Retitling and Other Tidbits

If you pay attention to my silly progress bars (not that I expect you to, mind you!), you may have noticed that I've changed the title of Living in Sin to A Scandalous Liaison. I'd been toying with changing the title for quite some time, but I hadn't been able to think of anything I liked better. However, the feedback from my third place finish in the CONNections contest included a comment from one first round judge and the editor who judged the final round stating the book needed a better title. I found that motivating, especially since I've decided to enter the story in one more contest, this one with an agent as the final round judge.

Lady Libertine, which is a sequel of sorts to A Scandalous Liaison, may get a title change to A Dangerous Liaison. That was actually the title I originally liked best for ASL, but my critique partners felt the story isn't dark enough to support the word "dangerous" in the title, and I couldn't really disagree. I still kind of love Lady Libertine as a title, though, so I'm not changing it, at least for the time being.

Now that I've renamed the book, my goal is to finish my third revision pass by the end of this month (preferably sooner). I am looking to accomplish three things in this pass:

1. Get the story down to 100,000 words or less. (Easy-peasy now that my critique partners and I have identified the superfluous scenes.)
2. Add a few new pieces to make the story flow once the extraneous stuff is removed.
3. Make the Black Moment blacker and the resolution of it more emotionally satisfying.

Speaking of #3, in tomorrow's blog, I'm going to be talking a bit about Black Moments and why they should be both black (not gray) and resolved by the hero and heroine's actions rather than circumstantial fiat. So please join me for that!