Monthly Archives: July 2008

Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

Updated on July 11, 2008 by megan

First off, I am not sorry at all if I planted Kool & The Gang in your head with the title of this post. Welcome to my nightmare (yup, Alice Cooper).

Next, let me admit that today I have even less to say than usual. I have been reading a lot, and writing some, and that is all good. My son and I are in Minnesota visiting relatives, and it’s been a lovely time, the lack of stress meaning I’m less neurotic than normal. So I don’t have any bees buzzing in my bonnet, or ants in pants, or fly in ointment, or any other kind of insect issue.

I am gearing up for National, and I told Amanda recently I hadn’t even thought about what to pack. If I was one of our heroines, I’d probably be one of those governess-y types, the quiet, secretly witty ladies who would have only a few gowns, one good one to wear to dinner that would be way less lovely than all the other ladies, but the hero would only see my sparkling hazel eyes and the way my crooked tooth glinted in the candlelight.

But I’m not. So I have many decisions to make. Namely, what to wear.

Some men claim that women dress for other women, and perhaps that is so, but I dress for ME (which explains those glitter shirts, red snakeskin boots, Hello Kitty t-shirt and stretch jeans with the hole in the knee I wear), as well as women. And men. And anyone else who might see me and think, for a second, I’m as glamourous as I would like to be.

I will probably do my standard travel outfit of black separates, a few colorful pieces, and gowns from my grandmother’s collection. I have been wearing her clothes for several Nationals now, and probably have to repeat, but I am hoping no-one but me (and maybe Amanda) notices.

My biggest concern is that I not look muttony, as in ‘mutton dressed as lamb.’ I’m not so old I should be wearing one of those dowager’s purple turbans, but I’m too old to be rocking some clothes I love. I know that. Really.

Boy, I sure am rambling.

My Saturday night outfit–for the RITA awards–will most likely be a pink floor-length dress from the ’60s made of stiff, almost upholstery-like, fabric; it’s got an Empire waist with a cute little bow in the middle, no sleeves, and the fabric has flowers printed into it, is that passimenterie? Like a couch, only vertical, and fitting around my body. Sounds horrid, doesn’t it? I promise it looks okay.

And if I were one of those governesses, I’d be so envious of the gowns my betters got to wear, when all I had was some drab hand-me-down in a color that didn’t suit me.

Clothes–to get back to the Regency part, which is ostensibly why I’m here, although no doubt you are wondering just why I am here today–are one of the biggest reasons I love the Regency so much. The fashion was classic and simple, and you could imagine wearing some of the clothing today, at least I could.

I even like the men’s clothes, especially because my husband would look hot in those skin-tight fawn-colored breeches, he’s got long, gorgeous legs although I bet he’d rival Beau Brummell in how long it took him to get his cravat right (my husband is a modern-day dandy).

So no real questions today, except what aspect of Regency life zings you, the way the clothing does me? The architecture, the clothing, the art, the freedom of political expression, the horse culture, what?

Thanks for your patience as I blather on again.

Megan

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Fashion, Megan | 18 Replies

Bad Girls

Updated on July 10, 2008 by Janet Mullany

Who doesn’t love a bad girl, or in romance-speak, a flawed heroine?

There was quite a lively discussion yesterday at Smart Bitches on favorite flawed heroines, following an article in The Guardian where Toni Jordan listed her top ten–a very odd list including Miss Haversham from Great Expectations. Not that many from romance, though, and I’m wondering if it’s because one of the conventions of romance is that we want our heroes and heroines to change, transformed by love and self-knowledge.

Trouble is that quite often it’s the badness of the heroine that keeps us reading, the My God what will she say or do next syndrome.

So how does your character undergo the necessary transformation without losing the vitality?

And here’s my very own bad girl, Caroline Elmhurst, from the book I’m struggling to finish, A Most Lamentable Comedy (Little Black Dress, 2009), leaving London (having just escaped her creditors). She’s promised her maid Mary an inside seat on the coach, but unfortunately only one is available…

“We’ll cut for the inside seat.” I pull my pack of cards from the capacious reticule with which I travel. “High I go inside, low you go outside.”

She cuts a king, and cackles with glee as I pull a four. “High I go inside, low you go outside,” I repeat, and push her toward the coach as she opens her mouth to howl protest. “And if you don’t keep quiet, I’ll tell everyone you stole my petticoats–why else would you wear four?”

I help her onto the roof of the coach with a vigorous shove to the arse, hand her the umbrella (I am not totally without feelings), and settle myself inside, opening the book of sermons I carry to repel male attention.

What bad girls in romance do you love, and do you love them more at the beginning or the end? How do their wild, wicked, impulsive etc. ways transform them or become transformed into something else?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged A Most Lamentable Comedy, bad girls | 21 Replies

Fiction and history

Updated on July 9, 2008 by Elena Greene

I once heard a reader complain about an author (not me) who wrote about a fictional house in Bath at an address that would have placed it in the river. I suggested to the reader that the author may have used a nonexistent address to avoid conflicting with a real house with its own history, also that very few readers would know Bath in enough detail to care about something like that. This sort of exchange that makes me think about the boundaries between history and fiction. We are making this stuff up, after all. At what point can it be called “historically inaccurate”?

I think it’s a matter of scope and what is common knowledge.

Regency authors frequently invent English villages. I’ve done it several times myself, though I always based my fictional villages loosely on real ones in the county of choice. If one invented a new city to rival London or Bath, that’d be edging into alternate history territory; there’d have to be a good story reason to do it.

I have read some romances which featured fictional small countries, when the author wanted to write about a royal hero or heroine. This sort of verges on alternate history, but on the other hand, there really were quite a few little principalities and duchies. Inventing the Regency period equivalent of Liechtenstein seems OK to me if the story justifies it, as in Julia Ross’s MY DARK PRINCE.

Another issue of scope could be military rank and achievement. Romance heroes are often captains or perhaps majors; going any further up the chain could start to conflict with real history. It took influence as well as performance to move up as fast as Wellington did–and who wants their hero to compete with that reality? Yet I’m OK with heroes who (like Sharpe) play a significant role in historic events. There I think we’re in Author’s Note territory.

One borderline area we’ve discussed before is the plethora of dukes in romance. There really weren’t that many of them and fewer who came into their titles young enough to be typical romance hero material. To me inventing a new duke is like inventing a new country; it makes sense only if it’s really going to drive the story. Otherwise, I think a lesser title or even (gasp!) none at all would be more realistic. After all, Mr. Darcy didn’t need a title just to be hot. 🙂

What do you think? When do authors go too far in creating places and characters? When do you think an Author’s Note is required and when does work cross over into alternate history?

Elena

www.elenagreene.com

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged alternate history, historical accuracy, historical fiction | 18 Replies

How to Understand?

Updated on July 8, 2008 by Elena Greene

One can study history, and read memoirs and letters, and devour historical novels by the bushel…and yet I find there are still some aspects of how people really lived and thought which it is hard for a modern person to really thoroughly understand.

Oh, one can have an intellectual understanding — but I mean a gut understanding, a real “feeling” for the way people lived, and thought — an ability to mentally step into their shoes, and see through their eyes.

A few areas that I think are particularly difficult for a modern person to truly grasp:

1) Just how different the attitude toward STUFF was. Nowadays, we have far too much stuff — we’re inundated by it, our homes overflow with it, we complain our kids have way too much junk… We have Jane Austen action figures and joke mugs just for the heck of it, our kids get cheap toys in cereal boxes and at the doctor, charities and realtors send us free notepads and coins and calendars and bumper stickers and postcards…

So how can we truly grasp a world where stuff actually cost money? Where things were used and reused and reused again? Where the Artful Dodger could hang for stealing a handkerchief, because handkerchiefs were actually worth something?

2) And how can a modern person raised in a democratic, multi-ethnic society ever entirely comprehend the mindset of a person who never (or rarely) met anyone who wasn’t a supporter of monarchy, whose whole society believed that men were smarter than women, that aristocrats had superior blood and brains to commoners, that people’s abilities were determined by their race and national origin?

3) And how do we, living in a world with good contraception, where women can support themselves (and their children, if need be) by working as a lawyer or doctor or police officer or computer programmer — a world that has heard from Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan and Oprah and Jennifer Crusie and The Joy of Sex — how do we get into the mindset of people who thought a woman’s chastity, modesty and “virtue” were her crown jewels, and who thought a woman’s duty was to obey her husband in the same way her husband obeyed the king?

Anyway, these are three areas that occur to me right off. Which of these seem hardest to you? Or what other things do you think are particularly hard to grasp?

All answers welcome!

Cara
Cara King, whose brain isn’t hampered at all by its common blood

Posted in Risky Regencies | Tagged Uncategorized | 18 Replies