Wrestling with earls

Kate Walker wrestled her Spaniard into submission last week, attached him to an email and sent him off to her editor. Lucky her. She deserves the break. She's worked very hard.

I'm glad she got Raul out of her hair, though judging from his picture here, he wouldn't have been too hard to have around.


I, on the other hand, am currently wrestling with an earl.

Not even Flynn. That would be at least interesting. But it isn't Flynn I'm wrestling with. I'm wrestling with his father.

Think about it. What does his father have to be for Flynn to be an earl?

That's right. He has to be dead. He is dead. He is also driving me nuts. He won't stop cropping up and annoying his son. Even from the grave he's causing no end of trouble.

It's not like Flynn doesn't have enough on his plate to deal with. He's got a son he didn't know about. He's got a woman he left six years ago who can't imagine he isn't going to do it again and so is highly unlikely to let him matter in her life. He's got a crumbling castle, a matchmaking mother, a loose cannon brother. And more trouble than all of them is his father, the dead earl!

Why? I ask myself. It's not like he can do anything now, is it? No, he can't. This is not a para-normal. The dead earl is staying dead, thank you very much.

But Flynn keeps thinking about him. I keep thinking about him. It's because he's had such an effect on his son's life. Not for the good, I fear.

And now there's Liam. And what sort of effect is he going to have on Liam? Flynn, that is, not the dead earl. He's worrying about being like his father, I think. He keeps stalling, worrying instead of getting where he needs to go (where I need him to go -- Ireland -- by the end of the week, and England to my editor by the end of the month!).

So I've promised him that I will deal with the earl (the old earl. The dead earl, as I keep reminding Flynn). He says good, I can take care of it. And then he starts thinking again. And so do I -- and before you know it, the damned dead earl is back.

Sometimes writing is so weird.

And worse, I have now finished Twyla Tharp's book The Creative Habit, and I regret to inform you that she does not specifically address wrestling with earls.

Otherwise it's a fabulous book. My copy arrived today. I'm going to re-read from the beginning, pen in hand this time.