I, along with many readers, have been frustrated with the challenges caused by the title changes of my books. Some readers have accidentally purchased a second copy of the same book under a different title, and are understandably annoyed. Unfortunately, I have no control over the name changes, which are determined by my publisher, so the only thing I can do is to keep repeating the information about the title changes in hopes that more people will know about it. In that spirit, here's the current summary:

The Man Who Loved Pride & Prejudice = Pemberley by the Sea
To Conquer Mr. Darcy (August 2010) = Impulse & Initiative
Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy: The Last Man in the World = The Last Man in the World
What Would Mr. Darcy Do? (spring 2011) = From Lambton to Longbourn

For the sake of completeness, there is also the unpublished POD book The Rule of Reason = Alternative version of Impulse & Initiative which is only available at lulu.com. Without Reserve and By Force of Instinct will eventually be released with new titles, but I don't yet know what they are.

There's a Facebook group Pride & Prejudice Fanfiction Fans which has a running discussion thread about the title changes for lot of different writers. It's worth checking before you buy. I also announce title changes at the Pemberley Variations Facebook fan page and on my own Facebook page, and I happily accept friend requests from readers!

Again, I'm sorry for the confusion about titles. I just wish I had some way to let everyone know!

After posting last night, I dug through my old emails to find the new title for From Lambton to Longbourn. The most recent is What Would Mr. Darcy Do?, and it's scheduled to come out in Spring 2011. In the meantime, I've been making some adjustments to it.

From Lambton to Longbourn was my first Austen-related story, and I wrote it for an audience that knew Pride & Prejudice well. As a result, I could get away with starting the story mid-way through the scene at the Lambton Inn with a long quotation from P&P and no explanation whatsoever, and still count on my readers to know where they were and what was happening. It isn't exactly conducive to convincing someone that they want to read the book! So I've gone back and written a new preliminary scene and thought I'd share it with you. Hopefully it provides a better introduction to the book.

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I'm so hopeless! When I read all your wonderful comments, it made me want to give you all copies of my book, so I decided to pull three names out of the hat instead of two. Congratulations, Susan, Evangeline, and Alice for winning autographed copies of The Man Who Loved Pride & Prejudice. For the rest of you lovely commenters, I have a consolation prize of an unpublished Pemberley Variation short story that I'll be happy to e-mail to you. I even have a consolation prize for peope who didn't comment - tomorrow I'm going to post the newly revised and lengthened first chapter of the book formerly known as From Lambton to Longbourn, and I'd tell you what title it's going to be published under in Spring 2011 except they've already changed it three times and I can't keep up.

I'll try to get the short stories out tomorrow as well. Susan, Evangeline, and Alice, please email me your addresses and I'll mail out your copies! There'll be another giveaway in a couple of months for To Conquer Mr. Darcy. Thanks for taking part!

I’ve been putting off writing a post, hoping that I’d have some news to report soon, and finally I do. I met with my editor ten days ago, and on Monday she filled me in on her grand scheme for my books. The big news is that she is buying Bounds of Decorum. It’s going to be a busy year for me, according to her. She’s scheduled Pemberley by the Sea and Impulse & Initiative to come out in mass market editions next spring, probably under different titles. Meantime, Bounds of Decorum will come out in trade paper in Fall 2010 along with a bookstore release of From Lambton to Longbourn, followed by By Force of Instinct and Without Reserve in Spring of 2011. By then, she hinted delicately, she expects me to have a new book for her. She hasn’t read Morning Light yet, so no news on that front. I have to finish copyedits for Last Man in the World this week, then I go straight into revisions for Bounds of Decorum and From Lambton to Longbourn.

So what’s next on the actual writing front? I’ve started plotting out a sequel to Bounds of Decorum which will follow the romantic adventures of Mary and Georgiana, with appearances by Mr & Mrs Darcy, Aunt Augusta, Charlie, the evil Earl, and two new original characters. Mary and Georgiana serve as natural foils for each other, and they each find love where they don’t expect it.

I’ve been stymied in the Woods Hole Quartet for a while. I have two books half-written, both with substantial flaws, but I had to get away from them for long enough to discover what the flaws were. In the first, Uncharted Waters, I tried to write a different kind of female protagonist, and it didn’t work. What kind of different? She wasn’t sassy, basically, and she ended up being a bit depressing, and her happy ending was largely about things other people did for her than what she accomplished for herself. A perfectly valid character, but not one I can write well, as it turns out. After trying to find ways to adjust the character, I finally realized I need to scrap her entirely and rebuild from scratch.

I’ve blogged about the other new modern before. I really like the story, but it suffers from boring characters. My characters in other books all had jobs they felt passionate about, not something practical to put bread on the table, which is where these two were. Now I have them each developing some new interests and friendships, and I’ll see if that helps. Although set on Cape Cod, I’d intended it to be separate from the Woods Hole Quartet, but the Woods Hole characters seem to keep showing up anyway. Maybe the quartet will have to become a quintet. As for the final book, it’s purely in my head at this point.

I think that should keep me busy for quite some time. Stay tuned for information about an online Austenfest with interviews and free book giveaways!

In From Lambton to Longbourn, Darcy and Elizabeth banter about practicing the virtues of self-control and charity. When it comes to each other, they're both better at charity than self-control. That passage keeps coming back to me lately because I've been thinking a lot about self-discipline - specifically how to make myself sit down and write. I feel better when I write, but I'm having trouble finding the motivation and perseverence to actually do it. I think I'd better go back to setting concrete public goals, which has sometimes worked in the past.

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