Whittle Dene and fiction genres

In the Whittle Dene valley there is a collection of holiday dwellings, or weekend retreats. They look self-built, though in the last five years a couple of new ones have appeared, and they look far more sophisticated. The owner of one of the older homes has carefully coiled and wound the branches of growing trees and shrubs into circular shapes all around his property. The effect is curious - part Tolkienish and part hobbycraft.

The trees have accepted their restrictions and kept on growing, sometimes melding branches together. It would be interesting to know why it has been done, but there's never anyone there to ask. I know the woods are coppiced, and the valley used to be famous for bleaching linens as the water was so clean and pure in the Whittle Burn. The old stone buildings are ruins now.

There's been an interesting and helpful discussion on the RNA (Romantic Novelists' Association)online group recently about the distinctions/genres used by publishers and agents. I thought I knew what these were, having worked all my life around books, but still had lots to learn. Given the ease of communication today, American terms and British terms are used interchangeably but they do not necessarily mean the same thing. Also it seems to me, agents/publishers apply their own definitions to terms like commercial fiction, literary fiction, womens' fiction. Sigh. Homework time!

Changing plots

I quite like choosing titles for my novels, though I fully accept that they may change if they ever reach publication. The current work is tentatively titled Silver Age, which is the Russian name for the fin de siecle, and I'm happy to report that SA is now at 60K and progressing nicely.

I have some of my best ideas in the middle of the night, and that happened this week. I hung onto the idea (so many are forgotten by the time morning rolls around) and when I got up the next morning hurridly made the alterations before I forgot all about it. So the nice young man angling for his first kiss metamorphosed into the dastardly Aesthete attempting a seduction of the heroine. I think it both tightens the plot and strengths it, for the encounter sparks off a reaction from the hero that....well, I don't want to give away the plot, but generally it was a good thing to do.

The secret of the vast improvement in my writing in the last few days is that I have switched all those e-groups to Read Only on the Web. Now they don't come cluttering up my e-mail system, I have saved so-o-o-o much time and yet I always thought I could whip through the e-mails, stay up to date and still find time to write. Not true! This has been a valuable lesson. I'm staying No Mail until I get this wip right to the end. Then, and only then, I might indulge...and I'm going to linit the time I spend reading other people's blogs, too!