Reading Tuesdays: The Edwardians through the 1930s

I've decided to start a new feature here on le blog called "Reading Tuesdays". I intend to chronicle what I am reading or what I want to read. I'd love this to be interactive so please leave a comment on what you are reading or what you want to read. Perhaps I can draw from the comments and send out a prize? Maybe not every week, but I do have some ARCs from my current stint as a reviewer for the Historical Novel Society, so there's some to go around. Let's get started.

Currently I am reading "No Angel" by Penny Vincenzi. I've read this novel so many times my poor copy is quite worn. But it's a lovely novel with a fine, but flawed heroine. It's really a saga as "No Angel" starts out in 1902 and goes to the 1920s. The sequels cover the 1930s through the 1960s and both are worth a read. I decided to pick this one up yet again since it is set during the time I am researching for my new project "Gaiety Girl". I'm generally used to writing novels set in the oh-so-proper 1800s, so I'm learning to relax the language a bit by reading other authors' work.

Sitting on my coffee table is "The Aviator's Wife" by Melanie Benjamin. It's a little late for the Edwardian period but who's counting? I like Melanie Benjamin as an author even though she writes literary historicals. She somehow manages to craft interesting stories without boring me to death. I read her debut "Alice I have Been" a few years ago so I'm looking forward to picking up the "The Aviator's Wife" back up after finishing "No Angel."

Moving on to future reads...

"A Spear of Summer Grass" by Deanna Raybourn is on the top of my list. Deanna is one of my favorite authors. I am a huge fan of her "Lady Julia Grey" series. This novel is a bit of departure as it takes place in the 1920s in Kenya. It seems that "Out of Africa" style books are all the rage right now. The notorious "Happy Valley" set of the era has been fairly overlooked by historical fiction, so it will be interesting to see this time period come to life as more and more authors explore it.

"Summerset Abbey" by T.J. Brown is being touted as the antedote to "Downton Abbey" withdrawals. I read a sample on Amazon and it's pretty good. Amazon e-book samples have saved my life. No more do I have worry about picking up a novel and losing interest while reading the first chapter. Phew! I have it on hold at my local library, so I hope to read it soon.

And finally... "Parlor Games" by Maryka Biaggio starts out in 1917 but goes back to 1887 in pursuit of May Dugas, a charming con artist who winds her way through society while being relentlessly pursued by a member of Pinkerton's Detective Agency. It definitely looks good.

So...what are you reading now? Or do you have something you are eager to read right now?

An Interesting Detour

As many of you know, I'm notoriously flighty. I've posted numerous times of the various WIPs I have going and as you know, I switch gears as often as I change clothes. One week may be all about "A Convenient Misfortune" which is set in Revolutionary War Charleston (South Carolina) and the next may be "A Scandalous Bargain" (Georgian London) or "Rebellion" (1790s Ireland). So many stories, so little focus. I love all of the story lines and the characters that I craft, but nothing has grabbed me beyond a ten or twenty chapters. I always lose my steam. A deep part of me has wondered if it's just not the time or place for any of these stories because if I was passionate about them, writing it all out should come easy, right?

So I haven't done much writing on any of my current WIPs the last few weeks. I have been focusing on one of my paying side gigs (historic preservation consultant) and preparing for a busy re-enactment season. In the in between times, I have been brain storming A LOT. This is mostly due to my new obsession Netflix. I've only just discovered the joys of streaming it through our (I mean, my hubby's) XBox and so I've been watching everything from Dawson's Creek to Gossip Girl to foreign films and medieval melodrama. While many writers would consider me lax for falling down the hole of popular culture, my brain has always been sparked by ideas presented in movies and television. Of course, I am very careful not to plagarize, but I find it stimulating to get an idea from a British melodrama and taking it to whole other time and place.

Lillie Langtry, 1885

Well I'm happy that I discovered what I think may be my magic bullet. I have been frenetically jotting down novel ideas--I have pieces of paper all over the house, which amuses my hubby--but nothing has stuck. Until this past Sunday. I was watching the new miniseries on PBS "Mr. Selfridge" and was momentarily struck by a comment about one of the characters, Lady Mae. She was a Gaiety Girl who married a lord. While I don't care for her character in the least, I was fascinated by this one tidbit concerning her past. Was it common for actresses to marry into the aristrocracy. A quick Google search later and I had my answer. Yes. In fact, several actresses and music hall perfomers ended up marrying titled gentlemen during the Edwardian period. The relaxed moires of this time period had led many of these men back stage to cavort with these women. Well I should say that the aristocracy had made mistresses of actresses for quite some time, and depending on the time period, they may or may not have made a big deal of it. The Victorian period was, of course, very restrictive, but with the ascension of Edward VII to the throne, society rules relaxed considerbly. The king himself even took actresses for his mistresses--Lillie Langtry spent three years with him and even famous Sarah Bernhardt was reported to have enjoyed the eventual king's favors.

But still, taking an actress as a wife was rather risky for any titled gentlemen. And yet, they did it. There was even a name for those aristocratic hangers-on--they were called "Stage Door Johnnies". So I thought, what about writing about a poor girl who makes it in the theatre only to eventually marry a lord? And I was off to the races. I have a fairly good outline of what's going to happen and it's no Cinderella story, I can tell you that. I am though fairly certain that this story will end up as a saga or perhaps multiple novels. I am intending to structure it that way, so that it could put out as either.

I've had loads of fun researching the time period, deciding on who is who, who lives where, who does what, etc. Actually, all this researching has made me long for London, which is one of my favorite places on earth. I traveled many places but I always feel at home in England.

So what about you? Any new ideas in the offing or are you devoted to just one WIP at this time?

So I Lied.

OK, I didn't lie. I just changed my mind. As many of my loyal followers/readers know, I do that quite often. Probably more so than is advisable. What did I change my mind about? An Convenient Misfortune. After becoming aware of the fact that American set historicals may be on the upswing, I took the novel back to its original premise. Meaning that its back to being set in Charleston (or Charlestown) during the American Revolution. What steered me back? A brainstorm! How I love those!

An Convenient Misfortune has always been a dead end. The original draft was never finished...it just peetered off around page 320. I fell victim to the same folly that afflicted me with Rebel Heart--I failed to plan an exit strategy. Yeah, endings are hard. They're my kiss of death though. But in a blinding flash of light I figured out what I'm going to do. Actually I figured out two endings and I'm going to see where the progress of the book leads me. The new blurb is...

It's 1776 and Arabella Westbury is forced to leave everything behind in England when her father is assigned to a church in the South Carolina colony. When he dies on the voyage, she is left an orphan with no prospects in an environment that is hostile to British subjects. Despite her nationality, Arabella uses her wits to find work as a governess with the Bennetts, a prominent Patriot family.

When her charge's older brother Jackson comes home from sea, sparks fly. And when Arabella discovers his secret, she is forced into a marriage of convenience with him, which leaves his spurned fiancee burning for revenge. As the American Revolution grows closer to Charlestown, friends will become enemies and Arabella will have to make some dangerous decisions that could land her in prison...or worse.

So what about you? Are endings tough or so they come naturally? Do you plan ahead or do you let the plot show you the way?

Plotting, Writing...Re-Enacting?

So I am pleased to say that I have been doing some "writerly" things of late. I made a decision to start using my lunch hour to write on the various WIPs I have. A big thanks to those who encouraged me in my last post. I'm still not chomping at the bit to write, but at least I will have some time on a daily basis to put down some words and hopefully get everything finished out. I have been thinking about joining a local writer's group as well. I've wanted to in the past, but I never got around to it. I may need some distraction in the coming weeks as hopefully my husband will be getting back into law enforcement, which means he'll be super busy for 12 weeks for training so I will need to find something to fill my evenings!

I have done some re-plotting for my WIP that just will not die... As you faithful readers will know, A Convenient Misfortune has been with me since high school. I tinker with it every so often but something didn't feel right about it so I shelved it. I couldn't just put it away so I started contemplating moving the story to England (instead of the American Colonies--Charleston (Charles Towne to be exact). It was set during the American Revolution originally, but I've toyed with the idea of moving it back a few years to be set during the Seven Years War (French and Indian War for those of us who are stateside). It could go either way, to be honest. But so far, here is a very dirty version of my back cover blurb:

Arabella Westbury is sailing for England--leaving her broken heart behind in the South Carolina colony. She has nothing to her name save for a few trunks of books, relics of her father's time as minister at St. Michael's Church in Charles Towne, and her memories of a lost love for a planter's son. Her destination is Cornwall and the village she was born into some eighteen years before. Once there she will have to forge a new life as governess to Marianne Bennett, the youngest daughter of a wealthy baron. But it is the Bennett family scion that causes Arabella consternation.

Handsome and reckless, Jackson Bennett is a decorated British Navy captain who comes and goes as he pleases, breaking hearts in his wake. But when he returns home after being wounded in battle, there is a new urgency for him to marry and provide an heir to the vast Bennett family fortune. Arabella is an unlikely candidate but after his secret engagement to a local heiress goes sour, Jackson has no choice. He marries the governess out of convenience and hightails it back to his ship, leaving his new wife completely adrift in a new world of social niceties and betrayals.

When he returns, he will find many surprises, including his abandoned wife's hatred for him. Winning her back is no mean task and the situation is only complicated when a man from Arabella's past arrives in Cornwall. Can he convince his wife that he wants more than a marriage of convenience before he has to leave for the high seas once more?

Interestingly enough, I just made a few of those plot points while I wrote out the blurb. Talk about off the cuff! I keep thinking that the plot is just not complicated enough, so let's what other complications I dream up in the mean time.

Looking very tired, so not the best picture...but you get the idea!

In other news, I just attended my first Revolutionary War re-enactment of the year over the weekend. Well actually it was a living history event and was kind of boring without a battle, but not so boring if you count all the things I have to do in camp. It is times like this that I realize how hard women had it in past times...and I can see why the death rate was so high. Diseases of course, but how about just being plain worn out? You have to keep the fire going, cook, wash up...throw in kids and no wonder it was early to bed, early to rise! Nonetheless, I love history (obviously) and I love to dress up, so re-enacting is an amusing diversion for me, not to mention the best way to research for my novels. Nothing brings you closer to the past than re-enacting it!

So with the new year come and gone, are you keeping your writing resolutions? What do you do to get in touch with your characters?

Getting Started is the Easy Part...

New ideas are always compelling. They crowd in on me as I excitedly string together each plot point until I have a whole new novel. I sit down at the keyboard and dash out page after page after page...and then nothing. I stare at the blinking cursor and nothing. I go away for awhile...a few days perhaps, a week, and then I open the document again. I re-read pages, crack a smile at something particular amusing or sometimes brilliant, my fingers hover over the keys. I type a sentence or two and then something distracts me. I have a thought so I dash off to look it up on the internet which turns into a three hour affair and before I know it's time to go and I save my paltry few lines.

Rinse and Repeat.

I've been thinking a lot this week about what sparks my imagination and why I can't seem to focus. I have two really great WIPs right now and yet I just can't get excited about them. I'm assuming that I can't get excited about them because if I were, wouldn't I be practically salivating to write more? Why is that I can research and plot a helluva story but when it comes down to writing it I fail so miserably? I know I'm a good writer. Countless numbers of people have told me. Agents have told me. Editors have told me. So why can't channel that positive feedback into finishing something already? I don't want to take ten years to finish like I did with Rebel Heart. I always thought that I didn't take Rebel Heart seriously because I didn't take myself seriously. I was a hobby writer, it was something to amuse me when I was bored. But perhaps that is the answer. Maybe that is all that I am. A hobbyist. I practice a hobby that I do well when I'm bored or I have time and nothing else is demanding my attention.

But I don't want that. My husband sees me as a published writer. He thinks it is my calling. But how can it be? Do I simply lack focus or am I trying to make my talent into something it cannot possibly be (or maybe doesn't want to be)? Somehow I'm thinking that agents and editors don't take kindly to one hit wonders. They want someone who can sell on down the line, for years to come. A cash cow.

Perhaps I should take heart. I never stick with one thing for more than a little while. Jobs? Nope. The longest I've been in a position is 2 1/2 years. I got bored at month 6. Even with the "dream job". I often asked myself if I was just flighty? Not exactly a good thing. I can't go through life being that, but for the record, when it comes to people I'm loyal to a tee. I have only a small group of friends, the inner circle, so to speak, and while I'm not the best correspondant, I'm faithful to the end.

So what is wrong with me? It was suggested to me once that I may be highly intelligent which accounted for my ability to achieve tasks quickly and get bored easily. I laughed at this person. Me, highly intelligent? I can barely add and subtract. I've basically refused to go to graduate school because it requires taking the GRE and I would probably fail the math section. So that leaves...ADHD perhaps? I've often wondered if I have it. I'm certainly well acquianted with it as my husband was diagnosed a few years ago. Brief episodes of hyperfocus? Check. That would definitely account for the single minded focus I get when developing a new novel. For craps and giggles, I took an ADHD test online and it advised me to seek a medical professional's opinion. Hmmm... But aren't we all a little bit flighty? Right? Anyone?

What keeps you from writing? Any tips or tricks that keep you typing away when it's the last thing you want to do?

Updates...

Hello all...

I know I've been MIA for a couple of weeks. Along with the Thanksgiving holiday and all the ensuing craziness, my poor hubby had pneumonia and then I had bronchitis!

Now that I've properly sanitized everything and have stopped hacking up my lungs, I'm turning back to writing. I've resurrected Rebellion interestingly enough. I'm just going with it and hoping that I can write myself out of the rut. I'm still working on A Scandalous Bargain too. I've already decided that I need to complete at least one of these by June or July so that when I attend either the Historical Novel Society or RWA conferences, I will have something to present to agents and/or editors. I'm still trying to decide which conference to go to--the HNS conference is going to have the cream of the crop in terms of agents. I'm also a reviewer now so it makes sense to represent. But still, St. Petersburg is a long drive and flying is way too expensive. So I've been looking at the RWA conference since it is in Atlanta. That's only a three hour drive for me plus you can always snag a cheap hotel in ATL via Hotwire or Priceline. And honestly, I write historical romance or at least historical women's fiction and RWA has got the line in on those two genres.

On another note, Rebel Heart is now available for Nook. Check out the link on the sidebar for the details and if you decide to give it a read, don't forget to post a review.

I'll be back later in the week with another installment of Cecilia's world...

Cecilia's World

I'm pleased to present my newest heroine Lady Cecilia Compton St. James, Duchess of Stanhope. Quite a mouthful, eh? She is the center of my current work-in-progress A Scandalous Bargain. The novel opens in 1753 with a thirteen year old Cecilia being married off to Lord Aubrey St. James, the Earl of Stafford. Soon after the wedding, she is sent to Paris to be educated at the Abbaye Royale de Panthemont. So let us start off there.

 Abbaye Royale de Panthemont was a convent founded in 1217 that eventually developed into a high class finishing school for daughters of the aristocracy. The current buildings were begun in 1747 as a result of a re-building campaign undertaken by the abbess Marie-Catherine de Mezieres Bethozy (say that three times fast). Despite having several wealthy patrons, the construction stretched out for decades. The chapel was consecrated in 1756 and finished in 17663, while the convent was not completed until 1783, just in time for the revolution. Since Cecilia is a lodging student during the major construction period, I made sure to mention it. It is the abbess who informs her that she is to return to England after her husband inherits his father's dukedom. Cecilia is not totally ignorant of the ways of love and sex, and yet she notes that all is not sanctimonious at the convent. Indeed convents had a rather nasty reputation for being dens of sin and vice. Italy seems to be the worst offender when it comes to salacious activity, but France had its own stories. In fact, the Marquis de Sade wrote about the Abbaye in one of his books, Juliette. "The prettiest and most immoral girls in Paris come from the Panthemont convent."

Since de Sade was rather scandalous and maybe not entirely truthful, I chose to err on the side of caution when Cecilia muses about her experience in the convent:

The convent was not so sheltered that she did not understand what went on between a man and a woman. There were married aristocratic women lodging here who were free in their speech--and hatred for the demands their husbands had placed upon them. Then there was the occasional student or even novice nun who fell pregnant and Cecilia was sure that the conception of such children was not immaculate.

Despite the rumors, the convent had several wealthy and famous students grace its halls before it was disbanded by the Revolutionaries in 1790. The Countess de Polastron was educated there before becoming the lover of the Count d'Artois (so maybe the rumors were true). Josephine de Beauharnais allegedly stayed in the convent when she was attempting to separate from her husband. Thomas Jefferson's daughters Martha and Polly lodged there in the 1780s--but only after TJ had received assurances that they would not be converted from their protestant faith. Nonetheless, Martha still wanted to convert and Jefferson was forced remove her and her sister before they fled the country on the eve of the French Revolution.

You can still find the convent in the 7th arrondissement of Paris though it bears little resemblance to the original buildings that once occupied the site. Today it is a protestant church named the Reformed Church of Luxembourg-Pentemont.

That's all for now. What subjects do you most enjoy researching when you are working on a book?