Wow, Cara’s a tough act to follow! But even if I haven’t had people spluttering coffee or tea all over their keyboards I’ve had a blast blogging here.
One of my favorite topics is the writer’s life. I can’t think of a nicer community in which to discuss some of my writer quirks and neuroses. I hope some of these posts have inspired or informed, or at least amused. Or perhaps reassured fellow writers they’re not alone and that it’s OK to be different, as when we talked about Elena’s Writing Bookshelf or slow versus fast writers in Tempus Fugit.
Another thing I never tire of is chatting about both the popular and the less well known facets of “our” period. I couldn’t imagine a nicer group of Regencyphiles with whom to share my obsession! Some of my favorite Regency-related posts include Regency Naming Hell and Duking it out. (BTW the picture here is of a group of Bond Street Beaus including several real historical dukes. Not quite as hunky as the fictional ones, I’m afraid!)
But maybe my favorite thing to discuss is storytelling. I love to hear what other people think of certain types of characters, certain types of plots, etc…, such as in Happily Ever After, Mary Sues and Gender Bending.
So please let us know which of my posts you enjoyed most (either from the ones I mentioned or any from this past year) and why.
I’m offering a choice of prizes to a winner chosen at random from the comments. The winner may choose either my most recent release, LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE (Romantic Times Top Pick and Best Regency Romance for 2005) or HIS BLUSHING BRIDE, an early anthology I participated in, along with authors Alice Holden and Regina Scott (also a Romantic Times Top Pick).
And don’t forget to sign up for our Risky newsletter, if you haven’t yet done so! All subscribers at the end of this week will have a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift certificate! (To subscribe, send an e-mail to riskies@yahoo.com with NEWSLETTER in the subject line.)
Elena
www.elenagreene.com
Personally, I like the Happily Ever After post. Why? Because that is one of, if not the top reason I love to read romance. We’re always guaranteed a HEA. 🙂
~Andrea
I have to agree with andreaw! I loved the HEA post because that is one of the reasons I read and have started to write romance novels! I love the journey, the rough spots, the growth as human beings and then the payoff! Duking it out was another good one! Love the Duke of Bewcastle in Mary Balogh’s Slightly series. But I also like the mere Misters as well. Your writer’s bookshelf was another great one. I actually went to a Debra Dixon workshop after I read that post. The thing about those books is to read them, take what you can use and don’t worry about the rest. I don’t think any of them are meant to be used as a template and if they are I just don’t do that! Sorry, Elena. Couldn’t pick just one!
It’s a toss up between Regency Naming Hell and Happily Ever After.
I honestly love naming my characters and I really enjoy seeing how other authors do it.
As for the other, I happen to agree with Andrea and doglady on this one.
I’d say Tempus Fugit because it’s so true that every writer has their own pace 🙂
I loved Duking it Out.
Sigh. . . another choice. Pooh. LOL Taking about dukes and the like was quite nice in Duking it out. . . but also talking about heroines dressing up in Gender Bending. . . two of my favorite things to read in romances! But also talking about names in the naming hell one is a third choice. . .
you guys are making this too hard!!! 🙂
Lois
I’m adding my vote to the Happily Ever Afters ~ that’s one of the reasons why I read romances.
What a lot of excellent posts to choose from, Elena! I guess my favorite would have to come down to either Regency Naming Hell, or Duking it Out. But if I had to choose just one, I think Regency Naming Hell. 🙂
Cara
I thoroughly enjoyed the blog, Going Places, June 15, since it was fascinating and I would love to travel to those unique places that you mentioned. Books sset in those exotic locales are appealing and I enjoy reading the novels.
My favorite post is: Happily ever after! I don’t like books or films without a happy ending. Sometimes I even read the last page of a book to be sure that it has a happy ending. *I’m ashamed of myself* lol
My favorite is Duking It Out.
I like the Tempus Fugit post. I believe that a certain maturity of the story results from letting it stew a bit.
I liked the Happily Ever After post. I enjoy reading romances and the HEA is one of the reasons. I agree that the happy ending is just a moment in time for these characters and my favorite romances are the ones where I have no problem seeing these characters years from the ending.
The Happily Ever Post gets my vote.
I like the feeling a book leaves you with as you close the book after reading the last page. And this warm glow you feel where all is well with the world can only be produced by the HEA ending.
Definitely, the Happily Ever After post. I love escaping from everyday life and seeing my hero and heroine have their happily ever after.
My favorite post of yours, Mme. Greene, was not in your list, but was in fact This One.
It talks about how dreadful one’s relatives can be, and therefore I found it resonant with truth.
To be honest, I am much happier now that I have left most of my relatives behind in the early 19th Century. (Though a few seem somehow to have followed me, perhaps in the same mysterious way that a debt collector always manages to sniff one out, no matter how cleverly one disguises oneself with an inferior pair of boots.)
yrs,
Bertie the Beau
Happily Ever After:
They don’t realize that in a good romance the hero and heroine deal with the “bitter” in the course of the story. They earn the “sweet” at the end.
How true the above is and it applies to real life also. With the bitter comes the sweet(HEA).
My favorite was dyking it out… because I ususally like the hero to be a duke… and you listed some very good books in your post… some that I had not read.
My pick would also be Happily Ever After!
Hi! I’m sorry I haven’t been by much. It’s been a busy day with visits to the orthodontists for both kids and other stuff.
I see the HEAs have it so far but I’m glad Risky visitors have enjoyed some of the other posts as well.
Doglady, I couldn’t agree more with the “read them, take what you can use and don’t worry about the rest” approach to writing books.
Bertie, my sympathies re your family. Sometime you must tell us how any of them have managed to follow you! But only when you are feeling up to making such painful revelations.
I’m going with the Duking it out post (and I love that accompanying picture – yuk lol) – I much prefer the way you ladies describe your dukes. And I’m probably in the minority about not having to have a HEA – a good book is a good book and if it can be pulled off with a different ending, so be it.
Lots of most excellent choices!
I really enjoyed, “Mary Sues.”
I liked the post titled “Would she sell today?” Very interesting and makes you wonder.
I’ve been trying all day to decide on my favorite Elena post. Can’t decide.
I am heartened by the enthusiasm for The Happy Ending, though, but I think I liked Regency Naming Hell and Duking it out.
Plus the Why I Don’t Write Victorians was cute!
Happily Ever After, of course! It’s what I look for in books and movies. It’s what it’s all about! Don’t you think so?
I like the Happily Ever After Post. I love reading about the things you all(authors) learn about history for your books. It’s so fascinating.
HEA. While I also like stories without them, I read those called romance just for that reason, a happy outcome at the end.
I really liked all those posts, Elena! So it’s pretty tough to choose. If I had to narrow it down…I liked the Happily Ever After post because I do like books with happy endings, and it’s nice to be validated; the Gender Bending post was very interesting; and I thought the discussion in Regency Naming Hell was very interesting, too.
Ack! I’m going to have to side with Lois–there are too many good posts to choose from!
Todd-who-is-going-to-be-worn-to-a-frazzle-by-the-time-this-week-is-over
My favorite is Duking it out and it is simple… you mentionned some of my favorite dukes in some of my fav. books.
Thanks
Elena, I loved your “Duking it Out” post, because I’m a tad ennuyant with all the dukes gadding madly about the countryside.
At the time of your post, I said that I liked the dukes from La Heyer’s [i]These Old Shades[/i] and MJP’s [i]Petals[/i] best. I’d just started reading Heyer’s [i]Sylvester[/i] then. Having since finished reading it, I do have to say that Sylvester does make a fine duke, indeed, but Avon has dibs on my approval. Since then I’ve also read Balogh’s Bewcastle and think him properly ducal with the right amount of hauteur.
I think you are all being a bit tough on the Dukes-as-spies. It is a little known fact that up until WWI the British Secret Service was almost entirely run and staffed by Dukes. In WWI they finally started running short of Dukes, and began allowing Marquesses and Earls to serve as spies as well. The Dukes and Earls served in M.I.5, while the Marquesses ran M.I.6. (That is why the head of the service is called “M” in the James Bond movies and books–it is short for “Marquess.”)
Todd-who-believes-that-the-department-of-sanitation-was-run-by-Viscounts
LOL, Todd! It makes one wonder what the mere knights and baronets had to do…
Elena, the knights and barons simply rattled their sabers and sighed over ancestral swords hanging from their walls and thought of medieval times when they ruled the roost. 🙂
Elena wrote:
It makes one wonder what the mere knights and baronets had to do…
Crossing guards. That’s why they wear those brightly-colored sashes.
Todd-who-believes-in-noblesse-oblige
Except for the Knights of the Garter. They run the Ministry of Lingerie.
Todd-who-wonders-if-there-are-Knights-of-the-Camisole
And the Knights of the Bath. Who run the bath.
Cara