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Category: Frivolity

Fun posts

This week–whoa. What a week.

It’s weird, when there’s huge national news and you’re supposed to keep working and try not to let things interfere with what you’re doing. But it’s inevitable. I know that it’s meaningless, in terms of current reality, but I grew up in the Cambridge, MA area, my mom worked at MIT and I went to the same high school the currently missing Boston Marathon bomb suspect went to. My dad and I and assorted friends would go each Patriots’ Day to watch the Boston Marathon. Many of my friends are still there, or at least have family there.

It’s a darn good time for escapism and happy thoughts, if you’re not actively involved in helping (and if you are–wow. You are a hero).

So I’m going to grab a romance, have some tea, and listen to my favorite song*:
*Yes, I know it’s a Rihanna cover, but I prefer this version SO MUCH MORE.

Posted in Frivolity, Music | Tagged | 2 Replies

Happy Tuesday, everyone!  What are you doing this week??  I got my latest Harlequin Regency romance turned in (yay!!) and am getting caught up on a few things before diving into the next Elizabethan mystery.  Things like grocery shopping and running the vacuum cleaner, which always fall by the wayside when a deadline looms.  Among my projects–a fun round-robin story my local RWA chapter is doing with a St. Patrick’s Day theme!  Stay tuned for more info on that….

I am also announcing a winner!  The winner of a copy of A Stranger at Castonbury is…Emily!  Congrats!  Email me your info at amccabe7551 AT yahoo.com….

LadyAndMonstersCoverIn between taking a few naps and watching some DVDs that have piled up while I was working on the book (including all of season one of Girls, I have also been dreaming of spring.  Like many places, winter has been dismal here, with more gray skies and snow and freezing rain than usual.  (I also just read The Lady and Her Monsters, about Mary Shelley and the writing of Frankenstein, which included some depressing details of 1816’s Year Without a Summer.  It hasn’t been that bad here, but still…).  So I’ve been perusing garden catalogs and spring fashion websites (already bought some shorts at J Crew!).

 

 

If I was in the Regency this is the outfit I would be wanting to wear now (from my Regency Pinterest page!):

RegencyYellowDress RegencyParasol RegencyBonnet

And we could go out for a nice drive on a sunny afternoon:

RegencyPhaeton

What are you looking forward to this spring???

david-beckham-nude-026

New for 2012. Gratuitous use of photos of scantily clad men online may incur a penalty. Please consult your hot tax advisor, fireman, cop, or male stripper for more information. Or, call the IRS and request a “special” phone call. They’ll know what you mean. It happens all the time.

A couple of years ago I posted information on Schedule OMG.HEA, and here’s the updated version for  2012. Remember, just like the contemporary hero with his well-stocked wallet, there’s nothing like being ready.

Turn to the Subgenre Definition pages beginning on page 17 and pick your subgenre. You may pick only one. If you write in a variety of subgenres, choose 21, Indecisive wallower, 22, Overachiever, or 23, I’m just a girl who can’t say no. Enter in Box A.

Take your zip code, divide it by the number of pages completed in your WIP and enter the number in Box B.

On the following lines enter the following numbers from the first fifty pages of the book:

  1. Times your h/h have sex. If you are writing an inspirational, you should enter 10.
  2. Times your h/h have sex with another person(s) or being(s) (including, but not limited to, shapeshifters) and multiply by five. If you are writing an inspirational, you should enter 50.
  3. Heroic hair-raking within the first fifty pages.
  4. Mentions of hero’s eye/hair color.
  5. Mentions of heroine’s eye/hair color. Note: if colors for 2 or 3 change, please refer to Publication CE.AA.2012.

Enter your total for Box B.

Note: If your score is less than 2, please make sure you are writing within the correct genre. Refer to Publication WTF.2012 for more guidance and complete the appropriate Genre Form.

Now turn to your most recently published work. Enter its ISBN, page count, and predominant font family used on the cover in Box C.

Please check the appropriate box if your cover contains the following:

  1. Historically inaccurate shirt.
  2. Mullet.
  3. Green or blue eyeshadow (hero or heroine).
  4. Chandelier with lightbulbs instead of candles.
  5. Physically impossible stance.

Write the total number of checked boxes on the next line. On the following lines:

  1. Instances of egregious photoshop art, add 10 for each.
  2. *Extra nipples, limbs or digits (hero or heroine), multiply each by 10 and enter.
  3. Glaring typo on your back cover blurb, enter 20.
  4. Mantitty, enter 50.

* Unless you are writing paranormal romance and this is purely representative.

Enter your total for Box C.

If your cover art contains none of the above, please refer to Publication WTF.2012 as you may be writing a different genre.

The totals for Boxes B and C, plus the ages of your children and/or pets and your agent’s and editors’ heights in centimeters.
Multiply by 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375
Multiply by 10 to make a nice big fat number and round off to the nearest thousand. This is your estimated tax for 2010.

Please feel free to share your tax expertise with the rest of us. It’s never too early.

Posted in Frivolity | 2 Replies

Oh my, isn’t my face red. I meant to hit the little keys to make the title of this “Bertie Talks About Bath.”

But somehow, it doesn’t say that.

And I cannot decipher how to change it. Please forgive me. I never talk about indelicate things, such as — well — you know. At least, I never talk about them by accident.

Ahem.

Bertie Talks About Bath

Bath is dreadfully boring. I have no idea why you all like it so much.

I will concede that it is a pretty little town. Some of the buildings are aesthetically pleasing. As are a few of the ladies.

But save me from those Bath tabbies! Those plump, red-faced, elderly women who always tell one “stand up straight, Bertie!” and “drink your water, Bertie!” and “meet me at 9 o’clock in the morning, Bertie!” and “Dance with my ugly grand-daughter, Bertie!” (Very well, I admit that they don’t phrase the last command with those precise words. But that’s the meaning, I assure you.)

It’s enough to give one chills, even in this weather.

My reply to the tabbies:

1. As far as I am concerned, there is no 9 a.m. There is a 9 p.m. I could meet you at 9 p.m. (But I won’t.)

2. I’d much rather drink wine, thank you very much.

3. I am standing just as straight as is fashionable. No more, no less.

4. Dancing is too too fatiguing. I’d much rather have more wine.

Those are my ruminations on Bath.

I have never read Miss Austen’s novel Northanger Abbey, so I cannot say whether or not I care that it will be filmed in Ireland. Ireland is a beautiful country, but — oh, you know. It would be quite splendid if only there weren’t so many Irish folk living there.

Yours elegantly, as always,

Bertie the Beau


Or rather, happy day after Bastille Day, since July 14 is the time to celebrate the day in 1789 when an angry mob stormed the prison and released scads of prisoners–well, 7 anyway. It was officially declared a national holiday on July 6, 1880. It’s a good excuse to spend your weekend drinking champagne, eating wonderfully unhygenic cheese, wearing berets, and listening to “La vie en rose” over and over (it’s MY excuse, anyway, though really every day is a good day for champagne and Piaf!)

To help you get your celebration in order, here are a few links to give you some party pointers and a few quotes to inspire you. 🙂

Fun party drinks (they mostly appear to be sticky-sweet concoctions made from things like cherry brandy, but I think the Marie Antoinette sounds sort of yummy…)

Fun party menus (though with drinks like the Montmartre, who needs food???)

Official stuff from the French Embassy

And more on how to celebrate

“France has more need of me than I have need of France” –Napoleon

“It’s true that the French have a certain obsession with sex, but it’s a particularly adult obsession. France is the thriftiest of all nations; to a Frenchman sex provides the most economical way to have fun. The French are a logical race.” –Anita Loos

“In America, only the successful writer is important; in France all writers are important; in England no writer is important; and in Australia you have to explain what a writer is” —
Geoffrey Cottrell

“I have tried to lift France out of the mud. But she will return to her errors and vomitings. I cannot prevent the French from being French.” –Charles de Gaulle

“Boy, those French. They have a different word for everything.” –Steve Martin

“Paris is always a good idea.” –Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina

“To err is human. To loaf is Parisian.” –Victor Hugo

“Frenchmen are like gunpowder, each by itself smutty and contemptible, but mass them together and they are terrible indeed!” –Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Vive la France!

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