Help me!

I finished the novella I titled “Secret Scot Baby” a few weeks ago, and sent it to my agent for her review. I now have to think of a title that doesn’t suck, or make me laugh, both of which this title does. When I first began it, all I knew was that I wanted the heroine to be an English widow living in Scotland and the hero is a Scot who served in the war, and has unexpectedly inherited a viscountcy (The people I based the characters’ looks on are here, just for some nice visual interest). A good friend–Myretta Robens–came up with a compelling reason for them to meet, and that reason is the baby the widow’s late husband fathered while away from home.

Here’s the brief blurb (it’s a Regency-set historical, which isn’t clear from this. D’oh!):

A weary soldier returns to Scotland from the battlefront bringing a fallen comrade’s baby—to the house of the comrade’s widow.

Katherine doesn’t know what to make of the man who arrives on her doorstep, and knows even less what to make of the baby Mac says was fathered by her late husband—and now has no home but hers to go to.

I have to write the synopsis, too, but I won’t ask for help with that (although I do not promise not to whine about it!). Any suggestions for a title are welcome!

Megan

Earlier this week, I went to NYU’s Fales Library, which holds a fiction collection that is particularly strong from mid-18th century to today. The 2011 Conference for the International Association For The Study of Popular Romance will be held there, just prior to RWA’s 2011 New York Conference in late June.

So worth coming in early if you’re academically minded and also attending RWA 2011.

But I digress.

The Library’s Head Librarian took me and IASPR’s President, Sarah Frantz, into the stacks to see some of the collection. And, OMG, we got to touch a first edition of Jane Austen‘s Mansfield Park. The book was a lot smaller than books today, and was packaged in a few volumes. Running your hand over the type, you could feel the raised type. Very cool.

And I’m not one to geek out over such things, but looking at the book, at is size, and print and all, I could definitely picture one of our bluestocking heroines reading it, her head bent over to peer at the pages. It’d be small enough to hold in one hand and turn the pages with the other, and discreetly titled enough to hide what she was reading if it was necessary.

So duringthis busy holiday season, let’s all take a moment and sneak away to re-enact our favorite heroines’ favorite pastimes, and open a book and lose yourself for just a bit. It’s research, you see!

This week, as Carolyn mentioned on Wednesday, she and her ridiculously smart offspring are here in Brooklyn visiting; thus far, we’ve been to the Pop Tarts store (see Carolyn’s post), seen the musical Wicked (so fun!), had Vietnamese food, watched Mongol, written side-by-side at my breakfast bar, had a Random Facts contest (my son did well enough against Carolyn’s RSO, but the RSO still won).

Busy! Fun! Busy!

But earlier this week I did get to write, and this week I’ve been working on my Urban Fantasy, which is about a New York that is definitely a melting pot, in a melting pot of species ways. There are, however, evil plans afoot, and my heroine (a normal, if insecure, woman) and hero (a foxy demon who wears goofy t-shirts) have had to team up to suss out the evil plans. Here’s a bit:

He rose to a crouch, clutching the knife with one hand as he pushed the dark curtain of hair in front of his face onto his back.

If he were going to continue this, he should start braiding it or something. Maybe some barrettes?

The thought made me giggle.

“And here I thought you would perhaps be frightened by the prospect of some sort of explosion occurring,” he said, a dry tone to his voice.

He gripped the knife harder, his knuckles showing white.

He was really going to go out there and do something about this, wasn’t he? Suddenly I didn’t feel like laughing anymore.

“Be careful,” I whispered as he rose to his full height. My face was right next to his boots, and a part of my brain noticed how bad-ass they were. Which shouldn’t surprise me, everything but his t-shirt was bad-ass, and even that was bad-ass in an ironic hipster way.

Wait, did that mean ironic hipsters were demons, too?

No, that would be too much to hope for. They lived in Williamsburgh, not Hell. I bet Hell had fewer dive bars.

I squeezed my eyes shut as he began to move. I heard a hiss, and a knowing chuckle (one of these days, I was going to have to ask about arch villains’ maniacal laughter; what was it with those guys, anyway?).

And then I heard something far more frightening than maniacal laughter: The sound of death. Deeply unpleasant death, not that any death was pleasant. Unless it was Death By Chocolate.

I hoped to God–wait, no I didn’t–that my evil demon guy would win. Although I didn’t know if demons were automatically evil; this guy lacked much of a sense of humor, but that didn’t make him evil, did it? And he was doing his best to protect me, which in everyone’s eyes but my third-grade teacher and my next-door neighbor George Soulias would be a good thing.

I did finish the work I posted last week, and am tweaking a bit before sending to the Champion Agent. Yay! And the Champion Agent just submitted some more of my mss. out to the world, so double Yay! and Yikes, too!

What Random Fact do you know? (Not that I have a chance, but maybe I can at least hold my own).

Megan

What’s this? Carolyn is totally biting my ‘have nothing to say let’s be witty instead’ style of post?

Time for a throwdown. Only, since I tend to accept others’ premises (yes, therapists have long reminded me of that) I will likely defer to Carolyn’s superior insouciance.

So, shoot.

I got nothing.

Last week, I talked about doing NaNoWriMo; during the subsequent week, I’ve come to realize it is just not for me, but I am writing more than usual, so perhaps that is a nice side-effect of the NaNo Guilt?

I’m finishing up a short story set in the Regency about a returning soldier/viscount and the widow of his comrade. These two are quite different from the characters I’ve done in the past; the heroine is beautiful, and knows it. The hero is more beta than I think I’ve written before. He desires the heroine as soon as he meets her, but thinks she is above him. Because I’ve got nothing but my wit, here’s some of what I’ve been working on:

“What would you do if you had no responsibilities?” she asked, then immediately bit her lip as though regretting her question. Was she reading his mind? “Never mind, I should not have asked that.”

She turned with Joseph in her arms and began to set up a steady pace across the floor.

Mac’s heart hurt. “I think the prospect of no responsibilities was what led me to join the Army in the first place.” He watched as she paused before turning back towards him, maintaining the same slow walk. “But it didn’t work out that way.” He did not want to talk about himself, about what he should be doing. “What would you do?”

She met his gaze, her brown eyes narrowed in thought.

If he found her devastating when she was just being, it was nothing compared to what he thought when she was thinking. His knees actually felt weak.

“I think the same as you. No responsibilities.” She nodded to Joseph. “I’m not speaking of him.” She looked back up at him, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “I’ve just met him, and already can’t imagine life without him.”

Neither can I, Mac thought. A sudden pain hit his heart. When he left, he would be leaving Joseph. And her.

So–what would you do if you had no responsibilities?