At Regency Reflections, we love stories as much as you do. We asked our authors what books they were currently reading.
Vanessa Riley
I read in spurts. So the most recent was Reluctant Courtship. An Heiress at Heart, and 128 Bible stories.
Naomi Rawlings
A Bride for Keeps by Melissa Jagears and A Reluctant Courtship by Laurie Alice Eakes. 🙂
Susan Karsten
I just read “The Aftermath”, and am now reading “The Outcasts” — both ABA. The first was about post WWII Hamburg, Germany, the latter is a western which feels a lot like the movie remake of True Grit. Both are good reads, but as usual, gratuitous, unnecessary sexual references are sprinkled amidst great characterization and plot. So un-needed.
Camy Tang
Trouble in Store by Carol Cox. It’s the book of the month reading at Christian Fiction Devourers on Goodreads. Super cute story so far!
Laurie Alice Eakes
I just finished reading Poetic Justice, a traditional Regency by Alicia Rasley. Well-written and clever.Now I’m reading a cozy mystery I just started and honestly don’t recall the name of.
Kristi Ann Hunter
I’m in the middle of Laurie Alice’s Reluctant Courtship. (Yea! Can’t wait to share more about that in a the coming weeks.) I recently finished Rich In Love by Lindi Peterson, a fun contemporary Christian romance.
At the Super Bowl, it wasn’t about the score. It wasn’t the teams. It was a moment during the halftime show when Bad Bunny turned his back, leapt into the unknown, and believed—without hesitation—that someone would catch him. I don’t have the faith that. Somehow, I’d love to find it again.
Hands. Hands. Hands
Like many of you, I got ready for Super Bowl Sunday. I wasn’t particularly invested in either team—though, fine, go Seattle. Super Bowl LX, played on February 8, 2026, at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, gave us a familiar matchup: a rematch of Super Bowl XLIX between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots. The Seahawks won decisively, 29–13. But I’m not here for the game.
As the solo headliner of the Super Bowl LX halftime show, Benito Antonio MartĂnez Ocasio made history with an almost entirely Spanish-language set—the first of its kind on this stage. The 13-minute performance was unapologetically Latin, deeply Puerto Rican, and expansively American. With guest appearances from artists like Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin, Karol G, and Cardi B, the show pulsed with energy and intention. It honored elders and entrepreneurs, community and culture, sugarcane and sweat—the histories on which this nation, and particularly the Caribbean, were built. The theme might as well have been spelled out in lights: Together We Are America.
But that’s not why I’m writing today.
I’m writing because of a single image—a still photograph taken during the performance—that I will not soon forget.
At one point, Bad Bunny turns his back to the stage and vaults into the air, committing fully to a trust fall. There is no visible harness. No safety net. Just the assumption—no, the certainty—that he will be caught. The photograph captures him midair, body arched, while dozens of hands reach up toward him. Many hands. Many skin tones. All extended in the same direction, united by purpose: we will not let you fall.
It is a breathtaking image.
Ishika Samant’s Getty photograph freezes that moment of collective trust and shared responsibility. It is not about celebrity. It is about belief. And when I saw it, I felt something click into place.
At first, I thought of 2020—the flood of performative black squares, the hollow gestures of solidarity that required nothing and risked nothing. But no, this image goes further back. Much further.
It took me to November 4, 2008.
The New York Times ran a photograph by Doug Mills of supporters of Senator Barack Obama cheering at a rally in Chicago as news broke that he had won Pennsylvania. Hands raised. Faces lit with hope. That night, as Adam Nagourney wrote, Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States, “sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics.”
Welp. That didn’t last.
Yet, the photo still exists. The image of hands raised high—reaching, open, expectant. It’s hopeful.
Hope, that’s what the Bad Bunny photograph reminded me of: that version of America, diverse and unfinished, but leaning forward together.
That moment in 2008, or 2026, seems a distant dream.
Leaders chuckle at racist cartoons. Organizations kill Americans because they dared to protect a brother or a sister. Young folks question the American dream and if they’ll be able to afford half the things their parents did. Millions of people don’t know if they will ever be able to retire, because the economy many voted for has stripped them of their dignity and security, and quietly tells us what many of us already suspected—that in the eyes of the state, you are disposable, especially if you are not part of the vaulted class chosen to run industries, sit on boards, or make lists.
I don’t like that picture of America. It’s hollow. It’s performative. It’s as empty as a black square aka 2020 on Instagram.
I want a hopeful America again. I want the shining city on a hill—not the slogan, but the promise behind it. I want to believe that yes we can find unity and forgive division.
Lately, when I talk about Fire Sword and Sea, I use the metaphor of a pirate ship as a meritocracy. Stay with me. Yes, pirates stole other people’s things, and by today’s standards that’s somewhat illegal. In the 1600s, it was disturbingly legal.
A pirate crew survived because . everyone worked toward a common goal. Picture it: Africans, Europeans, Indigenous people, people from across the Caribbean—the very nations Bad Bunny called out in his performance—thrown together with a dream to win. On that ship, you voted. You were equals. No one asked who you were or who you loved. They asked: Can you rig the sails? Can you scrub barnacles? When the fighting starts and you’ve got a rapier or a sword in your hand, can I trust you to strike the enemy and not stab me in the back?
That’s it. Contribution. Trust. Shared survival.
So when I look at that Super Bowl photograph—Bad Bunny suspended midair, many hands reaching up—I want that America again. I want the America of 2008, when people didn’t hate again, so openly or so loudly.
Oh, what a time that was.
And what we see now is how fragile those moments are—how quickly they can erode. Division waits patiently for fear, resentment, and weak thinking to give it an opening.
Division takes root. It’s loathed to let go. It would never trust and dive into outstretched hands, diverse hands, hands with color.
So I want to thank the Super Bowl. I want to thank everyone who stood up during Bad Bunny’s performance and danced, who took in the imagery of Puerto Rico and its rich history, as well as all our neighbors to the south, in the Caribbean—the Americas as a shared, complicated whole.
For a brief moment, we saw unity on that stage, and it was beautiful. I don’t know how we get back there.
I just hope, we do.
This week’s booklist includes unify titles like:
Set across postwar Germany and the United States, this novel explores abandoned mixed-race children, chosen family, and how love and responsibility can reshape lives history tried to discard.
Consider purchasing Fire Sword and Sea from East City Bookshop or from one of my partners in the fight, bookstores large and small, who are hanging with me.
Come on, my readers, my beautiful listeners. Let’s keep everyone excited about Fire Sword and Sea.
You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com, under the podcast link in the About tab.
Let’s keep rising and creating together. Please like, subscribe, and share the podcast. And stay connected to Write of Passage.
Thank you for listening. I want you to come again. This is Vanessa Riley.
Author Talks presents Vanessa Riley, Fire Sword and Sea: One of the best happening Lit/Bookish Scenes in Atlanta is Author Talks – Music, Crafted Cocktails, Tapas, and Great Conversation about Pirates and Resistance! Don’t miss it.
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Of great benefit to women during the Regency was the great relative comfort of the clothing of the day. Compared to the preceding Georgian period, the Regency provided a measure of relief from physical constraints. Gone were the painfully heavy panniers and voluminous skirts, but most ladies still wore stays. We don’t experience many swoons these days, but the wearing of stays and corsets assured the occurrence of many a fainting spell.
           Fainting was a likely event in the lives of Regency ladies. The sensitive Regency lady would carry her own smelling-salts. These were usually an infusion of ammonium carbonate and alcohol, scented with lavender or lemon oil. The container in which the salts were carried was called a vinaigrette; a small box or bottle with a perforated top.  Sal volatile is another term for this mixture, and both it and spirit of hartshorn (water and ammonia) could be drunk as well as sniffed. Hungary water was another popular perfumed herbal restorative and could be dabbed on the temples or wiped on the hands and face of someone suffering from nerves or headache.
The preparations mentioned were kept handy for fainting, attacks of nerves, and whenever an unpleasant odor came one’s way. Today, we throw a wallet, comb, sunscreen, and lipstick into our purses and head out to face the world. The reticules (purses) of Regency ladies carried a bit of money, a handkerchief, and their vinaigrette of smelling salts.What about you? Do you prefer a large or small purse? Floppy or stiff? Long or short strap?
The beauty of books is that they can transport you anywhere and anytime. During the Regency (and indeed many, many years before and after) reading was a past time enjoyed by the whole family.
Before television and radio became the focus of family entertainment, books had the ability to share stories and start conversations. We’ve talked before on this blog about books, including how they were bought or borrowed during the Regency and how we fell in love with reading in the first place.
This past week, I’ve been privileged to see a love of reading blooming in younger generations. My eldest daughter is starting to enjoy the story complexity of longer, chapter-style books while my youngest son had begun carrying picture books around in case a lap becomes available. A teenager I work with recently asked me for a list of author suggestions as she transitions from YA books. As a book lover myself, I get excited to see children and teens finding the same love.
Books are the perfect place for young, creative minds to grow. They realized this even in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. This is when the children’s book as we know it began to exist.
Illustrated books with two to six lines of writing on each page appeared in the late 1700s. John Newbury, who is honored annually in America with the Newbury Medal, began publishing these happy books to fill a growing need in children’s literature.
By the Regency, children’s books became more involved, more targeted. Some even had movable parts, such as an illustrated dolls head or arms moving.
Perhaps it was this surge in the idea of children’s literature that propelled the success of the Grimm Brothers. Late in the Regency, the Grimm Brothers began publishing their collections of German folklore. They were very popular in England as children fell in love with Snow White and Rumpelstiltskin.
In August we celebrated Jane Austen and the role she played in the modern romance. It is interesting to know how much modern children’s literature was influenced by authors from the time as well.
What was your favorite children’s book? Were you a lover of fairy tales?
Last week was a weird one. The algorithms—the bots—seemed to come for me. Canva, of all places, led the charge. It made me feel like I wasn’t just wrong in opinion, but wrong in essence. As if the characters I write—rooted in history, full of breath and heart—were somehow unworthy. Handcuff me now, because it felt like I was being told it was a crime to write them at all.
Caption: Two Scaredy-Cats watching the must see movie, Sinners.
And in this current climate? That kind of doubt sticks. There’s so much anti-DEI noise. So much effort to “protect” people from truth. Heaven forbid someone learns something. Heaven forbid someone dares to be better, more moral than their ancestors.
I thought I’d shaken it off. Thought I’d moved on. I got back work on my manuscript and typed out another 6,000 words. Then came another note from Canva, gently suggesting I find another word—something less “triggering”—than “enslaved” to describe Jacquotte of the upcoming Fire Sword and Sea, who had in fact was enslaved. So I turned to friends and asked them for other ways to phrase “enslavement.” Here’s what we came up with:
* Bond servant
* Stolen laborer
* Forced job training
* People in the condition of slavery
* Held in captivity
* Kidnapped
And y’all—I laughed to keep from crying. Because all I could think of was: Lord, have mercy.
I might have sinned right then—if not in word, then in thought. I wanted to cuss out the machine. I was disappointed in technology. That’s a hard place to be for a data girl. Yet, I was more disappointed in me for even entertaining the idea of appeasing the bot—the faceless, soulless thing that some biased, flawed, or agenda driven human had created and enabled it to think it knows what’s best.
Surrendering is not how we honor truth or the stories we’re called to tell.
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Fear is a seductive thing. It whispers: Don’t speak too loudly. Don’t shine too brightly. Don’t center stories on Black truth, Black joy, or Black progress.
And lately, I’ll admit—it’s been taking me longer to bounce back. It’s getting harder to hold on to the vision of a brighter morning just ahead when everything feels handcuffed and ready to be jailed or deported.
In the past forty-eight hours. The visuals that I allowed my eyes to see have been, stunning, heartbreaking, and even holy.
On Easter Sunday, my church goes all out for a dramatization of the Crucification: lights, drama, music, the whole thing. But this year, there stood a Black Jesus—bloodied, whipped, brutalized. It hit different, terrifyingly different. Then came Black Simon, stepping in to carry the cross, basically taking on his shoulders the oppressor’s burden given to Jesus. I’m watching it and something cracked, fracture into hundreds of pieces on the inside.
It’s been a long time since I cried in church. The first time was when I said the sinner’s prayer and I admitted that I was scared and I needed salvation.
Side note: Did you know the “Sinner’s Prayer” doesn’t actually appear anywhere in the Bible? There is no biblical record of anyone praying those exact words. It emerged around the Protestant Reformation and took shape in the early 20th century—barely 125 years ago. For context, the Civil War officially ended 160 years ago. Both of those things are not that long ago.
On Easter Monday, I saw Sinners—the Ryan Coogler film with Michael B. Jordan, Wunmi Mosaku, Hailee Steinfeld, Li Jun Li, Miles Caton, and Delroy Lindo. On a gorgeous widescreen, I watched this emotionally rich tale saturated with period details and truths. Spoilers alert: Two brothers are seen watching the sunrise, just in awe of the majesty and their freedom. Then I focused on people dancing, singing, loving.
Then comes destruction.
The movie has all types of monsters. The obvious hate-filled men of the Klan, who are hungry for blood and money. Then monsters disguised as your own kind. The evil is often invited in. He feasts of fear and death.
The violence didn’t make me jump. The gore wasn’t any worse than the makeup used at church for the crucifixion. Eventually, dread arrives. It settles in your chest. It steals all joy before the next morning can come. I found myself waiting for that other foot to fall, for when that bad was coming.
So what does this all mean? Anticipating doom or consequence can be as draining as when the threats or violence comes. We can’t surrender in advance.
It means we must guard our eyes—not to shield them from truth, but to make sure they still see beauty, even in chaos. Still see family. Still see hope.
We must guard our ears—because false praise can lull us into stillness. It can lie to us that we are safe and leave us vulnerable to brokenness. Yet we need music, sweet music, true music, ancestral rhythms. All can cut through the noise and remind us who we are, who we are striving to be.
We must remember:
This little light of mine… I’m gonna let it shine.
A light can be seen.A light reveals what’s nearest—what needs our care.A light casts shadows, warning us of what’s creeping in the distance.A light tells the truth of our circumstances. And it gives us the chance to see the true face of things lurking in the dark.
So keep your light burning. That is your protection.Keep your voice strong. That is how you inspire hope.Then revel in each new day, letting your truth-telling, joy-making, world-building self be known.
To help encourage your soul, try:
Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman – Poetry that engages with history, hope, and the responsibility of bearing witness.
Sula by Toni Morrison – A meditation on Black womanhood, loyalty, and community through beautifully painful prose.
And of course, go see Sinners in the movie theater. Watch creativity and inclusiveness on the widest screen you can find. Thank me later.
The winners will be those who kept their light shining, who believed in truth. And who dared to cry out: It’s me. It’s me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer.
Darkness is real. We tend to invite into our life, our work, our sanctuaries.But remember dawn is also real. Dawn, I hear comes with new mercies, too. I pray we find them.
Show notes include a list of the books mentioned in this broadcast. This week, I’m highlighting The Book Cellar through their website and Bookshop.org You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com under the podcast link in the About tab.
Help fight the bots by hitting like and continuing to share this podcast. You are essential to its growth.
Thank you for listening. Hopefully, you’ll come again. This is Vanessa Riley.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vanessariley.substack.com/subscribe
Mop Fairs and Michaelmas Day
by Laurie Alice Eakes
 Michaelmas Day was one of the four quarter days in the British system, a day in which rents and wages were due. Michaelmas Day, or the Feast of St. Michael, the Archangel, is now the 29th of September. Under the old calendar, it was celebrated on 10th or 11th of October (sources are inconsistent on which day), which coincided with the annual hiring of laborers and household servants.
These fairs were called mop fairs for the fact that those needing work gathered with the tools of their trade in hand. A shepherd carried a crook, a cook carried a ladle and wore a red ribbon, and a maid wore a blue ribbon and carried a mop. Those with no particular skill also carried mops.
Historic turn of the century mop fair from this site:http://www.nfa.dept.shef.ac.uk/images/strat8.jpg
Michaelmas Day was appropriate for this practice because the harvest was usually finished or nearing completion; thus farmers could either acquire more laborers or, having rid himself of these extras, left them needing employment elsewhere. The day being a quarter day, wages were settled up.
Michaelmas Day was also celebrated with some other traditions such as eating a goose for dinner. The goose tradition probably stemmed from tenants bringing a goose to the landlord to soften him up, geese being at their prime at this time from dining on the stubble from the fields. In 1709, the following verse appeared in The British Apollo:
Yet my wife would persuade me (as I am a sinner) To have a fat goose on St. Michael for dinner: And then all the year round, I pray you would mind it, I shall not want money—oh, grant I may find it!
Many mop fairs continued well into the nineteenth century and on to the twentieth. Some of them were discontinued due to the drunken debauchery that became associated with the fairs; however, in the past couple of decades, these fairs have been revived with carnival rides and other festive entertainments. The fair at Marlborough, celebrated in October on the old Michaelmas Day, has talked of moving the fair from the High Street to the commons; however, because of their charter for the fair, moving it would take an act of Parliament. This symbolizes how important these fairs are to British history.
Hi everyone! My name is Camy Tang and I’m so excited to join this Regency Reflections blog! I have been reading Regency romances since I was a Freshman in high school–my first one was Regency Miss by Alix Melbourne, and I absolutely loved it. I recently re-read it a few months ago and it’s still as exciting as when I first read it.
My first Regency romance comes out next year from Zondervan/Thomas Nelson. I don’t have a title yet, but I’ll be writing under a pseudonym, Camille Elliot. I’m very excited and a little nervous about my first Regency romance. Although I’ve been reading them for years and I even bought Regency research books to read just for fun, I never attempted to write one until this year.
It’s about Alethea Sutherton, an earl’s daughter who has been neglected by her father, betrayed by her brother, and evicted from her home by her cousin, and so she doesn’t trust men in general. However, while living with her aunt in Bath, she suddenly finds that there is someone trying to steal her violin, which was a bequest from a neighboring widow who was like a mother to her.
Alethea is very gifted on the violin, which was considered unladylike and unfeminine to play for women in the early 19th century, and so for an Englishwomen to play it was considered almost scandalous. However, to discover who is after her violin and why, she must enlist the help of a nobleman considered an expert on the violin, Lord Dommick, who is in Bath to repair his reputation for the sake of his sister and mother. For him to associate with a violin-playing scandal on two legs is not his idea of how to go about doing that.
I always knew I wanted to write about a musician heroine and hero, but didn’t choose the violin until my research revealed how Regency society considered it so distasteful for women to play it, whereas men were not so constrained. There were a handful of professional violin playing women on the continent, but they were the exception to the rule, and there were no Englishwomen who played the violin.
Things changed in the late 19th century with the rise of the middle class. At that point, despite the fact Victorians in general were a slightly more prudish bunch, the objections to women playing the violin had been dropped and so more women learned the violin in England.
My heroine, of course, is bucking the system like any good heroine would do. 🙂 The hero is not quite sure what to make of her, but by the end he will be properly schooled in the art of love and music.
I’m looking forward to blogging about my favorite subjects, Regency romances and Regency readers!
Kristi here. Yesterday I had the blessing of being invited to the most epic children’s birthday party I have ever scene. I also celebrated my own birthday yesterday, eating an overindulgence of cake and ice cream.
In the Regency era, birthdays were a very different thing. Unless you were considered a very important personage, such as royalty, your birthday passed with minimum fuss, if at all.
Royal birthday parties were often elaborate celebrations. They were often used as excuses for other political or social purposes. Queen Charlotte’s birthday celebrations were held annually in January or February, signalling a start to the Season. They were also an opportunity for people to be officially presented at court.
The Queen’s birthday, however, was actually in May, closer to the end of the Season than the beginning.
The Prince Regent held a grand fete at Carlton House that was officially to honor the King’s birthday. In reality it was a celebration of his rise to power as the Regent.
Wealthy families would sometimes mark and celebrate birthdays, particular milestone birthdays and those of the heir. Possibly no celebration was as large for these families as the one held on the occasion of the first son’s birth. Large parties and dances would be held to celebrate the heir’s birth.
As you traveled down the social ladder, birthdays became less and less recognized. Perhaps you got a small gift or the honor of eating with your parents instead of in the nursery. If you were very poor, a small piece of candy might be the only thing to mark the occasion.
As time moved into the Victorian era, birthday celebrations slowly shifted into the annual events we know today.
I stepped out on my porch to a slight breeze. The air kissing my cheek had abandoned all hints of Atlanta’s signature heat. After a summer of mostly Seattle like-weather full of rain or horrid humidity, I looked up to spy rain clouds. Nothing. Only sunshine beamed overhead. I guess summer has passed. It’s autumn’s turn to color my world.
And what colors! Soon reds, yellows, oranges will surround the deep emerald greens of my evergreens.
Fall Leaves Wiki Commons
In Madeline’s Protector, I used the change to warm-coloured, cozy Autumn to contrast the hero and heroine’s chilly relationship.
    If Madeline’s eyes were daggers, she’d be a widow.
“I suppose you won’t show me your hall of Hampshire sculptures.”
Her lovely jade eyes clouded, and she looked away.
He balled up his leather evening gloves. “Pray let’s start over.”
She gazed at her dainty slippers. “Why? Are you afraid to disappoint my father?”
Now that strike hit close to home. “I like to pass tests. That’s what my father impressed upon me.” Justain swallowed a deep breath. “What will it take to restore your opinion?”
She stuck her chin in the air. “To get this visit over as soon as possible.”
He peered through the window. “The leaves are starting to turn. I hope the good folks of this county take the time to admire the colours. The hillside’s striated in three shades of red. This is stunning country, not the moors of Devon, but beautiful.”
“Why are you tormenting me with a place I’ll never see?” She released a heavy sigh. “The tree roots cling to different sections of the steep ridge adding to the variety. Watch the sunset.” She pointed to the clouds. “Sometimes the sky tries to match the hues of autumn.”
Perhaps as the sun came closer to earth, it’d thaw the frost between them. “Magnificent,” he said. It was simply beautiful. “God’s paintbrush, I think you called it.”
I asked my brethren, my fellow Regency writers, what lets them know Autumn has arrived, and they were kind enough to share:
Naomi Rawlings
Trees – Wiki Commons
The first sign of autumn for me is the leaves changing. We almost always have cool
nights and warm days where we live, but it seems as though the leaves start
changing the beginning of September. Right now, half the leaves across the road
are already yellow. School starting is another good indication. In Michigan,
school doesn’t start until after Labor Day . . . right about the time I notice
the first bit of color on the trees.
Personal Note: Why does school start so early? Back in my day….
Susan Karsten
For my family, fall arrives on the heels of an interesting weather phenomenon. Almost every year, there’s a day on which we feel fall arriving. The scenario is this: we’ve had week after week of hot (80s or more) weather, then we’ll have an out of the blue cold/cool day. Sometimes the cool day has come while we are at the lake. On those occasions, we somberly ride around on our boat, feeling summer slip away and remarking on it.
Boating in Autumn Wiki Commons
For me, individually, fall arrives when I notice crunching leaves underfoot. That takes me back to the days when I walked to and from school, crunching through elm leaves. Other signs around here are the apple orchards opening their salesrooms, the Canada geese assembling at the nearby wetlands, and for my husband’s business, there’s often a flurry of activity in the real estate business around this time.
Apple Orchard – Wiki Commons
Kristy Cambron
The first sign of fall for me is not Regency
related. I admit that I love a good college football game and when my team takes the field for that first game, autumn is officially here! It’s okay to
break out the sweaters, drink apple cider, and write books where heroines walk through a fiery-skied and leaf-blown twilight! : )
Laurie Alice Eakes
Autumn is one of my favorite times of year. Only one of my books is set over the summer, to autumn time, and they, as I do, look for the way the days cool off sooner and get hot later, especially since I moved to Texas. I love the way the breeze goes from hot, to a hint of coolness. Back in Virginia, the humidity dropped and the smell of the air turned crisp. I haven’t yet noticed a difference in the fragrance to the air here (in Texas).
Kristi Ann Hunter
Happy Birthday Wiki Commons
For me, the first sign of fall is a sense of new beginning. I moved around a lot growing up so when the weather turned cold always changed, but the new start was always there.
Even though I’m out of school there is still a sense of the new year actually starting in September. Could possibly maybe have something to do with my birthday…
Do you love Autumn? Share an Autumn memory with us, then get out and enjoy the colors.
What does it feel like to be on the brink of having a new regency published?
For a writer, it’s a mix of emotions when she gets back the galleys from an editor. Likely the author hasn’t looked at this manuscript in at least six months if not longer, and by this time, she is deep into another story. Chances are she’s written or edited more than one story since writing that manuscript.
So, the emotional link to that story is gone. It will hopefully be revived as she puts aside whatever other works in progress she has, and dives back into the story that is on a publisher’s schedule.
At this stage, the author must be able to accept an editor’s changes or suggestions–not always easy, since she has turned in a polished work. Now, the author reads an outsider’s opinion of her work. Didn’t they get it? Why don’t they like my hero/heroine/plot device/fill in the blank?
One must realize one’s editor is not one’s enemy, but a friend who wants to see the best possible story before it goes public.
So, bite the bullet and analyze one’s characters as dispassionately as one is able to at this point, and then try to make any changes necessary.
I’m down to the final twenty pages of this process before the manuscript gets emailed back to the editor. The next time I see my story, it will be only for a final proofreading. Then a few months later, it will be the real thing, available to readers.
It’s a long process from initial idea to final product, whether one self-publishes a book or has it published through a publisher. Lots of birth pains in the process. But what a relief to read a story that flows, where the characters are believable and the plot escalates, keeping the reader reading.
I hope my next regency, A Heart’s Rebellion, will prove such a story.
