An Update

 Hello, dear readers, it's been a while! I have been neglecting my blog for two reasons. 

The first is that I finally made it back to England again earlier this year. It was so wonderful and inspiring to be back again after two years away during the pandemic, and I was fortunate to time my trip so that COVID case rates were low there and I could travel about pretty freely. More to come in the future, but for now here's a photo of Lacock, to whet your appetites. You may recognize it as a filming location both for the 1995 Pride and Prejudice as well as the first Downton Abbey movie. I stayed there several nights and it was wonderfully atmospheric.

Lovely Lacock

The second reason for my quiet time on the blog is I have been focused on getting a first draft done for The Crimes of Elizabeth Darcy, which I finally completed yesterday and ugly cried a bit upon doing so. It still needs a lot of work before it will be ready for online beta – in addition to the usual gaps for names and such that I need to fill, there are sections relating to time on a packet boat and all of the legal bits that need me to refresh myself on my research and try to write them through accurately. 

I did not think it would take this long to complete, but my original estimate was that it was going to clock in between 125,000 and 150,000 words, and I am sure that it will come as a surprise (eye roll) to you all that it's come out at nearly 170,000 words instead. I've got some weekends coming up to devote to writing, however, so I'm hoping to work through the edits as quickly as I can and have it into online beta by this autumn.