Re: Jane
 

I think "Gravehouse look" would fit into the story better than the other two suggestions. But the other two made me laugh more!! LOL:D

Re: Jane
 

dead gaudy?

I bet any Goths in your fiction are dead gaudy even drop dead gorgeous! :)

Re: Jane
 

I agree! :)

Re: Jane
 

Those you who have read my novel Odalisque (either in its final form or as the Of Bondlings and Blesh draft) will surely recall Lady Jenna.

In Odalisque, Jenna conspires to have her cousin (who is also her friend and lover) enslaved. At least one person has seen Jenna as a very bad character, but she did (it seems to me) have some extenuating circumstances. All the same it was (at best) a shabby way to treat someone.

Jenna is now also a major character in the chapter of Jane I’m currently writing (Book 2, Chapter 5). I didn’t realise that Jenna would appear in the chapter until half an hour or so before I started to write it. She seems rather larger than life (but she was a princess, so that’s only to be expected), and dominates the chapter. Her presence renders this chapter more like Odalisque than is any previous chapter of Jane.

Re: Jane
 

I've been doing a bit of extra work on the first chapter. It used to begin thus:

Modesty Clay and I were lovers, although I never really knew her.

Flocking gulls squawked over the marshes. A chill breeze blew, against which I wrapped my cloak. Thick salty mud, an enemy of leather, spattered my boots. Lingering in my mouth, and heavy on my stomach, lay an early lunch of beans and sausages. Better not to consider what kind of meat had been mixed with bread and herbs inside the skins.

The meal had been presented to us by a surly waitress in a disreputable-looking crossroads tavern. A dirty table and filthy floor left me reluctant to eat. But I was not a good sailor, had parted company with my breakfast, and now found myself hungry. My party of diners comprised six or seven soldiers – and me. The duty of one of our number, Corporal Bobbi West, was to escort me to Captain Clay’s camp from a shabby seaside settlement where a rickety pier allowed small ships to berth. The country was still too dangerous for a civilian to make her way without protection. In any case, the district was poorly charted, I was no map reader, and I’d certainly have lost my way.


It now begins in this manner:

Modesty Clay and I were lovers, although I never really knew her.

Flocking gulls squawked over the marshland. Chill breezes blew, tossing the reed bed into motion, almost like breaking waves out at sea. Sunshine, dodging its way through a rift in the cloud bank, did little to warm the air. A cold blast assailed me, more fierce than those that preceded it. Against this fresh onslaught, I wrapped my cloak tighter about my person. My chiffon scarf having worked loose – a turquoise flag flapping in the wind – I tucked it back into place. As I did so, my fingers brushed the golden goddess image about my neck, its associations reassuring to the touch. Thick salty mud, an enemy of leather, spattered my boots. Spending unaccustomed time in the saddle, my bottom hurt. After a sea voyage, my belly weighed heavily. Lingering in my mouth, and settled uneasily in my stomach, lay an early lunch of beans and sausages.

Comforting associations, evoked by the religious image, naturally included notions of the protection and bounty one may receive from a goddess. Yet I have never been a fanatically devout person. Whilst honouring the goddesses, and keeping their festivals, I’d generally retained a distance from their worship. At that moment, more importantly than contact with divinity in any direct way, the image about my neck brought back childhood recollections of Mum taking me for blessing in the temple. When I was aged perhaps five or six, the priestess had at first seemed fierce, and I clung tightly to my mother’s side. Then, catching my eye, the holy woman had smiled and winked, and in the sunshine of her gaze the world grew momentarily golden. The goddess figure also evoked the reassuring memory of my best friend Nicola presenting her to me. Clustered about were familiar faces from work – Lauren Good, Lisa Vanherring, Miss Frobisher, my boss – and so on. Somewhere in the background had been the sneering face of Julie Rhodes, the receptionist, but here on this foreign shore there was comfort in bringing even her to mind.

The meal, which sat so heavily in my stomach, had been presented to us by a surly waitress in a disreputable-looking crossroads tavern. A dirty table and filthy floor left me reluctant to eat. Better not to consider what kind of meat had been mixed with bread and herbs inside the sausage skins. But I was not a good sailor, had parted company with my breakfast, and now found myself hungry. My party of diners comprised six or seven soldiers – and me. The duty of one of our number, Corporal Bobbi West, was to escort me to Captain Clay’s camp from a shabby seaside settlement where a rickety pier allowed small ships to berth. The country was still too dangerous for a civilian to make her way without protection. In any case, the district was poorly charted, I was no map reader, and I’d certainly have lost my way.

Anyone any thoughts on that?

Re: Jane
 

I think the rewrite is better, Pet. It conveys more information and imagery. Good imagery never hurt.

Re: Jane
 

Thank you. I think the new version is better. I hope the additional imagery sets the tone of the book more effectively. The new material also introduces some characters, who will subsequently be important, at a very early stage. There are other changes, too, such as placing her doubts about the meat content of the sausages a little later than before, perhaps more in their proper place.

Re: Jane
 

I've emailed a couple of you directly about this... and might have emailed a couple more of you, had I not lost your email addresses in a major computer crash.

I've been thinking about making "Jane" the start of a series of (at least four) novels. This is what I've (so far) sketched out for the project:

Novel Series Project

Possible title: The Warriors of Love

• Volume 1. Jane (as currently conceived)
• Volume 2. Odalisque chapters 1-25 reworked
• Volume 3. Odalisque chapter 26-50 reworked
• Volume 4. A novel bringing together Jane and Tuerqui

Reworking Odalisque.

To be abandoned:

• Footnotes
• The epilogue
• Coarse elided dialogue
• Rigid structure of four sentence paragraphs
• Occasional passages at odds with current drift of the series
• Grammatical oddities (we slaves, etc.)

To be introduced:

• Material in the text to replace any absolutely necessary footnotes
• Helen Brewster and Janice Sherrin (the mothers of Jane and her friend Nicola) as characters

And that's it, so far. The temporal sequence of the novels would run Vol 2 - Vol 3 - Vol 1 - Vol 4.

I think, in any case, that Odalisque is too long to stand as a single novel. I think that it would run to more than 1,000 printed pages. Chopped in half it should make two substantial novels.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Pet

Re: Jane
 

That seems to come out of the blue. No hint of that in your last handwritten letter.
Lawks! Corks! Crikey!

I'll say more in my next letter. But you must surely go for it. :)

Re: Jane
 

Get out the cleaver, Pet. ;)