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Monthly Archives: March 2013

Spring Fever

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Happy Tuesday, everyone!  What are you doing this week??  I got my latest Harlequin Regency romance turned in (yay!!) and am getting caught up on a few things before diving into the next Elizabethan mystery.  Things like grocery shopping and running the vacuum cleaner, which always fall by the wayside when a deadline looms.  Among my projects–a fun round-robin story my local RWA chapter is doing with a St. Patrick’s Day theme!  Stay tuned for more info on that….

I am also announcing a winner!  The winner of a copy of A Stranger at Castonbury is…Emily!  Congrats!  Email me your info at amccabe7551 AT yahoo.com….

LadyAndMonstersCoverIn between taking a few naps and watching some DVDs that have piled up while I was working on the book (including all of season one of Girls, I have also been dreaming of spring.  Like many places, winter has been dismal here, with more gray skies and snow and freezing rain than usual.  (I also just read The Lady and Her Monsters, about Mary Shelley and the writing of Frankenstein, which included some depressing details of 1816’s Year Without a Summer.  It hasn’t been that bad here, but still…).  So I’ve been perusing garden catalogs and spring fashion websites (already bought some shorts at J Crew!).

 

 

If I was in the Regency this is the outfit I would be wanting to wear now (from my Regency Pinterest page!):

RegencyYellowDress RegencyParasol RegencyBonnet

And we could go out for a nice drive on a sunny afternoon:

RegencyPhaeton

What are you looking forward to this spring???

Posted in Former Riskies, Frivolity, Reading, Regency, Writing | Tagged , , | 3 Replies

Real Things

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RealJaneCoverThis week I am still buried in revisions, as well as a broken hot water heater (oh nooo!  It just shows me I could never have handled actually living in historical eras–I need my hot showers).  But I am also reading a great book, Paula Byrne’s The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things, which I’m enjoying a lot.

This book isn’t just a straightforward biography.  Each chapter begins with an object from Austen’s life that evokes a key moment in her life or work.  It’s a fun structure that paints a portrait of a witty, socially and politically aware woman whose books are very much of their time as well as being so timeless we love her characters still.  Some of the objects are the topaz cross necklaces her brother gave her; her laptop desk; an Indian shawl; a royalty check; a barouche, etc etc.  I started looking around my desk to see what I might have that could be in a comparable story about my life.  (No royalty check at the moment, alas!)

MyDeskInstead of an Indian shawl I have a pink hoodie hanging on the back of my chair…

Instead of a vellum notebook, I have a Hello Kitty notebook from Target…

Instead of a quill pen, I have a Disney princess pen with a feathered skirt–it writes in yellow and blue ink…

HKBookSpeaking of Hello Kitty, I have a reading HK I got from a McDonald’s Happy Meal!  I had to stop this post for a minute to make her move the little book…

I have stacks of research books, little slips of paper with random notes written on them, and an Eiffel Tower cocktail shaker I got as a wedding present.  Not as nice as Austen’s little table maybe, but at least no one will interrupt me to feed the chickens or do some embroidery!

 

 

What’s on your desk?  What items would evoke your world?  And on a whole different note–I am trying to plot a Christmas short story and am having a hard time, since tulips are blooming outside my window and I’ve been shopping for shorts on J.Crew.com.  What do you love to see in holiday stories???

Posted in Former Riskies, Jane Austen, Writing | Tagged , | 2 Replies

Luck of the Irish

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CountessCoverThis week I am doing a fun new project related to one of my favorite holidays–St. Patrick’s Day!  (and no, I don’t love it because it’s an excuse to drink too much, sing “I’ll Tell Me Ma,” and wear a green plastic tiara that says “Irish Princess” and lights up–that’s just a perk…)  My local RWA chapter, OKRWA, is doing a series of free short-short stories called “The Luck of the Irish” centered around a pub called the Rose and Shamrock, and a leprechaun’s search for his lost gold.

My own story, “The Start of the Rainbow,” is historical (though most of them will be contemporary) and is related to my Laurel McKee “Daughters of Erin” series.  (My story went up yesterday, and there will be a new one each day until Sunday–you can find the site here…)

I’ve done short stories before, novellas for Christmas anthologies and The Diamonds of Welbourne Manor along with Risky Diane, and some stories for the Harlequin Historical Undone line, but those were all anywhere from 15,000-25,000ish words.  This time I was trying something very different–a REALLY short story, less than 2500 words.  I wasn’t sure about it at first.  I had to not only come up with an actual story, I had to set up the series and somehow connect it to my Laurel books (I found a girl who was a friend to Lady Caroline, heroine of Lady of Seduction, Lady Allison Bennett, to be the heroine).  At first I wasn’t sure it was even possible.   But in the end it was a lot of fun!  It made me wish there was a Rose and Shamrock in my town too…

Do you enjoy short stories?  What are you doing for St. Patrick’s Day??

 

Posted in Former Riskies, Frivolity, Risky Book Talk | Tagged , | 2 Replies

A Fashion For Vice

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Before I get to the smutty talk, let me apologize for last Wednesday. I was sick with the ague. Ick. Anyway, this week’s post is about another book although it might be fairer to call it a pamphlet. The Georgian Bawdy House, by Emily Brand.

Here with, my by the moment review:

Oh my god. No. Way. Ewww.
One sexual myth of the early part of the Long 18th Century: amorous embraces could revive the dead. Right. How is that not necrophilia?

Viper-Wine. OK. That’s awesome. Drink viper-wine and you get frisky, even if you’re ::coughcough:: older.
Of course I googled it. Here.

Vinum Viperinum
Viper juice
of dried Vipers two Ounces
of white Wine three Pints
Infuse with a gentle Heat for a Week and then strain the Wine off
There has been some Dispute whether living or dry’d Vipers are best Viper Wine or whether a cold or hot Infusion is preferable. The college here has preferr’d dry’d Vipers and a warm Infusion; but the medicine is not of Consequence enough to be worth disputing about. I believe the Virtues it is pos’d of are very inconsiderable. A Medicine has been advertis’d in Town the Name of Viper Wine which is said to have had very extraordinary Effects such as might be from a Tincture of Cantharides which upon Examination I find it really to be.

Okayyyy.

:::Boggle::: There is a picture of ladies examining dildos, with testicles and hair. Ohmygod.

Oh. Hey. The Duke of Wellington. Boxing. Plenty of Regency era stuff here.

Kitties!!! (It’s a print with fighting cats.)

Oh….. I get it. Very funny. Snort.

My sweet honey, I hope you are to be let with the Lodgings!
No. Sir. I am to be let alone.

Boy, I wish this was on my iPad. Because the font is TINY!

Themed amatory entertainment. Hoo boy. Really? All righty.

Mollyhouses were meeting places for homosexual intercourse.

A lot of this makes me sad. The average age of a London prostitute: 16-24. As with everything, some women were wealthy — while they were still young, but so many other women were just trying to make ends meet.

I will continue with this next week, I think.

Posted in Former Riskies, Research | Tagged , | 6 Replies