Word Wenches

Out and About

Anne here, bringing you a very short post. I'm away from home at the moment and sitting in a hotel room, having eaten take-away Thai food while watching old reruns of Friends and Seinfeld. I drove up today to Wodonga, a town on the border of New South Wales and Victoria, about four hours drive north-east from Melbourne.

I'm here to conduct a one-day writing workshop called Write That Novel, and I'm looking forward to it. I always find these things both a challenge and also inspirational: a challenge because I have no idea who will be in the class, but going on previous experience I expect there will be some people who are complete beginners, and others who've written several complete novels. And I won't know who I've got until the class has started and they've introduced themselves.

The challenge then is to provide information and activities that will help the beginners get started—and not intimidate them or overwhelm them with too much instruction— but that will also interest and hopefully stimulate those with more writing experience.

The unknown aspect of the class is also a source of inspiration. You never know what's going to happen — there can be wonderful chemistry in a class, as people brainstorm and bounce ideas off each other. And sometimes the writing pieces people produce in the class can blow me away. So I'm looking forward to it.

An Interview with Tracy Chevalier

Last week I went up to London to interview international bestselling author Tracy Chevalier as part of the Romantic Novelists’ Association 60^th anniversary celebrations. A number of people who weren’t able to get to the talk were interested in hearing about it, so I thought I would report back on it here as Tracy had so many fascinating things to say about books, reading, writing and art.

Tracy Chevalier was born in Washington DC, the daughter of  is best known for the book Girl with a Pearl Earring, which was made into a film in 2003. It’s based on the famous artwork of the same name by Dutch artist Vermeer, which hangs in the Mauritshuis in the Hague in Holland. As so much of Tracy’s writing life has been defined by art, we decided to base the interview around eight pieces of art or crafts that she chose to represent various aspects of her life, rather as Desert Island Discs does with music, and it proved to be a very interesting way to structure an interview.

How Do Authors Get Paid?

Janice Jacobson asks: “In this new world of mixed publishing - print or ebook or whatever combination thereof - how do authors get paid?  Do they get paid more promptly?  Are they getting as much as they might have received in the print-only days?  How do they track all this stuff?  Is it enough to make a living?”

Given that this is tax season and writing income is on all wenchly minds, this was a timely question, Janice, thank you! For the historical perspective of publishing and how writers got paid, I cannot do better than this in-depth article on Victorian publishing.  Or Anne Gracie’s lovely article on Victorian publishing in the digital age.

It's That Day Again. Valentines!

Joanna here, with the Wenches, talking Valentines Day and Romance and the cool things that mean love to us.

It's not always what you'd expect.

Anne, being both down-to-earth and so, so right, says:

To be honest, I'm not a big fan of Valentine's Day. It only became popular in Australia after I was an adult, and it felt very commercial. I'm much more in favor of unscheduled expressions of love -- a spontaneous gift of chocolates or flowers or something else, a romantic dinner (where you're not jostling in a restaurant with a hundred other couples trying to look romantic), a romantic night in at any time of year, a love-letter that arrives randomly. Even a job that needs doing that's been put off for a while can be

Flowers. Oh yes

romantic -- in the right context. And words of love need to be spontaneous, not scheduled according to the calendar.

 

And while I love love love roses, I don't love the ones they sell for Valentine's. Beautiful, perfect-looking red roses -- without scent. To me that's a bit like a declaration of love without the emotion. I'd much rather a slightly raggedy bunch of roses from the garden, imperfect, but with a glorious scent. Or even not-roses. I have a friend who often arrives for a visit bearing a bunch of flowers from her garden -- one or two of each kind, nothing matching or "designer" but so vibrant and pretty and with a lovely meld of fragrances.

 

 

Pat gives us a lovely view of a warm holiday:

For a romance writer, I'm not very much into schmaltz or commercial holidays. I adored the sticky messy cards my children drew for me in grade school simply because they so much reflected their individual personalities and made me smile and cry at the same time.

But Valentine's Day is also my wedding anniversary, and that's worth celebrating. Our tradition is pretty simple, though. We pick out cards (usually e-cards we can adapt in our own words). My husband usually brings me lovely flowers, because it was always gray gloomy winter for most of our years, and he knows how much I love a bright bouquet to fight off gloom. And then we go out for an extravagant meal in a quiet restaurant we wouldn't normally go to.

Really, it's all about being together with the ones you love, isn't it? And that can be any time for any reason.

 

Andrea is not necessarily a fan of the commercial:

And isn't this a cool Valentine

As one whose teeth is often set on edge by all the “canned” commercial holly-jolly of the really traditional holidays, it’s no surprise that I’m not a big fan of manufactured holidays. It feels a little silly to feel compelled to buy a fancy gift and make reservations at some, swanky expensive—and likely overcrowded—restaurant, simply because of a date on a calendar.

For me, gestures of love are all about the little things—the smaller and more spontaneous, the better . . . Getting a surprise brownie when I’ve mentioned to a friend that I’m feeling a little down . . . An impromptu invitation to take a walk holding hands on a beautiful sunny day.

Huge bouquets of red rose or big boxes of fancy chocolates don’t make my heart go pitty-pat. (well, okay—maybe I’m fibbing about the chocolate!) It’s the off-beat things that I cherish. One of my favorites is a small heart-shaped rock inscribed with colorful circles that I received for no apparent reason at all! Fluttery sigh.   

 

Nicola has a very Romantic story to tell:

I got engaged on Valentine’s Day 32 years ago. In those days it wasn’t really the commercial

That special Valentines trip

festival it is now but was a lot more low key. One of the things that I remember about the occasion was that that my now-husband was so nervous when it came to proposing that he couldn’t get the words out!

Since that day so long ago, we have gone on a trip each Valentine’s Day to celebrate our engagement. This has not always been easy – bad weather, hospital stays and various other life events have intervened to throw obstacles in the way but we have always managed to do something every year even if it has just been a quiet dinner for two somewhere. In the process we’ve stayed in so many gorgeous places and discovered historical gems to visit across England, Scotland and Wales. It’s a fabulous tradition and I hope we can continue it until we fall off our joint twig!

 

The cat in the earrings

Mary Jo passes along a story from a friend:

One of the sweetest Valentine's story I know is from many years ago when a close college friend was dating a girl who really made him light up with happiness. Valentine's Day was coming so he bought her a large stuffed animal to cuddle. He also bought her a pair of earrings because giving jewelry is always a romantic gesture.

Then he thought why not combine the gifts? So the stuffed cat wore earrings. His sweetheart carried that critter through their whole date. And yes--Reader, he married her!

(The picture is a reenactment since this happened long before the era of easy smart phone cameras. <G>)

 

Susan brings us hearts, harts, hearts:

When my three boys were little guys, they gave me assorted hearts for Valentine's Day--small

The collective noun for hearts is ...

wooden ones painted in a preschool class, Play-Doh hearts rolled and mushed and left to dry, paper cut-out hearts glued to doilies, hearts in crayon on paper ...

I've kept lots of these, stashed away in boxes of things that I keep for each son (should they ever want them, which is looking doubtful!). Sometimes the little guys would troop out with their Dad to buy a card and a big box of chocolates (that they soon scarfed up), and they'd also help him pick out heart-shaped jewelry.

I've got quite a collection of heart-shaped necklaces and earrings by now -- here are just a few of them. Each one holds a memory that I'll keep forever, even if the chocolates lasted about five minutes in this house! Happy Valentine's to all!

 

And for me, Joanna ...

I love seasonal things. The candles of the Solstice. The first snowdrop. Fireworks. Pumpkins. Maiwein. The August Moon Viewing.

My best Valentines Days have included clumsy, schoolmade Valentines of red construction paper and frilly white doilies with LOTS of school glue slathered on. Glitter optional.

I also have a fondness for origami hearts. They delight me beyond measure.

But most of all, I love the dorky heart-shaped candies with little slogans on them. "Kiss Me," "Hug Me Tight, "Be Mine."

 

So, what moves your heart today, Valentines Day?
What custom? What memory? What gift?

 

Sailing the Spanish Main!

by Mary Jo

In the depths of winter, it's pleasant to take a vacation in sunnier climes, and the Caribbean isn't all of that far away from Maryland.  This year we decided to sail the Spanish Main on Windstar's Star Pride, a small ship holding about two hundred passengers.

 

 

We started with a two day pre-cruise extension in Panama City, which was founded in 1519 and was the headquarters for Spain's conquest of Peru.  It's at the Pacific end of the Panama Canal, which is one of the great engineering feats of history.  Here's a picture of a ship passing through the canal, protected by very sturdy fencing!

Our ship sailed from Colon, at the Atlantic end of the canal and also a major port.  From there we went to Cartagena in Colombia, founded in 1533 and a key port for sending all the stolen treasure back to Spain.  We took a carriage ride through the old city, which is a Unesco World Heritage Site.  The carriages hold four passengers, and the horses looked healthy.  Ours had just been splashed with water to cool him from the tropical heat.

The old city is very lovely, and the narrow streets with flower decked balconies reminded me of New Orleans.  The old cathedral is in the heart of the district and really beautiful. 

 

Doing Murder (Again)

The Death of King Arthur, by James Archer (1860), public domain work via Wikimedia Commons

Susanna here. All week I’ve been remembering a vintage post I wrote nearly a dozen years ago, on my now retired Not-A-Blog. I called it, “Doing Murder”, and it went like this:

*****

“I’ve been taken to task several times now for killing off characters readers are fond of. Not in every book, but in enough of them that people sometimes comment on it, and it was the rare review for Every Secret Thing that didn’t make note of the body count.

In my defense, I have to say it’s not a thing I like to do. For starters, I’m the kind of person in my private life who rescues worms from rainy sidewalks, and who captures spiders in a cup and puts them back outdoors instead of squishing them (except the spiders who were always in my bathtub when I lived in Wales, but they were big enough to carry me outdoors, and I did warn them first...) So I’m as sad as anybody when I learn I have to kill a character.

A Panorama of Paris

Andrea here, musing on research, and why I find it such fun to delve into background material to find all the little details that help to add color to a story. I’ve got a new Lady Arianna mystery coming out on April 6th—it’s titled A TANGLE OF SERPENTS—and this latest adventure takes Arianna and Saybrook to Paris in the aftermath of of Waterloo. The Allied armies have occupied the city, which has become a viper’s nest of international intrigue as Britain, Russia, Prussia and Austria all jockey for power in how to reorder France. (You can pre-order here. And read an excerpt here.)

It’s a fabulously interesting setting for a mystery . . . I found so many fun bits of color to weave into the plot. The most amazing discovery, which figures prominently in the action, is one I’m saving for close to the release date. But here are plenty of others . . .

Imagine the city suddenly flooded with soldiers from all over Europe—how do you keep them . . . er . . . entertained? And add to the soldiers all the British civilians who at last were free to visit the Continent after years of war. So tourists were also crowding the boulevards, anxious to taste all the pleasures of Paris. Well, thank heavens the city was famous for its joie de vivre. Food! Fashion! Flirting! It turns out there was no dearth of places that offered a sumptuous array of amusements.

 

On Scones (not biscuits)

Anne here, and today I'm talking about biscuits and scones. No, I'm not venturing into the territory where people with a death-wish will try to claim there is virtually no difference between English or Australian scones and US-style biscuits. (Been there, done that. Barely survived.)

The inspiration for my post today came from the frustration of reading books where Regency-era folks sit down to afternoon tea with scones and jam and cream. And no, I'm not entering the debate about which goes on the scone first, the jam or the cream. Each to his own, say I. (Obviously IMO the jam should go first, but this image from Creative Commons is clearly hedging its bets.)

Brooches - Historical Fashion Statement

Nicola here, talking about brooches. Although I love sparkly jewelry, mainly rings and earrings, I’ve never worn brooches very much.  Maybe I associated brooches with my grandmother in the same way that I thought of scarves and lavender, both of which I’ve come around to appreciating over the years. I’ve a number of brooches in my drawer but they don’t see the light of day very often. Well, that’s about to change.

Last year in the UK, Lady Hale, the president of the supreme court caused a sensation in several ways, with her ruling on the prorogation of parliament but also because of the enormous spider brooch that she was wearing at the time. This caused a fashion phenomenon and the sale of spider brooches soared whilst brooches in general became a hot trend. It turns out that Lady Hale has quite a selection of over-sized brooches, including an emerald green frog, a centipede, a beetle and a fox.

What We Are Reading-January

Andrea here, compiling this month's list of what we've been reading. To kick off the new decade, the Wenches have been as eclectic as ever, and this month's recommendations range from Christmas stories and timeslip paranormals to epic historicals, bookish memoirs and the rock 'n roll 1960s. Enjoy—and don't forget to share what you've been reading lately!

Pat: I think the wenches have recommended Sharon Shinn quite frequently, but it never hurts to mention her a few more times! Her stories are so effortless that they tug you into her fantasy world and hold you there, fascinated, for hours. Echo in Emerald is Book #2 in her Uncommon Echoes series. Characters from the first book show up, but this book can be read on its own (which is a good thing because my memory just isn’t that strong!). Chessie knows herself as the illegitimate daughter of a noble, a street urchin with the uncommon accompaniment of two echoes—shadows of herself. Except her echoes are more than shadows, they can act independently, and she can enter their heads and be them anytime she likes—in effect, she can be three different people, a boy who runs errands, a sexy waitress, and herself, a nondescript messenger.