Tag Archives: the sisterhood

Satisfied Saturday Six

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The SSS celebrates six things that have gone well, or at least okay, in the past week. It is the creation of Terry Egan, who is all things wonderful.

1. I had a very sociable Sunday last week, with Lovely Friend staying. We went out for a meal with her family, who are most splendid.

2. Ooh, Bella are potentially interested in the new novel. All I have to do now is write the remaining two thirds of it… Oh, and edit. And edit and edit and edit.

3. Goodness, I can’t believe it took me until point #3 to mention that Child – who is, of course, brilliant in every single way – chose to be brilliant at art and managed to be one of ten winners of a competition to have his artwork on a big banner in the local city centre.

4. A local friend of mine, whose son is one of Child’s best friends, very very kindly offered to take him to and from football practice today, and then hang on to him for a while as I had a choir rehearsal this morning. I thought I was going to have to make Child come to the rehearsal with me instead, which would not have been joyous for either of us, especially as Child informed me that the music we’re singing makes him want to cry. (I think it’s the music not my interpretation of it, as we’ve had the CDs on in the car and I haven’t been singing audibly along. Just in case you were wondering 😉 )

5. I accidentally managed to buy some books this week. A charity shop leapt out and forced me into its depths, refusing to let me out again until I’d bought five books. It’s terribly sad, but what choice did I have?

6. I’ve been working with a friend on a project for the last few days. Hopefully I will be able to tell you about it shortly 🙂 Anyway, I think it’s a Good Thing.

Satisfied Saturday Six

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The SSS celebrates six things that have gone well, or at least okay, in the past week. It is the creation of Terry Egan, who is all things wonderful.

1. Child has had a delightful time at football (soccer) coaching this week, with Charlton Athletic’s community branch.

2. I dyed my hair 🙂 I am now blue-and-green and mermaidish. Strangely, the spell check doesn’t believe ‘mermaidish’ is a word. I now desire to feature the word on my ‘Wednesday Word of the Week’.

3. I’m working on the new novel. I’ve currently written 20,000 words, which is much more than I had realised I’d written. AND I’m still early enough in the process that I think it’s a good story. By the time anything gets to publication, I’m at the point of thinking “oh gods, this is just dreadful – if I have to look through it again I think I may just delete the entire thing!” I like to think of this as authorly paranoia, rather than “Finally I See The Truth”.

4. I’ve had a while when I’ve been struggling with brain function enough that I’ve been unable to read new-to-me books. This is quite major brain dysfunction for me (I’d read upwards of 60 new books between January and the beginning of May), but thankfully appears to be fading. I’m not able to read complicated new things, but have read a couple of crime novels in the last few days.

5. I dealt (reasonably) well with a difficult phone conversation this week. Unlike reading, phones are difficult for me at the BEST of times, which this wasn’t.

6. Child found a game (in Aquila magazine, in case you’re wondering) in which you throw dice and use the outcome to draw monsters. This is far too much fun, especially with a ‘consequences’ style ‘name the monster and give details about it’ second round (which might have been my idea 😉 )

Satisfied Saturday Six

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The SSS celebrates six things that have gone well, or at least okay, in the past week. It is the creation of Terry Egan, who is all things wonderful.

1. I got to choir this week and passed my audition, so I’m an official tenor now. It’s also good to have my feeling that I do have a low voice for a woman confirmed.

2. I’m signed up to write three articles for Jane Austen’s Regency World over the next 6 months or so. Look out for information on ‘incredible cures and quacks’, toilet habits, and kept men…

3. I faced the fact that my weight is really not what I want it to be, and went to my first Slimming World session on Tuesday. I’m hoping that having to be weighed once a week in a sort of ‘official’ setting will make me more inclined to stick to a decent diet.

4. I went book shopping yesterday. I frequent charity shops and the like, to try and prevent myself bankrupting the household. Anyway, I ended up with 19 books (though three of them were for Child) so it’s very exciting having them lined up for myself.

5. I am an unashamed Manchester United fan, and my team have now basically been confirmed as being in the Champion’s League next season. (The next thing is to get us playing well, but one step at a time…)

6. Oh! I think I might finish the first three chapters of the new novel (working title The Sisterhood, and again a lesbian Regency romance) in the next week.  This feels like a Success as I set myself a secret target to finish them before the end of May. (I’ve also written another 12,000 words of other bits of the book, as I don’t work in a linear fashion, but it’s nice to see the beginning coming together a bit.)

Friday Fiction (The Sisterhood excerpt)

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This is my current WIP, another Regency romance. This is currently the beginning of the first chapter, but when I think through how much the beginning of Petticoats and Promises changed during editing, I do not promise that a single word of this will be in the final story!

 

The Sisterhood

 

The simple fact was, Charity Bellingham should have been born a boy.

 

Charity, not for the first time, was pondering this as she practised her scales on the piano. C major. C minor harmonic. C minor melodic. She had played these enough times that her fingers knew the positions by rote, leaving her able to mull things over as she played. If she had been a boy, perhaps her parents would have loved her. (C sharp major; all the sharps.) If she had been born a boy, wouldn’t have been thrown out of Forsbury, their old, beautiful house. The entail would have gone to her. (D minor harmonic – easy) If she had been a boy, perhaps her father wouldn’t even be dead. She might have been with him as he toured their estate, able to fetch help immediately he was thrown from his house. He wouldn’t have lain there alone so many hours, wouldn’t have caught that awful chill which led two days later to his death.

 

If she had been a boy…. E flat melodic minor. Charity thumped the notes down, trying to drown out the voice in her head. Her mother looked up from the chair in which she sat sewing, her lips pursed.

 

“Charity! There can hardly be a need for that volume. It is unladylike.”

 

“Sorry, mother.”

 

And ah yes, there it was. The fact that in all ways save the only one which mattered, Charity was a boy – or at any rate was boyish. Having been born a girl, she had not even had the courtesy to act like one. To pursue girlish interests with the same enthusiasm as her sister. Rebecca, source of this comparison, looked up from her place at her mother’s side, and gave Charity a sympathetic smile. Becca, like their mother, was sewing: a neat line of stitches to embroider a dress. The best that could be said about Charity’s sewing was that it was serviceable: two edges she sewed together would stay sewn, but they would win no merit for beauty. She preferred reading to sewing, and outdoor exercise to either.