Secular fiction, series idea, Elizabeth Jackson

6/30/04

Just random thoughts, today. I'm not feeling well and called in sick at work. I don't think I'm prego (and I hope I'm not) but I also know that anything's possible with God.

There's an interesting discussion about Secular and Christian fiction on the ACRW email discussion loop (American Christian Romance Writers, www.acrw.net). Where do I fit in? I'm not very interested in "sweet" romances, but my current wip(s) are turning out to be too "preachy" to be secular. Will God allow me to be published? Will He allow me to write full-time someday?

I had a good evening last night developing the storyline and characters for my wip. God is so good. The ideas just flowed, despite the fact I wasn't feeling very well. I've almost got a handle on Aiden's story.

I also got an idea to link my first ms THE CORINTHIAN RULES with Aiden's story into a series. Four cousins, all Christians, trying to cope with the stigma of OSFC: Oldest Single Female Cousin. My husband laughed, because no matter where you go, there will be people in any Asian family who will target anyone (male or female) who's single--"When are you going to get a boyfriend? You're not doing your family duty. You're not looking hard enough. Your poor parents."

The agent I'd contacted emailed to tell me that he'd like to represent me. Praise God! At the same time, I'm both excited and scared. I hope this turns out to be a good agent/writer relationship. I had Neal's lawyer uncle look over the sample Agency Agreement the agent emailed to me. I wrote the agent back with two changes Uncle David said I needed in the contract, but at the same time, I felt uncomfortable requesting them. After all, who am I (lowly unpublished peon) to request contract changes from an agent who's done tons of standard contracts?

I also just read "A Brilliant Alliance" by Elizabeth Jackson, an old Signet Regency romance. I wish she'd written more books. The heroine was smart, practical, logical and likeable, the hero's motives and actions were interesting and believable. Her prose is more old-fashioned, a bit similar to Jane Austen rather than the current popular style.

I just made a list on Amazon of Little-known Regency authors, my favorites. It was fun and gratifying to list the older titles that hooked me into Regencies in the first place.

Well, back to writing.

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Toilet seat cover

Captain’s Log, Supplemental Update August 2008: I wrote up the pattern for this with "improvements"! Here's the link to my No Cold Bums toilet seat cover ! Okay, remember a few days ago I was complaining about the cold toilet seat in my bathroom? Well, I decided to knit a seat cover. Not a lid cover, but a seat cover. I went online and couldn’t find anything for the seat, just one pattern for the lid by Feminitz.com . However, I took her pattern for the inside edge of the lid cover and modified it to make a seat cover. Here it is! It’s really ugly stitch-wise because originally I made it too small and had to extend it a couple inches on each side. I figured I’d be the one staring at it, so who cared if the extension wasn’t perfectly invisible? I used acrylic yarn since, well, that’s what I had, and also because it’s easy to wash. I’ll probably have to wash this cover every week or so, but it’s easy to take off—I made ties which you can see near the back of the seat. And

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Grace Livingston Hill romances free to read online

I wanted to update my old post on Grace Livingston Hill romances because now there are tons more options for you to be able to read her books for free online! I’m a huge Grace Livingston Hill fan. Granted, not all her books resonate with me, but there are a few that I absolutely love, like The Enchanted Barn and Crimson Roses . And the best part is that she wrote over 100 books and I haven’t yet read them all! When I have time, I like to dive into a new GLH novel. I like the fact that most of them are romances, and I especially appreciate that they all have strong Christian themes. Occasionally the Christian content is a little heavy-handed for my taste, but it’s so interesting to see what the Christian faith was like in the early part of the 20th century. These books are often Cinderella-type stories or A Little Princess (Frances Hodgson Burnett) type stories, which I love. And the best part is that they’re all set in the early 1900s, so the time period is absolutely fasci

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Camy's Big News about a new (old) series!

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Knitted Bible cover

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