Word Wenches

An Interview with Katherine Kellgren!

Nicola here! I am thrilled to have as my Word Wench guest today Katherine Kellgren! Katherine has recorded over 125 audiobooks, including winners of the Audie Award, the American Library Association’s Odyssey Honor, the Earphones Award, the Publishers Weekly Listen Up Award, and ForeWord Magazine’s Audiobook of the Year. She was named one of AudioFile Magazine’s Best Voices of the Year for 2008, 2009, & 2010 and last year she was added to AudioFile's list of Golden Voices. Amongst her titles are Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and now my very own audiobook, Notorious!

Katherine and I first got chatting when she contacted me to discuss some aspects of the characterisation in Notorious in the advance of the recording. The process of narrating and recording a book intrigued me and so I thought it would be interesting to invite Katherine to talk about her work.

Katherine, welcome to the Word Wenches! How did you come to work as a professional narrator? What is it about the job that appeals to you?

As a child and teenager, I spent hours in my room listening to audiobooks and spoken word recordings. My particular heroes were John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson and Edith Evans, and I spent countless hours listening to recordings of them performing in the plays of Shakespeare, Wilde, Sheridan & etc. and reading poetry. I had wanted to be an actress since a very young age, but part of what drew me into me into that desire was listening. After I graduated drama school (I did a three-year training at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art), my father (who was in New York) began to suffer from the effects of Parkinson's disease, one of which was that he could not focus to read properly. He had always been a great reader, so I went to the library and took out a book by his favorite out-of-print detective author, bought myself a hand-held recorder, and made him an audiobook of the title. When I moved back to the States I spent a lot of time reading to him, and somewhere along the line I began to realize that since listening to recordings and being read to had always been such an important part of my life, I should try to pursue audio narration.

What was the first book that you narrated?

The first audiobook I narrated professionally was WICKED WIDOW by Amanda Quick, which I recorded for Random House Audio.

What qualities do you think you need to be a good narrator?

The patience and ability to work hard and really apply yourself to each title you record in terms of preparation and research. Concentration and stamina when you are in the studio are also very important, for when you spend all day recording you can't let your attention or focus waver for a second or it will show in the finished product. Also the traits that every actor needs to have - the intelligence to best interpret the will of the author, ability to embody characterizations & etc. Added to this, the ability (once you are armed with all the preparation possible) to let yourself go when you are recording and ride the arc of the story. You don't get to rehearse like you do in the theatre, and it can be a bit of a roller-coaster ride recording a book.

Take us through the preparation that you do for each book. How do you develop the characterisation, emotional interpretation and voices/dialects?

I first read the book through at home, making note in the margins as I go of any descriptions of tone the author has provided (i.e. "he said sullenly" "she said, shocked"), as well as any specific physical descriptions of characters provided. I make note of all the accents and dialects needed (and see a dialect coach if I need to brush up on or study them), and look up words which I'm not sure how to pronounce. Then I go back through and mark each character's dialogue in a different color of highlighter pen. This takes time, but really helps me attack each voice with more confidence when I'm in the studio.

I read that you also did some singing in some of the books, which sounds great! Are you a singer as well as a professional narrator?

 My first job when I left drama school was in a musical, but since I'm now entirely focused on audiobooks the only chance I get to sing is when a song pops up in the text. I always find it quite fun when that happens!

How does an audiobook get made? What happens in the recording studio?

Well, the process is different for different books, but for example, when I recorded your lovely title NOTORIOUS it took me just under four days recording from 10AM to 4PM. I worked in the studio with a wonderful director/engineer called Nikki Banks who provided guidance, and kept me on the straight and narrow when I fluffed or accidentally said the wrong word (a big sin!) and also took care of the rough audio editing as we went. 

A newspaper recently said that: “The right voice can send an audiobook up the charts.” Do you think this is true?

I absolutely agree. I am a big listener to audiobooks, and I often buy them because I love the work of a particular narrator.

How many books do you record a year?

 It varies by year, but somewhere between 25 - 30.

Do you have to take special care of your voice?

I drink an awful lot of tea in the studio, and if I start to get a touch husky, I find hot water with honey remarkable soothing.

What sort of books do you enjoy reading – or listening to?

  I used to be a big fan of 18th century English literature (and still am), but find that because I read a lot for work I do a lot less pleasure reading. When I do snatch the chance to read for pleasure nowadays it's often something like P.G. Wodehouse that does not require tremendously deep thought or analysis - not that I'm dissing P.G. Wodehouse - I worship him! As far as audiobooks go, I'm always listening to something. I often revisit the old spoken word recordings I loved when I was growing up, and I listen to a lot of new titles too. I'm a big fan of the work of Jim Dale, who is an unbelievably gifted narrator of children's audio. 

Katherine thank you so much for joining us here today and giving us such a fascinating insight into the world of audiobooks! I can’t wait to hear your reading of Notorious!

Now it’s over to you for any comments or questions for Katherine! To kick off the discussion I wonder how many audiobook listeners we have here? If you enjoy audiobooks, what is it that you like about them? Do you have any favourites? And what makes a good listening experience for you? I'm offering a gift voucher for the audiobook of your choice from Audible to one commenter between now and Sunday!

A duel

Hi, Jo here, talking about duels. The best I could do as a CBK image is a pirate.

My novel, A Scandalous Countess, will be out next February and I'm doing the final work on it. As sometimes happens, I'm rewriting a small section and I wanted to mention the inquest into the death of Georgia Maybury's husband. So I went looking for an inquest on a duel.

A great site for things like this is the London Lives site, which is wonderful collection of documents about the ordinary lives of Londoners from the 16th to the 19th century. I recommend a browse, but only if you have time to spare!

Here I found an inquest from 1764, only one year before my book, about a duel, but an odd one. I'm pasting it without editing other than to insert paragraph breaks for easier reading. I've put in some observations in red.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

An Inquisition taken on View of the Body of Evan Jones lying Dead in the said Parish Liberty and County.

James Frith of May Fair (Son of James Frith Chandler ) on his Oath saith that he was taking a walk in Hyde Park in the Parish of St. George Hanover Square within the Liberty of Westmr. on Sunday last in the Afternoon between two and three O'Clock.

(Interesting time for a duel!)
Says that he heard a Noise which he took to be the report of a Pistol, and on looking round Deponent saw a Man drop down on his rightside and immediately after turned upon his Back on the Ground in the Wilderness in Hyde Park (at this point a large part of Hyde park was untamed countryside) aforesaid, at about twenty or thirty yards distance from Deponent.

Says that there was another Man standing at about twelve or fourteen yards distance from the Man that fell down at the time he dropt, Says that he immediately went to the Person thay lay on the Ground, and the other Man ran by Deponent, having three Pistols and two Swords in his Hands (This is a really odd image. Talk about being armed to the teeth!), and said that he was going for a Surgeon.

Says that another Person (whose Name Deponent knows not) came to Deced about the same time as he did, says that they lifted up the Deced on his Backside and the Deced then did spit much Blood. Says that he asked if he was Wounded (er, duh!), to which Deced replied that he was Wounded under the right Arm, but tha there had been no foul Play shown.

(Wounded under the right arm would presumably be because he was standing sideways, arm raised, prepared to fire.)

Deponent says that he believes the Wound was reced by a Bullet discharged from a Pistol by the other Man that want away, (whose Name Deponent knows not) but says that Deced did not mention his Name.

Deponent says that he afterwards found three Pistols and two Swords in a hollow tree in Hyde Park about one hundred and fifty yards distance from that Place, Says that the Person that came to the Deced first with him, took up another Pistol that lay on the Ground near the Deced, Says that two Gentleman come up to the Deced soon after and Deced desired one of them to send for Mr. Hawkins a Surgeon , says that the Gentleman immediately went.

Says that another Person brought a Post Chaise (which Deponent had seen before in Hyde Park ) into the
Wilderness and the Deced was put into it, and carried to St. George's Hospital near Hyde Park Corner , Says that he assisted the Deced into the House when he observed the Deced's Shirt to be very Bloody, Says that Deced was put into Bed, and Depont.left him there and went away, Deponent says that he saw no Person near the Deced when he fell, but the Man that ran away with the Swords & Pistols as above.

Richard Morris of the Navy Office Gentleman on his Oath saith that he has known the Deced several Years, that Deced sent for Deponent on Sunday Night last to come to him, says that he went to Deced who was in St. Georges Hospital on Monday Morning last, says that he found the Deced in Bed, very Bloody, Says that Deced was Sensible and that he informed Deponent that he had reced a Wound from Lieutenant Span in a Duel Says that Deced told him that there had been an old Quarrel between him and Lieutenant Span when they were on Board the Richmond Man of War, and that he (the Deced) had given the said Lieutenant Span some hard Words which occasioned this Duel.

Says that he asked Deced if he had any Second to which Deced replied that he had not, but that Lieutenant Span had one, and said that he (the Deced) had a Post Chaire ready to carry him off if he had killed the said Lieutenant Span, Deponent says that he asked Deced where he would have gone to which Deced Answered he could not tell, Deponent says that Deced was of a Quarrel some Disposition, and Deced informed Deponent that he has fought a Duel at Nova Scotia with a Lieutenant belonging to the Richmond Man of War, on Board of which Ship Deced had been Surgeon

R.M.

William Walker House Surgeon at St. George's Hospital on his Oath saith that about three O'Clock in the Afternoon on Sunday last the Deced was brought in a Post Chaise to said Hospital, Says that he observed the Deced was Wounded under the right Arm, Says that he immediately sent for Mr. Hawkins one of the Surgeons belonging to said Hospital, says that Mr. Hawkins soon after came there and Examined the Deced's Wound and laid it open, Says that Mr. Hawkins declared that one or more of the Deced's Ribs were broke
and took out several pieces of Bones, Says that proper care we taken of the Deced in said Hospital, says that Deced grew worse, and that  Deced died in said Hospital on Monday Night last about Eleven O Clock,
Deponent says that he believes the Wound was reced by a Bullet entering in there, and is of Opinion that the Wound was the Occasion of the Death of the Deced.

W W.

The jury concluded "And so the Jurors aforesaid upon their Oath aforesaid do say, that the said Lieutenant Span him the said Evan Jones in manner and form aforesaid , feloniously did Kill and Slay, against the Peace of our said Lord the King his Crown and Dignity."

Richard Morris then prosecuted Span for the death. At this time, nearly all criminal cases needed to be brought by individuals.

As part of the evidence, a note was produced from Evans to Span "calling him out." The actual note can be seen here.

Feb. 4. 1764

I shall expect that you will meet me tomorrow, at any horn (hour) that you shall
appoint, with a brace of Pistols, either in Hyde Park , Green wick , or
mentioning two other places which I cannot recollect.

Directed to
Mr. Span

So Evans called him out, and specified weapons, so we aren't quite in the duelling code that came in later. I couldn't find anything at all about the trial, so I suspect it didn't happen. Duellists could be liable to prosecution, as could the seconds, but it rarely happened unless murderous intent could be proved. A quick search failed to find any criminal prosecution for a dueling death, though I've come across them.

In this case, Evans was the aggressor and he'd also had a chaise stand by in case he killed Span, so he'd had murderous intent. Also, he died. He also absolved Span of misdoing. "Deced replied that he was Wounded under the right Arm, but tha there had been no foul Play shown."There probably wouldn't have been much point in pursuing a case against Span.

A famous duel was fought in 1712  Lord Mohun and the Duke of Hamilton where both died. Hamilton mortally wounded Mohun, but was then killed by one of Mohun's seconds. Even wilder times.  

There's an account of a duel on the lovely Number One London site.

It has this picture, which migh be a little similar to Evans and Span.

I did turn up a little extra  on Span in "Some Selected Reports from Berrow's Worcester Journal, Thursday, February 16th, 1764"

Yesterday died, in St.George's Hospital, Mr. Evan Jones, late Surgeon of the Richmond Man of War, who was wounded on Sunday last in a Duel in Hyde Park, with Lieutenant Span of the Marines, who also received a Wound in each Thigh, though not dangerously.

From that I deduce that Evans had fired twice -- remember they were to have a brace of pistols. The swords would have been in case they wanted to continue with blades after firing both. Duels at this time could me pretty wild.

I'm not sure if at this time they would have fired pistols simultaneously, or taken turns, going first by the toss of a coin. This wasn't quite as alarming as it seems as pistols were very unreliable then. Also, according to the evidence, Span was "about twelve or fourteen yards distance from the Man that fell down" which is a fair distance with an old pistol.

But one way or another, Evans shot Span twice, and Span only made one pistol ball count, but fatally. I'b just speculating, but Span may have tried to avoid killing Evans, but having been injured in both legs, and with the possibility of sword play, decided to take serious aim. Interesting that Span could run away, though!

I love these little windows into the past, and they set up all kinds of speculation in my mind, not to mention story ideas!

What do you think of duels in romance novels? Do you see the participants as brave, even heroic, or stupid?

Can you think of any memorable duels in romances, ones that really served a story purpose?

Cheers,

 

Jo

 

 

United We Stand

Pat Rice here:
As our regular readers know, I’ve been slowly scanning and digitalizing my backlist historicals. All the more recent ones have been English history but publishers control those. So I’ve started with the American historicals published right before the Magic series. I adore American history and wish we had more romances set amid the wonderful tumult and uproar that is our country.

One of the most fascinating aspects of American history is the development of our religious freedom. Back in jolly old England, ‘Enery the ‘Aighth raised a right bloody ruckus by overthrowing the Catholic church so he could divorce his barren wife. But essentially, in the 1600’s, Europe was Catholic and England was Anglican and anything else was viewed with skepticism at best, and with the wrath of bigotry at worst. They still hung witches. Any belief outside the state religion could and often did send the believer to jail. Or gaol, as my copyeditors won’t let me say.

So the earliest American settlements were Catholic and Anglican, with one tiny little quirk—to encourage settlement of savage lands, most settlements agreed to religious freedom. Lord Baltimore was Catholic—an unhappy religious choice in England in that period—and he declared his land in Maryland to be open to all religions. In 1682, William Penn, a Quaker and no stranger to religious persecution, encouraged settlement in a large tract west of the Delaware River. He welcomed dissenters from all over Europe. Besides Quakers, he had Amish, Baptist, and Mennonite settlers. Everyone knows about the Puritans who arrived in 1630, bringing their strict Anglican reformist beliefs that aristocratic England couldn't tolerate.

From those humble origins grew a great cauldron of different beliefs. By 1730, roughly the start of the Great Awakening, America was ripe for an explosion of evangelicalism. The settlements had an increasing demand for churches and preachers, and evangelicals could go from town to town as they pleased in a country where all religion was welcome. With that kind of encouragement, anyone could call themselves a minister. Itinerant preachers spread far and wide and before long, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists outnumbered the state churches of the old countries. (First Baptist)

 Just try denying all those preachers a pulpit! Admittedly, a few of our forefathers might have been more comfortable with a state religion. But the signers of the Declaration of Independence as well as those framing the new Constitution came from widely varied backgrounds.

So there we were, teetering on the brink of independence, needing to find agreement between aristocratic Anglicans, uptight Puritans, French and Spanish Catholics, freethinking Quakers, and Utopian societies like the Shakers (who encouraged feminism, pacifism, and abolitionism centuries before they were popular), and entire hoards of mule-riding, Bible-thumping itinerants who could rouse riots if called upon.

Separation of church and state was essential for excellent reason—divided by the dissension of religion, the new republic would fall, but united under the umbrella of freedom, we stand to this day. And so our government has survived for centuries on our right to believe any danged fool thing that makes us happy, as long as we don’t try to legislate our beliefs and enforce them on others.

America, the land where everyone agrees to disagree. Is it no wonder that I love writing about our history? Why do you think romance has left that varied and fascinating history behind for the narrow parameters of the Regency era? Is it a more comfortable era? Does the small world make it seem more familiar? Or does all that dissension in American history make us squirm?

Guest: Katherine Kellgren

This coming Friday, July 29, award winning audiobook narrator Katherine (Katy) Kellgren will be Nicola's guest. Audiobooks are becoming more and more popular among busy individuals, and good narrators are always in demand.  Come visit us Friday and find out about the audiobook industry from an insider!

E-Booking the Backlist: Who and How

by Mary Jo

In recent months, several of us have discussed our e-book backlist ventures, but it wasn’t until we received this question from Maureen that I recognized that none of the Wenches had explained the underlying issues:

 

"You are all so busy and it looks like the Wenches are going to have a lot of great books coming out soon. I saw that there are several wenches working on e-publishing their older titles. I'm wondering if all the Wench's titles will eventually be available as e-books or if this is something where you pick and choose. "

Maureen—the controlling factor here is publication rights.  In the traditional publishing model, a writer sells publication rights to a publisher in return for an advance against royalties.  Note that the book isn’t sold outright—the author retains the copyright and actual ownership. 

When the book was no longer selling well enough to be profitable, the publisher would let it go out of print.  The author could ask for all rights to be reverted to her under terms and times specified in the original contract.

Often authors didn’t bother to ask for their rights back since it can be a tedious process, and there wasn’t much that could be done with them.  Bestsellers might be able to sell the rights to another house, but bestsellers were less likely to go out of print in the first place.  Some authors (like me) always asked for rights back on general principle, but again, what could be done with the books?

That was in the Old Days—you know, up until a year or so ago. <G>  Now comes the digital revolution and the whole publishing landscape has changed.  E-books reached the tipping point and now there are e-readers everywhere. 

All Wenches have e-editions of their more recent books since the big publishers routinely publish e-editions around the same time as the print book is released.   But only Wenches who have reverted rights to some of their books can self-publish e-books. 

There’s gold in them thar’ files:

In recent years, most novels are published in both print and e-editions at the same time—and an e-book may never go out of print, so authors might never get their rights back.  Publishers like the idea of having long revenue streams where they get the lion’s share of the income with virtually no effort, and who can blame them? 

However, authors who are publishing their backlists earn a lot more for each book sold than they get through standard royalties on publisher produced e-books.  Self-pubbing the backlist can produce anywhere from a nice bit of extra cash every month to the kind of money that pays the mortgage or maybe even allows an author to start shopping for a second home.  The potential is great, and self-publishing puts the books under OUR control.  And who doesn’t like having control? 

And it is now very, very easy for authors to self-publish backlist books.  A plethora of services have sprung up to scan, convert, create covers, and upload.  Authors can gleefully restore original titles, cut scenes, or improve the writing since the author has learned a lot in the intervening years.

It’s been said that e-booking is the Wild West now, and that’s about right. Now that publishers see value in backlist, they are much less likely to revert rights.  And now that authors know they can self-publish, they are much less willing to resell their backlist for reissue by a new publisher, because once those books are sold, they’re probably gone forever.

The New Norm: 

There are constant discussions as new standards evolve.  Who knows what publishing will look like in a year?  In five years?

But a new norm is emerging.  It’s a brave new world for readers with e-reading devices because they can now download long unavailable stories by favorite authors.  (Like Joanna Bourne’s long craved first traditional Regency.) 

It’s terrific for really good writers who have been squeezed out of the ever-tightening print markets, and now they can sell those backlists.  And it's a chance for writers who have never been able to sell to print publishers to put their work out there for the marketplace to judge. 

Which is why some Wenches are reissuing backlist books, and others aren’t: some of us have reverted books, and some of us don't.

I did a quick survey of where various Wenches currently stand in the digital revolution.  All book covers shown on this blog are for e-editions:

Our pioneer of self-pubbing, PAT RICE:

I've been paddling in the e-book pond for a while now, letting RegencyReads.com  prepare my early Regencies for me, then generally progressing until I'm selling them through private, author-operated websites like AWritersWork.com  and Bookviewcafe.com as well as the usual distributors like Amazon and B&N. (This should be a complete list here: )

But at last count, I have the rights back on approximately 40 books (the publishers still claim rights to all my more recent books, and I re-sold the Magic series after epublishing them), and it's a lot of work bringing them up to today's standards and formatting them for digitalization. But as best as I can, I'm producing them in series order so readers can find all the related characters. Except I do seem to have missed one of the contemporary romances. Oops. I'm getting there, as fast as I can!

JO BEVERLEY:

Nearly all my published work is with publishers at the moment, so when the stories are available as e-books is up to them, but they're  bringing them out quickly. I love this because I've written very long series of linked books, and soon people will be able to find all of them and read them in order.  (My e-book page.)

I have a couple of stories I can put up myself, and I will as soon as I have time.

 

From CARA/ANDREA:

The majority of my books are available as e-books options through my regular publisher. However I have recently been working on making my out-of-print traditional Regencies (whose rights have reverted back to me) available in digital form. Three of the earliest ones are now available from Regency Reads , I also have some exciting new e-book projects I'm working on, which I hope to announce soon. So please stay tuned!

JOANNA BOURNE:

My three books published in this century (and the one that's  coming out in November, Black Hawk,) are all available in about every e-format  you can imagine.  You can read them on your computer or your Kindle or  Nook or i-Pad or telephone and very possibly on the programming panel of your microwave.

I also have an old Regency that came out in the last century -- Her Ladyship's Companion.  It has long been Out of Print.  That's going to be released in the fall by Regency Reads as an e-book.

SUSAN KING

Ebooks are here to stay (though turning paper pages and handling beautiful tactile books will always be my personal preference!)  -- and I'm happy to report that several of my books are available in a wide range of ebook formats. Lady Macbeth and Queen Hereafter can be purchased as ebooks, and my Sarah Gabriel romances for Avon are in digital format as well. Those are all produced by the publishers.

I'm currently working with Nina Paules and ePublishingWorks! to publish my earlier historical romances into ebook form. My earliest historical romance, The Black Thorne's Rose, and my first-ever Scottish romance, The Raven's Wish, are now accessible as ebooks for Kindle, Nook, you-name-it, with beautiful new covers.

These ebook versions are also "author's cut" exclusive editions--tightened and updated from the original forms, though the newbie voice is preserved! I'm very pleased with these ebooks, and I plan to epub the rest of my early historical romances very soon!

 

 

 

MARY JO:

I have the rights back to close to 20 books and a dozen or more novellas and shorter works, but was a little slow to start self-publishing because of the time involved.  I started in the easiest possible way by having the aforementioned RegencyReads.com scan, convert, and load one of my traditional Regencies, plus a collection of three Christmas novellas.  It was really easy, and whetted my appetite for more.

 In a moment of inspiration/desperation, I asked long time Wench reader Nina Paules is she had the time to proof rather bad scans of my three contemporary romances. 

It turned out that Nina had great computer and organizational skills, and in a matter of months she has created a leading preparation service for backlist e-books.  (Her site is at http://ebookprep.com/ ) 

After publishing my contemporary Circle of Friends trilogy and an related novella, I've now uploaded two out of three of my Silk Trilogy. I’m working on a last tweak of the third book in odd bits of time.  (The biggest danger is the temptation to rewrite the whole book instead of just proofing and tweak. Down, girl!  Bad author!)

Next up: the first six of my Fallen Angels books.  (The seventh, One Perfect Rose, has been reissued in both print and e-format by my current most excellent publisher, Kensington.) Eventually I release all the novelss, and shorter works in collections. 

It will take time to make all those books available, but I’m delighted to have the opportunity to do this.  Here's my page of all my e-books, both self-published and publisher editions.

So that’s the state of e-publishing backlist.  It’s a complex topic, so feel free to ask me for clarification or more information.  We love getting our books into more hands!

And Maureen, you’ll be getting a free book from me for asking the question!  

Mary Jo

The Perfume of Memory

Cara/Andrea here,

I’ve bee re-reading some of the early Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O’Brian, savoring not only the rousing descriptions of naval battles during the Napoleonic Wars, but the far more nuances textures of character that he creates. Friendship, fear, love, loss, bravery, boredom . . . O’Brian is a wonderful writer, with wry wit and black humor interspersed with lyrical observations of nature. But for me, what makes his prose even more memorable are the short passages—a paragraph, perhaps—where he suddenly makes me stop and take a deep breath, for the words evoke such a visceral reaction.

Here is a passage where Stephen Maturin, the strange, secretive ship’s surgeon has just smelled a certain scent of perfume on the coat of his best friend—the distinctive scent worn by the woman he desperately loves.

“It is unspeakably childish to be upset by a whiff of scent; but I am upset. . . He poured himself out a wineglassful of laudanum, closed one eye and drank it off. ‘Smell is of all senses by far the most evocative: perhaps because we have no vocabulary for it—nothing but a few poverty-stricken approximations to describe the whole vast complexity of odour—and therefore the scent, unnamed and unnamable, remains pure of association; it cannot be called upon again and again, and blunted by the use of a word; and so it strikes afresh every time, bringing with it circumstances of its first perception . . ."

I found this very poignant—and true. Scent stirs such sudden, visceral memories, perhaps even more so than pictures, touch or words. After I read this, it got me to thinking about my own reaction to scent. . . and here are a few of the smells that trigger strong memories from the past

New-mown grass: When I was a child we lived in a house built into a hill. My little bedroom had windows high on the wall that were barely above ground level. In summer, my father would mow the lawn in the early evening, and the scent of the grass, lushly sweet with the sun-warmed perfume of the long, lazy day, would flood the air. I’d watch his legs and the mower go back and forth, and then usually run out to walk along with him. A whiff of fresh cut grass carries me back to being seven or eight, and the simple delights of a summer evening.


The brine of the sea: I loved taking my bucket to the beach and exploring the tidal pools, finding all sorts of fascinating snails and minnows and mussels (that prompted turned into a noxious ooze when I brought them home.) But I loved the sense of wonder, of discovery, and I would happily putter for hours . . . cracking oysters to look for pearls . . . digging for pirate treasure. Today, the fresh scent of salt and seaweed conjures up memories of those afternoon adventures.

Apples: We had orchards near us, and fall always meant buying baskets of fresh picked apples. When I went away to college, my parents would always bring me and my roommates a big basketwhen they visited . . . the crisp scent of Macs, rosy with the first touches of cool air, always remind me of freshman year in Vanderbilt Hall.

Wisteria: The first house I owned, a quirky little weekend cottage with lots of eccentricities, had a huge screen porch, covered with wisteria vines. In spring, the flowers would bloom and the scent enveloped the whole house in a fairytale sweetness. Wisteria still reminds me of my first step into real adulthood.

Estee Lauder Super Cologne: My mother wore one brand for years, and somehow it seems to pervade all her possessions—books, papers, clothing. It was simply part of her, part of her essence. Nowadays I sometimes open a box of journals or photos, or storage bag of gloves and hat, and it’s there, still lingering—that soft swirl of scent that makes me stop and smile.

Toward the end of the book, Stephen walks through the woman's deserted house—she's run off to be the mistress of a rich, handsome man.

“In the waste-paper-basket there were some balled-up sheets, the only imperfection, apart from the living clock, in this desert of negation . . . they were lists in a servant’s hand, quite meaningless . . . He tossed them back, stood for a long moment listening to his heart, and walked straight into her dressing room. Here he found what he had known he should find: the stark bareness, the pretty satinwood furniture huddled against the wall was of no importance, did not signify; but here, coming from no particular shelf or cupboard, there was the ghost of her scent, now a little stronger, now so tenuous that his most extreme attention could hardly catch it."

So what about you? Have you any special scent memories that conjure up vivid emotions?

Notorious!

Nicola here! With just over a week to go until the publication of my new book, Notorious, I am extremely excited! Notorious is book 4 in my Scandalous Women of the Ton series and it features many of the characters who have appeared earlier in the series including Alex and Joanna Grant from Whisper of Scandal.

 Inspiration 

As you know, ideas for books come from many different places and one of the inspirations for Notorious was Pride and Prejudice. When Lydia Bennet runs off with Wickham her sister Jane laments: “So imprudent a match on both sides!” Elizabeth, in speaking to Mr Darcy about the elopement is even more outspoken, believing that Wickham will ruin Lydia and certainly not marry her: “She has no money, no connections, nothing that can tempt him to… She is lost forever.”

Mr Darcy, of course, saves the day, by compelling Wickham to marry Lydia. Money changes hands to seal the deal. The match is made. And the idea came into my head: “What would happen if money changed hands to ensure that a match was broken rather than made?”

In the literature of the Georgian age, in the archives and in fiction we frequently read of imprudent matches and disapproving parents. Money, marriage and scandal could be closely linked. Servant girls were paid off if they became pregnant (I’ve come across a couple of examples of this in my researches into the Craven family!) Parents and trustees bought off fortune hunters in order to save their heiress daughters from throwing themselves away on unsuitable men. When I was researching a Yorkshire gentry family in the Regency period I came across a very curious payment in the ledgers to a young local man who was paid "to go away to London." At the time the family had a teenage daughter who was an heiress. Naturally my writer's imagination started to spark; perhaps he had been involved with the girl and the family wanted her to make a more upwardly moblile match so they paid him to go away... Thus the idea for Notorious was born; my heroine would be a match-breaker rather than a matchmaker, paid to distract impressionable young men of good family if they looked inclined to make an unsuitable match or to tempt rakes away from heiresses.

The Hero 

I didn’t have far to look for a hero for Notorious. After Whisper of Scandal came out a number of readers contacted me to ask if James Devlin, cousin to Alex Grant in Whisper, was going to have his own story. The idea appealed to me very much. Dev is the sort of man my late grandmother would have described as “cocky.” She would have said it with a smile because Dev is handsome, self-made and a little bit brash but so charming that he gets away with it. He is a little too confident of himself and of his ability to attract women. In short he needs to be taken down a peg or two and my heroine, Susanna, is just the woman to do it.

Of course life for Dev is nowhere near as smooth as it appears on the surface. He is engaged to an heiress and appears to have the world at his feet but it is a fragile world. Both Dev and his sister Chessie are fortune hunters and in Notorious I try to show what a precarious and at times desperate situation that could be. Dev's other problem is that he is bored with a capital B. He's been a sailor, adventurer and explorer. Now he is at the beck and call of his heiress fiancée. He is losing his self- respect, which I felt was an interesting conflict to give my hero. 

One other unusual thing about Dev. He has inherited an unusual title, that of Hereditary Knight in the Irish peerage. There are three hereditary knighthoods of feudal origin in Ireland and they sound as though they come straight out of the legends of King Arthur: The Knight of Glin (The Black Knight), the Knight of Kerry (the Green Knight) and the White Knight, which is currently a dormant title. I couldn't resist giving my Irish hero such a romantic background! The picture is of County Kerry, a stunningly beautiful place.

The Heroine and the Cover Art

I won’t give away how Susanna, the heroine, falls into her profession of match-breaker.  Suffice it to say she is a very beautiful woman who realises that her looks will enable her to escape poverty and keep her adopted family together. When my editor asked me to send her some pictures of what I imagined Susanna to look like, I was immediately able to visualise her and here she is! The picture is from a very long-running and well-known advertisement in the UK for financial services. This was Susanna, beautiful, slightly mysterious and definitely intriguing. I sent in the picture to my editor and was very amused when the cover art for Notorious arrived, featuring a “headless” heroine whose most prominent feature was her enhanced cleavage. Hmm. But they did keep the red and black colour scheme!

The Title

I very seldom choose the titles of my books, mostly because I am not very good at coming up with something that my editor and the marketing team consider sounds "right." The choice of the title Notorious was interesting to me. Susanna cannot be notorious because she operates secretly. No one can know she is a matchbreaker because that would give the whole game away. So it is actually Devlin who is the infamous one. By the end of the book, however, both Dev and Susanna are as scandalous as each other!

There is a fun trailer for Notorious here and here is a link to an excerpt if you would like to sample the story. I’ll be giving away a signed copy of the book to one person who comments between now and midnight Wednesday. Notorious is set in London and features a number of prominent London landmarks from Tattersalls bloodstock auctioneers (pictured) to St Pauls Cathedral. Do you have a favourite place in London that you have either visited or read about which you would enjoy seeing featured in a book?

Winners!

Time to announce our latest winners!  So, without further ado . . . 

Jane O'Sullivan won a book from Nicola Cornick.  Not to be outdone, Liz Veronis  won a book from Joanna Bourne.  Na Seak scored a book from Patricia Rice.  And last but not least, Cathy Schultz won a book from Mary Jo Putney.  Congratulations, winners!

We give away books every month, so be sure to leave a comment on our posts.  You could be our next winner! 

Ask A Wench: What are you working on?

Pat here:

It’s a hot and humid summer and the wenches are feeling a little lazy (or wiped out after RWA!). So lazy that we couldn’t even find an easy reader question to answer, so this month, we’re making up our own. Wenches, tell us—what are you currently working on?

Mary Jo:
I'm currently rushing toward the end (I hope!) of NO LONGER A GENTLEMAN, #4 in my Lost Lords series of Regency historicals for Kensington.  For readers who worried that this would just be a trilogy, never fear.  Three books always strikes me as way too skimpy.  I figure the Lost Lords can go eight or nine books, easy.  <G>  NLAG is scheduled for May 2012.  The hero this time is Wyndham, who has been lost in France and presumed dead for ten years. 
 
Then I'll write my third YA historical fantasy for St. Martin's Press.  It's tentatively scheduled for Summer 2012, with the title of DARK DESTINY. 
 
Somewhere in there I need to write a novelette.  A fun little story which will inevitably take longer than I expected it to.  <g>  And in my spare time <pause for maniacal laughter>, I'm preparing backlist books for direct e-publishing.  Veils of Silk, third book in my Silk trilogy, will go up in the next few weeks.  Then--it's time to start working on the Fallen Angels!
 
 
Such is the writer's life--one story after another!

 

From Susan King:

I'm currently working on another medieval fiction project while writing a novella for a romance anthology, and when I find a few minutes here and there away from the usual stuff, I'm exploring an exciting new direction in my writing just for fun. I'm also overseeing the e-publication of my earlier historical romances (The Black Thorne's Rose and The Raven's Wish are currently available as ebooks, with more to come this year) and my Sarah Gabriel historical romances as well as my mainstream fiction historicals are available in ebook too. And I'm looking forward to December 2011 and the trade paperback edition of Queen Hereafter -- with that gorgeous cover!

 

From Anne:

I've recently finished BRIDE BY MISTAKE, the 5th book in my "Devilriders" series, with Luke Ripton as the hero. That comes out in January 2012. Currently I'm working on a short story (10-15K) words for an upcoming anthology, and after that I'll be writing the final book in the "Devilriders" series with Marcus, the Earl of Alverleigh's story. I hadn't originally planned to write his story — in the original contract Marcus  was supposed to be a minor character and something of a shadowy villain in the background, but he's quietly been edging forward, declaring himself to be no villain, but a hero in waiting — that's the trouble with being a "fly-into-the-mist kind of writer -- characters don't always do what you tell them to. Anyway, I've had so much mail asking for his story, my editor has agreed to let me write it.
After that I have an exciting new series planned, but I'm not saying anything about it yet. I get a bit superstitious about revealing too much too soon.


From Jo Beverly:
I'm mostly working on A Scandalous Countess, a Georgian novel which is due in shortly. Very shortly. In time sequence it follows from An Unlikely Countess, but the connections are slight, especially in the early parts. Georgia, the young Countess of Maybury, is a sister of Peregrine Perriam, who delighted readers in Unlikely Countess. Everyone wants his story, but it's not coming to me yet. 

My books generally take about a year to gestate, no matter what I do, so it's a good thing that I threw down the beginning of Scandalous Countess nearly a year ago as the first book of a two-book contract. The proposal was due last October -- that was some chapters and a bit of an outline. The book is due in August, for publication in February. Usually a manuscript is due in closer to a year before publication, but my schedule's been tight for a while.

Of course between sending in the proposal and now we've moved from Yorkshire to Devon, bought a house, spent a month in Spain, supervised the renovations of said house, and are now preparing to move in. The thing about a writing schedule is that life happens, and I'm not a writer who can work in short periods of time grabbed in the midst of other things. This is why I'm currently only writing one book a year. Perhaps when we're settled I can create a bit more.

While writing A Scandalous Countess, I've also dealt with the later stages of An Unlikely Countess--a edits and page proofs, along with any promotional actitivities. In writing, I've been throwing down bits of other work, including the next countess book -- two candidates there; a long short story—two candidates there; and a short novella which is only a twinkle in my eye. I do like to have a number of things going at once, but that's based on having time to wander off and play with them, and I haven't had as much playtime as usual this year.

We fiction writers are insane. After all, we believe in imaginary people, and even talk to them. Often they talk back. However, another part of our mental instability, especially for historical authors, is not knowing where the present is. Right now, part of my creative mind is in the future, in those books I'm going to write. Another part is in the book I'm writing now, which is set in the past. And I'm actively involved in the welfare of stories I wrote in the past, between 1 and 25 years ago. Now? Who knows where now is, but now is all we ever have, so we should enjoy it. Cheers!


From Nicola Cornick:

I’ve just finished DESIRED, book 5 in the SCANDALOUS WOMEN OF THE TON series, which is out in December 2011, and have started the sixth and final book in the series, currently entitled FORBIDDEN. It’s set in London and Dorset in 1817 and has as its heroine a character who has featured in three of the previous books in the series – I’m giving away no more than that! FORBIDDEN is scheduled for June 2012 from HQN Books.

I’m also writing a short story – which I’m enjoying very much – and planning a brand new series. More news on that in a few months time! Oh, and I also need to find the time to write a very special commission for Harlequin Historicals as part of their link up with the National Trust. The book is going to be set in Bath, featuring the wonderful Bath Assembly Rooms, and it will also have a paranormal strand to it. I’m very excited about the project as not only will this be the first time I’ve written a historical with a paranormal element to it, I also get to go behind the scenes at the Assembly Rooms and the fabulous Bath Museum of Costume. What could be finer?

From Joanna Bourne:
I'm at an interesting place in book production -- between reviewing the copyedits of Black Hawk and seeing the galleys.

If I were engaged in bungee jumping I'd be halfway between jumping off the cliff and coming to the fully extended 'bounce'. That is to say, it's too late to change my mind about anything major.

I've been taking this last couple  days off, letting go of Black Hawk and letting the next story move into my head. This looks remarkably like wasting time to the uninitiated observer.

I have a very old Out of Print Regency that I am going to release to e-publication. That's Her Ladyship's Companion. It should be available in a few months.

From Cara/Andrea:

I've been on a pretty nose-to-the-grindstone schedule this year . . . though a more accurate adjective might be "insane." Last month I did the final proofing of typeset pages for Too Wicked To Wed, the first book in my new historical romance trilogy (The Lords of Midnight) which comes out in November 2011. Once those were out the door, I finished up  the manuscript for the second book in the series, Too Tempting To Resist (scheduled for May 20120 and whipped that off to my editor as well. Then I had revisions to tackle for my second mystery, The Cocoa Conspiracy, which hits the shelves in December 2011. Those will be finished this week, and then it's back to the current WIP (mystery #3, as yet untitled, though my working name for it vacillates between A Recipe For Betrayal and A Recipe for Chaos ) which is due September 1. I've an anthology short story due October 1, but it's short and I've already started m noodling some ideas. Then I think I will take a nap.

Pat again, panting and out of breath after reading all that hectic activity! The other wenches put me to shame. I fear I’m the dilettante wench, the one who dabbles hither and yon, dives in and splashes about in the water for a while, then wanders to the next pretty flower.  Right now I’m finishing the first draft of the second book in an urban fantasy series that won’t even start for another year. I’m doing promotion for THE DEVILISH MONTAGUE, another of my Rebellious Sons stories, which is out right now. I’m organizing promotion for my January 2012 release, THE LURE OF SONG AND MAGIC, a contemporary romance with paranormal elements. (What does one call a siren voice? Not magic. Not psychic. Just woo-woo, I guess.) This is the book about the descendants of the Malcolms and Ives. I’m working on a short story and a novella  for various collections. I’m slowly editing and digitalizing my backlist. And then there are all these pretty flowers in my Idea Box just waiting to grow into full bouquets. Or weeds. One never knows!

Since there was no real “winner” in the AAW column this month, I’ll send a copy of THE DEVILISH MONTAGUE to a commenter. I suggest asking questions that the wenches might answer in another AAW column, since if we pick your question, it generates a whole lot more booty!

Conferences: The Crazies Continue

by Mary Jo:

I considered writing a blog about the recent Romance Writers of America national conference, then remembered that I'd done something similar in 2006.  So I looked up that blog--and found that very little has changed.  <G> 

The clothing anxiety where we end up taking way too much "just in case!"  The mad networking, the squeals of delight as adult women launch themselves at friends they haven't seen in too long!  The attempt to fit everything into too few hours!  We love our conferences--and go home feeling like roadkill. <G>

Since I'm deep into deadline panic, I'm rerunning that blog with some tweaks, and some updated Word Wench pictures from the conference. The pictures were taken by Anne and Cara/Andrea.  We did manage a couple of face to face Wench get togethers, which was a lovely bonus.  So here goes a blended blog:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

From Mary Jo:

The purple coneflowers and stargazer lilies are blooming behind the house, so it’s time for another national RWA conference.  They are always held at the end of July, which is statistically the hottest time of the year.   

As a born northerner who hates heat, I complain bitterly that the conferences always seem to be held in southern locations that are apparently about two miles north of Hades. (In Orlando, it was so hot that my Wenchy roommate and I only left the hotel once, for a midnight walk around the hotel pool).  (Note: for 2011, the conference was late June in NYC, and the weather was very nice.  Here's a picture of a very crowded Times Square, where our hotel was located.)

In fairness, even on RWA’s last trip to the fine northern city of Chicago, the city had a historic heat wave with temperatures that rose to 104 F.  The heat wave lasted exactly as long as the conference, then ended.  It is best not to ponder the implications of this. 

 
Above are the four Penguin Wenches at the Penguin author party which was held at Sardi's restaurant: Anne, Cara/Andrea, Joanna, and Jo.  (Anne and Joanna are Berkley, Andrea and Jo are NAL.)

I remember that conference fondly.  It was the year of Chicago’s Cow Parade, so  hundreds of artist-decorated fiberglass cows were scattered around the city.  I loved them.  To me, those critters represent the best of urban charm and whimsy, and they inspired other cities to look deep inside and find their inner animal. 

In Cincinnati, there was a Big Pig Gig in honor of the city’s meatpacking past.  I believe Louisville had horses, Toronto went for moose, and Buffalo, naturally, did buffalo.  My hometown of Baltimore chose fish, charming and easy to decorate, but it was a cop-out—this is a crab town, not a fish town.  So later they repented and flat decorated crabs were everywhere.  My eye doctor bought one of the crabs that was wearing eyeglasses, and it sits happily outside his office.

Traditionally, when an RWA national looms, appearance anxiety strikes women who don’t get out often enough.  E-mail loops of writers buzz with panicky questions from newbies about what one should wear.  For RWA, the dress code is professional—anyone asking if she can wear jeans can elicit horrified gasps.  This is very different from an sff con, where appearance runs to hippy casual or alien appendages.  For RWA, black is always good since most of the editors and agents are wearing black.  It's a New York Thing. 

Above is Anne's picture of the Cloisters, the magnificent medieval art branch museum of the Metropolitan Museum.  It's built in a park at the north end of Manhattan, and made to look like a medieval monastery.  A couple Wenches got to see it, and the amazing art and greenery were a great respite from conference crazies.

Attendees also discuss humidity—meeting in places like New Orleans tend to make some of us look like dandelions in full fuzzy mode. 

Serious aspiring writers who are close to selling their first book often freak at the prospect of agent and editor appointments, and rehearse pitches for their books.  Old hands assure them that agents and editors are not (usually) writer-eating monsters.  Industry pros are generally quite kind when dealing with frantic writers.   

Above is Cara/Andrea at the Rita rehearsal ceremony.  Cara, Pat, Joanna, and Nicola were all Rita finalists.   

My personal dress code for writing events is artsy professional and comfortable.  In a pinch, jettison the artsy professional and go for the comfort.  A great boon to me and many of my sister authors is Chico’s, the clothing chain for aging baby boomers who want to look dashing but have lost the taste (and the figures) for wearing tight garments, no matter how fashionable.

A friend said that Chico’s clothing is made of materials that will never rot in a landfill, but their stuff is great for aging baby boomers.  At my last national conference, two years ago in Dallas, I spotted lots of Chico’s outfits.  Usually this consisted of solid color knit top and slacks paired with a great jacket and splashy, fun jewelry.  It’s a good look—and how can you not like a store where you get to try on a size 2 rather than a “large?” <g>

Above are Anne, MJP, and HWW Jennifer Kloester at the literacy book signing.  I'm the one who hasn't just flown in from Australia.  <G>  Jennifer's definitive biography of Georgette Heyer will be released in the UK this autumn.

At heart, RWA is a business conference, and writers go to meet with their agents and editors, or perhaps look for new ones.  We go to learn and to see our friends and make new ones.  Maybe we also go to do some research in that particular city, or visit a relative there while being able to deduct the trip. 

Several years ago, I gave the keynote address in Washington, DC, and coined one of my better phrases if I do say so: “An RWA conference is 2000 introverts pretending to be extroverts.”  That definitely hasn't changed!

At the end, we head home wrecked, overfull of talk and information (and maybe fattening little nibbles from the publisher parties as well), carrying a ton of new books—and most of the time, we go home happy.  We’ve just been able to spend a few days with Our Tribe—and isn’t that something just about everyone enjoys? (Jo at left at the literacy signing.)

Mary Jo, who really needs at least one new jacket per national conference…  And no, the picture at right isn't me but Joanna.  Isn't it cool how she dressed in colors to match the cover of her most recent book?

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Mary Jo again, back in real time 2011.  Just to make things fun, I'm giving away a book to a commenter.  I chose the delightful Faery Magic anthology since it has two Wenches in it: Jo and I, along with Honorary Word Wenches Barbara Samuel and Karen Harbaugh.  Tell me about conferences or similar gatherings you've been to, or just comment on the blog and pictures between now and Thursday midnight. 

I'm putting in one last picture of Anne at the literacy signing because she just looks so mischievious.  <g>  It was great to be together!

MJP

  

 

 

 

 

 

Wench Classic: What's in a Name?

Apologies for a wee blip on the blog, and a late posting of a Wench Classic Blog!

I'm in the midst of naming some new characters. It's a delicate and significant matter, this business of choosing character names. I can spend hours–-even days-–poring over name books looking for just the right name for a character -- the perfect name to reflect and evoke a character who, sometimes, I don't fully understand yet, as that part comes with time.

Whether it's a main character name, a secondary, or a throwaway name for someone who walks quickly on and offstage, names have the power to impact and influence not only a character but a story. The name choices are endless for fiction, given time and place ... but sometimes the characters are based on actual historical people and the names are therefore decided. Then the author may have to make the best of it.

Names can help establish a story's authenticity and time period, or it can undermine the story and disrupt the flow of things. The historical and social context of any name needs to be considered. Some names will sound very modern to our ear despite their historical pedigree -- while others are just plain unpleasant, or hard to pronounce, or have some context that evokes frumpy or dowdy, sly or weak, and so on. And a name's modern connotation can be just as important as its historical context.

I have a big library of name books, the pages well-thumbed and underlined. When I named my kids, I had a few favorite books, and I still use those -- and now the name book reference library in my office has expanded with books of historical names and surnames, and books that provide census lists and historical contexts, and a few that consider the social, numerological, and even kabbalistic context of names. And there are online name sites as well.

Historical context is just one factor. Authors also take into account the name's authenticity, its sound (even when read silently, the sound and rhythm in a name or series of names is important), its spelling, pronunciation, how many other characters' names begin with the same letter or a similar sound, and so on. For example, if a writer is flying through a story and needs a name quickly for a servant or some very minor character who pops in and right back out again, it's easy to pick up a name list, choose a name, and go back to the writing. The pitfall of the spontaneous method is that minor names (and some major ones) might all come from the beginning of the alphabet!

Authenticity is a biggie. Character names should fit the story, the setting, and the historical era. Many good name books will give the origin and history of a name, along with notes on common and popular names. Withycombe's The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names is one of the best for this sort of information.

But a name can be perfectly accurate and yet seem all wrong for the modern reader's ear. My favorite example of this is the name "Tiffany" -- if a medieval heroine was named this, it might seem anachronistic. And yet "Tiffany" was used in the medieval era, originating from Theophania, or Epiphany. It's one of several names drawn from religious holidays, a popular naming custom--we still see people named Christmas, Noel, and so on. But try getting a medieval "Tiffany" past an editor!

I named the medieval heroine of Lady Miracle "Michaelmas"--the feast of the Archangel Michael in September was her birthday. She first appeared as a secondary character, the young sister of the hero, Gavin Faulkner, in The Angel Knight--both had a natural healing ability. Readers loved the character (who was a child in Angel Knight) and many people asked for her story, although I had not planned it, and my editor thought it a good idea, too. So when it came time for her book--she grew up to become a 14th-century physician--I called her "Michael," which was a good compromise, I thought, since the use of masculine names for females was very prevalent in the medieval era.

While Publishers Weekly gave Lady Miracle a starred review (and that review is still framed on my wall!), and the reviews were wonderful, I remember one reviewer who bashed the book because, as she said, the heroine had a guy's name. 
But as the author, I loved Michaelmas, both the character and her unique name. Looking back, I would have chosen the same name again, as it suited the book.

Besides accuracy and authenticity, there's the sound of a name, the spelling, the pronunciation. Can I live with typing that name ten thousand times? In one book, I had named a character Ned -- and a few chapters into the book, changed it to something else. Writing  "Ned said" was driving me mad. And while I love the name James and have used it twice (in fact, the hero of my current WIP is called James), the possessive, James's, is awkward.

I've sometimes changed the name of a hero or heroine in the middle of drafting the book. The character doesn't click for me unless the name works for that personality. Sometimes the name is right there from the beginning, full-blown, and other times, it takes an effort of constantly searching and changing. For example, I once called a hero Geordie--but it didn't work for him. Geordie was a little brother, not a hero. When I renamed him Duncan, he came to life. The heroine of another of my books was Kirsty in the proposal, yet she just wouldn't walk, talk, or make sense until I discovered that she was, in fact, Elspeth.

Can the reader pronounce the name? That's another consideration. I often work with Gaelic and Celtic names, and they are the very de'il to pronounce. I sometimes provide the pronunciation in the narrative by having another character learn to say it, or through some interior phonetic dialogue. Most of the time when I use a Gaelic name, I try to go for the ones that are obvious--like Bethoc, Morag, Niall, and leave Siobhan or Eibhlin, lovely as they are when said out loud (basically, Chevonne and Evleen), aside.

When a character is a historical person with a tricky name--that needs to be handled delicately where possible. In my last manuscript (which will be out next year, more on that later when I have more info!), I had to work my way around Gruoch, Lulach, and Gillecomghainn--all I could do was try to simplify the names as much as possible and pray that the reader would go with it.

Sometimes the historical names for a time period are a bit boring and very repetitive -- men typically named Charles, William, Thomas, Robert, or women named Mary, Elizabeth, Sarah, and so on--and it's great, then, to have an interesting title and property name to attach to them and use instead!

 What's your favorite character name in a novel? Do you have a pet peeve with names? And can you share some of the names of the characters in a book you're reading now?

~Susan

On the move, Part 2

I'm not sure if I blogged about homes and emigration before, but I certainly blogged ten months ago about moving, and here we go again. We move into our new house next week after about 4 years of being wandering renters -- yay! -- so I thought I'd blog a bit about houses and homes. (BTW, that's Charlie 2 and friend, taken at my son's house in Ottawa. Which is another kind of home.)

Here's the main reason we bought our new house. :)

I care about homes, and thus, so do my characters. in An Unlikely Countess, Cate longs for the home he  could never have because he was a second son. Prudence wants any home that's decent, but as she learns about herself she realizes she's always grieved the loss of her girlhood home. I didn't even notice that Paradise Lost was a running theme until well into the book!

In A Scandalous Countess, which I'm polishing now (out next February) Georgia, Countess of Maybury has lost her homes by being widowed. Because she didn't bear an heir, her cherished homes now belong to the new earl. Lord Dracy, her destiny, joined the navy at thirteen, so his homes have been his ships, but now he's inherited a title and estate he's unwillingly drawn into its preservation. That picture is one I sent to my publisher as a suggestion for Georgia, who's not yet twenty-one. It's from the movie Perfume, and exactly the right look and period.

  In The Demon's Mistress, a novella out again now as an e-book, Lord Vandeiman is the end of his line and desperately wants to save the house that's all that's left of his family, but he's penniless -- until a rich widow offers him a fortune to pose as her betrothed for a while. The picture is Van from the cover of the Three Heroes omnibus.

The Dragon's Bride, to be reissued soon in print, is a little different in that Con has inherited a title and estate he doesn't want, which takes him away from his family home. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that of course at the end he's back in the home he wants. That trilogy, which includes The Demon's Mistress and The Devil's Heiress is all about a place, Hawk in the Vale, beloved to the three heroes born there.

And so it goes. I can't seem to help writing about ancient, rooted homes. Of course it comes with writing about the aristocracy, as aristocratic heroes usually have estates and houses which mean something to them, even if only as a burden of duty to preserve their heritage for future generations.

That is an important aspect of many aristocratic cultures sometimes underestimated by North American writers. It's not unfair for nearly everything to go to the eldest son (though we could easily argue it should be eldest son or daughter!) Looked at over centuries or even millennia, it's the only rational way to go. Cultures that have traditionally divided land between the children have not fared well. Soon no piece of land can support a family.

However, I think my often unconscious focus on home is triggered by being an emigrant. We left England to live in Canada, and lived in four places across that wide country. Emigration is almost always a very dislocating experience. Sometimes it works out well, but when I started reading on line boards for emigrants who want to return home, I realized how distressing many, perhaps most, people find it.

As we stayed in Canada for over 30 years, it wasn't traumatic for me, but the subconscious message of my books seems to be that home matters to me. I'm the same as a reader. I can't stand it when a happy ending doesn't involve a settled home, preferably one where one or more characters have old roots. Perhaps I've always chosen to write aristocratic romances because home has always had power.

Even in my SF story, The Trouble With Heroes.... the completion of that phrase comes at the end -- "...that they want to come home." That's the only reward Dan wants for saving the world, but societies are often uncomfortable with the returning hero, permanently changed by what he or she has had to become to win the fight.

(I apologize for the fact that a lot of my web page needs updating. This buying and renovating a house takes a lot of organizational energy, it would seem!)

How about you? Do you care whether the happy couple have a rooted home at the end of a romance?

Or do you enjoy seeing them head off in search of it, or even on a rootless adventure? ::shudder::

How important is home to you in general?

I'll send a copy of the anthology Irresistible Forces to one commenter. That contains The Trouble With Heroes.... I'll make a random pick from among the most interesting.

Here's a picture of our new living room, waiting for us. And what we started with.

Cheers,

Jo

 

 

Devilish Montague and Brains

While most of the wenches were in NYC romping through the RWA conference, I was at home writing blogs and answering interview questions about DEVILISH MONTAGUE, the latest in my Rebellious Sons series. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. I prefer to stay home and write. While I love visiting NYC and seeing friends and editors and agents, crowds give me hives. I don’t know how new authors remember those snappy elevator pitches they throw out when asked what they’re working on. I can’t even remember my own name when confronted with that question. I’m not shy. It’s simply the stress of the situation and my natural introversion that creates memory loss. Well, and maybe a mild case of ADD or as Jennifer Crusie calls it, the “importance of shiny things.”

I doubt that I’m alone in my inability to finesse social situations. I’m always fascinated with the differences between extroverts and introverts. It’s actually physical, so brain function is also of interest. It’s difficult to portray my fascination with brains in romance, however, since readers generally expect our protagonists to be well…heroic, unless they're zombies and eating brains. Painful shyness and Asperger’s don’t generally convey heroic, although Jennifer Ashley did a lovely job in THE MADNESS OF LORD IAN MACKENZIE.

But autism and ADD and other forms of social ineptness did not develop with the 20th century just because we learned to identify them. They’ve existed throughout the ages. We simply didn’t understand the problem. Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_figures_sometimes_considered_autistic which gives a list of historical figures who could easily have been diagnosed as Asperger’s today. The description of Henry Cavendish is almost textbook accurate. Often, the brain malfunctions causing social ineptness are in the minds of geniuses. I guess it’s hard to have all that complicated wiring and function normally.

So I played with my fascination by including a secondary character with Asperger’s in my MONTAGUE tale. My legally blonde heroine might behave as the “flibbertiwidget” that my hero calls her, but she’s not stupid. Beneath her pretty blonde curls and flirtatious ways is a woman who loves her odd little brother and wants him to have the home where he’d once been happy. Unfortunately, her boorish half-brother has gambled the house away.  The house is in Chelsea, not exactly the social center of the world, and it’s been left to dry rot for years, so it’s not exactly  valuable to anyone except Jocelyn and her brother. Unfortunately, the extremely brainy, cynical, and violence-prone Blake Montague is the beneficiary of the Chelsea house. He doesn’t want it. But it belongs to his father, and he can’t sell it for the officer’s colors he wants. Access to Jocelyn’s newly acquired inheritance would be a fair trade off for the house, if marriage wasn’t the requirement for obtaining the deed.

English Cottage - Credit: Pengannel

How surly, brainiac Blake deals with a flaky wife who adores society, a brother-in-law who keeps duck eggs under pillows, a potty-mouthed parrot, a falling down shack of a house, and an encrypted message he’s determined to break should keep most readers entertained for an hour or two, I hope! If you're intrigued, there's an excerpt on my website: http://patriciarice.com/

Since I’m sitting here with a huge box of author’s copies, I’ll happily give one away to a random commenter. To stimulate your thinking caps, what flaws can you tolerate in your heroes and heroines? Which ones are beyond the pale?

The Glorious Fourth

by Mary Jo

Happy birthday, USA! 

All nations have their celebrations, and July 4th, 1776 is our day to honor our Declaration of Independence from Britain.

The date:

Of course, history is often fuzzy.  July 2, 1776, is actually the day that the Continental Congress approved a resolution of independence, so that was the official separation.

The Declaration:

But a proper document was needed, to explain why the colonies were taking such a drastic step, so after the resolution was approved, the congress studied the declaration that explained their momentous decision.  The draft declaration was produced by a Committee of Five, with Thomas Jefferson the principal writer.  After debate, it was approved on the Fourth of July.

 

It’s likely that not everyone signed the document on the Fourth, (a lot of historians think August 2nd was the day), though Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin all later wrote that they signed on July 4th.  (Jefferson and Adams were the only signers who later became president, and they died on exactly the same day: July 4th, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration.)  But the exact date is less important than the significance of the event. 

The celebration:

John Adams said in a letter to his beloved Abigail,

“I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.”

Actually, he was talking about July 2nd, but he was right about celebrating with devotion, illuminations, sports, etc.  We still do. 

 

A community project:

One of my favorite celebration stories is a piece of local history.  On July 4th, 1827, the 500 or so citizens of Boonsboro, Maryland, gathered and in one  day (with a break for lunch), they built a memorial dedicated to George Washington.  It was the first monument to Washington to be completed.  It looks like a stone jug. <g>  As a popular celebration of our nation and a great hero, it’s wonderful.  I think of it as rather like a barn raising.

The words:

The words of the Declaration resonate today:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

 Jefferson could write! When I visit the Jefferson memorial in Washington, reading his words carved on the walls bring tears to my eyes.  (The Lincoln memorial has the same effect.  Both illustrate the incredible power of words.) 

Since this is a holiday, I imagine many of you are off doing things with friends and family, so I’ll keep this short.  But it’s worth remembering that the American revolution was a unique and quite amazing event.  As a nation, we’re a work in progress, doing some things well and others badly.  The same is true of all nations. 

So happy birthday, USA! Let's keep working on getting it right!

Mary Jo, happy to see not only Wenches Jo, Joanna, Andrea/Cara, and Anne in NY at the RWA conference, but several of our valued regulars: Maggie Robinson, Louisa Cornell, and Susana Fraser.  If I missed anyone, my apologies.  It was a very busy week!