Word Wenches

The Etiquette of Introductions

Susanna here. My elder son is moving in a few days, and that has me grateful that he lives in modern times, when he can freely move across an ocean to another country without having to navigate the complex social etiquette involved in introductions that our ancestors were bound by.

In another age, we’d have been busily rounding up letters of introduction he could carry over with him.

The Petals Audiobook Has Arrived!

By Mary Jo

In June, I blogged about the cover evolution of my book Petals in the Storm, from its first appearance as a Signet Regency titled The Controversial Countess to the most recent incarnation.  Here's the link if you'd like to see the cover changes over the years

Petals is my only book with a first scene that was the last scene of the previous book, only told from this hero's point of view while in The Bargain, we watched the action through other eyes.  It was that last scene that made me interested enough in Rafe Whitbourne, the Duke of Candover, to want to write a book about him.  I virtually never write dukes; generally it's only when I want a male character who is at the top of Britain's aristocratic pecking order--and pays the price for it.  

Petals is a second chance at love book.  Rafe and Margot had fallen in love and become betrothed when they were very young--and the relationship had exploded, mostly but not entirely Rafe's fault.  Now, during the post-Waterloo Paris Peace Conference, Rafe and Margot must work together to prevent a new cataclysm--and in the process, come to terms with the past. (Yes, Rafe must grovel.  It's good for him. <G>) 

Regency Chickens, Because Why Not?

 

Fourth Century BCE Etruscan chicken beaker

Joanna here, talking chicken history, with special attention to chickens in the Regency.

By this I mean historical eating chickens rather than show chickens or fighting chickens or pet chickens, though I imagine some Regency folks kept chickens and became very fond of them. I will talk about pet chickens later.

Not everyone agrees chickens are pet material.

Look in the eye of a chicken and you’ll know. It’s the most horrifying, cannibalistic and nightmarish creature in this world.      Werner Herzog

In the Regency -- in most times and places -- chickens were “women’s livestock,” a minor and cozily domestic part of the farm economy, kept by the woman of the house for “egg money,” fed thriftily with scraps and garden bugs and free-range foraging.
I don't know about everywhere, but in the US in the C20 the money a woman made from her chickens was hers to spend as she would.

Might be grain. Might be table crumbs

“Chickens consumed a lot of garden waste. For example, if you’d finished picking all the peas, then you pulled up the vines and fed them to the chickens. When you had a biscuit that didn’t rise properly or bread with mold, you threw it into the farmyard. Chickens love bugs and are omnivorous, so they eat meat and, sometimes, eat each other. They also love mice.”

  Elaine Shirley, Colonial Williamsburg

A Winner!

 

The winner of the competition that arose from Mary Jo's interview of Anne about her new book, MARRY IN SECRET is Karin A.

Karin has been notified and the book is on its way.

Thanks to all those who participated.

Victorian Rail Travel

Pat here:

I’ve written Victorian romances set in the US, but I’ve never tried Victorian Britain or more specifically, Scotland. So I have to research practically every page I write. When I needed to move my characters from York to Edinburgh—along with four young children—I had to do some digging. Yes, I created an imaginary train station in my Unexpected Magic books when my characters wanted to invest in their imaginary property. I used that imaginary track to take my characters to my imaginary castle owned by my imaginary duke. (And I vow to have only one duke in my series, thank you very much)  But if I’m putting my characters on the train, what can they expect to see? How long will it take them to reach their destination? At some point, I have to add history. (Image to left is how Queen Victoria traveled--a little fancier than most cars and a very royal blue!)

Ask A Wench: The Right Shoe

Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world.

–Marilyn Monroe

Susan here, with our Ask-A-Wench topic for August - shoes! With all the traveling and summer wandering the Wenches have been doing, what sort of footwear keeps us going? And is there a historical style of footwear that looks comfortable? Here's what we came up with -- 

Pat says:

I am a tenderfoot with issues. I cannot go barefoot. It’s painful. But I cannot wear enclosed shoes because my feet are two different sizes, and if there’s a back on them, the heel will rub on one and the toes be crushed in the other. I love mules, which keep my toes warm, don’t have backs that rub, and allow enough space not to crush toes. My favorites for walking are Easy Spirit. In summer, it’s sandals all the way—not the kind with straps between the toes, please. Flip-flops hurt too.

 

So I guess historically, I’d have to live in Roman times and wear those really cool sandals that wrap up the leg or maybe the lovely Regency-style mules, except they all seem to have pointed toes and high heels—for dancing, ouch.

 

Andrea says:

There are many fashionistas who will pay astronomical prices for impossibly high-heeled, pointy toed, delicate leather odes to Artistic Inspiration. I am not one of them. I do confess, however that I’m not quite ready to wear sneakers with everything either. My go-to “dress” shoes are a simple black pump with nicely rounded toe, a sturdy one inch heel and rubber non-slip  sole. (I’m short in the legs and like a little extra lift so my pants don’t drag in the mud.) They’re super comfortable and have a classic look that works for a range of occasions. (For dressier times, I have a pair that are two inches high. As I said, I believe in keeping it simple!)

Now, what really fills my closet are sports shoes and boots—tennis, squash, hiking and golf all require tech footwear in cool colors and textures. Those are the ones I get excited about.

 

Being Away and Coming Home

Anne here, and I've just arrived home after traveling and attending conferences and writing retreats for the last three and a half weeks. And launching a book, so if this blog is a little scatty and unfocused, I hope you'll forgive me.

The first conference was the Romance Writers of America conference in New York. I flew from Melbourne to Los Angeles and stopped in LA for a couple of days, because the 16+ hour flight is long enough without continuing straight on to New York, which would be around 21+ hours flying time, not including waiting time. So I like to stop in California for a couple of days and work, and walk in the sun to reset my body clock a bit. 

The New York conference was brilliant, not so much for the workshops etc — I was only able to attend two, both of which were excellent — but for the meetings with my editor and agent and others who work for my publisher. I came away from those meetings feeling valued and very positive. And of course my book came out while I was there, which was very exciting — and busy.

It was also lovely meeting up with friends from the USA and Canada, as well as some from the UK, Ireland and even some Australians who live in far flung parts of the continent and that I don't often get to see.  And as well there was a small group of lovely French readers and writers who we've met before at US conferences, and who are involved with running the French Romance Conference.

Four of the Word Wenches — Susanna, Mary Jo, Andrea and I — also appeared on a panel discussing "Surviving and Thriving."  Here's a bit of what I said: 

It's tempting, when you first start writing, to want to shut yourself away and concentrate on writing, writing, writing. And marketing and promo and obsessively watching your numbers. But getting out and about, mixing with all kinds of people, visiting new places and experiencing different things is what feeds your muse and your writing, and keeps you fresh and happy. 

Understand the things you can control -- your writing, how good it is, how much you write, how frequently you publish -- and make that your priority. You can't control sales numbers -- and marketing, promo, etc. can eat up your time, money and energy and drive you crazy to little effect.

Giving Old Books A Makeover

Nicola here and today I’m talking about reprints of my old books that come out all around the world. Although I now write timeslip books – and some of those are being published in different countries – my Regency historical romances are still regularly reprinted and reissued. It makes me very happy that books, some of which were originally written 20 years ago, are still in print somewhere in the world and hopefully reaching new Regency readers!

When I first started writing, back in 1998, I was published only in the UK. The books were shorter, sweet romances, sometimes with no sex and if there was a hint of it, the bedroom door closed quite quickly! After a few years, by great good luck, my books were selected (along with a certain brilliant author called Anne Gracie!) to be published in the US. I vividly remember the day the first one came out; not only did it feature a cover model called Mike Dale, which seemed to cause some interest, it was published in the week that I gave up my office job to become a full-time author. It also gained some pretty scathing reviews that almost sent me scuttling back to the day job, convinced my writing was no good, so the timing wasn’t great but I stuck with it.

Introducing Nevil

Susanna here. Today I’m going to tell you a love story. Not the most conventional of love stories, but it does have a meet-cute, and it happens in Manhattan, and I promise it ends happily.

A couple of weeks before I was due to go down to New York for the Romance Writers of America’s annual conference, I opened my morning paper to find an article by AP journalist Katherine Roth focused (rather wittily) on the “Typewriter’s Return”.

“At the few remaining typewriter repair shops in the country,” she wrote, “business is booming as a younger generation discovers the joy of the feel and sound of the typewriter—and older generations admit they never fell out of love with it.”

The Joys of Friendship

Andrea here, thinking today about the joys of friendship and all the special ways it can enrich our lives. Here at the Word Wenches, we all write books that have friendship and love at the heart of our stories, though we play with those elemental tropes in our own individual styles. The beauty of friendship is that it has an infinite number of ways to weave us all together.

In our occasional blogs on craft, we’ve talked a lot about the solitary life of a writer, and how we spend a lot of time in the “writing cave” with just our characters for company. (Trust me, there are times I wish I could send them back to their own abode and get them out of my hair! But as with all friends, you quickly learn to love their little quirks . . .)