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I’m normally the type who keeps all Christmas activities strictly confined to the six weeks or so between Thanksgiving and Epiphany. I never Christmas shop before Black Friday. I wouldn’t dream of putting decorations up before the first Sunday in Advent. But this year I spent a good chunk of February and June with Christmas on the brain–I was writing Christmas novellas!

My February project will be a Carina release in 2014. Since that’s so far away, and it doesn’t have a release date or title yet, all I’ll say about it for now is that it’s the story of star-crossed lovers reunited after a five-year separation at a Regency house party…with wassailing and mistletoe and a thick coat of snow on the ground.

But my June project, Christmas Past, releases in less than two weeks, on November 25!

Christmas Past cover

As the title hints, it’s a time travel story. The heroine is from my own adopted hometown of Seattle in 2013–only in her version of the present, time travel has been invented and is largely used for medical and other scientific research. Sydney is a PhD student in historical epidemiology, making her first trip to the past to collect blood samples from soldiers in Wellington’s army for her mentor’s study on the epidemiological impacts of the Napoleonic Wars.

Time-traveling PhD student Sydney Dahlquist’s first mission sounded simple enough—spend two weeks in December 1810 collecting blood samples from the sick and wounded of Wellington’s army, then go home to modern-day Seattle and Christmas with her family. But when her time machine breaks, stranding her in the past, she must decide whether to sacrifice herself to protect the timeline or to build a new life—and embrace a new love—two centuries before her time.

Rifle captain Miles Griffin has been fascinated by the tall, beautiful “Mrs. Sydney” from the day he met her caring for wounded soldiers. When he stumbles upon her time travel secret on Christmas Eve, he vows to do whatever it takes to seduce her into making her home in his present—by his side.

I had a lot of fun writing this story, particularly going back and forth between Sydney’s contemporary voice and Miles’s Regency voice–and I’m so used to shifting into Regency vocabulary and diction the instant I open a manuscript file that Sydney’s was far more challenging to achieve!

When writing my Christmas novellas, I found myself imagining reader busy with everything that makes November and December such a joyous yet challenging time of year. Maybe she’s flying home to her family and wants a good story to take her mind off a crowded, turbulent flight. Maybe she just put her pies in the oven and wants to put her feet up and read while her house warms with the aromas of pumpkin and spice. Maybe she’s snowed in, unable to make it to work or school, and is elated to finally have time to escape into fiction.

What about you? When do you read holiday novellas? What are some of your favorites? And when do you put up and take down your decorations?

Christmas Past is now available for preorder from multiple sources, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play.

“Mom?” asked Miss Fraser, age 8. “How’s the writing going?”

“Pretty good,” I replied. “Rose had some ideas for putting more conflict in my Christmas novella, so I’m working on fitting those into the story.”

“What do you mean, conflict?”

“You know–all the bad things and problems that make a book interesting, that the characters have to work through to get to the happy ending.”

“Oh.” She frowned thoughtfully. “I have a good idea. You could put an earthquake in the story.”

“Well, that would be exciting, only the story is set in England, and they almost never have earthquakes there.”

Miss Fraser shrugged and gave me a look that said, Do I have to do EVERYTHING for you? “Then put in something they DO have.”

I then tried to explain about internal conflict and all the baggage my hero and heroine have left over from when they last met five years before, but her eyes started to glaze over. Miss Fraser thinks my stories sadly lacking in wizards, Greek gods, and clans of warrior cats going on quests.

Snowy England

A few days later I got into a conversation with my husband about how sometimes problems are easier to solve than you think. I had a character in my aforementioned Christmas novella whose existence was critical to my other characters’ lives, so I couldn’t just write him out altogether. But he had nothing interesting to do within the few days of my plot, and having him around was pulling focus off the characters who DID matter.

At first I was stumped, but then I came up with a simple solution: I changed my atmospheric Christmas Eve snow flurries to a wind-driven storm that accumulated thickly, and I made my extraneous character’s wife heavily pregnant instead of halfway through her second trimester. Voila! Now Harry the Necessary but Uninteresting wouldn’t dare venture on the roads and risk having his firstborn delivered in a carriage mired in a snowdrift, and all was right with my fictional world.

Mr. Fraser wasn’t so easily satisfied. “What are you going to do when some reader comes after you with an almanac proving it didn’t snow that Christmas Eve?”

I shrugged.

“You don’t CARE, do you?” he asked, eyebrows climbing in indignation. (I should note here that Mr. Fraser is a bit of a weather geek. As a child his dream career was meteorologist.)

“Look, I’m all about historical accuracy–to a point. I wouldn’t write Waterloo without the big rainstorm the day before, since it had a huge impact on the outcome of the battle, or forget that 1816 was the Year Without a Summer. But looking up the exact weather of every single day is several levels of obsessiveness beyond where I’m willing to go. Besides, this is a CHRISTMAS STORY. A white Christmas is a TROPE. It snows in England NOW. No one is going to have trouble believing in a Christmas snowstorm in 1810–especially given that the more of a weather geek they are, the more likely they are to know about the Little Ice Age and how much colder it was back then.”

“But what if 1810-11 was the warmest winter on record? What if it’s the year everyone talked about the daffodils blooming in January and all the young rakehells swimming naked in the Thames on Christmas morning?”

“Hmph. Unlikely.”

“Hmph. Where is your story set, exactly?”

“Kent.”

Mr. Fraser opened a new browser tab for Google and searched for weather in Kent in 1810. When nothing much came up, he searched on London and found a bit of data, but nothing that specifically remarked on Christmas. Peering over his shoulder, I spotted a reference to the Thames freezing over in January 1811. “Ha!” said I. “I stand by my story.”

“But what if it was a sudden cold snap?”

“I don’t CARE. A white Christmas is a TROPE.”

I hope you’ve enjoyed this glimpse of living a writer’s life in House Fraser. Does your family give you helpful advice whether you ask for it or not? And where do you draw the line between accuracy and obsessiveness?

Merry Christmas Eve, everyone. By now you are nearly as ready as you are going to be, I imagine. I sit here and think of folks basking in the lights of their trees with the beautifully wrapped gifts beneath, or sitting before a warm fire with a cozy shawl, a book, and a cup of spiked eggnog.

Then I think of everything I still have to do, and swear (nicely) that I will not be late again. Next year I am getting ready early for Christmas, sending cards and boxes on time, and having that nice evening of peace and comfort. I may spend it alone with my cats, but that doesn’t matter. I just want to be ready, and then be able to relax and feel the spirit.

I will shortly be packing gifts into my car and driving 70 miles north to visit my sister (fortunately the weather is behaving–usually there’s a winter storm at about this time), and so I hope you forgive me for cutting this short. But I am thinking of you all, lovers of Regencies, readers and writers both, and wishing you the Merriest Christmas of all.

love,
Laurie

Posted in Frivolity | Tagged | 2 Replies

I am toast. All the gifts have been bought, the cards mailed, the presents all almost wrapped. Never mind the cookies, I made one batch and taught my son a few new words when the dough wouldn’t quite roll out the way I wanted it to.

But with Christmas approaching, of course, all people’s thoughts turn to–good will? Sure, but there’s something else. Peace on earth? YES, PLEASE. And? Oh, yeah. The presents!

In 2001, the year I started working on A Singular Lady, my husband hunted down a bunch of Regency reference books for me. He got Donald Low’s Regency Underworld, C. Willett Cunnington’s English Women’s Clothing In The Nineteenth Century, and a few other cool Regency-era books. It was a fabulous Christmas because it told me my husband supported my efforts to be a writer, and was trying to give me the tools to help me. I cried a lot that year because I felt validated.

So, yeah, this year I am toast, but even though the idea of stressing less and sleeping more IS appealing, I would miss the zest and excitement of the Christmas holiday (not to mention my mother-in-law’s homemade donuts. Just saying). Of getting the perfect gift because someone thought about it, and watching their faces as they open what you thought of, and then bought, for them (me, I’m hoping for some out-of-print Mary Balogh traditional Regencies).

Happy Holidays, Riskies! Happy Holidays, Readers!

Megan Posted by Picasa

Posted in Regency | Tagged | 2 Replies

I wonder how stressed Regency folk were during the holidays. I was thinking that perhaps they didn’t travel so much, and things might have been easier. But then I remembered all the accounts of people going for protracted visits to various country houses. Like the following snip from a letter Lord Aucklands sent his sister, Emily Eden, after a visit:

“Mary in such a fright you never saw—such a silence you never heard—room so hot you never felt—dinner so cold you never tasted—dogs so tiresome you never smelt.”

So maybe holiday visits weren’t so idyllic then, either. It isn’t much comfort as some of us head off to visit extended families for the holidays. It’s not only an issue of differing tastes and comfort levels; it’s the politics.

People who read and write romance love to see closure in relationships—problems worked out with love as the result. But in real life we can’t always have that. Not with relatives or friends who don’t want to work through the real issues. Sometimes the best I know to do is to paste a smile on my face, for the sake of outward peace. I put up with digs from a jealous sibling, because it’s stupid to brangle, and because I want my kids to enjoy a peaceful time with their grandparents.

But it takes a toll. It just feels so wrong to have to put up with nonsense at a time that’s supposed to be so wonderful. The way I cope is to take (or steal, if necessary) as many little moments of beauty, things that are, in their own way, perfect and wonderful.

In the Regency, I probably would have escaped out of doors whenever possible for a walk. Or if that wasn’t possible, I might have dived into a good book or some soothing embroidery.

Some of my favorite modern escapes:

  • Christmas videos. The original GRINCH—what a wonderful character arc! Some less well known pleasures: OLIVE THE OTHER REINDEER, with the voice of Drew Barrymore. So funny and cute! An unexpected pleasure: Disney’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST Christmas video, with a surprisingly intense villain (for Disney) and more of the same romantic chemistry between Belle and her tortured hero.
  • Music. ON YOOLIS NIGHT: Medieval Carols & Motets by Anonymous 4—wonderfully atmospheric and soothing. YULE, with Linn Barnes and Allison Hampton on Celtic harp, guitar and lute. And a new favorite: THE CHAPIN FAMILY CHRISTMAS COLLECTION, Volume II–new takes on old favorites.
  • Cookies! Each year I bake a few kinds, but not with the intent of impressing anyone with Martha-ness. I truly love squishing dough with my fingers, love frosting cookies in elaborate patterns. And of course, eating them. Regular standbys: medauninkai, a Lithuanian cookie sweetened with honey and laced with spices. Vanilla almond crescents, made with a ton of butter and covered in powdered sugar that gets all over dark clothing (I guess Megan might avoid them). Something chocolate, which varies—this year those grasshopper squares, like huge, rich after dinner mints. Moderation is for the New Year. Right now, comfort foods are OK as long as you’re not just inhaling them but really taking a moment to savor them.
  • And of course, diving into a good book. This year, I’m taking Julia Ross’s GAMES OF PLEASURE with me as I head home for the holidays.

What are your favorite holiday pick-me-ups?

Elena
LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE, an RT Top Pick!
www.elenagreene.com

Posted in Regency | Tagged , | 3 Replies
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