I am not a morning person, though my body always tries to tell me that I am. When I was working for a big corporation that shall go unnamed, I had a friend who had worked shifts for many years and he used to speak about how he had difficulty sleeping. I sympathized, but I did not have any experience, so I could not do much empathizing with him. Somehow in the years since, my own sleeping has suffered to the point that I rarely sleep as much as I should anymore, though my problem with sleeping is usually staying asleep rather than falling asleep. Of course, some of my troubles are self-inflicted, as I rarely go to bed when I should. Then again, when I do, I often find myself wide awake in the middle of the night.

This is why I love spring break. My youngest child, a daughter age fifteen, is gone to school for her last day of classes before a two week spring break, though by the time you read this, she will have been growing moss in her bedroom for the past week or so. For the next two weeks I do not need to get up early in the morning, which is always a benefit. Even if I sleep as much on such days as I do on days when I need to get up early, somehow the ability to wake up naturally results in better rest and more alertness the following day. Two weeks of freedom, then the final sprint to the finish of the school year. The summer, then rinse and repeat. Such is life, I suppose.

What does this have to do with anything? Just a small insight into my life, coupled with a peek at what is going on now. I have so many projects going on now that it can be difficult to keep them straight. As I indicated in a recent post, I am making a concerted effort to try to branch out into other genres, and this has resulted in the need to reinvent myself as a writer. It can be difficult to do that on little sleep.

How do I need to reinvent myself you ask? Well, writing fantasy, for example, is quite different than writing regency romance. Besides all the other details that go into fantasy that are assumed when writing in the real world (culture, customs, history, civilizations, etc.) the vernacular is different, though I have not proceeded to the actual writing yet. There are certain words one cannot use when writing historical fiction–if a character in 1800 England started talking about nuclear fission, for example, that might be a little out of place. Of course, the same goes for fantasy, but even commonplace words that we use in everyday English that were not in use two hundred years ago are generally acceptable for fantasy. Having said that, there are similarities too. Certain societies in a fantasy world might speak more formally, while others might have a distinctive accent. In general I do not hold with the notion of perplexing the readers with a bunch of jargon and pig Latin to try to show that a dialect is being used, but there are ways to make it clear while keeping a reader’s eyes from glazing over.

For any reading this who are interested in fantasy, I do have some available if you are interested. Be warned that it is a trilogy and the third book is still forthcoming, but I think it is a good read nonetheless. It is a collaboration with Lelia Eye, and one we spent many hours planning, writing, and polishing until it (hopefully) gleamed. If you are interested, click on the cover which will take you to an Amazon page where you can purchase it.

Back to historical fiction which is still my bread and butter, I have a quick excerpt I thought I would share with you today. This project still does not have a firm title, but the working title is A Season In London. The book is not due to come out for some time yet, but I hope this little snippet will catch your fancy!

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Clever proverbs and pithy adages aside, it was nothing less than the truth that a young woman lacking significant fortune and the ability to move in society must be in a pitiable state. When these deficiencies are multiplied by a factor of five, the problem reaches prodigious proportions. Such was the dilemma that faced the Bennet family of Longbourn in Hertfordshire.

“Oh, Mr. Bennet!” cried Mrs. Bennet, the wife of the estate’s master one evening while they were dining as a family. “How we are ever to marry our daughters to men worthy of them I cannot imagine. Why, they are becoming old maids before my eyes.”

Mr. Bennet was a man with a satirical eye, one who delighted in the follies of others so long as they did not interrupt his solitude or invade his study, the one room in the house he could find peace. As Mr. Bennet had married his wife more than twenty years before, he boasted an intimate acquaintance with her nerves, which were renown throughout the neighborhood. Mrs. Bennet was a silly, uninformed woman, still handsome in her forties, yet not a stimulating companion for a worldly and intelligent man such as Henry Bennet. As such, his response to his wife’s exclamation was not surprising, for his daughters had seen it many times before.

“I hardly think it is that bad, Mrs. Bennet, though I will own that I saw a wrinkle at the corner of Lydia’s eye the other day.”

“Oh, la, Papa!” exclaimed the girl, at fifteen the youngest of the five Bennet daughters. “Perhaps you should look to Jane and Lizzy for wrinkles for they are far closer to becoming old maids than I am.”

The two eldest daughters, aged two and twenty and twenty respectively, could not help but share a look heavenward. Though Elizabeth reflected that her mother was not incorrect about their positions, that of having no eligible men nearby who were both looking for a wife and interested in a woman of little dowry, her method of expressing herself opened the door to Mr. Bennet’s teasing.

“Oh, fiddlesticks!” exclaimed Mrs. Bennet into the sudden burst of giggling at Lydia’s words, in which her elder sister Kitty joined. “Lydia has many years yet to find a husband. Yet if we do not do something and soon, Jane’s beauty shall fade, and Lizzy will not be far behind.”

“These trials are, we read, sent to test us,” said Mary, the Bennets’ middle daughter who was fond of the sound of moralistic quotes falling from her lips. “Good things come to all those who wait.”

“Yet we are also told that faith without works is dead,” said Elizabeth, waggling her eyebrows at her younger sister.

“That is exactly it,” said Mrs. Bennet, nodding to Elizabeth. “I have spent much time thinking on this subject, Mr. Bennet, and I have determined what we must do.”

“Oh?” asked Mr. Bennet, setting his fork and knife down on the table and leaning back in his chair. Again, the entire family understood this response, for Mr. Bennet expected that his wife would amuse him. “Tell me, my dear, what you have cooked up. It cannot be the men of the neighborhood, for to my certain knowledge there are few who would suit that are looking for wives.”

“What of the officers?” asked Kitty, though her giggling ruined any suggestion that her question was serious.

“I should love to marry an officer! Perhaps Denny or Sanderson would do!”

That Lydia should suggest marriage to an officer of the local regiment was of no surprise to her family. Since those fine fellows had arrived at their winter quarters in Meryton, the nearby market town the previous autumn, little had passed Lydia’s lips that did not concern the officers in some fashion. Their antics in the months since had convinced Elizabeth that they strayed perilously close to the line of ruining the entire family and making it impossible for any of them to marry. If only Elizabeth could convince her mother of the need to restrain their wild tendencies.

“That is nonsensical, even for you, Lydia,” said Mr. Bennet, though his sense of the absurd could not but fuel his mirth. “Officers in the militia are not paid enough to support themselves let alone a wife. Every man among them is supported by his family or he would be unable survive.”

“That is enough, Lydia!” exclaimed Mrs. Bennet, aiming a gimlet eye at her youngest progeny. “When you have heard what I have to say on the subject, you will agree with me that we cannot contemplate the officers as husbands.”

“Yet you have not shared this wisdom with the family,” observed Mr. Bennet. “Please, Mrs. Bennet, let us all understand your boundless wisdom. How do you mean to find husbands for our girls?”

“Why, that is simple, Mr. Bennet,” said his wife. “As there are no eligible men in Hertfordshire, we must go to where there are men looking for wives. Therefore, we must go to town and attend the season.”