Summary Sunday

My sister flew to Arizona on Friday for a 12 day visit, so Friday was a washout writing-wise, but I got 

the other five days in. Here is a new sampling from The Lady and the Minstrel.

Monday: Marguerite joined her in searching through the little carved casket where Marguerite kept her ribbons.

Tuesday: She always suspected he had gone off someplace alone to weep, for he would have thought it weakness to do so before others, even his granddaughter.

Wednesday: “If you thought I did not care, then I did not kiss you soundly enough in the woods.”

Thursday: He asked me if I had a wife and when I said no, he said I was too young and they must look elsewhere, but Lady Helen exclaimed that my song enchanted her—it was a fairy song my mother taught me—and she said I must not heed her stuffy husband and that she would not allow me to say her nay.

Friday: 

Saturday: She wanted to know he was near her, not somewhere lost in throngs of the great city of London.

Summary Sunday

This week, a rival for my heroine’s affections enters the scene. Not each of these sentences relates to 

him, but some of them do. And of course, we had to have another tournament, right? I hope you enjoy these new sentences from The Lady and the Minstrel!

Monday: ’Twas the second time Sarah had observed more of Marguerite’s heart than Marguerite had wished her to, but she could make no reply for Sir Warin had rejoined them.

Tuesday: Clever. It was what men called women who knew how to read, and Marguerite knew it was not always meant as a compliment.

Wednesday: Speak, a voice whispered in her mind, but a vying flutter in her breast murmured, Not yet, not yet.

Thursday: She could not take advantage of his chivalry after rejecting his heart so cruelly.

Friday: (Two sentences, for context) Marguerite had earlier watched Lady Lovell draw a yellow ribbon from her hair and tie it to Strode’s lance as a favor. It fluttered its unabashed contempt of Marguerite’s pride for too many chagrining moments as the king uttered his royal blessing—“Fight this day with courage and honor. May God be with you.”—in a humdrum voice that revealed his continued displeasure with his “favorite”, and waved Strode on so that he might bless the next knight and the next.

Saturday: Thankfully, he never spoke to her for if he had, she was quite sure it would have shattered her restraint and set her flailing at him like a madwoman.

Summary Sunday

Sometimes, no matter how much a writer loves a particular line she writes, upon reflection it simply
doesn't belong in the story. Such is the case with this week's Wednesday sentence. By Thursday I had already reluctantly decided that it needed to be snipped out of the story because it didn't quite fit the mood of the scene. But good lines need never go entirely to waste. In my case, they go into a CUTS document, where if I wish to, I can pluck them back out and use them in another story. Such might be the case for Wednesday's sentence someday. :-)

Once more, these are all lines from this week's draft writing of The Lady and the Minstrel.

Monday: She swept her lashes against her cheeks to veil the revulsion she feared she could not conceal in her eyes and prayed Isabelle would interpret it as a sign of flustered awe that Marguerite had won so great a condescension as counsel from the queen.

Tuesday: Marguerite blamed Sarah for putting the idea into her head.

Wednesday: Marguerite did not realize how the gesture made her gawk in surprise until he winked a second time.

Thursday: Marguerite had learned that when the king’s wine-slickened voice garbled his bursts of bravado into “Shalleena, mlors?”, that the meal had reached it’s end, for the king soon thereafter stumbled out of the hall with his arm around a buxom wench, unless he dropped back into his chair and his head pitched snoring onto the tabletop first.

Friday: Strode took another leisurely sip from his cup, then murmured as the king drew breath to reply, “Ah, nay. As I recall, that man who called your actions dishonorable was not me, but the Earl of Gunthar.”

Saturday: Before Marguerite scarcely knew what she was doing, she gave Sir Aldus a bright smile, laid her fingers in his, and was stepping and sliding and skipping alongside him to the vigorous tune of the vielles.

Summary Sunday

This week's writing was evenly divided between my old/new couple reappearing in the story and my
heroine, Marguerite, being thrust into King John's court in London. Here are a few new sentences from The Lady and the Minstrel.

Monday: She knew, as he did, how men who ordinarily scorned learning as the labor of clerks found themselves unexpectedly intimidated when thrust into the presence of her husband’s obsessive collection of leatherbound tomes

Tuesday: “John, Marshal writes, is like a vengeful dog, determined to tear his former lands out of the grasping hand of the King of France like a hound all a-growl to recover a stolen bone.”

Wednesday: “She is a cordwainer’s daughter, which you would know if you had lent his prattle half-an ear instead of glaring him into silence every time he sighed her name.”

Thursday: Marguerite had thought Lady Lovell the most beautiful woman she had ever seen until she had laid eyes on Isabelle of Angoulême.

Friday: It startled Marguerite slightly when Sarah lay a finger to the rose Marguerite had chosen next to stitch, until she realized her friend meant the gesture to misdirect anyone who watched them into thinking they merely discussed Marguerite’s embroidery.

Saturday: “And I think you do not weep only because you are bound to so wicked a man as the earl. My love, I know a broken heart when I see it.”