A Not So Secret Project

Well, my brother returned to RI, via PA, with my mother along for a 3 day weekend. I have her dog to take care of as well as my own. Lucky for me, my brother likes to play with heavy equipment. He dug out all the ivy and opened up the canopy of trees over-hanging the clothesline. Doing this gained me an extra ten feet to put my fence, which is now up (thanks to my brother and father), and the dogs and I are enjoying the fine sweep of lawn to play ball in.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned I was working on a new character. A French aristocrat who is mentioned once in the beginning of the book and only to make a very brief appearance at the end of it.

Anyway, this new character is for a project I'm involved in regarding my daughter's school. They hold an auction every year, and the secretary thought it might be fun if I auctioned off a "character" in one of my future novels. After spit-balling it around for a couple of days, we decided I should write a short story about "them" instead. The winner of my "prize" from the auction would be the main character and I would write their "love" story. Set in Regency England. Naturally. I had it all worked out. It was going to be very cool.

Well, the auction happened, and one of the teachers won the bid (at $430- I might add) and gave it to her assistant as a present. So the story is about "Dianne" per se, but because "Adelaide" actually won the prize, the story is going to be more or less about the two of them. And how they "teach" and "learn" and "grow" with each other and the kids (because this teacher/assistant combination has been together for 14 years!) So it is kind of a love story, but not. You know.

I'm still on the fence as to whether I'm going to publish this story commercially ~ (I was going to publish it privately -- looking into this again at the moment. Lots to consider here.) ~ There is an historical element I can attach the story to to make it viable as "genre" fiction. As well as a very smallish sort of love story just to keep it fun (I'll tell you about the "tree" scene soon.)

However, because this "project" is a little more "public" than I'd originally intended, I'm going to keep a page under my header entitled "A Not So Secret Project" where I'll keep a page of links and my research notes, as well as photographs depicting the era. (Just in case any OLM readers are interested.) I'm hoping to have the "tentative" first pages of the still untitled novella up by the first of June so you can all get a look at what I'm writing.

I'm very excited about this project. It's going to be a lot of fun to write. And best of all, when it's finally published, we're going to have a book signing. I figured out how to make a small copy paperback for not too much money, so we can actually do a physical book signing. Yay!

So, that's what's on the writing table.

On the publishing table, I've been re-editing/revising all the paperback editions of my books (as well as the e-versions as I go along). I finished all the novellas separately as well as the COLLECTION. FATE and MASQUERADE are done, and I'm page 90 of DIVORCE. Which leaves ENGAGEMENT and then I'll be finished with that chore. Hopefully in time for beach reading. Another Yay!

And just a small bit of promotion here -- I recently lowered the prices on the e-versions of A ROMANTIC REGENCY COLLECTION, THE LADY'S FATE and THE DUKE'S DIVORCE. Across all channels, so wherever you shop, if they're not $2.99, they will be soon.

Have an exceedingly fine week.

Anne Gallagher (c) 2013