Word Wenches

What We're Reading in September!

Nicola here. It’s the end of September and as usual we’re doing our round up of Wench reading for the month and asking you to recommend some more books for our towering TBR piles! One of the things I love about the What We’re Reading feature is that the recommendations always inspire and enthuse me. It’s lovely to hear people sharing their suggestions with such pleasure! As the nights grow longer here in the UK and the evenings are cool it’s the most perfect time to curl up in front of the woodburning stove. Maybe that’s why the first book I’m talking about this month is called Into the Fire. It’s a dual time story set in the present and the fifteenth century, involving the story of Joan of Arc. Into the Fire is a thriller and I found I was equally engaged with the modern parts of the story as I was with the engrossing mystery surrounding Joan. This book is really compelling. I could not put it down.

Seeing the Elephant

by Mary Jo

On September 8th, late in the evening, I pressed "Send" to email the manuscript of Once a Rebel to my editor. And the next morning we flew to Africa.  I wrote 7K words that last day in order to have a semblance of an ending.  I do not recommend this. <G>

But the safari in Botswana was wonderful.  Nothing like going off the grid when you've just finished a book!  I'd had no particular awareness of Botswana until I read the first No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books by Alexander McCall Smith.  Born in what is now Zimbabwe, McCall Smith was a law professor at the University of Botswana for many years, and his love and understanding of Southern Africa is profound.

Books to TV

Anne here, and today I'm talking about the books-to-TV process. In recent times I've picked up a few books that sparked TV series — ones I really enjoy, naturally.

Sometimes I see the TV series first, then pick up the books out of curiosity, sometimes the book comes first. It's always a tricky process.

When you read the book(s) first, you form a clear impression of the characters, the setting and the tone of the story-world. It can then make watching the TV version problematic — especially if it's not how you envisaged the people, or the tone is wrong —or you can't put your finger on it, but it's just not right! That's if you loved the book version, of course.

Occasionally there will be a few differences in the TV version, but in all other respects it's excellent — and sometimes it adds to and enriches your original experience of the books. Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series was that for me. I had a clear image of the book-version-Sharpe in my mind —until I saw Sean Bean's screen portrayal of Sharpe which in my opinion eclipsed the original written character, and in subsequent readings of the books I substituted  Sean Bean's Sharpe in my imagination.

Laying the Foundations

Susanna here.

I credit Dame Agatha Christie for inspiring one of my more obsessive writerly habits: the drawing of floor plans.

I think I own every book Agatha Christie wrote, and I loved when she put in the floor plans of houses to show us what rooms were where, and how impossible it was for anyone to have committed the murder in question.

My own stories didn’t really call for such elaborate measures, but the more I wrote the more I saw the advantage of using a floor plan as a writing tool. As clearly as I saw some scenes and settings in my mind, I could get turned around sometimes, so I got into the habit of sketching out rough plans of houses my characters lived in. Just a few lines on a page, really, so I didn’t have someone walking into a cupboard when they were supposed to be in the kitchen.

Jottings on Paper

Andrea/Cara here, In my current Regency-set mystery WIP (more on that in a month or two!) one of the protagonists makes her living putting words and images on paper. Which  got me to thinking about what an incredibly important basic commodity it was in the era. Communication—whether it be art, personal letters, scholarly ideas, firebrand political tracts, music, etc.—was dependent on paper, from the fine deckled edged watercolor papers to a common sheet of foolscap (though none of it, however humble, was cheap.)

Peregrinations

Susan here, researching a new novel, looking through my bookshelves and files for research notes and books on falconry and hawking--I'm returning to those scribbled handwritten notes, books on falconry and now some new books on the subject, putting together a plot spin for my newest novel. I love revisiting old research and adding new to it, wandering a bit to see where it goes--so I've been, uh, peregrinating through the falconry notes. <groan>

And I came across some photos taken several years back when a friend and I flew hawks for a day, and when I visited a local falconer to meet his trained goshawk. The photos brought back the feeling of what it's like, even briefly, to fly hawks and be around birds of prey. The research filled out the story for my Laird of the Wind and other medievals, and later added detail to Lady Macbeth and Queen Hereafter. Experiential research is a great way to add layers to the writing of a story--I've flown hawks, shot arrows (and caught them!), trained with swords and weapons, taken harp lessons and more. I love the chance to try for myself what I'm researching for characters and story, discovering details I might not learn otherwise.

Falconry, the skill of keeping, training and hunting with falcons, hawks and other birds of prey, has been around a long, long time, developing in the ancient world in Mesopotamia, Assyria, Egypt, Rome, where stelai, mural paintings and sculptures show birds of prey in hunting and domestic scenes. In Egypt, thousands of mummified falcons and hawks have been found in tombs, showing the great significance of the birds in culture and religion. The falcon-headed god Horus, with his dominion over the sky, over war and hunting, lent falcons and hawks an aura of magic, mysticism and mythology -- and that layer of meaning has stayed with the birds.

In Europe in the Dark Ages through the Middle Ages, falconry (austringers use hawks, falconers falcons, but the term falconry is used for both) became an essential part of hunting, as birds could be trained to pluck game birds out of the sky and hares in the fields. Among the Saxons and Normans and later British and European cultures, falconry quickly developed into more than sport, requiring high skill and years of training; today, just to be licensed, falconers must fulfill apprenticeship years. 

Medieval treatises such as The Boke of St Albans as well as modern techniques of falconry show that the keeping, training and flying a bird of prey requires utter dedication and total focus, particularly in the training phase. They are not pets; they are always a challenge, wild, instinctive, highly intelligent; capable of leaving a trainer in the blink of an eye and never looking back.  

Georgette Heyer Conference

Anne here, and today I'm talking about a Georgette Heyer conference I attended in Sydney recently.

It's only the second Heyer conference in Australia (that I'm aware of). I bought a ticket to the first one, but in the event, I couldn't make it. I came away from this one feeling that there ought to be more of these celebrations of Heyer all over the world.

This was different from most other conferences — reader or writer — I've attended, in that the audience — just over 200 people — had pretty much read all of Heyer's novels. It was extraordinary—and such fun!—as readers of all ages, from teens to elderly women talked enthusiastically, debating their favorite Heyer and favorite characters and quoting bits they loved. (The pic below is of the speakers and organizers. Thanks Malvina Yock for the photo.)

People had come from far and wide for this one day conference. One woman who'd flown in from another state, confessed at lunchtime that she'd been a bit nervous about coming on her own, knowing no-one, but said it was like walking into a room full of friends — everyone had Heyer in common. 

Where Do The Wenches Work?

Andrea/Cara here, We get a number of questions from readers about our writing processes and the behind-the-scenes things that go on in making a book come to life. And one query that seems to pop up regularly is where do we actually work? Well, since you asked . . .

Mary Jo:
I am falling off a deadline cliff, even more behind than usual.  My desk is even more of a mess than usual.
 
This is not helped by my twenty pound Panda cat, who sprawls and is not easily moved.  I have constructed the Great Wall of Panda out of cardboard and heavy tape dispensers in hopes of keeping him off the keyboard.  This doesn't work very well.  But I do rather enjoy his company.

None Else of Name

Susanna here, with thoughts about the captains and the kings...and pawns.

“History,” Sir Winston Churchill reportedly once said, “is written by the victors.” True enough, but we should also be aware that history, until recently, was written by the privileged, and the privileged had a certain way of looking at the world; of judging what—and whom—deserved to be recorded, and remembered.

The Preston prisoners, from a broadside of the time.

In research I once came across an account of the Battle of Preston, in 1715, written by one of the Jacobite chaplains. “There were taken at Preston seven Lords,” he wrote, then thought to add, “besides 1490 others…”
 
The way he wrote that, so easily dismissing those more than a thousand men while he focused on the fates of the noble lords, made me think of the scene in Shakespeare’s Henry V, when, after the Battle of Agincourt, King Henry asks his herald: “Where is the number of our English dead?” When he’s handed the list, he reads aloud the names of two nobles, a knight, and a gentleman, and then concludes: “None else of name.”

A Regency Ghost

Also probably not a werewolf

Joanna here. Ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night are my topic today. That line would be a wonderful old survival from the past if only it were genuine instead of a Victorian fake. But it is fakes I’m going to talk about so this sets the mood pleasantly.

What did our Regency and Georgian predecessors dread when they huddled under the bedclothes and brisk winds blew their midnight candle out? What did they fear? What haunted their nightmares?

Superstition was pretty rife in the elegant Beau Brummel days, as we know by looking at all those ‘horrid novels’ they shiveringly adored. Before I let myself go all smug and superior, I’ll remind myself superstition is pretty rife nowadays too. Grossmom was born at the end of the nineteenth Century not far from Kiev. She not only believed in werewolves, there’d been one killed in her village in her father’s time. They tracked a killer wolf into the deep woods and shot it. When they came up to find the body, it was a naked man they found dead.

Hmmm ... (goes jo skeptically.) Was this some hunting accident quickly hushed up? Or just somebody who'd made himself unpopular in the village? Grossmom believed it though.

Who Reads American History?

Pat here!

Since Mary Jo is writing about the War of 1812, and my early Americans are being re-released this month, I thought it might be fun to take a little jog back to our elementary school history classes.

Before you turn up your noses, consider this: The American Revolution took place during the Georgian era we so fondly write about in our historical romances, and the War of 1812 was smack dab in the midst of our favorite Regency era. The Americans participating in these confrontations were on the whole, Europeans and mostly English, or descendants thereof. We are essentially talking about the same characters we’re reading about in English Regencies, except they’re on a different continent. My westerns go further and deeper than those early years, delving into the Victorian era—at that point, the cultural dividing line between the US and England is a little more marked, but quite often, the attitudes are the same.

Laboring on Labour Day

by Mary Jo

It's Labor Day, and I'm laboring. <G> I need to complete a late book in the next few days (there's a plague of that amongst the Wenches!) so that means typing as fast as my inaccurate fingers can manage and hoping it makes sense.  After I've transferred the book from my computer to my editor's, I shall quietly slink off the grid for a couple of weeks and not look at any electronic screens and not labor at all.

The labor of many, many people is what has built civilization and as such, it's well worth celebrating labor in genera.  However, our holiday of Labor Day (Labour Day in Canada) is specifically a celebration of organized labor, which is to say unions.  In 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed into law the bill that made Labor Day an official national holiday, though by this time, 30 states had already established Labor Day as state holidays. (Oregon was the first to do so.)  The parade shown here was in 1882 in New York City.  

The traditional ways of celebrating Labor Day are parades, picnics, backyard barbeques, and shopping.  The drawback of it being a major shopping holiday is that people who work in retail tend to labor rather than relax but with luck, they at least get time and a half pay for working on a holiday.  

Labor Day is also one of the endings to summer and beginnings of autumn.  There are several ends, actually.  Astronomical autumn is the fall equinox, generally about September 22, when day and night hours are virtually equal around the world.  (Of course, the autumnal equinox is the spring, vernal equinox in the Southern Hemisphere, but the day and night hours are still equal.

There is also meteorological autumn, which begins September 1st.  That date belongs to the weather folk and it's when the weather starts tilting from summer to fall.  (Though usually not until one last heat wave has passed!)  

Gardens are making their last wild display before autumn sneaks in.  My deck flowers look like vaudeville floozies, beautiful and overdone.  

And then there is Labor Day, which could be called the social end of summer. Vacations are ending, students are returning to school, traffic gets heavier, and there is generally a greater sense of purpose as we settle down to Real Work.

So what are you doing this Labor Day?  Laboring, shopping, marching, or best of all, spending time with friends and family even if the burgers are maybe a little charred?  

And is there anything you'd rather be doing?  <G>

Mary Jo, returning to her labors because "Happily Ever After" doesn't come easily!

The Dog Days of Summer

Nicola here. Yesterday, September 1st, was the official start of autumn, at least according to the meteorologists. Here in the UK the days are getting shorter, the air is getting cooler and there is a misty haze lying over the fields on fine mornings, and dew on the grass. It's back to school, back to work, after the long hot days of summer. The harvest is being gathered in; it doesn't feel quite like full blown autumn yet but you can feel the change in the air.

For me this summer will always conjure memories of my two hot dogs, Angus and Ethel the guide dog puppy, lying on the cool stone floor as they slept away those sultry summer days. Often I found the heat made me sleepy too. The "dog days of summer" seems a perfect description for those weeks even if originally it didn't derive from dogs at all, except in an astronomical sense.