Summary Sunday

A good friend once gave me a doll with frazzled hair holding a sign that said: "Some days are better

than others." That was certainly true for my writing this week, especially on Friday. I barely eked out a handful of new sentences in an evening otherwise mostly devoted to editing a pivotal scene from an earlier draft. (The editing session felt more like a wrestling match!) In spite of that, I did manage to write six days this week. Here is a sampling from what I accomplished this week with The Lady and the Minstrel.

Monday: She could barely eat or sleep for wondering where Robert was and what he was thinking and whether this time apart would cool the simmering heat in his eyes and replace it with a cold, sober assessment that the dangers of her inheritance outweighed the desire she knew he felt for her.

Tuesday: Holly, along with mistletoe and ivy, had always been hung in her grandfather’s hall during Advent, but her father held to the belief that it was unlucky to gather holly before Christmas Eve.

Wednesday: Strode even let her win twice at chess. He praised her cleverness, again conspicuously before the servants, when he forced her to take advantage of careless moves she knew a man shrewd enough to rise in power next to the king could only have made deliberately.

Thursday: His voice did not slur, but she recoiled, the aromatic mix of cloves and cinnamon and apples of the wassail soured with the wine on his breath.

Friday: The inexplicable sense of safety she had felt with Robert in the glade had become a promise fulfilled.

Saturday: “That glint in yer eye, that mulish set to yer lips— I’ve known ye too long not to recognize the signs that ye’re about to do somethin’ insanely foolish.”