I won NaNoWriMo!

Okay, so we're ten days past the end of NaNoWriMo and I'm just finding time to write about it. Why? Because the writing habit started in November has carried over into December...just as I hoped it would. While it actually takes longer than 21 days to set a new habit, my hope was that I'd see the fruits of my hard work and want to keep going. Or that the story I started in November would bug the heck out of me until I finished it. I was fine with either excuse as long as I could keep up the writing habit.

Because ultimately, that's what writing is for me. A habit I don't want to break. I can't *NOT* think of stories, so I might as well write them down. Then edit them. Then decide what to do with them.

I actually wrote just over 52,000 words on REVOLUTION (the working title for my current work-in-progress) during November. Today I broke the 70,000 word mark and I'm thinking it'll come in somewhere between 75-80K by the time I'm done. There's only one problem.

It isn't an erotic romance.

I tried to make it one. The suggestive glances, the appreciative stares...and the characters rebelled. Both the hero and the heroine informed me, in no uncertain terms, that THEY weren't like that. THEY were a proper lady and gentleman and, though they might occasionally have thoughts of that nature (him more than her, since she's barely aware of how babies are formed) neither of them are into BDSM of any sort.

And yet, I still managed to write a novel that's over 70K - without a single sex scene! To be honest, I usually count on my sex scenes to go for three to five thousand words. Put four sex scenes in a novel and it's half written right there. Characters have always been of primary importance to me, rather than plot, so it's probably not really a surprise that I can turn them loose in the bedroom and watch the fireworks happen. The windows get steamy, but I don't care - I'm in the room with them and we're all having fun!

REVOLUTION, however, has turned out to be a more traditional historical romance. A "sweet" romance, if you will. And therein lies my problem...

Where in the world do I publish it? Diana Hunter readers expect BDSM scenes -- and there aren't any. Mystic Shade readers expect very naughty scenes of hard bondage and pain -- and there's none of that, either. So maybe I publish under a different name entirely...although Diana Allandale hasn't had a lot of success with her short stories (in fact, I pulled them at one point, intending to write a few more and repub it under Diana Hunter, but I got busy with other stories...).

So NaNoWriMo was a success for me. I wrote (am writing!) a novel of over 50K - and, let's be clear here, I really, really like this book. Christopher St. James and Clara Simpson are two very independent people who have an incredibly strong attraction to one another, even though each of them is hiding a secret from the other. I've had fun doing the research, fun learning about the British occupation of New York in 1777 and fun getting to know these two and their many friends.

Here's the most current blurb for the book:

Baronet Christopher St. James provides the perfect cover for Clara to slip a note through enemy lines and to her brother in the Continental Army. The man is such a fop, with his lace sleeves and fancy bows, he'll never realize how he's been used.

But the Baronet has problems of his own, and using Clara Simpson to worm his way into the elite echelon that is New York society, gives him the perfect way to spy on the Loyalist enemy, right within their very own parlors....

So, after years of trying, I finally wrote a book in a month...and a half. By this time next week, it'll be done and ready for edits.

And then I have to decide where to publish it.

Sigh.

Play safe!
Diana