This is the future home of the Risky Regencies.
Until we are ready to receive visitors here, please visit us at our current address at www.riskyregencies.blogspot.com.
This is the future home of the Risky Regencies.
Until we are ready to receive visitors here, please visit us at our current address at www.riskyregencies.blogspot.com.
Last week I promised to give away 5 e-copies of my sexy novella, Lady Em’s Indiscretion.
Congratulations to:
Karen H in NC
Maureen
Jane
Pollie the Pug
Jackie54736
Maureen and Pollie the Pug (love that name BTW), please let me know your email addresses and preference for Kindle or Nook. You can email me at elena @ elenagreene.com (no spaces).
I hope you enjoy it!
Cheers,
Elena
www.elenagreene.com
www.facebook.com/ElenaGreene
www.twitter.com/elenagreene7
I’m getting excited for the New Jersey Romance Writers’ conference this weekend. It’ll be the first conference I’ve been to in over four years. I’m looking forward to the PAN (Published Authors Network) retreat which will start with a kick-off speech by Mary Jo Putney, a long-time favorite author of mine. I’m looking forward to several workshops on self-publishing. But I’m especially looking forward to seeing friends again, including Riskies Janet and Megan.
Another new project I’ve been trying is preparing a Print-on-demand version of Lady Dearing’s Masquerade. I’ve gone back to Hot Damn Designs for a wraparound cover and I’ve put a lot of work into formatting the text.
It’s so different from e-book formatting! Since individual readers can change fonts on their e-readers, you give up a lot of control over how the book will look. With POD, it’s just the opposite. I’ve been happily immersed in typography. This may be boring to some, but I’m finding it quite absorbing to figure out how to lay out the text so it is readable, attractive and conveys some of the feel of the book.
I don’t expect the POD version to do as well as the e-book, but it will be nice to have the paperback available for readers who prefer it, and also to have copies for giveaways, etc… More on that soon, I hope!
In the meantime, what new things have you tried lately?
And before you go, please check Gail Eastwood’s post to see if you won a Kindle or Nook edition of The Lady From Spain!
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I just got the second proof copy of the Print-on-Demand version of Lady Dearing’s Masquerade. The first copy had a few problems, which I’ve fixed and this copy looks great! Even though I believe e-books are real books, having a copy I can hold in my hands is still really, really cool.
So now I am looking at this proof copy. Susanna’s post last week, Trouble with Titles reminded me of how I’ve been struggling with a title for my balloonist story. The connection: I’d be delighted to give away this copy in exchange for some help brainstorming.
Note: this is just brainstorming–I’m going to pick a winner at random, not based on who gives the best title advice. I won’t necessarily use any of the names we come up with. I still have a few months’ work to finish the story, so the Perfect Title Fairy might still deliver.
Just tell me what you think of my ideas so far and let me know if any new ones come to you.
To give you an idea of the story, here’s the tiny blurb I currently have up on my website, which sounds kind of trite (quick pitches are another thing I struggle with).
My hero, Gil, is a Waterloo veteran turned aeronaut. Not trusting the future, he lives for the moment, while my heroine, Emma, is a village schoolteacher so weighed down by past tragedies she has forgotten how to enjoy life. Together they deal with ghosts from their pasts, a saboteur and a passion that won’t be denied.
My initial working title was Heaven Sent. He crashes into the meadow behind her cottage and changes her life. Clever, huh? Not so much. There are at least eight books on Amazon with that title, mostly romance in various sub-genres but also one book that was religious in nature.
I decided I was not in love with that title anyway.
So I took out my journal and trusty blue gel pen and started brainstorming:
The Angel and the Aeronaut — too traditional Regency! Too much sex in this book for that title.
Then I thought of playing with Flight of …. something. Flight of Fancy? Flight of Passion? But I also found a few books with titles like that.
OK, maybe The Height of something? Folly? Passion? Desire?
Or something to do with rogues–my hero seems like a bit of a rogue and rogues are sexy, right? Rescued by a Rogue? Or does that sound too Regency again?
That’s where my brainstorming petered out. So for the chance to win the final proof copy of Lady Dearing’s Masquerade, let me know what you think of these title ideas. New ideas warmly welcomed!
I’ll announce the winner next Friday.
Elena
www.elenagreene.com
www.facebook.com/ElenaGreene
www.twitter.com/ElenaGreene7
Besides anxiety about Sandy, Halloween has obsessed me for much of this week. This past weekend I helped to run a Halloween Party for my UU church, complete with a Haunted House put on by some of the older youth including one of my daughters, who played her role to creepy perfection.
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While waiting for Sandy to hit, we finished carving our pumpkins in accordance with this year’s theme, Lord of the Rings. (My daughters dressed up as Elven maidens in medieval-style gowns and their ever-useful Vulcan ears.) Here’s my pumpkin, carved with the head of a Balrog, the fire demon that the wizard Gandalf battles in the mines of Moria.
Carving vegetables into scary shapes was already a custom during the Regency, although potatoes and turnips were often used. If you want to learn more, check out my post about Jack-o-Lanterns from a few years ago.
We were fortunate enough not to lose power, so I was able to toast the pumpkin seeds the next day. This year, we experimented with a Mexican-inspired version. They were quite yummy. Those that I didn’t spill on the kitchen floor while transferring from pan to storage container, that is!
Here’s my recipe should you care to try it:
Ingredients: pumpkin seeds, olive oil, chili powder, cumin, salt.
- Rinse pumpkin seeds. Remove all pulp. Drain and spread on a cookie sheet to dry overnight.
- Preheat oven to 250F. Line baking sheet with foil.
- Toss pumpkin seeds in enough olive oil, salt, cumin and chili powder (about twice as much chili powder as the cumin) to lightly coat them.
- Bake for about 1 hour, tossing every 15 minutes, until golden brown.
- Cool. Store in airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 months.
Lastly, I was browsing around Youtube and found this clip of Northanger Abbey as if it really were a Gothic horror novel.
I hope you all enjoyed or will enjoy your Halloween, if you live in an area where it has been rescheduled. I think it’s important for the children (all of us, really) to maintain fun traditions even during scary, troubling times.
So what did you do for Halloween or what are you planning?
Elena
www.elenagreene.com
www.facebook.com/ElenaGreene
www.twitter.com/ElenaGreene7