Every day I don’t write I go a little crazy. I make excuses, that I’m dealing with more important things like my children’s health and well-being or major or minor household catastrophes, but something inside me screams. If I ignore it the screams build up in the pit of my stomach and somewhere between my shoulderblades. It gets physical.

Summers can be tough on the mommy writer. This one has been no exception. For the first month or so I did quite well. Despite the flood, heat waves and a bug bite that gave me the hives, between play dates and errands, I still managed to sit down and write for at least an hour every day. I have about 50 pages of rough draft on one story and about 2/3 of a detailed outline for another to show for it.

But for the past three weeks or so, writing has been derailed by vacation, house guests, back to school preparations and threatened cuts to the local Kopernik Observatory’s educational programs, necessitating much letter-writing to the controlling museum’s board members and local politicians.

Now I have lost that tenuous connection with my characters and my stories and I am rusty as – as – well, so rusty I can’t even think of a decent simile.

My friend Therese Walsh has been going through something similar and blogged about it at Writer Unboxed. She and I are suffering from the same malaise–shall we call it Summer Writing Syndrome (SWS)?

The problem with SWS is it’s hard to recover, even once salvation arrives, as it did this morning, in the form of a schoolbus. Now there are no more excuses. The pressure’s on to produce but the creative muscles are creaky.

At least I’ve been here, done that already. To come back from a break in the writing, I know I need to cut through the nonsense. No self-flagellation about how little I accomplished this summer. No whining about being rusty–some sludge has to come out of the pipe before the good stuff. No prima donna melodrama. Just back to work. Back to sanity.

I’ve brewed my pot of half-decaf. The candle is lit. Ravel is coming from the CD player.

Wish me luck!

Elena
LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE, RT Reviewers’ Choice, Best Regency Romance of 2005
www.elenagreene.com

In three weeks — on Tuesday, September 26 — I’ll be holding a contest here, with great prizes. So, do you want to hear about the contest first, or the prizes?

The prizes? Okay!

There will be at least two winners, and they will have a variety of prizes to choose from. The first winner will get to choose any of these prizes she or he wishes — and the second will choose from the remaining prizes. (If there are a lot of entrants, I’ll have a third winner too!)

PRIZE A: PRIDE & PREJUDICE “FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION” Book. This is an 11″ by 9″ softcover book with approximately 80 pages of color photos of last year’s film of “Pride and Prejudice.” This was the book given to Academy members to convince them to nominate everyone who worked on the film, and I suspect it’s pretty rare. As well as laudatory critical quotes, it has lots of neat bits: quotes from the production designer on her aims, from Keira Knightley on her thoughts about taking the roles, several excerpts from the script, costume designs, a picture of Sleeveless Hussy (Miss Bingley) in her sleeveless dress, and a lot more. And yes, all you Matthew MacFadyen fans — there are very nice pics of him in it. (The picture at the top of this post is the cover.)

PRIZE B: BATH MUSEUM OF COSTUME & ASSEMBLY ROOMS souvenir guidebook. This 8″ by 11 1/2″ “Authorised Guide” has 48 pages of pictures of the Assembly Rooms in Bath, descriptions of their history, and photos and explanation of the famous Costume Museum Collections there, accompanied by period illustrations.

PRIZE C: An Advanced Reading Copy of Stephanie Barron’s sixth Jane Austen mystery, JANE AND THE PRISONER OF WOOL HOUSE, which came out in 2001.

PRIZE D: Hardback copy of Steven Parissien’s GEORGE IV: INSPIRATION OF THE REGENCY. Four hundred pages about the Prince Regent himself, including sixteen black-and-white plates, this book was called “Charming, intelligent, imaginitive, witty” by the Sunday Times.

PRIZE E: Any four of the following paperbacks: Georgette Heyer’s THE MASQUERADERS; Georgette Heyer’s SYLVESTER; Carla Kelly’s SUMMER CAMPAIGN;
Carla Kelly’s MISS CHARTLEY’S GUIDED TOUR; Carla Kelly’s LIBBY’S LONDON MERCHANT; Catherine Fellows’s THE LOVE MATCH; Laura Kinsale’s FOR MY LADY’S HEART (It’s Medieval, not Regency, but it’s a Kinsale!); and Patricia Wrede’s MAIRELON THE MAGICIAN (which is fantasy set during the Regency.) Information about the condition or edition of any of the above available on request, beginning next week (September 12). (Some have well-creased spines. Some don’t.)

Those are the prizes. Now — for the contest.

Because my book (MY LADY GAMESTER) is still in print, but may not be for long, I’m making this contest all about it! To enter, you will need to read MY LADY GAMESTER (author: Cara King) by Tuesday, September 26. (I will not ask how you obtain it — new, used, library, friend — but I will mention that it is still available new through Amazon and similar outlets.)

Then on Tuesday, September 26, there will be a discussion about the book here, on the Risky Regencies blog. If you leave a comment that makes any kind of sense and shows you’ve actually read the book, your name will be entered two times in the drawing. For each further sensible comment, you will have one more entry. (Please note: you don’t have to say nice things about the book. Honest discussion is what is sought.) Then names will be drawn at random — first name drawn gets first choice from prizes A – E, and second name gets second choice. (If there are a lot of comments, I’ll have a third winner as well.)

You can start placing comments at 12 a.m. Pacific Time (3 a.m. Eastern Time, 8 a.m. GMT) the morning of Tuesday, September 26, and place them as late as noon Pacific time (3 p.m. Eastern Time, 8 p.m. GMT) the following day, Wednesday, September 27, 2006.

And, yes — I will mail these prizes anywhere in the world (except for the GEORGE IV book, which is just too heavy). So no matter where you’re living, you’re eligible.

If you have any questions about the contest, ask them here — but please be patient about the reply. I’m off to England today to see six plays in six days — including five of Shakespeare’s most rarely performed plays — so I’ll be offline much of the next week. (The plays, if anyone’s interested, are the three Henry VI plays [all in one day!], King John, and Troilus and Cressida. Plus the new Stoppard.)

So: why should you enter? (a) You may win great prizes; (b) If this contest gets a lot of comments, we’ll probably have other similar contests in the future, with even more great prizes; (c) You might just enjoy reading the book; and (d) Even if you don’t, it should be fun explaining why not to everyone else who’s read it!

So, one final point… The answer to the question “Is a contest in which an author forces entrants to talk about her book a sign of (a) runaway egomania, or (b) rampant insecurity?” is still being debated in Parliament.

Cara
Cara King — author of MY LADY GAMESTER
Booksellers’ Best Award for Best Regency of 2005

As I mentioned earlier, I just enjoyed the most relaxing vacation. One of the best parts was being able to catch up on a number of books I’ve been wanting to read, some of them romance classics in the I’m-ashamed-to-admit-I-haven’t-read-that category.

I started out with our own Diane’s THE MARRIAGE BARGAIN. It’s a classic Regency romance, beautifully written (no surprise there!) with heartfelt passion and intriguing secondary characters who are clearly heroes-in-waiting.

Having loved MISS WONDERFUL, I was eager to read Loretta Chase’s MR. IMPOSSIBLE and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s set in Regency Egypt (how’s that for different?), the characters are adorable, the dialogue witty, classic Loretta Chase. Now LORD PERFECT is beckoning from the TBR shelf.

On the recommendation of one of my CPs, I tried BLISS by Judy Cuevas (who more recently writes as Judith Ivory). This book is so different and so risky. It’s set mostly in France, in 1903, a time period one rarely sees in historical romance. The hero is a blocked artist, an ether addict and impotent. The heroine seems–at first glance–like a rather superficial adventuress. Cuevas/Ivory is brilliant enough to bring out layers and layers of these characters and pull it all off. It’s beautiful.

The next book I read was MY SWEET FOLLY by Laura Kinsale. First let me say (for anyone who doesn’t know this already) that she is and always will be one of my favorite authors. However, I have to agree with other readers who thought the prologue was beautiful and the rest of the book disappointing in comparison. According to her website, Laura wrote this book during the worst of her battle with her muse and doesn’t remember much of it. Without knowing the circumstances it’s hard to say if anything could have helped, but I wish that somehow she’d had the chance to rest, relax, regroup, whatever she needed to work it out. Anyway, Laura Kinsale on autopilot is still better than many authors. And that prologue is a gem.

The last book I picked up was THE PROPOSITION by Judith Ivory (aka Judy Cuevas). It’s her RITA-winning Victorian historical featuring a hero that’s a rat-catcher, of all things. I am in awe. I am adding all her backlist books to my TBR list (sigh). I’m delighted to see that there’s a new Judith Ivory coming out in October, ANGEL IN A RED DRESS.

So here I am, a week away from my kids heading back to school. Not only have I enjoyed this self-indulgent binge on good romances, I am feeling totally stoked to get back to my own works-in-progress!

So has anyone else read these books? What did you think? Have you read anything else noteworthy lately? I’m always up for adding some more books to that endless TBR list!

Elena
LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE, RT Reviewers’ Choice, Best Regency Romance of 2005
www.elenagreene.com

As I mentioned last week, I just went to Worldcon, i.e. the World Science Fiction Convention, which is five days of all sorts of fascinating fun.

One of the authors there was Madeleine E. Robins, author of the Regency-set slightly-alternate-history Regency adventure-mystery novels POINT OF HONOUR and PETTY TREASON. Unfortunately, I missed the panels she was on (there were always ten or twenty wonderful things to do every hour, and I kept wishing I had Hermione Granger’s spell to split into five people), so I can’t relay any brilliant inside info. But I can say that I really enjoyed POINT OF HONOUR, am looking forward to reading its sequel, and love to see what writers in different genres do with the Regency.

Also present was Naomi Novik, author of the hot new series about the Napoleonic Wars with a twist — dragons. I haven’t yet begun the series (which starts with HIS MAJESTY’S DRAGON) but I now have a signed copy of the second installment, and have heard great things about these books.

Have you read any of these books? If so, what did you think?

What other Regency-set books from other genres (mystery, SF, fantasy, general fiction, anything else) have you read? What do you think about them? Which would you recommend? Which ones are you looking forward to reading?

All opinions welcome!

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

By the time this post is published, I should be on my way home from a week’s vacation in a lakeside cottage. If all has gone well, I’m nice and relaxed, having done a lot of swimming, canoeing, and reading books by Loretta Chase, Judith Ivory, Laura Kinsale and our own Diane Perkins.

Still, wouldn’t it be exciting to have a time-travel machine and travel back to some exciting or beautiful British location during the Regency? Where would you go?

Would you like to dance at Vauxhall gardens with a devilishly handsome rake?

Or would you prefer the more sedate elegance of Bath? While we’re at it I have to say when I was there I tried the water and it really wasn’t half as bad as most Regency novels make it out to be.

Are you into nature? I am. One of the things I fantasize about is experiencing the countryside without hearing the hum of traffic, gazing into a sky full of stars without modern light pollution.

In one of my favorite Regency fantasies I would be hiking around the Lake District with a companion that looked remarkably like Colin Firth.

Perhaps I’d go even farther afield and explore the beauties of Scotland.

So tell me about your fantasy Regency vacation!

Elena
LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE, RT Reviewers’ Choice Award, Best Regency Romance of 2005
www.elenagreene.com