January Writing and February Goals
Jan. 31st, 2021 08:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI decided that it would complicate David and Robert too much to drag in the vast dysfunctional polycule of the interwar English intelligentsia. (That might become its own separate project, Bloomsbury Clusterfuck). But it still felt too abrupt to end the book with our heroes embarking on a long distance relationship while David is at university, so I’ve settled on wrapping it up a few years later, once he and Robert move into a London flat together.
(This also gives the book a bit more time and space to explore the fact that getting together did not, in fact, solve all of the heroes’ post-war nervous troubles, although having a solid loving relationship to fall back on makes it easier to cope with everything else.)
I haven’t yet finished this new draft, but unlike my earlier proposed endings this one seems solidly conclusive (although I’m still sorting out some structural difficulties). I’ve already written the getting-a-flat chapter and it’s tooth-rottingly sweet.
***
I’ve also been working away on my Christmas book for Kalikoi (Viola yearns to befriend fascinatingly sarcastic but emotionally closed off Kate, invites her home for Christmas to further this end, love etc.), but it’s not taking off, and as I wouldn’t be able to publish it till the Christmas season anyway, I’m going to turn my attention to a different college girls romance so I might have it ready… possibly not in time for Kalikoi’s debut… but hopefully for the summer, anyway.
Plain, academically intense Ruth (I’m thinking she might have a little mustache? Early 20th century novels seem to have focused on the mustache as the ne plus ultra of female ugliness, so Ruth could certainly have a complex) has a crush on her roommate, the sparkling madcap Judy. Ruth is sure Judy will never love her back because (a) the mustache, but also (b) Judy has never been serious about anything in her entire life.
(This also gives the book a bit more time and space to explore the fact that getting together did not, in fact, solve all of the heroes’ post-war nervous troubles, although having a solid loving relationship to fall back on makes it easier to cope with everything else.)
I haven’t yet finished this new draft, but unlike my earlier proposed endings this one seems solidly conclusive (although I’m still sorting out some structural difficulties). I’ve already written the getting-a-flat chapter and it’s tooth-rottingly sweet.
***
I’ve also been working away on my Christmas book for Kalikoi (Viola yearns to befriend fascinatingly sarcastic but emotionally closed off Kate, invites her home for Christmas to further this end, love etc.), but it’s not taking off, and as I wouldn’t be able to publish it till the Christmas season anyway, I’m going to turn my attention to a different college girls romance so I might have it ready… possibly not in time for Kalikoi’s debut… but hopefully for the summer, anyway.
Plain, academically intense Ruth (I’m thinking she might have a little mustache? Early 20th century novels seem to have focused on the mustache as the ne plus ultra of female ugliness, so Ruth could certainly have a complex) has a crush on her roommate, the sparkling madcap Judy. Ruth is sure Judy will never love her back because (a) the mustache, but also (b) Judy has never been serious about anything in her entire life.
