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Category: Former Riskies

Diving into Regency London

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I’ve pulled out my copy of The Epicure’s Almanack for this post. This will appear to ramble a bit, but it’s only an illusion, K?

Rambling….

The Blind Beggar of Bethenal Green described as “a house of entertainment” Let’s put that in oh, riiigght. Entertainment.

tossing up piemen “that attend executions, fairs, boxing-matches, and other polite assemblies.” Category: local color (apparently it was a thing to toss a coin and allowing the vendor to call heads or tails. Free pie if the customer won. If the vendor won, he kept the money and the pie.) This was also called “tossing the pieman.”

Plympton’s Pastry shop: Category: local color. Although we think of pasty shops as a place to buy things with sugar in them, Plympton’s sold sweet and savory pastries.

A ham and beef shop: Category: puzzling. Why ham and beef? Why not ham, beef, and veal?

Eating House: Category: vernacular. Not a restaurant, but an “eating house.” Even so, some of these eating-houses had accommodations upstairs. One displayed a variety of meats in the window.

Hyde Park Coffee House, Hotel and Tavern: Category: Regency Starbucks. Located at 242 Oxford Street. Commanded a view of Hyde Park and the hills of Surrey

Copping’s Ham and Beef Shop: Category: less puzzling now. 178 Oxford Street. “A good mart for purchasing those articles, and tongues ready drest, by weight, to carry away with you, which you must do, since there are no eating-rooms attacheed to the shop. Mr. Copping has acquired fame by the sale of his excellent plum puddings.”

There’s more than Gunters!

The Prince Regent’s famous confectioner, Monsiuer Parmentier, had a shop (“emporium”) at No.9 Edward Street. At 29 Duke Street was the emporium of Signor Romualdo. The nobility ordered supplies from these two places. In this area [Mayfair] there are china and glass shops that on “a few hours notice” could “furnish a splendid equipage for tea and turn out, as well as all the moveables and ornaments for large rout parties.”

Our author, Mr. Ryland, in this book, is having us on. He describes a party at the Earl of Shrewsbury’s new, but empty, house. A party that, alas, did not actually happen as descried. The local emporiums, he says, completely furnished the house from a room ablaze with light — lots of chimney glass — and another “somber” room decorated so as to resemble an Acadian grove. “It was filled with orange and lemon trees in full bearing, myrtles, and a great variety of odoriferoius shrubs and plants, in part natural and in part artificial, tastefully disposed and arranged in gradins.”

I had to look up gradin, but it’s what you’d suspect: an arrangement of tiered seating– in this case for the plants.

Impressions

It makes sense, when you think about it, to have someone supply the china, glasses, and silverware for a large party. Otherwise, the family china might disappear, be damaged or broken. When I planned my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary party, I found a place that would deliver the correct number of place settings, dishes, etc. And they came the next day to take away the dirty dishes, too. Boy, was that nice!

What I find fascinating about this is the dozens of clues about what London was like — A London I wish we saw more of in the pages of books. Eating-houses, dozens of “ham and beef” shops, where you might, or might not, be able to sit down and eat your purchase. And all around Mayfair, shops to cater to the wealthy. Things feel close together for us because, well, relative to what it can be like in the US, you didn’t hop in your car (or the metro) and zip across town and back to run your errands. You walked, rode a horse, or drove a carriage. For us, Regency London would be smaller in every way, more condensed and compact.

Ironically, I just moved my WIP out of London and into the countryside.

Has your vision of London changed at all?

Posted in Former Riskies, Regency, Research | Tagged , | 4 Replies

What Kind Of Regency Know-it-All are You? A Quiz

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Fun with WordPress Plugins! Take my “How Well do you Know the Regency?” quiz and share the results with the world! (also, any suggestions for improvement in quiz format and presentation are welcome)

One of the questions has some long answer possibilities, so that one may look a bit strange. But let’s get going!

Tell us how you did in the comments, too!

[slickquiz id=1]

Posted in Former Riskies, Frivolity | Tagged , | 13 Replies

Style. Sort of.

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For me, the early stage of writing a book tends to be the most difficult. The story I see and feel in my head is not what’s getting down on paper and, despite the fact that I know better, I continue to be stubborn about the direction to go. And every time I go through this I think about the story I read about celebrated mystery writer Rex Stout, who, this story went, would sit down at his typewriter and write his story and keep going until he was done. One version, no revisions necessary. Done. And what about Michael Moorcock whose book on the subject of writing seemed, to me, to be so blithe about the difficulties– I know I came away with the impression that he didn’t feel writing was difficult at all. Whenever he felt stuck, he put his characters under attack. Not plot moppets but plot attacks!

I’m at that dangerous place in my story where I always think about giving up and writing something else… That shinier story that has the advantage of not having 15 chapters of awful.

Inspiration!

But then I’ll see something inspiring, like the dress pictured in this blog post: I found that, by the way, from a tweet by Candice Hern. If you’re not following her on twitter, you should be.

Go look at that dress.

It’s just gorgeous. Now I want to write a scene where my heroine is wearing a gown like that. How, how I ask you, could a hero NOT fall in love with a woman wearing a dress like that? Imagine how it would look in candlelight. :::sigh:::

Step Away From the Keyboard, Ma’am

This is why I should never be allowed near the internet:

First, I thought, WAIT! PINTEREST! I can pin that beautiful gold gown! So I go to pinterest and wonder, when I get there, why there are so many pictures of Arjun Rampal and then I got distracted (safe for work except, well, if anyone sees you it will be obvious you’re not working….) Really: I have 4 boards (5 now) and the only ones with more than one pin are my books and Arjun Rampal.

Anyway, I managed to create a board to pin the gold gown and THEN I ended up at this website Regency Society of America with its posting section on fabrics and then Esty where I looked at gorgeous pictures of Regency-style wedding gowns AND THIS website, Reproduction Fabrics.

So right. I better end this post here.

Who’s on Pinterest? Leave your pinterest info in the comments so I can follow your stuff.

Posted in Former Riskies, Frivolity, Regency, Writing | Tagged , , , , | 6 Replies

In the Parlor with the ?

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I’ve been working away on my next Sinclair Sister’s novel. I keep getting interrupted with other work. Hoo boy. However, having realized the other day that I had started the book in the wrong place—

Actually, that gives an incorrect impression that somehow I would have known the REAL chapter 1, if only I were a smarter, better, writer. What I should say is I realized that my current chapter 15 would be an EXCELLENT chapter 1 and that the book will be much much better for moving all the chapters around. It happens that that are currently only two chapters after 15. When I wrote my actual first words, they were a place for me to jump in.

NOW I can get to my post

Anyway, I’ve been working on Lucy and Thrale and thinking about them a lot even though because of all the interruptions I haven’t gotten in as many words as I’d like. And then I realized that I need a place for Thrale to live. I gave him a vague location in Lord Ruin, but now I need to know about the interior and his relationship to it.

This meant I pulled out my reference books to start looking at pictures and diagrams and about five minutes later I started getting annoyed at whoever deiced homes should be build with 8 ft ceilings instead of 10 or 12 feet and THEN I started wondering about the kind of ethos in which a class of persons, who cannot help but see people living in squalid homes, build themselves houses that big and that spacious.

Sometimes, when I’m staring out my window thinking about a plot point, or character issue, I think wouldn’t it be nice to be a bird? Because then I wouldn’t have to go to work. I’d just flit around all day looking for seeds or bugs or what have you. Plus, birds don’t stay up too late and then remember 4.5 hours later why it was a bad idea to keep reading :::damnalarmclock:::

And THEN I remember that birds also do not have grocery stores. They have to get their own food ALL THE TIME and there are predators who think of them as dinner.

There WAS such a thing as Bad Taste

And so, as I flip through the pages of my Lost Mansions of Mayfair, glad, after all, that I am not a bird, I see photographic evidence of people with a lot more money than most. Some of them built big houses and then decorated the decorations until you think your eyes might actually bleed. It is in fact, possible to go too far with the bling. Seriously. There must have been some snickering going on with people who thought bling is an additive property. MORE!! MORE!!! Byzantene Good. Rococo Great! Byzantine AND Rococo BETTTER!!!!!

Then again, suppose you hired cheap with the architectural work and when you come see your new home for the first time? GAHHHHH!!! And you blew your wad on someone who thinks there’s no such thing as too busy.

While I’m on the subject, sometimes I see pictures of period gowns and I think the dress is ugly. There. I said it. Some of those dresses had too much frilly crap all over the place.

Thrale’s Fate?

So, what kind of house does Thrale have? I think maybe his father had awful taste…..

ETA: Sorry about the late post! I put the wrong date when I scheduled it. Sheesh.

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

One day, After All the Editors Went Home, the Slush Pile and an Abandoned Marketing Research Plan Partied Hard

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I’d like to continue Diane’s discussion about Historical Romance. I’ve now been writing long enough that I have “survived” cycles. At least twice since I published my first novel (a historical romance!) the Historical has been declared dead. Vampires have been dead. (BWAHAHAHAHAAHAH! Ohmygod you have no idea how fun that was to write!) Westerns: Dead. Contemporary Romance: Dead. Romantic Suspense: Dead. Zombies: The Walking Dead.

What I have continued to hear throughout my writing life is that Regencies sell and sell a lot. You can’t sell Victorian! ::::Courtney Milan:::: You can’t sell Edwardian ::::Sherry Thomas:::: You can’t sell Georgian ::::Jo Beverly:::: No more Scotsmen! And for God’s sake, not Culloden! ::::Monica McCarty::::

For a long while, the Angsty Historical was IN IN IN!! Right now, they’re a hard sell. Oh my GOD!! Nobody tell Cecilia Grant!  And what about lighthearted historical romances? Are they In or Out? The answer is yes.

Publishers will always buy more of what’s sold in the past, and they will keep doing that until 1) people stop buying them and/or 2) someone comes along with an extraordinary book that breaks with the past– because editors, while of course they buy what’s sold in the past, also, from time to time, buy a damn good book that isn’t like what’s popular. And should that damn good book break out, then of course publishers will buy more of that, too.

Now there’s self-publishing thrown in there. But first, what’s the one thing publishing DOESN’T do that every other company does? Yes. Market testing. Publishing doesn’t survey the end-user. They don’t focus group covers or (to my knowledge) A/B test anything. Publishers know next to nothing about what readers are inclined to buy. The traditional market, driven by middlemen who purchase for Big Stores, has removed publishers from the consumer who would, in the aggregate, buy more varied books except that the middleman (the stores who buy lots and lots of only a few books) has artificially whittled down the selection.

In other words, the genetic diversity required for a robust, healthy population withered away in the face of a dangerous inbreeding. The problem with limited diversity is you don’t realize it’s unhealthy until the offspring are dying. Or one of the studs or brood mares dies. In this somewhat tortured analogy, the offspring are the books, the studs and brood mares are the Big Chains.

One day, After All the Editors Went Home, the Slush Pile and an Abandoned Marketing Research Plan Partied Hard

Nine months later …..

A baby!!!

They named it Self-publishing. But all its rowdy friends call it Indie for short.

Because, really, what is self-publishing but one big genetically diverse market test for publishers? Setting aside all the missteps so far, self-publishing is a crucible from which shiny new kinds of stories emerge market-tested. Traditional publishers can watch what catches on, and place their bets with greater confidence than before. 50 Shades proved there’s a bigger market for erotic romance than they knew. “New Adult” showed up in self-publishing first. If publishers manage to get their Beer Goggles off, they may find they’re in a good place.

Oh, Historical, Where Art Thou?

As the publishing ecosystem continues its transformation, we’ll see Indie authors do riskier things with their stories — and they can do it because they don’t have to listen to anyone tell them they can’t publish a story with THAT in it. They can write in the mid-Victorian period if they want. And maybe that story will crash and burn because (all other things being equal) what readers want is a Regency. Or a Vampire. Or something else. But there WILL be new and different historicals.

So. What do YOU think?

Posted in Former Riskies, Regency, Writing | Tagged , , , | 10 Replies