Story No. 2 Finished!!!!!

Finished "A Tangled Web" (WOOOHOO!!!!). Now I just need to type it all up (= three slim Moleskine notebooks) and then finish the third story (which is actually the first of the series) over the weekend.

Insights I gained during the last few days:

• I write faster by hand. Though why this should come as a surprise to me, I don't know - after all during my late teens and early twenties I used to write these monstrously long fantasy novels (all by hand!), and one of them I wrote within six weeks.
• While first-kiss scenes are really awkward to write, second-kiss scenes are much better.
• The more you know about social conventions in the 19th century, the more difficult it is to write about love and courtship during that time, especially when your characters don't belong to the aristocracy. Hmph. I try not to bend the rules too much, though I had to bend them a little for "A Tangled Web"
• I love the heroes of this series. They're all rather sweet, especially Robbie and Lawrence from the first two stories. Alex is a bit more intense, but then he is a tough adventurer, who travelled around the Wild, Wild West AND the Far East.

I'll leave you with a bit of hero-sweetness from "A Tangled Web":

He dragged her into the hallway, where they found his coat and her shawl -- the beautiful shawl he had given her. As he had done before, he draped it around her shoulders, then kissed the tip of her nose.

"Leave the bonnet," he whispered. "I love seeing your hair."

"It's not seemly."

His eyes twinkled with mischief when he leaned down to murmur against her ear, "I dare you to leave the bonnet."

How could she resist him?

First Kiss

Freshly written scene from the WIP:

"Sarah," she whispered, her gaze dropping to his mouth. "Call me Sarah." She glanced back up at him, her expression a curious mixture of nervousness and anticipation.

"Sarah," he repeated, desire deepening his voice. He searched her eyes, and then slowly, ever so slowly, leaving her plenty of time to protest or turn her head, he leaned forward. "Sarah," he murmured against her lips.

"Yes..."

His mouth covered hers, tentative at first, but as he felt her hand glide up to his shoulder, he became more demanding. He slid from his chair until he knelt in front of her, until he could slide one arm around her, until she moaned softly into his mouth.

He took the chance to deepen the kiss, to taste her, devour her.

Oh God, he couldn't get enough of her!

Now her hand was in his hair, the other one clutching at his shoulder, kneading his flesh as if to spurn him on.

His heart thundered in his ears, and his chest expanded with all that he felt for this woman until he thought he would burst with the joy of it. Half gasping, half laughing, he broke the kiss to look at her.

Her eyes opened slowly, languid with pleasure.

"Sarah," he whispered.

She blinked. A smile spread over her face, and all at once she glowed.

Evil Author

Today, I wanted to write a few happy scenes. You know, the kind where the hero and heroine fall deeper and deeper in love and everything's just SO NICE. The kind of scene that makes readers say "Awww!" and sigh happily and all that.

But because I'm an evil author, I ended up writing a scene in which I make my hero and heroine really, really, REALLY unhappy (which is a nice euphemism for "I demolished them") and which will probably make readers cry because it's all really, really sad.

Yup. I'm short and evil.

Sometimes the Muse works in strange ways...

... and needs a pen. *sigh*

(Hey, but I've got a smiley paperclip!) 

In Deadline Hell

In case anybody wonders: I haven't fallen off the edges of the earth, I've merely stumbled into deadline hell. I'm waaaaaay behind with this project, so it will be a small miracle if I manage to finish it in time. And as always, I worry that reading the outpourings of my Muse might kill my poor editor. In other words: Same procedure as every year. :-)

If you'd like to know what the image has to do with my WIP, sign up for my newsletter: http://eepurl.com/xqyU1 All will be revealed next week!