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Cara’s Risky Year in Review

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Welcome to Day Two of the Risky Regencies THIRD ANNIVERSARY celebration!

For our last anniversary, we talked about which posts of the previous year we were proudest of or had the most fun with…and I had such a good time that I’m going to do it again.

So to be eligible for my prize (which is detailed below), just tell me which of the following posts you like best (or least!)

Northanger Abbey

(Part of our “Jane Austen Week” discussion…)

Austen Trek: Borg and Prejudice

(Another installment in my “If Jane Austen Wrote Star Trek” series…)

Pace vs. Depth

(Cara wrestling with writing issues…)

Austen Idol

(“Austen Trek” goes off the deep end…and we see What If Jane Austen Wrote American Idol…)

How Captain Stanton Came to Be

(As part of our Waterloo Week, I analyze the decisions that went into my military hero…)

And if there’s something you want to see more of here (e.g. posts about Heyer or Austen or covers or craft or Gerard Butler), please share!

Ah, yes — the prize! I always like to give a choice, so the winner can choose ONE of the following three prizes:

(1) three Signet Regencies: THE ABDUCTED BRIDE by Dorothy Mack; TWIN PERIL by Susannah Carleton; and MY LADY GAMESTER (signed, natch) by Cara King.

(2) a Region One (i.e. US & Canada) DVD of the 1985 miniseries of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE starring Elizabeth Garvie and David Rintoul.

(3) Guidebook to the Museum of Costume & Assembly Rooms in Bath (with lots of full color pictures.)

All answers welcome!

Cara
Cara King, author of MY LADY GAMESTER and many silly posts

Posted in Risky Regencies | Tagged | 33 Replies

Eccentric Glamour, Etc

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This week, I am still suffering from Post Conference Brain Freeze, plus Near Deadline Dementia, so I have not much left over for blogging. No research tidbits. No writing tips. No new lipsticks or perfumes to recommend. Naught. Zilch.
So, I will turn for help to a very amusing book I recently read, Simon Doonan’s Eccentric Glamour: Creating an Insanely More Fabulous You. Not only will it give you a laugh, it just might also help in constructing the perfect Eccentrically Fabulous (hereafter referred to as EG) heroine!

Mr. Doonan, like many of us, deplores the new trend for “fake hair extensions, fake nails, fake spray tans, fake lips, and fake boobs.” He implores women everywhere to “seek out eccentrically glamorous alternatives to the ubiquitous cheapness and tackiness that currently pass for personal style. Banish the badonkadonkdonk! Say no to porno chic! Say no to ho! And yes to Eccentric Glamour.” He gives us profiles of various modern EG women like Dita Von Teese, Tilda Swinton, and Lucy Liu, and tells us the best way to find our own EG style. It’s easier than you might think, as there are really only 3 routes to EG (with a few sub-genres. Sort of like “historical romantic suspense,” or “urban fantasy Harlequin Presents” if you will). They are:

1) The Gypsy
This is for those who are “a hazy, lazy, rustic, poetic, ethereal free spirit,” or have always wanted to be. “There is much to recommend the Gypsy lifestyle. First, it’s incredibly romantic. You can be wild. You can be tempestuous. You can be Carmen.”

There is the Euro-glam Gypsy. The Isadora Gypsy (I like this one! Doonan says “She wears panne velvet and vintage lace and medieval-ish robes and turbans a la Edith Sitwell. She adores massive rings, beading, and devoree velvet.” She also spends a lot of time “contemplating the translucency of an Art Nouveau vase on the Portobello Road.”) And there is the Green Gypsy (think Natalie Portman), and the Hollywood Gypsy (who claim Ali McGraw as their patron saint).

2) The Socialite

“Of all the three styles, the Socialite has the least amount of eccentricity. Her style has a classic panache. She herself is not particularly creative. She leaves that to the Valentinos, Lagerfelds, and Puccis of the world,” but “she has a wicked wit.” Jackie Kennedy, Babe Paley, and CZ Guest “are the primordial ooze from which all subsequent Socialites emerged.”

3) The Existentialist

“This is the edgy, belligerent, provocative, creative face of eccentric glamour,” Doonan tells us. “There are no A-list celeb Existentialists: Jennifer Connelly and Charlotte Gainsbourg are about as close as it gets. The Existentialist is an angry rebel who eschews the superficiality of contemporary culture.”

Their variables include: The Existentialist Gamine (think Audrey Hepburn at the beginning of Funny Face. “There’s nothing quite like a black turtleneck to suggest an inner life, even where there may be none”). There is also the Rive Gauche Existentialist (“The elder sister of the Gamine”); the Existentialist Garconne (think Garbo and Dietrich!); and the Existentialist Ghoul. But be careful when trying the Ghoul–“Adopting this kind of scary look limits your social interaction to those who are dressed exactly as you and is therefore recommended only for the very young.”

Once we have found our EG niche, Doonan urges us to “Go forth and shop!” That, I can do. I haven’t quite figured out exactly where I fit on the EG continuum. I think I am a bit of an Isadora Gypsy/Existentialist Gamine, but that changes every day. The heroine of my WIP, Thalia Chase (the third of the “Muses of Mayfair”) is definitely a Gypsy. Her sisters Calliope and Clio, the heroines of Books One and Two, were respectively a Socialite and an Existentialist. They have definitely banished the badonkadonkdonk! (Or whatever the Regency equivalent would be…)

Now, it’s your turn. What kind of EG are you? What about favorite heroines (either from your own writing or for favorite books)? For instance, it’s pretty clear Jane Eyre is an Existentialist, but what is Elizabeth Bennet??? Discuss! (and be sure and join us next week as we celebrate our 3rd birthday! Lots of prizes and fun)
Posted in Risky Regencies | Tagged | 15 Replies

Cara’s Brain is Woozy

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Sorry this post is so late.

I just got back from attending the World Science Fiction Convention (a.k.a. Worldcon) yesterday.

I woke up this morning with a headache….and my new headache medicine apparently makes me woozy.

(Hmm…I wonder what the derivation of “woozy” is? If I weren’t so woozy, I’d go look it up in a dictionary. After all, I have three within reach right now. But that would take effort….)

So here are a few random pics for you…which will hopefully make more sense than I do right now!

I’ll talk more about Worldcon later…

But just a few tidbits for now:

The Guest of Honor was the amazing Lois McMaster Bujold.

And I got to ask her questions.

And hear her talk.

And listen to her read the first two chapters of her upcoming new Vorkosigan book!!!!!!!

I also got to hear Todd, who was on three panels, tell folks how to build a time machine in the basement. (Half of that sentence isn’t exactly true, by the way, but I’m too woozy to remember which half.)

Speaking of wooziness…(hey, that’s a cool word…wooziness…wooziness…if you say it three times fast, then it begins to describe your state of mind…)…I just attended two conferences back to back.

Does that make me an expert on hotel shower curtains?

Or finding cool restaurants? (I had Singaporean food with Elena in San Francisco, and German food with Todd in Denver…)

Hey, wait — wasn’t the Woozy one of those L Frank Baum magical creatures? (My woozy brain is coming up with a picture that seems to be a bendable doglike creature made of silvery metal… Does this make sense?)

Google, and ye shall find.

Here’s a picture of the Woozy (the fellow clinging to the tree) as illustrated by John R. Neill, in Baum’s THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ.

Yep.

That’s my brain.

Clinging to a tree.

S-N-O-O-Z-I-N-G.

Cara the woozy (though not Cara The Woozy)

Posted in Risky Regencies | Tagged | 12 Replies

RWA Wrap-Up, Etc

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I read this horoscope yesterday:

“Here’s a passage from Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Breakfast of Champions: ‘Kilgore Trout once wrote a short story which was a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. Because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing that they were making champagne.’ This scenario has some resemblance to what you’re doing, Capricorn. Fortunately, you’re much smarter than two pieces of yeast, and so you will not do the equivalent of drowning in crap. But I bet you’ll create something comparable to champagne.”

This is very encouraging, considering I have hit the point which comes in every WIP where the story seems, well, crap. A terrible idea from top to bottom. I want the characters to fall off a cliff and leave me alone. Yes, I am on the downhill slide, about 30 pages left to go. Along with recovering from RWA, it’s a slog. But hopefully, all unknowing, it’s slowly changing into bubbly champagne. I do like champagne, and luckily there was plenty to be had in San Francisco!

Here I am with Risky Megan!

With Diane and Michelle Willingham at the Harlequin party (I think this is before the infamous tree felling!)

Some mysterious dandy with Elena at the Beau Monde Soiree

And with Megan…

And with Deb Marlowe!

It was wonderful to meet so many of you “in person” at RWA! I can’t wait for next year. In the meantime, what were some of you own highlights of conference? And wish me luck on finishing my yeast, er, champagne…

Posted in Risky Regencies | Tagged | 12 Replies
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