New Writing Project!

So in my quest to truly be the Queen of Never Finishing Anything, I decided last week to … er … launch into a whole new writing project.

No, Fin and Giselle’s story is not finished. No, I haven’t sent any more queries for Adam and Simone. No, my Orange County blog is not done. …

And YET! I can still, without even batting an eye, start a whole new story with brand new characters and not even look back.

{deep sigh}

(I know — This is probably why I’ll never be published. …)

But here’s what happened: I found out Harlequin was launching a new line called “Historical Undone,” which is a series of tiny little e-books — they’re each only 10,000 to 15,000 words, which is basically a short story. And I thought, wow, how fun! I love reading historical romances, and I love the *concept* of writing them, but they seem daunting to me — all that research, you know? Regency historicals remain the ever-popular favorite, which I know nothing (historically) about. And they’re followed closely in popularity by any other time in English history, followed then by any time in Scottish/Irish history.

Historicals seem fun to write because there’s such an inherent conflict — always — in the love interest. In contemporaries, which is what I do write, you always have to come up with some crazy conflict for why a young, attractive, unattached man and woman CAN’T be together. (In the modern era, that’s kind of hard to do! Because … uh … they work together? … because they’re on opposing sides of some argument? … because they had some strange past that keeps them from being together now? …)

But in historicals, there are lots of possible conflicts to always choose from — class differences, cultural differences, racial differences, religious differences. … Always interesting. Plus there are all those strange social rules that people love to read — and so many rules to dating. Fun stuff.

Anyway, since I don’t know anything about the Regency period, I began to turn away from this tantalizing new opportunity from Harlequin (despite the allure of short! and e-reads!), but then I realized there IS a period I do know quite a bit about. … And one I read about all the time. … And one that could be fun.

So I started my first western!

{*crickets chirping here*}

I know, I know — no one reads western romances anymore.

But oh well. It seemed like a fun project, and I know the era, and I’m into California history, and I’m having fun with it already, and I’m a finalist in the Queen of Never Finishing Anything contest. So I’m on Chapter 4 of what will probably be 12 chapters. …