By the magic of random number generation…
Kim in Hawaii (and aren’t you lucky to be there!)
you have won the signed copy of Lessons in French. Send your snailmail address to riskies[at]yahoo.com and we’ll send the info on to Laura.
Thanks everyone for stopping by to chat!
Janet and I (and Cara’s Todd, it turns out) have been caught in a near record-breaking Washington, DC, snowfall. I’m sure this is not a surprise; it’s made the news, but something this big cannot be ignored!
Those of you who live in places where snow is commonplace may not realize the significance of a 30 inch snowfall in Washington, DC (in my Virginia area we only managed 27 inches). We ususally get only one or two snowstorms a year and two or three inches of snow brings us to a crashing halt. Thirty inches in paralyzing.
Here’s the view from my bedroom window Saturday. We still had more snow to come.
And the same view Sunday afternoon after we were almost dug out. That’s my husband, who is 5’11” reaching up to clean the car. 
Our front stoop and sidewalk are untouched.
We have not ventured out yet, but the roads remain so bad that the Federal Government is closed. (This is a very big deal here.) Amtrak between New York and DC is halted; planes aren’t flying; buses aren’t running. The only public transportation is the metro subway underground, not above.
We’re the lucky ones. We still have one gallon of milk left and plenty of toilet paper. Thousands are without heat, including some friends of ours who live near Mount Vernon.
Which brings me to the fact that this is not a record breaking snowfall. The unofficial record of 35 inches goes back to January 28, 1772, before official records were kept. How do we know that the snowfall that date was 35 inches? Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson record it in their diaries.
It’s not all hardship, though. Thanks to Facebook, two thousand gathered in Dupont Circle in DC for a Community Snowball fight.
I went on a search for Regency era snow pictures (to make this relevant to Risky Regencies). I found two. This first one is the Liverpool Mail, dating a bit later in the 1830s.
The second is from 1804 (earlier) called: The Neglected Daughter: An Affecting Tale.
This shows what happens to daughters who stray (i.e. have babies out of wedlock)
Are you in the “snow” area? How much did you get? If you were me, would you wish you were stranded in Florida, like my friend, Darlene Gardner? Do you like or hate the snow?
Check my website for new announcements and on how to order Regency High Society Affairs, Vol 12, featuring my second book, The Wagering Widow.
Happy Shoveling!
One of the most beloved writers of romance is back…. She’s better than ever, and she’s worth the wait! Her wit is laugh-out-loud funny and her poignant moments are so heartwarming. I’m glad she is back, and I do believe she is better than before and I know, like me, all her fans will be saying her new book was worth the long wait!
A big Riskies welcome to Laura Kinsale, who is here to chat about her new release Lessons in French. She’s offered a signed copy to one person who makes a comment or asks a question. So come on in and chat!
RR: Welcome, Laura, it’s great to have you visit. Let’s jump straight into the interview: What’s your favorite part of writing?
LK: That deep sense of flow and concentration, when I’m living in the story with the characters. It doesn’t come on demand, but when it does, it makes it all worth doing.
RR: What do you think the key to writing comedy is?
LK: Putting an unexpected twist at the end of a sentence or paragraph.
RR: If Lessons in French were made into a movie, who would play the leads (can be any actors at any time; mix and match, if you want)?
LK: I’m a fan of USA’s White Collar at the moment. Matt Bomer would be perfect for Trev, just that sense of devil-may-care elegance and mischief.
Callie, hmmm–maybe a very young Julie Andrews.
RR: Why do you love Heyer so much? What is your favorite book?
LK: My favorite Heyer is Sylvester, for the hero’s intense low moment and grovel. I love Heyer’s dry wit, mixed with a little craziness. It’s hard to top the Baluchistan hound in Frederica for finely-tuned character comedy.
RR: What’s your favorite part about Twitter? What’s the funnest experience you’ve had there?
LK: I secretly enjoy tweeting animals. My dog Ventoux (who tweets as me, oddly enough!) has a couple of particular friends, a great dane, @dooleybug8 and a horse in New Zealand, @stationbred . They keep life in perspective, tweeting back and forth about visits to the vet, opening gates, and how to get under Mom’s skin.
RR: (Aaaaw) (And the standard Risky question) What’s “risky” about Lessons in French?
LK: From a writing standpoint, the conflict. Callie and Trev are in love from the start, thought they don’t admit it to themselves, much less to one another. So the things that keep them apart have to be something the reader can comprehend as real obstacles that are true to the characters. I had to be very convincing in developing the characters, their beliefs about themselves and the world, because it’s largely those self-concepts that drive the conflict. That’s a fairly difficult writing challenge. But worth it. Readers seem to really like both the hero and heroine.
Thanks for having me on the Riskies!
Your question or comment? Ask away …
Hello, Riskies! I’ve missed you all in my time away from the blog (though I do stop in now and again to comment.)
But it’s just not the same. I miss the blog, and miss having the opportunity to air my opinions and force people to read my attempts at wit…
So when the Jane Austen Evening came around again, I thought “I really want to do another blog post at Risky Regencies on the ball!”
And the Riskies very kindly agreed — and Elena very very kindly offered me her day! (Thanks, Elena!)
I’ve posted here before about my experiences at the Jane Austen Ball which is held every January in Pasadena (and which is officially called the Jane Austen Evening, but I like to call it a ball because it really is a ball!) If you’re interested in my previous experiences, just click on the “Jane Austen Evening” tag at the end of this post to see my earlier masterpieces…
The festivities began at 4 pm with a grand tea. The food included tea sandwiches (cucumber, herbed egg, cheddar and carrot, and chicken cranberry — the cucumber was my favorite), two kinds of soup (including Mulligatawny), cottage pie, scones with cream and jam, and a variety of desserts, including my favorite: a very flavorful rosemary shortbread.
Oh, and there was tea, of course! Keemun, Queen Catherine, decaf Queen Catherine (yes, I know, not very Regency! but that’s what I had, or I’d never have slept that night), chamomile, and blackcurrant.
During the tea, we had a performance by a musical gentleman who called himself Beethoven. Yes, modern music! Quite shocking.
After we’d all eaten far more than we’d intended, and had a bit of trouble fitting into our clever Regency clothes (oh, very well, I’ll admit that some of us had only-moderately-intelligent Regency clothes), and gossiped more than we ought, we went off to freshen up and make ourselves ready for dancing.
Because…oh, yes, there was dancing. And more dancing! Quite four hours of it.
I scandalized everyone by dancing more than twice with a dashing gentleman, and scandalized them still more when they learned he was my husband. (Yes, I confess, I danced with him four times! It’s not strictly correct, but I am the daring, rule-flouting sort, as you all know.) (And even if I’m not, I can pretend to be for one night.)
The dances included several that have featured in Jane Austen adaptations, such as the always popular Mr. Beveridge’s Maggot (which was Lizzy and Darcy’s dance in the BBC/A&E P&P), Shrewsbury Lasses (from the same P&P, and fondly nicknamed “Other Way, Mr. Collins!”)
I’ve attended the Jane Austen Evening something like seven times now (and also attended about five or six other such balls), and I’m always interested in the changes I see. Every year, there seem to be more and more experienced dancers, which is delightful! It may be because there are so many flourishing English Country Dance groups in Southern California…or perhaps it’s because the ball sells out earlier every year, so that only the most dedicated get their vouchers!
I’ve also noticed a higher and higher percentage of attendees in some sort of costume. I don’t mean to imply that there weren’t many to start with — there were, with many fabulous costumes to be seen — but the number of attendees in modern clothing seems smaller every year.
Is this, too, because only the most dedicated get a ticket? Or because folks have had years to work out a costume? Only Jane Austen knows for sure…
Speaking of costumes…I saw a lot of feathers this year! They must be all the rage. And so many utterly gorgeous fabrics!!! I had so much fun just walking around and looking at all the gowns…
Speaking of fabulous costumes…here are some of the many photos I took this year! (Don’t you love digital cameras? if only Jane Austen had had one, we’d know for sure whether Mr. Darcy looked like Colin Firth, Laurence Olivier, David Rintoul, or Matthew Macfadyen!)
So…have you ever attended a period ball?
What did you think of it?
What did you like best?
If you’ve never been to one, what part of the ball do you think you’d like best?
Would you wear feathers?
Would you dance with Mr. Collins?
What sort of sandwich sounds best to you?
If you had unlimited money and were going to create your own Jane Austen ball, what sort of food would you serve?
What would you wear?
Thanks for sharing my fun!
Cara
Cara King, scapegrace and hoyden
A lot of writing guides say to ‘write what you know.’ In my case, my heroines tend to be insecure, slightly neurotic, smart, witty and acerbic. So? What’s your point?
But one way, I’ve realized, that I don’t write what I know is in my heroine’s appearance. Namely, her boobs. See, I’m not so busty. I used to be, about twenty years ago, then I lost a bunch of weight and realized I wasn’t really all that much. But my heroines? They are stacked. Their breasts are gorgeous. My heroes notice their bosoms, too, which is fun to write about–a female fantasy, if you will.
But oddly enough, in my contemporaries, my heroines are built a lot more like me (but cuter). They’ve got some junk in their trunk, and not so much on top. I hadn’t really thought about it much, but when I figured it out, I think I decided it’s because my historical books are way more fantastic world-building, whereas the contemporaries mirror my own life much more. Because, see, I haven’t been to Almack’s in forever.
Anyway, it’s fun to create a person who is who you’d like to be, in appearance at least. I guess that’s why most of those ’80s sturm und drang romances had impossibly beautiful heroines, which rings so false to current readers–those authors were creating a total fantasy, writing a heroine who was perfect–too perfect–in many ways. We’re a lot more realistic now, but I’m still going to write a heroine whose cups runneth over.
Which heroine would you most like to look like? If you were writing a super-heroic you, what feature(s) would you change?