Edits can be fun

Phew! After a whole day working on the new draft I deserve a little letting-off-steam time. Got through about twenty minutes ago, but I think I can see where I need to write a whole scene I
handled by having one character tell another- very briefly. I need that scene to give the whole a better balance. So tomorrow it is back to the drawing board and thinking caps on.

However, let me say that I thoroughly enjoyed Janet Mullany's The Rules of Gentility. It's a Regency, but a Regency with a difference and a sly sense of humour. I must admit I've tried it before - only once - and put it away after the first few pages. But this time I must have been in a better mood, or a mood that matched the writing, and I loved it.

The opening lines will give you a taste of the style - after opening with the "truth universally acknowledged" line the heroine veers off into this: "I consider the pursuit of the bonnets and a husband fairly alike - I do not want to acquire an item that will wear out, or bore me after a brief acquaintance, and we must suit each other very well.....and of course, with a gentleman you cannot replace the trim from another to make the perfect object..."

I've begun Labyrinth (Kate Mosse) but I'm not sure about it as yet. It seems to take pages and pages to get at a chunk of story. Already I've begun to skip over the descriptions (endless, it seems) of food. And the little vignettes of everyday life in Caracassone. I may find they all tie in to the main storyline, but so far I doubt it. If I turned writing like this in to my critique group, I'm sure they would be wailing Too much - info dump - cut to the story. Yet because I enjoyed Sepulchre, I picked this volume up with great eagerness. Let's hope I get into the long swing of Labyrinth before too many more pages.

PS If you saw yesterday's photo, you should recognise today's close-up!