Word Wenches

Costume Parties

 Hi, Anne here.

A couple of weeks ago I attended the Romance Writers of Australian annual conference in Sydney. It was a terrific conference, but I'm only going to talk about one aspect of it — the Friday night cocktail party that kicks off the conference.

    When I first joined RWAust, more than twelve years ago, the cocktail party was billed as "Meet the Authors" — very appropriate, since Harlequin Sydney sponsored the event. They were quiet, decorous — and dare I say it?— slightly dull affairs. Everyone would dress elegantly, and the published authors, who pretty much all knew each other, would gather in small clumps and chat, while unpublished or new people gathered in their small clumps and chatted. You had to be pretty brave to walk up to an author and talk to them — in fact you had to be pretty brave to walk up to any group of strangers and talk to them. A lot of people simply didn't attend.

    A few years later the conference was in Melbourne (my home town) and in an old historic hotel. Some bright spark got the idea to make the cocktail party a "retro" dress up affair and people were encouraged to dress up. I remember encouraging people to get into the spirit of it, even if they only wore a feather boa — and a few people did. There's a story about that on my website, here, if you're interested.   

    That year less than 10 % of people dressed in a retro style — we had a few 1920's flappers and a sprinkling from other eras, but quite a few people wore a boa, at least, and it was fun. The costumes proved to be an icebreaker. 

    Fast forward ten years and these days the cocktail party is a highlight of the conference, and 90% of people dress in costume — many going to enormous trouble to make their own costumes. The costumes serve as a brilliant icebreaker, and anyone talks to anyone. There's something about wearing a costume that releases inhibitions in many people, and the costumes are a talking point. 

 Each year the theme is different — this year the theme was "Fantasy Island" and people came as all kinds of fantasies. Formerly quite shy people can become quite bold in costume, and nobody feels too shy to talk to a Famous Author who  looks like this — this is multi award-winning Marion Lennox, usually one of the most elegant women in a room. Hers was an island fantasy — basking in her backlist billions.

 Here were four of the Bennett sisters. Only Lydia was missing — a rumor was circulating that she'd run off with a soldier, but of course that was too scandalous to be believed!

Here's a trio who will be forever known as the Harlequin Harlots. 

 Shaneen made this mermaid costume herself.

 

Alison Roberts had to protect her date with Johnny Depp from barefaced piracy by Kelly Hunter.  

Fiona McArthur, dressed as a World Famous Author, travelling the world, complete with cabana boy.
 

Presents author Trish Morey, (mother of four) wore a sign, "Virgin on the Ridiculous"
  
    Paranormal author Keri Arthur looked gorgeous as a dark angel, with lovely wings. She's pictured here with Kat from Book Thingo who kindly sent me some of these photos.  

I came as Dame Barbara Cartland, complete with stuffed pekingese dogs (one was also attached to my shoe.)  I've never been so pink in my life!

 

And here, after the event, is a peke that's no longer strapped to a shoe, but sitting in it. As my friend, Jenny, said, she looks more like a canine version of Miss Piggy than a peke. LOL

 
So what about you — do you like dressing up in costume or do you hate it? Are you shy in company at large events, or do you enjoy it? And if you had an island fantasy, what would it be?

 

Anne Stuart, HWW!

Anne, thanks so much for visiting the Word Wenches and sharing your writing life with us.  As you may know, it is traditional for the Wenches to award virtual gifts to our guests.  It's a fun way for us to thank guests for their visit, and because the gifts are virtual, it allows us to be as extravagant as we want. 

Jo has picked out a regal crown for you, and we all bow down, crying, "Hail to the queen!"  May you wear the crown proudly, and may it make you feel like the queen of romance that you truly are. (And don't forget--along with this crown comes the privilege of adding "HWW" [Honorary Word Wench] after your name!)

A "Thank You" to Honorary Word Wench Hope Tarr

As is our custom here at Word Wenches, we thank our guest bloggers with a virtual gift to express our appreciation. In light of Hope's topic, it wasn't all that easy to choose an appropriate item. But But hey, we are writers here, and so are supposed to use our imaginations! And so, after much thought and consultation with the other Wenches, I've come up with some swinging swag for Hope.

So without further ado, allow us to bestow a "to die for" black mask, guaranteed to put any other executioner to blush, along with a bottle of rare single malt scotch, for soothing frayed nerves after a day at the office. At over $16,0000, a bottle, it should go down smoothly!

New Winners

We've had a rash of new book winners this month!  D. Kenney won a book from Joanna.  Molly Wilsbacher's topic suggestion was used by Susan for an Ask-a-Wench post, earning Molly a book.  Lise Horton won a book from guest Hope Tarr.  Helen Sibbritt and Karen each won a book from guest Jeane Westin.  Congratulations, winners!  Thanks so much for your contributions to the discussion machine!

What's In A Name?

Hello, Nicola here! I've always been interested in the fashion in names, what's fashionable and what's not in any given period. For an historical author this is, arguably, important in order to make sure that we aren't anachronistic. Now, I realise that I may be stirring up a hornet's nest here but I have to ask the question. Writers, do you give your characters names that would have been in fashion at the time, or do you call them by a name that appeals to you, even if it isn't strictly authentic to the period? Readers, do you mind if a Regency hero is called Tank or do you just assume that it is derived from the ancient Germanic Tancred and is therefore totally acceptable?

The Norman Conquest of Names

It was in fact a recent BBC TV series about the Normans that made me think again about the issue of names and language. One of the points made by Professor Robert Bartlett (good Norman name) in the programme was that the Norman invasion of England sowed the seeds for much of the English language as it is today, a thousand years later. This includes names. The names of the Norman conquerors quickly became popular and remain common to this day - William, Robert, Alice, for example. The names of the Anglo Saxons, in contrast, are less familiar: Leofric, Ethelbert, Eadric.

This was because the ruling elite set the fashion. William quickly became the most common male name in England even amongst the peasantry. Interestingly this was not simply because newborns were baptised with Norman names; some adults actually changed their names because thet wanted to be accepted in Norman society and not be dismissed as a peasant with an Anglo-Saxon name. One very cute fact I did learn about Anglo-Saxons prior to 1066 was their custom of creating new names for children by combining existing names. So for example Alfred and Edith might produce baby Aldith. I rather like this custom - if it was still in practise it would have led to a baby Fiadria in our family!

The Influence of the Church

By the 13th century the Christian church in western Europe was wielding considerable influence over the naming of children. Saints' names were particularly popular as people believed in their powers of protection and intercession. A flood of new names appeared in fashion at this time: John, Simon, Matthew, Daniel, Mary, Elizabeth, Anne. A curious fact from the period is that there were more new masculine names than feminine ones. Girls were quite often called by a masculine name. In church records of the period Phillipa would be feminised but this was to meet Latin grammar requirements only. In real life she might well be called Philip. Where a girl was given a genuinely feminine name there was often a taste for the exotic such as Camilla, Pavia and Melodia, which are all found in 12th century English records.

Later, in the 17th century, the Puritan church was responsible for the adoption of obscure Old Testament names such as Habakkuk (the chap in the statue above) as a sign of piety, even going so far as to name children Penitence, Grace of God and Stand Fast on High. These did not become fashionable in the mainstream of society...

Jane Austen and the naming of characters

I am indebted here to author Elizabeth Hawksley who recently wrote a fascinating piece on this topic on the UK Historical Authors' Blog. You can read the whole article if you click here  and scroll down to "Jane Austen and Names" but Elizabeth has given me permission to quote a few paragraphs.

"The convention is for the eldest son and daughter to be named after their parents, as Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram, nee Maria Ward, do in Mansfield Park. Jane Fairfax in Emma is named after her dead mother. In Persuasion, Charles Musgrove's elder son is called Charles, and so on.

Money also has an important role in the choice of name. In Emma, John Knightley is a younger son with no estate of his own. The Hartfield estate, where his wife Isabella was brought up, has no male heir so as the elder daughter, Isabella will inherit. The financial importance of this is echoed in John and Isabella's eldest son's name. "Henry is the eldest, he was named after me, not after his father," says old Mr Woodhouse, Isabella's father. Plainly such a departure from the norm requires an explanation. Names, therefore, are not chosen because the parents like them but with regard to family connections or a hoped-for inheritance.

Occasionally Jane Austen uses a name as a pointer to character. Take the dreadful Augusta Elton in Emma. The name Augusta came in with the Hanoverians and might therefore be considered somewhat parvenu. George III's sister and mother were both called Augusta. Jane Austen neatly indicates Augusta Elton's social pretensions in the name she gives her."

A Hero Called Tiger

And so to the Regency, and a glance at the peerage and baronetage of the time shows us those names that were in vogue in the Ton and those that were not. We've all come across anachronistic names in historical romance. Some readers don't mind; others have this as a pet peeve, something that pulls them right out of the story.

A good let out clause for a writer who fancies using a name that was not in fashion in the 18th/19th century is the custom of taking surnames as first names. This happened quite often in aristocratic families; both Berkeley Craven and his brother Keppel Richard Craven, brothers to the Earl of Craven were given family names as first names in the Georgian period. This was in contrast to the Craven heir who was always called William.

Of course even a surname used as a first name needs to sound authentic to the period (in my opinion) in order not to jar. Dare I say it, heroes named after wild, or even tame animals will probably sound wrong unless it is used as a nickname, although was it Georgette Heyer who had a character called Lion, for Lionel? Confession time, though. I am in no position to criticise. I deliberately named two dukedoms after birds of prey rather than actual geographical places.

An interesting fact from this period is that it sees the adoption of "celebrity" names for babies. This is no modern phenomenon. There were a great many Horatios after the Battle of Trafalgar and a number of Percys in honour of Percy Bysshe Shelley.

As an endnote on the subject of language, I loved this comment from Professor Bartlett on the effects of the Normans on the English language: "Modern English has many words with similar meanings, as French words were assimilated into everyday language. There is a long-standing association of all things French with the upper classes and all things Anglo-Saxon with coarseness. Pig is English in origin, pork is French. Sheep is English, mutton is French. Cow is English, beef is French. When it is in a cold and muddy field covered in dung it's named in English. When it's been cooked and carved and put on a table with a glass of wine it's referred to French." Bien sur.

What do you think about the great name debate? Are you happy with a historical hero called Lion or Tiger? Which Anglo Saxon name would you like to see revived? And if we went in for the custom of name-combining from our parents, what would you be called? This is Sylpete, signing off!

Anne Stuart

Hi, this is Jo, delighted to be hosting my friend Anne Stuart at the Word Wenches. Anne is a bestselling romance author who's won many awards over a very long career. (She was first published at a very early age, she will assure you!) Though she is perhaps best known recently for her gritty contemporary romance, her earliest books were historicals,Lord Satan's Bride- Dell Candlelight - April 1981 and The Spinster and the Rake Dell Candlelight - July 1982

I think we can see that she was already exploring the challenging, dark-and-dangerous heroes back then. And now she's returning to historical romance -- hurrah! -- with a new trilogy set in the deliciously decadent Georgian age. Now here, in her own words, is Anne Stuart.

HEROES AND HEROINES

I have three very beloved books, The House of Rohan trilogy, coming out this summer and fall (plus a free, very short prequel, THE WICKED HOUSE OF ROHAN, available for free download from Amazon, Harlequin, etc.)

(Click here to download and enjoy.)

RUTHLESS is already out and doing well, and the second, RECKLESS,is just about to be released, with the final one, BREATHLESS, comes out a month later, and then I can breathe again.  

Usually I’m off in another world by the time books come out, but this time I’m still living and breathing the wicked Rohan family, unwilling to let them go.  I recently did an interview for an Italian website and one of their questions got me to thinking.

The question? 

What characteristics define your heroes and heroines?

So here’s what I came up with:

For heroes:  

Self-honesty.  

No illusions about who and what he is.  I want a hero who’s willing to look into the deepest, darkest part of his soul and not make excuses.  He might think he’s worse than he really is, but he doesn’t need the illusion that what he’s doing is necessarily right and good in order for him to do it. 

My historical heroes are usually aristocrats (though one of my favorites, Simon of Navarre, was a medieval wizard).  They have the money and position to do exactly as they please, and society was less stringent in the Georgian period.  They will seduce a woman simply because they want her, with no concern as to how it might affect her in the long run, ruined and possibly pregnant. 

In the trilogy, all three of my heroes are members of the Heavenly Host, a fictionalized version of the Hellfire Club, where the motto is “do what thou wilt.”  If it feels good, do it, and make no excuses.

A willingness to do whatever needs to be done if it's something he believes in or wants.

If he’s a jaded aristocrat who wants revenge and finds the heroine to be the perfect vessel, he’ll do it, as The Scorpion does in BREATHLESS.  If he’s enraged on behalf on the woman he loves he’ll kill whoever hurt her without a second thought.  He does what he believes in and the consequences be damned.

A total unconcern for society's rules.  

My hero tends to live outside of society, and he doesn’t care in the slightest if he’s ostracized.  Quite often society, in the form of his family or the political climate has betrayed him in the past, leaving him angry and wounded.  He wouldn’t care what other people think.  Francis is a survivor of Culloden.  Adrian’s beloved brother died.  The Scorpion is scarred, crippled and lost everything.  Ina world where what they loved most was taken away from them, they don’t care what they do.

A black sense of humor.  

My heroes tend to find humor in unexpected things.  In a heroine’s determined resistance.  In his own contradictory behavior.  My hero is always capable of laughing at himself.

His own particular sense of honor, which can be different from anyone else's.

Jo and I go back and forth on this.  I find some of the worst behavior acceptable in a hero if it’s true to who and what he is.  Some heroes will kill in cold blood, particularly someone who has hurt their heroine. (Francis in RUTHLESS).  They will conceivably run off with the stolen money if they want it and they decide that people who were robbed either don’t need it or don’t deserve it. (The Scorpion and his friend Jacob in BREATHLESS).  It goes back to the unconcern for society’s rules.  They don’t care much for society’s laws either.

A tendency to be solitary.

My hero tends to start out solitary and to stay fairly isolated by the end.  He will allow, no, welcome, the heroine into his narrow existence, and he will slowly start to allow others.  The heroine’s friends and family may be admitted, as well as people he’s known for years and is finally ready to accept as a friend.  But my heroes will never live in London or give speeches in the House of Lords, and any Regency houseparties they throw will either be grudging or have an ulterior motive.

 In other words, my heroes tend to be fairly uncivilized.

 

(Anne likes to think she might be descended from another Anne Stuart -- Queen Anne.)

 

As for the heroine:

She needs to be smart.  

In fact, the hero, heroine, mentor and villain need to be highly intelligent.  My stories are about complex games people play, and the smarter the players, the better.  All three of the Rohan heroines, Elinor, Charlotte, and Miranda are too smart for their own good.

Forgiving. 

Obviously.  Anyone attached to my kind of hero needs to be able to overlook and forgive all sorts of bad behavior.  She can and should call the hero to task over things, but holding grudges, no matter how tempting, would destroy the relationship.  If you fall in love with a Very Bad Man then you have no choice but to forgive him for the Very Bad Things he does.  Even as you do your best to stop him from doing Very Bad Things.

Someone who adheres more to society's rules and understands why they're necessary.  

My heroine tends to start out on the more conventional side of the story.  Women in past times are more vulnerable – it’s a lot harder to ignore the rules and get away with it.  Once she’s paired with her hero she can slowly begin to bring him back, at least to the edges of society, so that he can survive in normal situations as well as dire ones.

Strong-minded but vulnerable.

I know, my heroines tend to be too vulnerable.  I can’t help it, it’s my particular fantasy.  I’m a powerhouse who secretly can feel very fragile, and it’s what I respond to in my heroines.  Strength and vulnerability.

Adapability.

Probably the most important thing my heroines need.  The ability to adapt to extreme situations, solitude, orgies, kidnapping.  (Damn – I just realized I have some form of kidnapping in all three Rohan books.  Must be another basic fantasy of mine).  All three of them face orgies as the basically silly things they are, and survive kidnapping with annoyance.  They face danger with aplomb (locked in a burning church, threatened by a madman) and do their best to save themselves.

(New to Anne Stuart, and want to try a sample? There's the free story above, and also an excerpt from Ruthless here.)

And after my heroine is happily bonded with her hero things don’t necessarily get much better.  She needs to be able to face things without falling apart, turn on a dime if the situation calls for it (what the hell does turn on a dime mean?), let go when she needs to, hold on when necessary.

Some see my heroines as weak.  I see them as Superwomen, able to deal with the mad, bad, dangerous heroes I write.

So what characteristics make up my characters?  Apart from exceptional good looks, astonishing sexual prowess, charisma, intelligence, and strength, and all of the above?

 The ability to love, of course.  But the true redemption, for both broken hero and heroine, is the ability to accept love.  Then, no matter how bad the Very Bad Man is, or how vulnerable the heroine is, they can find a real Happy Ever After that nothing can take away.

Jo: I think that's one of the most interesting and provocative guest posts we've had in Word Wenches, and now it's your chance to respond.

There's a prize, of course, to one commenter, and a very nice one, too. Anne will send the first two books in the trilogy to a randomly picked winner, but the random pick will be from posts that add something to this discussion. The "add something" is at Anne's discretion, but you can guess what it means.

Give us your thoughts. Agree, disagree, debate, chew over. If you're an Anne Stuart fan you'll probably have your favorite books to bring to the discussion. And don't forget, the third book, Breathless, will be out in October.

Over to you, folks! We'll draw the winner on Saturday, noon, eastern time.

Jo

PS, here's Anne's gift for her wonderful visit. Hail to the queen!

The Princess and The Spy

Pat here:

After ranting that there were no organized spies in England in the early Regency, I ended up writing a spy into my work in process. The chances of an Englishman running into a French spy before England had barely entered the war were slim, but I needed a plot turning point, and since I already had codes, spies seemed obvious.  I tried to ground him well into the story and hope I’ve made the point realistic enough. But I have a lot of other pet peeves...

 I have politely refrained from ranting about the extraordinary number of dukes we’ve littered across the Regency countryside because I’ve been guilty of that in days long past. (Out of curiosity, I Googled current dukes. Take a look at http://forums.skadi.net/showthread.php?t=88196 for more photos. Pictured are the 13th Duke of Argyll in his handsome plaid, and the 15th Duke of Hamilton, who's also the 12th Duke of Brandon, in front of his humble homestead.)

And amazingly, I’ve not once mentioned the preponderance of Continental princesses we've created from weird little countries that we conjure so we don’t have to use actual royalty. Thank goodness, because even though I’ve always disliked that particular contrivance, I’m going to have to do it—if my editor lets me.  The new proposal simply screams for royal skulduggery, and my fingers are itching to confuse my insouciant, too-confident hero with two royal princesses running him ragged.

But because I have this irritating need for some form of historical accuracy, I started researching Continental royalty in the time of Napoleon. It would be impossible to find royalty that would suit the time and place of my plot, so I knew I had to make up my characters, but I’m an old hand at inventing cities. Why not invent a country? So I did.

After researching the map of Europe before Napoleon completely conquered it, I realized we could litter the landscape with royalty easier than we could with dukes. Russia and Italy were particularly notorious about naming everyone royalty if they were so much as remotely related to a powerful noble. In England, most of these nobles would be dukes, not princes, but that didn’t matter. An aristocrat was an aristocrat, even if they barely owned the clothes on their backs. 

To my delight, I discovered in the year of my story that Italy was still a conglomeration of separate duchies barely tied together by an almost-common tongue. There were still small kingdoms where they spoke their own language. It’s easy to see how Napoleon walked in and conquered these tiny principalities, knocking them down like dominoes as he progressed across the peninsula. Then he busily married off his many relatives to the existing royalty—shades of William the Conqueror—and set about forcing Italy into the nineteenth century. (the map is from 1815, after the time of my story, when Napoleon has already started consolidating.)

And so, my preposterous plot suddenly has plausibility!

Now that I’ve knocked down some of my major pet peeves and romped all over them, what other pet peeves do you have? Maybe I can adopt a new one!

Guest Anne Stuart - 8/25

This coming Wednesday, August 25, Anne Stuart will be Jo Beverley's guest.  Anne is a multipublished author who writes in many genres and who has a huge and devoted following.  Please drop by Wednesday to say "hi" to Anne and see what she has to say about the writing life and her books!

Jeane Westin ~ His Last Letter

Anne here with guest Jeane Westin, who is talking about her new novel, HIS LAST LETTER.  
  The blurb on the novel says: One of the greatest loves of all time —between Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley —comes to life in this vivid novel. They were playmates as children, impetuous lovers as adults-and for thirty years were the center of each others' lives. Astute to the dangers of choosing any one man, the Virgin Queen could never give her "Sweet Robin" what he wanted most—marriage— yet she insisted he stay close by her side. Possessive and jealous, their love survived quarrels, his two disastrous marriages to other women, her constant flirtations, and political machinations with foreign princes. His Last Letter tells the story of this great love... and especially of the last three years Elizabeth and Dudley spent together, the most dangerous of her rule, when their passion was tempered by a bittersweet recognition of all that they shared-and all that would remain unfulfilled.

Anne:  HIS LAST LETTER is a terrific novel and I really enjoyed reading it. I particularly liked the inclusion of an interview and reading discussion questions at the end — perfect for a book group. Jeane, this is your second novel about Queen Elizabeth 1. What draws you to her as a subject?

Jeane: My first novel to include Elizabeth was The Virgin's Daughters published in 2009, which was meant to be about two of her ladies in waiting at the book ends of her reign.  It was about those two women, but somehow, Elizabeth seemed to take over the center.  She was too strong a character to only be observed.  (Anne's interview with Jeane about The Virgin's Daughters is here)

And that's what draws me to her once again in His Last Letter: her strength, her weakness, her contant contradictions.  Elizabeth is endlessly fascinating and endlessly new.  After that first novel, I had to write about her and her Robin.

 Anne: Elizabeth and her "Sweet Robin," Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, had a lifelong relationship, from their childhood to Leicester's death. Your book is a fascinating portrait of power and love, insecurity, jealousy and frustration, and the changing nature of love over time. What kept this relationship alive, do you think?

Jeane:  I believe it was hope on Robin's part that she would eventually marry him; he had every day signs of her love.  Why wouldn't he be hopeful?  That his hope lasted for more than 30 years shows how strong those signs were.

On Elizabeth's part, she needed him and trusted him above all others.  She was a shrewd judge of character and he must have shown his devotion in many ways.  She never allowed him from her side without great pain and he never left her without the same or becoming ill.  At first I questioned if the illnesses were real or faked, but whatever they were, his illness always brought her running and is a powerful example of her need and fear of losing him.

Anne: Tell us about the letter of the title. It's based on a real letter, isn't it? 

Jeane: Yes.  It was the catalyst of the idea for the book.  When I read the original letter (reprinted in the back His Last Letter) in which he praised her physick and said it helped him better than any other, he sent a kiss for her foot.  It wasn't enough for me; I was not satisfied.  He knew he was dying, how could he have not written more, something tender, a remembrance, a hint at what they'd had together?  I determined that there must have been a second page, so damning to her claim to virginity that she had to destroy it.  We know that she locked herself away in the royal apartments without food or water for three days at the news of his death.  Her chief minister Burghley finally had the doors broken down in fear for her life.  That episode doesn't point to an old friendship, a youthful romance overcome, but a lifetime of love and longing.  From that well-known historical fact I began to see what they had been to each other. 

Anne: Why was the image of the Virgin Queen so important to Elizabeth?

 Jeane: Elizabeth had been involved in two scandals, first at age 14 with Thomas Seymour and second with Robert Dudley shortly after she began her reign.  There were constant rumors about her and lovers, of bearing Robin's illegitimate children (one fake child showed up in Spain years later) and the much whispered accusation that Robin (and perhaps the queen herself) had murdered his first wife Amy.

Virginity was also important if she was to make a royal marriage with a prince or king on the Continent.  She played the marriage game for decades to keep France and Spain at bay and she was brilliant at this diplomacy.

Lastly, her virginity was important for the succession.  Claimants to the throne would have come from everywhere at her death and the country would have been divided and most likely riven by uprisings.

Anne: The structure of the novel is unusual in that, rather than a simple chronological narration, you move back and forth in time, with different memories and events overlaying each other like a richly textured jigsaw puzzle. Why did you choose this approach?

Jeane: It chose me.  I used two forward-moving story strands because I wanted to show both Robin's and Elizabeth's viewpoints about the defining moments in their lives.  When I began to write about them in the last three years of his life, 1585-8, the most important in the queen's reign, I quickly saw how the events were all tied to their earlier lives and struggles together and thus forced the structure of the novel.  Every chapter is headed with dates, places and the name of the viewpoint character.  The end of the preceding chapter indicates that a flashback is coming.  I hope no reader is mysified. 

 Anne: No, it's fascinating. There is both so much historical material on Elizabeth and her reign, and also so little. How do you, as a historical novelist, "bridge the gaps?"  

Jeane: I use what every novelist uses...imagination...but with good indications.  I make no judgments about their behavior.  I imagine it as it could have been, which is what all historical novelists must do.  We don't know what happened when they were alone together.  People talked about them and Lord Burghley wrote as late as 1572 (14 years after Elizabeth came to the throne) that the queen and Robin were lovers. 

 There are no letters surviving between them when they were young.  There were ears to whisper into.  As they grew older, they settled into a companionable relationship where he would inquire about her health (she was often ill) and she would give him instructions about his.  But she was capable of great anger, as I write about when he takes an English army to Holland to fight Spain, and he was capable of great hurt.

 They were jealous and loving by turns...a volatile relationship always.  Elizabeth hated Robin's wife, Lettice Knollys, wouldn't have her at court and openly called her "that she wolf" and probably worse.

Anne: Queen Elizabeth 1, like her father, Henry VIII, has been the subject of numerous films and TV series. Which are your favorites? And why do the Tudors continue to fascinate us after all this time?

Jeane: For me the most authentic Elizabeth is Glenda Jackson's and Robert Hardy's portrayal of Elizabeth and Dudley in Elizabeth R, the BBC six parter form the early 70s.  The most visually glorious are the more recent Cate Blanchett portrayals.  

 I haven't seen the silent film versions, but I'd love to, especially the first one which was actually the first feature ever made starring Sarah Bernhardt.  It was an enormous smash hit, which pulled the movie business out of its comic short period and gave it a more serious reputation.

 The Tudors will always fascinate because they are larger than life.  They embody every human emotion writ very large.  The Tudor period was so different from ours and yet we recognize their struggles and their lusts.  I wonder how some of us would behave if we had unlimited power and money.  Personally, I hope there is always someone around to tell me no, even if it's just the small voice in my own head.

Confession: I was unable to watch beyond the second series of recently popular The Tudors and for the strangest reason.  The imprisonment and beheading of Sir Thomas Moore was so sad that I cried and gave up.

 Anne: Jeane has shared a small extract with us, from Chapter 5, where a young Elizabeth is imprisoned in the Tower of London by her half-sister, Queen Mary, not knowing whether each day will be her last.

The clang of armored feet and the clink of chain mail sounded on the stone stairs to her cell in the Bell Tower and Elizabeth’s body became rigid.  This was a sound she feared to hear night or day.  Were they coming for her as they had come for her mother, Anne Boleyn, eighteen years earlier; as they had come for Lady Jane Grey just days ago?  Would she be as brave before the ax as her mother and her beautiful, virtuous cousin?  She tensed herself not to tremble before the Tower guards.

“My lady, Elizabeth.”  A yeoman guard opened her cell door and stepped inside while more guards crowded behind him.  Her ladies looked up from their embroidery, but Elizabeth could not.  She was determined to hide her terror at every guard’s appearance.

Then she could not stop her words.  “Is Lady Jane’s scaffold removed?”

“My lady, I am not allowed to say.”

Her gaze darted to his hands, looking for the velum order signed by her sister Queen Mary, a death warrant to take the traitorous prisoner Elizabeth to the block on Tower green, the same green where her father, Henry VIII, had sent her mother.   Every royal family has its troubles.  She clamped her teeth together to suppress an almost hysterical desire to giggle.  She had been so often near death, gallows humor was all the jest she could allow herself.  But let no other defame a Tudor! 

She dreaded another questioning in the dungeon below with Mary’s Catholic bishops and her council, circling, threatening, reminding her of her mother’s fate amidst the screams of tortured prisoners, probably Protestant heretics.  It had taken all of her will, her father’s courage…and yes, her mother’s…to act as princess royal and heir to the throne.  She had not been broken, or admitted to any slight knowledge of the recent Protestant uprising led by Sir Thomas Wyatt.  They would not use her own words to damn her.  Could she help it if Mary’s Protestant subjects rebelled against their queen’s harsh conversion measures, wishing to set Elizabeth on the throne?  She’d refused to admit to the knowledge or commission of any traitorous acts, her blood running cold in her veins as screams from the rack’s victims reached her.  Her questioners intended to frighten her, but her back remained straight and she kept all fear from her face until they were well and truly reminded who they questioned and withdrew.

Elizabeth kept her gaze on weaving her needle in and out of the thick material as though determined to catch the last ray of late slanting sun.  They would not see her terror or her strange humor.  When fully composed, she lifted her face to reply.  “I remind you, sir, that I am the daughter of a king and therefore a princess.  I refuse to answer to the title of Lady Elizabeth.”

Anne: Wonderful - I loved that chapter.  Thanks, Jeane for visiting the Word Wenches and sharing your fascination with Elizabeth 1. 

Thank you, Anne, for these interesting and challenging quetions and to all the Word Wenches for their wonderful work in keeping a place in which historical novel lovers feel so at home.

Jeane will be giving away two copies of HIS LAST LETTER. She asks: What is your favorite Elizabeth feature movie and why?  And what is your favorite made for TV series and why?  Which do you prefer, historical accuracy or wildly cinematic as in Elizabeth, the Golden Age?  In your opinion, which actress portrayed Elizabeth the best of all?

Hanging Out With Hope Tarr

Cara/Andrea here,

 Today I'm delighted to welcome my good friend and fellow author Hope Tarr, who has kindly consented to stop by and talk about a rather unusual occupation for a historical hero. But before I pass the Wenchly Pen to her, allow me to highlight some of her impressive accomplishments, both as a writer and a tireless advocate for our genre. As a co-founder of Lady Jane's Salon, a monthly romance reading series in New York City, Hope has helped create an amazing venue that attracts authors, editors and readers to gather for an evening of camaraderie and stories--as well as collect books and funds for women's shelters in the area.

As further backstory, Hope earned a Master’s Degree in Developmental Psychology and a Ph.D. in Education only to discover she didn’t want to teach people or analyze them. She wanted to write about them! For the past decade she has been doing just that, writing the books of her heart in both historical and contemporary settings. In addition to MY LORD JACK (July 12, 2010) and A ROGUE’S PLEASURE (August 16, 2010), both reissued with Carina Press, look for her single-title novella, Tomorrow’s Destiny, in A HARLEQUIN CHRISTMAS CAROL with Betina Krahn and Jacquie D’Alessandro this November 10, 2010. (For more details, you can visit her online at www.HopeTarr.com)

And now, without further ado, I turn the page over to Hope!

“Her hero’s a hangman!?!”

So exclaimed author, Patricia Potter when my then editor at Berkley, Cindy Hwang, first approached her to read, and hopefully provide an author quote for, my Scottish-set romance, MY LORD JACK.

Fortunately for me, Pat found the fortitude to finish the book despite its admittedly off-setting premise. In the end she pronounced MY LORD JACK “a book to feast upon.”

Whew! Talk about close calls.

MY LORD JACK went on to receive a nomination for a Dorothy Parker Award of Excellence and a stream of mostly glowing reviews.  Sadly by the time the book hit store shelves, Berkley had decided to close the “Highland Fling” Scottish line “Jack” had helped to launch. MY LORD JACK might have received reviewer praise, but he was dead before the trap door was sprung.

Flash forward eight years, ten novels, and one novella later. MY LORD JACK (Carina Press, July 12, 2010) has been given a facelift in the form of a fresh new cover and an editing overhaul—I like think I’ve learned something about craft in the past almost decade—and a second chance at wooing a whole new generation of romance readers.

As tempting as it is to focus on all the cool changes with the reissued book, I find it even more fun to focus on all the reasons I loved, and fought so very hard, to write it in the first place. Topping the list is…

Danger.

Eighteenth century Britain was a dangerous place indeed, especially if you were a Scot under English rule. The Bloody Code, cant for the English legal system from the late 17th to early 19th century, came by its name honestly. A convicted perpetrator could be executed for stealing anything worth more than five shillings—and that encompassed quite a lot. By 1815, 225 offenses, many piddling by today’s standards, were punishable by death. Crimes carrying the death penalty included destroying turnpike roads, an unwed mother concealing a stillborn child, arson, forgery, stealing from a rabbit warren, murder (not so surprising), and stealing a horse. The latter is the crime that nearly lands my French émigré heroine, Claudia Valemont, in the hangman’s noose. Happily she lands in hero, Jack Campbell’s arms instead.

Enacting harsh penalties was believed to deter crime and keep the peace. Until 1868, executions in Britain were carried out in public. Dickens was one of several men of letters who remarked scathingly on the barbarism of the practice. Legal defense was viewed as a privilege, not a right. Keeping mum when asked to answer the charge was considered an admission of guilt.

By the eighteenth century, the burnings, beheadings, and disemboweling of previous centuries had fallen largely out of favor.  In Britain certainly, hanging by the neck until dead was the preferred method.

Neck-breaking is a science, and the best executioners such as my Jack Campbell viewed themselves as craftsmen, not torturers. As such, they took great pains and pride in bringing about the optimal “drop.” That entailed calibrating not only the victim’s weight and height but also his or her body mass. A heavy body requires a shorter drop than a light one. A former form absorbs shock and drops differently than one that’s more…squishy. To get the formula as close to perfect as possible, sometimes weights were affixed to the prisoner’s legs, especially when the condemned was slight, say a woman or child.

English law forbade the execution of a pregnant woman. Not surprisingly, many female inmates bound for the gallows “pleaded their bellies” and were preyed upon by unscrupulous male gaolers and prison guards.

It wasn’t until the latter half of the Victorian era that childhood began to be seen as a distinct developmental state with a moral imperative of adult protection. Children convicted of a crime, typically theft, were routinely flogged, branded, and imprisoned (often in adult prisons) as well as hanged. Reform, dare I say progress, was slow to come. Under the Children’s Act of 1908, juveniles younger than sixteen could no longer be executed.  In 1933 the minimum age for capital punishment was raised to eighteen.

A prominent part of popular culture, public executions gave rise to a distinct vernacular, some sayings from which survive today. “Toe the line,” was originally a directive to the condemned to line the tops of his toes up to the chalk mark drawn by the hangman over the scaffold trap. Hesitating or flinching at the final moment wasn’t only a mark of cowardice. It likely meant the difference between a quick, relatively painless snapping of the vertebrae and prolonged strangulation otherwise known as “kicking up rough.”

Likewise, “leaving just enough rope to hang yourself” isn’t a meaningless figure of speech. A “drop” that was misjudged as too short could result in a convulsive death lasting anywhere from five to forty-five minutes whereas a “long drop” could result in an almost instantaneous passing or, at minimum, a dislocation of the vertebrae leading to a loss of sensation. Small surprise that hangmen often received money purses—essentially advance gratuities—from the condemned or his/her loved ones to ensure that the greatest care was taken to bring about a clean…break.

Gratuities aside, a competent hangman could make a handsome living. Scotland and the North (Lancashire and Yorkshire) tended to provide local hangmen when called for, and a locally retained man might make the modern day equivalent of 400 pounds per offing. A perk of the trade was selling off the victims’ clothing afterward.

Accompanying the science was the lore. Hanging ropes were thought to be lucky and the gallows wood to have healing properties though the modern mind wonders why. The touch of a hanged man’s hand was considered a cure for warts.

Public life in the mannered Days of Yore was heavily ritualized and hangings were no exception. Dying well was a matter of pride, and the Fleet Street press followed celebrated criminals from the prisoner’s dock to the drop, chronicling every lurid detail. Generally the condemned was led up the platform steps to the scaffold, arms pinioned. Once there, the clergyman would offer up a prayer. If a proper priest wasn’t available as might be the case in more remote area, a chaplain or beadle (minor parish official charged with preserving order at church services and sometimes civil functions) might be there in his stead to ensure all was carried out to the letter of cannon and civil law.  Especially if a gentleman, the condemned was permitted the courtesy of a few final words directed to the crowd. Afterward, the hangman or his assistant would drop a white hood over the victim’s head and place the noose about the throat. Once the victim was optimally positioned—and enjoined to stay that way—the solemn silence would be broken and the lever pulled. The trap door beneath the victim’s feet would fold, sending him hurtling.

The New Drop of 1787, the invention of Lincolnshire shoemaker and executioner William Marwood, saw the advent of an elevated platform and a collapsible trap door covered in at the sides. The latter collapses downward when a bolt is pulled by the hangman. To prevent kicking, which would throw off those aforementioned careful calibrations, the victim’s legs were pinioned as well.

The modern noose fashioned with a metal ring or “eye” was another of Marwood’s innovations.  Positioning the brass ring under the victim’s chin or at the left corner of his jaw beneath the ear throws back the head upon falling, resulting in a fracture or dislocation. A further improvement was the addition of a leather washer to keep the noose from slipping.

For even the most circumspect, the hanging trade took a heavy toll. Nightmares, drinking, and shaking hands signaled the time to take on a new living, and my hero, Jack is no exception.  Not many, perhaps not any, actual hangmen had a lovely and loving former French courtesan such as Claudia to guide them away from the Hanging Tree toward a Happily Ever After. Then again, real life being infinitely stranger than fiction, perhaps some did! (For those of you who are interested in pursuing the subject, my favorite references include Lord High Executioner. An Unashamed Look at Hangsmen; Headsman, and Their Kind by Howard Engel (1996); and The Regency Underworld by Donald A. Low (1982, 1999)

Cara/Andrea back again, and left, er, rather breathless (in a good way!) by such a fascinating glimpse of history. So now that you've read about hangmen, Hope and I were wondering . . . what other unusual or unique occupations for a hero or heroine have you read about? Hope has kindly consented to give away a signed copy of VANQUISHED, the launch her Victorian-set "Men of Roxbury House" trilogy. We'll draw a name at random from those who leave a comment here between today and Friday morning.

Ask A Wench: What inspires stories?

It's Ask-a-Wench time! We have a great question from Molly Wilsbacher:

Molly: I'm curious what inspires authors, not in the traditional sense, but how do they choose what they write about. For example, I once heard Linda Howard say that she writes to get the characters to be quiet in her head, to paraphrase. Also, how do you choose in which era to write historicals?

Patricia Rice...

I've always had an affinity for certain time periods and places, perhaps because of the literature I read while growing up.  Georgian and Regency England are always favorites, and of course, I have an extensive research background in those eras which makes it much simpler to “see” a character in those settings.

 
I also have a love for the simpler setting of post-Civil War western United States. I’d much rather write rough, tough alpha males in a setting that requires an extra dose of testosterone just for survival. Contrasting them with women in frothy petticoats…  Sigh, I miss the western historicals, but market limitations keep me from writing them now.

Anne Gracie...

 For me, ideas for stories pop up all the time and I write them down in a notebook because otherwise I'd probably forget them. But some ideas are stronger than others and refuse to wait politely in the notebook until I'm ready for them -- they keep throwing up additional ideas, and characters for that story pop up and images and scenes, and that's when I know the story really has legs. This can happen over a month or two but sometimes it's a matter of years. But not all stories are commercially viable.

For instance years ago, before I was published, I had an idea for an Australian set historical. It kept coming to me, from the opening image of a girl sitting on the back of an ox-cart churning its muddy way through the dripping Gippsland rainforest, to the hero and his problems, the heroine and her backstory. I loved that idea, but I couldn't find an editor who'd even consider an Australian set historical novel, let alone read my partial. So it went into the bottom drawer... and should have been forgotten. But over the years an image or a scene would pop up that clearly belonged to that heroine, so I kept adding to the notes, thinking one day I'd write it, just for myself. And then, when I was considering the heroine for Harry, the second hero in my devil riders series, I realized that not only would this heroine be perfect for him but with a few changes, I could even use the opening scene. So I took the story into England, set it some fifty years earlier, in the Regency era and voila! Publishable. So it's a balancing act — some stories insist on being written and nag you until you do, but they still have to be commercially viable and appeal to an editor.

As for why I write in the Regency era, I fell for Georgette Heyer's version of the regency era when I was young and impressionable and it made a huge impact, so writing stories set in that period feels very natural to me. That said, I'd love to write a few medievals one day — I have several stories that gently nag, and they wouldn't suit any other period. And I have some stories that are very much contemporaries. I could jump around and write a regency a medieval, a contemporary, as the whim took me, but I suspect I'd be risking my writing career. Editors and readers like to know what sort of story they can expect from an author, and really, it's no hardship sticking to the Regency period because I love it and my mind is constantly throwing up ideas for new Regency-era stories.

Nicola Cornick...
 
Usually an idea will grab me out of nowhere and demand to be written. I suspect that it has been fermenting away in my head unnoticed whilst I’ve been working on something else. It then tends to obsess me so that I think about it for a lot of the time until I start to write it down. It could be a character or a situation or a setting… Sometimes it will work when I scale it up into a book, sometimes not. Sometimes it will be saleable, sometimes not!
 
I don’t consciously remember choosing which era I was going to write in. It’s odd in a way for me to write the Regency period because I’ve never studied it. My history degree finished at 1750. I love the Tudor and Stuart eras and could see myself writing books set in those periods but the Regency has a sparkle and an appeal that is all its own.

Jo Beverley...

I think we all write to flow through what's in our heads, but if we're lucky the stories there have some connection to what publishers are keen to pay for. I've had a few occasions when that was marginal, plus others that proved unsaleable. But I don't regret writing any of them.

Eras is an interesting one, as some appeal to me and others don't. I know quite a lot about the Tudor period, and did a part of my history degree on the reign of Queen Anne, but stories from those periods never come to me. They are only of academic interest.The Regency has always interested me, but the Georgian has always fascinated me and I was carried into the 1760s willy-nilly even though the market at the time didn't exist.

Past lives? Who knows?

Mary Jo Putney ...

At any given moment, a bunch of ideas are percolating in my lizard brain, and the next one I write is either the one that is most "done," or

 the one that best suits whatever series I'm currently writing.  With luck,  the two coincide. <G>  Sometimes an idea comes out of left field that is so exciting that I want to do it RIGHT NOW.  When that happens--the idea is invariably more complicated than anticipated!
 
As for the era--no brainer.  I have a degree in 18th century British literature because I loved the language and wit so much.  Discovered Georgette Heyer in college. (Stripped copies that sold for a nickel each, but I didn't know better, alas.)  It was a perfect fit.  Drama, romance, war, love, comfortable clothes!  The only times I've ever left the period was when a different time fit the story better.
 
My first Heyer was SYLVESTER: OR, THE WICKED UNCLE.  (All true Regency cultists can tell you the title of their first Heyer. <G>)

Joanna Bourne...

Where does the writing come from?

For me, the female protagonist shapes the story.  She's the seed of imagination.  I ask myself, Who is she?  How will she change?  What does she desperately need?
(Generally she needs something the hero can help her find.)
I lie on the edge of sleep and dream of the heroine becoming.  

As to the era --

Okay, call me shallow.  I write Regency because of the clothing.  I love the soft, easy, comfortable clothing of the 1780 to 1830 period.  Comfortable to wear, beautiful to look at, essentially democratic.
Easy to get the heroine out of, too, which is me doing a favor to the heroes. 

Cara Elliott/Andrea Pickens...

Often, it’s the oddest little snippet that takes force and demands a story. One of my earlier Signet Regencies was inspired by a single sentence in a history book about an aristocratic marriage where the bride and groom were twelve and had never met before. Immediately after the ceremony, they were separated and returned to live with their families until they were “old enough” to live together. That got me thinking of what intriguing possibilities could result from that scenario . . .
There have also been times when a rare book or some other object at a museum exhibition suddenly took on a life of its own in my imagination. So I guess that for me, it’s those serendipitous moments—those unexpected flights of fancy— that are at the heart of my story ideas. I love that  “Ahah!” moment, and the fact that I never know when they are going to happen.

As for what historical era to write in, that’s a less spontaneous decision. I’ve loved the Regency era for a long time and so have spent years learning about its people, customs, and history.  I wouldn’t attempt to write an Elizabethan story because I know virtually nothing about the era, and thus feel I couldn’t create a compelling world. Thatt said, I’ve become fascinated by the Edwardian rea, and am now doing a lot a background reading on it so that some time in the future I might attempt a story set during that time.

Susan Fraser King...

Sometimes a character pops up and won't be quiet until he or she gets a story. Sometimes it's a setting--I've visited places that have stirred up so many ideas that I had to start writing them down, though it could even be just a photo or an article about a certain place. Sometimes it's reading a bit of history that intrigues and fascinates me so that ideas immediately start to bubble. I keep files and notebooks of ideas, as it's not always possible to jump right into a story when the inspiration is new. 

My grad school training concentrated on medieval through baroque, so I gravitated there for my first historical romances, then went on to write several set in Jacobite, Regency and Victorian Scotland. For the mainstream historicals, I returned to my academic medieval roots to write about two women--Lady Macbeth and Queen Margaret of Scotland -- who were totally fascinating and different within their times. I tend toward Scottish settings out of sheer love and an accumulated knowledge base. There are so many stories to write about in Scotland -- and everywhere!

Thanks for a fun question, Molly! And congratulations--you win a signed copy of one of my books! (If anyone else has a question for Ask-a-Wench, please email us--if your question is chosen for answering, you'll win a signed copy of a Wench book!)

Susan

Guests Hope Tarr & Jeane Westin

We have a great line-up this coming week!  On Wednesday, 8/18, Cara/Andrea will interview HOPE TARR.  Hope writes historical romances for Harlequin Blaze, Carina Press, and Medallion.

On Friday, 8/20, Anne interviews returning Honorary Word Wench, JEANE WESTIN.  Jeane will be talking about her book, His Last Letter: Elizabeth I and the Earl of Leicester.

We've updated the Announcements sidebar on the right, so check it out to see who our upcoming guests are for the next several months.  And don't forget:  the middle of each month we host Ask-a-Wench, a monthly blog where we choose a question submitted by our readers, and use it as the topic for the blog.  (If you'd like to submit a question for the Wenches, send it to Sherrie in an e-mail and put Blog Topic Suggestion in the subject line.)

Regency Bling

Hi.  Joanna here.

The Regency gentleman's code might be summed up as, "no perfumes, exquisitely fine linen and plenty of it, country washing . . ."
and bling. 

I went in search of Regency bling, hoping for a gold ring in the ear of at least some Regency fops. 
Alas, not so much. 

The robust and adventurous Tudors wore earrings.  The courtier Buckingham sported major rubies.  That man of action, Sir Walter Raleigh, a gold hoop.  A half century later, Charles I wore a great pearl in his ear when he mounted the block to face the axe. 
By the Eighteenth Century, however, earrings had become the province of buccaneers, exotic foreigners, and the most foppish of macaronis.   

Still, we have this 1790 print of the Duc d'Orléans wearing an earring.  Not long afterward, of course, he, too, got his head chopped off. 

Perhaps Regency gentlemen recognized a trend.

And here's Joachim Murat, complete with a manly gold earring.  He was Marshall of France under Napoleon.

He was executed by firing squad.  His last words are reported to have been,
« Soldats ! Faites votre devoir ! Droit au cœur mais épargnez le visage. Feu ! »
("Soldiers! Do your duty! Straight to the heart but avoid the face. Fire!")
Really, the French have all the good lines.

I'd hoped to bag some cravat pins on my bling hunt.  Maybe sparkly diamond ones. 
"Ohhhh," said I.  "Shiny."
But again . . . not so much.     

A cravat pin is a metal needle, about 8 cm long, (3 inches), with a decorative   finial on top.  It pierces the fabric of the cravat and sits there at the base of the neck, being decorative. 
This works better in some neckcloths than in others.  A Frenchman of the Old Regime or an English gentleman dressing for the Court of St. James might nestle a diamond stickpin into the lace at his throat.  Sherlock's Dr. Watson probably tacked down his ascot tie with something regimental in the way of a stickpin.

I don't see many cravat pins in Regency portraits.  Common sense argues that a stickpin would not be happy jabbed through those intricate, stiffly starched Regency cravats. 

So . . . not so many cravat pins in the era. 

At least we have jeweled studs.  They travel in pairs.  Like this. 

Now, they did not use studs up and down the front of the shirt or at the collar.  There were darned few buttons on the shirt at all.  Mostly they had a couple quiet, shy ones that peeked out at the sleeves. 

Like this.

The fancy buttons slipped into buttonholes at the cuff, which is now lace-free --  doubtless a relief to anyone who actually did anything with his hands. 

They possess a fugitive charm, these linked, jeweled buttons.  They're not  going to show much.  A glimpse of gold now and then.  A flash of sapphire.

And speaking of buttons . . .  May I rant briefly? 

Regency shirts did not open all the way down the front with a line of buttons.  Regency heroes, be they ever so stalwart or inflamed by passion, cannot tear their shirt off their manly chest like they're opening an oyster.  They have to pull it off over their heads.
That's the way it is.

Back to bling.

So, where did the Regency gentleman cut loose, sartorially speaking?
Rings, watches and fobs.  I turn my attention to them.

Regency men can't compete with the Tudors in terms of man-rings.  Elizabethan portraits click and clank with finger jewels.  Regency hands look undressed by comparison. 

But there's still a flock of Regency rings.

It's generally just the one ring.  It can be on either hand, on any finger.  Some are plain gold, though there's no indication these were wedding rings.  A few rings hold small, discreet jewels. 

By far the most common sort of ring is the signet ring. 

A signet ring is a seal.  What a signet ring does -- what any kind of seal does -- is stamp an image on some soft material that then dries to preserve the imprint.  Seals have been around since iron was the new cutting-edge technology in Babylon. 

The seal is signature and authentication and anti-counterfeit security feature all in one.  A seal says, "I was here," or "This is mine," or "He speaks in my name," or simply, "Be impressed.  Be very impressed."

Naturally, your Regency gentlemen wore one. 

The design of this signet ring would be cast in gold or cut into a semiprecious stone.  It might be an old family crest -- this was a good way for the gentleman to show the world he has an old family -- or the design might be a tad bit more recent and inventive. 
The signet ring is swank.  It's bragging, in an understated way.

But it's useful.  That signet ring gets pressed into the blob of hot wax that closes up a letter and makes it private.  We use glue.  They used a wax seal.  Same principle, but I think messing with wax  would be more fun. 

The gentleman would likely have a seal in his desk drawer.  
This would be a substantial object. It might even be a thing of beauty   

  "A guinea under seal" -- remember all those Regency schoolboys who got one from their favorite uncle? -- would be a gold guinea, set on the closure of the letter with hot wax dripped over it, to hide it.  The seal would be that signet ring pressed on top. 

I wonder though . . .   A gold guinea under George III was 24 mm in diameter -- almost exactly the size of a US quarter.  Jane Austen, in Mansfield Park, speaks of sending "a half guinea under the seal."  At 20 mm, about the size of a US penny.  That sounds more doable.

The signet ring held its design in reverse.  A negative image, if you will.  See how it's done?  You wouldn't necessarily appreciate the artwork or recognize the  design of that ring till you looked at the wax imprint. 

 

The Phantom's ring, on the other hand, is a positive image that would leave a negative, and permanent, dent in the villain he slugged.  With all this comic book goodness for the taking, why do we not see more signet rings leaving their imprint on the jaws of Regency villains?

 

Which brings us to the fob.

We talk about fobbing somebody off.  It is not immediately obvious how this is related to watch fobs.

The word fob comes to us from two, possibly unrelated sources.  Going back to 1600 the word means a cheat or trick.  To fob somebody off is to attempt to pass off deceit or hand over inferior product.  Not long afterwards, fob came to mean a small pocket sewed into the breeches for carrying a watch or money or valuables.  Maybe it was considered a deceitful pocket?  Maybe that's why they called it a fob.

In any case, this same pocket -- this fob in the waistband -- is there for our Regency gentleman to put his watch in.  On this right side, generally. 

Watches were a big deal.  Not just beautiful.  
Not just expensive.  

Not just  useful for telling the time -- it's never just about telling the time, is it?  

They were there for the joy  of displaying them.
And aren't they beautiful objects?

What happens next is an example of the eons-long struggle between clothing designers who are righteously bound and determined that they will not put useful pockets into any sort of clothing and the ordinary bloke who has to -- you  guessed it -- put stuff into those bitty little pockets.  Watch pockets were large enough to hold your fingers up to about the second joint, or a watch, but were not large enough to hold fingers and a     watch.  So you couldn't reach in and extract said watch. 

Dealing with this idiocy in a typically pragmatic fashion, folks attached a chain or a ribbon to the watch and used that to pull the watch out of the fob pocket.  
They tucked the watch in the pocket and let the chain or ribbon hang out in the breeze where it was useful to pickpockets.  Then they hung stuff on the chain, giving in to what seems to be an irresistible temptation to humankind.  

Words creep around.  Fob started out meaning the pocket, began to mean the ribbon or chain that hung out of the pocket, and eventually fob meant the ornaments hanging on the end of the fob ribbon. 

What ornaments?  Oh, there's a long list of them.  Jewels, keys for winding the watch, (so practical,) pretty silver and gold charms, tassels.  And seals.  That's what hangs on the end of the fob chain or ribbon very commonly.  A seal.  Like signet rings, the dangling fob seal says, "This is who I am.  This is my coat of arms.  I write important letters at the drop of a hat.  I have a seal and I'm not afraid to use it."  

 
 
Some of these fob ribbons are six, seven, eight, nine inches long.  Nine inches.  The longer ones must have slapped and twirled and jingled when the fops walked.  (Fop, in case you were wondering, is not related to the word fob.  It's a century older in the English language and comes from a Latin word for fool.) 

When I look at pictures of these elaborate multi-fobs, I'm reminded of the  chatelaine --  that useful object the lady of the house wore at her waist.  Here's one.  You can see how it hooked over the waistband.  This plethora of fobs the menfolk started toting around is a bit like that, but without the utility value.

One more interesting fob fact.  A couple decades before the Regency,  fashionable gentlemen decided that if one watch was good, two would be twice as good.
They started wearing two watches and two sets of fobs.  (Maybe so they'd stop listing to one side?) 

Women took this up, doubtless as tit for tat, since men had swiped the chatelaine. 

For a few years all the ton, men and  women alike, were carrying double.

It's not amazing the American and French Revolutions broke out almost immediately.  The habit of carrying two watches -- how often would they agree? -- left everybody with a profound distrust of authority.

(stick pins and both gold watches are from The Met here; Chatelaine, Wedgewood fob, gold signet ring with bird, sleeve links, watch with chain and fobs, and watch chain with fobs are from the Victoria and Albert Museum here ; Phantom comic and ring are from wikipedia under cc attrib; casting of a watch fob is from the Museum of London here ; Georgian citrine seal is from Lang's Antiques here.)   

So . . . what's your favorite masculine bling, either 'in real life' or for your fictional hero?  And why?

One poster will be chosen at random from the comment trail to win a copy of Forbidden Rose, or a copy of the Trade Paperback of Spymaster's Lady.  Your choice.

Travel Porn

by Mary Jo

Hi, there! Ordinarily, this would be Anne Gracie’s day to post, but she’s driving from Melbourne to Sydney to attend the annual conference of the Romance Writers of Australia, so we swapped. 

Knowing her destination made me start to think about my own visit to RWAust last year.  I was so excited about speaking at that conference and the New Zealand conference that I could hardly stand it!  I was squeaking and drumming my heels—and I had months to plan the trip.  Which brings me to the subject of travel porn.  <g>

If you’re a regular visitor to Word Wenches, you’ve probably noticed that we all love to travel, and we often write about our trips.  It’s not surprising that we’re all traveling fools—I suspect that a passion for exploring wonderful new places is an aspect of the curiosity that is so much a part of a writer’s nature.  (We’re like cats, without the whiskers. <g>)

So we travel when we can—and the planning is half the fun.  Before going Down Under last year, I spent huge amounts of time (when I should have been writing <G>)
planning where to go and what to do with the six days of vacation before the conference.  Ditto for New Zealand, where the time would be split into two chunks of three days each. (Picture above is the bungalow we stayed in on Green Island, which is part of Australia's Great Barrier Reef.)

Where do you start when you have a whole continent or a whole nation to choose from?  With the internet, of course! 

The internet is the most amazing travel aid ever invented.  You can look for fabulous, unusual places to stay.  Discover attractions you never heard about.  Connect with people who know the area and can offer useful advice.  Bookmark sites so you can go there and gaze longingly at the place while you impatiently wait for the journey to begin.  (The picture above I took in Portugal.)

I’m illustrating this blog with pictures of various places I’ve discovered on the internet.  I also, by coincidence, read this extremely interesting article in the New York Times called “But will it make you happy?”

The premise of the article is that buying Stuff isn’t likely to make you happy for very long--the buzz of new possessions wears off quickly. 

Rather, most people are happier when they spend money on experiences instead of Stuff.  As the article says, “It’s better to go on a vacation than buy a new couch.”

I loved this paragraph, which relates to travel:  “One reason that paying for experiences gives us longer-lasting happiness is that we can reminisce about them, researchers say. That’s true for even the most middling of experiences. That trip to Rome during which you waited in endless lines, broke your camera and argued with your spouse will typically be airbrushed with “rosy recollection,” says Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychology professor at the University of California, Riverside.”

It also turns out that anticipation increases happiness.  There may be mad fun in deciding to make a trip at the last minute and going flying off.  But it’s even more fun to wait, to work, to plan.  That adds anticipation and value.  (Though you can enjoy the reminiscences either way, of course.)

So that’s the premise, and it works for me.   We always have a trip (or more) in the planning stages.  The trips don’t have to be weeks’ long visits to exotic destinations—they can also be overnighters to a B&B within driving distance.

Still, the exotic destinations are great.  When I was invited to be a guest at a romance event in Rome at the end of October, and it turned out I could go because we’re ending an Eastern Mediterranean cruise in Athens just three days before, I started doing a wild Snoopy dance.  Where to stay—a hotel, an apartment, a B&B?  What to see when the whole of the Eternal City is there for the taking? 

The trip is still under construction, but I’m having a wonderful time.  And even if there are parts that don’t work out quite as well as hoped, I know I’ll have lots of fond memories.

What about you? What travel porn stimulates your imagination?  Have you had wonderful planning experiences?  Where are you thinking about going, even if you can’t set a date yet? 

And do all those things make you happy?  I hope so!

Mary Jo

Living in a Chocolate Box!

Nicola here, looking out of my study window on a sunny summer day. I am lucky enough to live in a cottage in a village in the English countryside. There is a cherry tree on the village green outside, roses around the door (or there will be when my rose bush grows big enough) and a duckpond down the road. At the moment the fields around us are full of combine harvesters. It feels oddly like being surrounded by a beseiging army!

Mean Habitations

Two hundred years ago, of course, we would all have been out working in those fields rather than watching someone else bring in the harvest. This village and a half dozen others around here were "tied" villages, belonging to the local Craven estate and populated entirely by their estate workers and servants. The cottages were pretty basic, one room up, one down, and a shared privy out at the back. They were not built to last and they certainly weren't built to be gentrified as all the chocolate box thatched cottages in this village have been. Originally they were, not to put too fine a point on it, hovels or "sad little hutts" as the traveller Celia Fiennes commented on her travels in the 1690s. In his dictionary Dr Johnson defined a cottage as a "mean habitation."

An inventory of the possessions of the cottage-owners at the time of their death is revealing of their poverty. Furniture was sparse; in the "hall" - the kitchen/living and dining room - there would be some coppers for cooking, a table, a couple of benches, a stool, one armchair and a chest or two. Upstairs in the "chamber" would be a bed with a flock mattress to fall into after you had exhausted yourself working in the fields. Those who were not simply labourers but had a trade might own a feather bed, some linen, pewter plates to eat off and a leather bottle or two.

Model Villages

Not all villages grew up with cottages of different ages higgledy-piggledy like mine. By the eighteenth century landowners who wanted to extend their landscape parks might uproot entire communities and demolish the cottages that spoiled their view. The most famous case was at Nuneham Courtenay in Oxfordshire where Lord Harcourt wanted a new Palladian villa built. The site was chosen to make full use of views across to the dreaming spires of Oxford. Unfortunately the village of Nuneham was in the way so Lord Harcourt had it demolished and rebuilt out of sight of the house, along the London Road.  It took the form of two parallel rows of cottages of brick and timber with two rooms on the ground floor and dormer windows lighting two rooms on an upper floor. In 1788 the Rev. Stebbing Shaw describes Lord Harcourt's gesture thus: "forty families may here, by the liberal assistance of his lordship, enjoy the comforts of industry under a wholesome roof who otherwise might have been doomed to linger out their days in the filthy hut of poverty." The writer Oliver Goldsmith, in contrast, referred to Lord Harcourt as "the man of wealth and pride" taking the villagers homes for his own selfish purposes.

The most beautiful "model village" that I have seen is Blaise Hamlet near Bristol. It is so ridiculously pretty that it looks like a cottage theme park. This was created in 1810 by John Scandrett Harford for the benefit of his family retainers. Nine thatched stone cottages were built around a green in a woodland setting, with a village pump and a sundial. The privy had a sloping roof so that it was both convenient and pretty, and all the cottages had differently patterned moulded brick chimneys to add to the picturesque effect. The houses were all given picturesque names too: Vine, Diamond, Dial, Sweet Briar, Oak, Circular, Jessamine, Rose and Double. Each porch was designed so that the door was not overlooked by another cottage although in her book on Regency gardens Mavis Batey comments that privacy was shortlived since this model of the picturesque village appeared in every guidebook from 1810 onwards.

Internally the cottages were quite simple, two chambers above and a sitting room, kitchen and pantry downstairs. A note in the estate papers shows thar Harford was conscious of the expense of building his servants such elegant quarters for it stipulates that the gardener must: "find out the smallest sized coppers and ovens that would be sufficient for the sort of people who are to live in the cottages." In building Blaise Hamlet Harford was fulfilling his sense of social responsibility. He saw it as his duty to improve the living conditions of his tenants - as long as it didn't cost too much and the properties were not too grand for their social status!

The Gentleman's Cottage

At the end of the eighteenth century cottages were no longer only for labourers and estate workers. In Persuasion Jane Austen writes of a farmhouse in the village of Uppercross that has been elevated to the status of cottage by the addition of a veranda and pretty windows. Robert Ferrers in Sense and Sensibility declares: "I am exceedingly fond of a cottage. There is always so much comfort, so much elegance about them." He was not talking about the sort of cottage that a farm worker would live in. The idea of the cottage that grew out of the picturesque and the Romantic Movement was a little country retreat fit for a gentleman.

In 1802 in Designs for Villas the architect James Malton suggested that a gentleman should have several such villas in several distinct neighbourhoods - a hunting box at one place, a shooting box in another, a cottage for the amusement of angling and a dwelling on the sea shore to give "marine advantages." Such houses would have stabling and outbuildings and be reasonably substantial. Inside there would certainly be sufficient room for card tables and supper parties, and the garden, unlike the cottage gardens of those lower down the social scale, would not be full of barrels, ladders and other equipment that a labourer needed. There would be roses around the door, a rustic arbour, an orchard, a pond, maybe even fish, ducks and geese but these would all be kept for display and design, not to eat!

The Craven family themselves illustrated this idea very well. They had their hunting lodge (Ashdown House) and whilst their farm and estate workers were living in "real" cottages they also had Craven Cottage on the River Thames, surrounded by woodland and incorporating part of Anne Boleyn's hunting ground. Craven Cottage was about as far removed from the mean habitations of their workers as it was possible to be. It contained only three rooms, but those were extremely elaborate. The 'principal saloon' was Egyptian 'supported by large palm-trees of considerable size, exceedingly well executed, with their drooping foliage at the top supporting the cornice and architraves of the room...The furniture comprised a lion's skin for a hearth-rug, for a sofa the back of a tiger, the supports of the tables in most instances were four twisted serpents or hydras' . The room gave into a large Gothic dining room, while the third room was a semicircular library.

Meanwhile this is a description of a "real" country cottage from the Morning Chronicle 1849: "The room which you enter is so dark that for a time you can with difficulty discern the objects which it contains... At one corner stands a small ricketty table, whilst scattered about are three old chairs - one without a back - and a stool or two... The bedroom is gained by means of a few greasy steps... The whole room is begrimed with smoke and dust and replete with vermin... The beds are large sacks filled with the chaff of oats." The name of "cottage" might have been the same but the experience of living in one decidedly was not.

Would you have enjoyed living in a Regency "gentleman's cottage"? Would you have had your cottage built in a wood or on the seashore, and what sort of decoration would you have liked? I think I might have given the lion rug and tiger sofa a miss...

Jane Austen's Ghoulish sisters

Hi, here's Jo, just back from a few days up north of here -- Holy Island/Lindisfarne, Bamburgh Castle, and the Farne Islands (seals and birds, including puffins.) That on top of a month away in North America, plus Delta losing my luggage again (they lost it on the way out, too) leaves me without the energy to blog about that now.

Here's a picture of Bamburgh, however. The original castle goes back to, I think, the 8th century but the present stucture was heavily restored in the 18th century and then again in the early 20th, but it's nice to see a castle in good shape for a change.

 

So I've picked a post from Minepast from 2005. Minepast is my blog of odd historical stuff. I only post there when I come across something, usually when researching. This piece does indicate that the current fashion for Jane Austen and zombies, vampires, and other monsters wouldn't have surprised her much. Do you like the calm, pastoral vision of the early 18th century, or would you prefer the darker, more tumultuous one? Which do you think was real? If such a question has meaning.

Here we go with the original article, which I haven't been able to resist fiddling with..

E-mail address:

 

 

I admire Jane Austen and her works, but she does create in the modern mind an image of an early 19th century England full of sense and decorum. This even with sensibility contrasted with sense and Lydia in Pride and Prejudice to demonstrate how wild young ladies could be, not to mention the outrageous behaviour of many real people of the time.

Of course, in Northanger Abbey she spoofed the "horrid" novels of her time, but that proves she read the novels, and we shouldn't forget just how popular they were, and the height of their popularity was the early 19th century. 

In 1796 Matthew Lewis produced The Monk, which perhaps started the craze, though there were other such books at about the same time. Possibly the French Revolution stirred the imagination in a dark direction, which does make one wonder about the recent popularity of dark fantasy. Echoes of 9/11 and years of war, perhaps. Though I haven't studied the subject, the popularity doesn't seem to have strongly spread beyond North America.

1798 we have The Two Emilys. An innocuous enough title, but.... "In The Two Emilys, masquerade, an earthquake, bigamy, insanity, blackmail, and duels serve the demonic Emily Fitzallen in her drive for revenge on her counterpart and the novel's heroine. Emily Arden, and the man over whom they do battle, the Marquis of Lenox. Will the good Emily or the evil one prevail? Featuring a wild, improbable plot and action that ranges from Ireland and Scotland to Switzerland and Italy, The Two Emilys remains an unpredictable and thrilling Gothic tale." 

That description and cover is from Valancourt Books, which reissues many of these yummy titles. That's their cover.

Yes, people of all kinds were eagerly gobbling up gothic novels. Foreign settings perhaps made the extreme believable. Even today, readers seem to prefer their dark dominant heroes from Greece and Sicily rather than from Chelsea or Birmingham.

Thus we have Koenigsmark the Robber; or, the Terror ofBohemia: In Which Is Included, the Affecting History of Rosenberg and Adelaide. Also The Cavern of Horrors; or, Miseries of Miranda: A Neapolitan Tale, and The Cavern of Death, which apparently was a real bestseller but is mostly a male adventure novel.

Included in foreign was Catholicism with monks, nuns, and convents, always fertile ground for the Protestant imagination. The Bleeding Nun of the Castle of Lindenberg. The Convent of St. Michael or the Unfortunate Emilia. Father Innocent, Abbot of the Capuchins; or the Crimes of Cloisters. The Midnight Assassin: Or, Confession of the Monk Rinaldi; Containing a Complete History of His Diabolical Machinations and Unparalleled Ferocity

(I rather like the alternate title system. Perhaps we could start using it again. Let's see....The Secret Duke, or Bella and the Wicked Captain. An Unlikely Countess, or The Perils of Prudence. Here's a sneak peek at the cover, even before the text is added. It's lovely, isn't it? The book will be out next March.)

Then there are the novels about sex. Yes, Dear Reader, the Regency miss did have a bit of a clue about sex, though perhaps a hair-raising one if these were her only source. Conscience; or, the Bridal Night: A Tragedy, in Five Acts. (The curious mind wonders which five acts.....*G*)The Southern Tower; or, Conjugal Sacrifice and Retribution

The editor of Valancourt Books seems to favor the male adventure over the female, but this one seems promising. The Mysterious Hand; or, Subterranean Horrours! "

"The Mysterious Hand; or, Subterranean Horrours! (1811) is the story of two young lovers, Theodore Dalbert and Julia Bolton, and their attempts to escape the machinations of the diabolical Count Egfryd. Egfryd, one of the most remarkable villains in Gothic literature, is a gifted athlete, poet, and inventor, brilliant, handsome, charming - and ruthless. Angered at Theodore's negative review of the his book of poems and enamoured of Julia, Egfryd will stop at nothing to destroy his rival and possess the lovely maiden.

Egfryd's wild and improbable schemes include framing Theodore for murder, attempting to rape Julia in a hot air balloon, and finally imprisoning them both on a remote island rigged with gunpowder to blow them both to bits should they attempt to escape. Can the two lovers avoid the snares of the wily Count or will they fall victim to his inveterate malice?"

The main publisher of the female gothics was the Minerva Press, which I featured in my first published book, Lord Wraybourne's Betrothed.My novella, Forbidden Affections, which has been in a couple of collections, is all about Gothic novels. Valancourt Books has published some new editionsof Minerva press books..

If you're hooked, the Valancourt edition is easily available.

Have you read any early 19th century gothics? What did you think of them?

Cheers,

Jo

Done, Done, Done For!

by Mary Jo

Two weeks ago, I finished The Book That Would Not End, aka Nowhere Near Respectable, aka Lost Lords 3 (scheduled for May 2011 and featuring Mackenzie, if you were wondering.)

We’ve all experienced huge, life consuming projects, from studying for final exams to writing a PhD dissertation to getting the house perfect for the first visit of the new in-laws.  Finishing a book has its own particular crazies, so I thought I’d list some of them. A few of these may be peculiar to me, others include many, perhaps even most, other writers:

Process, Part 1:

    **There are some writers who work consistently through a book, finishing long enough before deadline to let it sit and mulch a bit before final read through and submission.  We don’t talk about creatures like them. <g>

**Many, perhaps most, writers perform best when deadlines are lethally close.  I think this kicks the mental editor to the curb and allows us to finish a book running on sheer screaming adrenaline.  Unfortunately, it seems that the longer one writes, the closer one has to get to the deadline in order to panic the muse into real productivity. 

The Muse and other madness:

**In my experience, most writers are hardwired for their creative process. We may be able to do minor modifications, but we are largely stuck with the one we’re born with, whether it’s slow and meticulous or ricocheting rewrites.  (I knew one writer of Loveswepts who had a great and exciting day job, but once or twice a year, she'd barricade herself in her house and write like a madwoman for two or three weeks, living off of pizza deliveries and letting her hygiene slip.  Wrote great books, too.) 

**Corollary: whatever creative process you’re born with, you will be convinced that everyone you know has a better, less painful process.

**The first part of a book generally goes more slowly because there are so many decisions to be made about the setting and the characters.  What year are you? Where is the story set?  If you’re in London, where is the house located?  What season of the year is it, and how does that affect the story?  Are there servants, and if so, are they invisible wallpaper, or do they have distinct personalities and stories of their own?  (Like Wharf, Adam’s valet in Loving a Lost Lord. He was not planned.  But it was nice when he showed up.) 

**Whose story is this?  Which of the protagonists changes more and needs to have a larger share of the POV?  It isn’t always the person you think it will be.  Though the book I just completed was inspired by the roguish charm of the hero, I ended up spending more time in the pov of the energetic, confident young heroine who found herself discovering unexpected new worlds. 

**For me, there are long spells of time when the story just sort of lies there like a wet rag.  I look at it, it looks at me.  We limp along.  1000 words a day is a very good day, seldom achieved. 

Then deadline panic sets in somewhere around the middle of the book.  A lot of the story decisions have been made, the approximate path to the end is visible, and I HAVE TO GET THIS FREAKING BOOK DONE BEFORE MY EDITOR BLOCKS MY E-MAIL AND MY CAREER IS OVER!!!!!!!!  The last day of NNR, I wrote over 4000 words.  Would that I could do that all the time! 

Editors:

**That said, I’ve had a lot of terrific editors in my career, and most of them understand how to work with the volatile and often neurotic beasts known as authors.  As my first editor, Hilary Ross, once told me, she could insist on the exact deadline and probably get a book that was okay. Or, if the author needed a little more time, give the author the extra time and get a better book.  (Hilary is the editor who said with rapier accuracy that I “always delivered in a timely fashion, in a latish sort of way.” <g>  Still true!)

The Overfilled Brain:

**During the early part of a book, when there’s not much creative flow, it’s easy to catch up on other things that need doing.  Get new glasses, visit the dentist, go away for the weekend.  Then the terror switch flips and everything except The Book is jettisoned. 

**You want to sleep a little late in the morning because a cat has come and curled up beside you, purring?  No can do, The Book is waiting.

**You want to get a good night’s sleep so you can work better the next day, but you can’t because The !#$%&* Book has taken over your mind and is filling your thoughts and dreams ALL THE TIME. 

**You want to try an interesting new recipe that a friend sent you?  File it until after The Book is done.

**Want to have lunch? Forget it unless your friend is willing to come to your house and have soup, then be thrown out as soon as the coffee is finished.

**Speaking of the soup, during the final crash of The Book, I live out of myr freezer.  An appliance that is usually packed gradually develops echoing caverns of emptiness.  I like making huge quantities of soup and freezing in quart (three servings) containers. 

When finishing The Book, I pull them out for lunch and sometimes dinner.  The major thought involved is remembering to thaw different varieties, so Portuguese potato kale is followed by cockaleekie is followed by lentil tomato, etc.  There is also the prepared food section of my local grocery story.

**When I ride in my car, I no longer listen to NPR because there is no room in my head for other people's words.  Music is good, though.  As long as it doesn't have words.  <G>

Process, Part 2:

**At least once toward the end of every book, I sit down with a yellow lined tablet (letter size) and a blue Flair pen. (Ritual is very important in these matters.)  Then I list the events that have to happen before the end of the book, and I work out what sequence  they’ll have to follow.  This is the essence of plotting: hunting through all the squishy, amorphous possibilities, then hammering them into a sturdy structure.

**Plotting was my problem with NNR.  No problem with the characters—they were vivid and well-defined from the beginning.  The early events in the book were also clear and dramatic. 

Plotting: aka Falling Off The Cliff:

Then the story careened over a cliff.  My synopsis had been pretty much a matter of “And then they go to Bath and Stuff Happens.”  Except that when I hit that point, I realized that Bath was boring and the story as currently structured didn’t have the hero and heroine together enough.  I.e, it wasn’t going to work. I was doomed!!!

So I had to figure out something that would work, and it was a slow process.  Rather like carving granite with a butter knife.  There were long spells when I wasn’t sure how or even if I’d make it to the end.  When I finally stumbled over the finish line, I realized that, amazingly, The Book actually worked. 

**Conclusion: Even though your basic process may be hard wired in, each particular book offers a whole new way to make you nuts. 

**Conclusion 2: When a brain has been so thoroughly rode hard and put away wet, it does NOT want to immediately dive into another book with a killer deadline.  (Do not tell my YA editor how I know this...)

So how does your brain handle crazed deadlines?  What kind of projects have sent you careening in circles, fearing a crash and burn—and yet, miraculously, working out at the end? As the theater manager said in Shakespeare in Love when he talks about how a play comes together: “It’s a mystery.”

Explain how you navigate the creative maze!

Mary Jo, adding that she knows this is actually a labyrinth, not a maze.

CHARACTERS AND REALITY

Pat here:

I’m not entirely certain how the rest of the wenches find time to research and write their edifying blogs on fascinating subjects. When it comes my turn to blog, I’m usually musing on something much more pragmatic—like whether it’s better to leave off my glasses while doing housework.  I used to scrub the house every weekend, but now that I wear glasses, I don’t notice the grime on the kitchen cabinets or the dust on the TV so there’s not as much to clean. It’s a miracle!

But it’s these little bits of reality that eventually get woven into the characters I write.  I make no pretense about it—I’m a character-driven writer.  Fitz (WICKED WYCKERLY) was chasing a six-year old shouting catchfart long before I researched the inns on the road to Brighton.  Blake (DEVILISH MONTAGUE) has been dueling in my head and Jocelyn stealing parrots before I knew where Wellington was in his battle against Napoleon that year. The characters and story almost always come before my research.

That doesn’t mean I don’t research at all. If I am to have a character using a pen, I will most certainly determine the date and origin of the first inkpen—and that’s no simple matter since a fountain pen was designed in 1702, an American pen patent was filed in 1809, and a British one that was half quill in 1819, but it wasn’t until 1884 that Waterman produced a truly practical fountain pen.  While researching pens I might fall fascinated into quills and have a character produce odes to left wing feathers for their proper curve and crow feathers for their fine lines, cursing that the quills only last a week’s time. 

BUT, and I fear this is a very large exception—I will become so enamored of my character saying something like gobsmacked that it will never occur to me to check the origin of that word. Inventions, yes, words, no. Once upon a time I had copy editors familiar with Regency terms who might catch my idiosyncratic straying, but now copy editors rarely recognize when I turn a contemporary phrase into Regency language. I have no idea if Regency people ever used the phrase stubble it, (although I suspect Heyer did) but it works nicely when I really want to say stuff it. Nary an eyebrow has been raised over term or phrase.

I suspect part of my irrational use of both historical and contemporary language is generated because too many editors have questioned the real language of the period. Most Americans can’t pronounce marquess correctly, and editors have fits over gaol. If I give them sapscull, they’ll just change the spelling, so I do it for them.

But if I madly combine the real and the unreal, does it confuse the reader? Do you enjoy odes to quills or would you prefer that the heroine call the hero a sapskull and get on with the story?  And what character traits would you like to see portrayed in your favorite romance? Is near-sighted not romantic?

Dougie MacLean, HWW!

It's our honored tradition here at Word Wenches to thank our guests with a virtual gift (because we don't have a budget for guest gifts, and we can give waaaay better gifts virtually) -- and by declaring them Honorary Word Wenches or HWWs (Honorary Word Wizards for guys who may feel hinky about being called Honorary Wenches...).

For Dougie MacLean, taking into account his interests in history and archaeology, we've chosen this virtual Scottish castle ruin: Baltersan Castle in SW Ayrshire, a ruined 16th century tower house currently for sale -- much in need of restoration, it would be fun for a historian and archaeologist to own! Given the fascinating history of the place, we figure that Dougie (as Laird of Baltersan) could write some great songs here.

Finally, the perfect complement for the perfect castle-ruin gift: an archaeologist's trowel!

Enjoy your virtual gifts, Dougie, HWW -- and thank you for visiting the Word Wenches!

Susan

Winners

We have two more winners, chosen from those who left comments to recent posts. 

Susanna Fraser commented on Cara Elliott's post entitled Bubbling through Bath and she won a copy of Cara's June release, To Surrender to a Rogue. 

Fran Colley won a CD from Dougie MacLean, for leaving a comment on Susan King's interview of Dougie entitled Interview with Dougie MacLean, Songmaker 

Congratulations, winners!