I meant to write today

[julian_griffith]

 but there were a million interruptions, and I really NO FOOLING had to get a chapter of billing & coding coursework done, and seriously it just was NOT HAPPENING. Though I might get a bit in after this post.

But I still have exciting writing-related things going on! I sent back the edits on "Your Most Humble and Obedient Servant", the femdom lady pirate / English naval captain story I wrote for the Turning the Tables anthology, and, even better, gehayi is just about done with the edits on Love Continuance and Increasing. I ought to get them back from her in a day or so.

Let me tell you how awesome it is to have an editor I already know. Let me tell you how awesome it is to have an editor who'll go to bat for me on some of my quirks that don't fit the stylebook.

I GET TO KEEP MY BRITISH SPELLINGS, FOLKS.

This was so important to me! I didn't realize how important until I faced losing them, and had the sinking feeling as if asked to cast the movie of my book with actors who'd speak in American accents. It would have been THAT WRONG.

I got word that I was being allowed to keep them because it WAS set in England in the early 19th century, and otherwise it would have been no, but that's why I ASKED for it - I wouldn't have done it for a contemporary American story. I also wouldn't be writing a contemporary story set in the UK because there's just too much I don't know. I can research well enough to sustain an existing contemporary UK setting for a medium-length fanfic. There is no way I'd manage it for an original. I wouldn't try.

I also get to use "grey" instead of "gray". I don't get to switch back and forth between them, alas - I still contend, and gehayi agrees with me, that the two are DIFFERENT COLORS, and "grey" is lighter and softer than "gray", but the price of getting "grey" is that I have to be consistent.

This is bearable. If they'd insisted on "gray" I would have had to go back and change Caroline's eyes to GREEN. Because they are NOT GRAY. They're grey. It makes a difference!

gehayi also made me very happy by commenting that some of Thorne's idioms and grammatical lapses sound very like her grandfather, who came from a coal mining village. Which...means I've made him sound northern, which is right for the actor's voice I was hearing in my head, but not right for the character's specified birthplace, unless the idiom carries over to other rural areas. Well, I can almost guarantee most American readers won't know the difference, and I hope I haven't made him entirely implausible for UK readers! I should make the next lot extraterrestrials. Lots of planets have a north!

So, I need to get back to Julia and Mary, but the certification course has got to take a certain amount of priority. And then I want to see if I can do a story for the Uncommon Valor (m/m, WWII) anthology call at Storm Moon, and then... VERY exciting... Storm Moon is really eager for trans* fiction, and I have a perfect hook for that: a female-assigned-at-birth soldier in Rockingham's regiment! Oh, there is SO much I can do with that! So, looking to start that in August.

Meanwhile, I'm pretty well set to get through the first heat wave of the summer. I knew it was coming, so the last couple of days I prepped ahead, and I made a batch of gazpacho, and one of cucumber-yogurt soup, and a big bowl of pasta salad, and a few deviled eggs (I left the others hard-boiled without fussing with them), and a batch of lemon-dill butter, and I have veggies cut up for green salads, and basically all I have to do for a while is RAID THE FRIDGE. I'm good with not having to put ANY thought into cooking for a while.

I've had at least two quarts of iced tea today. I have a funny feeling I won't sleep for a while.

Maybe I'll be able to write.

Comments

[mswyrr]

So happy to hear editing is going well for you! <3 It seems like you're keeping things spinning really well. As soon as you have new words on anything, I am glad to read them.