Risky Regencies

Unfinished Works

Updated on September 18, 2010 by Elena Greene

I was looking through our craft bins for materials for a kid’s costume and ran across this oil painting I began over 15 years ago. It was while my husband and I were living in England. A friend of his visited and they planned a day of doing Manly Things (some sporting event or other), so I spent a blissful day working on this. (BTW the painting was inspired by a visit to Exbury Gardens, famous for its azaleas and rhododendrons.) But soon after, work got busy and I pretty much forgot about the painting, though somehow it managed to make it back across the Atlantic with us.

Now that I’m looking at it from a distance, it seems not half bad for a first attempt. Yet I don’t know about completing it. I don’t know if I could match the colors again. I kind of like it as it is; maybe I should just varnish it (to bring back the brilliance of the original colors) and frame it. Or maybe it should go back in the craft bin.

I am starting to work on writing again, and feeling the same ambivalence toward the works-in-progress I haven’t touched in the year and a half since my husband’s stroke. Around the time of the demise of the Signet Regency line, I was confused and getting contradictory advice from industry professionals as to what I should work on next, with the result that I have three works in varying stages of completion:

– My balloonist story (about half a close-to-final-draft, the rest rough)
– A Regency makeover story (three chapters)
– Another story (outline only) I’m not ready to talk about but which may be the most marketable of the three.

I also have an Idea File with a bunch of less-developed story kernels.

I just don’t know where to start. Although I have missed the writing so much it hurts, I’m feeling like someone reunited with a long-lost lover and suddenly not knowing what to say.

What do you think I should do? Revive one of these unfinished works? Start something new? Noodle around with multiple stories until a winner emerges?

All advice warmly welcomed, even though I don’t promise to follow it!

Elena

P.S. Don’t forget to visit tomorrow when we host Liz Carlyle on her charity blogtour. She will give away a signed copy of her latest ONE TOUCH OF SCANDAL and Harper Collins will donate up to $3,000 ($1 per person per post on the entire blogtour) to Liz’s favorite cat rescue charity, Cat Angels.

We Can Haz Kitties?

Updated on September 17, 2010 by carolyn

I’m taking Megan’s slot today on account of on Sunday the Riskies are having a Celebration of Cats and a Super Secret Cool visit from Liz Carlyle (squeeee!!!!). Her publisher will be donating to a cat rescue non profit so you’ll want to stop by to leave a comment this coming Sunday. In the meantime, since I haz kitties and Megan does not, I am sharing stories and pics of the Jewel household cats.

First up: Jake.

Jake was born under the neighbor’s barn at the bottom of our driveway. There were two litters of kittens, but we were able to find homes for them all. I was living in San Francisco and the time and I took the smallest kitten because I wanted, doh, a small cat to keep my other cat, Jasper (AKA Devil Cat) company.

Jake is 15 pounds of adorable lap cat. The vet believes he must be at least part Maine Coon cat. This past February, he lost his best buddy, my 22 year old Tonkinese, Jasper. After Jasper died– I am still sad about that, but he had a very long life — Jake slept by the food for 5 days, thinking, I believe, that Jasper would eventually show up there. On the 6th day, Jake moved out of my room and basically lived in the kitchen for 3 months where he demanded (and got) lots of love and attention from everyone. Just about when I’d given up on him ever setting paw in my room again, he staked out my printer as the place to be. And my lap.

Here’s Jasper when he was younger, my friend and companion for 22 years:

Jasper (Devil Cat)

Jasper is the only purebred cat I’ve ever had. The Tonkinese is a cross between Siamese and Burmese and as you can see from this picture, he took after the Siamese in him. He was very inexpensive as Tonks go because his eyes were not quite the neon blue they should have been. The lady advertised them as “Personality Plus” which he was! He earned the nickname Devil Cat. But he was also extremely affectionate. ALWAYS on my lap! He knew when I was due home from work (said those who were already home) and waited by the door for me.

Left to right:
Missy Mara — Jake’s mother, a feral cat who we finally managed to trap and get to the vet to treat a badly wounded eye and get spayed. For a year she lived in the box spring of the mattress in this room but finally decided people were OK. She rarely leaves this room, actually.

Whiskers aka Nightmare: Whiskers is another rescued cat. At about 3 weeks old she got separated from her mother at the ranch where my son was taking Aikido. She had such a loud meow that some of the students heard her and found where she’d been trapped in a woodpile. And yes, I showed up with my son in time for his class and came home with a kitten . . . small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. She had to be bottle fed and manually stimulated so she could eliminate.

Tiger: My son’s cat. He’d wanted a cat of his own for a very long time, but none of the cats and kittens we saw were right for him. At a soccer tournament, we had time between games and we went to a nearby mall for lunch and some window shopping. We came home with Tiger. She is an odd little cat who doesn’t know she’s a cat. She plays with my dog.

Do you have cats or did you? In the comments, tell us about your cat(s). Bonus points for linking your story to the Regency. And come back Sunday for the Cat Extravaganza!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cats, Celebrating, Liz Carlyle | 15 Replies

Cats and book giveaway

Updated on September 16, 2010 by Janet Mullany

Bibliophile and Barbara E., you’re the winners. Please send your snailmail address to my cat, elailah AT yahoo DOT com, and congrats.

In celebration of receiving my author copies of BESPELLING JANE AUSTEN, I’m giving away two copies, here, today! I’ll pick winners at midnight EST (groan, I’m sure I’ll still be up) and post them at the top of this post, so check back in.

To enter, tell me what sort of Regency character your pet would be.

This is by way of a build up to a terrific event this Sunday, September 19, when Liz Carlyle visits here on her charity blogtour, not only giving away a signed copy of her latest ONE TOUCH OF SCANDAL, but HarperCollins has generously offered to donate up to $3,000 ($1 per person per post on the entire blogtour) to Liz’s favorite cat rescue charity, Cat Angels. Wow!

So, here’s my cat. (Liz’s, I assure you, are much cuter and there will be pics of them on Sunday).

This is her usual unpleasant expression, as she expresses concern that the landing really does need to be painted (I put undercoat on about ten years ago. You don’t want to rush these things). She was a stray who, as soon as she realized she was getting three squares a day, ignored us for the next eight years or so except when she was hungry.

You think she looks cuddly? Ha.

But she almost died a few years ago and suddenly got friendlier, realizing that possibly I had something to do with her recovery.

As she ages she is getting slightly friendlier and although not a big sitter on laps (or a “real cat” in my terminology) likes to cuddle up next to you. Every morning she wakes me by affectionately digging her claws into my face and then accompanies me to the bathroom where she gnaws on my shins while I tell her to stop it. When I put food in her dish, which I gather is the whole point of the claws, biting etc. she walks away and sits staring into space.

If you stroke her in the wrong way, absentmindedly, or too much, she bites. Sometimes she just bites for the hell of it. She is absolutely terrified of everyone except me, my husband, my daughter, and inexplicably one of my daughter’s friends a few years ago, who was photographed holding her. (He was also wearing my daughter’s prom dress. It was a strange evening, I guess.)

I think she’d make a good old-style virginal Regency heroine who lives in a gothic mansion. One of those shy ones who then gets mad and throws things. Yep, timid but morphing into a feisty, passionate one with fish breath.

What sort of Regency character would your pet be?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Bespelling Jane Austen, cats, Liz Carlyle | 20 Replies

Books To Get You Out of a Dungeon

Updated on September 15, 2010 by carolyn

Here’s the list of books that people would take to the dungeon with them to read in between bouts of tunneling out. In bold and purple means I have read it. They are in the order they appeared in the comments. A number in parenthesis is the number of people who mentioned the book. I’ve read most of the authors on the list, but perhaps not the listed book. A couple of the books I started but did not finish. But a few are now to me.

When There is Hope by Jane Goodger
Nora Roberts’ Sisters Island trilogy
Jo Beverley’s Forbidden
Last Frost Fair, by Joy Freeman
Mary Blaney – any book
Mr Impossible by Loretta Chase (2)
A Flame Run Wild by Christine Monson
Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters
The Mysterious Miss M by the Divine One
Simply Love by Mary Balogh
Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale
Julie Garwood’s THE SECRET
Julie Garwood’s RANSOM.
THE WOLF AND THE DOVE by Kathleen Woodiwiss
Outlander by Diane Gabaldon (2)
Lynn Kurland’s A Garden in the Rain.
Cathy Maxwell’s A Marriage Contract
The Charioteer by Mary Renault
False Colors by Alex Beecroft
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
Much Ado About You by Eloisa James
Guilty Pleasures by Laura Lee Guhrke
Loretta Chase, Lord of Scoundrels (2)
Anne Sutart, To Love A Dark Lord
Carla Kelly. Reforming Lord Ragsdale
Judith James’ “Broken Wing”
Jude Deveraux’s “A Knight in Shining Armor”
Heyer’s ‘The Tollgate’
Stephanie Laurens ‘Scandals’ Bride
The Scarlet Pimpernel, Baronness Orczy
Diane Gaston
Anne Gracie
Elizabeth Rolls
The Perfect Rake – Anne Gracie
The Rogue and the Rival – Maya Rodale
It Happened One Autumn – Lisa Kleypas
After InnocenceThe Game/Secrets/The Fires of Paradise/Firestorm by Brenda Joyce
Night Fire/The Rebel Bride/Devil’s Embrace by Catherine Coulter
Stormfire by Christine Monson
Tiger Eye by Karen Robards
Slightly Dangerous, Mary Balogh
To have and to Hold, Patricia Gaffney
Outlaw in Paradise, Patricia Gaffney

So, what’s missing? Anything?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged books, dungeons | 3 Replies

What I’ve Learned From My TV Habit

Updated on September 14, 2010 by Amanda McCabe/Laurel McKee

With the return of (slightly) cooler weather, the appearance of Halloween items in Target, and lots of writing work to get done by the end of the year, I’ve sadly had to give up most of my slothful summer TV watching. Not that I’ve backed away from the remote control altogether of course–not with 2 of my very favorite shows on! Vampire Diaries had its season premiere last week, and Mad Men is more than halfway through season 4 (now officially Best Season Ever!). And I realized something as I watched Don Draper dragging himself up out of the muck on Sunday–all this TV time is not wasted. I’ve learned a valuable lesson from these 2 shows, one to apply to my own writing.

On the surface, Vampire Diaries and Mad Men are very different shows. “Young” vamps, humans, witches (and whatever Tyler is now) in a (supposedly) Southern town, falling in love, getting into terrible danger, violent events, and wearing cool clothes, and 1960s ad execs in New York falling in and out of love (sort of), getting into danger with internal demons and societal expectations, and wearing cool clothes. But they have one vital characteristic in common–nothing ever turns out like you expect. It’s always better, deeper, darker, more shocking. I don’t often shout at the TV, but I’ve recently done it with both these shows. “OMG, Damon didn’t kiss Elena, it was Katherine!” and “OMG, Betty opened the drawer!” Did not see those coming.

Where Vampire Diaries is very fast-paced, with vital plot twists in every episode and characters killed right and left, and Mad Men is famous for the slow burn (things build and build until we’re stunned by how it all explodes), these unexpected twists always come from the characters themselves. They’re never really out of left field, the actions and events arise from the characters’ flaws and secrets and desires. We’re not knocked over the head with how we’re supposed to think and feel about the characters, we’re allowed to figure things out on our own; no character is ever all good or all bad, but made of shades of gray.

These are also both very character-centered shows, as any romance novel centering on human relationships must be, and I like to think about plots in a Mad Men sort of way (not that Don Draper is any sort of hero!). What’s the unexpected twist, the sudden action, the mystery that arises from all we’ve learned about the characters and decisions they’ve made about themselves and what they want? What would they do when the moment of truth arrives, what is true for them and not a cliche?

Now it’s your turn! What are some of your favorite shows or movies, and what have you learned from them? Do you watch Mad Men or Vampire Diaries, and what do you think of the seasons so far? Is Betty still in love with Don, for secret, and will his reform last? What is Katherine really up to in Mystic Falls?

And on this day in 1812, the Moscow fires broke out. A good time to enjoy the 1812 Overture!