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Valentine’s Day Pre-Show

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Happy Tuesday, everyone! I hope everyone had a good weekend (I went to a friend’s annual Superbowl Party, but I ended up just eating too much junk food and then watching Puppy Bowl with their kids. I do love Puppy Bowl!). I dug out from under last week’s storm, but they say snow is coming back tonight and I’m headed to Target and the wine shop to lay in supplies.

But being stuck in the house is not so very bad. It makes me stop procrastinating and get productive on the WIP and the website (which has updates finally! Including some Behind The Book history on The Shy Duchess!) I hit the halfway point on the Mary Queen of Scots WIP, and this is about the time the characters start to get out of control, going off on plot pathways I did not plan. It’s also about the time (in this story anyway) that things start to really heat up for the hero/heroine, and I realized I actually have a few rituals I do before writing a love scene. A few possibilities that usually work well:

–Drink a glass of wine and watch a Vampire Diaries episode
–Do a little imaginary shopping on the Agent Provocateur website (and then taking my real budget to Victoria’s Secret)
–Listen to some Miles Davis or the Marie Antoinette soundtrack (depending on the mood of the scene)

These usually work wonders. They’re also good for getting in the mood for V Day. As probably every romance writer (and every poor husband/boyfriend who forgot to order flowers early and is now scrambling) knows, next Monday is Valentine’s Day! Flowers, candy, diamonds, and restaurants that are way too crowded and have overpriced prix fixe menus. If you’d rather stay home, order in and watch a movie, there are tons of sites out there with “top romantic” movies lists. Here are just a few sites I found if you’re looking for suggestions:

All Women’s Talk (50 Most Romantic)
Celebrate Love (100 Most Romantic)
Cinema Blend (15 Romantic Movies Men Should Like)
The Holiday Spot (16 Romantic Movies for Valentine’s Day)

And here are a few movies I find to be romantic (or at least have romantic scenes!) and that I would be happy to watch anytime. (I just stuck with feature films here, not BBC-type costume dramas or we would be here until the Fourth of July…)

—Room With a View
—Moulin Rouge
—Persuasion/Pride and Prejudice (for the Austen crowd!)
—Shakespeare in Love
—Bringing Up Baby
—Breakfast at Tiffany’s/Roman Holiday
—It Happened One Night
—Last of the Mohicans
—Say Anything (one of my favorite movies as a teenager–I never did find a Lloyd Dobler though…)
—Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
–The tango scene in Mask of Zorro
–The Pere Lachais scene in Paris Je t’aime
—Bright Star
—Phantom of the Opera

But usually I end up watching Romeo and Juliet (the Zeffirelli version) around this time of year! The costumes, the music, the balcony scene–sigh…

What are your favorite romantic movies? What are you planning for Valentine’s Day? And what are some of your favorite fantasy shopping places??? (Or any love scene-writing tips, if you’d like to share, LOL)

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Happy Valentine’s Day

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Here’s a special Valentine’s Day gift to you. A new Romance blog-and-more from Macmillan Publishing. Heroes and Heartbreakers.com, featuring occasional blog postings by me and several other familiar names, plus short stories and more. This is what Megan has been working on for months. More from her Friday, I’m sure, but take a peek today!

Valentine’s Day as we celebrate today started in Victorian times, but Regency young men did send love-notes and had assistance from The Young Man’s Valentine Writer, published in 1797.

So, in celebration of Valentine’s Day, here are some vintage Valentines and Regency (and Georgian) verses;

My Luve

O my luve is like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June:
O my luve is like the melodie,
That’s sweetly played in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry

Robert Burns (1794)




Bright Star

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art —
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors —
No — yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft swell and fall,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever — or else swoon to death.

John Keats (1819)

She Walks In Beauty

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place

Lord Byron (1814)

What is your favorite love poem?

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Valentine’s Day exclusive interview with Cupid

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On the Big Fat Day of Luuurve we’re pleased to have as our special guest Cupid, the god of love.

Welcome to the Riskies, Cupid.

Thanks. Make it quick, girlie. It’s a big day for me.

Okay. First, I–

And enough of the pink, okay?

Sorry. Is this better?

[Cupid grunts and retrieves a packet of Camels from his quiver. He lights up.]

You smoke?

So? It’s a stressful job, let me tell you. And, hey, what’s it going to do to me? I’m an immortal. You should see their faces in the convenience store when they ask for ID.

Don’t you think that also might have something to do with you being naked? Okay. So how was your job during the Regency?

The Regency wasn’t bad, all things considered. Not too much whalebone, and no steel–that was tough, dealing with Victorian corsets. You wouldn’t believe the number of arrows I ruined. I had some fun, though, making people fall in love with unsuitable partners. Prinny was a real sucker and talk about a target you couldn’t miss… That Byron, he was a real babe magnet–didn’t really need my help but I shot Lady Caroline Lamb for him so he didn’t get too full of himself. And now and again I’d get a duke to fall in love with his cook, and that was always good for a laugh.

Is that what you enjoy about your job? Making trouble?

Basically, yes. Otherwise it gets pretty boring.

Have you ever considered a career change?

It’s difficult for a deity; you do what you do. I wouldn’t mind something where I got some action myself–I wouldn’t mind becoming a shower of gold or a bull, if I had to–but you get tired of hovering around boudoirs with your arrow ready to fly off the string, if you know what I mean–

I’ll have to cut you off there since we’re not that sort of blog. How has the job changed over the past two centuries?

Hmm. Well, no one thinks in terms of unsuitable matches much, which takes a lot of the challenge out of the job. I’ve had some arrow losses with underwire bras, but nothing to complain of particularly. Hold on, that’s my cell. [Cupid retrieves a cell phone from his quiver] I’ve gotta take this. It’s my agent….[after a brief conversation he clicks the phone shut] Sorry babe, gotta go. I’ve got a chance at a chocolates commercial. It’s been great. See ya.

[exits in a flutter of wings and cloud of cigarette smoke]

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone. Tell us what you’re doing to celebrate!

I’m blogging today over at the Wet Noodle Posse on the hazards and thrills of writing historical characters, and guest blogging–and giving away a book–tomorrow, Feb. 15 at a new blog, Lust in Time.

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How womantic!

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I’m all for romance. But Valentine’s Day itself…meh. Something inside me rebels at the directive to be romantic on a specific day. I suppose it’s a nice excuse to get a babysitter and go for an outing but who really needs an excuse?

The other thing that’s a turn-off for me is the torrent of commercial messages telling us exactly how we should be romantic. So many of them leave me cold! For the record (in case Someone is reading this) I’ve nothing against simple sensual pleasures like flowers or chocolate. There’s no such thing as too many flowers or too much chocolate! But so much of what is touted as romantic seems trivializing or hopelessly generic. And when did cell phones become an acceptable Valentine’s gift? I’d as soon have the proverbial frying pan.

What I find romantic are things that are personal. A back rub after a bad writing day. Jewelry that is either modern and artistic, or antique in feel, like the Wedgewood pendant my husband (similar to the one shown) gave me when he saw how much I like blue jasperware.

I suspect it’s hard for a lot of modern men to go out on a limb and do something risky and original. Maybe that’s one of the draws of historical romance: the idea of a hero who will express his feelings in an eloquent and personal way. I don’t know if the average male during the Regency was really any more romantic than the modern one, but just think of the torrid letter Captain Wentworth writes to Anne in PERSUASION:

“I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own, than when you almost broke it eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you.”

Sigh… Watch me collapse in a puddle!

So how about you? How do you feel about the conventional trappings of romance? What do you find romantic, in real life or in fiction?

Elena
www.elenagreene.com

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