Word Wenches

Haggis on the Menu

A bright sunny Thursday, and Susan Sarah is here again....

Questions! The Wenches have received so many great questions!  Please keep them coming (send them to our Whipster, Sherrie, who's collecting them. If your question is answered, you win a free book!). My turn to pull one outta the hat....

RevMelinda asks “the dinner party” question: what 5 historical figures would you like to have dinner with, and why? Who would you seat next to whom? Whose conversation would be the most fun to eavesdrop on?

(the picture is me with my husband at a historical dinner...well, costume demo anyway!)

A great classic question, and one I’ve thought about now and then. It’s so hard to decide! My list changes every time I rethink it. I have trouble limiting myself to five people– hey, my dining room table’s bigger than that! We can handle twelve at our table with all the leaves in, and another four at the card table where the kids were banished each year until they insisted on eating at the big people’s table. And I could fit another six at the kitchen table...several out on the deck if the weather is good...the rest can eat on the sofas and other chairs. So that gives me what, over thirty historical people I could invite....

OK, five is simpler. And I’m hoping you’ll choose five historical people for your dinner wish lists too, and let us know what they'd be. My choices would depend on what historical research mode I'm in... whether it's medieval, Regency, British or Scottish or something more international...hmm. Here goes:

Joan of Arc – I have admired her since I was little girl in CCD classes, bored by the catechism and the long roster of saints, but my ears perked up at the story of the teenage girl who spoke with angels, and left her little village to follow her convictions, and lead an army to war – and the courage, later, to face the fire. My great-grandmother grew up in an area of rural France very near where Joan grew up, so I hope that Jehanne la Pucelle and I would have lots to talk about (and some of it in French, because I’d try to brush up before she arrived!).
I would ask her to tell the story at my dinner table of why she called the English the “Goddams” – because she and other French soldiers overheard the English swearing by their campfires at night.
I’ve always been fascinated by Joan of Arc, and I have an extensive library shelf devoted to her. I had the chance to include her peripherally in one of my novels, The Sword Maiden, and I hope one day to develop another story focused around her. Ideas in progress....

Sir Walter Scott – a lovely man, and I’d love to have him to dinner, in hopes that we could discuss Scottish history and the origins of great classic historical romance. In hopes, also, that he’d let me loose in his library of 9,000 volumes on history, legend, and British culture! Sigh. Sheer heaven. We could also talk about Abbotsford, his beautiful home that I’ve visited more than once, and will drool over forever.

Lady Macbeth and King Macbeth – I would invite the real couple, the Celts, not the characters that Shakespeare so brilliantly conjured out of a smidgeon of history and a whole lotta fiction. The real ones might be glad for a little attention at last, they've been overshadowed by the hand-wringing drama queen and her henpecked husband (really I admire the Shakespeare, though find the real story equally fascinating). The invitation would be addressed to Gruoch inghean Bodhe mac Coinneach mhic Dubh, and Mac bethad mac Findlaech, Rex et Regina Scottorum– Queen Gruoch and King Macbeth of Scotland.

I would be honored to have these two, the last truly Celtic monarchs of Scotland, sitting at my table, and I think their manners would be courteous, even if they'd never seen a fork before. The truth of their long, stable reign, and the remarkable events of that time period remains cloaked in myth, mystery, and speculation. I hope they would tell their actual story...Celts, Vikings, magic and power plays, and the lusty, raw struggle over many years to defend Celtic Scotland from the threat of Vikings to the north and Saxons to the south.

Wait, no daggers allowed at my table. Leave them by the door and retrieve them up as you go out!

Mary, Queen of Scots – a controversial guest for some, I suppose, but someone who has always had my sympathy, being a beautiful young woman who was little more than a teenager, raised in the elitist bubble of the French court, when she was sent back to Scotland to rule over some very rough, ruthless,  conniving men who did their best to bring her down, and spoil her idealism. She was a beautiful creature, a little selfish and naive, and too easily led for the position that she held. I’d like to ask her the truth about her relationship with Bothwell, and I’d like to know what really happened between her and her cousin, Elizabeth I...what was up with those casket letters, anyway?  And who blew up her whiny husband?

I’d seat Queen Mary beside Lady Macbeth, two strong and mysterious Queens of Scots. I'm sure Sir Walter Scott would want to pick Mary’s brain, once he finished picking Joan’s and Gruoch’s and Macbeth’s too. Joan of Arc and Queen Mary could converse easily in French, and Mary could speak a little Gaelic and a little Latin with the Macbeths, and Sir Walter could handle himself in all of those, so there would be some good general conversation. And I would try to keep up with all of them with English, French, and a smattering of Gaelic.  Joan of Arc would not be odd girl out in this Scottish bunch, since she kept Scottish knights with her throughout her campaign. She'd have a soft spot in her heart for them, and they for her. Well, the Macbeths would have to be caught up to speed on the whole saving France thing.

As to the menu, I could go with a typical Scottish dinner, though I’m not too fond of haggis myself (actually it's quite good if you've ever tried it -- I just don't eat red meat). So I’d probably go with cock-a-leekie soup to start (chicken and leeks, pretty good and very easy), then fresh salmon, and of course neeps ‘n tatties (the Macbeths and Joan of Arc could discover a new taste sensation – potatoes! along with that old staple, turnips), and maybe a nice pastry for dessert. Scots are very fond of pastries and sweets (we’ll have to do without the fried Mars Bars, though). We’ll have tea and coffee later, along with a few rounds of whisky, good old uisge beatha, to loosen them up and warm the mood at the table.

For other dinners, I have a few other dream guests...

Leonardo da Vinci, seated next to Picasso: give them a big pad of paper and some charcoal and ask them to brainstorm a new mural!

Robert Burns, the lusty, rowdy poet of 18th century Scotland, seated beside Caravaggio, the lusty, rowdy painter and brat of the Italian Baroque. Caravaggio was arrested a few times with an ancestor of mine for drunken carousing -- and I've done a few Burns Night addresses -- so we’d all have something to talk about. We’d have to move the whisky far away from those two, though.

Oooh, maybe one day we could do Smackdowns in History. Who would you pit against whom?

How about you all?  Who would you invite to supper?

~Susan Sarah, promising a free book to RevMelinda for another great question (please email me for details)!

Librarians Choose The Marriage Spell

The Library Journal has picked their top 5 romances of 2006 and Mary Jo's THE MARRIAGE SPELL is one of them! The announcement will appear in the January issue of the Library Journal. What a way to start the New Year!  Those librarians know a good book when they see it.  What higher accolade could there be than to have a bunch of savvy librarians give your book two thumbs up?!!  Fantastic news, Mary Jo, and huge congratulations! Here's a virtual glass of champagne to start the celebration!

Character images

Jo here.

I thought I’d pick up a question that referred, in part, to my books.
Janga asked, “How do you visualize your character? I know, Jo, that you give your readers "portraits" of the Rogues on your website, but did the images come before or after the creation of the characters?” Thanks for the question, Janga. E-mail me your address, and I’ll send you a book.

I never use pictures to create my characters. It doesn’t work for me because a picture, even the best portrait, is static. It catches a person in one moment, and only one aspect of them. I think we’ve all had the experience of seeing a photo of someone we know well and for a moment not recognizing them. Yet that is them. It’s not typical, perhaps, or light and shadow has created different angles, but it is as real as the more familiar.

A movie or TV program is much more complex and this would be more useful, but it still just doesn’t work with the way my creativity does its thing. I suspect that it remains external. The images I see that I write down are in my head not in front of my eyes.

In fact, I come up with the externals of my characters in the way we meet and learn real people -- in bits and pieces, light and shadow. In ways of moving and the shifts of muscle that create hard lines at one moment and soft at another.

I’d find it hard to describe someone I knew in specifics. I could say 5 foot 10, brown hair…. But then, what brown? And except for a few obsessive people, hair shape doesn’t stay the same. It blows in the wind, it gets roughed up by hats and hands, it lies flat in the rain….

People are like music. They’re all movement and change and though I'll start with some dimensions and details, they take on structure bit by bit as I write the book. My current hero has dark hair and eyes, which would be unusual in England, so I gave him an Italian mother. A disreputable one, which adds to his general image problems. Just because, I made him quietly impressive without being tall or large, and I realized later that that would be the likely result of a neglected childhood. Then later still, how it would make his schooldays particularly difficult, which was always part of the story. He's not just a soldier, he's a fighter from the cradle, so I realized he wouldn't have perfect features, even if he'd been born with them, so he has a crook in his nose and some scarring. But his profile from some angles is beautiful. And so it goes.

I truly don't have a clear image of my characters, even when I finish a book.

However, I do sometimes come across a picture that reminds me of one of my characters, which is where those Rogues pictures came from. I do remember that when I first saw the cover for An Arranged Marriage
I thought, “That’s not Nicholas.” But the image quickly grew on me and became an aspect of Nicholas.

The cover of Unwilling Bride is also not Lucien – it’s too hard and slick, rather like a thirties movie star – but again, it captured something real.










It was the Francis one that started me on this, however. This is a portrait from slightly after the Regency and I just thought, “That’s Francis.” Quiet, gentle, sensitive, firm, intelligent….

But it's okay if these aren't your image, as long as your image works for you.

The other image I’ve found that’s spot on is the period portrait I’ve assigned to Diana, Countess of
Arradale, Rothgar’s lady. It is just so very her. I haven’t found anything for Rothgar himself, however.

Lastly, there’s the startling picture for the omnibus edition, Three Heroes. When I opened the jpg for that, I truly couldn’t believe my eyes. I had send descriptions of my characters, but how one earth had the art department got it so right? There was Van in the middle, dashing and active; Con on the left, stocky and steady; and Hawk on the right, the hyper-intelligent military nerd. Hawk’s just a bit sulky-looking, but that was the only quibble I could make.

We authors pray to the cover gods every time, and sometimes they smile.

The casting game is one I find hard to play, and some suggestions are truly weird to me. I think I remember someone once saying Mel Gibson could play Rothgar. Mel Gibson?!? Let’s add a few more of those ?!?!?!?!?!?!

But by all means let’s play. What actors could you see playing one of the Wenchs' characters?

If you’re a writer, how do you come up with the physical presence of your characters?

And may the cover gods always smile.

Jo :)

Religion in Historicals

“I know religion has always played a part in people's lives.  I'm wondering
if that's a tricky thing to address in order to make the book appealing to
everyone.

Maureen Emmons”

From Pat Rice:
Maureen asked this at a time I was debating earlier comments about religion in relation to my own work.  (In case you haven’t noticed, as a whole, writers are reasonably modest people, but our books are our children, and we tend to think all topics relate to them.)  I don’t generally write medievals, where religion and politics dictate most of the action.  Currently, I’m writing about the latter part of the eighteenth century, an era known for its vast inroads on scientific knowledge that ultimately becomes the industrial revolution in the next century.  Writing about science often eliminates the need to talk about religion with the excuse that a logical scientific man isn’t likely to be religious, and thus the story has no religious conflict to tiptoe around.

But I have strong beliefs, and they cannot be entirely ignored in my writing.  I don't have the arrogance to preach my beliefs, so I hide my opinions, but in some manner, my characters will reflect various important aspects of the world I see around me.  Human nature almost always requires some form of belief system, and the beliefs of my characters are integral to who they are.  So even in the Magic series where my heroes were logical, scientific men and my heroines were all descendants of Druids, I addressed their religious beliefs.  They attended the Church of England when required for legal formalities, because the Church was very much a part of English law, especially in the areas I’m most likely to write about: birth, death, and marriage.  In this series, the women had their own ceremonies based on the beliefs of their ancestors.  It’s rather apparent that their rituals had been adapted to suit their family, but many of the rituals I used were ancient ones from Druidic eras that celebrated nature. I had no wish to offend readers, so I made the rituals integral with normal church ceremonies, which would be highly characteristic of people in their position.  

But in the book I’ve just turned in—MYSTIC GUARDIAN, the start of a new series that won’t be released until summer--religion is a possible source of conflict and becomes part of the story.  This time, I’m using one historically accurate culture and playing it against one of my own creating.  And this is where Maureen’s question caught my interest, because my hero’s world has imaginary gods, and my heroine lives in very Catholic late eighteenth century France, where the church eventually undergoes the same tumult as the country during the revolution.
In this first book, though, the Church is a towering source of strength and power and lives revolve around it.  How do I introduce a God-fearing woman to a pagan who believes his God resides in a volcano?

And yes, Maureen, this is tricky.  But in creating an island of heroes and heroines who have their own gods and must ultimately interact with the real world where the Anglican and Catholic churches rule, the conflict becomes pretty obvious as soon as my characters plan to spend their lives together. And even a simple wedding ceremony becomes a delicate balance, since my hero’s religion has two means of joining couples, and “marriage” is an irrelevant word to them.

This time, I addressed the problem head on, since it’s bound to show up in the next books as well.  I have the Oracle of the hero’s island, the closest they have to a priest or priestess, counsel my Catholic heroine.  They have a frank discussion of their beliefs that allows my heroine to understand that all religions have a similar basis and that they all worship the same god, just in different manners.  And then I leave the characters to work out the differences in their worship in their own ways. If this offends anyone, I'm sorry, but it won't stop me from writing the book my way.  This is fiction, and I get to make the rules.

Because my beliefs are so much a part of me and the stories I write, I can’t ignore religion as it affects my characters. But in many stories, especially if we stick to English and American settings, religion plays very little part in the story conflict, and we need only work with wedding or baptismal ceremonies.  Such things are pretty well defined historically, so there’s nothing difficult about them. It’s only when religion becomes a source of conflict that we must consider reader reaction.   

I realize there has been some protest that historicals do not adequately reflect religion in the lives of their characters. As readers, do you think more emphasis on religion would create a better story? Have you read any books recently that accurately portrays religion in history?  Would you be offended if we used our books as a means of conveying our beliefs through our characters? And do these questions sound loaded to you?  <G>  Sorry, I just can’t help myself.  No one ever accused me of lacking an opinion.

Cover Girl

By Susan/Miranda:
Because I have to turn in a manuscript TODAY, I will freely admit that, alas, my weekly blog duties here in Wench-Land have gone MIA.  I could have pasted a big red sign –– “YOUR MESSAGE HERE”, but that seemed a little crass, and so I’m recycling another piece I wrote about the cover for DUCHESS.  Earlier on this blog, I shared my least-favorite cover with you (remember the hero standing knee-deep in water that Jo oh-so-rightly described as the “constipated Muppet”?) Seems only fair to share the other side of the cover-coin too, so here it is:

I love the cover for DUCHESS.  I’ll say that up front, and with no hesitation or qualification.  Like most novelists, I’ve had my share of good, bad, and horrific covers, but this one is my favorite.  There isn’t another that’s even close, and my everlasting thanks go to Emily Mahon and the rest of the NAL art staff.

Of course, it’s the portrait of Sarah Churchill that makes this cover such a winner.  Like most wealthy, noble people of her time, Sarah had her portrait painted a number of times during her life, from a flower-decked teenager to a middle-aged grieving mother in somber mourning for her elder son. 

The painting used on the cover of DUCHESS is far from the most artistically accomplished of her portraits –– the artist, Charles Jervais, is little more than an art history footnote today, nearly forgotten behind his more accomplished peers such as Sir Godfrey Kneller and Sir Peter Lely –– and it’s probably a flattering but not terribly accurate likeness, considering how Sarah was well into her forties when it was painted.  But as a pure symbol of Sarah as Her Grace the Duchess of Marlborough –– ah, this painting can’t be beat.

To begin with, there’s that fantastic red costume, visible clear across any bookshop.  It’s not a dress; it’s a dressing gown, a loose-fitting, wrapped garment worn casually at home.  Many aristocrats chose such informal attire for portraits to reinforce their elevated rank.  While you, the viewer of the painting, would have had to be fully, formally dressed before you called upon a grand lady like Sarah, she, being your superior in rank and wealth, doesn’t have to bother for the inferior likes of you.  She’s still wearing her undergarments, of course –– even hierarchical undress has its limits –– and her whalebone-stiffened stays mold her body into the fashionable, conical shape visible beneath her loosely wrapped dressing gown. 

Yet though this is a casual garment, it’s still a very costly one –– and one that Sarah, the wealthiest woman in England, wants you to know she can afford with ease.  The fabric is silk velvet, likely imported from France or Genoa.  The brilliant scarlet is a “power” color, favored by kings, cardinals, generals, and other persons of high rank.  The primary ingredient of red dyes at this time was cochineal, made from crushed Mexican beetles that the Spaniards imported at great expense.  Sarah’s choice of a red dressing gown is unusual for a lady, demonstrating as it does not only her wealth, but her power at Court –– equal to that of a powerful man.

Even her pose reinforces her status.  True, she’s sitting on some peculiar mossy hummock that was probably a chair in the artist’s studio. But she’s been painted from slightly below, forcing the painter (and the viewer) to gaze up at her.  Considering how the finished portrait would also be hung above eye level would only increase the feeling that yes, you are beneath Sarah in every possible way –– exactly where she’d wish you to be. 

There’s even more to this picture to show that Sarah’s no ordinary English lady.  The portraits of other seventeenth-century noblewomen emphasize their roles within the domestic sphere.  They’re posed with needlework, letters, flowers, pets, and children, their hands are often clasped, with their houses often shown in the distance behind them.

But Sarah sits alone in a vague green landscape that doesn’t represent a specific house, but stands in for all the acres and acres of land –– whether at Windsor, St. Albans, or Woodstock –– that she and her husband John have acquired through hard work and royal favor.  She stares out boldly over her shoulder, with an expression that’s so confident as to be almost arrogant. Instead of having her hands modestly folded in her lap, she has one hand touching her temple, signifying her unusual intellect, while the other is extended, palm open, with a consummate courtier’s grace, towards the greater world beyond –– and, I hope, to readers today.

So do you, as a reader or a writer, have a favorite cover, too?  I know it’s hard to post images, but let’s share links to some that were special to you as well. *G*

Barclay Gold Award!

Wench Loretta's Mr. Impossible wins an award!  The Lake Country Romance Writers (New York) have honored Mr. Impossible with the Barclay Brooch for winning the historical division of their 2006 Barclay Gold contest.  As Loretta says, jewelry is always nice! It seems her bad boys are very popular with readers, because not only did Mr. Impossible win the Barclay Gold, but Lord of Scoundrels has been chosen as the top book for discussion over at the Fog City Divas starting this Wednesday, 12/6.  Check it out at http://tinyurl.com/y5clkd.  Way to go, Loretta, and congratulations!

a question or two for you

It's Sunday, and it's Edith, again. You've seen so much of me this week (interview last Sunday, and a blog last Thursday) that I thought it would be funand only fair to hear from you for a change.
So I've some questions - answer at will.

Have you ever taken out an old favorite romance from your shelves, read it, and wondered:

Have my tastes changed that much?
or
Why don't they write books like that anymore?

and if you did, either way, which book was it?

Have you a new favorite romance and if so ... do you find it resembles an old one?
That is, are your favorite themes the same as they were when you first began to read romance?
If not, what's the difference?

Enquiring, not to mention snoopy, minds want to know!

:

My secret identity

       From Loretta
      
      It looks like I’ll be owing a couple of books because two readers asked questions that seemed nicely connected.
      Jaclyne Laurin wrote: 
      <<I'm fascinated with pseudonyms. The why (were you embarrassed to use your real one?), where (did you get the inspiration for your pen name?), how (did it come about?), who (gave you the idea for it?).
      I think that I'd use a pseudonym (or in my case a 'Nom de plume') because I'd be worried I wouldn't be taken seriously as an author, by the people closest to me.  Become published under another name and THEN let it be known that you're that person who wrote the book...
      For those of you who write under a name different than the you were born with, what's your reasons?>>
      And RevMelinda asked:
      <<Word Wenches, are you all "celebrities" in your communities?  Is your authorly identity underground?  Can you go about your day/activities freely? or do people whisper and point at you wherever you go? (And depending on your answer, is that fun or not?) >>
      I will not answer in an orderly fashion.  I have never been known to do anything in an orderly fashion.  That includes explaining the writing process--another question I loved, BTW, but there are only so many one can jam into one blog.  And my question is, Does taking on two questions at once make me a Question Hog?
      I started writing fiction and plays in grade school and had a pseudonym then, so perhaps I always assumed I’d have one.  Either that or the alternate identity was a manifestation of the Gemini personality.
      Some publishers encouraged/required pseudonyms.  Mine didn’t.  But it was an easy choice for me, for several reasons.  (1) I had been doing it since elementary school, (2) I thought that one who wrote Regencies ought to have an Anglicized name, (3) Chase is easier to say, easier to remember than Chekani, (4) I wanted a secret identity, and (5) the author me isn’t the other me--I am not quite myself while writing the books, so it only seems fitting to have a name that is not quite my name--but this may be the same as (1), and reflects a state of affairs I recognized in childhood.
      Having this secret identity makes it very easy for me to move about my community--or any community, actually--unrecognized.  Not being Reese Witherspoon also makes it easy.  The fact is, writers, unlike performers, don’t do their work in public.  It isn’t a daily part of our job to have our pictures in newspapers and magazines.  We toil quietly in our rooms--some of us wishing for that immense library/studio we’ve been fantasizing about since signing the first contract--and tend to be startled if not alarmed if a new acquaintance, upon hearing that we are a published author, shows any signs of viewing us as a celebrity.  A great many of us tend to be introverted types, for whom celebrity has extremely limited appeal.
      I am slightly a celebrity in the public library but only with certain librarians.  A couple of years ago, when I was researching Mr. Impossible, and seeking help from one of the research librarians, another came to my rescue saying, “She doesn’t know who you are, but I know who you are.”  Then she led me down into the secret bowels of the library where the uncatalogued materials were.  Frankly, that’s the only kind of fame I really want:  the level of notoriety that gets me into, not The Restaurant or The Club, but The Secret Places of the Library.
      I would gladly exchange Red Carpet time for time with the crumbly old books and maps no one else is allowed to touch.
       Meanwhile, I walk the supermarket aisles unmolested, visit the art museum unpursued by paparazzi, eat in restaurants without being asked for autographs--except for the credit card slip, on which I write my given name anyway.
      I am pretty sure I can go almost anywhere (except a romance writers conference) and do almost anything (except sign books), certain that my secret identity is secure.  I don’t even have to change clothes in a phone booth--a good thing, since they seem to have become extinct in the U.S.

What about you?  Have you ever wished for a secret identity?  Or would you rather be famous?  How do you feel about pseudonyms?