Word Wenches

Children of the Empire: A Journey Down Under

by Mary Jo

The Mayhem Consultant and I have just returned from a three week trip to Australia and New Zealand, which was officially to speak at the romance writer conferences in both countries, but really because we’re inveterate travelers.  We visited Oz and NZ a number of years ago, and I’ve been wanting an excuse to go back ever since.   

It was a charmed and wonderful trip, and my deepest thanks to the two romance writing groups for inviting me.  But along with schmoozing and sightseeing and eating, I had occasional thoughts about the countries that were once part of the British Empire: the “pink bits” on the old world maps.  Now most are member of the Commonwealth of Nations (formerly the British Commonwealth), which currently includes 53 nations, most former members of the empire.

I’ve been in a number of those countries: the US, since I was born here, Canada, which was pretty close to where I grew up, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and several of the Caribbean nations.  I’m always fascinated by the similarities created by a large dose of British culture over many years, and also the differences created by each nation’s individual history. 

And of course from the tourist point of view, it's easier to go to places where English is the national language.  More or less. <G>

Using a staggering number of AmEx points, I was able to book us business class tickets for most of the trip, which made the loooooong flight from Baltimore to Brisbane much easier. 

I had not been looking forward to the 8 hour layover we would have to make in Auckland before flying on to Brisbane, but that turned out to be Very Cool.  We broke out of the secure area at Auckland airport, found the information desk, and a nice woman located a delightful four hour van and driver charter.  We had a private tour of Auckland on a perfect sunny spring day.  We even saw a penguin swimming in Auckland harbor!  So what could have been a dreadful layover became a fun tour of a beautiful city.

From Brisbane we flew up to Cairns, the touring center for North Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef.  I gather that in summer, the area is miserably hot and muggy, but in winter, it’s lovely—think Phoenix in February. 

We hopped onto a ferry that took us 45 minutes out to Green Island, which is a day trip destination for people coming to sample the delights of the reef, but it also has a fine, quiet hotel with each cottage set in the midst of lush rain forest greenery. 

We stayed three nights, seeing the reef in a glass bottom boat and visiting the little zoo that specialized in scary saltwater crocodiles.  Some of them just sat around, still as stone, with their mouths open in case something walked in.  And when they leaped straight in the air to get a piece of chicken on a rod……….!!!!!  Mean dudes.

We also went parasailing, gliding high into the sky and looking down on Green Island and the boats and the shadows of the reef.  Pure tourist stuff, and great fun.

We could have spent weeks just in North Queensland and that’s only one small part of Australia, but it was time to head to Brisbane for the conference.  Aussies are sometimes called Ozzies, and believe me, those Ozzies know how to have a good time!

Australia has been shaped by its fast expanse of ancient land, and the fierceness of much of the sun-struck interior.  It’s the most urbanized country in the world, I’m told, with most of the population concentrated in coastal cities.  This year’s RWAustralia conference was held in Brisbane, a beautiful city on the eastern edge of the country. 

Both conferences were much like American RWA conferences, with similar kinds of workshops.  But since both Australia and New Zealand have much smaller populations than the US (about 22 million and 4 million respectively) the conferences are smaller.  While there are many talented and successful authors, most of them writing for Harlequin Mills & Boon, the pool is small, so they enjoy bringing in foreigners with funny accents who may have different slants on writing and publishing.  In return, both groups are wonderfully welcoming and supportive, and just plain fun.

Most Commonwealth countries have a lot more tea around, and if one is really lucky, they’ll have cream teas with scones and real Devonshire clotted cream.  Yum!  I found that tea breaks are built into conferences—when Anne Gracie and I gave a full day workshop on storytelling in Brisbane, the seven hour session included three meals. <g>  Morning and afternoon tea had snacks—sweet in the morning, possibly savory as well in the afternoon.  Lunch, interestingly, didn’t include dessert, but just wait a couple of hours for afternoon tea.  <g>

After a great conference, it was off to New Zealand and three days in the country before the Kiwi conference in Auckland.  Like many Commonwealth countries, vehicles are driven on the left side of the roads.  (Same in Australia, but I didn’t drive there.)  I drove right hand drive cars when I lived in England, but that was a long time ago, and I was rusty with the rental car I drove in New Zealand. 

Note: staying on the correct side of the road isn’t the hardest part of making the shift, though mistakes can be disastrous.  Much harder is knowing where the left side of the car is.  There’s a tendency to clip hedges while driving.  It’s no fun picking up a strange car at an airport and going out into rush hour traffic and construction (there is always construction around airports) with a strange car, but I managed to get to our destination without turning into a hood ornament on a large truck.

Since most of New Zealand is south of Australia, it gets colder in winter, with alps and snow and great skiing on the South Island.  On our first trip, we traveled from Auckland to Milford Sound in the far south, but since August is winter and our sightseeing time was broken into two three day pieces, I figured that it would be easiest to stick to the north part of the north island.

New Zealand is a farmer’s paradise of greenery, with both islands looking as if they were designed by a really good Regency landscape architect.  There are many tiny villages and farms, and lots of truly fabulous B&Bs.  We stayed at three of them—each wonderful in a different way. 

The farm stay at Bonnie Brae Farm was particularly amazing—we ate with the family, feasting on great local produce.  As an old farm girl, I loved riding over the hills on a hay bale on the tractor’s lift—and was fascinated that it was possible to grow citrus trees next to fruits like peaches and apples, and for all of them to produce fruit.  (When we said yes, we’d like fresh squeezed orange juice for breakfast, our hostess scooped a double handful of her oranges from a bowl on the coffee table and went into the kitchen to juice them. <g>) 

While Australia is an ancient land, New Zealand is geologically perhaps the newest nation on earth (though Iceland might be a contender.)  The town of Rotorua on the North Island is famous for both geothermal activity and Maori culture.  We enjoyed both.  Our first night, we attended to a Maori cultural show and dinner (the Maori warriors were wearing traditional costume, which is to say, not very much!  On quite a chilly night.)  And naturally went to see the geysers and bubbling hot pots in an area right next to the town. 

The next day we went to the Agrodome for a farm show.  We’d done this 25 years ago, and it was such fun that we went back.  I’d gotten sheep facts for my books the first time around, and now the Agrodome has added new attractions.  You still get to meet the different breeds of sheep and see herd dogs work, but there’s also an organic farm tour.  Since it was pouring rain, we were glad to be on a wagon covered to keep off the worst of the rain as we were pulled by a tractor again. 

The Agrodome also had a first class gift shop.  We were fascinated to discover knit garments made of a yarn spun from possum fur and merino wool, with maybe a little nylon or silk added.  The result is a gorgeous, lightweight, incredibly cozy material.  The sweaters are great fun to pet.  <g> 

The possum in question is different from our American variety, which look like large gray rats.  The brush tail possum is an import from Australia and a major destructive nuisance in New Zealand, so I think that turning them into sweaters is a fine idea. 

It was interesting to see lovely, civilized Kiwis talk about running possums down with their cars whenever they can.  (The possums do a lot of damage to the forest and native birds.)  When the conversation turned to possums, inevitably someone said with exasperation that the little beasts are actually a protected species in Australia.  (Apparently New Zealand is paradise for possums as well as farmers.) 

But all vacations must end, and deadlines loom, so after a couple more days of touring, we headed for home.  I am vastly pleased with myself for finishing the draft of a fantasy novelette while flying through the night between Auckland and Los Angeles.  It was the only lick of writing I did the whole time, but at least it’s something! 

Mary Jo, hoping she gets to go Down Under again some day

 

(1) Linda Fildew - Guest (2) Anne's and Nicola's news (3) Elizabeth Chadwick, HWW

This coming Friday, Linda Fildew will be Anne Gracie's guest.  Linda is the Senior Editor at Harlequin Historicals, and she'll be bringing her editor's insight to the interview.  You won't want to miss this one!

And speaking of Anne, she just got a starred review from Library Journal for  her September release, To Catch a Bride.  Way to go, Anne!

As of 2010 Nicola is going to be published by MIRA in the UK, an accolade only previously given to one other author.  UK MIRA books will start in June 2010 with the first in the Brides of Fortune series. (In the meantime Nicola has "Kidnapped" out in the UK in September from Mills & Boon Single Titles.) In other news, Nicola's Unmasked was a finalist in the Cover Cafe contest for best historical romance book cover 2008!

As a thank you to Elizabeth Chadwick for visiting with us last week, Jo has chosen a virtual gift for Elizabeth:  Pembroke Castle!  (See Jo's post in the comments section of the Chadwick interview, including a link for more castle pictures).  Elizabeth, you are now an official Honorary Word Wench, and with that honor comes the privilege of adding "HWW" after your name.  Here is a picture of Pembroke Castle, complete with manicured lawn.

REGENCY LADIES' MAGAZINES, PART 2

Hello again.  Candice Hern here with Part 2 of my history lesson on ladies magazines of the Regency period.  You can find Part 1 here . Today I want to get more specific about two of the most popular magazines during the Regency, The Lady's Magazine and The Lady's Monthly Museum.  Both of these magazines would have been read by most of the ladies who populate our Regency novels, whether they were aristocrats or middle class, though the latter was clearly the audience.

You can click on any of the images to see a larger version.

The Lady's Magazine "or Entertaining Companion for the Fair Sex Appropriated Solely for their Use and Amusement" was published from 1770 through 1837.  Each monthly issue sold for 6 pence for at least the first twenty-five years. By 1805, it had doubled in price to 1 shilling, and by 1828 the cover price had risen to 2 shillings 6 pence.   Each issue was approximately 55 pages long, and typically included biographical and historical essays; instructional essays on natural history, geography, botany, etc; short or serialized fiction; poetry; reviews of new books and plays; and letters to the editor, with responses. 

There was at least one copper-plate engraving per issue, 2-3 by the 1790s, usually including a portrait accompanying a biographical essay, or a scenic view accompanying a travelogue or geographical essay, or a theatrical scene from a current play.  These were never colored. After 1800, one hand-colored fashion print was included.  After 1815, there were two per issue.  The fashion prints were accompanied by "Commentary on Paris and London Fashions," which is often lengthy and positively delicious to read.

Finally, each issue included Home News, Foreign News, and lists of births, deaths, marriages (which are also fun to read).

In its earliest issues, The Lady's Magazine states its aim of providing reading material designed expressly for the amusement and improvement of women, in a manner that would suit "the housewife as well as the peeress."  As one of the first successful general interest magazines for women, it likely did attract readers from all levels of society.  Even as new, and more elegant, publications became available, The Lady's Magazine retained its low price, and low production values.  This ultimately established it as a publication aimed squarely at the middle class.  It set itself against the prevailing morals of high society, but proceeded to expose its evils in titillating sketches, which must have been irresistible reading for its respectable, middle-class subscribers.  Its fiction and poetry were of the most popular genres, with Oriental tales and Gothic novels making frequent appearances.  It was the first publication to offer extracts, as teasers, from soon-to-be-published novels.

The Lady's Magazine was also the first publication to include any significant coverage of fashion.  In the first issue, the introductory "Address to the Fair Sex" included the following statement of intent:

"The subjects we shall treat of are those that may tend to render your minds not less amiable than your persons.… It is intended to present the Sex with most elegant patterns for the tambour, embroidery, or every kind of needlework; and as the fluctuations of fashions retard their progress into the country, we shall by engravings inform our distant readers with every innovation that is made in female dress."

In the early years, through the end of the 18th century, fashion prints were few and far between – only one in the first year of publication – and only in black and white.  Most early issues did include embroidery patterns and other needlework aids.  Fashion reports were sporadic at first, and not a regular monthly feature until c1800.  By that time hand-colored fashion prints were included in each issue, along with a much more lengthy fashion commentary.  Each January and June issue included coverage of the royal drawing rooms, honoring the Queen's (January) and King's (June) birthdays.  These reports provided full details of court dress as worn by the royal family and high-ranking peeresses. Most issues also included fashion reports from London and Paris, as well as a brief mention of men's fashion.

The fashion prints in the years 1800-1804 were primarily copies of plates from the French magazine, Le Journal des Dames et des Modes with engraving and hand-coloring of good quality (as shown in the 1801 print above).  By 1805, the prints were original designs, but quite crude.  (Compare the crude 1811 print shown here with the higher quality 1801 print above.) The quality improved by 1814, but they never achieved the high standards set by La Belle Assemblée and Ackermann's Repository.

The Lady's Monthly Museum "or Polite Repository of Amusement and Instruction: being an Assemblage of what can tend to Please the Fancy, Instruct the Mind or Exalt the Character of the British Fair" was published from 1798 through 1832. Each monthly issue sold for 1 shilling 6 pence. There were approximately 60 pages per issue, and typical contents included serialized fiction; poetry (in a section delightfully titled "The Apollonian Wreath"); social commentary and response to reader inquiries by the Old Woman, later by the Busy Body, one of the earliest Agony Aunts (and yes, I stole the idea for the Busybody columnist in my book Once a Dreamer from this magazine); historical and biographical essays; and reviews of new publications.

There were two hand colored fashion prints with brief descriptions in each issue. After 1807 only one print was included. After 1814, fashion plate descriptions expanded to approximately one paragraph per dress (usually two per print), and additional 1-2 pages of reports on the latest fashions were added.

The long subtitle of the magazine was followed by the words "by a Society of Ladies."  That Society of Ladies, however, was actually a group of men, with only the very occasional female contributor in the first decade of publication. The first issue appeared only 5 years after the Reign of Terror in France, and it was a time of general political suppression in England, when leaders feared "poisoning the minds of the lower orders," which included women. Its historical and biographical essays frequently extolled the virtues of women who, however accomplished in their own right, sacrificed all personal ambition for the men in their lives.  Women celebrated for their own accomplishments or philanthropy were those of the highest morals.  Those who accomplished great things despite some youthful folly or indiscretion were only lauded with equivocation, e.g., what might the dramatist and novelist Elizabeth Inchbald have accomplished if she hadn't run away from home to become an actress?

Fiction in the LMM also served the conservative purposes of the editors, most of it being moralistic tales meant to keep young women on a straight and narrow path.  For example, a story about a young woman who goes against her parents' wishes and runs away with a man she loves rather than marry their upstanding choice for her will typically end in either madness or death.  The only happy endings come to those who do as they're told.

The moral tone of the LMM, along with its low price, points to a strong middle class audience.  This is also born out by many of the essays that discouraged young girls from mixing with a level of society higher than their own.  Some of the essays also criticized educating young women beyond their stations in life.

The fashion prints in the LMM generally depict two figures, one in evening dress and one in morning dress, and are frequently redrawn from other publications.  Throughout 1811-12, for example, almost all prints show a combination of the two prints published the previous month in Ackermann's Repository, as in the print shown on the left.

I wrote a trilogy of books a few years back (Once a Dreamer, Once a Scoundrel, and Once a Gentlemen) based around a fictional ladies' magazine.  The trilogy was inspired by my research into the Lady's Monthly Museum and its politics.  I decided my fictional magazine would be an anti-LMM, run by liberal minded women and men!

In my next blog on September 23 I will discuss the more upscale publications: La Belle Assemblée and Ackermann's Repository.

An Interview with Elizabeth Chadwick.

Hi, this is Jo, thrilled to welcome Elizabeth Chadwick to the Word Wenches. Those of us who love medieval novels will be familiar with Elizabeth's detailed, exciting stories.

Jo: Welcome, Elizabeth. Living in England is a huge advantage to a writerof historicals set there. (One reason I'm heading back there.)  Do you live in a very medieval area, or will you disappoint us and confess to a modern flat?

Elizabeth: I live in a 1930's detached house in a village a few miles outside of Nottingham.

Jo: We lived in Nottingham for a few years once. Enjoyed it.

Elizabeth:  Nottingham is on the map for its famous medieval outlaw RobinHood, but due to aggressive rebuilding programmes in the middle of the last century, the city itself doesn't have very much that's medieval. The castle is mostly Georgian (the Medieval one burned down) and only the

gatehouse remains and a few artistic bits of rubble.

Jo: Yes, that does disappoint tourists.

E: The city is built on sandstone and does have an extensive underground cave system, which I featured in Shields of Pride.  Visitors can still see a medieval tannery cave as part of a tour of the underground system.

Nottingham is also supposed to have the oldest pub in England - The Trip to Jerusalem which purports to go back to crusader times, although the claim is disputed.  We have the remains of Sherwood Forest on the doorstep too in the north of the county. Not so far  from where I live is the historic town of Newark where King John died.  I do my weekly shop there and always pass under the shadow of the castle on my way.  Newark has a much older feel than Nottingham and is more picturesque.

Jo: That sounds lovely. (Picture of Newark Castle on the left.)When did you first get the idea of writing historical fiction, and how difficult was it to get from there to your first published book?

E: The seeds were sown when I was around eight years old and we were taught history at school by a particularly enlightened teacher.  She would put the lesson on the blackboard for us to copy out, but once that was done, the dressing up box would come out and we would make up little plays to reinforce what we'd just written down with pupils being chosen to take the parts.  I really loved this aspect of the lesson.  It put me there in the moment.

Jo: That sounds wonderful.

E: The year she taught us, we'd just reached Scottish medieval history, so the plays made the resonances particularly strong.  The next year, we had a different teacher and a different era, and the history didn't quite stick the same.

Jo: What a shame. To show that Elizabeth keeps up the good work, here's a picture of her, her son, and a friend at a Robin Hood pageant. She says on her web page "The photograph right shows myself, my son Simon and my friend Eileen Lewis at The Robin Hood Pageant in Nottingham. My dress is an exact copy of the Herjolfsnes bog dress, discovered in Greenland and dating to the reign of Henry III, possibly earlier. "

E: Then, as a teenager, I fell in love with a guy on an adventure TV programme about the crusades and I so wanted more of him that I began writing and researching my own story. I'd never written anything down before, but I had been telling stories verbally to myself from being three years old, so I was familiar with the structure and pattern of the craft of tale telling. I was also a voracious reader, so I'd absorbed a lot of the 'how to' that way also.   enjoyed my first attempt at novel writing so much that I decided, aged 15, that this was what I wanted to do for a career if I could ever manage it.  The full story is here on my blog.  See what you think of my teenage crush!

Click here.

Jo: What a wonderful story. I was still living in England then. I wonder how I missed that program. So how did the writing career go?

E: My first book was published 17 years later. 

Jo: Faster than me. My first attempt at about 15 was a fairly short medieval romance and I wasn't driven to such intense research. Then I was published 25 years later.

E: Given that I was only 15 when I wrote the first one, I guess part of that time I was becoming an adult.  My perspectives weren't mature when I started out.  I received my share of rejection letters in my teens and twenties, but I was never going to stop writing. It was part of who I was.

Jo: How did you handle rejections?

E: I always saw them as a stepping stone, not a stumbling block.  So what if this one wasn't good enough.  The next one would knock their socks off.  Finally, at 32, I got the call from a leading UK literary agent.  It had been a long apprenticeship, but that first novel won an award and is still in print now, so I guess it was worth the distance.

Jo: You fell in love with the middle ages. Have you every wanted to write in some other time or place?

E:  If I ever changed historical periods, I would probably go earlier.  Arthurian times from a purely Saxon perspective would be  interesting.  I read a lot of Regency novels when I was younger.  I devoured everything that Jane Aiken Hodge wrote, but the research I would need to do to bring myself up to scratch would be daunting.  I've been writing medieval since I was fifteen, so that's a few decades of study under the belt. Occasionally I write contemporary stories for magazines, but they are very much a sideline.

Jo: Is there any other type of fiction you might consider if you absolutely couldn't write the above?

E: I would probably head into fantasy, timeslip or paranormal.  I feel quite at home reading these genres and they frequently have historical elements.  If you banned those as well, I would write erotica.

Jo: It seems to me that though you write medieval women extremely well, you are drawn to tell stories about the medieval warrior. Would you agree? And if so, why?

E: I have to say that it's been  part of my chemistry since birth.  I may be a happily married woman but I empathise well with men.  As a child I was the typical tomboy.  I hated playing with dollies and doing the nurturing thing.  My Christmas present when I was six, was a cowboy outfit and a pairof pistols.  My favourite toys were Lego building bricks and cars.  My Cindy doll was loved, but she was always having exciting adventures.  No shopping and boyfriend stuff for her!  My heroes were the Lone Ranger, William Tell, and Champion the Wonder Horse.  When I played pretend, I usually took a male role.  This wasn't because I thought boys had more fun as opposed to girls, it was that I just felt easy in the role and it suited my interests.

So, when it comes to writing men, I am comfortable.  It's second nature.  And since I write the kind of guys I'm interested in - but trying to stay true to their life and times - it generally translates into the kind of guys my readers are interested in too.

Jo: Your first American publication will be out on September 1st. This is great news for all your fans over here. This is The Greatest Knight, a novel about William Marshal. (I'm glad they've used the British cover, because it's lovely.) I share your admiration for him. When did you first become aware of him? Did you always want to tell his story?

E: I probably became aware of him properly when writing The Champion because he appeared in that novel and it was set in his period.  My novels before that had slightly earlier timelines.  Once I started writing in the later 12th century, he kept cropping up again and again and I began to become very interested in his tale. At the time I was still writing imaginary protagonists and not quite confident enough in myself to tackle something as ambitious as his amazing life story - that was what 'real' novelists did!  I kept waiting for a big name to tackle him and in the meantime I dipped my toe in the water of biographical fiction with Lords of the White Castle.  I discovered that the research wasn't as difficult as I thought, and I loved writing about people who had actually lived.  There was still no sign of anyone writing a big William Marshal novel, so I came to the conclusion it just might have to be me.  I got the go ahead to write two stand alone novels about William's life and embarked on one of the most fascinating journeys of my writing career.

Jo: For those not yet aware of William Marshal, tell us briefly why his story is so compelling.

E: He was the younger son of a court official and destined for the ranks of the ordinary household knights who fuelled greater men's retinues.  But William Marshal was no ordinary hearth knight.  Having narrowly escaped hanging when taken hostage as a little boy, he went on to save the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine and in reward she appointed him tutor in chivalry to her eldest son.  William was a jousting champion par excellence and there was no one to touch his skills. When his lord died, William took the young man's cloak to Jerusalem to lay on the tomb of the Holy Sepulchre.  On his return he served King Henry II faithfully and was the only man ever to unhorse Richard the Lionheart.

William married Isabelle de Clare, a great heiress twenty years younger than him.  I won't go too far into spoilerdom for those who haven't read the novels, but William's career continued to scale great heights despite difficulties with King John, and eventually William ended up saving England from disaster, but at a price.  It was a long way to travel from his minor Wiltshire birthplace to having the responsibility for an entire country on his shoulders.  He is one of England's truly great heroes and his tomb can still be visited at the Temple Church in London.

Jo: Here's a photo of Elizabeth laying flowers at his tomb. I visited his tomb there a few years ago, and paused to pay homage. I gather it's roped off now because of the number of tourists visiting for the Temple Church's connection to The Da Vinci Code.

Of course you do meticulous research, Elizabeth, but you also have a psychic link to the past. Can you tell us a little about that?

E: I am not psychic myself beyond the occasional glimmer, but a close friend, Alison, is.  She has the ability to tune into the people of the past and see their lives as you would see a movie, but with full sensory and emotional input.  Thus she will get smells and tastes, sounds, feelings, motivations. She will see what the people looked like and their personal traits. Obviously we have to factor in margins of error in case her subconscious is interfering - although she does her best to avoid this.  Also if she is tired or unwell the tuning is sometimes off kilter.  I get the work checked out by someone with a degree in medieval cultural studies and she tells me that what is coming through is medieval mindset - not modern.

Jo: This is completely fascinating. I'd love to do this with some of my characters.

E:  We have well over a thousand pages of notes now, going back about five years, and

digital recordings going back around three years.  The sheer amount of data we have amassed builds up into something that speaks for itself.  You can find out a bit more about Alison's skills at my web page here and also at Alison's blog. 

Jo: How often do you do this?

E: About once a fortnight; normally for about two hours at a stretch.  Alison never knows what I am going to ask her (unless of course she sees it in the future - joking!). The questions could be about anything.  One week I might ask her about William Marshal's favourite horse or the best time he had in the year 1190.  Another time I might ask her to take a look at an incident that illustrates the dynamics of the relationship between William and the Young King and I might ask her to see it from both

perspectives i.e. William's and the Young King's.  That way I get a fully  rounded view and can decide from which viewpoint to tell the story and know what the other person is thinking.  It's a wonderful, wonderful resource.

Jo: Do you think many people have that ability? Is it perhaps something that draws a person to write historical fiction? By that I mean that this latent ability expresses itself in the desire to visit and envision one or more periods of the past.

E: I think a lot of people have a certain amount of ability but that often it isn't used and so it withers, or it is used but isn't trained, so it is haphazard.  I think too that some people have more ability than others.  I said on my website it's like being a runner. Everyone can be trained to run faster than they do now, but only those with the right kind of fast twitch muscle are going to find themselves in the final at the Olympic games.

So it is with this ability.  Some are better developed to begin with. Alison  has the necessary fast twitch muscle.  I don't.  Also there are different types of skills - in the same way that a high jumper is not necessarily a top class sprinter. Some psychics will be able to do a similar sort of thing to Alison, and some will work in other areas.  As I say, I am not aware of having much ability myself, but who knows.  I have an open mind.

Jo: This has been wonderful, Elizabeth, and I know our readers will have many questions. I understand you're offering a copy of The Greatest Knight to one of the people who posts a question. What do they have to do to win?

E: I thought it would be useful all round if I asked the World Wenches Blog readers to ask a question they'd like to see on my Living The History Blog - doesn't have to be about William Marshal specifically.  I'll then post another Q and A session later this year.

Jo: What a great idea. But remember, everyone, The Greatest Knight will be on bookstore shelves any day. It is a wonderfully told novel about a fascinating man. Read what Roberta Gellis had to say about it. "'A fine book, beautifully written with marvellously drawn characters and historically accurate in its main events. A poignant tale of the tragedy wrought by religious fanaticism and the triumph of the human spirit.'  Thank you for this interview, Elizabeth.

E: Many thanks to the Word Wenches for having me!

Jo: So, when this interview goes up I'll be on the road again, somewhere between Quebec City and St. John, New Brunswick, so I may not be able to check in as often as I'd like, but Elizabeth will be here to respond to questions. I'm sure you have many, especially about the middle ages.

 

Some readers don't want to read medieval books. If you're one, why is that? if medievals are your favorites, why is that? Do you have a question about medieval life you've always wanted to have answered? Try it here.

And it's not that long before the re-publication of my first novel, the classic Regency romance, Lord Wraybourne's Betrothed.

Cheers,

Jo :)

Summer Ramblings

Cara/Andrea here (seeing as my new debut is getting closer and closer, I'm going to start using the double moniker so I get used to it!) Today I'm taking a summer break from scholarly research to ramble a bit.

 I live in the country. From the window of my writing room, I often see deer (aka rats on hooves because they devour my rhododendrons and basil) and wild turkeys wandering in the yard. Squirrels play tag among a grove of towering pine trees, and a cardinal has taken a shine to the birch tree right outside my window. He sits and preens—he’s male of course. And twitters—the birdsong variety as he’s not yet picked an i-phone from the orchard down the road. On rare occasions, a coyote will trot up my driveway and then disappear back into the ten acres of woods across the street.

So, it sounds pretty idyllic, and for the most part it is. But this summer in particular, perhaps because I am spending more time here during the week rather than in New York City, I’ve become more and more aware of a serpent in paradise. No—no snakes in the basement or slithering through the back meadow. It’s noise. Man-made noise.  It starts on Wednesday around 8 am and reaches a crescendo on Fridays—a symphony of gas-powered lawnmowers and trimmers ranging from the deep rumbling thrum of commercial tractors to the high whine of the weed whackers. The landscape crews buzz like a swarm of bees through the neighborhood, gas fumes wafting in their wake, making everyone’s ground look pristine for the weekend.

I know that I’m probably sounding curmudgeonly, but for me, part of the charm of the country is peace and quiet. However this summer it’s been noisier here than in The Big Apple. On top of the weekly maintenance routines, the town had been repaving the nearby roads, so I’ve had one of those behemoth machines that digs up three inches of asphalt grinding down the country lanes. Followed, of course, by the trucks of hot tar and the rollers.

Oh, and then there’s my neighbor, who is in the construction business. Last year, the front of his house transformed into a pillared entranceway, complete with a new porch and a three car garage. It’s really quite impressive. So I’m not quite sure why this year he needed another three-car freestanding garage built right next to the main house. Or why the lovely little grove of trees had to be chain-sawed down to lay rolls of perfect sod. (Did I mention he’s an early bird and loves to get working by 7 am?) Right now a very fancy stone wall is going up—not the traditional New England drywall, with its charming bumps and hitches that blend into the surrounding landscape, but a geometric cement and block monster that would look more at home in Beverly Hills.

Now, as you have probably gathered, I prefer nature in all its imperfect glory to manicured estates, so I’ve been muttering a lot of bad words under my breath as the cacophony of machinery has intruded on my idyllic space. At times, I find myself daydreaming about getting away to a more perfect place . . .

 Of course I’m not the only one who has spent time creating a paradise in my head. Literature throughout the ages has recorded how writers have used their imagination to create “heaven on earth.” We can begin with the Beginning, and the description of the Garden of Eden. (Seeing as I am very find of apples, I wouldn’t have lasted there any longer than Eve.) The Greeks had the Elysian Fields—Homer called it the Elysian Plain—where there was no snow, rain or storms and “life is easiest for men.” Virgil placed the Elysian Fields in Lower World, and said it was a place of constant spring and sunlight. (Sounds good to me.)

In 1516, Sir Thomas More created Utopia, a fictional island in the Atlantic where everyone lived in perfect harmony. The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, supposedly inspired by opium, looked farther afield and imagined Xanadu, a pleasure palace in the East built by Kubla Khan . . .“And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree . . .” Another Brit, James Hilton, carried on the Oriental theme by creating Shangri-La—said to be inspired by the sacred mountain towns of Tibet—in his 1933 novel, Lost Horizons. The mythical inhabitants were almost immortal and showed little sign of physical aging. (Ahh, my kind of place!)

 On a more modern note, I recently saw a Forbes magazine article on the Most Idyllic Places in the World to Live. Tops on the list was Gaiole, in Chianti, a tiny town that dates from the 10th century. (I like that they hold a wine festival every September.) Kefalonia, an island in Greece where Corelli’s Mandolin was filmed, ranked high, as did Ljubljana, in Slovenia, a “little Paris with hints of Art Nouveau,” which is a melting pot of German, Latin and Slavic culture.

Getting back to my own musings on peace and quiet, perhaps the most serene places I’ve ever visited is a spot marked “Island Lake” on the topographic map of the Wind River mountain range in Wyoming. Some years ago, my brothers and I backpacked there (at 16 miles in from the trailhead, and an altitude of over 11,000 feet, it’s pretty remote.)

 During the day, they fished for cutthroat, brown and rainbow while I hiked and read the books I had valiantly carried in my backpack. Evenings we would watch the alpenglow paint the surrounding cirque of snow-capped mountain with the most indescribable shades of pink and mauve that I’ve ever seen. When the sun went down, the night sky came alight with a brilliant display of stars. It was . . . heavenly. And the silence—the absolute absence of any sound, save for the wind and the water rushing down from the glaciers, was awesome. I’ve been lucky enough to visit some pretty interesting places in the world, but Island Lake is still one of my favorite spots.

So, now that I’ve taken you on an admittedly rambling peregrination through my summer thoughts, I’ll end by asking that age old question: what’s your idea of paradise? Have you a favorite place in literature? Or a spot in the real world that is your perfect getaway?

Guests: Elizabeth Chadwick (Weds) & Candice Hern (Fri)

We have two guests this coming week.  On Wednesday, Jo interviews medieval writer, Elizabeth Chadwick.  Elizabeth's newest book, The Greatest Knight, is out this month. According to The Times, Elizabeth is "an author who makes history come gloriously alive."

Then on Friday, Candice Hern returns for Part II of her three-part series on Regency women's magazines.  Candice will be sharing more from her collection of historical magazines and periodicals. Please join us Wednesday and Friday.  See you at the blog!

Jeane Westin and THE VIRGIN'S DAUGHTERS

Anne here, with an interview with Jeane Westin, the author of THE VIRGIN'S DAUGHTERS. 

Jeane is a writer of historical novels and, like most of us here, is a lifelong passionate reader. I loved this little snippet from her website: "I took books on my honeymoon and I can remember my husband’s puzzlement when he saw me reading The History of Diseases. “It’s interesting,” I explained… difficult for a bridegroom to believe." 

Very much the sign of a writer in my opinion.

Jeane has written several popular historical romances, but now has turned to historical novels. The first, THE VIRGIN'S DAUGHTERS, was released this month.

I read THE VIRGIN'S DAUGHTERS in galley form and despite the fact that it was in loose pages, I was unable to put it down and read it all in one hit, finishing in the wee small hours of the night. Jeane's book drew me utterly into the world of Elizabeth 1st's court, through the eyes of two of her ladies in waiting; Katherine Grey (sister of Lady Jane Grey) and Mary Rogers. Each one falls in love, each one in defiance of the queen, yet torn by their love of and loyalty to her. We see the anguish and the power —and the cost— of love for them and for their Queen. It's a wonderful story — or should I say stories, not only because it's in two parts, but because it's also Elizabeth's story, as well as Kate and Mary's. Superb stuff and well worth reading.
 

The reviewers agree: Historical Novels Review said: "this book gripped me from the earliest pages... I became caught up in the lives of these two relatively unknown ladies of Elizabeth's court, and the way Westin ties both tales together is unique and riveting... Highly recommended."  Romantic Times gave it a Top Pick, saying: "Rich, colorful details of court life, captivating characters with suppressed sexuality, scandal and intrigue thrust the reader into the era in this top-notch novel."  
 

Jeane, welcome to the WordWenches. When I first saw the title THE VIRGIN'S DAUGHTERS I wondered if the novel was about some illegitimate daughters  of Queen Elizabeth, but it isn't. How did you come by the title?

 

I believe the days when the wonderful Jean Plaidy could write a straight-on bio-novel are gone.  We now have to approach historical figures from the little known...sideways, if you will. Deep in research and trying to come up with a new approach to Elizabeth, I came across a bit of information that Elizabeth had discouraged her ladies-in-waiting from marriage, wanting them to emulate her virgin status.  I wondered what that was like: Elizabeth always on guard that they did not become romantically involved and most of her ladies trying to outwit her. 

 

I wed that information with Elizabeth's conceit that all of her ladies were her daughters and that she had a mother's concern for them.  (The real mothers of these ladies were not happy when the queen did not provide wealthy young nobles for their daughters to wed, gaining titles and wealth for the family.)

 

In an Elizabethan court that was sensuous, full of play, dancing, over-dressing, alcohol, young men and younger women--how easy could the queen's job have been?  It's no wonder she often failed.

 

This is a novel about love, rather than a conventional romance. There are two women's love stories in this novel, not counting Elizabeth's. Tell us about Kate and Mary, and why you chose to tell their stories. 

 

 Kate's dramatic story is a part of history.  Katherine Grey the younger sister of Jane Grey, queen for nine days, was Elizabeth's cousin and Henry VIII had named her next in line for the throne.  Any threat to Elizabeth's throne was major in her life...and heirs were always threats because plots constantly formed around them.  Elizabeth, as her sister Bloody Mary's heir, had learned that lesson well.  When Kate fell in love with a Seymour and another heir, she was... oops, that's a spoiler.

 

As for Mary Rogers: I brought her to the castle for John Harington, Elizabeth's favorite godson, Boye Jack.  He invented the first flush toilet and the situation was so unusual and tempting that I had to include their story.  In life, they were rather successfully married, having fifteen children.

In what way do you think the queen's own love stories impacted on the lives of these two women?  

 

They certainly could see her as a woman like themselves and understand her feelings for Robert Dudley and the Earl of Essex.  Although both Kate and Mary saw the queen's weaknesses and her strengths, they could also see the price she paid.  These two women helped me to see Elizabeth in different ways.

I was struck, as I read the book, by how much the members of the court lived on a knife-edge, depending on how they stood with the queen at any particular moment. A close up of absolute power in action. 

 

I wouldn't say Elizabeth's power was absolute.  She had advisers who curbed some of her greater excesses, but she did have the power to make or break and she was loved and hated to excess, both of which gave her personal power.  Elizabeth was highly intelligent and enormously well-educated for the time, perhaps a genius.  She had to balance that against a psyche that had been warped by her father, her on and off acceptance and rejection by him and the terror of immanent death when she was suspected of plotting by either her brother Edward VI's counselors or her sister Bloody Mary's hatred.

 

Elizabeth's stay in the Tower where she expecting to be taken to the execution block to be beheaded any morning probably hardened her forever.  Wouldn't it change anyone?

I found it fascinating to see Elizabeth portrayed through others' eyes in the novel. It created a wonderfully complex portrait.  There have been many different portrayals of Elizabeth over the years, and I suppose that will continue. What's your own view?

 

She is fascinating, both as queen and as woman.  I learn something new about her everyday... and about myself. Something I find interesting is that the earlier a book about her is written the more virginal she is; later books allow her to love, be a witch, a detective, etc.  A perfect illustration of our changing times.

 

I don't see our appetite for Elizabeth and her times dimming, or a time when we will not want to sit down to that feast again.

I loved the scene when Essex bursts in on Elizabeth, unexpectedly. Can you tell the readers a little about it?

 

It really happened as I wrote it with the emotions added.  Since I'm of a certain age, I knew how I would feel...in love with a much younger man, more than thirty years younger, and not expecting to see him before I had my hair done and my face on. 

 

In addition, Essex had disobeyed Elizabeth's orders and she felt threatened that he would bring an army against her.

 

Again, she defended her throne, although I think it hastened her death two years later from melancholy. 

 

Strange to say it, but I think Essex really loved Elizabeth as much as he could love anyone but himself.  But Elizabeth was queen first and woman second.

 

Do you have a favorite scene in the book?

 

There are so many.  How can I say this without sounding like Elizabeth?  I struggled over and love the entire book

The research you did for this must have been difficult, as so little evidence remains. How did you approach it? Was there anything you learned that surprised you?

 

I researched and researched some more.  There is a surprising amount of information that survives.  I have shelves of books about every aspect of the period.  I was a bit amazed to discover many books already on my own shelves about her or her time.  But I ordered and read many out-of-print, some a hundred years old.

 

The thing I think that surprised me most about Elizabeth was how ill she was during her life.  Many of her illnesses during times of stress sound suspiciously like nervous breakdowns, and I suspect she was also a bit anorexic, eating only a few bites at meals.  Her eating "smally" was commented on by many biographers quoting contemporaries.  (I'm not a doctor, but I play a doctor for this interview.)

 

She did have a sweet tooth, so much so that she lost teeth and was troubled with toothache.  Her favorite sweet was vanilla comfits.  She carried them in her pocket and would nibble them all day.  There must have been a Groom-of-the-Vanilla Comfits whose job was to keep her supplied.  (pic of comfits from http://www.historicfood.com/Comfits.htm)

Would you care to share a short extract?

 

Anne, here's some of your favorite scene: 

 

The earl, looking the gallant young lord in shining black velvet, starched white ruff and flowing curls, threw himself at the queen’s feet and grasped the hem of her gown, kissing it as if to devour lace, pearls and all.

            “Most beloved queen of my heart—”  His voice rumbled low and intense, filling the chamber with masculine passion.

            He got no further.  The queen snatched her gown from his hands and leapt to her feet, her lute landing on the carpeted floor.  She backed away from his desperate effort to clutch at her, saying no word, nor calling for her guard.  The cold scorn on her face would have frozen any sensible man.

            The earl, though off balance, stood upright.  Frightened for the queen, Mary came as close to Elizabeth as she dared.  If Essex drew his sword to deliver a blow, she would take the thrust.

            But it wasn’t Elizabeth who faced danger.  The queen did not flinch and advanced on Essex.  He held his arms up for her to walk into, but she knocked them wide, pushing her fists against his chest until he stumbled backward.

            The earl was obviously astonished.  “Majesty!  I beg you…speak to me…listen to my sorrow.  I have been desolate these eleven months without your love to guide me away from the mistakes of youth and crazed ardor.  In truth, your grace—” 

            The queen advanced again, no sound coming from her, no softening of her cold stare.  She showed no hot anger, only hard contempt in every gesture and every line of her face, her corded neck thrust forward.  She pushed him again.  And again, he stumbled backward, his mouth working, but now no intelligible words exiting.  He had obviously relied on the nearness of his person to melt her to forgiveness as it always had.

            With one final thrust that must have taken all her strength, she pushed him into the antechamber and slammed the doors in his still unbelieving face. 

            Mary approached Elizabeth’s back, worried that she might be near collapse from her exertions.  “Majesty, may I ease you with a little wine?”

            The queen whirled about, her face triumphant.  “This crooked carcass needs no food or drink to best such foolish men.  He thinks I need him, that I cannot let him go…that he is the stronger,” she said, scarce above a whisper, and then in full voice:  “Pish!” 

Only Mary heard all the words, and understood their meaning, knowing that they were the best part of the queen’s victory over Essex and her own heart.

            Elizabeth crossed to the lute on the floor, picked it up and struck a solid chord, croaking, “…and I the prouder grow.” 

What's next for you, Jeane? What are you working on?

 

Would you believe another Elizabeth book only this one a full exploration of Elizabeth and Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester's long love?  It comes from NAL, August 2010 and is called His Last Letter: Elizabeth I and the Earl of Leicester.

 

After The Virgin's Daughters, I wanted to more fully explore Elizabeth's and her Sweet Robin's lives together, yet apart.  One way I do this is by imagining that his last letter which she kept in her treasures box until she died had more to it than came down to us.  Everyone's question is did they or did they not know full sexual intimacy.  I answer it...at least to my satisfaction.

 

It sounds wonderful. I'm looking forward to it. Thank you so much for joining us, Jeane. 
 

Anne, thanks for the opportunity, but before I go, I want to thank Jo Beverley who wrote once on the Novelists Inc., members' list that the historical novel of the future must have a central great love story.  That sent me off on my quest. 

 

Jeane is giving away a copy of The Virgin's Daughters, the winner to be selected from those who comment in answer to this question: What do you find most interesting or puzzling about the Elizabethan Age? Or if you have questions for Jeane, she'd be delighted to answer them.

Buried Treasure

It's a hot day here in my part of the UK and I have just sent in the revisions to my latest manuscript which is a Regency historical set in London and the Arctic. It's been pretty strange writing about snow, glaciers and the Northern Lights whilst sitting here as the mercury creeps up the thermometer and the dog makes himself a nest in the shade! Anyway, today I'm writing a blog that's a little bit eccentric. Maybe the heat has gone to my head! I hope you find it interesting though. It was going to be called "things I've dug up in the garden" but in the end I decided that "buried treasure" sounded better and also meant that I could include some of the finds my neighbours have made as well as things I've discovered in the local fields.

First of all I should explain that I live in a village that is ancient. In the Domesday Book of 1086 is is called "Eissesberie" and the land belonged to Glastonbury Abbey. It was held from the Abbey by Robert D'Oilly, who was a powerful Norman baron, and by two other tenants who were Saxons known only as Alwin and Edward. There was a church and two mills. There are still two mills now although they have been converted into private houses. One of them was re-built in the 18th century. It's awe-inspiring to know that there have been mills on the same spot for almost a thousand years. There is more information about the village and it's fascinating history here at the Berkshire History site.

So with thousands of years of history beneath our feet it isn't surprising that we would find some interesting items when we are walking the dog or digging the garden. I'm no archaeologist so I haven't been able to date most of the finds but I'm fascinated by the light these throw on the history of the village and the lives of people who lived here down the centuries. Here is a selection of our finds:

A Horseshoe. We have found at least fifteen on these in the field behind the house, suggesting that people have been cultivating the fields around here for many many years. At the moment they are cutting the wheat with a combine harvester. These rusty horseshoes take us back to a time when sowing and harvesting was harder physical work. The most fascinating horseshoe we found is this tiny one that is only a few inches across. I wonder about the horse and I wonder about the owner. We have put one of the horseshoes above our cottage door for good luck and have the others by the gate.

This Victorian glass bottle is the one that I had my Wench plume in at the RWA Conference booksigning in Washington. I found it in a Victorian waste tip under a bank in the field. I think it might have contained perfume. The village pond used to be in the corner of the same field. Because the stream has been piped under the road now the pond has dried up but there are lots of pottery shards from the seventeenth and eighteenth century that were washed down and deposited there, plus other little bits and pieces such as clay pipes, and marbles that must once have belonged to the village children.

A cameo brooch like this one was found by my neighbour when he was re-designing his garden. It is incredibly delicate and beautiful. I think whoever lost this must have been very upset. Perhaps they searched and searched for it without success.

I am wondering how old this belt buckle is. I found it near a Bronze Age barrow, It's very plain but it looks as though it is made of silver. Could it be ancient - or was it mass-produced and lost in the 1980s???

And finally, my favourite find. This is A Henry VIII "Tower Mint" Penny from 1540 inscribed with HDG ROSA SINE SPIA, "Henry by the Grace of God, a rose without thorn." The one found by a friend of mine is completely unworn. It must have been lost when it was brand new. When I held it in the palm of my hand I felt awed and excited that in 1540 someone who lived in Ashbury had had a precious silver penny that had maybe fallen out of a hole in their pocket and was not found for five hundred years!

Are you a "magpie" like I am, picking up interesting objects? Have you ever found "buried treasure" either in the garden or the attic or somewhere else like the beach? Was it something old, or was it of important sentimental value or was it just quirky and interesting?

The Core of the Book (a Wench Classic)

Note: Jo's playing gypsy nomad just now, and computer access is sometimes iffy, so we're invoking the Wench Classic clause and reposting one of Jo's older posts from August of 2006.  ~Sherrie

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 (Sept. 2006). 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 2006. The cover's so pink and glossy I can't scan it.)

In "The Dragon and the Princess," in Dragon Lovers (out in January 2007) 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 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

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 (Sept. 2006). 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 2006. The cover's so pink and glossy I can't scan it.)

In "The Dragon and the Princess," in Dragon Lovers (out in January 2007) 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 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

Anne's Ruby and Anne's Guest

CONGRATS TO ANNE:

Congratulations to Anne Gracie! The Stolen Princess has won the RWAustralia Romantic Book of the Year R*BY ("The Ruby") in the Long Romance category.  The Ruby is the equivalent of Romance Writers of America's RITA.  Way to go, Anne!

GUEST AUGUST 21:

On Friday, 8/21, Anne will host Jeane Westin.  Jeane's August release, The Virgin's Daughters, tells the story of Elizabeth I--daughter of Henry VIII and Ann Boleyn--as it’s never been told before:  through the eyes of two ladies-in-waiting closest to her.  Join us Friday for Jeane's interview.

P.S.  We have added two more bookmarks in the right sidebar under Additional Pages.

Regency Ladies' Magazines, Part I

Greetings, all!  Candice Hern, here.  Many thanks to the Wenches for inviting me to post here.  Today, and again on Aug. 28 and Sept 23, I am going to be discussing ladies' magazines of the Regency period.  As many of you know, I have long collected fashion prints of the Regency period.  About 10 or 15 years ago, I also managed to find several bound volumes of Ackermann's Repository.  I bought them for the prints, but found them to be such treasure troves of Regency information that I began collecting the complete magazines whenever I could find them and afford them. Like any serious collector, I have done a lot of research on the objects of the collection, and I have found the whole topic of ladies' magazines fascinating.  I thought some of you might find the subject interesting.

Today, I'm going to discuss the magazines in general.  In the two subsequent blogs, I will provide more detailed discussions of the Big Four magazines for women of the Regency:  The Lady's Magazine, The Lady's Monthly Museum, La Belle Assemblée, and Ackermann's Repository.

You may click on any of the images here to see larger versions.

The 18th century saw a blossoming of periodicals for women.  Most of them sought the betterment of women through education, instruction, and rational prose.  Even though most of the editors were men, they espoused a sort of equality of mind for men and women.  There were, of course, the gossipy tattler types of magazines, but most also included a good deal of serious material intended to feed the female intellect.

Toward the end of the 18th century there was a major shift in attitude brought about by the French Revolution.  The early "feminist" leanings that had been so prevalent in the periodicals were now disparaged as a part of the liberal, republican spirit that had led to the Reign of Terror in France.  Suddenly, even liberal-minded publications like The Lady's Magazine began to concentrate more on domestic education than philosophical or political debate, offering moral wisdom rather than intellectual stimulation.  The Lady's Monthly Museum exhibited the most repressive domestic ideology of all the magazines during the Regency.

The intended audiences for the various publications can be inferred from the price and production quality, and sometimes by content bias.  The most expensive of all the publications that targeted a primarily female readership, The Gallery of Fashion, was sold exclusively by subscription at a rate of 3 guineas per year, the equivalent today of almost $200.  That is surely why the circulation numbers amounted to only 450 copies.  Subscribers included the Queen.  La Belle Assemblée sold for 3 shillings 6 pence per monthly issue, the equivalent of a daily wage for the highest-paid skilled workers in London.  Circulation figures for LBA are not known, but they most likely numbered in the neighborhood of 1500-2000 copies.  Ackermann's Repository was of the same high quality as LBA, but had more prints and more pages and more varied content.  Its per-issue price was a bit higher than LBA at 4 shillings per issue.  The circulation was approximately 2000 copies in 1815.  As a comparison, the most popular magazine of the time, the Gentleman's Magazine, had a circulation of approximately 10,000, but it was more cheaply produced than the Repository, and did not include color prints.  It sold for 2 shillings per issue.

Clearly these relatively expensive periodicals for ladies were not frivolous purchases and not aimed at the lower or middle classes.  The focus on fashion, especially at La Belle Assemblée, assumed a level of material privilege.

The Lady's Magazine and the Lady's Monthly Museum were undoubtedly targeted to the middle class woman.  The Lady's Magazine sold for a mere 6 pence for at least its first twenty-five years (1770-1795). Ten years later, by 1805, it had doubled in price to 1 shilling, and by 1828 the cover price had risen to 2 shillings 6 pence.  This was a well-established and very popular publication by the time of the Regency, so its circulation may have been substantial, though probably not as high as the Gentleman's Magazine.  The Lady's Monthly Museum, the most inexpensive of them all at 1 shilling 6 pence, was a compact little magazine, smaller in size than any of the others, but packed with articles and stories.  Its prints were of slightly higher quality than those of The Lady's Magazine, though a great many of them were copied from other publications.  The editor sometimes boasts of its large circulation, but never mentions numbers.  An educated guess would place its circulation at 3000-5000 copies during the Regency.

You might find these circulation numbers shockingly small compared to today's magazines with copies in the millions.  But remember that print production technology was fairly rudimentary compared to today's standards, plus any colored engravings were colored by hand.  So, for example, a single monthly issue of Ackermann's Repository that typically included at least 5 colored prints, with a circulation of 2000 copies, would require 10,000 prints to be hand-painted! Those numbers make the fine quality of the colored prints even more remarkable.

The magazines relied heavily on subscriptions, but the most popular ones could also be obtained at booksellers, print shops, and even in dressmaker and milliner shops.

Unlike the modern magazine reader who recycles an issue once it has been read, the Regency reader did not casually toss a magazine in the trash.  It is clear that the ladies' magazines of the late 18th and early 19th centuries were intended to be permanently preserved on the bookshelf.  All of them were available in bound volumes.  Notices to binders are sometimes included in magazines, with instruction on where to bind in prints or supplements.  Individual issues could be sent back to the publisher for binding, as noted in this announcement in Ackermann's Repository:

 "The Proprietor begs leave to remind such of his Readers as have imperfect sets of the Repository of the necessity of an early application for the deficiencies, in order to prevent disappointment.  Those who chuse to return their Numbers to the Publisher may have them exchanged for Volumes in a variety of bindings, at the rate of 5s. per Volume."

In my years of collecting I have also run across volumes in which fashion prints, often from multiple publications, have been either tipped onto scrapbook-type pages, or bound as a single volume.  Clearly, the fashion prints were kept and used, even if the rest of the magazine was discarded.

The individual magazines, ie the monthly issues, came in paper covers that were thicker than the inside pages, but still thin enough to suggest something temporary.  The paper used for most of the original covers I've seen is comparable to the construction paper we used to use in school.  (Do kids still use construction paper?)  Some of the covers, like those for La Belle Assemblée, have a distinctive cover design with no more than a title, date, and publishing info.  Others, like the early years of The Lady's Magazine, simply printed the table of contents on the cover. In later years, The Lady's Magazine used a more standard cover.

  I own a handful of Regency period magazines in their original covers, but they are very hard to find.  My guess is that few magazines were kept as individual issues, but were either cut up for the prints or bound in sets.

In my next blog on Aug 28, I'll give more details on four of the most popular ladies' magazines of the period.

On Cons and Crossings

Hi, this is Jo the nomad, currently in Ottawa, Ontario, where the weather is hot, but not as hot as it could be, and not as hot as we left in Victoria. Astonishingly hot there. I've blogged about the cross-Canada-so-far on my own blog here. Lots of pictures of empty road!

I spent last weekend at World Con in Montreal, which was very interesting. The great thing about SF cons is their eclectic nature. As well as writing tracks and SF&F fan tracks, there was Regency dancing, which I missed because it conflicted with something else, and many panels and speakers on just about any subject of interest -- economics, politics, telescopes, medieval warfare, nano technology....

I've never quite figured out why SF fandom is so interested in Heyer. Does anyone have an idea? There's nothing odd about liking Heyer and Regency dancing, but why exactly that?

The masquerade was fun, of course, and the quality of costumes was high, as was the cleverness of some of the presentations. The winners are shown here.

In addition to the art show, there was a display of costumes and other such where I took the pictures scattered around here. The robot is steampunk, though whether it actually works or not, I'm not sure. You can get an idea of steampunk here.

It's definitely historical because it's based in the Victorian period, asking how technology might have developed if steam had been the main means of power.

And now, I'm trying to recover from the long car trip and the con, but a writer's life goes on. I have page proofs for Chalice of Roses to go over, and edits of The Secret Duke, and questions from the UK publisher about Lady Notorious. Never a dull moment!

Have you ever been to an SF con? 

Have you ever taken a long, multi-day car trip?

Perhaps our next one will be a more leisurely wander through Europe.

Jo :)

Pass the Popcorn!

 

Summertime -- and the manuscript's finished, the revisions haven't begun, I've blown through some proposals -- so it's movie time for me! I love going to the movies, though this summer I've been so busy that I've seen only a couple so far - loved the newest Harry Potter, and Star Trek, too. Otherwise, the cheaper, cozier alternative is movies at home, especially good when the weather is bad or it's too hot and muggy (like today! ughh!) to do much else, and if my husband and one or two of the sons and the friends are up for watching a good DVD, we put on some popcorn and curl up. 

 

Some people love movies over books, some vice versa, some like me, love them both. I can be far more forgiving of historical errors in a movie than in a novel. Movies have the obvious advantage of powerful visuals and sounds -- which can be a fascinating shortcut way to create character and story -- as well as the dynamism of sheer immediacy, and all of these can combine to stir emotions in a very direct way. Movies have a social factor that books do not have unless we're reading aloud -- we can share the story with whoever is with us at the time. Truly nothing can top books for deep immersion in a story, and the print medium allows for intricate details of plot, setting, dialogue, interior thought and intimate description. But film is a powerful storytelling medium ... and honestly after months of writing a book, the last thing I want to do, sometimes, is sit down and read. Movies give my brain a break from words, words, words ...

 

Here's a list of some of my favorite movies -- they tend to be deeply romantic, absolutely, and with some adventure and action. I don't often go for lots of drama and emotional impact unless there's a big dose of adventure and a good bit of fun. Movies teach a lot about good storytelling -- plot, character development, the use of setting, description, dialogue, romance and action, and the all-important stirring of emotion that any good story relies upon. And what better way to do hero research than the movies?! 

 

Some of your favorite movies might be on this list too. These are in no particular order, but I'll aim for a general chronological grouping ... medieval through modern.

 

Ladyhawke -- All the mystique of the medieval era, with bravery, nobility, romance, magic, dastardly villains and juicy characters to love, a poignant, exciting story and some great one-liners ("Walk on the left, walk on the left!")

 

A Knight's Tale -- full of anachronisms and full of fun, with lovely Heath Ledger (alas, gone too soon) and a sexy Chaucer in Paul Bettany ("Chaucer's the name, writing's the game"). Some very touching dramatic moments, too. Fantastic rock score, completely un-medieval, and yet we can easily buy into a fun, quirky romance. Not crazy about the princess, but Heath walks away with this one.

 

First Knight -- Sean Connery, Richard Gere, Julia Ormond, Arthurian tales and The Best Kiss Ever. What more could one ask for. Love the visual style -- the blue and gold palette is amazing.

 

Braveheart -- be still, my Scottish heart. A bit gruesome at the end, but we bravely tough it through with Wallace, who thanks to Gibson's brilliance, we can love deeply enough by the end to endure ... and despite some really wild inaccuracies, the film achieves what few books can boast -- the viewer walks away knowing what it FELT like to follow Wallace. And that's worth a fact-twist or two.

 

Tristan and Isolde -- a lovely little film, a story beautifully told. Sigh-worthy.

 Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves -- though we can't expect much from this super Hollywood treatment, it's a great time at the movies, with a few moments that are top notch for romance and for the romance of the Robin Hood legends. And Sean Connery. Nuff said.

 

Last of the Mohicans -- Daniel Day Lewis and ... the Other Best Kiss Ever!!!  I'm very partial to this movie, having grown up where the historical events took place (not where it was filmed!) -- that fort was a familiar place in my childhood. Ah, the waterfall scene, and the scene where the sister decides her own fate ... very powerful stuff. A good friend wrote some memorable music for the score. All good reasons for me to watch it again and again.

 

Pride and Prejudice -- the one with Keira Knightley. Exquisitely done from first frame to last, and features the Best Walk Ever Across A Field By A Hero!! 

 

Sense and Sensibility -- Hugh Grant in full disarming charm mode. Nuff said.

 

Pirates of the Caribbean -- Johnny Depp, Orlando, all the rest -- a howling good time and a movie that stands up to watching again and again.

 

Shakespeare in Love -- oh how I love this movie. Anachronisms galore. Who cares! 

 

The Mummy -- Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, and some movie shtick aimed at 12 year old boys, but once upon a time I had a lot of those in my house, so I have very broad standards. Great banter. Icky stuff, but I can look away until the banter resumes. What's not to love about an Egyptian historical romantic adventure, but for bugs?

 

The Princess Bride -- this has to be one of the most delightful movies ever made. Ever.

 

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon -- powerful, beautiful, fascinating, exciting. Endlessly watchable. My kids are martial artists, so I have acquired an interest, and this movie was right up my alley as a martial artist's romance-writing mom.

 

10 Things I Hate About You -- a fabulous little film, Heath Ledger again, Julia Stiles very sharp as always. A brilliant, fun twist on Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew.

 

Bridget Jones' Diary -- I could watch the ending a zillion times. And probably have done so, since there are channel-surfing guys with cable in my house. They may stop at a vampire movie, but I'll make them flip back to the end of Bridget Jones one more time.

 

Romancing the Stone -- a romance writer's dream movie -- who could ever tire of the mudslide, the smot-poking in the plane, or the druglord yelling, "Joan Wilder!!"

 

Notting Hill -- Hugh Grant. Julia Roberts -- a sweet charming movie with a solid, heart tugging romance.

 

So there you go, a list to take with you to the video store -- and a list to add to!  There are a slew of movies I left out.... never enough time, let along blog length, to list them all.

 

What are some of YOUR favorite romantic, fun films? And which do you prefer, books, movies or love-them-equally, and why so?

 

Susan Sarah, wondering where her copy of Ladyhawke is ....

 

(1) Nicola, and (2) Winner

Nicola's The Undoing of a Lady is the featured book at Romantic Crush Junkies from 9th -15th August. Drop by and say hi to Nicola!

Congrats to book winner Leanne Shawler, whose name was drawn from those who left comments on the Janet Mullany interview.

Fragments...

Anne here. 

On the last day of my trip, somewhere between New York City and home, I lost my camera. I don't know how, or where — I can't even recall taking it out of my bag, or using it that day, but it's gone. It's not the loss of the camera itself that's so distressing, but the pictures still on it, all my pictures from the RWA conference, my stay in Maryland, and New York. People, places, moments captured for me to look back on for years to come, each one, a small story. No longer. To whoever has the camera now, those pictures are just random shots of strangers. Without context, they're meaningless. 

It got me thinking about travel records of the past. Then journeys were more a matter of days and weeks, not just a matter of hours. It was a more leisurely pace and people had more time in which to record their reflections. On my first big solo trip away from home (3 months travelling through Europe) I filled a diary with anecdotes, descriptions, pasted in illustrations, tickets, postcards etc and I brought home enough photos to fill an album. Had I lost my diary, the finder might still have been able to enjoy reading it — assuming they could decipher my scrawl— because writing creates its own context.

I love reading old diaries and letters. They bring worlds and times and people to life. For my second book, Tallie's Knight, I used the letters of an Irish lady travelling on the continent with friends in 1802-3. My third book was prompted by a story I read in an old newspaper — the Fiji Times of the 1870's. When I was at university I did some research for a professor, recording shipping movements in and out of Fiji, and I read years worth of the Fiji Times. I read for hours more than he paid me, because I couldn't help getting distracted by the wonderful stories that kept popping up. And years later, one of those stories sparked a novel.

Journals and letters also played a big part in the writing of my most recent book, TO CATCH A BRIDE (coming in September.) It's partly set in Egypt, and I used a number of travel journals and diaries of Englishmen traveling in and through Egypt at that time.

The trouble with research is that so much of it is so fascinating, but doesn't relate to the actual story. It helps evoke the atmosphere of the time, and throws up all sorts of fun and interesting snippets, but any research that makes it into a novel is very much the tip of an iceberg.

For instance, here's a description by an Englishman of his first experience in riding camels: "I had the rope of the camel's head in my hand, and I found the motion unpleasant, as is that of all animals which move two legs on the same side at one time. I did not know what to make of my fellow travellers, but Mustapha offered me his pipe: I smoked very comfortably, and soon became more used to the movement...[snip] After two hours travelling was much alarmed in respect to the motion of the animal for about that time I felt a most violent pain in my side and back, and this continued to increase, so that I was obliged to dismount and walk." 

What interested me was not just that he found the motion

 of the camel painful, but that he happily shared a pipe with his

 arab servant, despite the presence of plague in the region.

Egypt in the early 19th century was still very much affected by plague. Yes the plague, bubonic plague, the same disease that had decimated Europe's population in earlier centuries. I knew it was still in evidence in Egypt — it was one of the reasons why the various quarters of Cairo were able to be closed off. The fascinating aspect for me in the contemporary accounts was the attitude various Englishmen had toward the theories of how one came to catch the Plague. Science had not yet proved the existence of germs, and it was very much a question of faith as to what one believed. So a wide range of beliefs were in evidence. 

Several openly scoffed at the nonsense talked by "these contagionist fellows" who claimed that the disease came from contact or close proximity. It had nothing to do with that, one fellow claimed; it was all about keeping active. To test this theory, one group of soldiers had been marched quickly through a plague-infested village, while another (hapless) group had camped in the village for several days. Of the soldiers who had marched briskly through the village, only a small number came down with plague, whereas many of those who had lolled about at the ease in the village had become infected. Proof positive, it was claimed, that activity kept the disease from catching hold. There were all sorts of "remedies" for its treatment, too. And debate raged about the proper method of quarantine, and the question of what materials carried the infection and which didn't. Wool and feathers were, apparently, fatal carriers; oil cloth and wheat were not.

 My characters were sailing home from Egypt so I became very interested in the domestic arrangements of the ship. On your left is an officer's cabin from an American naval ship of the period.  On your right is a bathroom.  The captain on some boats had a bath and even a flush toilet. And since my characters were traveling on a private ship, they had even better quarters than this.

 There's more information on ships cabins here.

So much of the flavor and small detail of my books comes from diaries and letters kept and preserved over time and published in some manner, sometimes long after the death of the writer. I have boxes of letters saved over the years. I used to be a prolific letter writer. Not so much lately. It's all emails. But I can pull out a letter in my brother's handwriting and it evokes him and his humor and dry wit in a way that photos can't ever do. He died when I was 20.  I have letters from my Dad, who's been dead some years, and from friends I haven't seen in years, and I can pull out a packet of letters and be transported to another time and place. I have a box of letters that my mother wrote to my godmother over the years, that my godmother gave back to Mum, and I've learned things about my childhood I never would have known otherwise.

 I wonder what will happen to that sort of record from our own time. So often we keep blogs now instead of  journals and send emails instead of letters, and cyber communication can disappear without a trace. As can cameras...

So I'm wondering, do you keep a journal? Do you save letters? Do you write letters any more, or is it invariably email? Or tell us about your precious mementoes from the past.

A Tale of Two Scottish Castles

This isn't really a blog about two castles as such; it's more about what gets preserved for future generations and what is lost. A couple of months ago I was in Scotland for a few days and I went to two completely contrasting castles. The first was Culzean (pronounced, as I discovered, Cullaine) which is the National Trust for Scotland's flagship property. There are records of a tower house at Culzean going back to the 1400s which was extended and improved in the 1590s by Sir Thomas Kennedy, brother to the 4th Earl of Cassillis. The current grand house was created by Robert Adam in the 18th century when the Kennedy family wanted to create a "trophy house," a mansion that shouted their wealth and power to anyone who saw it. Robert Adam was the leading Scottish architect of his day and he was given free rein at Culzean. The results are stunning in terms of their scale and beauty. I loved the oval staircase and the round drawing room in particular, and could happily have sat in the drawing room windows all day looking at the view out across the sea.

Culzean has a guide book packed with detail on the history and architecture of the castle, it has beautifully restored gardens, several restaurants, a second hand bookshop, smugglers caves and information about various paranormal investigations that took place at the castle. It has a comprehensive website at http://www.culzeanexperience.org/default.asp You can even adopt a Culzean deer. I had a wonderful day visiting there and I was one of 200 000 visitors who go every year.

In contrast I spent roughly one hour at Johnstone Castle, which is near Glasgow. Originally dating back to the 16th century, Johnstone Castle was in its heyday in the Victorian era. Frederick Chopin was a guest of the Houston family of Johnstone in 1848 whilst performing in concert in Glasgow. Chopin had tutored the wife of the 5th Laird of Johnstone in piano and there were rumours of a romance between him and the laird's sister-in-law, to whom he dedicated some of his compositions. There is a story that the composer's music can be heard floating over the nearby woods on moonlit Spetember evenings. This was the only claim to fame that I could find for Johnstone Castle and I discovered it after hunting around on the internet looking for the castle's history.

My first problem in going to Johnstone Castle was actually finding it. I drove through a housing estate and eventually ended up at a patch of grass with a tower in the middle. The building was fenced off so I couldn't get close and there weren't any plaques or information boards apart from one notice stating that no ball games should be played! I crossed the road to the woods which are all that is left of the original gardens and pleasure grounds. After the Second World War the Castle and grounds had been purchased by the Town Council, which had demolished most of it and had used the land to build new housing for families moved out of Glasgow as a result of tenement clearances. As somoene who likes to explore every nook and cranny of ancient buildings as well as read up on their history, I was disappointed. I wanted to be able to touch Johnstone Castle and to feel the atmosphere, not simply stand on the outside looking in.

The contrast of Culzean and Johnstone Castles led me to wonder about the twists of fate that led Culzean to be one of the most popular castles in Scotland whilst what is left of Johnstone Castle is fenced off in the middle of a housing estate. Who decides what should be preserved and what let go? Do we have an obligation to preserve or even to restore ancient buildings if we can? And should I have been happy that there was at least a tower of Johnstone Castle left standing?

Choosing a story

Or is it more a matter of letting the story choose you?

Pat again. The wenchly August schedule is chaotic as everyone but me runs out to play. (I prefer Christmas in warmer climes.) So I’m holding fort today until a wench or two journeys back from distant climes or some of our guests stop by.  Hot August days require lazy, cool daiquiri discussions, don’t you think?

So I’m lounging on my patio chair, sipping a cool drink, and recalling a topic much discussed on reader as well as writer lists—Where do you get your stories?

Now we all know there are as many stories in the world as there are blades of grass and grains of sand. Heaven only knows, authors have enough people walk up to them at book signings declaring we need to write their stories to know everyone has at least one tale to tell. The tough question here is how do we choose which one to tell? All I have to do is stare blankly at a proposal that’s giving me fits for bits of irrelevant dialogue to pop like weeds out of fertile soil--procrastination is an excellent spontaneous story generator. But really, do I want to write an entire book based upon a conversation that arrives in my head while it’s empty? I’ve spun this particular weed into a blog, but a book requires months and months of cohabitation, possibly years. How do we turn that crazy internal dialogue into characters worthy of all that time?

 I realize the cliché about writing the book of your heart is scarcely relevant to today’s market, but if we dig around, we’ll find there’s a kernel of truth in it. If we are to spend months of our lives with a story, we have to find characters and tales about which we are passionate, the ones that well up inside us and compel us to put pen to paper, the ones that won’t leave us alone until we’ve woven them. If it happens that story doesn’t fall within the parameters of today’s publishing market, we can choose to write it anyway, knowing full well it will end up filed under the bed, never to be seen again unless we become a multi-bestseller who could sell peanut butter on paper. 

 But if we really want our brilliant idea to be read by others, we have to find a way to shape and fit it into today’s market. If we can distill the elements about which we’re truly passionate, it’s often possible to find a more marketable vehicle to insert them into. That’s where true genius and creativity lies—meshing passion and market. Unless, of course, you're a marketing as well as a creative genius and your stories automatically fit the current trends.

This doesn’t apply just to books, mind you. Think about television. Once upon a time, situation comedies ruled the airwaves. The audience demanded no more than witty lines and wacky characters. Then we grew a little more sophisticated and wanted strong storylines, but the kid characters grew up or the  protagonists fell in love and the shows changed and withered.  Like book publishers, TV producers had to keep spending more and more on shows people watched less and less—until they learned that the audience craved the familiar, with twists, which is where both TV and books seem to stand now.

Series books offer familiar characters in familiar worlds. Soap operas last for decades on the same premise. So TV began producing prime time family dramas, building worlds audiences wanted to spend time in. And when that worked, they created police and hospital dramas, where they could have the same setting and same characters every week.  If a character grows old or annoying, he’s pushed out and another is introduced. Changing one character or storyline doesn’t disturb the expensive world the show has developed. Currently, contemporary genre fiction is aimed that same direction, with Nora’s trilogies and Macomber’s knitting circles and similar “community” romances and mysteries and even urban fantasy.  

Like every trend, I suppose the series will end eventually. Our attention spans have never been great, and audiences keep demanding more and more be crammed into less and less until we’re all jumping the shark and something new comes along.  That’s what happened back in the nineties when historical fiction built into time travel and paranormal and the whole balloon got too big and blew up.

On this lazy afternoon with nothing better to dream about, I like to wonder what will happen when readers tire of having to buy three or six books to live in our worlds for a while. If I have to take the story elements about which I’m passionate and install them into a marketable vehicle, what will that vehicle look like? Barbie and Ken driving off into the sunset in a Humvee?  Luke Skywalker and Gidget surfing into Fiji to save the turtles? E-books with pictures? Novellas with videos?

As the world turns, where do you see books (or TV or film) going next? Or better yet, where would you LIKE it to go?

Honorary Word Wench: Janet Mullany

From Mary Jo:

Janet,

Thanks so much for visiting the Word Wenches!  You are now entitled to put the letters HWW after your name to indicate that you are an Honorary Word Wench.  <pause for applause!>

It's a Wenchly custom to give guests a virtual gift to commemorate the occasion, so I am presenting you with an Jane Austen Action Figure Doll:

 

She can be custom accessorized for each of the different kinds of historical novel you write.  Her current form, with a quill pen and a writing desk, will do for the Signet Regency you wrote.  For your Regency chick lit, you can buy her shoes from a collection that includes Manolo Blahniks and Jimmy Choos.  And for the --err,  racy pseudonymous books, I can't really speak of them in front of Jane in her classical form!

Mary Jo 

Winner, Accolades, and Bookmarks

Winner:

Our latest winner is Leanne Shawler, who has won an autographed copy of Janet Mullany's A Most Lamentable Comedy.  Congratulations, Leanne!

ALA Booklist:

Pat's Mystic Warrior received a lovely review from the American Library Association's Booklist reviews.  Way to go, Pat!

Back to Press:

Two weeks after Loretta's Don't Tempt Me was released, it went back for a second printing.  And two weeks after that, it went back for a third printing!  Not bad for a book that's only been out for 30 days.

Bookmarks:

Don't forget - we have free bookmarks available for downloading to your computer or for printing directly from the bookmarks page.  Just go to the "Additional Pages" sidebar on the right and click on Printable Bookmarks.  We'll be adding more bookmarks in another week or two.