I hope everyone rang in the New Year exactly as they wished. I did, with a quiet night at home, which is my favorite way to celebrate this holiday. I watched The Producers on TV and The Sound of Music. Wild lady here!

I’ve done a little thinking about New Year’s Resolutions and decided that I should have some. I ought to just cut and paste from last year. And the year before. And the year before that. There are a few that tend to repeat.

Diane’s New Year’s Resolutions

1. Lose weight and keep it off this time. I vow this every year and perhaps this year I will stick to it. I really want to.

2. Exercise regularly; that is, go back to Curves. I was doing so well at Curves and then I became swamped with deadlines, but I know that should not be an excuse.

3. Get organized and set a schedule for myself. I think I would not have to engage in writing marathons if I were more disciplined.

4. Read more. I really envied my fellow Riskies who shared their favorite books of 2006. I read mostly research books in 2006 and I need to get back to reading fiction, especially my friends’ romance novels, like Colleen Gleason’s The Rest Falls Away, in bookstores today!

5. Spend more time feeding my muse by going places and doing things. I live less than a half hour from the museums in Washington, DC. I should visit them more. I’ve never been to Lee’s Mansion, right in Arlington County where I worked for a brazillion years. Or to Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, a nice drive away, in Charlottesville, VA, where I negotiated my first book sale at a convenience store pay phone, with the trucks whizzing by…. But that is another story!

I do believe in New Year’s resolutions! This is a time to be optimistic. The New Year brings us all a new beginning, a time to start all over again.

How about you? Did you make resolutions?

And don’t forget to come by for Colleen Gleason’s visit on Thursday. In the meantime, take a look at her Trailer for The Rest Falls Away.

Cheers!
Diane

A Poem for Christmas Day. No matter what holiday you celebrate (or have celebrated) at this time of year, I hope it is/was a wonderful one. This poem by Tennyson, although a little later than “our” time, brings my wishes for all of us.
Cheers,
Diane

RING OUT, WILD BELLS
Christmas Poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

My Christmas “gifts” came early this year – two requests for revisions for Diane Gaston’s newest Harlequin Mills & Boon, The Vanishing Viscountess, and Diane Perkins’ latest Warner Forever, Desire in His Eyes.

After an author turns in a completed manuscript, the next step in the publishing process is for the editor to read through it and write a revision letter with things the editor thinks should be changed. It was my luck that my HMB revisions came incredibly fast and my Warner revisions came sorta late and that they both came at Christmas time.

The author has some say so in whether she actually makes the changes that the editors request, but my experience has been that my editors make the books better and I’m happy to take their advice.

Imagine my surprise, however, when both editors asked me to “show” why my heroes and heroines fell in love with each other. In both these books, my heroes and heroines are, shall we say, put in very intimate situations with each other. I could not stop them! My heroes and heroines ganged up on me and demanded a more “sensual” book, but apparently they forgot to remind me to show why they were so “attracted” to each other. Why did they fall in love?

I’ve no doubt I can fix this little problem. The present I’m giving to myself is to not even look at these two manuscripts until after Christmas, but in the meantime, it got me thinking. How do readers like the author to show how the hero and heroine in a romance fall in love?

That’s my question for you today. How do you like your heroes and heroines to show they are falling in love?

Cheers,
Diane

Is it Byron?
Almost two years ago, I saw this in a local antique store, advertised as an 19th century hand-drawing. Believe it or not, I passed it up, then decided I was nuts and went back and purchased it for about $40.00. I refrained from saying to the cashier, “Do you think this is Lord Byron? I really think this is Lord Byron.”

When I went to England in June 2005, I looked everywhere for a similar portrait of Byron, especially when we visited Newstead Abbey, but I never saw anything like it. So I am leaving it up to you. I have reversed some well-known Byron portraits and put them in black and white, for comparison.

Is my sketch Lord Byron?

This is what I imagine. A young Regency miss was infatuated with Lord Byron. Perhaps she even glimpsed him in Mayfair, at a ball or the theatre. She and her girlfriends sighed over his Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, bought engravings of his portrait at the local print shop. She did what I did when I was a teenager. She drew her own picture of Byron, putting him in exotic dress, like she would have imagined Child Harold to wear.

Of course, when I was a teenager, the hearthrob I drew a portrait of was Paul McCartney of the Beatles. I’d scan that too, if I knew where it was. I still have it someplace. I just went on a long search and found all sorts of other things (including my photo of William Shatner as Captain Kirk) but no Paul McCartney.

Weigh in here with your opinions. Do I have a portrait of Byron?
Confess. Who would you have drawn in those tender years of infatuation?

Cheers!
Diane (who has so far refrained from drawing Gerard Butler–or anyone else for a brazillion years)

I’m so lucky to live near Washington, DC. A couple of months ago I heard that The Smithsonian Institution was offering an all day lecture on The Regency World of Jane Austen by Bonita Billman, an Art Historican from Georgetown University. The lecture was scheduled for two days after my Mills & Boon book #5 was due, so the timing was perfect. I decided to indulge myself (the museums in DC are free, but the lecture was a little pricey) and sign up.

The lecture was held in the Ripley Center, the entrance of which is between the Freer Gallery and the Museum of African Art (We’re full of museums in DC). The Center is underground, and the lecture hall is a very comfortable room with theatre seats.

Ms. Billman showed the Regency World of Jane Austen through visual images, slides of the art of the time period, but also photography of the architecture, decorative arts, and fashions. She used the “social Regency” definition (1790-1830) rather than “political Regency” (1811-1821), when the Prince was Regent. I think she slipped a little into the Georgian period, but that was okay. The day was divided into four lectures: The Personalities in Jane Austen’s World; Regency Portraiture; Late Georgian Architecture; and Daily Life, Social Customs, Interior Design, and Fashion.

Billman showed the people of the Regency through their portraits, which was great fun. The Prince Regent, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, Beau Brummell, Jane (of course), Byron, Princess Caroline, and Princess Charlotte–and my hero, The Duke of Wellington.

Next Billman talked about the portrait artists of the time: Thomas Lawrence, Thomas Gainsborough, Joshua Reynolds, George Romney, and some lesser known ones: Hoppner, Beechey, Raeburn–even Stubbs, who is best known for his horses. My favorite was when she showed slide after slide of miniatures, small portraits to keep in one’s pocket.

Cosway was a name I had not known before the lecture. I love miniatures and hope some day to find one I can afford.

The next lecture was about the architecture. She basically just showed classical and gothic architecture–and, of course, the Pavilion.

She talked about William Gilpin, who toured the areas of natural beauty in the British Isles and whose home tour was satirized in Rowlandson’s Tours of Dr. Syntax.

Then last of all slide after slide of furniture, porcelain (not enough of that), interior design, and clothing.

I did not expect to learn new things, but I did. I did not know about Cosway, the miniaturist. I did not know about Gilpin or the Picturesque movement, but my interest was held throughout the whole day.

Another thing about it, I usually go places like this with a friend, but I wound up going alone and, actually, that was good for me. In a way it became more of a respite for me and I could more easily immerse myself in the time period and in the art. It was a day very well spent!

Cheers!
Diane