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Monthly Archives: March 2011

I’m posting on the fly today and apologize in advance for not being as witty as Megan or as talented a photographer as Carolyn (these are pictures from my front yard).

So we had yet another snow day on Wednesday and today’s forecast doesn’t even hit the 30s. I also haven’t had time to write for most of this month, in part because of the snow day disruptions and also other assorted Dumb Stuff I Have to Do.

So I’m just waiting for spring and waiting for a time when I’m past some of the Dumb Stuff and can get back to my balloonist story.

I’m trying to have a better attitude about missing the writing. What I used to do in situations like this is 1) feel guilty about not writing (because serious writers write every day) and 2) feel guilty about missing the writing (because a proper stroke caregiver and mother is perfectly satisfied with dedicating all her time to her loved ones). Instead I’m just telling myself it’s OK not to be writing (because I really do have some higher priorities right now) and it’s OK to miss it (because I’m human).

And while I’m waiting, I’m trying to live in the moment too. But also thinking about how fun it will be when I can finally put on a skirt and sandals again, and watching those daffodils poke out of the snow. 🙂

How do you cope with waiting?

Elena


There’s nothing that can pull you out of a good historical like an anachronism.

Of course, that can be taken too far; which among us has not rolled our eyes (if not literally, then mentally) when some member of the Historical Police has said that something could not POSSIBLY be because it didn’t exist until a year later.

To which I always say, “It’s fiction. Deal with it.”

(That doesn’t excuse just missing or poor research, such as when a Duke is called My Lord instead of Your Grace, or if a divorce is regarded as blithely in a Regency romance as it is today.)

But there are circumstances, certainly, where things existed prior to being documented. For example, language. Many of us Regency authors own Captain Francis Grose’s 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (I have two copies, myself), and it’s fun to skim through and realize many words were in existence then that you wouldn’t have thought.

And just this week comes news that the Oxford English Dictionary has added new words to its definitive tome: he words “OMG,” “LOL” and “FYI,” as well as ♥, as in “I ♥ NYC.”

The last one is just nuts! It’s the first time a symbol has been defined as a word. But certainly it has been around for much longer than its acknowledgment within the OED, and one can surmise that certain words and phrases were around a lot longer in Regency times than documentation allows for.

What words jar you from a story? What words surprised you by being extant at the time? What word do you think the OED should add next–or never allow within its pages?

Megan

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I’ve found a couple/few websites that I find fascinating and I want to share today.

First, an amazing if heartbreaking online exhibit, Threads of Feeling, from the Foundling Museum in London. Four thousand babies were left anonymously at the hospital between 1741 and 1760 and sometimes a note, and a small token, usually a piece of fabric or ribbon (but sometimes a key) was left with each infant and kept as part of the admission record. The fabric was either provided by the mother or cut from the child’s clothing by the hospital’s nurses. If, as occasionally happened, a mother returned, she could identify the scrap of fabric to claim her child. These fragments represent the largest collection of eighteenth fabrics in Britain.

You can find more examples of the fabrics and the ledger entries in a review at The Fort Collins Museum & Discovery Science Center Blog or at the exhibit’s Facebook page.

The museum tells the story of the 27,000 children who were left at the Foundling Hospital between 1739 and 1954, in art, interiors, and social history, and the museum is close to the site of the original building which was demolished in the early twentieth century. The founders of the original Foundling Hospital were philanthropist Thomas Coram, the artist William Hogarth and the composer George Frideric Handel, and the museum also houses the Gerald Coke Handel Collection.

The Handel House Museum in Mayfair, London was one of the many projects restored with the expertise of Patrick Baty, a specialist in historical paint and color. His blog, News from Colourman, is fascinating. His interest in architecture led to speculation and then research in authentic historical decoration and color, and if the idea of peering into a microscope to view pigments makes you go all tingly, well…

Talking of going all tingly, you’ve got to check out the hilarious Bangable Dudes in History, “Dead man porn for your still-beating heart.” I love this site. Not only do you get pics of the dudes but pie charts of their attributes. For instance, Robert Cornelius, American chemist and pioneer in photography, Joined father’s lamp company…must’ve been fighting off the chicks; Nicolai Tesla, Was besties with Mark Twain–another potential hot threesome. Find out why Shostakovich was one hot brooding bitch or Sherman was red-ginger hot. Byron is coming soon!

Have you found anything good online recently?

We need to hear from you–yes, you, cyn209, who has won a signed copy of The Scandal of Lady Elinor by Regina Jeffers and Barbara E who has won a copy of The Vampire Voss by Colleen Gleason.

Email us at riskies AT yahoo.com.

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I am in deadline mode. Ack!!! :::arms failing::: Oh, hey, hold on while I go organize my soup cans and sort the vegetable bin.

While I do that, here’s some pictures from around Jewel Central. Also, this post is Regency related because I am writing a Regency. Oh, and also, I am using the exploding pencil AND the falling off doorknob in this book.

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