fog, clearing to hazy sunshine

Volume 2 has been misbehaving for the last two days; Georgiana is such a delicate creature, writing her is like tending orchids: how to capture her without bruising, how to admire her beauty without missing the strength. I have had to re-write a big section that just wouldn’t lie down and behave itself.

And Lady Andover (Colonel Fitzwilliam’s mother) is only sketched in: needs more flesh. I like her, though. The elder son is fun, too, but I mustn’t let him become too excessive.

Sorry, I am jotting this down with my first cup of coffee, and I guess reading this would seem like listening to the homeless guy muttering to himself on the bus.

OK, second cup. There was a fun review on Amazon yesterday, called “very incomplete”, by someone who had managed to miss the fact that this was Volume 1; he/she got to the end of the book and was incensed to find that it “abruptly ended announcing that it was volume one!” Not sure how they got that far without seeing one of the many places where that was mentioned, but at least they liked what little there was! So different to experience other people’s thoughts in such a direct manner while sitting here at my desk, where for so long it has just been Darcy et al. for company. And, having reached a certain age before the internet made everyone’s thoughts so easy to disseminate, I still find it odd that a) anybody cares enough to comment, and b) people post so freely, without self-doubt; a dozen other readers had commented on the book, but no one had made a similar comment; it would make me wonder, or I hope it would. Maybe they were just in a hurry—“writing maketh an exact man” is a truism that constantly needs rediscovering, I suppose.

OK, I’m sufficiently caffeinated to start writing. Have a good day!