(Funny how prescient I was.  Everything that came after what I dared to post earlier changed.)

A quick glance at the excerpt is quite enough to illustrate the difference between this new book and my entire backlist.  All three of my already published books immediately set up the relationship: Private Arrangements plunges into a description of the perfect marriage of the Tremaines; Delicious says in the first line that it is a Cinderella story; and Not Quite a Husband opens on the night Bryony decides to seek an annulment.

By the end of the 2,500-word excerpt of His at Night, the H/H haven’t met yet–and wouldn’t for another 4000 words.  Phew, all that to just set up a meeting.  Yep, no reunited lovers in this story, no past to draw on for instant conflict, no shared history to exploit for poignancy and heartache, just two strangers who’d never clad eyes on each other before.

So that’s one huge difference.  Another is that this book was originally intended to be a comedy.  In fact, when my agent read the proposal–nothing of which has translated to the finished product, by the way–she thought it was a farce.  (After months of bawling my eyes out writing Not Quite a Husband, I was totally ready for teh funneh.)

At one point, I even openly declared that I was writing a Loretta Chase book, Mr. Impossible, to be specific, which I’d thoroughly enjoyed.  Mr. Impossible has a hero who is mistakenly thought by the heroine to be a dumb lummox at the beginning of the book.  His at Night has a hero who is mistakenly thought by the heroine to be a dumb lummox at the beginning of the book, ergo I must be writing Mr. Impossible.

As it turns out, I might have written the anti-Mr. Impossible.  Rupert, the titular Mr. Impossible, is about the most irrepressible, sunny, forthright fellow you can hope to meet in Romancedom.  Vere from His at Night is just the opposite, repressed, secretive, and, gulp, damaged.  I’ve never done a damaged hero before–wounded, yes, but not damaged.  Camden from PA and Leo from NQAH wouldn’t have a single problem if it weren’t for their women.  Even Stuart from Delicious, who’s had a rough childhood, is completely normal. But Vere, Vere is effed up.

So a romp this ain’t.  And although I think it is screamingly funny at times–a dangerous statement as nothing is more subjective than humor–it is also possibly the darkest book I’ve written.  A romantic dramedy, I guess, with a side of suspense.

Let me see.  What else is there in His at Night that I don’t normally do?  I know, a virgin.  Oh boy, this book hits all the possible highlights of a historical romance: a lordship who’s a secret agent, a virgin, a forced marriage, and an evil uncle.  We are only missing a duke–Vere is a marquess instead–and a ball.

And this has been a post in reader expectation management.  Thank you. 

And I do apologize.  I completely forgot that I hadn’t quite finished the series yet.  But we are almost there. 

Do your H/H affect each other’s growth?

Character growth can come from many different places.  But since we write romance, presumably our readers are most interested in growth that come from the events, realizations, epiphanies, and choices that originate from the core romantic relationship.

Pride and Prejudice–and I will totally challenge to a duel anyone who says P&P is not a romance—is beloved for precisely this reason.  [Well, and beautiful Pemberley too, but I will try to keep my shallowness in check here. ]

Read what Mr. Darcy says to Lizzie at the end of the book:

“Your reproof, so well applied, I shall never forget: ‘had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.’ Those were your words. You know not, you can scarcely conceive, how they have tortured me.”

….

“My object then was to show you, by every civility in my power, that I was not so mean as to resent the past; and I hoped to obtain your forgiveness, to lessen your ill opinion, by letting you see that your reproofs had been attended to.

In more modern parlance, Mr. Darcy basically said, “Honey, you were so right.  About everything!  And I’ve changed because I recognized just how doggone right you were.”

Swoon!

Long live Mr. Darcy.

And when I can treat myself to a new Kristan Higgins book, what strikes me the most is always the community that she builds: family, neighbors, friends, townspeople, a cohesive and caring whole. Her stories are affirming, without being treacly; funny, but still full of substance; and they always put a big smile on my face.

I have a non-drawback as a professional writer: I don’t get blocked.  I can get words on paper, lots of words, if they are what’s required.

Combine the first two, you have a delivered first draft of somewhat questionable quality

I have a possibly unusual aversion: I ban anything that is remotely true–or even reminiscent–of my personal life from the pages of my books.

I also have rather definite tastes in what I like as a romance reader: characters who have lots of legitimate beef with each other; characters who won’t make anyone else happy but each other.  I.e., somewhat strange, off-kilter relationships.

Which means that a lot of time when I’m just writing–and not thinking–I have no idea where this high-stake, grievance-laden, completely-unfamiliar-to-me relationship is going.  Who the heck are these people?  And why are their lives so eff-ed up?

Which means a first draft that goes entirely off the rail at some point: halfway, two-thirds, last quarter–maybe all of them.

Now let’s add one more somewhat strange aversion: I don’t like plot.  I don’t have anything against plots per se; I enjoy a good mystery, thriller, and SF as much as anyone else.  And one of the reasons I adore the first Harry Potter is precisely for the beauty of its impeccably woven plot.  I just don’t like a lot of external plot in a historical romance.  What I prefer is to place my characters in a situation, hopefully of their own making, and then just sit back and watch them dig their way out.  (Which in a first draft they typically end up tunneling directly into a sewer main, but hey, that just means they have to start over again.)

But HIS AT NIGHT had to have a plot, what with the hero being a secret agent and all.  But I resisted–oh, how I resisted.  In the first version I did away with the villain by chapter two–not the falling off a cliff only to come back at the end kind of doing away.  Dude was really, really dead and gone.  Buried.  Feeding maggots.  In the second version I offed him midway through the book.  Just have no interest in stand-alone villains.  Much more fun letting hero and heroine be their own worst villains.  And the hero is a secret agent?  Well, who gives a crap about the rest of his case once he has met the heroine.  Time for moody angst!

Have I mentioned that the first complete draft of HIS AT NIGHT was an EPIC FAIL?

Yes, it was.  *nods head sagely*  And this was  WITH my editor reading along the way, so as to avoid another first-draft fail.  Somehow her repeated advice that I give the story a backbone of a strong plot fell on deaf ears–or blind eyes, I guess, since we communicate almost exclusively by email.  I should have known, as in the final weeks before I handed in the first draft my head shattered in excruciating pain every time I worked on the damn thing–and my head never hurts while working on a book unless things are going horribly wrong.

At Despair.com–thanks Jessica RRR–there is a de-motivation poster that says, “PERSEVERANCE: The courage to ignore the obvious wisdom of turning back.”  That would be me.

So…the overhauls.

No need to talk about the versions that had been discarded along the way.  Following the first complete draft, the overhaul centered on that backbone of plot–for the events of the book to cohere.  It was a 60-70% rewrite.  Which did improve the plot very much but when the line edits came back, it became obvious–after my editor pointed it out left and right–that the book had lost a lot of its urgency and sharpness.  So at the line edit stage, which should be the writing equivalent of sprinkling the chopped parsley and maybe a bit more of freshly ground pepper on the finished dish, I cooked the darn dish from the beginning again–another 40-50% overhaul.

(I was hoping this would be NQAH amount of work, but it turned out to be DELICIOUS redux–ack!–and in half the time, no less.)

As I progressed through this final rewrite, whenever I refinished a portion of the book, I would send it to my beloved Janine, who was reading it for the first time, for copyediting–the amount of changes I’d made meant that the official copyedits, which was made on the same line-edited manuscript, weren’t as useful–and critiquing.

It soon became clear from Janine’s copious and meticulous comments that in all that wrestling with plot and coherence, I’d 1)forgotten how to properly structure a sentence and 2)far worse, largely neglected the emotions in certain key scenes.  The two stem from the same source, i.e., trying not to sink too much time on prose when the larger structure of the book remained unresolved.  But at some point, especially in a book about the matters of the heart, one has to sink into character and feel, and that is impossible with pages upon pages of just dialogue and action.

It was like learning to write all over again: delving into character emotions, developing insights, ratcheting up the tension, making scenes matter.

Everything was working beautifully up until the beginning of chapter 20.  As my deadline neared again, it dawn on me that I still hadn’t properly resolved one of the major issues near the end of the book, when secrets and lies burst open, past and present collide, and LOTS OF STUFF hang in balance, because my God, who the hell are these people and why are their lives so fucked and how am I supposed to know how anyone would do in such a FUBAR situation?  The last time I led a double-life and my lies exploded in my face was when I was in fifth grade, when it was finally discovered that I, the model student*, had stopped doing my homework weeks ago.

I stopped sleeping.  At one point, so sleep-deprived, I started writing a farce of an ending, giggling all the while.  My critique partner, Janine, who stayed up one whole night and half the next day with me–I can never be grateful enough–sagely put down her foot and told me to stop and take a nap.

I did managed to get down a non-farcical version and turn it in to the typesetter.  But less than 24 hours later, I realized how I really should have written it.  So, over the holidays, I went over most of the manuscript with a fine-toothed comb, and then took a ball-wrecker to the last 2.5 chapters.

Now I’m finally happy–ecstatic, actually–with the book.

I have been extraordinarily fortunate in this regard.  I have hated all my books during the writing.  All of them, passionately.  But somehow, by the magic of creative alchemy, by the time I get to the end, I am just in love: This book and I, we have come through so much, we have quarreled, fought, and battled through innumerable problems and now we have finally reached OUR happily ever after.

I often hesitate to recommend my books to people, because I never know how any given story of mine will interact with any given reader.  But this I can say: Whenever I look at one of my books on the shelf, I sigh and go, you are so perfect–for me.

And now HIS AT NIGHT has joined the ranks of those books that are perfect for me.

*Actually, by Chinese standards, I was a somewhat problematic student, but my grades kept my teachers from targeting me too hard.

Armstrong had been hurting for a while, his body issuing miscellaneous warning signs.  But like most young men, and I would imagine, especially like most young athletes in superb conditioning trained to withstand tremendous amount of pain and discomfort in the pursuit of glory, he ignored his symptoms.  And ignored them.  And ignored them.

Until one day he threw up a sinkful of blood.

If you are sufficiently plugged into the romance world, you already know that it’s been an eye-popping, jaw-dropping couple of days.  Harlequin’s announcement of the self-publishing (or is it vanity publishing) venture it has branded, the riveting threads at Dear Author and Smart Bitches, and RWA’s swift and dramatic rescission of Harlequin’s status as a RWA-recognized publisher this evening.

In a way, you can say that I have no dog in this fight.  Harlequin is not my publisher.  My personal eligibility status at RWA will not change.  And as I am so freaking slow writing for even one publisher, I really have not been eyeing anyone else in the business for potential contracts.

And yet I found myself on the phone this evening–a rare thing as I’m almost never on the phone–groaning together with my friend, who does write for Harlequin, among other publishers.  Her inbox has been inundated with hundreds of emails from the Harlequin author loops to which she belongs–and she gets her mail in digest form.

Afterwards I tried to explain the whole thing to His Hawtness, not just the facts of it, but why I was on the phone groaning.  And it was difficult.  The spouse is a very logical man.  He asked a series of very reasonable questions.  If there are already other vanity publishers, how does it make any difference that now there is another one?  If Harlequin Horizons tells people that they are paying for only possibilities, not concrete promised results, how does that hurt its current authors?  And how does anyone even know whether the venture would be a success, since the rates listed on the Harlequin Horizons website are, if not exorbitant, at least quite outside industry norms?

HIs Hawtness is not the only one asking such questions.  Jane of Dear Author, I believe, is also trying to nail down the exact source of the outpouring of discontent.  These two people have never clapped eyes on each other, but they have something in common: They have both long been aware of the decline and oncoming death of publishing as we currently know it.

We do too, we authors.  We see the unsustainable business model, the erosion of profits, and the stagnation of reading as a form of entertainment.  We prepare ourselves mentally for what news might come.  But we, in a sense, are Lance Armstrong: We are still ignoring the symptoms as much as we can.

Harlequin Horizon is that sinkful of blood that can no longer be ignored.  For me, it’s unease turning into anxiety.  For many other authors, I imagine it’s anxiety turning into near-panic.  How bad are things if Harlequin Enterprises, much envied and admired for its nimbleness, market penetration, and profitablity, not only turns to vanity publishing, but puts its vaunted brand name on the venture?

I understand business cycles.  I understand the changes often happen in bursts.  I even understand that Harlequin might NOT be pressured by its struggling parent company to produce maximum cash to help the entire conglomerate’s bottom line, but simply decided on its own to respond to a changing environment by trying something unprecedented.  But that does not alter the fact that the formation of Harlequin Horizons and the subsequent reactions to it together comprise the most visceral signal I have encountered thus far on just what kind of convulsive, likely cataclysmic changes there will be.

Let me make myself clear.  I am not saying that Harlequin Horizons will bring down publishing–far from it.  Publishing is already going down.  If publishing is the Titanic, then the current brouhaha surrounding HH is not the iceberg–not at all–but the scraping sound and the jolt that alert the passengers after the fact that something has gone awry.

If you’ve seen the movie, you know what happened.  Pandemonium.  First-class passengers got on the lifeboats while steerage passengers drowned.  And a lot of us authors, not to put too fine a point on it, are steerage passengers on the good ship Titanic.  What is going to happen to us now?

To me, that, more than anything else specifically about Harlequin Horizons as a venture, is the reason for the hundreds of email digests my friend is receiving from her fellow Harlequin authors.  It is the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.  It capstones all the worries and jitters that those of us who still have contracts have been experiencing–and fighting.

Of course, there is still hope.  To go back to the example at the beginning of this post, Lance Armstrong not only survived cancer, he went on to an astonishing athletic career, achieving more than he ever did before.  Who knows, maybe there will be a renaissance of reading.  Maybe the business will finally arrive at a sustainable, responsible, and profitable model.  Maybe we will in the end have less number of books published overall, but a far greater number of outstanding books.

But in the meanwhile, between that sinkful of blood and eventual glory, there were some awfully rough times for Armstrong.  And there will be in this industry for us.  No doubt about it now.

ETA: This post is very much influenced by Lynne Connolly’s post at The Good, The Bad, and The Unread, which I read last week.

It was an overhaul again–HIS AT NIGHT, that is. One of those days I’d love to have only revisions but so far it’s been overhaul after overhaul. It’s still not finished yet, but it’s getting there and of course it was worth it.

Heard briefly from my fellow blogger Meredith at the end of October. She is superbusy in India but will hopefully be able to breathe easier soon. We miss you, Meredith.

And now onto the covers.

First up, German PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS.  I have seen some German covers before–I think the Smart Bitches fugged one Laura Kinsale cover that was spectacularly clashingly purple and pink or some such hot mess.  And I wanted one of those:  Every historical romance writer should have an old-skool cover.  But I got a perfectly tasteful one instead.  A Regency, which totally cracks me up, since I write about 90 years later.  My German editor was apologetic for the wrong hair color on the hero, as apparently publishing houses there do not have a huge pool of covers from which to choose.  The title translates into “An Almost Perfect Marriage.”

The Thai cover for NOT QUITE A HUSBAND had me jazzed.  It’s my first landscape cover.  Folks, I’ve arrived!    The mountains on the cover look more like the north of Spain than the Himalayas, but it is very lovely indeed.  (And let’s face it, the Everest brings to mind oxygen deprivation and chilblains rather than passion’s undying flame.)  (Hmm, passion’s undying flame.  I think my dream job would have been to write blurbs for romances in the seventies and early eighties.)

And if I were a bestselling author, as is alleged on this cover, I need to know. 

Especially when the hero/heroine is viewed through the eyes of the other.

1. This is a very legitimate way to build physical awareness.  Because as one character is taking in the other physically and processing that information, they are, by the very nature of that act, becoming increasingly physically aware of that person.
2. We are full of minor, interesting imperfections that if we observe about ourselves, would make us come across as either anal or appearance obsessed.  By having another character do it, particularly if it is a little detail that might not even get noticed by someone paying less attention, underscores that person’s physic al interest in us.
3. By what he or she notices, you are revealing things about the POV character.
4. By what he or she thinks as he or she observes the other character, you are revealing even more about the POV character.

And here is a massterful example from Meredith Duran, excerpted from Bound by Your Touch:

“You think a great deal of your intelligence.”

She pursed her lips.  The movement exposed a hint of dimple.  In conjunction with her starchy manner, it seemed wholly incongruous. A mere anatomical fluke, he told himself; just a trick of her tightened lips.  Nevertheless, he found himself staring at it, wondering what he might do to make it deepen.  Breathy gasps, flashing dimples: the idea came to him that Miss Boyce’s body liked to sabotage her.

“Of course I do.  I’m a woman.  If I don’t think highly of my intellect, who will?”

He wrested his eyes from the dimple.  Such a peculiar mix of affront and bravado. Her sisters were the acknowledged beauties, but Miss Boyce had her own charms—made particularly visible now, in the context of her improvisational honesty.  Her eyes were alert with intelligence.  The other night, he had looked into them and discovered they were heavy-lidded.  This gave her a perpetually sleepy appearance, so she looked always as if she had just risen from bed.  He smiled, suddenly won over.  She had risked her own comfort to come here.  Let her have her victory.  “Touché, darling.”

She did not like the endearment.  Her face, so bright when she defended her learning, went as dark as a shuttered window.  “But let me come to the point.  You must wonder why I’m here.”

“To beg forgiveness for your father’s foul deeds, I suppose.”

Her mouth tightened further.  Christ, but that dimple conspired against her.  It drew attention to her mouth, which was overly wide and completely unfashionable, and suggested prospects that were not appropriate to the moment.  Or, for that matter, precisely legal.

Amusement stirred in him.  Odd, unexpected, and undeniable: he was wholly attracted to her.  At some primal level, his body took note of hers.  The imperative it issued was blunt and unpolished: five thousand years ago, he would have dragged her off to a cave somewhere.  And no doubt Miss Boyce of the Stone Age, bereft of an education to sharpen her tongue, would have sharpened a rock instead, and neatly gutted him.

Now of course this is fair, as Meredith is probably the prose stylist among our generation of romance writers.  But this is a perfect example of how to deepen chemistry through what for another writer might be a throwawa bit of dialogue: the noticing and interpretation of quirks, the increasing physical attraction, the ironic self-awareness on the hero’s part.

Learn from the best, I say. 

Here it is!

The art department will be working to make the dress pop more from background.  I asked for my usual corrections (longer fingers and less boob on the hero).  And then, making my agent laugh her head off, I asked for a daintier foot on the heroine.

But other than those minor quibbles, I love this  cover.  Love the color and the flounces on her dress.  Love that there is more ladyback and less mantitty.   Besides, this cover continues the tradition of putting my heroine in a dress she never wears in the book. 

When I get the final cover, we’ll do a side-by-side (or more likely a top-by-bottom) comparison to see if I get my wishes.

And in other news, the release date for HIS AT NIGHT is now May 25, 2010.

Updates below the fold. 

Update 1:

The art department works fast. I have the revised cover with the higher contrast.  The heroine now has a fabulously smooth and un-stout foot. And the hero more stubbles, which I’d also asked for.  Don’t see that much difference in the length of his fingers, but I can live with that.

I approve. 

Though of course now that her foot is lovely, my Anna Wintour gaze of unrelenting criticism has landed on the heroine’s back.  My editor concurs that it needs further smoothing.  So now we await the next round of photo-shopping.

(After going through the cover process a few times, I have a certain sympathy for the editors of the glossy magazines and the art directors of advertising shoots.  You should have heard the numerous complaints I made about the first version of DELICIOUS’s cover; I was unhappy with the model from nose to hip.  I even said aloud to my editor whether I wasn’t part of the problem perpetuating the illusion of the perfect body with my demands for beautiful, smooth everything.

But then on the other side is the need to present a perfect–or as perfect as possible–image for a product we need to sell.  Sigh.)

Update 2:

And voila, back is smooooooooooooooth. 

I have to say, I’m glad to see a little meat on her bones, especially since I gave her weight as nine-and-half stones.  Not heavy, but not featherweight either.

A perfect example below, from the Loretta Chase classic Lord of Scoundrels:

“Perhaps I had better demonstrate how the thing operates,” said Dain, yanking her attention to him.

In his low voice, Jessica recognized the too innocent tones that inevitably preceded a male’s typically idiotic idea of a joke.  She could have explained that, not having been born yesterday, she knew very well how the timepiece operated.  But the glint in his black eyes told her he was mightily amused, and she didn’t want to spoil his fun.  Yet.

“How kind,” she murmured.

“When you turn this knob,” he said, demonstrating, “as you see, her skirts divide and there, between her legs, is a-” He pretended to look more closely.  “Good heavens, how shocking.  I do believe there’s a fellow kneeling there.”  He held the watch closer to her face.

“I’m not shortsighted, my lord,” she said, taking the watch from him.  “You are quite right.  It is a fellow-her lover apparently, for he seems to be performing a lover’s service for her.”

She opened her reticule, took out a small magnifying glass, and subjected the watch to very narrow study, all the while aware that she was undergoing a similar scrutiny.

“A bit of enamel has worn off the gentleman’s wig and there is a minute scratch on the left side of the lady’s skirt,” she said.  “Apart from that, I would say the watch is in excellent condition, considering its age,though I strongly doubt it will keep precise time.  It is not a Breguet, after all.”

She put away the magnifying glass and looked up to meet his heavy-lidded gaze.  “What do you think Champtois will ask for it?”

“You want to buy it, Miss Trent?” he asked.  “I strongly doubt your elders will approve of such a purchase.  Or have English notions of propriety undergone a revolution while I’ve been away?”

“Oh, it isn’t for me,” she said.  “It’s for my grandmother.”

She had to give him credit.  He never turned a hair.

“Ah, well, then,” he said.  “That’s different.”

See what I mean?  With her poise and her presence of mind, Jessica Trent forcibly strikes Lord Dain as an equal–or at least as someone he could not easily dismiss.  Tremendous chemistry in that book and little wonder.

Another excellent example would be the movie Mr. & Mrs. Smith–and if you haven’t seen it, please do so at your earliest convenience.  The whole of Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a metaphor for the modern marriage.  At the beginning of the movie the titular couple have fallen into a complete familiarity-breeds-contempt rut.  Then, as they discover each other’s secret identity, things heat up–they have to consider the person they thought they knew in a whole different light.  And during one of the movie’s pivotal scenes, when they are fighting mano-a-mano, that mutual respect is literally pounded, kicked, and whacked into them.  And the old fire roars back to life because there is now something much stronger to feed it.

What makes for good chemistry?  Great conflict.

What makes for great conflict?  As my critique partner Janine asks, what are the lies that your character tells himself to get through the day?  Who is the person who by the very fact of her existence, by everything she says and does, exposes your character’s lies to himself as just that, lies?

In other words, who is this person who would cause the greatest amount of emotional disturbance in your character?  Who is the person your character most fears for the truth she represent, and yet who cannot be dismissed, precisely because of the truth she represents?

Put these two people together and you have tension, conflict, and chemistry.

Example:

People could not keep their eyes off her.  Yes, she played it very well indeed, the role of the simple, serene martyr, giving up her life and all its brilliant promises to save her people from annihilation.

She basked in the attention.  And she broiled in it.  This had been the part of her Calling she loved the most–that was, before she came to hate the Calling itself.  She still got shivers from it, the way some people looked at her, in sincere, almost head-shaking admiration.

And then there would be others who watched her because she was the freak, a dead woman walking.

Ten days.  They were all that remained to her, before she marched into the maws of death.

If she marched into the maws of death.

“May I have this next dance?”

She turned around slowly.  There were exactly nineteen mobilecams bobbing in the air about her, several representing various media outlets from her home planet of Pax Cara, the rest bearing logos of the interstellar communication conglomerates that were on hand to cover the glamorous goings-on.

The mobilecams had been trained on her, as she gazed up at the dance sphere, her expression the tranquil wistfulness she’d long ago perfected for such occasions.  And she knew just what the voiceover would say too, above heroic music played at a muted volume: What is going through the mind of this young woman, knowing that the fate of her people rests on her shoulders, that her life will end before it has fully begun, and yet her name will live forever?

The man who asked for the next dance had just as many mobilecams hovering around him.  Eleian of Terra Illustrata, the most beloved prince in living memory, the one person she resolutely did not want to meet.

The heir of a non-ruling house, he’d come of age during a time of great instability for his thirty-system principality.  A decade-long civil war that had begun before he was born had produced a dictator who held power by brutal oppression.  After the dictator’s death, chaos threatened to reign once again.

With almost unbearable courage–for his life could have been forfeit at any point-the young prince had stepped in and stood up to those who sought power solely for their own gain.  Against all odds, he’d guided his people back to their nearly forgotten tradition of representative government.

“Your Highness,” she said, with a searing admiration.  And envy.  And a resentment that almost choked her.  His had been true valor, whereas hers was but the appearance of it.

And he’d survived.

“My lady,” he inclined his head.

She was a commoner.  But here the media had taken to call her a prince of her people, and styled her accordingly.

The mobilecams swarmed close, eager to capture the expression on her face.  What would they see?  She had not practiced for this, for dealing with this one man who reminded her with his very existence the fraud that she was-and the bigger fraud that she planned and prayed to be.

(This is from a SF romance novella that I’m working on, as part of the One Beginning anthology with Janine, Meredith, and Bettie Sharpe.)

He certainly disturbs her on a most profound level, doesn’t he, merely by breathing?  And I swear I didn’t alter it after hearing about Janine’s remarkable thesis on chemistry.  This was how I conceived it: the one who plans to run from her burdens vs the one who faced his head on.

Come to think of it.  It actually gets a little better.

“Then why?” she asked.  Why would anyone want to marry a woman who was about to die a very public death?

“The Quiet Girl,” he said.

The Quiet Girl was a documentary film about her, shot when she’d been seventeen.  It had been produced as summer project by a pair of student filmmakers and sent to a Sector-wide vis-media festival on a lark.  To the surprise of everyone involved the film had been selected for inclusion at the festival; to their further shock it had won the grand prize.

The film’s subsequent dissemination had garnered her a degree of interstellar fame that had been unheard of on Pax Cara.  She’d always turned down each and every request for her to go off-world: Modesty, or at least the appearance of it, was an important part of her persona.  But she had enjoyed it, the fame, and the adulation that came with it.

“What of The Quiet Girl?” She hoped he didn’t hear the tremor in her voice.

“I saw it when I was nineteen–and struggling with the course of my life.  I had my aerie in the mountains.  Our princely hold of Terra Luminare was at peace.  I needed not involve myself in distant political turmoils.  Moreover I was afraid: I’d had little dealing with the more uncouth elements in life.

“I was inclined toward cowardice until I watched your story.  Your determination and wisdom quite shamed me.  And you faced certain death, whereas I face only danger and the possibility of bodily harm.”

Stop, she wanted to say.  Stop.  That me no longer exists.

But she listened with a stark hunger.

“And whenever I thought my courage might fail me, I would watch it again.  I can recite word for word what you said near the end of the film: ‘I would have liked to live a thousand years, for life is such a remarkable and marvelous thing, is it not?  And yet I cannot say I regret being chosen for this task.  I live more incandescently for it.  And I am not afraid to die when I have lived so.’”

She’d watched The Quiet Girl not too long ago, hoping to find a renewal of courage in her unquestioning bravery of old.  Bu all she’d felt, as she watched herself give that little speech, had been a numb despair.

He brought them into a closer spin.  “It would be a privilege if you would accept my suit and allow me to share the rest of you days.”

The rest of her days.  All ten of them, unless she managed her escape.

I think Janine might say I did pretty well in setting up this conflict.    It’s not a particular original conflict, that of the erstwhile romantic ideal fallen from the pedestal.  But it is a good one.  Oh boy, is it a good one.

Rest assured that the rest of the examples I will use are not mine.  I wasn’t going to use any of mine at all.  But there I was, at the hotel in D.C., fretting over my workshop which wasn’t coming together, and boom comes Janine’s remarkable insight–related by Meredith, I must add.  And suddenly I said to myself, wait a minute, I have something exactly like that on my C drive.    And it went into my workshop.  The first part, that is.  I didn’t even think of how the second part works on the same principle until I was putting together this blog post.

Next one in the series in a couple of days.

And in the meanwhile, today I’m being interviewed at Romantic Crush Junkies.  Come say hi.