I just finished writing Year of the Dog ! It had a massive plot hole that I had to fix which turned out to be more work than I expected. Here’s a snippet: “Hey, Auntie Nell.” He wrapped his arms around her, bussing her on the cheek and breathing in pikake flowers and shortbread cookies. And suddenly he was nine years old again, and her solid presence had made his chaotic world stable once more. “What are you doing here?” He usually took her to dinner on Wednesday nights, but today was Tuesday. The edges of her smile faltered a little before brightening right back up again. “What, I can’t visit my nephew?” She angled around him to enter his home. “Is this your new house? Looks lovely.” Which was a blatant lie, because the fixer-upper was barely livable, much less acceptable to a neat-freak like his aunt. She also left four matching pink and purple floral suitcases on the stoop behind her. Only then did Ashwin notice the cab driver standing slightly to the side of the walkway. “Can ...
I hope everyone is doing well and not getting too stir-crazy from the shelter in place.
Things are not that much different for me since I work from home, although it’s kind of nice having Captain Caffeine working from home, too. I try not to bother him when he’s working so we kind of ignore each other most of the time, but we usually eat lunch together, which is really nice. When he was working at his workplace, I would only drive to eat lunch with him once every few months.
Lately I’ve been working hard on my Lady Wynwood’s Spies series, a Regency romantic adventure. (If you’re a writer, I’m also blogging daily about my writing at Camy’s Writing Diary Blog in an experiment to document my writer’s process and try to improve my productivity. It might not interest every writer, but I wanted to put it out there in case it could help some writers struggling with their writing habits.)
When I’m writing Regency, I like to read a lot of Regency romances to get into the mindset of Regency England and also immerse myself in the language of that genre.
However today I realized that the majority of the books I own and have read are traditional Regency romances, which are most similar to Jane Austen’s novels, while the series I’m writing is … well, not. It’s a multi-protagonist historical romance series, with a (tiny) bit of supernatural stuff and lots of action and a bit of humor.
It’s kind of like a long-running, multi-character series like Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, except instead of an overpowered main protagonist, I have two slightly more normal people, and instead of a harem of girls, I have a team of men and women. And it’s set in Regency England without magic. It’s weird, right???
Basically, I wanted to write a Regency romance series kind of like a shoujo Japanese light novel series (aimed at young girls), of which there aren’t that many since most light novel series seem to be aimed at young men. I think Lady Wynwood’s Spies would be most similar to the Japanese light novel series Migawari Hakushaku 身代わり伯爵 (roughly translated, “The Scapegoat Earl”) by Mimori Seike 清家未森 (although I haven’t read the light novels, only the scanlated manga adaption). My series is a bit less farcical in the comedy, has a little bit of paranormal stuff, has a Christian message, and has a slightly darker overarching story mystery.
When I started writing it, I thought my series would have more scenes set in Regency high society, but it’s turning out not to have many of those scenes at all (which I’m kind of disappointed about). Most of the books I own are set in Regency high society—after all, that’s the greatest appeal of Regency romances! For me, anyway.
For a few wild and insane minutes I seriously considered changing the plot of my entire Lady Wynwood series to be more like other traditional Regency romances. (Yeah, I know, but it was only for a few minutes.)
But then I came back into my right mind and remembered that I actually really like my series plot and made it a “Regency romantic adventure” on purpose. I wanted to write a series that was like Mission Impossible but in England in 1811!
So, I’m not sure if my series is going to appeal to traditional Regency romance readers. But I’m writing a story I’m really excited about and which is probably really different from what’s already out there. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, right? I’m praying God will lead readers to my books who will enjoy it.
Everybody, stay safe!
Camy
Things are not that much different for me since I work from home, although it’s kind of nice having Captain Caffeine working from home, too. I try not to bother him when he’s working so we kind of ignore each other most of the time, but we usually eat lunch together, which is really nice. When he was working at his workplace, I would only drive to eat lunch with him once every few months.
Lately I’ve been working hard on my Lady Wynwood’s Spies series, a Regency romantic adventure. (If you’re a writer, I’m also blogging daily about my writing at Camy’s Writing Diary Blog in an experiment to document my writer’s process and try to improve my productivity. It might not interest every writer, but I wanted to put it out there in case it could help some writers struggling with their writing habits.)
When I’m writing Regency, I like to read a lot of Regency romances to get into the mindset of Regency England and also immerse myself in the language of that genre.
However today I realized that the majority of the books I own and have read are traditional Regency romances, which are most similar to Jane Austen’s novels, while the series I’m writing is … well, not. It’s a multi-protagonist historical romance series, with a (tiny) bit of supernatural stuff and lots of action and a bit of humor.
It’s kind of like a long-running, multi-character series like Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, except instead of an overpowered main protagonist, I have two slightly more normal people, and instead of a harem of girls, I have a team of men and women. And it’s set in Regency England without magic. It’s weird, right???
Basically, I wanted to write a Regency romance series kind of like a shoujo Japanese light novel series (aimed at young girls), of which there aren’t that many since most light novel series seem to be aimed at young men. I think Lady Wynwood’s Spies would be most similar to the Japanese light novel series Migawari Hakushaku 身代わり伯爵 (roughly translated, “The Scapegoat Earl”) by Mimori Seike 清家未森 (although I haven’t read the light novels, only the scanlated manga adaption). My series is a bit less farcical in the comedy, has a little bit of paranormal stuff, has a Christian message, and has a slightly darker overarching story mystery.
When I started writing it, I thought my series would have more scenes set in Regency high society, but it’s turning out not to have many of those scenes at all (which I’m kind of disappointed about). Most of the books I own are set in Regency high society—after all, that’s the greatest appeal of Regency romances! For me, anyway.
For a few wild and insane minutes I seriously considered changing the plot of my entire Lady Wynwood series to be more like other traditional Regency romances. (Yeah, I know, but it was only for a few minutes.)
But then I came back into my right mind and remembered that I actually really like my series plot and made it a “Regency romantic adventure” on purpose. I wanted to write a series that was like Mission Impossible but in England in 1811!
So, I’m not sure if my series is going to appeal to traditional Regency romance readers. But I’m writing a story I’m really excited about and which is probably really different from what’s already out there. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, right? I’m praying God will lead readers to my books who will enjoy it.
Everybody, stay safe!
Camy
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