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Sunday retrospective

steampunk-eye1The middle week of November 2014 was all about the edit.

I posted when I decided to kill one of my favourite characters.

I wrote several posts about editing:

I also wrote a post about heat-ratings. Both more and less sex than people expect seems to upset people. What is an author to do?

And I referred readers to a nice post from Danielle Hanna, about using lists and careful analysis in developing your characters and your plots.

And on the day I finished the draft for the beta readers, I wrote a post on beta readers

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Brothers or sisters on WIP Wednesday

d78ec673dec2a74d62d4bed3f8dd7badAll of a character’s intimate interactions can help to display or develop character, and in some ways no one knows you better or can more easily push your buttons than your brothers and sisters (or cousins or other close relations that you grew up with.

In this week’s WIP Wednesday, I’m looking for an excerpt that shows your related characters in a scene where we learn something about them because of what they think or how they behave.

They had talked it over at length while still staying with Charlotte, and in the carriage on the way from Essex. At inordinate length.

Charity could not, would not stay in Selby’s cottage. She would go somewhere she was not known, and introduce herself as a widow, using another name. Mrs Smith, she said, for who was to find one Mrs Smith among thousands?

But how she and the children were to live was a problem. Prue would help, of course. She could double the allowance she was paying for Antonia’s care, would triple it if Charity would allow. Tolliver’s work paid well enough, and she had a little set aside.

Charity wanted to borrow Prue’s nest egg. She had some idea of setting up a milliner’s shop. Not in London, but somewhere that was cheaper to live and safer for the children. “Even you said I make beautiful hats, Prue,” she argued.

True enough, but running a business required more than an eye for fashion and an artistic touch with a needle. Prue didn’t want to see her savings disappear and leave Charity and the girls in a worse case than before.

“We need somewhere for you and the children while we think about how best to make your plan work,” she told Charity. “I know a lady who supports women in trouble such as yours. She may have a place.” Or she may never wish to speak to Prue again, in which case they would have to think of something else.

One thing Charity was determined on; Prue was not to ask Selby to support his daughters until they were somewhere he could not find them. “It is not as if he is going to give us any money, anyway, Prue. He barely gave us a thing when I thought I was his wife. Just a few pounds now and again when he visited. He paid the servants directly and is several quarters in arrears, Prue. Oh dear. Should I not pay them before I let them go?” Another problem for her to worry at until Prue was ready to leap screaming from the carriage with her hands over her ears.

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You cannot always choose both

choicesMy usual answer when I’m asked to make a choice between two good things is ‘yes’. Would you like chocolate cake or banana muffins? Yes. Would you prefer to have a bath or watch tv? Yes. Do you want to dance or have a glass of wine? Yes.

And this last two years, since I’ve started writing fiction for publication, I’ve been piling on the ‘boths’. I figure I have four lives, any one of which could be full time: writing fiction, a full-time day job, family and friends (including some fairly demanding responsibilities as an arms-length care giver), and then a whole mix of community activities I’m involved in.

It is interesting, sometimes thrilling, and mostly a lot of fun. But there’s no room for anything else. With a couple of health and family crises simmering since November, somethings had to give. I’m two months behind the frequently revised date for my draft of Embracing Prudence. And my marketing activity is way, way down, as shown by my book sales figures.

Thinking about priorities

I had a wake-up call, recently. I read a published book by a writer I admire, and it sounded to me like a first draft. Lots of long sequences of backstory, telling rather than showing, some odd sequencing stuff. And I think I know why.

Publish a book every three months, received wisdom says, and then live in the marketplace telling people about it. The pressure is on to rush to get stuff to the publisher or (in the case of us independent publishers) to get it on the bookshelf. And the time isn’t there to make it as close to perfect as we can.

I am not playing that game. I want every book to be better than the last. Because I don’t like doing the same thing over and over, I may not always please the same readers, but I need to know that at least I’m improving my grasp of the craft of writing.

Here are my priorities, more or less in order.

  1. to deepen my relationship with God
  2. to look after my family
  3. to stay healthy
  4. to give my employer my best attention and commitment during working hours until the mortgage is paid and I can retire and write fiction as my full-time job
  5. to write books I am happy to put my name on
  6. to share those books with readers.

So writing comes ahead of marketing

When the squeeze is on, as it has been over the past four months, in future I’m choosing writing over marketing. Maybe this means that I’ll have another two years of adequate but not spectacular sales. (My author rank at Amazon generally sits somewhere in the 20,000–25,000 bracket. To put that in perspective, I’m not millionth, but each step from here is tightly fought, and I won’t be anywhere near making even a modest living till I’m up around 10,000th.)

In two years, when the mortgage is paid, I might be able to spend more time thinking about how to get my print books into libraries and book shops, and which review sites and other gate keepers might be persuaded to take a look. Meanwhile, I’m in the writing cave. I’ll pop out to play with my friends. Yes, and to do a bit of marketing, too, when I have time. But my priority is going to be the books.

What’s next from Jude Knight?

I’ve recently been project manager for the Belles on the Combined 2015 Editions of the Teatime Tattler, published last week. Click on the title to find out about it, and to get your copy while it is still free.

While you’re there, check out our previous box set, Mistletoe, Marriage and Mayhem. We’re removing it from publication on 31 March, so get it now for only 99c, all proceeds to the Malala Fund. After 1 April, we’ll each publish our own novella. I’m targeting 8 May with my Gingerbread Bride, which is about Rick Redepenning and his courtship of Mary, seven years before the events in my novel Farewell to Kindness.

Before the end of June, I plan to publish Embracing Prudence. That’s pretty tight, since I’m only halfway through the beta edit, so it may slip (once more), but no later than July.

I’ve made a good start on A Raging Madness. I’m 12,000 words in, and I have the rough plan for the rest mapped out. I expect to publish before the end of the year, possibly as early as September.

I have a 1 May deadline for the novella for the next Bluestocking Belles holiday box set, which has a house party theme. All our novellas have their lives affected in one way or another by the festivities at Hollystone Hall. The venue has its own Facebook page, where we’re posting character sketches and scenery on our way to publication on 1 November. My contribution is titled The Bluestocking and the Barbarian.

And Mariana Gabrielle and I are cowriting a novel that ambushed us when we were thinking about something else. We haven’t set a publication date for Never Kiss a Toad, but watch this space.

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Celebrations on WIP Wednesday

Rowlandson1809CropIn honour of the first birthday of the Bluestocking Belles, I’m looking for celebrations today. birthdays, Christmas, Harvest Festivals, weddings… anything you wish, really. As always, please post an extract in the comments, and don’t forget to share on Twitter and Facebook.

I’m stretching the envelope here. Embracing Prudence is not full of celebrations—quite the contrary. But I have a bit of a description of a rather dissolute masquerade party that might fit the bill. David wasn’t there, but many of the suspects in the murder he is investigating were.

“Ah, now that is interesting. At some point during the evening, they were all at the same masquerade as Talbot. I found a witness who was there the whole evening, and she recognised Talbot, Selby, Annesley, Barnstable, and Tiverton, and also Aldridge and Elfingham.”

“As paying customers, I take it,” Prue suggested, clearly guessing the profession of the witness.

“It was a big event, apparently, with most of the rakehells of London in attendance, and a number of its more racy ladies.”

“Not the Carrington Masquerade?” Prue asked.

“Yes. Lady Carrington was the hostess, though it was at Richport’s.”

The Duke of Richport was not yet thirty, but had acquired a reputation for debauchery well beyond his years. Given his rank, all would be forgiven him if he ever ventured into polite society. He quite openly declared that if he was going to go to hell, he expected more entertaining surroundings than the ballrooms and parlours of the Beau Monde, and warmer devils than the ladies of the ton.

 

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Assumptions on WIP Wednesday

eve2I’ve been banging my head against assumptions today. Four different parts of my busy life blew up on me because of diverse assumptions where people had decided what was happening without checking the facts. So I’m late posting, but it is still Wednesday somewhere, right? And keep right on adding those excerpts, folks. People look at these pages right the way through the week.

Wrongful assumptions, or diverse assumption, can be a useful plot hinge. Have your characters gone off in different directions or locked horns because of assumptions? Mine have. I haven’t yet written the major incorrect assumption that my heroine Sophia has about my hero James (that he is courting her sister), but Embracing Prudence is full of assumptions, Never Kiss a Toad has quite a few, and here’s one from A Raging Madness.

“Lady Melville keeps very little in her room,” he commented.

The maid frowned, and moved closer to him, lowering her voice to a thread above a whisper. “Miss Kerridge packed it all away. Said the lady did not need any of it and might use it to harm herself. They could have left the poor lady with her father’s picture. And the toy Sir Gervase bought for the baby. It was soft. She couldn’t hurt herself with a stuffed cloth cat.”

A baby? Ella had said nothing about a child.

“Perhaps they thought the child should have his father’s gift? Or hers. A boy or a girl?” Not that it mattered.

But the maid was shaking her head. “Poor little mite. It died. It was terrible.” Her eyes gleamed with the pleasure of a dreadful story. “The master was dead, and the old mistress had taken to her bed with a seizure (she was never the same again, poor lady) and my lady slipped on the ice. The fall started the baby coming. But it was not the right time, and the wee one was not lying right in the womb. She had it powerful bad.”

“The baby was born dead?” Dear God.

“Not then, sir. First Mr and Mrs Braxton arrived, and then the baby was born, and we were that pleased, and then the mistress was sick, and the baby, he just died in his sleep, poor little lamb. She looked fit to be buried herself, poor lady, but she got up from her bed and started nursing old Lady Melville, and she nursed her ever since, these three years till a month gone.”

Three years. Three years ago, Braxton had come to London to collect the body of his younger half-brother. He had said that Ella had refused to come with him—that she had social engagements she would not leave for a husband she did not want. And Alex had believed him. When he travelled down here for the funeral, he had made his contempt clear to a pale and silent Ella. How had he not seen that she was ill and grieving?

 

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Sunday retrospective

timemachine_1Did I really do a post a day for the first week of November 2014? Maybe it was because I was editing, and practicing avoidance. I even posted about that in a post called Procrastibaking.

It was all about the editing for me that week, with three posts on the topic:

The day I finished the edit, I linked to some random thoughts about writing from Christina Dodd.

Another post that week was a brief glossary of terms for budding romance novelists.

And the last post I want to direct your attention to today was called Is that a rooster in your pocket? Yes, it’s a brief and cheeky discussion of historically accurate inappropriate language, with some links to some superb resources.

 

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Make ’em laugh, make ’em cry – emotional scenes on WIP Wednesday

Never Kiss a Toad is set at the beginning of the Railway Age

Never Kiss a Toad is set at the beginning of the Railway Age

It’s our job to pull our readers out of their world and into the one we’ve created: to, as I say above, thrill, intrigue, and delight. In this week’s work in progress Wednesday, your challenge is to find me a scene that provokes a strong emotion in your readers: laughter, sorrow, fear. You choose.

I’ve chosen one from Never Kiss a Toad. This is a tender moment between Sally and her father, one that ends all too soon. Does it work?

“Can you spare a minute for your Papa, Sally?” he asked.

“Of course.” She followed him through to his study.

“You always seem to be hurrying somewhere, sweetheart,” he said. “I miss having my little princess curled up in a chair in my study, keeping me company.”

It was true, she realised. Before her debut, she had sought her father out whenever she could escape the schoolroom. Since she came out… “I have so much on, Papa,” she said. But it was Toad’s exile that came between them, even more since her father began believing lies about him. They were lies. They had to be lies.

Papa smiled, sadly. When had the last of his hair faded to grey? “I know, my love. You are very popular. If a sennight goes by and I do not receive an application for your hand, I know to expect two the following week. Am I to expect a visit from Lord Elfingham? He would make a fine husband, Sally.”

She suppressed a surge of fury. Papa should know that she waited for one proposal, and one only. Would he even tell her if it came? No. That was unfair. Papa had said from the beginning that he would not choose her husband, but would allow her to make the decision.

“He will make Henry a fine husband, Papa, when her mourning is over. If she will accept him. She has this notion that she is not fit to be a duchess because of her mother’s… Um.” Oh dear. She had not meant to discuss that with Papa of all people.

“Henrietta, is it? I hoped it was you, Sally.”

“We decided early on that we would not suit, Papa. It has always been Henry for Elf.” And Toad for Sally.

“You shall be nineteen soon, sweetheart. What would you like for your birthday?”

“Toad to be allowed home.” She had not meant to say that out loud. Her father flinched as if she had hit him, and his eyes, before he hid them by turning away, were pools of pain.

“I know you miss your childhood friend, my darling, but he… He is not as you remember him. If he came back you would suffer for it, and neither his parents or yours are prepared to risk that.”

“You say that, Papa, but you will not tell me how he has changed. You won’t give me any real reasons. And I do not believe it, Papa. Someone has been telling you lies. I know him, and I know you are wrong.”

He had his face shuttered again when he turned back to her, the cold ducal mien that she never used to see before the day it all changed. “You must trust that we know what is best for you, Sarah.

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Go wash out your mouth!

Historic romance authors, like a microcosm of society at large, vary in their approach to the expletives they put in their characters’ mouths. Some happily use the swearwords common in the 21st century; some go for non-offensive and archaic; some true for realism, however odd it might sound to our modern ears.

If you are a writer or a reader in the later camp, you’ll love this article from Salon. (It’s from 2013, but new to me.) A swear word, by their definition, is a word that is not intended to carry a literal meaning, but is intended to shock, offend, and otherwise arouse emotion.

The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (subtitled A DICTIONARY OF BUCKISH SLANG, UNIVERSITY WIT, AND PICKPOCKET ELOQUENCE), published in 1795 and updated in 1811, is a great resource if you want to know what words were in use in England in the early 19th Century. Here’s the foreword.

The merit of Captain Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue has been long and universally acknowledged. But its circulation was confined almost exclusively to the lower orders of society: he was not aware, at the time of its compilation, that our young men of fashion would at no very distant period be as distinguished for the vulgarity of their jargon as the inhabitants of Newgate; and he therefore conceived it superfluous to incorporate with his work the few examples of fashionable slang that might occur to his observation.

But our Jehus of rank have a phraseology not less peculiar to themselves, than the disciples of Barrington: for the uninitiated to understand their modes of expression, is as impossible as for a Buxton to construe the Greek Testament. To sport an Upper Benjamin, and to swear with a good grace, are qualifications easily attainable by their cockney imitators; but without the aid of our additional definitions, neither the cits of Fish-street, nor the boors of Brentford would be able to attain the language of whippism. We trust, therefore, that the whole tribe of second-rate Bang Ups, will feel grateful for our endeavour to render this part of the work as complete as possible. By an occasional reference to our pages, they may be initiated into all the peculiarities of language by which the man of spirit is distinguished from the man of worth. They may now talk bawdy before their papas, without the fear of detection, and abuse their less spirited companions, who prefer a good dinner at home to a glorious UP-SHOT in the highway, without the hazard of a cudgelling.

But we claim not merely the praise of gratifying curiosity, or affording assistance to the ambitious; we are very sure that the moral influence of the Lexicon Balatronicum will be more certain and extensive than that of any methodist sermon that has ever been delivered within the bills of mortality. We need not descant on the dangerous impressions that are made on the female mind, by the remarks that fall incidentally from the lips of the brothers or servants of a family; and we have before observed, that improper topics can with our assistance be discussed, even before the ladies, without raising a blush on the cheek of modesty. It is impossible that a female should understand the meaning of TWIDDLE DIDDLES, or rise from table at the mention of BUCKINGER’S BOOT. Besides, Pope assures us, that “VICE TO BE HATED NEEDS BUT TO BE SEEN;” in this volume it cannot be denied, that she is seen very plainly; and a love of virtue is, therefore, the necessary result of perusing it.

The propriety of introducing the UNIVERSITY SLANG will be readily admitted; it is not less curious than that of the College in the Old Bailey, and is less generally understood. When the number and accuracy of our additions are compared with the price of the volume, we have no doubt that its editors will meet with the encouragement that is due to learning, modesty, and virtue.

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Sunday retrospective

time-machineToday’s Sunday retrospective reaches back to the second half of October 2014, when I was writing the last third of Farewell to Kindness. I was reporting progress—and hiccups—as I went. I finished the month with a photo of the printed first draft of Farewell to Kindness and the heading #amediting. A couple of days before that, I posted a list called ‘Editing the book’ — everything I needed to do between finishing the first draft and sending the book for beta reading.

Criminal injustice was the post I wrote when I found out about the sea change in the British criminal justice system, and how this affected my plot. In 1807,  the old system was no longer working and the new system had not been invented.

Our modern view is that one law should apply to all. It doesn’t always work. Money buys better lawyers, for a start. But the basic principle is that we have laws that lay down the crime and the range of punishments, and judges who look at the circumstances and apply penalties without fear or favour.

The pre-19th century situation in England was far, far different.

I also posted on why I changed the name of my heroine in Farewell to Kindness in a blog post with the longest titleI have ever written: Ewww, just ewww: or the cautionary tale of the perils of naming characters in a whole lot of books at once and then starting one without reference to the real world.

I waxed philosophical about romance writing as a genre in a couple of posts that largely picked up what other people were saying:

  • Fear of vulnerability reports on research that suggests fear of vulnerability underpins the common dismissal of the romance genre by readers of other types of fiction
  • Romance novels are feminist novels has excerpts from a much longer article that directly confronts the view that all romance novels are trivial, and turns it on its head.

The first review I published on my website was for the wonderful Lady Beauchamp’s Proposal. Four months later, I was thrilled to find author Amy Rose Bennett as another potential Bluestocking Belle, and we’ve been colleagues and allies ever since.

And I also published a review of Darling Beast by Elizabeth Hoyt. In less than a fortnight, I’m hosting a Belles’ Book Club discussing another of the Maiden Lane series, Scandalous Desires. Elizabeth has agreed to pop in for an hour, so don’t miss it. You can join the event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/929180810491602/

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Fights in WIP Wednesday

In the summer of 1892, Princess Pauline was the Honorary President of the Vienna Musical and Theatrical Exhibition and Countess Kielmannsegg was the President of the Ladies’ Committe of the Exhibition, and the two clashed over some of the arrangements for the Exhibition. (Several sources claim it had something to do with the floral arrangements.) Heated words were exchanged, and the two women agreed to settle their differences with a duel.

In the summer of 1892, Princess Pauline von Metternich was the Honorary President of the Vienna Musical and Theatrical Exhibition and Countess Anastasia Kielmannsegg was the President of the Ladies’ Committe of the Exhibition, and the two clashed over some of the arrangements for the Exhibition. (Several sources claim it had something to do with the floral arrangements.) Heated words were exchanged, and the two women agreed to settle their differences with a duel.

Today on work-in-progress Wednesday, I’m looking for fights. Physical or verbal. Arguments, fisticuffs or sword fights. Between any of your characters. Your choice.

Fights punctuate the action and ratchet up the tension. And talkative fighters let things slip in their anger, which can be very handy for driving the plot.

My piece is from Embracing Prudence: a confrontation between my hero David and his half-brother the Marquis of Aldridge.

“I won’t let you hurt her again, Aldridge.”

“Your turn, is it?” Aldridge mocked. “Who are you to judge me?  You’re swiving her, too.”

“She was an innocent when she met you, Aldridge.”

“She would not have stayed one, Wakefield. She was ripe to fall. If it had not been me it would have been one of the others, and they would not have waited to make sure she enjoyed it.”

David’s punch caught him by surprise.

“She did not enjoy being abandoned in a prison for a week, you self-centred, spoilt, idiot.”

Aldridge shook his head to clear it. “I will concede that was not one of my finest moments. I told them to treat her with every consideration. I found out later that the King’s man thought me a fool in the toils of a scheming woman, and countermanded my orders. By then she was gone, though.” He frowned. “I’ll never understand why. I would have given her anything she wanted, showered her with presents, set her up in style…”

“Anything except your name.”

Aldridge’s eyes widened at David’s comment. “She did not honestly think I meant marriage, did she? I could not marry a nobody, and one who wasn’t even pure.”

David punched him again