S e x.

Sex in the Regency. My advice would be, don’t go there. Look at our own times. Is there a consensus on sexuality? Hardly, and yet everyone has an opinion. Trying to figure out sexual mores from a distance of almost two hundred years is a little daunting. Because for every discovery you make, there’s an exception, and you just end up even more confused.

Sex was for procreation. Except when it wasn’t. Yes, the aristocracy wanted to be sure that their heirs were actually theirs and not the third footman’s…but it didn’t mean anyone was going to enjoy it. Except for the sorts of misbehavior that were purely for enjoyment. Women were stupid creatures who didn’t have any sort of control over the physical desire they weren’t mean to know about. Anything you, uh, did on your own (see how polite I’m being today!) would cause a whole host of exotic, distressing, life-threatening physical and mental symptoms, and everyone would know what you’d been doing.

And oh yes, let’s not forget the distressing consequences of unprotected sex, particularly for women.

It’s enough to make you wonder why and how the Regency is now viewed as this incredibly sexy period. Because, of course, it is. The clothes, the clothes, celebrating men’s beautiful athletic bodies (never in the history of clothing has a style so blatantly demanded that you look there, yes, there–and I don’t count codpieces because they’re just silly). Wonderful, feminine, floaty, transparent gowns for women with not a whole lot underneath. It’s almost as though fashion was an acceptable means of erotic expression.

Romance has created a sort of never-never Regencyland which is a lot of fun to explore. I think it’s also a lot of fun to incorporate some real history into our fantasy. But how much, and what? Real events, real people? What books have you read that you felt really gave you a sense of being in another time and place?

Janet

When in the depths of first draft hell, sometimes I reach for some favorite quotes to keep me slogging. But not the usual motivational stuff. Later, I will appreciate words like Eleanor Roosevelt’s: “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” But when I’m at this stage, I want gritty realism and black humor.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not drive on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. – Winston Churchill

A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. – Thomas Mann

There’s only one person who needs a glass of water oftener than a small child tucked in for the night, and that’s a writer sitting down to write. – Mignon McLaughlin

If I don’t write to empty my mind, I go mad. – Lord Byron

Easy reading is damn hard writing. – Nathaniel Hawthorne

The first draft of anything is sh*t. – Ernest Hemingway

Only a mediocre writer is always at his best. – W. Somerset Maugham

Here’s another one I love, though not specific to writing:

Certainty of death. Small chance of success. What are we waiting for?
– Gimli, in the cinematic version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Return of the King

So do any of you have favorite quotes, writing-related or otherwise, that help you get through the day?

Elena
LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE, finalist NJRW Golden Leaf
www.elenagreene.com

Today is the day! Welcome to the MY LADY GAMESTER discussion — complete with some excellent prizes!

To learn about the prizes (which include the book pictured here — an 80-page 11″ by 9″ softbound book full of pictures and info on last year’s movie of Pride and Prejudice, given to Oscar voters), and to see the complete rules, click here.

Remember: there will be at least two winners, and if there are a lot of comments, there will be three winners. So comment early, and comment often!

To refresh your memory — to enter the contest, just leave a comment today (September 26) on this post talking about my Regency, MY LADY GAMESTER. Your comment doesn’t need to be brilliant or funny or clever, and you don’t need to say anything nice about the book either — just as long as the comment basically means something, and has something to do with the book, it will count.

Feel free to say what you like, to introduce a new topic, or comment on one already going!

If you need ideas to get started, here are a couple that occurred to me recently…

I was recently reading some comments made on an early version of the manuscript a long time ago by various people… One of them complained that the whole idea of my plot was flawed — that during the Regency, a woman in Atalanta’s position would just have gone out and caught herself a rich husband to help her family, and the idea of gaming for money would never have crossed her mind. My first thought was “what a silly comment!” My second thought was “Hmm…come to think of it, I am quite certain that such an idea never crossed Atalanta’s mind. But why not?” Setting aside the revenge factor, what was it about Atalanta that made her do what she did? Or, conversely, did I fail to show sufficient motivation for her actions? Did she do what she did merely because the author wanted her to? 🙂

When my brother read the book, he gave me detailed comments on it. (Which I love to get! This, of course, is why I’m doing this remarkably self-absorbed contest.) I was intrigued to learn that he didn’t care for Atalanta’s brother, Tom. What interested me was that I’d found that most readers liked Tom, or at least thought he was a good character…and, in fact, if they disliked a younger brother in the book, it was Edmund, who some found to be a rather two-dimensional character. So. Brothers. Is Tom funny, annoying, lovable, unbelievable, or what? How about Edmund? Is Edmund just a cipher there, a tool in the plot, and a device to reveal Stoke’s character? Will Tom and Edmund end up friends once they’re living together, or will they be like oil and water? 🙂

Poor Sir Geoffrey, living in a dead-end alley with his treasures. So — what’s his problem? How many mental illnesses does he suffer from? Could Malkham really have got him to play cards, like he does at the end? Have you ever heard of an alley in Regency London that had a dead end? 🙂 (I haven’t. That bit was fudged.)

By the way, I fudged something else — the upholstery in the Covent Garden Theatre was not royal blue — it was pale blue. Shocker!

So — please comment! Hopefully this will be fun!

Cara
Cara King — egomaniac, and author of MY LADY GAMESTER, winner of the Booksellers’ Best Award for Best Regency of 2005

Recently I was browsing Ebay and I put “1815” in the search field (I do this way too often!). This book popped up with only minutes to go on the auction and it was going for practically nothing, so I had to bid on it. It arrived a couple of days ago – not this version with the lovely cover, but Volume II of a three volume set- the memoir covering her life from 1815-1819.

Because it is Volume II, there is no introduction so all I know of la comtesse so far is from a website review “Born Adele d’Osmond in 1871 (I think he means 1771), daughter of a diplomat, lady-in-waiting to royalty, married to a General, she knew (or knew of) all the major players in this historical epoch.” I do not even know if the lovely portrait on this bookcover is la comtesse.

This volume begins with her traveling in France and staying for a few days in Lyon. She tells about a woman who visited her maid there, a woman named Marion, who had only one arm. Marion had been a servant to a vicar who had been imprisoned “during the Terror,” and every day Marion brought the vicar food that she carried in basket.

Here is the countess’s maid relating the story: “One morning, when she had been brutally repulsed, her perseverance in requesting admission to the prison exasperated one of the ‘sans culottes’ who was on guard; he proceeded to assert that her basket certainly contained evidence of a conspiracy against the Republic, and attempted to seize it. Marion, fearing that her poor dinner would be plundered, attempted to defend it. Then one of these monsters…struck off the arm which held the basket with a blow from his sword. Roars of laughter greeted this action. Poor Marion left her hand and half her forearm on the pavement of the prison, wrapped up the bleeding stump in her apron and came home to us….“

I think it is remarkable enough that Marion could have walked home with half her arm cut off, but here is the kicker. After her wound was dressed, Marion fixed another basket full of food and went back to the prison to deliver it to the vicar–that same day! She wrapped up her arm in lots of linen and put it in a sling and the vicar never knew she’d lost her arm until long afterward, when he was freed from the prison.

What incredible strength and endurance people must have had in those times. No ambulance. No emergency room. No morphine drip. No time to even mourn the loss of a limb. If I wrote that scene in fiction, no one would find it credible.

Can you also imagine how terrifying France must have been if one could be accused of ‘conspiracy against the Republic’ for merely carrying a basket of food? It must have been a perpetual nightmare.

Marion’s incident certainly hooked me on reading la comtesse’s memoir, but (alas!) I must put it down. I’m reading Memoirs of a Highland Lady, because the book I’m working on now, Mills and Boon/Harlequin Historical book #5, creatively known as “Tanner’s story,” is going to be partly set in Scotland. So far Elizabeth Grant, the Highland Lady, is remembering London….sigh!

Do you have any other memoirs or biographies to recommend to me? I love to learn of “our period” through the eyes of people who lived it.

Cheers!
Diane

The finalists of the New Jersey Romance Writers’ Golden Leaf Contest have been announced, and Riskies Elena Greene and Janet Mullany will be duking it out for the Regency category! Click the title of this post for the full listing. The third finalist, Meredith Bond (Dame Fortune), will be joining them in the Hepplewhite-inspired tub of mud.

The results will be announced at the New Jersey Put Your Heart in a Book Conference, coming up in a couple of weeks!