I’ve been absent, lo these many weeks, while on deadline for the second book in my Dukes Behaving Badly series. And now I’ve got it (sort of) finished, and I also have a title–Put Up Your Duke.
Yes, the dukely hero also boxes, as dukes do (!). He is in a marriage of convenience, and because he and his new duchess have not yet, um, done things, he heads out to the boxing saloon each morning to punch away his frustration.
Eventually, his wife asks him for boxing lessons, and that is fun, too. And then she punches someone she dislikes immensely, and takes great satisfaction in that.
Other than that, I’ve been caught up in the delicious drama of Outlander, anticipating Sleepy Hollow’s return, LOVING The Knick (starring my fave, Clive Owen), and doing a lot of reading (yay for a long subway commute!).
How is everyone doing?
Ooh! I haven’t heard of The Knick, but I do love Clive Owen. Must check it out.
I have been on a writing binge, which is a very good thing as I had hit a desperate slump of late and had given serious thought to chucking it in.
Tomorrow I will finish my first novella. I’ve written @ 13K words since Sunday 9/14. The novella looks to come in at @20K. And … it will be published in a Regency Christmas anthology with three other authors – two self-published and the other my Pixie Sister / Ruby Sister Kate Parker who writes Victorian set cozy mysteries for Berkley.
This will be my debut so I am VERY nervous, scared, neurotic, etc. I am fortunate these other ladies have a great deal more experience than I do and are walking me through it.
Congratulations to both Megan and Louisa on finishing your books!
Megan — in case it matters at all, I think it might be helpful for you to know that I’m not sure that the title ‘Put Up Your Duke’ would work in the UK. We ‘put up’ curtains (drapes), posters and pictures, meaning that we hang them up, but not people. We ‘put up with’ people or things we don’t like e.g. “I’ll put up with the rain since it’s so good for the garden” or “I can put up with his mother for a weekend if I can have him to myself the rest of the time”.
I have seen ‘put up’ used in American books to mean ‘store’ or ‘preserve’ e.g. putting up plums in storage jars, but we don’t use it that way here. I’ve also seen ‘put up’ used in connection with preparing for a trip, so I think it can mean packing; again, we don’t use it that way here.
So, I’m not at all sure what you mean by your title!