I admit it: I attempted steampunk for the NaNoWriMo project, and failed. Melancholy nostalgia just isn’t me. But I did have lots of brass gadgets and remembered to add goggles to a few wardrobes (at least I hope I did, maybe I added googles). So I’ve reverted to fusion fantasy and realised this sovereignty place occupies the same planet as the free city states of Siren’s Gate, Gayla’s Rift, Candle Rock, and Nightingale Ridge etc. Now that’s interesting, as well as a bit bruising, having a continent slam into being. Both the Sovereignty and the Gate have a female ruler/minder at the moment. One’s heriditary, one’s elected and possibly founding a dynasty. Guess I can play with the good old compare and contrast when I extract Flax from the spa resort. 

Well, once I’ve finished this book. And I have a sneaking suspicion that my attempt at a Regency is going to end up here, too.

It is a rarity for me to fail to finish a book. Particularly a historical romance, and more particularly a … well, this one so far hasn’t distinguished itself as a Regency which I assume is what it’s meant to be. And with a Carlyle quote on the cover it’s also meant to be bloody good. That got me over my initial dubiousness about a seventeen year old heroine. Seventeen!  But okay, there are plenty of sassy, sexy, sweet and smart debs running wild in my library. They just generally give a sense they have a life outside the scene, too. Flip a few more pages and hmmm. I can hear echoes of Wilde. Sophia, the eponymous courtesan and the mother in this book, sounds so much like Mrs Cheevly as played by Julianne Moore in An Ideal Husband (love that movie) that she’s distracting, and by Chapter Four I don’t need any more distractions.

Sad, really.

Bye bye The Courtesan’s Daughter.

“The sound of my voice will haunt you,” sings Stevie in Silver Springs, and that’s an impressive curse to lay on someone.

The voices haunting my head tonight don’t belong to the characters although it was in their service I typed “skerrick.” I looked at it, went arrgh, and deleted it, then stared at the scree searching for an alternative. Luckily, my faithful asterisk came to the rescue. Nothing against the word itself; it has great drawl and brogue potential. It’s also a word used a lot by The Aunt usually in the context of “… and you will eat every skerrick on your plate,” and that included the kidneys in the steak & kidney casserole.  Decided I didn’t want dessert enough that night. 

So *** in, cruising along and blocking The Aunt’s voice out of my head, and someone had the utter temerity to knock at the door. After dark. Obviously they’d go away; minor growl at the screen and keep typing. Only they didn’t, and they didn’t fall for the mute the TV and pretend I’m a cushion on the couch trick either. Nope, tapping on the window commenced and I really lost the plot. But I couldn’t growl at someone I actually knew and hadn’t seen since she was in high school (yes, I’m awful). Couldn’t be real coherent jolted out of an interrogation scene in a libray either. Guess I could move… after I’ve picked up the plot pieces from where they fell on the floor.

Nearly to the end! And it’s almost the weekend when I can find the end!

Ouch.

Note for next time: avoid the fire evacuation drill at work. Thirteen flights of stairs plus the hike two mid-city blocks and back with a cast of about a thousand on a very hot morning, stubbornly followed by the walk home and hours cross-legged on the couch with the laptop appropiately atop the lap is not good for the calves. Particularly for an Aquarius who traditionally experiences weakness in the ankles and shins. Squared, because osteoporosis is a valid concern . . . especially for a disposable character sacrificed to a dancer – wow, she is awesome! Was in real life, too, the way she snapped her partners round the dancefloor while perched atop the skinniest heels. This woman was so incredible, she’s infected my bad girl and I don’t mind at all.

But please send masseuse.

Or I’ll have to make do with internal applications of sparkling.

It’s a good news, bad news, kind of Day 7 of NaNoWriMo.  Having gone through the usual process of falling so in love with a secondary character that he’s now a primary character, I was a bit worried about one of his old rivals. I didn’t have a feel for him, and he has to have a slight similarity while a very distinct style of his own… just a touch evil genius. Today we may have clicked. But the problem is now I look at Devan and think, yeah you’ve got your own story coming. How many does that make on the to do list? Many.

Furthermore, maybe I want to change the title. Season of Henchmen is a bit blah; is Minuet any better?

… or it would be if I weren’t handicapped by actually having to do something! This November, while I’m meeting the NaNoWriMo mad challenge of writing a 50 000 word novel in 30 days, the brother is growing a moustache for Movember, raising awareness and funds for men’s health. Once I stopped cackling, I sulked:

Moi, grinding down my finger tips in pursuit of the perfect phrase.
Him, not shaving.

Hmmmm! But I sponsored his effort anyway and included a demand for signed visual proof of at least 2cm growth. Now I can display my Mo of Honour. You can sponsor him too by clicky clicky on the Mo.

Day One of the NaNoWriMo thing and the characters have already sparked a craving for Turkish Delight. This is a problem. My supplier isn’t open until Wednesday; it’s currently Sunday. Do I hold out or consider a substitue, and meanwhile what is Lindeth doing? He certainly isn’t helping me remember the name of his cousin-in-law’s ex-wife. I know I’ve written that down somewhere and put the sticky note in a very safe place.

On a tangent, I am rosily surprised. The bouquet of roses I got last Saturday are still presentable despite being dropped a few times, carted around a beach, run down a vineyard slope, left on a table for a couple of hours, subjected to hot car rides (Audi Q7 is way over-rated), packed on a plane, then on a tram with a swipe at some little girl in the way (mostly accidental), and finally stuck in a vase for a week, water refreshed once. Huh.

… my good intentions probably. Yes, I’d done so well with the daily word count, and enjoyed all of it for a change instead of sitting there glaring at the counter in the lower left corner (remain unsure if I appreciate that Word feature), only to ditch it for the day yesterday while visitors were around. And now, the stormy warmth is luring me toward the bookshelf followed by a flomp upon the red velvet couch. Maybe another Linda Howard classic. Or check in with Jaz Parks.

There’s a bonus to the bookworming – I’d remain distracted from the novel that bounced about, waving its hand, chanting write me write me and then promptly steamed up my retinas. A: the steamy scenes are usually the last to write. B: wasn’t I supposed to finish the previous one first? C: it’s damn tricky to write with one eye shut because you don’t really want to see what the character you’ve know for years is up to (besides getting the girl). Argh! D: NaNoWriMo starts in 2 days and I’d planned a completely different project which isn’t haunting my head at all anymore. Thank you, George from the Pandora’s Edge series. Just for that, he might not get to keep the girl… just yet.

… or the sense you get between bouncing. The high today is due to having the daily wordcount done by lunch; the low is because it’s the other novel, and not just the other novel but the other one. Do I keep going? Yes. Of course.

Fly is from the Pandora’s set and from a different character’s perspective. George runs the show in the second novella of the anthology, and he’s been around since from the very beginning so it’s odd that I’ve never met his mother. She’s always been just off stage. I think that’s due to change. And hopefully I find out how George adopts the doctor’s cat! Finding out where the doctor has gone is another matter entirely. You’d think my characters would check out before leaving my head…

Hmm. A slight problem looming is there’s A Girl in this one. More accurately, the problem is reconciling the song in my head with The Girl. The song is Pete Murray’s “Saving Grace” (stuck there because it was my brother’s bridal dance song and I’m 99% sure he picked it himself) and The Girl isn’t schedule to stay around. Okay, that could change, or she could come back later, or the cat could have a song.

Guess I’ll find that out, too.

Fly by Night, wordcount = 6 367

… loose ends that is. It’s amazing that you can use all the daily word count (grrr!) filling in the gaps, crossing mental fingers that in doing so, you’ll find the thread that reveals the end … at last. I’m way over time and length on this one, almost out of patience too, but I Am Persisting. And persistent. My reward yesterday was the blinding realisation that Chapter Seven is all about Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” even to the point that the weather joined in. Now to get the song out of my head, along with the next lot of words.

Trousseau, word count = 70 080