Word Wenches

Tricks of the Trade

Susan Sarah here....

I finished my book the other night. 2:30 in the morning, after days of almost solid typing. And then I got down on my knees (ok partly in gratitude and relief)...to do some yoga stretches. I knew from previous experience that if I stumbled from the keyboard to the bed, as I wanted to do, being exhausted, after a marathon typing session, I was really gonna feel it the next morning. So I stretched out the kinks, and then stumbled downstairs to watch a little mindless middle-of-the-night tv, knowing that my brain wasn't ready to shut down yet from all those words, words, words.

Jo sparked a great discussion yesterday about writing, including page counts, and I started thinking about a related aspect of the writing habit and the writing trade: writing can be very physically demanding.

Whether you’re a hare or a tortoise, whether you crank out 5,000 words when inspiration strikes and 500 another day, or if you produce 1,000 or 2,000 at a steady pace – all that typing puts stresses and strains on the body, especially hands, wrists, shoulders, neck, and back. Not to mention eyestrain. While we’re racking up those great word counts, we’re doing it because the body is cooperating. If a joint, a tendon sheath, or a spinal disc decides it doesn’t want to cooperate, the writing goes nowhere.

I'm one of those roller coaster, seat-of-the-pants, flying in the mist, leaping from one cliff to the next at a moment’s notice, sort of writers. I’m not a tortoise, I’m a hare. At first, my process goes at an unpredictable pace: 1,000 words, 500 there, 5,000 great pages out of nowhere, maybe nothing for days (figuring 250 wds = 1 page, so 1,000 words = 4 pages, approximately). Somewhere along the way I hit my stride. Then I can crank with the best of ‘em–- 5,000 words a day, twice that, three times that as I get closer to the finish line. My record on a weekend, I think, is 20,000 words (easy enough to do when the book is due on a Monday *g*). When I start cranking words like that, it’s generally pretty clean, publishable stuff, and requires far less editing than that sloppy 5,000 I wrote back in the first few chapters.

I may stay up into the wee hours, I may skip decent meals, I may eat at the keyboard while reading (email counts!). I can plow through writing the second half of a book in record time...and boy, does the body feel the effects of those mad typing sessions. Writing hangover, bigtime. Aches, pains, foggy head, all that stuff.

After years of this, and I’ve learned some tricks that work for me. I tend to feel writing hangovers in the back, neck/shoulders, and wrists. Though I’ve been lucky with no major problems, I’ve had moments –- like a cervical disc problem that showed up not in the neck, but as numbness in arms and hands while typing or handwriting. And I’ve had years of little lower back problems that made long typing sessions very difficult. Since I don’t do well with medications (being one of those super-sensitive sorts with a long list of reactions to medications and drug groups, like prednisone and ibuprofen, which fixes stuff related to writing hangovers), my little body glitches aren't easy for docs to solve. Fortunately my oldest kid is an M.D. now, so I have a ready resource of advice. And he has learned to accept that the mom solves problems in her own way.

What has worked wonders for me are tricks that fall into certain categories – ergonomics, exercise, and a little assistance from chiropracty. 

I’m not keen on exercising, and that's an understatement. But I need to, not only as I get older, but because I'm sometimes a Mad Typist. I’ve adapted and accepted the inevitable, and now I do forms of exercise that I can enjoy, like tai chi, qigong, yoga, and walking. These have helped me enormously to shake off the aftereffects of all that typing, all that sitting, all those fingers flying. When I’m deep into a book and the writing hours are really demanding, I have to stretch and balance the body, or I’m gonna feel it later in aching and stiff muscles. So just about every morning, and most afternoons, I do some form of tai chi, qigong, and stretching. I’ll go for a walk if there’s time. Walking helps the brain--the same part of the brain that handles walking also handles problem solving. When I can get out for a walk (or do a walking exercise, like treadmill or elliptical), it works not only muscles, but that part of the brain that needs to figure out that next chapter. Oh cool! I can still work on the book and exercise! This is a great advantage for writer-holics. 

Sometimes I see a chiropractor, who does a few gentle and mysterious tugs, and the alignment that he re-establishes helps keep my neck and back from tripping me up on marathon typing days.
Bless the chiropractors of the world!

When I’m deep in a deadline mode, I’ve got to be careful how I eat. Being a sensitive sort, too much of the stuff I love -- dairy, sugar, gluten, and other yummy things -- will turn me foggy, tired, and achy...and that can mean 1,000 words out the window right there.  Water, water, water, also helps the brain.
Carbs and a little sugar are necessary for a madly thinking brain. It doesn’t do well on a lot of protein, at least mine doesn’t, so if I want to think clearly, I have to go with good quality, light foods and a lot of water or tea at deadline time. If I did the pizza and coffee thing for days running...I would do less work, not more. So I save the pizza for the celebration after a book is done, so I can be miserable at my leisure.

And for me, ergonomics has worked wonders. Since I started using an ergonomic keyboard years ago, some nagging wrist pains cleared up, only to return when I use a regular keyboard (like long sessions on a laptop).
I had some lower back flare-ups that were awful, and occurring more often. The problems, I found out later (through trail-and-error, as well as the chiropractor) were related to proportion: Me vs. Furniture. Being 4'11" on a good day, often regular furniture just doesn’t fit me, and this includes regular office furniture: chairs are too big, the desk is too high, my feet don’t reach the floor, I need pillows and props everywhere just to do my job. And my back was talking, almost daily. Oww.  (Tall people can have just as much difficulty with chairs and desks, too–it’s the average size person who does better with regular furniture).
A writer friend recommended an ergonomic chair, a Herman Miller Aeron Chair. I tried one of these in a store, and fell in love with it on the spot. It felt like heaven, after struggling with a high-quality but common design office chair. The Aeron is a mesh ergonomic chair that comes in 3 sizes. I got the smallest size for shorter people (the guy in the store said, You need an A; I’ve never sold an A before, we have to special order). What this chair did for my back was like magic: virtually overnight, the problems began to vanish, and haven’t come back (unless I spend long work hours in big people furniture). Then my husband got out the saw and lowered my desk several inches, which helped a lot too.

So between the daily stretches, the ergonomic keyboard, the munchkin desk and the magic chair –- I can handle those 20,000-word weekends without the writer hangover!

How about you all, what have you discovered that works for you?

~Susan Sarah 

Due Dates

Jo here.

Susan talked about deadlines, and the less dire phrase that I liked was due date, but due date or deadline, it's a weighty part of a writer's life.

I'm not under the boom at the moment. My next commitment is for early January, but I can't extend that because the book is slotted for September. (That's because the book trickling onto shelves right now was moved from January 2007, so everything became tight.) It's always comforting to know that the deadline can be extended by a month or so without anyone getting in a panic. I have about half the book written, but I have a busy September coming up and I'm looking ahead at October, November, and December somewhat warily.

Stuff happens, and that's what screws up deadlines. Sometimes stuff doesn't happen, and that's even worse if the stuff is the story.

I'm a lousy typist but a pretty fast writer -- when the story flows. I can do 5,000 goodish words in a day. I've done 10,000. The trouble is, such days are unpredictable. I do write every weekday and sometimes at weekends. I do the work, as Nora Roberts says. But I'm just as capable of writing, say, 3,000 words (a more typical day) which are great but wrong for the book. Or not great, and thus wrong for the book. If I force myself to produce words for the MIP (mess, monster, masterpiece in progress) they'll probably be garbage.

What I do, therefore, is work on more than one MIP at a time, and when one gets balky I switch to another. It's writing, it's fun, but it can be hell on schedules. Mostly it's worked. That back-burner MIP seems to ferment so that when I peep it's ready to grow again. But it's a very unpredictable way to write books.

Which is why deadlines is maybe the right word after all and the due date is when the book is scheduled to appear on the shelves. Which is next week in the case of To Rescue A Rogue, but it's a tiny bit premature and is popping up here and there already.

If you're a writer, how do you plan the writing of a book? (That reminds me. Before I wrote my first book I was overwhelmed by the idea of sitting down to do something that would take monhs, perhaps years. It seemed impossible, insane. It probably still is, but as they say, you have to be crazy to work here.)

If you're a reader, how important is it that an author has books out frequently?

Jo

Limberger or sense

Pat Rice checking in:

I’m still pondering last week’s discussions on why we choose certain historical eras and settings over others.  As usual, the comments were quite enlightening, and I’m thoroughly enjoying this opportunity to pick the brains of our readers—especially since there are days when I’m quite certain my brain is made of limburger.

I think it was our littlest wenchling who mentioned that historicals struck her as fairy tales of the Disney variety, and I think there’s a lot of truth to that.  We want those vivid images of our childhoods, the twirling ball gowns and glass slippers and justice (or the ugly duckling) prevailing at the end.  And we want it all wrapped up in a pretty bow.

This theory would certainly explain why we can’t abide the dust of westerns or the perceived lack of cleanliness in medievals.  But it certainly makes life difficult for a writer of historicals to get the details right!  My heroines are much more likely to be rural (and let’s face it, hundreds of years ago, most upper class families were wealthy because they owned LAND) and falling in hog swill or mucking stalls than dancing at balls in the latest fashion. I can dress them up like Barbies, but if they’re going to be interesting to me, they need to DO something besides flirt and hunt for a husband.   

I think this is where historicals meet fantasy.  Once upon a time, readers gobbled up anything writers produced in the way of sexy historical romance, but now we’ve become jaded.  We don’t want to read the gloomy stuff anymore, not after we’ve learned that escapism is even more fun when it’s all glamour and wit.  But it’s really tough to write real history or even good conflict if everyone is rich and having a good time. 

So, if we can’t write about bloody revolutions and civil wars or slums or even latrines in romance anymore, then what’s a writer to do?  Write about evil magic, of course!  Or superheroes or Glynda, the Good Witch.  But with real history.  That way, everyone knows it’s safe to read about a bloody war because it’s not a REAL bloody war. It’s one with ribbons and bows on.

A story needs some kind of conflict, some kind of battle to be won, to make it interesting. And if the protagonists can’t fight poverty or real wars or slumlords, then why not have them fighting imaginary—or metaphorical—evils? And doing so within the context of history, because that’s as distant and fascinating as any fantasy world that we can conjure.

Does this make any sense? Or is my brain so much limburger today?

Where DO Covers Come From?

From Susan/Miranda:

Earlier this summer, we had a few laffs sharing the good, bad, and downright ugly covers that have come our Wenchly way. The more books you write, the greater your chances are for a real stinker, but also the greater your odds for a beauty, too. It’s just part of the writing business.

Yet many readers want to know how this happens –– or more, how we “let” this happen. The sad truth is that, depending on the publisher, the writer often has precious little to do with the cover design. It’s a bit like having someone else pick out your wedding dress. You may like it or loathe it, but you still have to smile for the cameras.

So where do covers –– that visual image wrapped around a written story that with luck will both entice buyers and capture the mood of the book –– come from, anyway?

In most cases, design for the cover “package” for a mass-market paperback begins months in advance of the book’s publication date, and often before the manuscript is even finished. Usually the editor will ask the writer if she has any suggestions: a particular scene or location in the book, something that will evoke the spirit of the book. Authors often send in photographs of men that resemble their heroes or other “visual aids” that might help the designers. At Harlequin/Silhouette, authors are given a multi-page “cover fact sheet” to complete that requires full descriptions of the hero and heroine (Among the choices for hair color is “raven” –– ah, only in romance-land!) as well as any scenes that might make a good cover.

After that, the author sits back and crosses her fingers.

Covers are a team project, overseen by the publisher’s art director. There will be a copywriter for the back and front cover blurbs, a designer who determines the colors, fonts, and final layout, and often an illustrator/artist (usually hired on a freelance basis) for the painting on the cover.

Representatives in marketing and sales also will have a say in the final cover. Mass market publishing is notoriously faddish, and publishers will copy one another relentlessly in their quest for readers. If one house has success with headless, bare-chested torsos, then others are sure to follow.

Authors who sell are the ones given cover perks: their name in a distinctive font bigger than the title, lots of foil and embossing, artwork on the front as well as the back. Stepback covers, with a second cover/illustration behind the first, can double the production cost of the cover, and are generally reserved for top-selling authors.

Genre fiction, whether romance, fantasy, or sci-fi, is the last bastion of elaborate cover illustration, and there’s a handful of artists who specialize in this work (though one of my earlier covers was painted by an artist who divided her time between romance book covers and the paintings –– Graceland, Mount Vernon, Princess Diana, Baby’s First Christmas –– that would be screened onto limited edition collectible plates for the Franklin Mint.) Some are, obviously, more talented than others, and it’s not uncommon for the best ones to be paid more than a beginning author’s advance.

For convenience and economy’s sake, artists work from photographs of the models (who are generally hired for only an hour or two per cover), so that the artist often has rough sketches of the pose for the models already in mind. The models change into costume, assume the pose, and the artist shoots as many as two or three rolls of film from different angles and with different lighting.

And yes, there is often a fan or wind machine, to blow about the hair and draperies for a suitably passionate effect.

Cover artists keep a collection of props and costumes in their studio, which is why, if you’re attentive, you’ll see the same pillows, vases, and gowns appearing over and over again on covers. This also explains why clothing anachronisms abound. That pirate-hero’s shirt that looks suspiciously like it’s by After Six probably is, and the “Regency” gown may in fact have begun its life as a high-waisted prom dress in the 1960s. And it’s also the reason why certain clinch-couples seem to transcend time, appearing on contemporary covers as well as historicals; artists will often shoot the photographs for several covers in a single session with the same models.

While the days of cover “supermodels” like Fabio and Steve Sandalis seem mercifully past, there are still those who specialize in cover work. I’ve been told that most of the men are unemployed actors, favored by artists for the ability to emote more convincingly for the camera than regular print models, and that the female models are often young women who came to New York to become fashion models, but proved to be too short or too voluptuous (!!)

Like much of the graphic design world, many artists are now creating their illustrations via computers. The cover-pose-photograph that once served as a reference for a painting in acrylics is now enhanced and manipulated and combined with other images electronically. While the feel of an original painting has been lost, computers do make it much easier to change the background color, or transform a blond heroine into a redhead.

At every step of production, covers are circulated through the entire design team as well as past editors and marketing. Yet accidents still happen: who can forget the infamous Heroine with Three Arms on that long-ago Christina Dodd cover?

Where is the author in all this? Depending on the publisher, a sketch may be sent to her for approval and suggestions, sometimes a more complete color version. Some publishers offer drafts of the cover copy for approval; many authors write their own. At other houses (like Harlequin), authors only see the completed, printed cover-flat (an actual unbound cover), with no chance for suggestions or corrections.

But no matter what the opinions might be of the author, the editor, the art director, the sales rep, or the bookseller: the only judgment that counts is that of the reader at the cash register. If a cover catches your eye among a thousand others on the shelf and you buy the book, then it’s done it’s job, and is deemed an enormous success. You're the ultimate judge, jury, and tastemaker.

Did you ever dream you had so much power? :)

Sunday, muddy Sunday

...and here's Edith!

Things have been changing round here so fast it's hard to keep up with.

Suddenly, Pluto is no longer a planet in our solar system!  All those cardboard and old spalding ball mobiles we made in elementary school are ready for the trash.
(What, you don't save old school projects?)

I grieved for old Pluto.  I even wrote the Wenches about it, trying to make light of the shock until Mary Jo urged me to put some of my plaints here. I was supposing what might happen if the constellations got renamed because a star was found missing from Leo - making him Leonora. Or Virgo found to be fooling around with Orion, and having to be renamed too.

Or discovering a new star in Gemini and having to rename it Trilogy. Etcetera, as the King of Siam said, etcetera.

And then came the stunning realization: what difference did it make to me?

Great world view changing theories are always being changed again, from generation to generation. We are supposed to be galvanized. We are not.

When the theory of gravity was proved, did the people of the time all sigh with relief and then dare to jump into the air, finally knowing that if they did, they'd certainly come down again?

No.  We've learned to disregard scientists, because they change like weathervanes.

I grew up thinking of dinosaurs being green and brown and cold blooded. Now, they say they were all colors, sometimes feathered, and maybe warm blooded.  Next week, they'll say they were plaid and polka dotted.

Medicine changes by the day, not the decade: Cold water for burns, warm water for burns, cold water again.  Bleed a sick patient; give him blood instead. Lot of low fat is good for you, makes you skinny.   Too much low fat is bad for you, makes you fat.  Be thinner, be fatter - ah, be done with it.

And Historians!   I've had to do research, and the "facts" make me dizzy. Historians can't agree on what happened yesterday, much less three hundred years ago.  They are constantly coming up with new "facts" to disprove each other.

Fact isn't a fact.  At least, not for long. Nonfiction isn't fact; it ought to shelved with the Fiction, where we know the truth.

Pluto's gone? Yawn. Pluto may be back.

That's why I love Fiction, the reading and the writing of it.

At least, when we make up a story, it stays the same forever.

Loretta ponders Truth & Beauty

           
      Last night, my husband entered the room while I was watching What Not to Wear.  Carmindy was advising three recent or about to be mothers on make up.  As she applied eye liner to one of them, my husband said, “Why do women do that to themselves?”
      I rolled my eyes but he didn’t notice, being too busy wresting the remote control from my hand.
      He’s a guy.  He forgets.
      He even forgets important wisdom he’s offered me about guys.
      Let me start by saying this is one smart man.  He’s currently in a business so high tech that I have only a vague, small clue what it is.  He could be building a time machine for all I know.  Maybe he is.  This is my go-to guy not only when I have need of guy talents such as Move, Fix, Kill, but when I need answers to questions in a hurry.  This is my Mr. Science and my computer guru.
      He has told me--and many other women--repeatedly, “Men are simple.  Women are complicated.”  I have theorized from this wisdom that because women are so complicated we cannot comprehend how simple men are.  Or, if we sort of comprehend it, we can’t believe it.
      When I was young, I assumed men thought more or less as women did.  I had no brothers to introduce me to the gross disgustingness that is the youthful male, or clue me in on their uncanny ability to discover new and exciting ways to injure, maim, or kill themselves.  This usually starts out with, “I have an idea.  Why don’t I/we_______?”  You fill in the blank.  Let’s jump off a roof.  Let’s tease the pit bull.  Let’s see who gets across the railroad tracks first when the train is 18 seconds away.
       My sister Cynthia will point out that this insanity is not necessarily exclusive to males.  She will be happy to report that I performed several death-defying feats on railroad tracks.  She will say that I was the one who suggested we travel down that steep hill--with the big rocks and trees down at the bottom--standing up on a toboggan.  I will be happy to answer, in return, that it isn’t my fault she suffered a concussion.  She didn’t have to do it.  She could have been a sissy.
      But I digress.
      With age comes wisdom.  With wisdom one perceives that if guys weren’t gross and disgusting they wouldn’t have survived those long sea voyages, say, back in the late 1400s.  If they weren’t eager to discover new and exciting ways to injure, maim, or kill themselves, they wouldn’t do daring things like cross an ocean when everyone knew it was flat and they’d fall off the edge--if they didn’t get eaten by monsters before they reached the edge.
      So far be it from me to wish guys were other than they are, even if they are at times clueless.  However that simple brain works exactly, I appreciate it.
      I’m just an observer here.  It’s my job to observe, because that’s one of the tools for making interesting characters:  studying human nature.
      Anyway, back to the make-up lesson.  Why do women do that?
      Well, among the other simple truths my spouse has offered me is the fact that men see better than they think.  Actually, someone offered me this as the punchline or moral of a joke (Mary Jo, IIRC), but my husband confirmed it.
      So some of us make ourselves as beautiful as possible in order to attract and keep mates, and make other men we encounter wish they were our mates, etc. etc. 
      But we don’t all of us set out to please men.  We like to please other women, too.  And ourselves, when we look in the mirror.  Some of us are happy without makeup.  Some of us are happier with it.  We wear or don’t wear it for a number of reasons.  European women, for instance, tend to dress some degrees more formally than we Yanks.  In France, an actual heterosexual man would feel free to compliment a woman on her makeup.   In one culture, facial tattoos would be considered de rigueur.  In another culture, some elaborate form of body piercing or the elongation of lips or ears might be deemed a beauty aid or necessity.
      If you look at the big picture, the reasons for applying cosmetic aids are as complicated as women themselves:  individual, sexual, cultural, psychological, sociological.  Way too complicated to try to explain to a guy.
      So I just let my husband have the remote and let it go.
      Today I went to have a passport photo taken.
      Of all the exercises in futility, one would think that putting on makeup for a license or passport photo would rank in the top three.
      I did it anyway.  And while I did it, I thought about the women in the BBC/PBS reality show, Regency House Party, mourning, among other things, their forbidden makeup.  There was a lot of whining on that show with which I had no patience.  But this part I understood.  The guys, of course, had no clue.  They were off doing manly things, shooting off guns that might explode in their hands and wagering on boxing matches and getting very, very drunk.
      That show alone was a prime example of the Men are Simple; Women are Complicated rule.
      I can cite other examples but I’ve got a passport application to fill out.
      What about you?  Are men simple?  Is makeup necessary? Fun? A waste of time?  Disgusting?

The Slippery Slope to Magic

By Mary Jo

Being a writer is satisfying, frustrating, hard work, crazy-making—pick the adjective that fits on any given day.  But some projects are touched with fairy dust.  For me, that was never more true than for the Faery Magic anthology.  It was one of five romances designated as Notable Books by Library Journal in 1998, when the book was first published.  (This may be the only time an anthology has been so chosen.)  Now it's being reissued and should be arriving in your bookstores any day now.  (THis is the new cover.  It scans very badly but is quite pretty in real time.)

The real magic came in the creation.  Three of the authors—the Wenches’ own Jo Beverley, Barbara Samuel, and Karen Harbaugh—were part of a dynamic online community based on the old Genie server.  They decided that it would be fun to write an anthology of romances involving fairies, but they needed a fourth author.  Jo and I were old friends, and she and I shared a taste for science fiction and fantasy.  So they asked if I’d like to join them.

I still remember getting Jo’s e-mail where she described the project.  I was crazy busy at the time, but even so, I looked at that e-mail and thought “FUN.”  Irresistible! 

Most anthologies are developed by publishers.  They come up with a concept, decide who they would like to have in it, and issue invitations.  It’s much rarer to have authors generate a project because that means several people must come up with a concept, write a proposal that explains what the stories will be, then find an editor who wants to buy the package.  Add in the fact that there are likely to be different agents involve (three in this case), and a certain amount of politics, and the business end can get complicated.

But the creative end—now that was indeed fun! We really burned up the pixels as we developed the rules for our particular faery world.  We worked out the laws of magic that would bind our faeries.  The land of Faerie would touch the world we know in different places, and since faeries are nature spirits, they would be increasingly under siege in an England becoming industrialized.

These would not be cute little sugar plum faeries.  They would dangerous, edgy powers to be reckoned with.  Bad boy faeries.  (As an aside, Virginia Kantra wrote a wonderful, Rita-nominated contemporary novella where the bad boy fairies rode big honkin’ motorcycles. Great stuff!  But I digress. <g>)

Barbara and Karen decided on Georgian settings while Jo and I chose Regency.  We had little touches between stories—a passing reference to the Love Talker, a brief glimpse of a character from another story who has unnaturally green eyes. 

And it was all possible because of the magic of cyberspace.  In the introduction to the volume, we quoted a few bits of our conversations:  Imagine, if you will, fey whisperings of—

"Let's use faery (Faery), not fairy.  It's more mysterious."
"What about faeries mating with humans? My group is against it."
"Mine think it's essential for survival."
"My heroine is half faery—and wouldn't her mother be surprised to know!"
"Faeries are creatures of nature and must have greenery to live.  How will she survive in London?"
"She could live in Hyde Park."
"Or under a parlor aspidistra!"
"It's reasonable for the humans to be scared.  It's not wise to try to fool or foil the Queen of Faerie!" 

It’s been ten years since we wrote the stories in Faery Magic.  (I was still on dial-up!)  I came late to the online world, unlike my three faery sisters, who were all early adaptors.  I clung to my old Leading Edge computer as long as possible since I had a dark suspicion that going on line would be a huge time sink.  Boy, was I right!  E-mail addiction is not a pretty sight, and like most attractive nuisances, one doesn’t want to kick the habit.

But the benefits are great, most especially when in comes to building community.  It’s a fantastic tool for collaborating on writing projects, too.  All four of us in Faery Magic had a love for fantasy, and this was a wonderful first opportunity to indulge that taste. 

But a taste was not enough.  These days Karen and I both write paranormal historicals and Jo has written a goodly number of short works in both fantasy and science fiction.  (Jo and I were both in the Irresistible Forces anthology, too.)  Since the desire to write fantasy hasn’t abated, a couple of years ago we four decided to do another anthology.  Dragon Lovers will be out early next year from NAL.

I think that when Faery Magic was published, we were a little ahead of the paranormal curve.  Now there are fantasy elements all over romance, from vampires and werewolves to demon hunting soccer moms. My personal preference is for magic, and I’ve been happily weaving it into all my most recent work.  Some readers just don’t Get It, while others love it.

What do you as readers enjoy?  Do you hate paranormal elements?  Tolerate them if you like the writer’s style?  Or do you love them and find that they give freshness to classic stories?  (My June book, The Marriage Spell, was a classic  Regency marriage of convenience story, but with magic added.)

Tell us how you feel about the many varieties of paranormal and fantasy stories that are out there! 

Magically yours,

Mary Jo

Susan Sarah's Deadline Challenge

Susan Sarah here:

I am on a quest.

(I mean, other than to finish my manuscript in the next few days!)
I propose we find another word to replace a commonly used one: Deadline.

Think about it. Dead...line. What does that conjure for you?  ~eeeuuuww~

Deadline, what IS that! Why do they call it that?  And apparently I have to MEET this thing.

Some commonly heard phrases:
     "When’s your deadline?"
     "Meet your deadline."
     "I’ve got to meet my deadline."
Meet it where? In a dark alley? Does it wear a big black cloak, is it tall, will it be surrounded in mysterious fog? Will I have to look away–look away when it slowly turns....

Author wakes up and sees Deadline has arrived

Isn’t there something ELSE we can call this phenomenon, this moment, this event, this contractual requirement?  Now, I will admit that I’m one of those who writes better, faster, cleaner when the flame is turned up under me, so Deadline at its most ominous and looming has its advantages.  Still...maybe there are some alternatives.

Webster’s Collegiate Tenth Dictionary says:
dead-line \(a few squiggly symbols)\ 1: a line drawn within or around a prison that a prisoner passes at the risk of being shot
Whaaaaat???
I did not make that up. That is the Number One definition of deadline. Go look for yourselves.
Has anyone ever noticed this before? Okay, now I am really panicking...

Let us proceed to the number two definition. Quickly.
2. a: a date or time before which something must be done
That’s more like it. But what if that Something isn’t done? This question is often asked by authors. And the dictionary helpfully provides the explanation:
2 b: the time after which copy is not accepted for a particular issue of a publication

What!! Nobody told me that! As in, not accepted ever? As in, how about another week, another six hours, can I send the first half while I wildly finish the second half...? (been there, done that).
We DEFINITELY need a new word. This one depresses the heck out of me now (prisoner?).

Let me grab Roget’s Thesaurus off the shelf (old style, which looks like it has Lots More Words):

dead duck – oops, sorry, not that one...
deadline:
     Boundary 235.3
     Crucial Moment 129.5
Boundary: Frontier, border, borderland,... marches... outskirts, outpost....Pillars of Hercules??....three-mile or twelve-mile limit (I’ll take twelve, please, it sounds like it gives me more time)..."Thus far and no farther" (yes that works too).

Crucial moment: Timeliness, occasion...hmm.... Crisis (now we’re getting somewhere!), critical point, crunch (very expressive), climacteric (no thank you), turning point (three per book, yes, we professionals call them TPs), emergency (also a contender), kairos (whuzzat), pregnant moment (umm....), moment of truth (possibilities), nick of time (this one applies to me a lot), eleventh hour, zero hour (NOW we’re getting somewhere!), target date....and back to deadline.

So now we have some interesting alternatives:

Boundary Line (can it be stretched?)
Frontier (endless time allotted, good)
Twelve-Mile Limit (accommodating)
Crucial Moment (tight)
Crunch (tighter)
Emergency (all-nighter is necessary)
Moment of Truth (4 a.m. on all-nighter)
Nick of Time (editor doesn’t need it quite yet)
Eleventh Hour (just beginning the all-nighter)
Zero Hour (send that thing in 59 minutes or else)
Target Date (ah, back to some breathing room)

So which word would you choose to replace the Dreaded Deadline?
Or does that word motivate you when nothing else will?
Perhaps you can think of an even better one, in which case, go for it!  I’ve got to get back to my book. The final crunch-time-eleventh-hour-zero-hour is approaching!

~Susan Sarah

The core of the book.

If this is Wednesday, it must be Jo's Day, and here's a CBK, Billie, playing white hunter.

I come to this blogging totally unprepared. So, what's on my mind?

I was catching up on my magazine reading last night and picked up the August edition of the Romance Writers Report, the magazine of RWA. There were a few interesting articles, but I was particularly struck by the one on a writer's core story. The premise is that we have a core story and it doesn't matter what genre, period etc we write in, we will write that story.

My first reaction was negative. I don't want to think that I write the same story all the time, but it really is the tiny kernel at the heart of the story, not all the details. So then I tried to think what my core story might be.

I know my stories are generally about honor. My protagonists are not free to hack their own way through life, seeking their own desires. They have that impetus, but are always constrained by their duties to family, community, country, and humanity. This has led to complaints that some of my characters are martyrs, but then, martyr wasn't always a negative term. This all links to honor, because the basic question is, what sort of person are they if they do that or refuse to do this? Are they a person I would feel was strong and honorable, and what would they think of their own honor? If they don't care about their own honor, they're no hero or heroine in my books.

I address this in one of my books when Blanche Hardcastle describes virtue as a standard others impose on us and feel entitled to take away, whereas honor is something we can only gain or lose ourselves.

Honor, however, is not a core story, though challenges to honor could be.

Looking at my body of work, however, and considering the key core stories listed in the article, I decided my core story is probably a combination of rescue and protection. One of my characters is usually driven to rescue themselves or one they care about. Sometimes that is also protection. Or sometimes the other character moves in to protect/support the rescuer. It's an idea worth playing with, especially when my next book is -------
To Rescue A Rogue. And no, I didn't start this message as a promo piece. I'm flying into the mist, as always.

But looking at upcoming books, in The Lord of Elphindale, my story in Faery Magic, Gwen is called upon to save/protect Faery. She has to do it by seducing the unwitting Lord of Elphindale. (Reissued in September. The cover's so pink and glossy I can't scan it.)

In The Dragon and the Princess, in Dragon Lovers (out in January) Princess Rozlinda is willing to save/protect her country by giving some blood to a marauding dragon, as tradition dictates. She hadn't counted on the other tradition being called into effect -- the one about the man who saves her getting to marry her. Her save/protect role becomes stronger and stronger as the story progresses, and Ruar's role becomes to save/protect her.

There's honor again here, of course. In both cases the women have positions in this society which demand this sacrifice as a matter of honor, and they are both willing because honor is more important than their personal comforts. The men, too, have honor issues. They, especially Ruar,cannot do what love, desire, and the drive to personal happiness would have them do.

Being contrary, I now feel impelled to write something else, but I bet I won't, even though I my characters and plot details will be very different. The Faery Magic story is pretty well Regency, but the Dragon Lovers one is more chick-lit fantasy. To Rescue A Rogue is Regency, but quite different to most in tone. I can look at my four medievals and see the rescue/protect theme playing out in all of them. My SF story, The Trouble With Heroes.... is all about rescue/protect and honor. He has to sacrifice himself to save the world and she has to support him. At the end he says, in effect, "It doesn't matter what we want." When it comes to saving the world, it really doesn't, does it? And no, he doesn't die, though he does have to change in drastic ways, as all warriors must. That's where the title comes from. The Trouble With Heroes is that they want, deserve, to come home, even changed by the fight they have won.

Do you have a core story? As a reader, what do you think of this? I've been looking over some of my favorite authors and thinking that if they switch to a different core, they lose me. Scary stuff.

Jo

More Reader Quizzes

From Pat Rice:

Despite the fact that I just finished a copyedit, and I’m now working through a line edit and revisions, which makes me as grouchy and irritable as a grizzly in January, I will try to rise above all that and be edifying for a change.

        After Candice’s wonderful interview, someone pointed out that we sounded as if we were all Regency writers, when actually, that’s probably as far from the truth as it is possible to go and still stick to history.  Not all the wenches enjoy the Regency era, and we’re not all Heyer fans, although I have a sneaking suspicion Jane Austen rates pretty high on all our lists.  I’m probably middle of the road on the issue, having written some small Regencies many, many moons ago, along with a few of the larger ones.  My historicals for nearly the last decade have been Georgians with a psychic twist, and I intersperse these with contemporaries.

       I’m not entirely certain what causes some eras and some countries to appeal to us as writers more than others. Although I’ve written what might be called a “medieval,” I did so because I wanted to write fantasy elements and the superstition of that time period was the only way I could get away with it.  I’ve always been drawn to Georgian and Regency England, but anything before or after that holds no interest for me.  Perhaps I lived a prior life in that period, who knows?  After 1820, I want to dive into American history, if only the American historical would make a comeback.  The 1820’s through the 1880’s in the United States was a truly exciting period of time, with innovation after innovation, and the entire western expansion to play with.  But I have almost no interest in the time prior to 1820 in this country.  My research library reflects these tastes.

     The really big question, to me, is why so many readers flock to Regency England, or to Scotland at any period.  What is it about those countries and time periods that have become so popular?  I could speculate that we are attracted to a country and era that was relatively peaceful and civil, but England was fighting Napoleon, and there was a great deal more peace in the period after the American Revolution and prior to 1810. As to Scotland, perhaps readers enjoy the fantasy of Scotland more than the actuality?  Or are there so many Scots' descendants proud of their history that they scarf up every book on the subject? If so, then why aren’t we equally proud of our American heritage and want to read everything on the subject?

         So tell me what attracts you, as a reader, to a particular time period or country? The clothes? The history? Perceived civility or wittiness or strength and heroism?  Or conversely, what makes you hate a particular period or country?

art credit (above):

Frank Cadogan Cowper, Venetian Ladies

Contest Time Again!

From Susan/Miranda:
At last I've gotten my author copies of DUCHESS, and I'd love to send a signed one out to a Wenchling. I'll draw one from the official Wench hat (black velvet, with gold lace and a white ostriche plume) on September 1 -- so if you've yet to add yourself to our list, please sign up NOW!

And a great big THANK YOU to all of you who've already supported DUCHESS. I just learned that the book has done so well in its first two weeks that it's already gone back to press. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!
Her Grace couldn't be more pleased. :)

A Yo-Ho-Ho for Working Guys

From Susan/Miranda:
I'm newly returned from the beach and the sea, and a hearty thanks to my fellow Wenches for covering for me while I was away. Clearly I would have had a better chance of long-distance posting if I'd simply tucked my blog into a cork-stopped bottle and tossed it into the Atlantic instead of relying on the Masters of the Internet. :)

And I do love the ocean. I'm sure that Mary Jo, wise in all things astrological, could tell me that that makes me a Gemini with a water sign or something: all I know is that to me there's nothing finer than an Ocean View.

All this sand and surf and Massachusetts history has turned my thoughts to seafaring heros. I've always been a sucker for "boat books" and movies, from Captain Blood to Captain Jack Aubrey and even the (much sillier) Captain Jack Sparrow, and how glad I am to see that Edith's next book has a pirate!

When I first started writing, there were plenty of piratical heros. I wrote my share of them, too. OK, they weren't technically pirates -- the grim reality of pirates being nothing better than terrorists and thieves kept me from that -- but even if my heros were navy captains or privateers or merchant captains, they had all the coolest attritubes of pirates. They fought against Nature at her most surly and villians most heinous, real life and death stuff. They were the unquestioned leaders of crews of desparate men, and protected the heroines as (usually) the only females for leagues around. They were good at sword-fighting, and letting their hair blow around in the wind. They weren't drawing-room guys; they were swashbucklers.

But somehow over the last few years, this sort of hero has slipped from favor. They're not totally extinct (yay, Edith!) but they've definitely become scarce, along with cowboys and knights. In fact, to my mind, it seems that just as historical romances have become more and more Regency-centric, it seems that the career paths for heros in general is shrinking.

Among the Wenches's books, there have been archaeologists and historians, clan warriors and officers of the king, painters and architects and blacksmiths and investment geniuses. We Wenches like our men smart, and we like them busy.

But in a lot of other recent books, it seems that heros don't really do much of anything. There are more and more guys who have huge estates that manage themselves, and vast fortunes that simmer along growing vaster with no input. We almost never see these heros working at anything. They don't appear to have much expertise or interest beyond gaming and hunting and raking-hell. Even the ones who have other interests reduce them to a casual aside ("Oh, Lord Rupert? He's a spy for Wellington, you know."), a mention on the hero's resume and not much more.

I remember hearing an editor address this at a conference. When asked what kinds of "occupations" were hot for historical heros, she said they didn't really have to have one beyond devoting himself to the heroine and her needs. Wasn't that the greatest fantasy guy, she argued (and more than half seriously, too), the one who had so much money that he was never distracted by a job or responsibility?

Well, mebbe not. An unemployed hero never gets to show the heroine how he interacts with others. She never sees him feel passion for anything other than, ahem, passion. She never watches him being resourceful, or facing challenges, or solving problems, or mastering a complicated skill like navigation. She can't share his successes, or support him through the bad times. Being able to judge a hero's qualities and flaws should be just as important as measuring up that big house on Grosvenor Square, and it's a much harder thing to do with an idle hero.

So what do you think? Do you want a working hero with other interests, or do you ask no more from him than that he be rich and titled? Is there still a place for self-made men in historical romances, or ::shudder:: even one who's not rapturously wealthy? (remember Judith Ivory's rat-catcher?) Do you long for pirates, or cowboys, or crusading knights? Inquiring minds want to know! :)

Candice's Contest Winner!

From Mary Jo:

And the winner of a signed copy of Candice Hern's first Merry Widows title, In The Thrill of the Night is--the Mole Herself, Talpianna!  Tal, you posted:

<<---The Mole, who hopes that if she keeps posting and posting and posting, like the Energizer Bunny, eventually she'll win something....<<

At least this time, it worked.  <G>  I'll notify Candice.

Mary Jo

To Go Or Not To Go

It's Sunday, and heeeeere's Edith!
Talking 'bout toilets today.

We've been answering reader questions lately and I pounced on one that asked: "Why don't characters go to the bathroom in Historical romances?"

Ha. My characters do. They certainly do go to the bathroom.

Strike that euphemism! They go to the toilet, wherever it may be, be it for male or female, or both, because that's what real people do.

In fact, in a recent book, GYPSY LOVER, my lovers have a confrontation on the path from the Jericho to the Inn. No euphemisms! The Jericho= outhouse privy = outdoor toilet, in regency times.

I have included bedpans and under the bed basins in my novels; rural outhouses, stops along the road for a quickie behind a bush, and characters being really uncomfortable because they have to go.

I have detailed descriptions of the toilets in castles in the middle ages: they had cisterns on the roof that collected rain water, the person in the privy pulled a rope, down came the water and sluiced it into the moat, and presto! A form of flush toilet!

I've written about wealthy Regency noblepersons in London townhouses with lavish loos. (What a name for a new rock group: "The Lavish Loos!" )

In short, in fact, from the dawn of time until today, people go to the toilet, and so too, of course, do my characters. But, I do confess, that aside from an invalided hero or two, only my heroines make a fuss about it. That is easily understood. They need more privacy and have more to fear in an unguarded moment. (Is this where the concept of male supremacy started? I mean, a fellow can often relieve himself, sword in other hand, ready to spring into action... Uhm. I digress.)

I have not only written about toilets, I have researched them! A partial list of treasures in my library:

The Compleat Loo, a Lavatorial Miscellany, by Roger Kilroy

Flushed with Pride, The Story of Thomas Crapper, by Wallace Reyburn
(The wonderfully named Mr. C didn't invent the flush toilet, btw. He merely refined it)

Clean and Decent, by Lawrence Wright (big concentration on the bath)

An Irreverent and Almost Complete Social History of the Bathroom, by Frank Muir

Now, lest you think I'm obsessed about the topic, let me assure you that I also have many books in my library that obsess on other arcane topics, such as: make-up through the ages, styles of hair, fashions, even games throughout the ages. I have books on the history of perfumes, and lots about herbs, foods, etc.

That's because I believe that to know what your characters must do it daily life, whether they do it or not, is important.

So why not have a character duck away for a few minutes to answer the call of nature? I don't think that makes them less romantic. Do you?

Loretta on Villains

       From Loretta
      
      A couple of Wenchlings asked questions about villains.  Nina asked if it was possible to redeem a villain in another book.  Wendy mentioned a discussion about villains on Running With Quills--Villains:  Are they necessary?  When I investigated, it seemed they were talking more about evil and its role in a story--but do check it out:
      http://www.runningwithquills.com/2006_08_01_archive.html
      Still, “Are they necessary?” is an excellent question.
      
      Let me start by saying that my favorite villains were on the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon shows and spin-offs.  Moose and Squirrel were constantly menaced by the hilariously incompetent duo, Boris and Natasha.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Badenov
      Dudley Do-Right--who eventually had his own show--had the delicious Snidely Whiplash.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snidely_Whiplash
      
      Since I was practically born a writer, any and all villains, from the Big Bad Wolf to cartoon and comic book characters, went up into that imagination attic of mine.
      By the time I started writing my first romances, I knew it was futile to attempt to achieve the perfection of Boris, Natasha, and Snidely, so I didn’t.
      I simply tried to make the bad guy interesting--though on occasion I merely made him disgusting.
      What’s great about Boris, Natasha, and Snidely is that, even though they’re two dimensional, they’ve got nuances.  Well, not very subtle ones.  But the evil is alloyed with something, usually something ridiculous.  Or even a little poignant.  But even  as a kid, I noticed that they were a lot more interesting than the Big Bad Wolf or the witch in various other fairy tales.  There’s was a little more to them than straight out Evil.
      And that’s the key to redeeming a villain and making him a hero in another book:  There has to be more to him than straight out Bad.  There has to be some redeeming quality.  Oh, and it does help if he’s gorgeous.
      My most recent reissue, CAPTIVES OF THE NIGHT, redeems the villain of THE LION’S DAUGHTER.
            Ismal (later Esmond) is an example of a character who haunted my imagination as soon as I put him on the page.  Still, starting out, I did not intend to make Ismal a hero of another book.  I had planned to make a very dangerous man, certainly.  I knew he’d be a complex villain, too:  As soon as he appeared on the page (and yes, I was writing the movie scene playing in my brain, Wendy) he intrigued me.  Still, he was going to be a tough case for redemption and I wasn’t sure my writing skills at that point were up to it.  I poisoned him, broke his hand, beat his head on a pier, and shot him.
      He wouldn’t die.  So really, there wasn’t much choice.  I kept him and made him the hero of CAPTIVES.  This resulted in the only Albanian hero of a historical romance (at least, I haven’t heard of any others).
      Hmm.  Come to think of it, both my Albania-set books have resulted in villains-turned-into heroes.  Basil, the villain of my very first Regency, became the reluctant hero of THE ENGLISH WITCH.  Maybe that was my “practice” book for CAPTIVES?  In both cases, the villain redeemed himself in part by doing dirty work for the government.  And also by being gorgeous.
      Oddly enough, the hero of LORD PERFECT was another character who wasn’t supposed to have a book.  When I began the series, I had settled the two eldest Carsington sons with wives, and planned a trilogy dealing with the three youngest.  But Benedict, like Ismal, intrigued me.  As soon as he walked onto the stage at the end of MR. IMPOSSIBLE, my writer instinct (a little sharper now, with experience) told me he was coming next--and I said so at the end of that book.
      I mention LORD PERFECT not only in the interests of shameless self-promotion but as an example of a book that doesn’t have a villain.  If there’s any villain in that story, it’s an abstraction or a combination of abstractions:  Society and Duty in their more oppressive incarnations.
      One of the reasons for putting a villain into a romance is to create danger and conflict.  He (or she--let’s not forget Natasha) is a shadow hanging over the hero and heroine.  But if you have a powerful threat hanging over them--like social ostracism--and/or deep conflict between them, an actual bad guy may not be necessary.
      What makes a good villain?  I guess one would answer that question the same way one would answer What makes a good hero?  It’s in the eye of the beholder.  In my reading, I tend to like villains with some depth and complexity.  Or, if their wickedness is straightforward, I like them to not be obvious about it.  This is why I think Mr. Tulkinghorn of BLEAK HOUSE is a great villain:  He’s ordinary, old-fashioned, and sort of fades into the woodwork.  Though in the recent BBC version Charles Dance did not remotely resemble outwardly the character in the book, he communicated what that character was about.  He had a wonderful, quietly and coldly menacing presence. He was brilliant, but then he’s always brilliant.
      I think Ralph Nickleby of NICHOLAS NICKLEBY is another fascinating villain.  You catch a glimpse of humanity there, which raises him above the usual Victorian melodrama villain.  (I have not yet seen the version with Charles Dance, but expect he’s wonderful in that, too.)
      In my current story, NOT QUITE A LADY, the villain is an officer who’s fought bravely for his country, who is determined to have what he wants--the heroine--and has to decide how far he’ll go.  In his case, the very qualities that made him successful in his profession turn out to have a sour side in civilian life.
      I love villains.  Certainly, I believe we writers have more leeway in creating them than we do in creating our heroes and heroines.  I don’t know about the other Wenches but I think it’s trickier to create interesting good characters than interesting evil ones.  You’ve got a lot more room to explore with a villain.  Maybe that’s why we love our bad boy heroes so much.
      But what do you think?  What’s your favorite kind of villain, if you have a favorite kind?  Who’s your favorite villain?  In your reading, have you encountered any villains you wish were turned into heroes?

Candice Hern, HWW

Thank you, Candice Hern, for being our very first guest on Word Wenches! You handled the reins of our weblog like a perfect natural, and we are in awe of your writing, your grace and knowledge (and your amazing collection of Regency Stuff!). As a small token of our gratitude, we would like to present you with the very first ever Word Wenches Guest Award!

Candice Hern is now an HONORARY WORD WENCH

with all the privileges and honors therein:

~Candice, you may come to Word Wenches and comment any time you like!

~Your name will top the Wenches Honor Roll in the Hall of Honor (a sidebar list which, er, does not exist at the moment. A future honor.)

~You may announce your new books and post Blatant Self-Promotion pieces any time you like (contact any Wench, or our Wenches Whip, for further details)

~You now have the privilege to put H.W.W. after your signature, as Honorary Word Wench (the Wenches are permitted to add W.W. after their names)

Lastly, we would like to present you with a gift to add to your collection --

this stunning Virtual Fan of unknown date and provenance.... 

With everlasting gratitude and many hugs,

         The Word Wenches (and Whip)

Mary Jo interviews Candice Hern

MJP: I’m happy to introduce Candice Hern, our very first guest author here on Word Wenches!  Like several of us Wenches, Candice started her writing career in traditional Regency and has since moved to historical romance.  Two of her books have been named to Library Journal listings of the top five romances of the year (The Bride Sale and Once a Gentleman), and one of her books tied for #1 in RWA's Top Ten Favorite Books of the Year.  (Once a Scoundrel)

My personal memories of Candice include the time when our mutual editor at NAL was taking a group of her authors out to dinner at a conference in New York City.  It was raining, and Candice found a most ingenious way to conjure an umbrella.  <g>

Candice has an August release from NAL, Just One of Those Flings, the second in her Merry Widows trilogy.  Even as a kid reading my first Georgette Heyer books, I tended to prefer the older heroines who had more mileage on them, so I adore the premise of this series, which features a group of wealthy, aristocratic widows who decided that they don’t want to remarry, ever, but they would certainly like to take lovers.  Candice, what inspired you to create this series?

CH: When I first developed the idea for In the Thrill of the Night, it was a standalone story about a respectable widow who decides to take a lover.  But I wanted to write another trilogy, so I began to think of ways to spin off a second and third story.  So many historical series are based on men -­ brothers, soldiers, spies, etc.  I decided I wanted to base the stories around women, and because there were so many family-based historical series already out there, I decided to make the women friends rather than family.

A story of friendship among women was a very appealing theme to thread through the trilogy.  I kept thinking about the four friends in Sex and the City.  No matter how many men came into and dropped out of their lives, they still had one another.  I suddenly had visions of Marianne (the heroine of Thrill) talking with her friends about wanting to take a lover, in just as frank a manner as Carrie Bradshaw and her friends.  Then I thought:  what if all of the women decided to take lovers?  And the Merry Widows were born. 

Lampooning the Regency cliché of Almack's and its formidable patronesses, I created a group of wealthy, respectable widows who sponsor charity balls.  In private, however, they speak frankly about men and sex and love.  I like to think of the trilogy as Sex and the City meets Almack's.

MJP: While Just One of Those Flings is in some ways a very classical Regency, set in London during the social season, in other ways it’s quite different, even a little subversive.  Naturally, I loved that. <G>  Could you tell us a bit about the story?

CH: Subversive, huh?  Well, it does have an older woman/younger man romance, so maybe that makes it slightly different.  Beatrice, Lady Somerfield, is too busy acting as chaperone for her headstrong niece, Emily, and overseeing her own young daughters to take her friends' advice to find a lover.  Maybe next year, she thinks.  Until one night at a masquerade ball when a rather surprising, and anonymous, encounter with a dark stranger changes her mind.

When she finally discovers her secret lover's identity as the Marquess of Thayne ­- the very man she has practically been pushing into her niece's arms as the Catch of the Season ­- Beatrice is horrified and realizes an affair would be awkward at best, if not impossible.  But Thayne is thoroughly captivated by Beatrice, and as he searches for a bride among the Season's young ladies, he finds himself increasingly drawn to the beautiful, sensual, more mature and sophisticated Lady Somerfield.  Of course, a love affair ensues, scandal erupts, lives are turned upside down, etc etc.

MJP: I love the combination of witty title and the lush, historical cover that is both classy and sexy.  Can you tell us how this great look for the series came about? 

CH: It started with the titles.  When I proposed the series, I used twisted Cole Porter song titles and the publisher liked them.  My editor suggested "upscale artwork" combined with the twisted song titles would best represent my voice, which she called "elegant but fun."  As you all know, body parts (ie partially seen bodies, not gruesome severed limbs) are very popular cover images these days, so my editor suggested details of real paintings might be used, focusing on specific body parts.  So I went to work rounding up lots of portraits and cropped them down to highlight certain areas.  I put together a very long web page showing hands and necks and feet and shoulders, etc from a host of portraits, mostly from the Regency period or thereabouts.  I am fortunate that the art department liked some of my suggestions.  The covers of both In the Thrill of the Night and Just One of Those Flings are based on images I included on that web page.  You can see the real paintings used for each cover on my website, on the Behind the Scenes page for each book.

And by the way, for the third book, we couldn't agree on another Cole Porter title and finally decided on twisting an old Gershwin song instead: Lady Be Bad.

MJP: Candice is known among Regency writers for her Regency knowledge, and also for her wonderful collections of Regency objects, some of which are displayed on her website. http://candicehern.com/collections/index.htm  She once pointed me at e-bay so I could buy an 18th Century perfume bottle.  Candice, how do you learn about this wonderful things?  And how do you find them?

CH: I've been collecting this stuff for years and years.  It always goes something like this:  An interesting, intriguing, or unusual item catches my eye and I buy it.  Sometime later, maybe even years later, I find another one that I like and buy it, too.  Now I figure with two items, I have the start of a collection, so I need more.  And then I make myself nuts tracking down lots more of whatever it is.  Regency fashion prints were the first thing to inspire my collector's passion, and I now have over 500 of them.  Vinaigrettes were also an early collection, as were shoe buckles.  Then came scent bottles and reticules and quizzing glasses and silhouettes on and on. 

As for where I find my antiques?  Everywhere.  :-)  In the days before the internet, I haunted antique shows and auctions and developed good relationships with various dealers.  I still have those relationships and still go to antique shows and auctions, but I have the internet now as well, which is both a curse (because a dealer's access to more collectors drives the prices up) and a blessing (because I can now develop relationships with dealers around the world).  I do buy things on eBay, but I am very careful about it and very selective.  There, too, I have found specific dealers I trust.  Plus, I travel to the UK about once a year and do lots of shopping there, again working with the same dealers year after year.  Those dealer relationships are essential, because they know what I collect and will look for things to tempt me on their buying trips.

And speaking of my collections, I'm currently offering to share a teeny bit of it with one lucky winner in my current website contest.  I'm giving away an authentic Regency period fashion print -- a Morning Dress from the May 1813 issue of Ackermann's Repository.  It's actually a duplicate from my collection, so I figured I could part with it.  :-)  You can see it on the contest page on my website. 

MJP: I believe that all of your books have been set in the Regency.  Do you have any secret yearnings to try other periods?  If so, which times attract you?

CH: I love the 18th century and I'd love to write a Georgian book.  Perhaps one day I will, but I have at least 6 Regency stories dying to be written first!  Also, I have a story that's been buzzing around in my head for years that would be set in 1850s San Francisco, right after the Gold Rush.  It would be based on a real woman who was the daughter of a minister in Baltimore and who ended up as one of the most famous madams in San Francisco.  A very bawdy and colorful time.  It is not, unfortunately, a popular time period with editors so I doubt I'll be writing it anytime soon.  But I would dearly love to write a book about my adopted city one day.

MJP:   What got you started writing romance?  Are there any mistakes you made then that you’d like to warn aspiring writers about?

CH: I was a voracious reader first.  I stumbled upon the great Georgette Heyer rather late in life, and when I'd finished all her books and discovered that similar books were still being written ... well, I was in hog heaven.  I would go to used book stores and carry away huge shopping bags full of Regencies, many of them by the Wenches on this blog.  By that time in my life I had already been collecting Regency antiques for years and had done a lot of research on the period, so I knew it pretty well.  But I never dreamed of writing a book until one day the man I live with saw me haul in yet another bag full of Regencies and said, "You know this period as well as anyone.  Why don't YOU write a book?"  It was like a light went on in my brain, and all at once a dozen stories popped into my head.  I started to write one of them down, joined RWA, entered some contests, and won a few.  I got my first contract from an editor who'd read one of my contest entries.  And I haven't looked back since!

Yes, I've made mistakes.  Plenty of them.  To be honest, I wish I had jumped right into Regency historicals rather than traditional Regencies.  My career might be further along if I'd done that.  But I loved writing those books and I still mourn the demise of the traditional Regency.  Some of my all-time favorite books were trads:  Jo's Emily and the Dark Angel; Loretta's The Sandalwood Princess; Edith's The Duke's Wager; Mary Jo's The Would-Be Widow.  What a shame that those short, sweet, witty, thoroughly character-driven stories are no longer being published. 

My advice to aspiring writers is to keep a keen eye on the market.  Look at the new deals listed in places like Publishers Lunch and look at what types of books (and settings) hit the bestseller lists.  You can sometimes spot trends and, if you're quick, take advantage of them.  But you might also note a subgenre that is becoming over-saturated (like Chick Lit), and it would behoove you to give serious consideration to writing something else.  Get your foot in the door with something very commercial.  That book-of-the-heart set in 5th century Constantinople may have to wait.

MJP: You’ve been writing for some years now.  Do you feel your work has changed in that time?   If so, how?

CH: I think, I hope, my writing has matured, but I know my voice has stayed the same.  I don't think I could change it if I tried.  I still write long and detailed outlines for each book, but I no longer do formal character histories or charts like I did with my early books while I was learning my craft.  I still spend way too much time on research, but I'm putting less of it on the page.  It's all just a matter of getting more and more comfortable with the writing process and more confident in my voice.  I don't struggle as much or polish as hard, but I still write very slowly.  Some things never change!

MJP:  While reading Just One of Those Flings, I got a pretty good idea who the next book would be about!  Would you like to tell us a bit about the third book in the series? 

CH: No!  :-)  Oh, okay, but just a little.  The teaser in the back of Flings reveals who the hero and heroine are.  It's a classic bad boy meets good girl story.  And the last scene was inspired by a popular Tom Cruise movie.  And that's all I want to say about it.

MJP:   What do you think about the state of the historical romance market and where it might be going?

CH: I am nothing but optimistic.  The historical romance is not dead or dying but is here to stay.  For many years I have advised aspiring writers to write to the market, to stick with the Regency and Victorian settings because anything else was a hard sell.  But things seem to be opening up a bit.  NAL is publishing Restoration romances.  My friend (and fellow Fog City Diva) Monica McCarty has a debut trilogy coming out next year from Ballantine that is set in the early 17th century.  And I heard of several Western/Americana sales at the recent RWA conference.  So things are looking up.  I am hopeful that an infusion of long-needed diversity will have a positive effect on the genre. 

Candice Hern will be donating a signed copy of her first Merry Widows book, In the Thrill of the Night, to one of the commenters on her interview.  Eligible will be anyone who comments between now and midnight of Sunday, August 20th. 

Candice, thanks so much for joining us!  I look forward to the next Merry Widow. 

Mary Jo, who took these lovely images from Candice's Collections

Adventures in Researching

Oh, the sacrifices authors sometimes must make for the sake of their stories.

I do some pretty meticulous research for my historical novels, not because the books need that level of detail--they don't always, and it's not such a great idea to to overwhelm readers or drown the story in a sauce of detail--but because I enjoy the research. And also because I think that author's confidence in the subject conveys. The way historical information is presented, even in the smallest touches, a phrase or a sentence here and there, gives the book a quality of authenticity that readers perceive and hopefully appreciate.

But research isn't always a dull, dry endeavor, author trapped in a mountain of books to crawl over before she is finished. OK, sometimes...  but there are always those Adventures in Researching that come along and make it much more interesting.  For almost every novel, I've gone beyond the research books to search out more information. I'm usually looking for that unique stuff that helps bring historical fiction to life. Dry recounting of how something is done just won't do that in fiction--all the Wenches know that and do that in their books, and most authors will do it instinctively. That's just part of creating a solid fictional world. No matter how great a fact or tidbit might be, in the context of the story, it needs to be animated, activated, made immediate and individual to the characters and the plot. Then it clicks.

I've had some adventures chasing down this information... I’ve met and interviewed historians, archaeologists, musicians, a swordsmith, a blacksmith, archery experts, falconers, stonecarvers, doctors, a gypsy, martial artists, and a professional knight. I’ve taken self-defense to learn how to physically take down a villain and get away, and I’ve learned to catch arrows. Oh, yeah, and I go to Scotland as often as can be managed. It’s a tough job, but someone has to....

For STEALING SOPHIE, where my 18th c. Scottish hero played a fiddle, well, I just had to find me a Scottish fiddler!  CDs and books just wouldn't do. Then I lucked out. A friend is a Scottish musician, and he was in the USA on tour, and we picked him up at the airport and later went to his local concert. Afterward, I was there when he was handed a fiddle in a bar and asked to play. So I stood close by and watched close up as he fiddled one of the very songs my hero in the book was already playing (in rough draft form). While everyone else was enjoying a foot-stompin' Celtic session of impromptu fiddle and guitars, there I was, hard at work....and the same musician also thought up some great ideas for STEALING SOPHIE, having to do with Scottish fiddle and stories of Neil Gow, the great 18th c. Scottish fiddler, who was born in the same town as he was....yeah, I know--work, work work....

Who am I kidding? Woo hoo, this research thing can be SO fun!!

For a story where the heroine played harp in 14th century Scotland (THE ANGEL KNIGHT), I found almost nothing on the art of playing the harp in medieval Scotland. Then I saw a notice in the paper for a concert by a well known Celtic harper, not far from where I live (generally it's 'harpist' for concert style, and 'harper' for Celtic style, I discovered, not knowing much about harping other than that I loved the music and had a collection of CDs already). The concert was fantastic, the music enchanting, and it was great to see the harp played in the old Celtic style on the left shoulder, and to see the details of the instrument, what it sounded like close up. Later, as she autographed CDs after the concert, I waited to buy a CD, hoping to ask her what sort of strings or wires they used in 14th century Scotland, among a few other questions. By the time I got through that long line, almost the last one waiting, the poor woman was clearly exhausted. It was late, and during her concert, her two-year-old daughter had drawn little spirals and curlicues all over her arms and legs in blue ballpoint ink, like a little Pictish elf. I nearly turned away, not wanting to bother the artist with my research questions then, when the concert organizer asked her what hotel she and her family were going to that night. Oh, said the harper, I thought you took care of that. I’m so sorry, said the other woman, I thought you had done it!
Uh-oh. Blank stares all around. The two year old blithely continued to draw on herself, and reached out to scribble on her four-year-old sister.
Um, said I. You could stay at my house, I’m not far from here.
The world famous Celtic harper looked at me. Okay, she said. Where do you live?
I called my husband a few minutes later to say, Honey, make the guest room bed up fresh, I’m bringing home the band!
They followed me home, and first thing she did was put her two-year-old in the tub to scrub the Pict off of her. Next day, after they were rested, we sat at breakfast and she answered every question I had, and more, regarding harps, harping, and history of Celtic music, with all sorts of tidbits thrown in that only she and a handful of others in the world might know. She had researched the history of the instrument at Trinity College Library in Dublin, translating early music texts from the Gaelic. I never would have found that in any research book, ever. Ever.

That sort of synchronicity usually happens more than once while I'm writing a book--though not always in as spectacular a way as the harp or fiddle coincidences--and this is one way that I know I'm on the right track, doing what's right for the project. When I'm off track with the book, stuff doesn't click like that. When I'm doing fine, and I need a certain sort of info, it seems to come in. I can’t explain it and I won’t try–-but I always remember to thank my research angels!

I’ve had other Adventures in Researching, too, and some of you have asked about that arrow-catching thing....

But I'm on a crazy deadline right now, and have errands to run. I'll tell that story maybe next week -- Adventures in Researching: Parte Le Seconde!

~Susan Sarah

p.s. the musicians who helped me out with the research are Dougie MacLean and Ann Heymann--for those of you who love Celtic music, and those of you who aren't sure, check them out at http://www.dougiemaclean.com and http://www.clarsach.net  ....

Menstruation

Jo here.There was a flurry of questions and answers, so I kept my answer to my regular day, especially as it turned into an essay. As for the picture, it wouldn't be right to bring an innocent male CBK into this, so I found this Victorian picture. No, that's not me, even in my wild youth! But she does look as if she's trying to cope with the worst kind of PMS, doesn't she?

"Why don't women in historicals get PMS and chew holes in everyone around them?"

And excellent question, with many angles.

My first response is that mine rarely do because I rarely did. I'm one of those annoying women who had very little problem with menstruation other than the general hassle of it. No particular mood changes, no cramps. We write what we know. However, Jancy in The Rogue's Return did get grouchy. I thought I'd include a bit of the scene because it illustrates a couple of points.

One is, if a couple are living in close quarters and menstruation happens, he's probably going to know. If the book covers more than three and a bit of such living, it's going to happen, and the reader needs to know. It is part of the intimacy of marriage anyway and shows character is how it's dealt with.

In this case, it works with a significant theme of the book -- the difference in their stations. Jancy comes from a simple background and is unused to servants. Simon, though living simply at the moment and not extravagnt by nature, is an aristocrat, used to money not being a consideration. Her idea of decent thrift is his idea of ridiculous penny-pinching. He complains later that she pinches a penny where a St. Bride would pinch a pound.

Jancy and Simon are on a small boat, traveling down the St. Lawrence River to Montreal. When she gets up after the first night, she finds a spot of blood on her nightdress.

At least her valise was here, so she had a fresh nightgown, but how was she to wash the other? She couldn't, absolutely couldn't, let Treadwell do it, even if a gentleman's valet was supposed to do such things.

Dressed but without her drawers, she emerged and unlocked her chest. She dug around until she found her cloths and the sling that kept them in place, and then stood to retreat behind the sheet again. Simon was looking at her. He knew.

"There's a blood spot on the sheet," he said. "I'm sorry if you'd rather not talk about it, but I think in this situation it would be rather difficult. No child, then."

A touch of sadness in his voice made her ask, "Do you mind?"

"No, of course not. As you said, you don’t want to be with child during an ocean voyage. But our children will be welcome when they come. Will you have a hard time of it?"

"No, but... Never mind."

"What is it?" he asked, so prosaically that she told him.

"I can't imagine how to discreetly wash my nightgown and cloths. And Treadwell will see the sheet."

"I can't do anything about that, but as for your nightgown and cloths, throw them away."

"That would be a sinful waste!"

"Throw them away. The cloths, at least. If necessary, buy more in Kingston or Montreal."

"But...."

"I can, I believe, afford rags for my wife. I'm not rich, but I'm not a pauper."

"You don't know the meaning of rich and poor. You have no idea!"

"Oh, don't I? Hal's laying out most of the money for this journey."

She opened her mouth to score a point, but he quickly added, "But I'm not so poor that my wife needs to launder her monthly rags."

"And your wife's not so foolish that she'll throw money away!"

They glared at each other, but then Simon asked, "What are we arguing about?"

She straightened. "I'm sorry. I get short-tempered at this time."

It would be interesting to know how many women regularly have PMS today, and even more interesting to know how common it was in the past. Some people suggest that modern diet and pollution make it more common by interfering with natural hormones. (Refer back in part to my comment to Loretta's post about body hair.)

For example, it is well established that women living in close contact for long periods tend to synchronize their periods. A powerful example of the effects of body chemicals, though what the point of it is, I don't know. Women in the past mostly lived in close contact with other women. If this synchrony does have a healthy purpose, perhaps they had less PMS.

On a tangent, it is also well established that women with irregular ovulation and menstruation can often be helped by sniffing male sweat. If they're married and are having this problem, it seems their husband's sweat just doesn't do it for them. There's also stuff about women and men being partly attracted to people because of their sweat, but that's getting back to the body odor thing again.

Back to writing, if the couple are sexually intimate, especially if they are living together, and the story carries on for more than a couple of weeks, menstruation is bound to become an issue. Why try to avoid it when it throws interesting light on the characters and their relationship? How do the man and the woman deal with this aspect of intimacy for the first time? Does she try to hide it? How does she convey to him that it's happening, and that sex isn't possible. That's assuming that she sees it that way, but she probably does. How does he react to it?

I find it distracting if the author doesn't deal with this when necessary.

Final note on the practicalities. Details about how women dealt with menstruation are scanty, but we know a bit. Women with leisure did sometimes take to their beds for a few days. It might have been because they were suffering from cramps and PMS, but it might have simply been an excuse to keep to themselves and avoid hassle.

Pads were cloths made into pads, and sometimes they were actually sewn into pads, but I suspect that's rare because it would make them harder to launder. Yes, they had to be washed and dried, another practicality I've dealt with in my books. They were generally called rags, but could well be neatly made and hemmed like a handkerchief. The saying "on the rag" comes from that.

They held the pads on with a belt with a wide strap back to front, not too disimilar in principal to the old belts. In England we called the sanitary belts and sanitary napkins. I'm not sure what North Americans called them. I suspect that even when women didn't normally wear underpants of any kind (up to and including the regency for some of them) they might have during menstruation for greater security. People have generally been practical.

And while I'm on the topic, I might as well put in my favourite public service nudge. Every menstruating woman should have her ferritin levels checked (that's a blood test) at least every couple of years, but especially if she has heavy periods and any unexplained health problems. That will test the body's stores of iron, and they can be low even if the amount of iron in the blood is normal. Low ferritin levels are associated with many problems, including general tiredness, mental confusion, depression, and panic attacks. Low normal ferritin levels are associated with poor mental performance and possibly with other problems. You want a reading at least in the 20s, but much higher is perfectly safe. The upper level of normal is over a 100,

Not incidentally, women in the past went to some effort to replenish their iron. Some stuck nails into an apple, then after a while, ate the apple. In Victorian times, at least, some visited abattoirs to drink blood. Liver was known to be good for women. Food like blood pudding, or black pudding as it is usually called in England, made sure the blood from slaughtering pigs didn't go to waste. Being a good northern lass, I love black pudding.

Oh, and men shouldn't take supplemental iron. They have no way of getting rid of it short of bloodletting. See, even that wasn't always stupid as a health practice in the past.

Here's to your health!

Jo

A Day in the Life of a Writer

From Pat Rice:

As you may have already ascertained, I’m not the most PC person in this group. Nor the most educated or intellectual or thoughtful. I tell it like it is, and you can take it or toss it aside.  I recommend you toss this one aside. 

I’ve been having one of those days.  Or weeks.  Or lives.  Whatever.  It’s mid-August and all of

New York City

is supposed to be up in the mountains, cooling off.  Instead, all of

New York City

except my agent--who is up in the mountains--is still hard at work, making my life...interesting.

To start my day, I received the new cover art for my next contemporary (note to self, look up pub date), which my editor has told me I will love. Having been ordered to do so, I agree, I love it.  Great colors.  It’s an adirondack chair sitting beside a pond in a field of summer flowers.  Quite pretty.  I’ve always wanted to read a book about adirondack chairs. Note to self, buy this book to find out how people get out of those pretzel-twister chairs.

I go back to watching the hummingbird out the window while I figure out how to push my next contemporary heroine off a cliff. The phone rings, interrupting fantasy of hero with flapping wings pulling her back. 

It’s my historical editor, who finally wants to discuss the six-book series I talked to her about a year ago. I’ve just turned in the first book, and I have five more great characters and a real swashbuckling fantasy/adventure that’s carried across sea and land in one of my favorite time periods, the Georgian era.  Think Scarlet Pimpernel meets the X-Men on a quest. 

My editor is equally thrilled with the idea, hallelujah!  She wants a cover “look” for the entire series, which, BTW, needs to be cut down to a trilogy so marketing can keep it on the shelves.

Ya win some, ya lose some.

Oh, and BTW, do I happen to have any idea what kind of cover I’d like on these books? The cover conference is next week.

In this case, yes, I do have some idea!  Hurray for me.  I send appropriate weblink and editor is very happy.

I, in the meantime, am contemplating slitting my throat.  Maybe the wrist would be easier.

Leaving heroine hanging off cliff where she belongs, I go back to perusing the copyedit on the book about the nonexistent adirondack chair. (Hero sits in director’s chair. Wonder if artist could put director’s chair by pond. . .) 

Copyedits are works of art, and this copyeditor has been quite good to me.  He/she has forced me to face my own timeline and caught all my wandering clauses and missing commas. This is what a good copyeditor does. And she’s even found better words for ones my addled brain couldn’t conjure up the day I wrote some really. . . interesting. . . sentences.  But she has this habit of adding “have” to every verb where it seems that I may have accidentally forgotten it.  This last has some. . . interesting. . . results, as in “She wasn’t used to having a man in the kitchen.” Think about it. 

Maybe my heroine ought to spice up her sex life and try a man in the kitchen next time. That way, she won't be jumping off cliffs.

Having decided that slitting wrists and throats would require pain and mess, I check my e-mail. My historical editor has been a busy little bee.  She writes that she thinks we ought to add a man’s face to the mystical landscapes for the cover art. She points out wonderful sexy images. . .which means. . . wait for it. . .WE NEED NEW TITLES.  Mystic Maiden probably isn’t appropriate with a man hanging above it.  Frantic thesaurus thumbing ensues.  Panicked e-mails to brainstorming pals.  More thesaurus thumbing.

Has this day ended yet?

Having compiled a fascinating collection of Mystic names that I intend to use on every book until the day I die, I prepare an e-mail with my choices. Only to discover an e-mail in my box from my editor with her three choices.  Which, I am, of course, going to love. 

And I will, too, just as soon as I finish making paper dolls out of the outline for the next book that I no longer need since Book Two, Three, and Four are now ether. 

Oh, and I guess I’d better find that magic box which I've apparently misplaced in hopes that it contains a brand new outline for Book Five now that I’ve ditched the guys that were going to retrieve the chalice which would produce the fair maiden. . .

I bet my agent doesn’t have e-mail in her d*mned mountains.  But if she has an adirondack chair, she’d better figure out how to get out of it before my X-ray vision vaporizes it into the ether.

Question Day Part II

It’s Question Day here at Word Wenches!   1) because we have so many good questions to choose from, and 2) because while Susan Miranda is blithely strolling on some New England beach, squishing sand between her toes and contemplating the vast Atlantic, the Email Gremlin ate her Monday post.  Wenches to the rescue!!

Pat answered a couple of questions below (if you haven't yet seen it, check it out), and now it's my turn.

Jocelyn asked:

What romance novels do you recommend to new readers and why?

All of them. As many as they can carry away in a bag from the bookstore....two bags...four, on one of those little collapsible handtrucks....Okay, okay. Seriously.

If a new reader has never read romance, it’s not so easy to recommend just a few titles. There’s an enormous variety in romance, and that’s part of its unique appeal, besides fabu stories and writing quality. That wide array of stories, voices, depth, and subgenres will provide something to suit nearly every taste and interest.

If the reader loves history, there’s just about any time period represented, from ancient to early twentieth century. If they love thrillers, mysteries, contemporary settings, comedy, drama, horror, paranormal, erotica, sci fi and fantasy, and more...well, you get the idea! All of it can be found in romance. I don’t know if another genre covers quite the spectrum that romance does. Fantasy comes close, with its many facets, including a growing number of romance plots too.

And that’s one of the keys to the overall success of the romance genre, I think: its tremendously rich and creative range of stories, especially with the expanded markets of the last several years. Quite literally there is something for everyone, and the list keeps building. And that’s good news for writers as well as readers.

So if I meet a person brand new to romance (and I have, many times)...first I ask what they love to read, what they’re most interested in; then I recommend books and authors that I’m familiar with. The bestseller lists will help get someone started, but what if those aren't quite the ticket?  The stories that a particular individual might truly love aren’t always on those lists. A little searching will turn up gems that are just right, and another reader is happily hooked.

Of course I would recommend books by all the Wenches...and then I would say, go browsing. Sit down on the floor of the romance aisle of the local bookstore (with a cup of coffee if there’s a café) and stay awhile. There’s a lifetime of reading available in romance.

~Susan Sarah

Question Day: (1) Research (2) Ideas

From Patricia Rice:

Q:  How hard is it not to accidentally put in something that they wouldn't have had or known then? Do you find yourself frantically scouring reference books (or googling), muttering, "Just when was the telegraph available in the wilds of Hampshire?"

A:  Oh, yeah, I'd be hunting for telegraphs, no doubt!  Been there, done that, never remember the answer.  It's the tricky questions that tend to slip by---when did they quit writing with a quill?  what kind of paper are they writing on in 1820?  How very easy it is for those of us who have written the Regency era to assume cuffed boots might still be worn in the Georgian era.  It's just so much a part of what we write.  Most clothing I know to look up because fashions change so rapidly, but something like a quill...  By 1820, they had a pen, although who used it might require research, and how soon it became part of the culture is another.

Culture and language are always much trickier than inventions.  We just assume all English royal weddings looked like Princess Di's.  <G>  Or the word "contact" was always used to mean to write or call someone.  We have to actually KNOW that this wasn't so before we can research them. 

Q:  Do you ever feel like screaming "GO AWAY!" at the 3,546th fan who asks about your "process" or "where do you get your ideas"? Or even one who thinks you should know things like whether women in the 1800s shaved their legs?

A:  On the contrary, writers spend utterly ENORMOUS amounts of time discussing process.  We're having that discussion on one of my lists right now.  We're fascinated with the way our brains work and what secret compartment might hide those elusive ideas.  We can't answer these questions, of course.  <G>  But we just adore making up opinions.  The latest theory is that we keep our muses chained to the basement walls and beat them every so often...  No, I think we're supposed to feed t hem regularly and treat them to chocolate.  Something like that.

I really don't get too many people asking me difficult questions about shaving legs. I think people sense that I may be clueless.  <G>

Weather Tips for Writers

It's Sunday, so it's Edith.

After a wet spring and a torrid summer, today is glorious!
The breeze is just right, light and sweet. The sun is king of a clear blue cloudless sky, and after a cool morning, it's getting to be the perfect temperature for daydreaming in the garden.
No writing today!

Of course, when it was so hot that the birds in the trees were blistering, I stayed in the AC. It should have been a great days for writing! But there was so much to see out the windows, and water to be put in the birdbaths, and watching to see that the fishies didn't boil in their pond ... and constant testing of the temperature. How could I say I lived through the extraordinary heat wave if I didn't experience it? How can a person be expected to ignore the climate and write when that happens?

And when it was windy and wet and damp as a clam's armpit, it should have been perfect weather for writing. But there is a certain hypnotic effect when you watch the rain coming down in sheets, and then that frisson (a kind of curly French lettuce) of fear that the streets will flood, and how will you be able to drive anywhere? Hard to write in weather like that.

Don't even mention snow.

So how do I write?

It's called discipline.
Oh, let's be honest.
It's called "if you don't do this you don't deserve to be called a writer."
Fah! That's not honest either.

The truth is that once you get caught up in your own story, it could be raining puppies, the sun could turn blue, and you wouldn't notice.

And that's better than anything, indoors or out.
And that's why I write.

Question Time: Historical beauty

       From Loretta
      
      As I mentioned last Saturday, I have a book rapidly approaching deadline (it’s four weeks--that’s rapid to me).  This means my limited powers of brilliance need to be focused on the book.  So coming up with an actual idea (and please don’t ask me where I get them) and then turning it into deathless prose is out of the question.
      You asked questions.  The Wenches will answer, in no apparent order...
      
      Susannac asked a bunch I thought would be fun to answer.  I’d love to do all of them, and maybe will get to a few more in the course of the day or one of these days.  But I’m starting with hairy women.
      
      3) Did women in the early 1800s shave their legs, and if not, why are they always smooth when the heroes are exploring their bodies in the throes of passion? Did they shave under their arms or use some kind of deodorant (baking soda?)?

      First, let’s remember that the safety razor is a fairly recent invention, as was stainless steel.  Let’s remember that a nick from shaving could lead to an infection which could lead to death. 
      Not that the risk of death really matters when it comes to beauty.  Are not some of us today injecting a deadly toxin into our faces?
      Second, historical data is tricky territory.  All the Wenches have, at one time or another, come across information that contradicts other information.
      That said...
      So far as I can discover, European women did not shave their legs or underarms.  This seems to be a relatively recent (e.g., 20th C) fashion development.  In fact, in many countries today, women still don’t shave--or, if they do, they are Women of Ill Repute.  However, in some cultures, hairlessness was expected, and women did wax.  The ancient Egyptians, IIRC.  So it’s possible that some woman somewhere in England waxed parts of her body.  But hairless legs and underarms were not the norm, to my knowledge.
      However, it would be good to remember that hairy isn’t necessarily disagreeable to the touch.  Women who’ve never shaved their legs will have softer hair than those who have.  Same goes for women who wax.  There’s none of that scratchy stubble.  In Northern Europe, we’re going to encounter a great many of those fair-haired, fair-skinned women, like one of my friends, whose hair is very fine and very light.  Too, our heroes would be focused on the femininity--a woman’s hairy leg is often silkier and softer than a man’s--and it would not trouble him, since hairless legs and underarms are not the norm for his culture.
      All the same, I don’t refer to the hairy legs and underarms, and most especially not when the hero is exploring the heroine’s body in the throes of passion.  Why not?  Because my readers live in the modern world, and have modern sensibilities, and this is a romantic fantasy, not reality.  I don’t want to jolt readers out of the fantasy.
      For the same reason, I don’t raise issues of venereal disease among those rakes we find so romantic.  I doubt real people would have had sweet breath all the time, either, and I have to wonder about the state of their teeth.  Though our Regency era people probably smelled a little cleaner than their predecessors, this is not a given.  Some may have used lemons or powder under their arms.  Many but not all members of the upper classes would have washed the prime odor zones at least once a day.  Not everyone bathed daily, however, as Beau Brummell did.  The daily bath or shower, again, appears to be a recent development, at least among the European cultures I’ve studied.  Baths, even in most great houses (there are always exceptions--and I have one in LORD OF SCOUNDRELS), involved servants hauling pails and pitchers of water in to fill a tub.  Public baths were not common--as they were in Arab/Muslim countries, like Egypt.  So, unlike the ancient Romans who built those marvelous baths at Bath, the Englishmen and women of the early 1800s didn’t live in a culture of frequent/daily bathing, and for the most part, only the rich could afford the luxury.
      So I’m taking artistic liberties--for the sake of the romantic fantasy--when I keep all my English heroes and heroines clean and fresh-smelling.  Um, except in MR. IMPOSSIBLE--all that sand, heat, and getting stuck in hot little tunnels.  And except for the new book, NOT QUITE A LADY, where sweat is an important plot point.
      And Susannac, to answer one of your other questions, this is the kind of question I’d much rather answer than the ones about where I get my ideas or what my process is.  Thank you!
      

Favorite Characters? Not hardly!

From Mary Jo

Several days ago, a helpful Wenchling suggested a couple of blog topics to me.  One was “Who are your favorite characters in your books?”

I had two reactions:

A) I HATE when people ask me that (and it’s one of the most popular questions, right up there with “Where do you get your ideas?”)
B) It’s actually a good seed idea for a blog.  (“Can you say ‘cognitive dissonance,’ boys and girls?”)   

The reason I hate the question is because it’s real Sophie’s Choice territory—which of your children do you love best?  That’s as hard for me to answer as it would be for most parents. 

If pinned down about favorites, I’ll usually mention Reggie Davenport, the alcoholic hero of The Rake.  Certainly he was attractive and witty and tragic, and he did a lot for my career.  (Thanks, Reg!)  But I didn’t love him more than Stephen Kenyon, the terminally ill ducal hero of One Perfect Rose.  Or Kenneth Wilding, the battle scarred veteran and spy with an artist’s soul from River of Fire. 

Each character is special to me, and if I write them well, they are convincingly special to their partners.  I can’t write a hero or heroine without loving them, and that love is based on their individuality.  Characters must be both universal and unique. 

More than any other genre, romance is character based.  If the characters aren’t vivid and engaging, who bother to write them, much less read them?  I suspect that romance writers tend to personify things around us more than most. Witness the well-developed characters of the Wenches’ dolls, Cabbage Patch Kids, and stuffed animals.) 

Years ago, an editor told me she could usually guess which aspiring writers would become published because of the way they speak about their characters.  “The ones most likely to succeed talk about their characters as if they’re real people.”

My thought was “Of course my characters are real!  They just don’t happen to have bodies.”  Which probably proves the editor’s point. <g>

My characters are generally smarter and braver than I am, and my heroines may n ot always be beautiful but they all have great hair and skin. They are creatures of my imagination (unlike the cats in my books, which are always based on real cats). 

At the same time, they have traits that resonate within me, or I couldn’t make them convincing.  I am not half-Chinese and raised in a xenophobic culture like Troth, the heroine of The China Bride.  But who among us hasn’t felt like an outsider, awkward and unwanted?  (High school is pretty much guaranteed to produce such feelings!)

Projecting that sense of not belonging into a character brings her alive, and also makes her sympathetic.  Especially for the writer—once I’ve given my characters some of my own vulnerabilities, how can I not care about them? 

Even villains have to have traits that find some echo inside of me.  Not that I am a latent serial killer—when wasps get into the house, I capture them alive and release outdoors.  But selfishness, egotism, greed, anger—these are just about universal human traits.  (The Dalai Lama might be above such weakness.  But probably not.) 

As to villains in general—I tend to make mine operatically awful so I won’t mind killing them off.  If one has any redeeming characteristics—well, I might just have to make a hero out of him.  And then I'd have to fall in love with him.  <g>

Mary Jo

Pronunciation Dialogue

Want to eavesdrop on a recent Wench discussion behind the scenes?  We get very intense about really important things like how to pronounce "marquis" and whether that and "marquess" are pronounced the same way.

Loretta: OK, I'm stumped.  My OED has two different pronunciations for marquis/marquess.  What am I missing?

Jo (the native English speaker): Both for the title, Loretta? They are considered alternate spellings of the title Marquis/Marquess, but pronounced the same. A marquis, markee, is the French version or a tent. In my universe, at least!

Loretta: OED has marquis as mar kwis, marquess as mar kwes. For the title--both for the same definition. I'm translating phonetically because I can't make the funny little symbols.

Jo: True, but in effect it's so subtle as to be hardly noticeable. They say that
they standardized on marquess because so many people were pronouncing
marquis as markee. That's what I was talking about.


Pat:  I'm trying to do research so I'm easily distractible, and it just suddenly
occurred to me why Americans have this differentiation.  Besides the fact
that I prefer the sound of mar kee (sorry, Jo <G>) and markwis makes me
shudder, I think we have different enuciations.  I say mar KEE and mar
KES (that hard "qu" thing is hard to beat back), which is why the difference is not subtle to the American ear.  It's painful.

  If I'm not mistaken, Jo, you say MAR kwes, which alleviates the pain
considerably and does make the whole more subtle.

Loretta: Understood.  The trouble is, most American readers are going to read "marquis" as "markee."  If they look in an American dictionary, they get a choice of "markee" or "markwess" or "markwiss."   That's why I use marquess, at any rate.  I'm an
American, too, and my first instinct is to pronounce "marquis" as "markee."
I really have to think about it, to change to British pronunciation.   For
an American, saying "markee" is as natural as pronouncing "vitamin" with a
long i first syllable or "herb" without the "h."



Jo shudders:  Though I have switched to aluminum rather than aluminium. When
the spelling is different, it's irresistible. Pat, markwiss and markwess sound 
howlingly different to you?


Of course I have the people who love my Company of Rouges.

Loretta:  Viscount is another tricky one for readers.  Many people read it "viss-count".  I've never figured out how to clarify the pronunciation, so I mention it on my website in one of my Random Notes.


Jo: Want to talk about buoy?


Pat: Nope. I've been permanently confused ever since we moved to KY and learned
"pen" and "pin" were the exact opposite of what I'd learned.  I'm not
touching anything more complicated.  <G> I'm amazed any of us can understand each other



Edith: My first book (a regency) had a character who was a markee, spelled:
Marquis.

My second book had the same character as hero.  And the title was: "The
Disdainful Marquis."

Then sometime later, I got the new official word.  No more Marquis.  They
had to be "Marquess."

So I said what about the Marquis of my first two books?  What if I bring him
back for  a cameo?
No matter.
The word was MARQUESS.
Which just sounds wussy to me.
So I wrote about Dukes, and Earls, and Viscounts.

I always get the English pronounciations wrong.  The hero of said first book
was the Duke of Torquay, which in my ignorance, I thought was pronounced:
"Tor- quay."
Imagine my horror later, to hear an English friend pronounce it: "Torkee" -
which made it sound like "Turkey."

I visited it next time I went to England.  Nice town, awful name... that is,
in English.


Mary Jo: LOL!  I swear the Brits deliberate warp their pronounciation in order to
make foreigners feel like idjits. <g>  When I lived there, I learned that
swallowing syllables was a good start to sounding British.  <g>

JO: LOL! It happens everywhere. In The Rogue's Return, I had to use a real and
famous character as he was the C of E minister in York at the time, Reverend
Strachan. I was talking to a friend who's expert in Canadian history and she
gently said, "Straun, Jo. Straun."

I haven't yet had to say the name to anyone else, but I'm glad to know!


Susan K:
Maybe that's the English pronounciation?  I know it's sometimes spelled
"Strawn, Straun," but it's all under Clan Strachan.  It's a Scottish Gaelic
name, and in Scotland, where it's both a place and a surname, it's usually
"Strakhan" -- the "ch" as in "loch."  I've heard it said there myself. In
SK: Gaelic, a "ch" with an "a" before and/or after has the "ch" pronounced. So
Strachan has two syllables. It's subtle, a soft airy "ch" and on to the
second syllable.

But in England, I don't know, it may be different there, and Canada as well.
So Jo, you were probably right in your original pronunciation, particularly
given an 18th c. setting. Unless Rev. Strachan's family had been in England
for a long while, or were Lowlanders by then.


Jo: Right, Susan. Strachan is correct. I was even using the softer loch
pronunciation. I haven't been able to find out why it's Straun, but it
probably was originally more like Strawch'n and drifted from there.

Then there's Goethe. I went through one university course reading about
Go-eth and wondering when I'd get to this gerte guy was the lecturer kept referring
to.


SK:    LOL!  Or in art history, there's Van Hhhhhhhoocchhhhhhh. With lots of
spit. Otherwise known as Vincent.



Jo :
Re Strachan, I was just consulting the peerage pronunciation and it give
Strachan as Straun, so perhaps it's the aristocratic usage. Not that I'm
sure the future Bishop Strachan was aristocratic, but he might have upgraded the
pronunciation when he moved to the New World,

What about character names, which is where we started this, with
Darius and Cynric. Given the variety in pronunciation, we can choose the way
it's said and then try to make it clear, but I often assume people know  how to
pronounce a name when they don't. I've had people ask how to  pronounce
Malloren. I can't imagine stressing the middle syllable,  but
clearly some people can. And I assumed everyone would know how to  pronounce
de Vaux. But then, sometimes Vaux is pronounced Vox.

I wonder if any of you wenchlings have stumbled over in name pronunciation, and
how it can affect youl enjoyment of a book. Come to think of it, most Dorothy
Dunnett readers seem to have pronounced Lymond Li-mond until they heard her and
found out it was Lie-mond. That took a bit of adjusting to, even though Lie-
mond is rational. I'd been reading and re-reading for years before I realized
that Buccleuch was B'clue. My enjoyment survived

Susan S: I always wondered how to pronounce the doctor's name in the Patrick O'Brien books, since in interviews he made such a big deal of it being a special Spanish pronunciation.  Other people must have wondered, too, because I remember getting all excited by the promised heading in a print interview -- "At last, Mr. O'Brien reveals how Stephen's name is pronounced!" -- yet the (print) interview was like this:
     Q: "How do you pronounce Maturin?"
     A: "It is pronounced Maturin." 
Yeah, yeah, so the joke's on me......

______________________________________________

More Updates!

From Sherrie:

We just keep getting better!  Hi Wenchlings!  I've been doing some tweaking and updating behind the scenes. We have two new sidebar items:  Announcements, and Favorite Websites.  Both are in the right column, with Announcements at the very top, and Favorite Websites at the bottom.  Be sure to check out the Announcements sidebar now and then, because that's where we'll be listing upcoming interviews, guest bloggers, new releases, contests, etc. Don't be surprised if you see more tweaking in weeks to come, either! As they used to say in those old-timey newscasts:  "Stay tuned for further developments."

Inspiration

Jo, here, introduced by Charlie, who loves glittery things. He says if he's to have such a public role he needs better pictures. And more glittery things. :)

Sometimes we wonder where stories come from. Certainly people ask us. "Where do you get your ideas?"

We don't know, and so we often talk about a muse. That gets us into trouble, though, because it links with musing and we seem dreamy and unfoccused, the sort of person who sits in a pensive dream waiting for the muse to deliver a gift-wrapped piece of inspiration.

Muse, by the way, comes from muzzle and was originally used for hounds, the sort who were supposed to keep their muzzles to the ground as they tracked game, so sticking it up in the air meant they were shirking.

But we really mean the classical muses, who are supposed to inspire and bring gifts from the gods, and I think most authors have a sense of inspiration and occasionally, even of magical gifts. Some stories do come as gifts, at least the beginnings, the spark, perhaps even a few vivid scenes. On the other hand, I can sit at the computer and pound the keyboard for hours and not produce anything special at all. We can all type lots of words, but are they special enough to ask people to pay to read them?

We're an arrogant lot, we writers, especting people to pay for our wordsmithing, but if we're worth anything it's because of that extra something that comes from who knows where and who knows why.

And in some way that seems to connect with this photograph that recently surfaced in our archives of a chateau we glimpsed in France. A real one in the sense of lived in, even though it doesn't look it.

This is a picture of the amaranth I grew last year, amazing 6 foot plumes from tiny seeds.

Who's to say what's real and what's illusion? If there are chateaux in the woods and flowers growing tall from tiny seeds; if there are sunsets and rainbows, never ceasing to delight, no matter how many we see; then there can be magic and muses as well in my world.

What do you think? Is it flaky to see some of this as magical?

Jo :)

Blathering Part II

I know, I know, I never shut up.  And behind the scenes, I'm worse.

Tal suggested that we answer questions as a post, and we've been asked to answer writing questions previously.  Since a lot of us are currently under the deadline gun (lovely to be under contract but murder to accomplish when we all want to be playing in the sun), why don't we give this a try? 

I make no promises.  What I'll do is collect questions from wenchlings and others passing through here, post them behind the scenes so all the wenches can play with them as they like, and we'll see if we can't organize an answer post soon.  Let's play!  Ask away, but let's stick to topics we might know something about---like history and writing.  If you wander off into actually having a life...  you'll get lots of giggles but not much sense. 

Blathering

While the other wenches are brilliant essayists with library shelves groaning under tomes of historical costumes and politics, I have developed the fine art of nattering. My bookshelves might groan, but it’s with the weight of books on everything from Manga to Druids, by way of Mars and black holes, with a right turn through King Arthur and California.  Apparently, I suffer from intellectual ADD.

My blogs tend to reflect my mental meanderings, and for those of you paying attention, you’ll notice that my mind wandered so far today that it didn’t return until evening, too late for my daily readers. 

I will have you note that I worked on creating a new proposal for a really weird book, researched the next historical, and carved my way through several hundred pages of a copyedit on the next contemporary.  I also approved a book cover and answered two tons of email (although not all) and did  a lot of whining.  What I didn’t do was write a blog!

So, I lack focus.  I’m going to apply my lack of focus to creating a dialogue between all of us that should show up, knock wood, this weekend.  We’re still learning how to do the fancy stuff that other blogs use regularly, but we’re all busy and technology does not come easily.

What do you see on other blogs that might be of interest to us wenches? We’re open to suggestions, interests, whatever, although we don’t promise to disguise ourselves as chickens and run rampant through the trees with the monkeys.