When I was a teenager, I was kind of weird. I know–shocking. 🙂 I was a serious ballet student, and when I wasn’t at school or in dance class I had my nose in a book. Not much time for the concerns of most other teenaged girls around me; often it felt like I didn’t even speak the same language as everyone else. Then, on a whim, I tried out for a school play and voila–there was my “tribe”! Theater geeks! Suddenly other people were speaking my language, and I wasn’t considered strange anymore. It was okay to be bookish, to love art and history, to quote from “Monty Python” and Shakespeare. I had found a niche.

I feel the same way about Risky Regencies, and my writing friends in general. We speak the same language (usually). Writing (or any of the arts) can be a very tough business, with more ups and downs than most. Business decisions, reviews, contests, etc. can all feel very personal, when directed at our precious, hard-wrought stories. I stick with it because I have to. So many ideas crowd my head that I’m sure my brain will explode if I didn’t get them out there! But I could never keep on with it without my friends, and without fun places like Risky Regencies. It’s been an honor to be part of this for a year, to be associated with with five fabulous authors and great friends, and to have the opportunity to make new friends!

So, thanks to Cara, who I think totally understands the ‘theater geek’ way of life, and has a wonderful flair for punctuation (and asked me–me!–for a cover quote for My Lady Gamester, so obviously has great taste in authors. Ha!). To Elena, a terrific conference roommate and complete sweetheart, who somehow manages to write great books while raising children and dealing with flooded houses and exploding computers. To Janet, who makes me feel like an ill-read rube (even if she insists she’s just a “faker”!” and has a yummy accent, too. To Megan, my sister in Hello Kitty, party dresses, and cocktails (it’s okay that you selfishly keep Clive to yourself, because Orlando is MINE. And Matthew, too!). And to Diane, who once was my roommate for over two weeks on a tour of England, and who never once screamed at me to Just Shut Up Already, as anyone else would have (that’s a pic of us at Stratfield Saye, the country house of the Duke of Wellington).

Here’s to many more Risky (and fun) years!

1. Amanda likes Hello Kitty even more than I do.
2. Every other Risky is much better-researched than I.
3. If one gets mildly peeved one did not final in a contest, one ought to remember that one did not enter any contests, except for the RITA, where two people really liked one’s story, two thought it was okay, and one really didn’t like it.

4. Other Riskies like their male obsessions about as much as I like Clive Owen. And that’s okay. Just don’t step to me on Owen ownership, at least not here.
5. Other writers are just as insecure and neurotic as I am. Almost.
6. Not everyone thinks I am funny.
7. But hopefully my fellow Riskies usually do.
8. Cara is not saying the universe is on fire just because she uses a few exclamation points.
9. Janet is way better-versed in the classics of feminist English literature than I am, and I always thought I was the most eggheaded of them all.
10. Now I am humbled.
11. Elena thinks just as hard about her writing as I do. Not always a good thing. For either one of us.
12. Amanda is the cutest writer in the world. And sometimes I bet she hates that.
13. Diane is so sweet it’s hard to hate her for being so prolific and so successful. But I’m trying.
14. Not really.
15. No, I am.
16. No, not really.
17. Okay, Eddie Izzard joke ends here.
18. Cake, or death?
19. Just kidding.
20. Yay Riskies! Yay diversity! Yay inane posts!

Megan
www.meganframpton.com

A year ago today the Risky Regency blog started! I decided, after Elena’s preemptive birthday strike yesterday, to talk about what’s changed in the past year–for me (well, it is my day to blog) and, as far as I’m able, to talk about changes in the industry. Because one thing that hasn’t really changed for me is that I still feel totally bewildered by the strange Alice-in-Wonderland world of publishing.

One major change, of course, is that the Signet Regency is no more. A lot of us were taken by surprise and not too happy about it. I’m the exception, because I was clueless what I was going to write for my option manuscript. When I did start one, the hero/heroine had sex on page seven and by chapter three she’d become an old man’s darling; not the usual fodder of the trads. (Go on. I challenge you. Give me the name of the trad where this happens and I’ll send you a copy of Dedication–Riskies, particularly Cara and her encyclopaedic knowledge of the subgenre, are prohibited from entering.) Meanwhile trads are popping up as e-books–even Cerridwen Press, the well-behaved, polite sister of Ellora’s Cave, is starting the Cotillion Line. The first title, A Certain Want of Reason, which will be out this fall, is by my buddy and critique partner Kate Dolan.
I’d like to share with you what this past year has been like. A year ago I was about-to-be-published, and thinking philosophically that if I hadn’t done it by now, it was too late (website, check. Galleys sent out for review, check. Bookmarks made, check. And so on). I’d attracted the attention of a very sharp agent (with whom I have since signed). The future was both terrifying and exciting. I discovered I could spend hours fretting about things like reviews and therefore avoid any actual writing. I plummeted into first book syndrome, something I recently wrote an article on, and which you can read at the Wet Noodle Posse e-zine.

It’s pretty mind-boggling that exactly a year later I can now call myself a multi-pubbed, award-winning author. (Well, almost. I guess I’m multi-contracted, -dealed, or -gestated right now.) There’s a part of me that shrieks, amidst hysterical giggles, What, me? Me? Nice-cup-of-tea Janet? And another part of me that struts around saying things like, Well, why the heck not? I can write and I work hard. So there! Meanwhile, my muse, a rather severe woman of a certain age who sports tweed skirts, refined cameo brooches, and sensible shoes, raises her eyebrows in the way that makes me cringe and murmurs caustic comments about doing what writers should do–write.

I’m not sure exactly where I’ll be this time next year, other than still bemused by the industry, and, I hope, writing better and more, and enjoying the company of my Risky friends.

Janet

Tomorrow will be the first anniversary of the Risky Regencies!

A little history for those who may have joined us more recently. About a year ago, I went to the RWA conference in Reno, where I roomed with Cara and Amanda and met Janet and Megan in person for the first time. Each of us was looking forward to releases of Signet Regencies within the upcoming months. Each was also well aware that the writing was on the wall for the line, though no announcement had yet been made.

Soon after the conference, we decided that starting this blog was better than donning blacks and mourning the demise of Signet Regencies, that this would be a fun way to share our passion for the Regency while searching for new publishing “homes”. And it has been. One of the nicest things for me has been working with this talented and highly individual group of women, including our newest member, Diane.

The idea of calling ourselves the Risky Regencies stemmed from the fact that many of us did things in our upcoming books that felt risky to us. My September release, LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE is a Super Regency. It’s longer and more complex than anything I’d written before, which led to some serious midnight-oil-burning as the deadline approached. It also deals with more serious issues than I’d tackled in previous books. And it’s sexier.

My first traditional Regency, which came out in 2000, was on the “sweet” side. In my second full-length Regency I wrote my first sex scene. Some readers loved it; others castigated me because “ladies didn’t do that in the Regency”. Over the next few books, my stories kept getting sexier (blame my characters did it, I have no control over them!) and I continued to get a mix of rants and raves from readers.

So I was pretty nervous when LDM finally came out. Now the problem child has made me proud, winning the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Regency of 2005 and the Desert Rose RWA’s Golden Quill in the historical romance category.

Meanwhile my fellow Riskies have earned all sorts of awards, as this week’s posts amply prove. So many different books have been honored this year, and so many of them have been ours! It says to me that readers want variety, and the Riskies have been offering just that.

As we near our one-year anniversary, I’d like to ask the visitors what you think of our blog. What have you most enjoyed? Anything you’d like to see more of?

In a spirit of nostalgia, and as a thanks to our visitors over this past year, I’d like to send an autographed copy of my first book, LORD LANGDON’S KISS, to a visitor chosen at random from comments on this post. Sometime this weekend I’ll announce the winner.

To my Risky friends and visitors, thanks for a great year!

Elena
LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE, Golden Quill, Best Historical Romance
www.elenagreene.com