Checking In on Ferguson and Madeleine

I am absolutely wrecked. I wrote ~5500 words today, which translates into almost twenty-five pages. I love some of it, I'm struggling with other parts of it -- and now that I've hit page one hundred (!), I need to start figuring out where this story is going and how Ferguson and Madeleine are going to get there and fall in love at the same time.

One of the issues I'm currently concerned about is Ferguson himself. I adore him, the people who've read AN INCONVENIENT MARRIAGE seemed to adore him -- in short, he was the logical hero for my second book. But, I sometimes wonder if the very things that made him adorable do not make him good, stereotypical "hero" material. In essence, he is an alpha male masquerading very successfully as one of the Regency's prototypical metrosexuals -- he feigns a lot of concern for his wardrobe, to the point that even other Regency dandies would find him a bit ridiculous. For example, at one point in today's marathon writing session, Ferguson showed up at a ball with a fan -- a completely over-the-top affectation that amuses Madeleine even as her more serious guardian is appalled by Ferguson's behavior.

I personally find this all very entertaining. But perhaps that's to be expected -- my best friend from high school and I still occasionally send postcards to each other from a sexually-ambiguous globetrotting spy who enjoys both dangerous situations and really great sex. Strange insight into my teenage years, given that we came up with this character to alleviate the excruciating boredom of our typing class, but I digress.

What do you think? Do you want your heroes to be the strong, silent (or grunting, Viking) type? Or are you willing to accept someone who spends too much time tying his cravats and who wears better clothes than the heroine?

I Can't Wait For This Book!

My tastes are clearly too obviously terrible. One of my friends sent me an email this week saying, "Dude this book just screams Sara."















Despite any embarrassment I may feel at encouraging the debasement of one of the classics of English literature, I'm still going to order it. I do love me some zombies, as evidenced by the fact that I own both THE ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE and the movie SHAUN OF THE DEAD (in which, coincidentally, a high school classmate's husband played a zombie who was taken out by a well-thrown record).

Which terrible books are you looking forward to?

Updates From the Agent Search

I'm actively seeking an agent -- a nervewracking process punctuated by fits of euphoria and bouts of depression. Several of my friends are applying for business school, and while their applications are much more time-consuming (pages upon pages of essays, packets for recommenders, and of course application fees and GRE scores), they at least have the solace of knowing that by April or May, everything will be decided and they will know where they are going. Looking for an agent offers no such guarantees -- an agent may take a month to get back to you because they're just that backlogged, or they may never get back to you because your email was eaten by their spam filter. It would be nice to know that by X date I will either have an agent or must switch gears, but that won't happen.

Instead, I'm keeping a close eye on my submissions and sending out more letters when agents I've queried have not gotten back to me within their self-set guidelines. I'm actually doing pretty well -- I've had three requests for partials (the first fifty pages)! I rewrote my query letter in January and have sent out six queries since then. Three resulted in partial requests, and the other three have not been responded to yet.

At the very least, it's good to know that I can apparently write a decent query letter. The waiting is nervewracking, but I feel like I'm taking tentative baby steps towards my goal of publication. Seriously, I cannot remember a time in recent memory when I was as blissfully happy as I was the morning that I got my first request for a partial from an agent. Hopefully I'll have more of those feelings and less of the "why doesn't anyone like me?" feelings in the coming weeks.

Historical vs. "Historical"

I wasn't as productive with the book tonight as I would have liked. I spent far too much time playing around on Wikipedia, abandoning my recent tactic of putting [CHECK] after any dubious or uncertain historical fact while writing the first draft. This tactic is a good one, since it encourages me to stay out of the interweb and away from doing a 'quick' lookup that leads into a three-hour journey down a variety of rabbit-holes. But I was debating whether to give Ferguson a fan, since the most over-the-top dandies seem to have some sort of ridiculous affectation, and that led to a lot of reading up on fashion websites.

The problem is that there is real history, in terms of contemporary accounts, well-researched nonfiction, etc. And then there is 'romance history' -- the world that Regency romance has built up over several decades, with 'rules' and 'facts' that are now accepted as the gold standard by most readers, but that just aren't very historically accurate. For instance, the waltz -- it wasn't danced at all in the early Regency, was still seen as very risque during the mid-Regency, and only came into wider acceptance in 1815 or 1816 (or later, depending on your source). But every Regency romance has the hero and heroine waltzing with each other, because the other dances of the time were more group-style (think country line-dancing, only without the boots, plaid, and awful music), and group dances where the hero and heroine are only together for bits and pieces aren't conducive to flirty conversations.

So now I have a dilemma on my hands. Do I write a romance that is as grounded in fact as possible, even if that means doing away with conventions that are accepted (and even expected) by most readers? Or do I ignore some of this and accept that these romances aren't historically accurate anyway, and just write stories that are fun and engaging? What do you prefer to read?

Recently Read: KISS OF THE DEMON KING by Kresley Cole

Over the weekend, I stepped away from my own book long enough to read KISS OF THE DEMON KING. I've been waiting for this book for months -- it's the next installment of Kresley Cole's IMMORTALS AFTER DARK series. She set up this one perfectly; at the end of the previous book, the hero of that book goes to his brother's house, and it's clear that some serious craziness is going down in the brother's life. That craziness is, of course, the fact that the brother (Rydstrom, a demon king) was kidnapped by Sabine, the Queen of Illusions, to father her child, and he eventually turns the tables and gets his revenge.

This is a romance, so things like kidnapping, pseudo-rape (they both ultimately consent), and revenge are all forgiveable in the end. Kresley Cole helps herself out by making it very clear that Rydstrom and Sabine are fated to be mates for eternity -- in her world-building, most immortal types only get one shot at love, and it's a predestined kind of thing. So, if you're not willing to forgive your mate for kidnapping you for her pleasure, you're basically turning your back on ever finding anyone else. Clever, eh?

Overall, I thought it was good. I liked how ridiculously non-stereotypical Sabine was; she starts off as an 'evil sorceress', and this leaves room for her to do and say things that romance's usual good girls would never consider. I also liked how Rydstrom developed throughout the book, eventually modifying his overly kingly behavior to embrace some of life's messiness (in the form of sex with a hot sorceress, of course).

And I was so into this book that I took it with me on the bus when I went out for dinner on Saturday -- and actually told my friends that if I got bored with them, I would go back to reading demon romance. If you're willing to risk social ostracism, that's a good sign of a book's appeal. Bottom line: if you're into paranormals, you should read this book (and the whole series, starting with A HUNGER LIKE NO OTHER). If you don't like paranormals, or are not willing to read anything with light bondage, skip it.