Forbidden Rose getting closer

One  month till Forbidden Rose hits the shelves.
Just saying.

You can read more about Forbidden Rose on its webpage.  Here.

The cover is actually going to have more rose on it than this one on the left shows. 

I think. 

More like this:

See how the rose kinda went like Topsy and growed?
I don't have any of these books yet.  I think they have not been printed.  Cutting it close, are they not?

 In any case, showing a nonchalant acceptance of theoretical merchandise, you can buy it here. 

Technical Topics: Paying an editor

Here you see me hauling advice back from another spot so I can give it twice.

The question was -- 'Should I pay an editor or Book Doctor to go over my manuscript before I submit it?"

"Hell no," says I.

That is the brief answer.
I do not, perhaps, so much excel at 'brief',  but I can do it.
As you see.
The much looonger advice is below the cut,
where it is fairly happy to remain unless this topic grinds your opticals.

And We Got Yet More Questions

Continuing with the questions that have piled up a bit . . .

15)  ---Are there any elements in the SPYMASTER's LADY that you wished you'd done differently?

There are quite a few aspects of my life I wish I'd done differently.  For instance, I wish I'd sold PHP Healthcare stock a few weeks earlier than I did. 

And I made this dish last night  - Fusilli Donna -- from a recipie my friend Donna gave me.  I forgot to add the 1T vinegar, which would have improved everything.  And there was the matter of forgetting to blanch the fresh spinach before I added it, though I coped with that fairly well.  In any case, it was very good the way it came out.

So it would be strange indeed if I did not look at the galley of a book and say -- Dang!  (using the exclamation point,)  I should have done that dfferently.

There's lots of places in Spymaster's Lady, (and in Lord and Spymaster and in Forbidden Rose,)  where I'd love to go in and jiggle with the writing. Make it clearer. Make it sweeter.

But if I were to come up with one particular place I'd change . . .

There's this scene in TSL where Grey has come up on Annique on the road out of Dover.  Grey, who's being 'Robert Fordham', insists on going with her to London.

Originally, I had four or five paragraphs of Annique's internals. We see her thoughts while she decides it's safer to take Robert with her than to leave him behind, him wondering about who she is and maybe going to the authorities.

In the earlier drafts, I show her adding up the things 'Robert' knows about her -- he knows she's French; she's illegally in England; she's a skilled fighter; she throws knives like a circus performer; and she has these shifty Frenchmen chasing her.
I have her thinking this over.
What am I going to do about this? Anneka ponders in a French accent. (trans. Oh la la, I am le screwed.)

She decides that no lie is going to explain all these various lethal skills.  I mean -- What?  She's escaped from a sideshow and has the lion tamer after her?  Keeping mum on the situation gets more and more suspicious.

So -- remember this was all in the draft -- I have Anneka decide to reveal about one tenth of the truth and say she's a retired spy because there's nothing like spreading a flimsy camo net of truth over the Big Knobbly Important Stuff you're planning to hide.

But this explanatory internal was long and boring and slow moving and . . . well . . . internal and I was up to the gizzard in internals along about then.  So I jerked it all out of the final draft.

I figgered it'd be fairly obvious to the reader why Anneka has to make some explanation of who and what she is and if the reader can come up with a more plausible story to account for all that then the reader's a better plotter than I am and probably a writer herself and she will be sympathetic.

But it was all not so much obvious to the reader, apparently.
My bad.

Looking back, I should have left in the part where I explained Anneka's reasons for being so 'open' with Robert, because we are not supposed to leave the reader scratching her head about such stuff and saying 'That was stupid of Anneka', when actually it was rather smart, IMO or at least that was the hopeful intention.

16) --You did an outstanding job with both sensory details and sexual tension -- were these elements you worked in naturally or reviewed the ms to find opportunities to ratchet up?

To which I reply -- Oh wow. Thank you so much.

I write in layers. That is, I make many drafts and go back to add detail. Every part of the manuscript is much niggled over.

But if we're looking at adding stuff at the level of scene, the love story -- the sensuality and sex -- is the core of what I was writing. That's what the 'story' is about. Those relationship scenes went in early. The rest of the pacing was moved around to accommodate them.

The 'action plotting' about drove me crazy, but the Annique/Grey interaction was pure pleasure to write. Came very naturally. 

the photo of old paper is cc attrib glass and mirorr

Technical Topic: Before the Seat of the Pants

One of several unprofitable debates in writing circles is whether it's better to 'Outline and Plan' or better to be a 'Pantser' which is somewhat jumping off a cliff, flapping yer wings, and discovering what the story is about as you fly along.

There are successful writers playing both sides of this field.  They probably do other things that involve numerology or sacrifice of radishes or wearing funny hats or drinking coffee on the Rue Satin-Michel or sitting down to write naked,

though it is to be hoped no one tries all of these simultaneously.

Lots of different working styles.  All the methods have practitioners who build story just fine. All of them are 'right'.


But before the Seat of the Pants . . . before The Extensive Outline . . how do we first approach story?

If I were handing out advice wholesale, (because, for instance, I didn't want to buckle down to work this morning,)  I'd say to start writing before you know the story.

Technical Topics: Describing Characters

How do we let the reader know what our folks look like? 

I want to be fairly specific about physical description.  I find the process of giving eye color, hair color, skin type and so on, technically useful, rather than an annoying necessity.

I'm fortunate enough to use two major POVs, (Yeah!) so I can describe each character through the eyes of the other. That also means I give an interpretation of the physical traits, not just the literal list. (Two lips, indifferent red . . .)

Knitting the Revolution

It's a great pity to do lots of research and find stuff out and then realize you will never be able to use most of it. 

Over the last year, I learned more than I ever wanted to know about  who knit what, when and how in France in 1790. 

None of this will fit into a story. 

"Ah," says I to myself.  "I'll put it on the blog."

So if you don't care about knitting in 1794 in France,
(and who could blame you,)
you can wander off again and I will doubtless write something more interesting someday.

I don't know a great deal about knitting as a craft, I'm afraid.
When I decided Maggie needed to do some knitting in The Forbidden Rose I went out and bought some yarn and five, two-ended needles to see how it felt to knit.

I kept losing yarn off the end of the needles.
Apparently the French of 1790 didn't need the endy bits that keep the yarn from escaping.  Or perhaps using endy bits was considered unsporting.

If I'd been knitting wool, I expect it would have itched.
And if I did this all day long, I'd have really strong fingers.

Flash-Bang Openings and Others

There's a particular kind of opening -- I think of this as a 'flash-bang' opening.

Chapter One, (or, more often, the Prologue,) is full of Big Exciting WhizzBang Action Stuff . . .

and then the Big Exciting Action is dropped like something that was left too long in the back of the refrigerator . . .

and then you pick up in the next chapter with somebody leaning over a microscope or teaching class at the University.

This is a flash bang opening, here.

In this sort of opening, the author gives us a gunfight or the charge of Fire Demons or the little spaceship trying to outrun the big one, and then he abruptly pulls us outta there

so we can settle down to meet the Major Character and get introduced to the scenery and the backstory and be told what is really going on, which is generally less interesting than Fire Demons,
alas.

Bits o' News

Good news of various types.


First off:
My Lord and Spymaster will be coming out in French.  That's a little surprise for me.  My understanding is that Romances set in England are not so often translated into French.  I am very pleased.

Other good news is
Spymaster's Lady --  you will doubtless remember that the French rights for that were sold some time back --  will be available in May, as Le Maître du Jeu.  (Master of the Game)

This is a popular title. There are half a dozen books with this name, including, interestingly enough, one of John Grisham's books.  I don't live all that far away from Grisham.  And no, I've never run into him that I know of.

Maître is here,   And it's at Amazon.ca here.  It's not at Amazon.fr, so it may not be on sale in France itself.   This is a pity.  I was looking forward to knowledgeable, snarky comments on the historical inaccuracies.

I do not have a cover picture, but doubtless one will appear sometime, somewhere.


Moving along in the good news parade . . . I've finished
the First VERY Rough Draft of JUSTINE. 
It weighs in at 90K words. 

I'm not sure why this particular rough draft is so slight.  The Second Rough Draft should be 100K to 110K which is more typical of my first drafts.

First Rough Draft
90000 / 90000 words. 100% done!

Second Rough Draft
3000 / 110000 words. 3% done!

The Second Rough Draft has got itself shortened a bit because the very first thing I did was throw out one of the first four chapters.  Always a rousing start to a redraft.

And final good news is, I have a copy of the reprint for Spymaster's Lady in my hands.

In person, it is a just lovely.  Beautiful.  The cover is graceful and dignified and impressive.  Just a little sensual.  The print is easy to read.

I got all sniffly, holding it.

Technical Topics -- Paragraphing

I got asked about paragraphing down in the comment trail.  This is one of those topics a bit beyond my skill to talk about, but I will attempt it.

The problem with paragraphing is that it's nine-tenth easy routine. Obvious routine. But then the last tenth of paragraphing is magical handwaving and art.

Easy stuff first.