So much is going on that I don't even know where to start! To Conquer Mr. Darcy (formerly titled Impulse & Initiative) was released on August 2, but I still haven't gotten around to doing a giveaway of it here because I've been busy working on an exciting new project which will be launched September 6. It's something that Sharon Lathan and I dreamed up at the Romance Writers of America National Convention, an occasion which deserves a blog post of its own. It's a group blog of authors of traditionally published Austen-related fiction, and we've been astonished with the enthusiastic response we've been getting from other writers. We'd optimistically hoped we could get 8 or so writers involved, but we're up to almost 20 with new ones signing on every day, and even more offering to do guest posts from time to time. I'll be doing a massive book giveaway there in September, including all my books from out-of-print to my latest release, and there will be tons of other giveaways as well. Be sure to stop by in September!

I've also been writing like mad. The next Pemberley Variation is almost finished, despite major efforts by Darcy, Elizabeth, and Georgiana to sidetrack the plot, not to mention the completely unplanned for steamy scene. Advice: don't trust Jane and Georgiana if they offer to chaperone Lizzy and Darcy. Epic fail! Well, it's true that I still don't have the ending down, but it's almost there. All that sidetracked me from the story I've been expanding at 50 Miles, but that's next on the agenda.

Also on the books for the next couple of months are a totally revamped web site and (crossing fingers) the eventual release of the oft-delayed Morning Light, sequel to The Man Who Loved Pride & Prejudice. Meantime, the never-before-published Mr. Darcy's Obsession is available for pre-order and is already garnering some great reviews, including one from Booklist that will be released next week (they were kind enough to give me a sneak peak).

Oh, yes, and I've been on the road all summer. I started out on July 1, managed 12 whole days at home in August, and am now off again until early September. Fortunately, there's been lots of inspiration along the way between writers' conferences and time in Woods Hole, and it's been fun.

By the way, comments on this blog now have a slight publication delay, not because I want anyone to hesitate to comment but because there's been a major problem with spam comments (part of the inspiration for the website revamp). But I do love your comments, and none of them are being censored unless they selling something.

Best,
Abigail

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!

After avoiding it for several years, I've finally broken down and joined Romance Writers of America (RWA), a 'must-have' membership for anyone in the field. As part of my application for their professional section, I have to demonstrate that I'm a published author in the field of romance, as opposed to any other genre. Now here's the interesting part: Impulse & Initiative doesn't count as a romance because my publisher listed it as Fiction & Literature, while Pemberley by the Sea does qualify because it was listed as Romance. I've always thought of I&I as a romance because it's all about Elizabeth and Darcy coming together as a couple, whereas I consider PbtS to be women's fiction, since it explores family relationships as well as the romantic couple, Cassie and Calder.

I wasn't too happy at first with PbtS being sold in the romance section of bookstores because I think of that as having less traffic than the fiction section. Lately, though, I've come to accept it because it turns out that in the current economic situation, romances is the only genre that's still selling well. I guess we all need some romance during hard times! But now I'm baffled by the next chapter, as it were. Morning Light, which is also women's fiction, would be listed as a romance because - get this - PbtS was listed as a romance. I'm sure you can guess why Last Man in the World is being listed as Fiction and Literature!

This brings up the thorny question of what constitutes a romance versus a novel with strong romantic elements? The traditional definition is that if the focus is the couple and the ending is HEA (happily ever after, leaving no conflict unresolved), it's a romance. If the romance isn't central to the plot, but the focus is on relationships (friendships, family, etc.) and the ending isn't strictly HEA, it's "women's fiction." I guess men's fiction must be novels that aren't about relationships! Hmm, that's a scary thought. If the romantic relationship is the focus of the novel but there are other important relationships explored, and if the ending isn't fully HEA, it's "women's fiction with strong romantic elements." Yes, that really is an officially recognized genre!

I started out writing romance and moved into women's fiction with strong romantic elements as a natural progression. It wasn't something I intended to do, but I've noticed it happens with a lot of writers. Their first few stories are happy romances, then successive stories get progressively darker. I've never figured out why that happens. I have to admit that as a reader I tend toward the happy romances, even if that isn't what comes out of my pen. I'm curious what other readers like. Do you like your romance straight up, or with a dollop of other issues, or off to the side?

Sorry to have disappeared for so long! I've been busy with final edits of Bounds of Decorum, and I think it's stronger than it was before. Meantime, Morning Light is in my agent's hands. And today I got a copy of the cover artwork for the formerly-named Last Man in the World. It'll be available in bookstores this autumn.

I'll be back with a longer post soon!

The last couple of days have been consumed by AI's server outage. There wasn't anything we could do about it from this end, but we got a backup of the static parts of AI set up at www.austeninterlude.pemberleyvariations.com.

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