not bad for the train

Project: Napoleonic Era Arthurian Romance With A Happy Ending
Deadline: Labor Day-ish
New words written: 884 (or it might be more? Forget where I left off last time)
Present total word count: 72374
Mean things: big party after a sleepless night
Fun things: silver porringer; letting the lieutenant hold the baby
Stimulants: Metro-North

Had to pick up my kid at Penn Station last night, which meant dedicating a lot of the day to the trip. I was starting to hyperventilate at the thought of driving in, and especially at the thought of finding parking, not to mention the prospect of driving the whole distance home at late o'clock. So, I decided that "drive to New Haven and take Metro-North" was really the smart plan, even if it might work out more expensive -- more expensive than gas, certainly, but once parking was figured in, who knows.

One of the perks was that I could go in earlier, and meet up with eglantine_br for dinner. Which was a WONDERFUL perk. She's the one who tempted me into Hornblower fandom after reading my L&O:UK death-fix story, and that really touched off my writing muse, so in a very real way I wouldn't be writing this without her. And she's been reading along, so she knew what was going on in this, and we could geek out about it. And it was a lot of fun to geek out with someone who knew as much about Trafalgar as I did, or probably more, so that if I said "Rescuing French sailors after an explosion, you know, the Achille," she'd go "Of course," and no long explanations were necessary. Plus, delicious Indian food, and knowing her face so she isn't just a swan in my head now!

The OTHER perk was that I could write on the train. My regular purse is big enough for my laptop. Yes, it's a big purse. Yes, this is a not-especially-large Macbook (THANK YOU, fadethecat!). So I had nearly two hours of focused writing time.

So even though the day was mostly about travel, I still got to write.

(no subject)

Project: Napoleonic Era Arthurian Romance With A Happy Ending
Deadline: Labor Day-ish
New words written: 2099
Present total word count: 73858
Mean things: lovesickness; observant and disapproving friend
Fun things: the heroine's confession gets her more than she expected
Stimulants: did you know that shower heads infuse water with ideas?

I finished off the christening party, put in a scene to reinforce the lieutenant's growing attraction -- fetching a shawl is a definite courtship gesture! And SOMEBODY is not oblivious to that. And then it was on to the Heroine Confessing To Her Husband.

I wanted to stall, when that was facing me. I didn't need to do any research for it, so that was out. I settled on a shower, because I needed one, and showers are a notorious lurking area for ideas.

It worked. I started hearing bits of dialogue with the running water. I suppose some people would call that hallucinating. In a writer, we can call it creativity, right?

So then I came back downstairs, and... SCENE. In the zone, typing away. Probably because it was so dialogue-heavy.

I don't think the advice "murder your darlings" is all that great. If someone were to take out all the pieces of writing they LIKED, what the hell sort of book would it be?

Which is to say, I've got a couple of darlings in this one. This is the first:

"Oh, my darling. I'm sorry it grieves you so. I don't blame you for an instant. William is the best of men, and it's no surprise you should love him. I love him too."

"But hardly in the same way, I think, my lord?"

"In very much the same way, I should think. I'll speak it plain: you wish to lie with him?"

The tears would not be stopped. "I do."

"As do I," Anthony said softly. "We were lovers once, and I care for him still."

This is the other:

"I hope you'll not forsake my bed entirely for his, but I am well content to share you. And, should you and he both be willing, if he might sometimes share mine -- or if you both would -- you would make me the happiest of men."

The first one, I love because it's the sort of thing I would love to read in someone else's book. You remember how, in Romancing the Stone, Kathleen Turner is weeping over her typewriter as she writes the closing paragraphs of her book? Like that. It's a passage that makes me all sniffly, in the best way.

The second one is a darling for a more show-offy reason. That "make me the happiest of men" is a formula that always shows up in MARRIAGE PROPOSALS in things of this time period. And he is very much saying he wants a marriage with them both. So I feel very smug about phrasing it that way.

Though it just came out of my fingers liked that and I only noticed when I was reading through after. But I still feel smug about it.