Last year I read Discipline by Mary Brunton (1778-1818). Mary was a Scottish novelist, a contemporary of Jane Austen, whose life, like Austen’s, was cut short by her early death–in childbirth for Brunton. She left us just 3 books, one Emmeline, unfinished.

Self Control, her first published novel was popular and mentioned in Austen’s letters, albeit with less than admiration.

I read Discipline because someone somewhere said that it had a good description of a Regency era ball. It did. The London part of the story was very interesting. The characters had a great deal more freedom than we ever give our heroines. The book’s plot wandered, but there was a lot going on in it. It tells the story of a wealthy but impetuous young woman whose folly and happenstance cause her to descend into poverty and despair, until she reforms her ways and vows to live a disciplined and moral life.

In some ways the book is difficult to slog through. In today’s fiction-world it would be in for some extreme tightening, but Brunton’s voice is an authentic voice of the past, and, to me, it felt like a peek into the real Regency world. One of the things I liked was that Brunton’s characters misbehaved in a grand way. She did not treat their scandals with the delicacy that Jane Austen achieved, but plopped the scandals on the page, front and center. I can just see a Regency teenage girl sneaking her mother’s copy of Discipline and relishing it, like we relished those first romance novels pilfered from our own mothers’ bookshelves.

Here is a very nice piece about Mary Brunton. http://www.chawton.org/biography.php?AuthorID=49

And here is a link to what Jane Austen said of Brunton’s Self Control, complete with links to the complete text of Discipline, Self-Control and Emmeline, her unfinished manuscript.
http://labrocca.com/marybrunton/

Has anyone read Mary Brunton?
What other novels popular in our Regency time period do you recommend, besides Austen, that is?
What romance novel did you sneak from your mother’s bookshelf?

Cheers!

Halloween is all about scary things, and, let me tell you, writing a “Road Trip” story is enough to give me a fright!

It did seem like an excellent idea originally. Send my hero and heroine on a road trip. It put them into close contact, forced them to spend night together and seemed exciting, because the villains were chasing them. Great idea!

But I forgot I had to have them travel from real places, like Liverpool, Penrith, Carlisle, Edinburgh. At least I’ve been to Edinburgh and I did look out the window of the bus to see what the countryside looked like, but that had been in the summer and this story takes place in the autumn.

For this road trip, I had to figure out how what route the would take from Liverpool to Edinburgh. My friend Delle Jacobs (Her Majesty, The Prince of Toads) came to my rescue with the coaching route between the two towns. But then I had to figure out what the land would look like from one location to the other, and what villages might have been in between the larger towns.

The internet came to my rescue. I discovered that mapquest.com has UK maps and the little town names were right next to the highlighted line. Then I discovered Google Earth also would show the route and give a hint to the terrain as well.

Next I searched on the various town names to find as many images as I could so I could see what the villages might have looked like.

Then I had to figure out how my hero and heroine would travel on this road trip- public coach? mail coach? Post-chaise?
I decided to have them ride horses, which I know very little about, my experience with the animals being confined to pony rides as a child. My friends from the Beau Monde and the Regency Loop came to my rescue there, with decisions about issues such as sidesaddles and how far they could travel in a day.

Then, of course, I had to write the story.

My hero and heroine are not quite to Edinburgh at this moment, but they are getting there….

Do you even like road trip stories, now that I’m almost done with mine and it is too late to change it now?

Do you mind if an author accidentally puts in some moors where mountains should be? Will you forgive her such mistakes and trust that she really did try to get it right?

Cheers!
Diane

Coming to bookstores Nov 1 (That is THIS WEDNESDAY!), Diane’s “A Twelfth Night Tale” in Mistletoe Kisses, Harlequin Historicals Regency Christmas Anthology

Here quick are two links to articles I’ve written about contests for the unpublished author. I forgot to include them yesterday but some of you might find them of interest.

Navigating the Contest Waters: Sail Your Career into Authorized Territory (Romantic Times, Nov 2004)

The Contest Empress Speaks (Washington Romance Writers Update, Dec, 2003)

Cheers, Diane

I started entering Romance Writers of America contests with my very first manuscript. Several of RWA’s chapters sponsor romance writing contests. I came in second in the very first contest I entered, Virginia Romance Writers Fool for Love contest, so I was hooked early. By the time 2002 came along, I was finaling in contests left and right, so often that my friend Kathy Caskie (How to Seduce a Duke, Sept 2006) dubbed me “The Contest Empress” and she gave me the sceptre to prove it.

That year my historicals came in 1st and 3rd in the Marlene Contest (my own Washington Romance Writers chapter) – the first place entry became my eHarlequin Daily Read (Jan 2006) The Diamond, and the 3rd place entry became The Improper Wife.

Above you see me with my Marlene Medallion, the prize for coming in first.

In 2003, I won RWA’s Golden Heart contest with the manuscript that became The Mysterious Miss M. There I am accepting the Golden Heart at the RWA conference in New York.

And as Amanda mentioned, this summer my A Reputable Rake won the 2006 RITA, RWA’s most prestigious award, for Best Regency Romance. Here I am accepting the RITA statue in Atlanta.

I made the decision to enter A Reputable Rake in the Regency category of the contest, first, because it fit the category. It was heavily grounded in the Regency time period, and had the right word count. I had always thought of this category as being meant for the TRADITIONAL Regency lines, but knowing those lines were ending, I thought I’d enter A Reputable Rake in that category, rather than short historical.

My decision turned out to be a very good one!

This year there will still be a Regency category for the RITA contest and I think any author whose book fits the guidelines ought to enter the book in the Regency category instead of Short Historical. I don’t have a Regency this year, so I can’t enter.

These are the guidelines for Best Regency Romance: Romantic historical novels with primary settings during the Regency period, typically 1795-1840. The word count for these novels is 40,000-85,000 words.
Judging guidelines: The category includes comedy of manners as well as darker stories, and the books may contain a variety of story elements, such as sexual content, paranormal elements, mystery, suspense, adventure, and non-traditional settings.

Consider this.
1.The Regency category usually has fewer numbers. Fewer numbers equals less
competition. ( but we have to get at least 25 entries!)
2. The competition for all our non-Regency historicals is decreased, because the Short Historical category is not filled with Regencies.
3. Regencies will be judged against other Regencies, which honors the special quality of our time period.
4. RWA will learn that the Regency set historical is still going strong with wonderful, talented authors writing great books.
5. Who knows whether there will be this category again after the contest is revamped. This may be the best chance to reach the finals!
6. I’ll get to stand up there and present some lucky author a RITA!! I already have a dress to wear.(I bought two for this year’s Award ceremony, just in case.)

So, what do you think? Do you think the Regency period deserves a contest category all its own?

Cheers!
The Contest Empress

Last week I was researching my current WIP (work-in-progress), part of which will take place in Scotland and I was looking up information about the Clearances in Scotland, when the land was taken from the crofters and consolidated for bigger profits. Not that my story has anything to do with the Clearances, certainly not the Highland Clearances or anything Highland, but I needed to know just for a throwaway line.

I came upon this in a History of Scotland page:

In 1810 Scott publishes The Lady of the Lake, a stirring historical poem of love and adventure. Loch Katrine, in a rugged gorge of the Trossachs, is the home of the heroine, Ellen Douglas. The beatiful Ellen’s Isle commemorates her, nestling in the loch against a background of high hills.

The poem is an immediate success. A new hotel is built to accomodate the rush of tourists, who wander through the landscape with their copies of the book, finding the exact spots in which to declaim the relevant passages. The Highlands acquire an aura for tourists which they have never lost.

The more things change the more they stay the same! I immediately thought of today’s tourists scampering about Europe and the UK on Da Vinci Code tours! It is rather comforting to me that people are the same in so many ways, even if they lived a long time ago.

Here for a taste of what our Regency ladies and gentlemen read in that poem is the beginning of Sir Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake:

Harp of the North! that mouldering long hast hung
On the witch-elm that shades Saint Fillan’s spring
And down the fitful breeze thy numbers flung,
Till envious ivy did around thee cling,
Muffling with verdant ringlet every string,–
O Minstrel Harp, still must thine accents sleep?
Mid rustling leaves and fountains murmuring,
Still must thy sweeter sounds their silence keep,
Nor bid a warrior smile, nor teach a maid to weep?

Cheers!
Diane