PUBLISHED TO YOUTUBE BY TARYN HARBRIDGE ON SEPT 29, 2019
Welcome back to Music Mondays. These posts will be no more frequent than every other week. They will, however, still feature a story connection. This week’s choice from my Music to Write By playlist on Spotify, Scarborough Fair*, seemed to have just the right sort of tone for the excerpt from the turning point from things going well in the story to things going very badly. Have you read this book? (It was once a Thursday’s Three Hundred story.)
Darcy jumped down from the carriage and lifted Elizabeth to the ground so that neither would have to wait for the steps to be put in place. If his sister were injured, he knew that he would not wish to wait for such a thing, and he assumed from the distraught look on Elizabeth’s face that she felt the same.
Elizabeth thanked him once again and then hurried toward Lydia, calling to her. Lydia jumped at her name, and Elizabeth thought for a moment she would run away. “Lydia,” she called again.
“Lizzy,” Lydia called back as she turned to meet Elizabeth.
The sisters met in an embrace with Lydia clinging tightly to Elizabeth and weeping. Darcy stood a short distance away. He neither wished to intrude on their privacy nor did he wish to be too far away if assistance was needed.
[from With the Colonel’s Help]
Click the image above to find all the places where you can get this book.
Sales price of $0.99 is USD, CAD, AUD, NZD, EUR, GBP, all other currencies also reduced
*The link in the first paragraph is to the song on Spotify. This is not an affiliate link. It is just my way of attempting to help out the artists whose music I share.
Summer has come to an end for us at Brown Cottage because my husband has gone back to work and school will be starting. (In addition to having his own cleaning company, he works for the school board as a custodian.)
Last Friday, we took a day trip to Victoria Park in Truro, NS. On the way, we stopped at Mastodon Ridge to play a round of mini-golf. I came close to beating my husband but, as always, he won. 🙂
They have a Flinstone’s style car in front of a Flinstone style house. We’re sitting in that car for the selfie picture. My husband is holding my hair since it was WINDY on the hill and my hair kept blowing into my face and his.
We’ve had a very dry summer, so the falls at Victoria Park were no more than a trickle. However, the walk to get to them was lovely. It was a sunny and warm but not hot day — perfect weather actually.
And now, we are settling into the school year work hour routine. This means I will be starting to do a few more posts on my blog than I was over the summer. However, I learned to love the less intense schedule, and plan to do my best to keep from becoming overly intense again. I’ll tell you more about that below.
Let’s get on to all the writing and publishing news.
Last week, I mentioned that I have begun working on a story called Two Days before Christmas. Because this is a Christmas story, I have been listening to some “inspirational” music to get me thinking Christmasy thoughts. The song below is one of those songs that makes me want to get out the decorations or bake some Christmas cake. But, I don’t want to talk about that story in this post — although I will share an excerpt. No, today, I want to ask you a question.
JohnnyReidVEVO. “Johnny Reid – Waiting For Christmas To Come.” YouTube, YouTube, 24 Dec. 2009, youtu.be/wT9mJTYq-P8.
Do you ever judge a book by its title? This is a question I have been thinking about this past week. You see, I have a book coming out this Thursday. You’re probably familiar with the story if you have been reading my blog because the book’s title is With the Colonel’s Help, the story that just finished posting on Thursday’s a few weeks ago. We’ve now begun a new story titled Confounding Caroline.
Here’s why that book coming out and the new story that has started posting has me wondering if people judge a book by its title. My first reader, who happens to be my sister and the Jane to my Lizzy, asked me during our conference call where she told me about things she thought needed some attention — “Do you think people will pass over this story because of the title? Will they think it is a story about Colonel Fitzwilliam and not Darcy?”
She knows, from what I have told her about my sales figures, that Darcy and Elizabeth stories usually sell much better than any of my other stories. Darcy’s a favourite — which is understandable. He’s Darcy, after all. So, she has a point — she usually does. (She tends to be the annoyingly correct older sister at times 🙂 )
Adding to worry her question created, I read a comment somewhere from someone who saw a post about With the Colonel’s Help that said the person doesn’t normally read stories about the colonel. Hmmm… My worry may be well-founded. 🙂
There is a trend to give stories titles with Darcy in them, or so it appears from the number of titles that show up with that name in them when you do a quick search. Again, titles with Darcy in them tend to sell better from what I have observed and been told. (He’s a favourite. 🙂 )
It’s not my practice to include Darcy in a title unless that book is one of my Dash of Darcy book. For those books, I require myself to include Mr. or Mrs. Darcy in the title because I want the connection between book and collection to be clear.
But normally, I choose a title that contains a theme of some sort or highlights something important to the story. For example, the title With the Colonel’s Help lets the reader know that Colonel Fitzwilliam is instrumental in the story. He is actually the hero — not the romantic hero, that role is filled by Darcy, but the person who brings about the happy conclusion for Darcy and Elizabeth. Likewise, the title Confounding Caroline should let the readers know that Caroline is a problem that needs solving.
It might be of interest to note that even with my Dash of Darcy titles, I still have a theme referenced in them such as unravelling a character’s uptight manner or waking up to who someone is.
It’s important to me, as a writer, that my titles have a meaning, which is why I have chosen to keep With the Colonel’s Help as a title. Hopefully, when the book comes out, I will find out that I have worried for absolutely no reason. 🙂
Those are a few of my thoughts on why I name stories as I do. What I would now like to know is what you think about titles. Just drop your opinion in the comment section.
But, before we get to that, I suppose you would like an excerpt from what I wrote this past week? In fact, I am going to share everything I wrote this week because I only managed to get in one writing session — yes, one! It was a very low writing week for me! I was editing With the Colonel’s Help and getting that ready to publish, and I had an Austen Author’s post to get ready as well. My day on Austen Authors is tomorrow! I’ve got a different sort of giveaway going on, so drop by to see what that’s about. But thankfully, I still have the excerpt below to share with you.
This coming Saturday, October 7, 2017, I am going to do something I have not done in a long time. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I did this. Want to know what it is? Hit play and while you listen to some lovely music accompanied by some beautiful pictures, I will tell you. 🙂
HelenaPrats. “New Day ~David Garrett~.” YouTube, YouTube, 28 July 2011.
I am going to take a day off from creating blog posts. I am not going to do extra posts this week to make up for it. I am actually going to let my blog sit idle for a week. As I write this, a little voice questions my ability to follow through, but I am determined. With the Colonel’s Help, the current Thursday Three Hundred story ends this week, so this is a natural time to hit pause for a day — or part of one. I feel a need to recharge. I’ve felt it for a while, so I am going to listen for once. 🙂
But don’t worry, even if the blog is idle next week, I won’t be. I will be writing and editing.
I have set a tentative release day of October 26, 2017, for With the Colonel’s Help. I will finish first round edits today or tomorrow, and it will begin its journey through the rest of the editorial process. Fingers crossed that there will be a short preorder for this one.
I am just a little over a third of the way through Becoming Entangled. I hope to have that book ready for you by the end of November, and then, I would like to (maybe) do a Christmas short story. So there is plenty for me to be writing during the blogs downtime. 🙂
I have just started tangling things up in Becoming Entangled this week and attempting to sort out how I want to present Anne. Currently, she is naive as well as sly. She is young for her age — likely due to her mother’s constraints, under which Anne is chafing and is rather desperate to leave behind. Will she do it in a good way or will she make a muddle of things and end up worse than she considers herself to be at present? I am not one hundred percent certain of that answer yet as my brain has been toying with shaking up what I had planned. I suppose with another couple of weeks of writing, I will know. 🙂
You may read a little about her below in the excerpt if you wish and let me know what you think. This is a first draft, so it is written in wet cement not set in stone at this point. 🙂 Remember, if you choose to read the excerpt, it may contain spoilers, so read at your own risk. 🙂
