What to do, what to do,what to do?
I’ve been taking a break from writing for a week while we had friends to stay. However, we drove them down to Munich Airport on Saturday, said a very sad farewell and now I’ve got to get down to work again.
The problem is what to do? I’ve got a lovely new naughty Regency ‘Merry Masquerade’ all ready to load but as always I tell myself I’ll give it one last edit before sending it out into cyberspace. It came burbling out of me like a tinkling, splashing mountain stream out of a highland tarn. I won’t say how quickly because no one would believe it was any good. But it is! I’ve put everything I know about comedy into it and I love my hero and heroine so much it’s no wonder they fell in love with each other.
On the other hand, I have almost finished another Regency, a clean, Jane Austenish one with a hero based on Beau Brummel and a heroine who would be very much at home in Kellynch Hall. I love the tone of this one but I’ve got stuck. I usually end with an elopement, kidnapping, fistfight or mayhem of some kind but it just doesn’t suit the rather lovely romance I’ve created. I could go back to Austen for inspiration but would anyone these days accept a letter from the hero proposing to his ‘too good, too excellent creature’ as the climax to a novel?
Alternatively, I could leave the Regency altogether and work on the second novel of my fantasy trilogy. I’ve got about half of it and I keep having lovely intriguing glimpses of where it’s going. I freewheel with the fantasy much more than the Regencies and although I have an outline, I love to deviate from it.
And lastly I’ve got a marvellous idea for a daring-do, Dornford Yates style ripping yarn set in Bavaria around the turn of the last century. My hero has been invalided out of the army after the Boer War and turns his hand to espionage at the suggestion of a chum in the Foreign Office. Should I get this down while it’s fresh?
Picture me with my head in my hands, bowed over my keyboard. Actually I’ll be sitting on the balcony trying to get some sun and reading Elizabeth Peters.