[She] is the person with whom, in a room full of silly, boastful people, you will exchange a silent, speaking glance that becomes a smile; the person to whom you never need to explain yourself laboriously; the person you will not compete with.

[She] is that person you realize, deep down and at once, will be your friend.

This wonderful definition of female friendship is surprisingly written by a man in his book Indiscretion, a tribute to Jane Austen–Austen with balls (and not the waltzing kind), if you like–a truly fabulous read. Austen didn’t write many strong female friendships–the whole area seems to be full of pitfalls for her. Many of the friendships she depicts are skin deep–Marianne Dashwood cultivating Lucy Steele to find out the truth about Edward, for instance; or Catherine Morland’s flighty friendship with the flighty Isabella Thorpe. I’ve never really been sure whether Elizabeth Bennett’s friendship with Charlotte Lucas is deep enough, or shallow enough, to survive Charlotte’s marriage to Mr. Collins.

Austen’s relationships between sisters are much stronger and more subtle, and I think that’s a convention romance has adopted. Jude Morgan’s Indiscretion is the only romance I’ve read (and I’m very poorly read in romance, I’m the first to admit it) where a female friendship rings true.

Who are your favorite fictional sets of friends or sisters, and which would you rather read about?

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic power in it. Begin it now. – Goethe

This is just one inspirational quote from a collection I’ve been accumulating over time. It’s a good one. And yet beginning “it” (the writing) “now” isn’t as easy as it sounds.

I usually start writing soon after the kids get on the bus. But getting them there can be a hectic process: lunches and snacks to pack, fashion emergencies to solve, the violin to be remembered on orchestra days, etc… Making the transition from harried mom to focused writer isn’t trivial. What helps me is ritual.

First I make sure I won’t get cold from sitting quietly. Having a sweater handy keeps me from jumping up and getting sidetracked by some household task. I make sure I have coffee or tea at my elbow. I close the door, even if no one else is in the house, as it gives me a sense of being safe in my writing “cave”. I turn on music–usually classical instrumental, as lyrics distract me from the words I’m supposed to be writing. At present I’m in an impressionist mood and my CD player is loaded with Ravel and Debussy. On another day it could be Mozart and Beethoven or Elgar and Vaughn Williams. Then I light a candle.

It all may seem rather fussy–and perhaps time-wasting–but it works. These things help me settle down and leave the mundane world behind.

Do any of you have rituals to help you transition between different roles? What are they? Have they changed over time?

Elena
www.elenagreene.com

Richard Cerqueira returns to tell us more about being a Romance cover model. Below is the picture that is our contest prize! On the right is Comanche Temptation, Richard’s first and favorite cover.

1.Can you walk us through a photo shoot for a romance cover? How much direction are you given? How much is up to you to invent?

Sure, I get a call from the booking agent asking about my availability and the length of my hair. Sounds funny but the hair length is often a deciding factor whether you are right for the hero or not. Once that’s determined I am given an idea as to what kind of shoot it will be, that is will I be an aristocrat in a tuxedo, or a cowboy out on the range, or some Tarzan like figure saving the damsel in distress. One reason we are made privy to this information is that we often use some of our own clothes for a book cover shoot. In the instances that we need to be bare-chested or even more scantily clad we get to know if we need to be tan, and maybe watch the salt consumption the day before to be nice and lean for the camera.

So, come the day of the shoot, the female model and I get into our costumes if so required, and we are shown some pictures and/or sketches made by the artist or art director to give us an idea of what they will be looking for. At the shoot, there may be as little as two people (photographer and a model) or there may as many as eight people (two models, photographer, photographer’s assistant, art director, book author, and the artist). We shoot typically in front of a plain photographic paper backdrop; it’s up to the artist to add in the scenery. The photographer then sets up the lighting using a light meter and sets up a fan in the instances where they need wind tousled hair. Once that is all set up we assume our positions, the photographer then tells us to adjust ourselves to make the best use of the light and a test shot is taken. Before the advent of digital photography, this test shot was done with a Polaroid, now a digital camera can have the shot for all to see instantaneously on a large computer monitor and it can also be seen by an artist or art director across the globe in real time. That test shot will let everyone know if the lighting is right, once that is in check we go at it.

Again, since I started modeling things have changed for the better thanks to digital photography. In the past we took at least three rolls of film to make sure we got the shot, now we might take five pictures and get what they are looking for. It is up to us, the models, to play with the decided pose to capture the shot. The photographer, artist and/or art director will often guide us if they are looking for something special. Sometimes they end up doing something that is nothing like what was originally conceptualized and it turns out being the winning shot; at times, the models come up with the pose. Working with models that are more experienced makes the shoot go much quicker. Typically a book cover photo session takes no more than an hour, but there have been times that it has taken as long as two. It might not seem like much time, but in order to get those hot photos you often have to put yourself in to some unnatural positions and hold them there for long periods of time; I have often left a shoot feeling pretty worn out.

2. What do you think constitutes a good romance cover? What standard are you aiming for when you step in front of the camera?

The models chosen should accurately depict the books heroes. I have done more than one cover where I am not so sure that I was the right man for the job, I did it anyway, and the clients were happy, so that’s all that matters. I think that in the case of a couple they have to look good together, they have to make a good and convincing couple. Then there is the lighting, in art, lighting is everything, a book cover’s image is no different. When I do a cover I try to convey as much passion as I can, the covers usually need a hero who is both strong but human, it’s up to me as a model to pass that along to the photograph. The less the photographer has to direct me the better job I am doing; it’s what I strive for.

3. Tell us what is next for you. Do you have anything exciting coming up for yourself?

Actually, I do have something very exciting coming up, my brother and I participated in a reality show called Bullrun that will start to air on Spike TV March 13th @ 10 pm EST. The show is based on super exclusive road-rally across the USA. We are up against eleven other teams and are all competing for a $200,000 cash prize. The contestants were required to rally across America as well as compete in challenges that tested our cars, skills, and wits; think The Amazing Race meets The Cannonball Run. We shot for 3 weeks and covered over 4000 miles through nine states.

It was an unforgettable experience and I can’t wait until it airs! Its like nothing that has ever been done before, we had a crew of over 200 people and enough equipment rigs to fill a town! Spike TV has already begun running promos and the advertising campaign blitz will be soon to follow. The Spike TV website has information, pictures, and videos of us and the other contestants. www.spiketv.com. I have also made a Myspace page with some info about me, nothing very elaborate but it has some home pictures of me and some stuff from the upcoming show. www.myspace.com/xjguy

Thanks for you and your reader’s interest in me.
Richard

Bullrun premieres on Spike TV March 13 at 10 pm

Prize winner will be announced tomorrow. The prize may take some time to be delivered. Richard broke his thumb in a skiing mishap and can’t sign his name!–He’s been doing our interview with a broken thumb!
Thanks, Richard!!

I promised to share some of my Marie Antoinette and/or Henry VIII research, and, since I finally got around to organizing my sloppy notes, here is the first!

Music is one of my favorite things (when I was a kid, I told everyone I was going to be an opera singer when I grew up–until I discovered I have a terrible singing voice!). So, I always love reading about composers and court music, of which both the 1780s and the 1520s had a plethora. Marie Antoinette and Henry VIII were both musical in their own ways (the portrait is MA at the spinet), and both enjoyed the finest instructors and performers. More about England later–this week we’re in France, in the middle of the last showdown between Marie Antoinette and Madame du Barry.

The man caught in the middle was Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787), one of the most important opera composers of the day. Born in Bavaria, his first position was in a Milan orchestra, where he received lessons from Giovanni Battista Sammartini. His first opera, Artaserse, premiered on December 26, 1741 to some success, and he traveled to London, Saxony, and Copenhagen before settling in Vienna in 1753. He became Kapellmeister to Empress Maria Theresa, and instructor to her children, including Archduchess Antoine (who seems to have been more enthusiastic than really talented!).

Gluck advocated the reform of opera, wanting to eliminate all that was “undramatic.” He insisted on focusing on human drama and passions, making the words and music of equal importance, doing away with folderol like mannered ballets. His best-known opera, Orfeo ed Euridice, had its first performance on October 5, 1762, with the famous castrato Guadagni in the title role.

In the 1770s, Gluck’s Viennese career was slipping a bit, so he was happy to accept an invitation from his former pupil to come to France. In 1774, he signed a contract to perform six works at the Paris Opera. The first, Iphigenie en Aulide, was to premier in April, and it sparked a war. Gluck knew his new style wouldn’t catch on right away with the French, stating “There will be considerable opposition because it will run counter to national prejudices against which reason is no defense.” But somehow the music got mixed up with Court factions! Louis XV’s mistress, Madame du Barry (who detested Dauphine Marie Antoinette and her snooty Viennese ways!) and her supporters brought in the more conventional Italian composer Piccinni. It was the Gluckists vs. the Piccinnists!

It didn’t much help that Gluck refused to coddle tempermental French stars. To Sophie Arnould, the Iphigenie, who wanted more fancy arias for herself, he snapped, “”To sing great arias, you have to know how to sing.”

But in the end the Gluckists triumphed. The premier on April 19, 1774 was packed–even du Barry couldn’t stay away. Mari Antoinette came with her husband, the comte and comtesse de Provence (her brother and sister-in-law), the duchesses de Chartres and de Bourbon, and the princesse de Lamballe. The opera started at 5:30 p.m. and ran even longer than the usual five and a half hours because of the copious applause. Even Rousseau left the theater in tears.

The run of Iphigenie didn’t last long. At the end of April, Louis XV fell ill with smallpox and died. Gluck’s patron was now Queen, and she saw to it he spent several years traveling between Vienna and Paris. He sponsored many patrons in his turn, including Salieri.

I once saw a performance of Orfeo, blessedly NOT five hours long (more like three), and really enjoyed it. Great singing, but sadly no Gluckist/Piccinnist throwdown in the audience. What’s some of your favorite music? Which side in the G/P battle would you have been on?

“Oh! Miss Woodhouse, the comfort of being sometimes alone!”

I sometimes think that one of the greatest and most subtle difference between our time and the Regency period is that now we take privacy and the right to time alone for granted. Then, it wasn’t so clear cut. Very few people lived alone, and “living alone” then might well mean a household with a servant or two. If you were an unmarried woman, you’d live with your family. I ran into an interesting fact somewhere that a household of three or more unrelated women was considered a brothel under the law in London (oh, how I wish I could give a source and a time period for this–I believe it was Georgian).

Living alone for a woman would be particularly difficult since she’d need someone to lace her into her stays. I’ve seen mid nineteenth-century front-lacing stays of linen for a working-class woman, and I’m sure they existed in our period. Yet, if you were a lady, you’d have back-lacing stays because that’s what ladies wore–and a maid, or sister or other female relative had to lace you into them every morning and out every night. And even at night you wouldn’t be alone–chances are a sister would share the bed.

Even if poets could wander lonely as a cloud, it wasn’t encouraged for women. Your activities would be tied into those of your family and you would be busy, busy, busy–there was a prevailing belief that women were weak and inconsistent creatures who would get into trouble morally if left to their own devices. Finding time “for yourself” was an alien concept; even Jane Austen had to snatch time to write, pretending she was producing something of little consequence.

How do you think you’d cope?