands? He has the look of Captain Melville’s old horse.”

“It’s a Melville field, right enough,” Jonno agreed. “That old oak we’re passing? Marks the boundary, they told me in the village. We’ll be back at the inn in a few minutes, sir.”

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What went wrong in WIP Wednesday

What could possibly go wrong?

What could possibly go wrong?

And I didn’t choose the title of this post to acknowledge that it isn’t even Wednesday. Today, I’m using a writing tip as my starting point for the day’s theme.

When writing, don’t ask yourself what happens; ask yourself what goes wrong.

If nothing goes wrong, there isn’t a plot, and every plot is a series of obstacles, external or internal, between the protagonists and their goals.

So please share a few lines in your WIP where things seem to be going as they should but suddenly turn pear-shaped.

My excerpt is from the second book in The Golden Redepennings series, A Raging Madness. Alex and Eleanor have stopped in a village so that Alex (who has large chunks of shrapnel floating around in his thigh) can rest and Eleanor can go through the worst of the withdrawal from the opiates her horrible relatives have been forcing down her throat. But Alex has just met someone that Ella knows; someone who believes her brother-in-law’s claims that she is insane. Note that Alex, a product of his time, tries to avoid a direct lie.

Ella sat at the table under the window, where she could peer around the curtain at the garden without being seen. No rector yet. Down below, Alex had moved her chair so he could watch the path from the house. He was eating her toast, and drinking tea from the cup Jonno had poured her. After a moment’s hesitation, she lifted the window, just slightly. There. If they talked in the garden, she would hear the whole conversation.

She flinched at the sound of the door knocker, and fought the urge to run across to the other side of the house to see who was calling.

“See who that is, Jonno, would you, since our landlady is out?” Alex said calmly, and he had buttered and jammed another slice of toast before Jonno ushered two men out into the garden. Yes. The rector, and the other must be his friend, the local vicar.

From this angle, she could see Alex’s face, but not the rector’s. She could hear their voices, though.

“So! You are this Mr Reid. What are you playing at, Redepenning, and what have you done with poor Lady Melville?”

At the last question, Alex, whose eyes had been twinkling, sobered. “Lady Melville? She is still missing then? Surely you do not think I…?” He stood suddenly, looking so affronted that the rector took a step back. “Rector, I must protest. What sort of a gentleman would take advantage of a woman of frail mental capacity? I am not such a villain!”

He subsided back into his chair, waving the piece of toast he still held at the other seating around the table. “You will excuse me; the walk tired my leg. Please. Take a seat, gentlemen. Can my servant fetch you tea? I regret that our landlady is from home, but I would happily convey a message.”

The vicar sat, while the rector remained standing. “Mr Reid, or is it Major Redepenning…?”

“Mr Redepenning, in fact. I have sold out, sir, because of my injury. But I beg you to keep my true name a secret. A lady’s reputation, you know, though I am embarrassed to discuss such a matter with a man of God.”

The rector sat then, and rushed into speech, leaning towards Alex in his urgency. “Yes. Well that is the point, is it not? This so called lady; this Mrs Reid. If she is not Lady Melville, who is she? Eh? Who is she? That is the point.”

Alex, amusement lighting his face, said, “Jonno, is Mrs Reid still off on her walk?” He dropped his voice, confidingly. “You would be reassured if you could meet the lady, gentlemen, though I do not suppose she would be pleased with that solution. Alas, I fear I have been a disappointment to her. Hence the walk! And last time she lost her temper, I did not see her for months. Still, you are welcome to wait. I am sure she will return.”

He dropped his voice, and Ella had to strain to hear him. “She is not happy about her condition,” he confided. “Well. And one cannot blame her, of course.”

“Her condition?” The rector seized on the words. “She is ill?”

“Oh yes,” Alex confirmed. “That is why we stopped in this village. The motion of the carriage… One hopes the child is her husband’s, distressing though the thought is. It would be most unfortunate were it born with fair hair like mine. Or the Redepenning blue eyes. That would be hard for a husband to overlook, do you not think?”

“Sir!” The vicar rose to his feet, almost spitting with shock and horror. “I take leave to tell you, sir, that you are a despicable cad.”

(And yes. I’ve been missing my usual WIP Wednesday posts because things went wrong. But hey. Life.)

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Beginnings in WIP Wednesday

I’m toying with beginnings for the next two projects as I come to the end of the first draft of Embracing Prudence. The Bluestocking and the Barbarian begins with my hero in a family group riding hell for leather for London, mourning-1810-cropheading for his grandfather’s death bed. He needs to do some fancy trick riding to scoop up a child from the middle of the road and return it to the lady at the gates of the orphanage where the child belongs.

A Raging Madness begins in one of three places: at the funeral of the mother of a deceased fellow officer of Alex Redepenning, in the home of the bereaved daughter-in-law, where she hears her relatives plan to put her in Bedlam, or in Alex’s hotel bedroom when she flees to him to ask for help.

How about giving me up a few lines of beginning? The first chapter, if you will, or any other chapter if you prefer. And don’t forget to share!

1819_society_ballHere are the first few lines of Embracing Prudence.

From within the protective camouflage of the gaggle of companions, Prudence Virtue watched her sometime partner and one-night-only lover drift around the banquet hall. No-one else noticed him. Like the shadow he named himself for, he skirted the edges of the pools of candle light, but even when his self-appointed duties moved him close to a group of guests, they looked right past him. None of the privileged, not even the host and hostess, noticed one extra footman.

He was very good. He had the walk, the submissive bend of the head, the lowered eyes. She had overlooked him herself for the first half hour that she sat here, just one more brown-clad, unimpressive companion among a dozen others, waiting patiently in an alcove for the commands of an employer.

But Prue’s body was wiser than her mind, and left her restless in his presence until her eyes caught so many times on this one footman among all the others she began to take notice.

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A new year, a new novel

imageI wrote my first blog post here on 16 September 2014. I’d been working up to it for some time. In 2013, I began researching for Farewell to Kindness and several other novels, and in April 2014 I finally committed the first scene to the keyboard. By the time I set up the website and wrote the first post, I’d written 60,000 words. I was pretty sure I could finish the novel, but I was full of doubts about the path I’d set myself:

I feel like the new girl in school.

After all these years growing confident in my profession, I now have a new one. Will I be any good? Will people like what I do?

Since that post, I’ve finished and edited Farewell to Kindness, sent it out to beta readers, and started collating the feedback. I’ve heard back from 12 of the 19 readers, and they have some great ideas for making the draft stronger. I can’t resist sharing some of the compliments.

“…now I can’t wait for the next 2 books! The way you write is refreshing! A lot of books I read are just too obvious. I can figure out the good and bad guys right away and that gets rather tedious. This book, however, kept me guessing, kept me wondering and wanting to find out how it all turns out. ”

“I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I am looking forward to reading more.  I am not a huge fan of the romance genre and have struggled (and eventually given up) on other historical romances so I was a bit apprehensive about reading this but there was enough action, intrigue and mystery to keep me interested and the intimate scenes were well placed, made sense to the story and weren’t too abundant (I’m sure some authors are trying to meet a sex quota!).”

“I loved this book.  I thought it was well-written and -plotted.  In fact I would give it the ultimate accolade – I would pay real money for it.”

I’ve also written, edited, and published a novella, Candle’s Christmas Chair (free through most resellers). On New Year’s Day 2015, at 9am of a New Zealand summer’s morning, more than 6,000 copies of Candle have been downloaded, a number of people have subscribed to my enewsletter, and one has even put all three of the 2015 novels on their ‘to-read’ list at Goodreads.

(By the way, if you want to keep up with my release information, please subscribe to the newsletter. I won’t send it often; just when I have news about a forthcoming publication.)

So here’s the plan for 2015.

April: Farewell to Kindness – I’ll start the final edit tomorrow.

September: Encouraging Prudence – I’ve finished the plotting and character sketches, and this morning I’ve written the first 650 words.

December: A Raging Madness – still developing the plot and writing the character sketches. And researching Cheshire and the canal system that brought goods all the way from Liverpool to London.

With beta readers by mid-November for release in 2016: Lord Danwood’s Dilemma – just making the occasional note as I come across relevant facts or visual inspiration.

I’ll continue doing a daily blog post.

And I’ve joined a small group of other indie authors; we’re planning a combined release for next Christmas. More news about this as our plans solidify.

Other ideas are still fluid, but one thing is for certain. 2015 is the year I finally earn the right to call myself a novelist. Yay!

And beyond 2015? Here’s a chart of my planned novels, colour coded by series. I’m working through them more or less in date order.

Happy New Year, all. What are your plans for 2015?