Still brr – and still busy

[erastes]

Ok – the editor thinks that the alternative ending to Muffled Drum might solve the problems she sees with it, and it’s lucky I have the unused portion saved. Although not luck, really, I never delete ANY words, once written - that’s my motto, I have several Standish scenes still that never got used. So today I’ll be incorporating that missing scene into MD, and making sure that the plotlines all tie up with the slightly different ending, as it will affect both characters emotionally and I really don’t want a big weepy girl ending, but neither can I have a happy clappy ending either. OK, now I’m disturbed at the image of tough Prussian hussars with tambourines. KUM BA YA!!!

I also need a sex scene, which will be harder to do. Once upon a time I had no trouble writing sex scenes, and now I’d rather leave much to the imagination. But I’m told the readers won’t like that, so I will bow to the publisher’s needs here. I like to try and write one novel for me and one novel for a romance audience—still for me, if you get what I am on about—I don’t cynically appraise who any particular novel is “for” other than “if i’m planning to sell this to a romance publisher then it’s probably better if rocks don’t fall and everyone doesn’t die” and “you do need to have your protagonists having sex at least once please?”

I’ve been saving the half coconut shells that you buy with bird food in them – once they are empty – and today I filled them with a mixture of lard, suet and seeds. It hasn’t taken Dad’s starlings more than five minutes to discover them and there is much scoffing going on. The bush telegraph has got around about food to be had and we have about eight wood pigeons at a time. I don’t mind them, after all, they’ve got to eat too, but they do tend to hoover everything up. Today I’ve thrown a load of food under the bushes where the sparrows live, and hope they get more of a chance. It’s small parakeet mix, rather than wild bird food, and no one much likes the millet. it must the bird equivalent of liver and brussel sprouts.(although i love liver and sprouts, with creamy mash and onion gravy… nom…)

As for us – we are having sausage casserole.  ETA: it was DELICIOUS!

Just discovered that there are no delivery slots left for either Tesco or Sainsbury’s before Christmas so I’m going to have to go to the shop. Bah. We aren’t going mad with Christmas of course. Mum’s death anniversary is the 23rd, although I won’t remind Dad of it, so it puts a dampener on the season for us, that can’t be helped. It’s just us, and we are going out Christmas Day, so I’ll do a beef or lamb roast on Boxing Day, as I can’t get goose, and we aren’t huge turkey fans. Now I have to find a picture of a huge turkey fan. “Let me entertain you…”

i love the internet – you can find anything

Found the opening episode of Dexter season 3 to be rather yawny. Hope it improves. Angel (the vampire series, not the detective within Dexter) went the same baby route and I loathed that season.

Hometime, off I go into the fog.

Comments

[raevgray.livejournal.com]

The opening of Dexter season 3 is rather yawny, but the season itself is still my favorite thus far, I think.

[anderyn.livejournal.com]

In re: the missing sex scene -- I really do not know why so many romance readers find a book boring if the sex scenes are not there, or are not "hot" enough. Maybe it's because I'm an old lady, and I've read hundreds of sex scenes in my time, but I find them more often than not, boring as hell and not worth the paper (or electrons) they're printed on. Because they don't advance the characters, they don't advance the story, they are just there like a big naked lump. I can't tell you how many times I've complained about a book "It's got a great premise and an interesting story, but it keeps going off the rails to include a sex scene!" I don't know how or why publishers got it into their heads that any book with any romance at all needs a sex scene, but I just wish they'd let the authors write what comes naturally for that story and for those characters. (Not to say I don't appreciate a good sex scene that IS advancing the story, mind you.)

[erastes.livejournal.com]

i do agree with you- they must be integral, and the editor is right in this case because the main characters dont do itand they should, once!!

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

Thinking with my reader hat on, I'm not convinced by the 'all romances need a sex scene' argument. But then I like scenes that advance the plot, and I've seen plenty of sex scenes where the plot would move forward just as efficiently with a fade-to-black.

With my writer hat on, I'm busily panicking about the opposite: 'how much sex has there been in the last three chapters?!?' except that I can't see how the self-discovery plotline can work unless my protagonist, well, 'discovers' herself.

I like the huge turkey fan.