Pemberley, O Pemberley

Sooooo, between talking bad Pride and Prejudice sequels with Laura and Kristen and half-watching while baking cookies a filmed MINISERIES of a *timetravelling* P&P (called Lost in Austen), and being rather strapped for cash, without a play to direct, and terrified about stepping into a world beyond Academia (considering the last time resulted in corporate padded cells), I thought to myself:

"Hey! Myself! You have a novel already completed that you could easily sell to some gullible fool smart, savvy business-minded publisher with a few revisions, a few addendums and hey presto! Instant gold!"

So, I took out Not All Wealth Is Bought With Gold (yeah, yeah, need a new title) and began rereading its 51K self. Not too bad. It's absolutely insane with commas that I'll need to take out, hyphens likewise, and I remember that the second half isn't nearly as strong as the first, and in glancing quickly at the ending I remembered how hastily I threw that together (as always, it seems - boo, Emily! Boo!), I set about finding what chump lucky fella I would set prey offer the MS to.

Wouldn't ya know it, I've found one that looks good enough - specializes in selling in Paper Stores and Wal-Marts and supermarche's etc. And also just released a "Hey! Libraries like our Austen stuff!" press thingummy, so they'll be salivating for more prestige where that came from...

...only they want novels to be at least 90K. Mine is 51K. So, I've essentially got to double it. Which, granted, shouldn't be that hard. I remember I wrote one chapter a day (about), each chapter around 1.5-3K words, sometimes less. I know there were parts I wanted to extend - especially why Col. Fitzwilliam likes Maria, introducing Regina Carrington much earlier, giving a bit more to Mr. Delford (because I likes him, and because I'd like to plant the seeds of his spin-away sequel which was justly rejected from Bits of Ivory at Pemberley for being too original and not Austen enough), and I'm seriously toying with the idea of exploiting that century's authors' penchants for filling up random chapters with random digressions (Dorian Grey's dust mote chapter 11 anyone?) and actually taking a full 5K or so and writing an entirely different story in the middle of our novel - and saying so to the audience. HA!

I'm a little freaked out over having to double the novel's length, but I'm psyched about more or less merely revamping a novel as it stands. Also, having, oh, been to London, Bath and what passed for Meryton in the Coswalds, as well as being older, snarkier and more full of Terry Pratchett should result in a better quality of writing than what is already there. So, yay!

I hope I can sell it - I'm pretty sure I can - and if I can, I hope that I can swindle convince them to, oh, buy Nachtsturm Castle (but not at 90K, please!), and my short stories (as a collection, with maybe a few more thrown in), and commission the sequel to Not All Wealth. Huzzah!

Here's to hoping. Because Heaven's knows I need the income....

Mood: Excited and tremulous
Music: Interior "Shy" from Mattress because it's stuuuuuuuck.
Happiness is: School begins tomorrow! Note to self: must track down Bob and shake him like a magic 8 ball, but lovingly.