writing process

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Tea with Jude

 

Her Grace gestures to a seat, and begins to pour a fragrant cup of tea from the teapot she has ready at her elbow. She does not ask how I have it — medium strength, no sugar, no milk or cream. We have been together now for more than six years, and we know one another’s habits.

She has become more than I expected when she first surfaced from the depths of my imagination. My notebook says:

Anthony George Bartholomew Philip Grenford, Duke of Haverford, Marquess of Aldbridge, Baron Chillingham
m
Eleanor Frances Sophia Grenford nee Creydon (daughter of Earl of Farnmouth)

Duchess with two sons and unhappy marriage treasures her many goddaughters. Links books through goddaughters. Sons have their own stories.The Duchess also rescued her husband’s by blows and put them into school etc. See David. Could be more stories about these by-blows.

“That was the start,” Eleanor agrees, “but we have gone beyond that, have we not?”

We have. Even from her first appearance, she has demanded her own voice. She is the maternal aunt of the hero of my first novel, and he goes to her when he needs help with the social circumstances of his lovely widow. England is in the middle of the 1807 election, and Eleanor has been canvassing the Kent electorate on behalf of her husband’s candidate.

The sun was setting on Saturday evening, and Rede was beside himself with frustration, before the Duchess of Haverford’s coach was finally seen tooling up the road to the castle.
He was waiting when she entered the front door, and she greeted him with pleasure. “Rede, darling. What a lovely surprise. Have you been waiting for me long?
“Such a circus in Deal. The electors were inclined to listen to the merchants, and the merchants did not favour Haverford’s man. Not at all.
“So I had to visit every shop in the town and buy something. The carriage, I can assure you, is laden. But Haverford believes that it may have done the trick.
“Just as well, dear, for I have enough Christmas presents for every one of my godchildren for the next three years. And some of them are not of the best quality, I can assure you.”
She was talking as she ascended the stairs, giving her cloak to a maid as she passed, her bonnet to a footman, and her reticule to another maid.
“You want something, I expect. Well, you shall tell me all about it at dinner. I left most of the food I purchased at the orphanage in Margate, but I kept a pineapple for dessert. Such fun, my dear, have you tried one?”
“No, dear aunt,” he managed to say, sliding his comment in as she paused to give her gloves to yet another maid. Or it may have been the first maid again.
“Well, today you shall. Join me in the dining room in—shall we say one hour?” And she sailed away towards her apartments, leaving him, as always, feeling as if he had been assaulted by a friendly and affectionate hurricane.
Over dinner, he laid all honestly before her. Well, perhaps not all. The lovely widow, betrayed by George, the three sisters, the little daughter. No need to mention that he’d played fast and loose himself with the lady’s virtue. Just that he needed to rehabilitate her. Just that he wanted to marry her and she had refused.
“She has refused you, Rede?” Her Grace was surprised. “But you are handsome, titled and charming. And rich. What does she object to?”
Rede hadn’t been able to work it out, either. “I know she cares for me, Aunt Eleanor. But she keeps saying no. The first time—to be honest, the first time I made a disaster of it. I told her… I gave her the impression that I only wanted her for a wife because she was too virtuous to be my mistress.”
Her Grace gave a peal of laughter. “Oh Rede, you didn’t.”
“I’m afraid I did. But the second time I assured her that I wanted her for my Countess.”
“And you told her that you loved her,” the Duchess stated.
“No. Not exactly. I told her I wanted to keep her safe. I told her I wanted to protect her.”
“I see. And I suppose you think if you bring her into society, she will consent to marry you?”
“I don’t know, aunt. I only know that she deserves a better life than stuck in a worker’s cottage in the back of nowhere working as a teacher so she can one day give her sister a decent life. If she won’t have me… Well, she has been to see a lawyer about a small inheritance she has coming. I thought perhaps I could make it a bit bigger. Without her knowing.”
“You do love her,” said the Duchess, with great satisfaction.
“Yes, but… Yes.” There were no buts. He loved her. At least he hadn’t told her so. He had no taste for laying his heart on the floor for her to walk on.
“You need to tell her so.” The Duchess echoed and denied his thinking, all in one short sentence. “She is probably afraid that you are marrying her out of a misplaced sense of duty. You are far too responsible, Rede.”
“No, she couldn’t think that. Could she?”
“Who knows? Well, I will do it. I cannot have my niece-in-law having her babies in scandal. I take it there is the possibility of a baby? You would not be feeling so guilty otherwise.”
Rede was without a response for a long moment, finally huffing a laugh. “Aunt Eleanor, a hundred years ago you would have burnt as a witch,” he told her.

Eleanor reads the words over my shoulder and laughs. “Silly boy,” she observes. “But it all turned out in the end.”

“And then you helped Becky and Hugh,” I reminded her. A shadow passes over her face. That also turned out in the end, though perhaps not for Eleanor’s son, the Marquis of Aldridge.

By that time, Eleanor Haverford had embedded herself into my Regency world. She appears again and again, always helping, always protecting the defenseless and supporting the cause of true love.

From her wistful look into her cup, I know what she is thinking. I know the question she wants to ask.

“Will it ever be my turn?” The room hums with the unspoken words.

I can’t answer; those stories are not written yet, although I’ve begun them. Things change as I’m writing. I can’t imagine that the one-word answer will reverse, but she will want details, and I need to write the six-novel series, Children of the Mountain King, to find out for certain whether it will ever be Eleanor’s turn.

I hope so. She deserves it.

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Character studies on WIP Wednesday

I’m back at the beginning of the process again. House of Thorns is off to the publisher, and The Realm of Silence is having line edits and a few rewrites after beta reading, and will be with the copy editor by the end of the weekend. So it is time to start again, and I have two stories waiting in the wings.

So far, I have only the sketchiest of plots. I need to write those down, and then I need to do character sketches for the main characters. As I get to know them, the plot will firm up, and I’ll be able to fill out my hero’s journey sheets, exploring their external and internal story arcs. Then I start writing the story, and let the plot reveal itself as I go.

So this week, I’m giving you a snippet of a character interview — one I did for Rosa Neatham who is the heroine of House of Thorns. How do you get to know your characters? If you write stuff down about them, or interview them, will you post a bit in the comments?

A wish or dream: I would love a place of my own; somewhere that belongs to me, and that no one
can put me out of. Somewhere I can grow a few roses, and perhaps keep a cat to sleep by the fire
and keep me company.
One thing that makes your character laugh: Many things. I do believe that my sense of the
ridiculous has saved my sanity more times than I can count. Finding the humour in things was a
game I played with my mother, and playing it still makes me feel close to her.
A fear: I am afraid, so afraid, that I will fail my father. I am afraid that Bear will not return, and that
I’ll be left to the mercies of the steward. I would rather die. I would rather sell myself to the first
man that passes. Oh, I hope Bear comes back.
Something they’d like to learn: How to attract Bear so that he wishes to bed me again. I am sure I
did something wrong the first time, but I have no idea what.
Something they’d like to forget: My wedding night. It was memorable, but not in a good way.
Something they’d never do: I would never disgrace or leave my father. Never.
A quirky habit: I have a pocket tied under my skirts into which I put my paintbrushes.
A secret: I would secretly like to know why someone would wish to be a courtesan, and how one
goes about it.

And the two stories I’m about to start?

One is a contemporary for a summertime anthology for Authors of Mainstreet. The unifying theme of the book is summertime at the beach, (which for me, in New Zealand, means December/January).

I know my heroine is an environmentalist lawyer, fighting corporates and governments on the world stage. Burnt out after her latest case, she has come home to a small community on the Wairarapa coast, to the bach (New Zealand North Island word for a holiday house; the South Island has cribs instead) she used to visit as a child. Wanting to do repairs,  she calls on a local building firm, and finds that she once faced the man they send over a courtroom.

The hero was once part of the high-powered business world. Heir to a huge family-owned company that made chemicals and medicines, he had trained as a lawyer, and fought for the continuation of his family’s privilege. His conscience pricked by a feisty lawyer, he had begun to check his facts, and his odyssey brought him here: estranged from his family, disinherited, working with his hands, and happier than he has ever been in his life.

Storms and coastal change play into it, and I can predict sparks will fly. I hope one of them will turn into a title!

The second is late eighteenth century, and is set mostly in Persia and partly in the Kopet Dag mountains between Turkmenistan and Persia. And yes, it is about James Winderfield, father to the hero of The Bluestocking and the Barbarian, and his wife Mahzad. It takes place sixteen years earlier than Bluestocking, so 1796. I’m busily researching Persia at that time, since interesting things were happening. The story is for the Bluestocking Belles Christmas anthology, which has a prodigal daughter theme.

In my story, Mahzad returns to Persia to visit her dying father, whom she last saw when he sent her off as to China on the command of his Khan, as a gift to the Chinese emperor. With James’ help, Mahzad had escaped in the mountain passes of Kopet Dag. Things are vague after that. I need to read up a lot more about Persia and surrounding nations in the time my story covers, since I think I’ll be doing a few flashbacks. James doesn’t approve of Mahzad’s trip. I know that. He doesn’t trust the Persians. And Mahzad’s English grandmother, who raised her and who helped her escape comes into it somehow.

All shall be revealed. Character sketches first.

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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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Once upon a time I invented a rake

WALLACE COLLECTION - THEATRES OF LIFE Eug ne Lami, A supper during the Regency or The Prodigal Son or The orgy, 1853 Waddesdon, The Rothschild Collection (Rothschild Family Trust) The National Trust, Waddesdon Manor. Photographer: Mike Fear 127.1995_c_2.jpg

I joke that my creative process relies on the plot elves. I sit down to do my 500 words, or 1000 words, or 2000 words, or whatever the target for the day is, and the characters start acting out the scene disclosing all sorts of things the plot elves have been working on in the background.

The truth is that my creative process is a mystery to me. The invention of my Marquis of Aldridge is a case in point.

Here’s his very first appearance on a page, in my work-in-progress, Embracing Prudence. David Wakefield, base-born son of the Duke of Haverford, is investigating a case of blackmail.

A knock on the door heralded Aldridge’s arrival. A maid showed him into the private parlour. He’d clearly been treating her to a display of his facile charm; she was dimpling, blushing, and preening.

David examined him as he gave the girl a coin “and a kiss for your trouble, my darling.” The beautiful child had grown into a handsome man. David had heard him described as ‘well-put together, and all over, if you know what I mean.’ The white-blonde hair of childhood had darkened to a light brown, and he had golden-brown eyes under a thick arch of brow he and David had both inherited from their father.

Aldridge navigated the shoals of the marriage market with practiced ease, holding the mothers and their daughters off while not offending them, and carrying out a gentleman’s role in the ballroom with every evidence of enjoyment.

But his real success, by all accounts, was with bored widows and wives, where he performed a role in the bedroom with equal enjoyment. Society was littered with former lovers of the Merry Marquess, though he had the enviable ability to end an affair and retain their friendship.

He ushered the laughing maid out of the room and closed the door behind her, acknowledging David’s appraisal with a wry nod.

“Wakefield. You summoned me. I am here.”

David ignored the thread of irritation in the young aristocrat’s voice.

“I have some questions I wish to ask about the story your brother tells.”

Uninvited, Aldridge grabbed a chair and straddled it, resting his chin on his forearms. “Our brother,” he said, flatly.

I should, perhaps, explain that I’ve been creating an entire fictional world these last five years, peopled with enough characters for at least the forty books for which I have plot lines. Many of the characters are just names in my database and spreadsheet, but if I need a mother, or a cousin, or villain, or an old school friend, I look there first before I invent someone new. So when David needed a case to investigate, I involved his patroness, the Duchess of Haverford, and her son Aldridge came with the territory.

I knew Aldridge existed, and I knew he was a rake. There’s a crusading social zealot growing up in my world who will one day need a hero who is as much a challenge to her as she is to him. But I hadn’t given him much more thought than that, till I inserted him into David and Prue’s story. I generally start a book with tidy character descriptions (eight pages for protagonists and major antagonists, and one page for anyone else with more than a walk-on part), a plot outline, and maps. After I start, though, the plot elves take over and anything might happen. And so it was with Aldridge.

Very soon, he proved to be a larger part of Prue’s past than David knows. He is also deeply concerned about his younger brother Jonathan, who becomes David’s assistant in the investigation. What with one thing and another, by the time Prue, Jonathan, and David disappear from England, Aldridge has enough guilt riding him to dive into a bottle and hide there for months, as explained in this deleted scene from A Baron for Becky.

“Cousin, I don’t believe you’ve been sober since June—this business with Jonathan is not your fault, you know.”

Aldridge shook his head. He didn’t agree. Jonathan was his younger brother, and he’d promised to keep him safe. He’d promised Mama.

“Do you remember the frogs in your tutor’s bed?” Rede asked.

Aldridge was not fooled by the seeming change of subject. He’d taken the blame for that, though the prank had been Jonathan’s. “The tutor was a vicious fool, and would have beaten Jonathan until his arm fell off. And His Grace would have done nothing; Jonathan was only the spare. Disciplining me was reserved to His Grace, and the tutor would not disturb him for such a minor infringement.”

It was Rede’s turn for the dismissive shake. “Jonathan’s not nine any more, Aldridge. The scandal was of his own making; quite deliberately from what I heard. ”

Aldridge grinned. He was worried, and he felt guilty, but he still admired his brother’s strategy. “He wanted to travel and His Grace said ‘no’. So Jonathan arranged to be exiled. Pudding-brain. Doesn’t he know there’s a war on? I hope David finds him.”

Rede slid the brandy decanter towards him. “David? David went after his… after a lady that he loves.”

Aldridge busied himself pouring another glass and exerted every ounce of control not to tip it straight down his throat. There was the crux of it—not Jonathan’s defection, though Aldridge still believed he should have been able to prevent it. But Aldridge’s contribution to the loss of his other brother, his father’s bastard; Aldridge’s treatment of the woman David loved.

“Did you not know? She went with Jonathan. And I don’t think David will ever forgive me, Rede.”

I had just realised what a crucial part Aldridge played in Prudence’s backstory and the major misunderstanding between David and Prue when my group of Historical writers, the Bluestocking Belles, embarked on a three week marathon of interactive story telling on Facebook.  We invented a magical inn that allowed our fictional worlds to collide, and brought along our characters for an impromptu party.

I contributed one drunk and depressed Aldridge to the fun, and it was fun! Poor Aldridge. He had a frustrating time, with his advances to one lady after another being rejected, sometimes violently.

Then along came Mrs A. Mrs Angel is the invention of Catherine Curzon, and she is a wonderful character, mistress to princes, owner of brothels, and a rollicking good-time girl. Aldridge’s pursuit of Mrs A. jumped from thread to thread and took days, with one accident after another keeping him from his goal.

I decided to write it up as a light-hearted romp; the story of Aldridge and the golden-hearted harlot who saved him. But I soon realised that Aldridge needed quite a different kind of experience at this point in his life. Becky began to take shape in my mind – a broken bird, rescued by Aldridge but carrying scars from her past experiences. The book became Becky’s story, and the elderly baron Catherine and I had first envisaged became Hugh, Aldridge’s best friend, a man with his own scars.

And so, in the end, Becky and Hugh took over what began as Aldridge’s story, and A Baron for Becky is a far better book than I originally intended.

Where to from here? I have a vague idea, but quite a distance to travel first. In the main stream of my novel writing, I have yet to finish 1807. Aldridge will be a bit player in several more books before 1814, when his own story begins with a social reforming spinster bursting into his bedroom demanding that he come save his bastard son from a molly brothel. I’m looking forward to finding out what happens next.

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Writing process blog tour

dangerousworksToday, I’m having my moment with the torch of the Romance Writers’ Blog Hop. It has been passed from writer to writer for some time. Not only do you get to know a little about me and my writing process, but I get to introduce you to fellow romance authors so you can learn about their individual writing styles and processes.

I was nominated by my friend Caroline Warfield, writer of Dangerous Works and the forthcoming Dangerous Secrets (release date 18 March). With a 4.9 star average rating on Amazon, Dangerous Works tells the story of a scholar who dares scandal to learn what she needs to know to illuminate her study of Greek poetry, and the man she trusts to teach her.

You’ll find Carolyn on:

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My writing process

Now to answer the questions about my writing process.

What do I write?

AzedCompWords5Tempting though it is to give Hamlet’s answer (“Words. Words. Words.”), I’ll behave. So what do I write. The short answer is ‘historical romance’, but this is my blog, so I’m allowed to give the long answer.

The novel and novella I’ve written, the two I’m working on, and the ones I plan to write in the next few years are set in the early 19th century. I do a lot of research to get the details accurate, and I include snippets about world and local events as part of the background to the action.

So ‘historical’ works.

Every plot so far tells the story of two people being attracted to one another and falling in love, and finishes with the two main protagonists starting a ‘happy ever after’ that I try to make believable.

So ‘romance’ works too.

And the first three novels also include elements of mystery and thriller. So I’d be quite comfortable with those designations, too. (The novella, though, is a straight sweet historical romance.) If people like the protagonists of my 2nd novel, I may go on to write about more of the cases they investigate together, and those will be historical mysteries rather than romances.

Bath houseI have some book ideas for other historical periods: for example, the elves that whisper stories to me want me to write a murder mystery set in Edwardian times in Rotorua. But, at the moment, I’m sticking with the early 19th century.

I’ve also started (and abandoned) a number of sf books that I may go back to eventually. And the short stories I had some success with in the dim dark ages of my youth qualified as literary, being otherwise unclassifiable and universally gloomy.

What am I currently working on?

BookcoverCCC2I’m continuing to market my first published fiction in 30 years, my novella Candle’s Christmas Chair. Candle is available free from all major ebook outlets and is doing well — more than 25,500 copies downloaded in its first 5 weeks and over 100 reviews in various places, with an average rating of over 4 stars.

I’ve just sent my debut novel, Farewell to Kindness, to the proofreader. It will be on prerelease early in March and published on 1 April. In Farewell to Kindness, an earl on a mission of revenge is attracted to a widow who lives rent-free in one of his cottages, and whose daughter is the image of his predecessor, his deceased cousin. Rede, the hero, doesn’t want to be distracted from his quest to destroy the villains who killed his family. Anne, the heroine, wants to stay in hiding to avoid the villains after her and her family. Love is both unexpected and inconvenient. Farewell to Kindness is the first in the series The Golden Redepennings.

BookcoverEPI’m writing the first draft of Encouraging Prudence, starring the thief taker (bounty hunter) who helped Rede in Farewell to Kindness, and the spy he loves. Sent to investigate a blackmail scheme, the two uncover blackmailers, murderers, traitors, difficult relatives, and one another’s vulnerabilities.

I’m also researching for A Raging Madness, the second in The Golden Redepennings. Alex, Rede’s cousin, is coming home through Cheshire when he meets a woman he can’t stand and can’t forget. Ella thought Alex was the last person on earth she would turn to for help. She knows what he thinks about her. But when her evil in-laws seek to have her committed to an asylum, she is forced to seek his protection. I need to find out more about the canals through Cheshire.

And I’m beginning to plot a novella — another Farewell to Kindness prequel — for a boxed set I’m putting together for Christmas 2015 with a group of friends. Tentatively called Gingerbread Bride, it tells the story of a woman with a reputation for running away.

“Not away,” Mary said, definitely. “To. I run to. There’s a difference.”

“Away. To. It doesn’t matter. You’re a lady now; not a little girl. Surely you must see that you have to go home?” Richard didn’t expect Miss Waterford to listen, though. When had she ever?

“You can’t stop me, Lieutenant Redepenning. You can’t stop me, and you can’t catch me.” She flung her last words behind her as she heeled her horse into a flying gallop, striking his with her whip as she passed. “No-one can!”

Richard, shouldered to one side by the horse, sat where he’d landed, watching the two horses and the Admiral’s daughter receding into the distance. Annoying, arrogant, impudent, self-willed little bitch. What a woman!

How do my historical romances differ from others in the genre?

google-romance-novelBooks in the general category ‘historical romance’ cover a huge range of different eras, plot tropes, character types, tonal styles, and subcategories. And self-publishing has opened the door for writers to produce work that broadens the range still further.

I write strong determined heroines that, in ways that can be defended as historically feasible, refuse to accept the constraints society would place on them. I write heroes that can appreciate and respect my heroines. And I write villains that you’ll love to hate.

I also create complicated plots with a large cast of characters, and I enjoy using settings that don’t comply with the ballroom/house party scenes that are often found in historical romances.

My first two books take place in the same part of England, west of the Cotswolds. But Encouraging Prudence ranges more widely and finishes in another country altogether (Sweden, I think, but I’m not there yet).

I don’t stick to the world of the Beau Monde. Dukes, Earls, and Barons are fun and fascinating — the rock stars of their era. But the hero of my first book had a career as a fur trapper before he inherited an Earldom, and the heroes of the next two books are both commoners.

Why do I write historical?

enclosureI love reading historical romances, and I love doing research. I’ve been passionate about history since I was a little girl. One of my career aspirations during my teenage years was archaeologist. I fell in love with the late Georgian era when I began to read regency historicals that included information about canal building, balloons, the first gas lights, and all the other incredible innovations of the explosion of invention that changed society between the 1750s and the 1850s.

I see many parallels with today. To take just one example, my period includes the enclosure movement (it was started in England before it moved to Scotland). Intended to make farming more efficient, it resulted in wealthy landowners cut farm labourers off from keeping livestock and collecting foodstuffs from the commons. People who thought they had a historic right to use the common land to feed their families were suddenly cast into dire poverty. Today, companies are laying claim to intellectual property rights over plant and animal bloodlines, even human dna. And they’re taking ordinary people to court to prevent them from using what was once free to all.

Writing historical romances helps me to work through some of this stuff. The trick is to make it an essential plot point or part of the background, and not a lecture.

How does my writing process work?

Or, at least, will bie editing after work.

Coloured pens make everything better. Note the map of the village of Longford at top centre.

I’m still working this one out. I thought I was a planner, and I carefully planned each chapter of my first novel and my first novella. Then I went off in a different direction with each, following the characters on their own journey. This meant a lot of rewriting, going back to seed later ideas into earlier chapters.

With the current novel, I know where each quarter of the book takes place; I have a fair idea of the main plot pivot points; I know more or less what the main conflict is. But I’m only plotting in detail a chapter or two ahead. It’s going well, but I expect I’ll need to do a lot of rewriting, going back to seed later ideas into earlier chapters.

Two things that are working well for me are setting a daily word count and creating detailed character sketches of my key characters.

I started with no daily word count. I wrote when the inspiration elves consented to whisper to me. Then I set a count of 500 words a day and all of a sudden those elves started visiting me more often. Now, I’m writing a minimum of 1300 words a day, six days a week. And I need to keep that up if I’m to meet my writing schedule. According to my beta readers, the chapters I wrote more quickly are better than the ones that took me ages. Go figure.

I have an one page questionnaire for each minor character and an eight page questionnaire for my main protagonists. By the time I’ve worked my way through all the questions, I know them well, and once I know them well I know what they’ll do in any particular situation. I do the minor characters as I need them, but I do the protagonists before I start my first draft. I originally kept the character sketches in the OneNote database for the novel or novella I was working on, but my books cross in so many different ways that I’ve now created a new database in OneNote just for characters.

I also keep Pinterest boards for visual inspiration, and I draw maps and house plans so that, when my characters are moving around, I can visualise what they’re up to and work out what route they need to take and how long they’ll spend getting there.

Up next,  Jessie Clever

In the second grade, Jessie began a story about a duck and a lost ring.  Two harrowing pages of wide ruled notebook paper later, the ring was found.  And Jessie has been writing ever since.

Armed with the firm belief that women in the Regency era could be truly awesome heroines, Jessie began telling their stories in her Spy Series, a thrilling ride in historical espionage that showcases human faults and triumphs and most importantly, love.

Jessie makes her home in the great state of New Hampshire where she lives with her husband and two very opinionated Basset Hounds.  For more, visit her website at jessieclever.com.

Jessie just wrapped her Regency romance Spy Series, but as creativity often plagues those blessed with it, Jessie discovered a whole new story erupting from what she thought was the end.  So she is hard at work on the follow-up series she likes to refer to as the Spy Series: The Next Generation.

But before the next series debuts, be sure to check out the heroes and heroines of the Spy Series, starting with Inevitably a Duchess: A Spy Series Novella.

Inevitably a Duchess Jessie Clever Spy Series Novella 102214Blurb:

Richard Black, the Duke of Lofton, waited for her, watching as the agony of marriage broke the woman he loved.  Lady Jane Haven had to find a reason to survive, a purpose to carry on when it seemed God would not just let her die.  But when fate finally offers them a chance to be together, a treasonous plot threatens to keep them apart.  And when it becomes more than just a matter of survival, Jane must find the strength to be his duchess.

Meet Jessie on social media:

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When you break eggs, make omelettes

I’ve set myself a challenge in the epilogue of Farewell to Kindness. My secondary character David, who is hero of the book I plan to write next, is reported to be missing. No-one has heard from him for four months.

I don’t know where that came from. It was in the plan to send him searching for his heroine, known in Farewell to Kindness as Mist. But four months? Where did she go? Where did he go? What is holding them up and why? I have absolutely no idea. And I don’t know how the answers are going to affect the already plotted chapter outline of Encouraging Prudence.

I started Farewell to Kindness thinking I was a planner. And I am. But the bits of the book that excite me most are the ones that came out of nowhere and insisted on changing all of my carefully structured plans. My main villain turned out to be someone quite different to who I intended, the book ended a month earlier than intended and in a different locale, and several characters that weren’t even in the first draft demanded their own place in the 3rd.

I’m tentatively learning to trust my subconscious. When I find I’ve dropped a whole heap of eggs all over my plot, I’m learning to give a cheer and enjoy the ensuing omelette.

I came across this article by Juliet Marillier that talks about characters taking overeggs. What she says rings true to me:

So here I am, getting to the pointy end of this manuscript with my characters in increasing peril from external sources and at the same time beset by internal conflict (there’s a strong thread in the Shadowfell books about conscience and responsibility – can lies, deception and violence be justified if they’re the only way to achieve a greater good?) I know already that my two protagonists can’t come out of the story without significant psychological damage. And now one of those protagonists has started making choices I didn’t plan for him. Awful choices. Crazy, unwise choices. What’s going on?

I find while I’m writing the last part of a book, the part where I ratchet up the tension and present my characters with impossible choices, I sleep fitfully, dream vividly, and think about the story and characters most of the time, often to the detriment of whatever else I’m supposed to be doing. I get a lot of ‘brain churn’, a not-especially-helpful overload of story details bubbling around in my mind. I become quite disturbed when my characters have to face terrifying situations or sink into a mass of dark thoughts. Perhaps that’s because their stories, though fictional and including fantasy elements, are not so different from the situations some people still face in our world, in places where tyrannical regimes use terror as a tool of control. Or perhaps it’s because my protagonists feel like real people to me, and I, the author/God of this creation, have chosen to subject them to hell on earth. Now one of them is challenging me in a way that makes me uncomfortable.Go on, push me. Push me to the edge. See how much more I can take before I jump.

Characters don’t exist independently, of course, however real they may become to us. They are indeed all in our minds. If another writer came to me for advice on the situation outlined above, I’d say keep writing, let the character have his head, finish the novel, then go back and rewrite that section if you’re not happy with it. If a character seems to be pushing or pulling hard, chances are that’s the natural direction for the story to take. If the guy is in your head all the time, urging you on, what you write may well be inspired.

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Procrastibaking

procrastibaking

Writing this post is a form of procrastibaking – creating something that I hope will be useful to others, but that doesn’t take me further on the jobs I need to do.

On the novel, I’m up to page 266 (of 506) and scene 53 of the plot-line and character name review, and page 28 (about to start Chapter 3) of the rewrite. Chapter 3 needs to be completely rewritten, and I’m dithering over how to start.

I could also be doing character sketches for the novella I want to bring out before Christmas, Candle’s Christmas Chair. (Seven weeks away. Yikes!) I’m about halfway through getting to know Candle Avery, and I still have to learn about his mother and Minerva Bradshaw, the woman he encounters in a carriage manufactory, making Bath chairs.

And I should be thinking about the next two novels to make sure that nothing I do in Farewell to Kindness stuffs up the plotlines for Encouraging Prudence or A Raging Madness.

On the commercial writing side, I’m working from home today, and am due to start in a few minutes. I finally have the information I need to review five templates, write guidelines for using them, rewrite the relevant style guide, and create a one hour seminar to introduce them all. The seminar is to be delivered in less than four weeks. And I have a 70 page guide for another client to edit by Friday week.

Busy is good. At least that’s what I tell myself.

But I always dither at the start of a project. Intellectually, I know I’ll be fine once I get started. But every time, I circle around the project and find other things to do. I tidy my desk. I make phone calls. I send emails I’ve been meaning to do for a while. I fiddle with the back settings of the blog.

Work is good. Work puts food on the table and a smile on my face.

But for the moment, I’m procastibaking.

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Finished by mid-November?

CARTOON ABOUT WRITERSToday on the train on the way to work I passed the 116,000 mark. One month ago to the day, I posted to say I’d written 60,000 words. Looking back, I wrote 30,000 in the first three months, 30,000 in the fourth month, and 56,000 in this latest month. In part, I’m getting faster as I become more confident. In part, I’ve stopped putting down the novel to research every little fact. In part, it’s the new iPad, which makes it easy to sit up in bed at 1am and type another scene. And in largest part of all, its my personal romantic hero (aka the PRH), who keeps me fed and supplied with endless cups of coffee in the morning and tea in the afternoon (and a glass or two of wine in the evening). Love you, darling.

I still have 11 scenes and probably six or seven chapters to go. Boy, am I going to have to cut when I edit! I’ll have around 130,000 to 140,000 words, and I’ll need to trim back to 100,000.