Snowed in

I don't really believe in New Year's Resolutions. Not of the sort like "I will exercize/write/whatever-makes-me-feel-virtuous more" variety. They generally don't work out.

I do, however, believe in New Year's Plans. Things like "I will go to the pool and swim half an hour three mornings a week." I did that several years ago and have kept up with it pretty religiously. Or "I will work on my mess-in-progress for so many hours a week". I find that as long as I make it specific, I'm pretty good at following through.

This year, I'm making a simple resolution, to remember to treat myself as a valued employee of my writing business rather than a slave. This means rewarding myself for making progress, allowing myself sick time if necessary, and making the time to lunch with writer buddies more often.

Of course, plans sometimes go awry. I'd planned to host my writer buddies at my home today for a post-holiday detox/New Year's recharging party (complete with Mimosas, egg and cheesy things and of course, plenty of chocolate). However, we've had a minor blizzard which puts me to Plan B, hanging with the kids. I'm also snatching an hour to write while they're out playing in the snow.

I expect the plans for this evening should work out. My husband and I used to go out for New Year's in the years BK (Before Kids) but after that, sleep deprivation and the difficulty of getting sitters took over. Although in spirit I like the idea of family-friendly First Night celebrations, it's usually so bitterly cold in our area that we've gone over to "cocooning". We have a nice dinner at home, including at least one new recipe for the New Year. This year it's cannoli cheesecake. Afterwards we all get into our PJs and go into the finished basement (aka the Man Cave) to watch movies until midnight. We watch the ball drop, we hug and kiss and then we're all in bed by about 12:05.

So what is everyone else doing today or this evening? And I wish you all a happy and prosperous 2009!

Elena
www.elenagreene.com

Regency Coffee

Some snippets from an 1829 cookbook:

Coffee, like tea, promotes watchfulness; indeed some persons cannot sleep after drinking it in an evening.

It is considered good for asthmatic patients. A mixture of made-mustard in coffee, is reckoned good for rheumatic persons. Coffee is also considered beneficial in dull headache.

Roasted acorns, beech-mast, rye, pease, beans, &c. &c. are all used as substitutes for coffee; and by frugal French families chicory put to the coffee grounds, and boiled up afresh, is allotted to servants and young members of the household.

The bad quality of English coffee is become a sort of national reproach. Its capital defect is a want of material, or that material having either lain too long in powder, or in roasted berries. Coldness is the reproach of our coffee even more than muddiness.

So, coffee lovers: does this curl your toes? Are you picky about your coffee? Or do you drink whatever comes your way, as long as it has caffeine?

And don't forget: next Tuesday, we're discussing the first Ioan Gruffudd "Horatio Hornblower" here at Risky Regencies!

Cara
Cara King, who prefers tea

Omigosh It's Monday

I am caught unprepared!

First of all, I stayed up all night to finish my Undone. You know, the one you all helped me with on 11/24/08. (janegeorge, I still promise to write about my writing routine.....someday).

Now before you feel sorry for me; it was my own fault that I didn't use my time more efficiently. This story was only 10,000 to 15,000 words and I should have been able to write that in a week or two.

And I didn't spend a great deal of time on the holidays except for one marathon 5 1/2 hour binge of shopping for everything last Tuesday.

New Year's resolution--MAKE BETTER USE OF MY TIME!

Anyway I wound up pleased with the story and here is hoping Linda Fildew likes it, too. At least this time I did not accidentally delete it before sending it, like I did last summer when I stayed up all night to meet a deadline.

BUT...What I really wanted to blog about was my very favorite Christmas gift. My IPhone!

On Christmas eve my husband decided to get himself an IPhone for Christmas, which was fine with me, because what I got him was very unexciting and I was sick of hearing him discuss the pros and cons of various phones. To me this was an extravagance that we didn't really need, but, let's face it, I caved.

He came back with an IPhone for me, too!!!
Mine is white (as you can see) and I've fallen in love with it.

I can read my email anytime, anywhere, and even answer it, although the keyboard is a bit tedious. I used it to respond to Megan's and Amanda's blogs! I can read our Risky Regencies blog anytime, anywhere. It already has my calendar and my addresses and my ITunes. It has GAMES and YouTube! Plus it is a breeze to use.

Needless to say, I spent a lot of time playing with my IPhone when I should have been writing. I also enjoyed my family who all came for Christmas dinner here, my kids, my sisters, my brother-in-law and niece. My sister said the magic words a few days before Christmas, "Why don't you get a ham?" Yay! No turkey to cook!

What was your favorite Christmas gift?

By the way, The Wet Noodle Posse will be back after Jan 1.
There is still a contest on my website and updates to be made very soon.

Inspirations

I wasn't sure what to blog about today. I'm still in a post-Christmas stupor of wine, candy, piles of new books (yay!), whipping the WIP into shape to be sent in, playing with the dogs with their new toys, etc. I've also been wasting lots of time reading other blogs--beauty product blogs, opera blogs, movie blogs, whatever looks interesting. On some of my favorite movie blogs, they have had a meme going around listing 20 favorite actresses, which I have really enjoyed following. On these blogs, "favorite" can mean anything--most beautiful, most interesting, actresses you will watch in any movie no matter how bad. So I decided to do something like that.

These are 20 favorites. 10 actresses and 10 actors, which I find to be especially useful when needing some inspiration for characters. They're not necessarily the best actors (though some definitely are), but they are interesting in many ways. (And, btw, if you need a pick-me-up kind of movie this dismal time of year, run out and see Happy-Go-Lucky. It's fabulous, definitely my favorite of the movies I've seen this year, and I hope to see Sally Hawkins in the Oscar line-up next month. I didn't much like her as Anne Elliott, but she is perfect in this movie).

Ten Actresses:

Charlotte Gainsbourg

Audrey Tautou (I do like French movies...)

Penelope Cruz

Cate Blanchett

Keira Knightley

Emily Mortimer

Nicole Kidman

Natalie Portman

Rachel Weisz

Kate Winslet

And Ten Actors:

Orlando (of course!)

Matthew McFadyen

James McAvoy

James Franco (I love how he can be both intense and hilarious!)

Hugh Jackman

Rufus Sewell (btw, does anyone know what this movie is???)

David Tennant

Christian Bale

Gerard Butler (Happy Holidays, Diane!)

Clive Owen (And Happy Holidays to Megan, too!)

Who are some of your favorite "inspirations"? Seen any good movies this holiday season, or found any good bargains in the post-Christmas sales?

See you in 2009! (And be sure and join me next weekend as I "launch" my January book, High Seas Stowaway. There will be giveaways and fun pirate stuff, though sadly no warm sandy beaches...)

Give More (and no punching!)

Today, as many of us Anglophiles (and Janet) know, is Boxing Day. Boxing Day is not, as some (i.e. my son) might think, a day when it is okay to punch who you want, most usually (in the case of my son), your mom.

It refers to the day when the more fortunate people would give to those less fortunate, dropping tips into the box the servant or tradesperson was carrying. It usually also takes place on St. Stephen's Day, in honor of the first martyred Christian saint. As in Good King Wenceslas, who looked out

On the feast of Stephen
...
When a poor man came in sight
Gath'ring winter fuel

And that Good King did his part for Boxing Day, saying to his page,

"Bring me flesh and bring me wine
Bring me pine logs hither
Thou and I will see him dine
When we bear him thither."
Page and monarch forth they went
Forth they went together
Through the rude wind's wild lament
And the bitter weather

and Wenceslas does his part, and the song ends with:

Therefore, Christian men, be sure
Wealth or rank possessing
Ye who now will bless the poor
Shall yourselves find blessing

Now, unless some of you are in much different circumstances than I would guess, you don't regularly employ servants, so Boxing Day doesn't have as much relevance. Presumably you tip some of your regular suppliers--newspaper delivery, doormen, mail carrier, etc.--but that's not done on a specific day. It has become the custom for the boss and servants to switch places, but I am fervently hoping most of you have today off, so that hopefully isn't an issue.

So why might Boxing Day be relevant? Because also unless some of you are in much different circumstances than I would guess, there are people like Wenceslas's poor man who are in need, and who have less than you do. Especially this year, where the economy is doing a swandive into the nether regions.

Charity has gotten negative connotations, evoking pitiful Dickensian orphans with pleading eyes waiting for the bountiful person to bestow whatever scraps they can spare. Instead, how about we evoke the spirit of Boxing Day and give a gift to someone who works hard all year, no matter if they're working on keeping their family together, or making ends meet, or whatever? This year, my husband and I were able to give money to my son's school so that a child could get a gift on Christmas--it was a modest $25, and was going to go towards a gift, not food, or heat, or whatever, but it just about broke our hearts to think that a kid would wake up on Christmas with no gifts under the tree (and doubtless no tree, either, but that is beside the point).

Some of you more Wenceslasian have probably already taken care of this aspect of the Season; if so, share it so we can applaud you! Others of you might be planning on something in the New Year--volunteering, donating, whatever. Please share that, too! Still others of you might not have thought too much about it, so if you decide you want to Box this year, please let us know.

Thanks, and Happy Holidays!

Megan

Peace on earth, goodwill to all

Whatever you celebrate at this time of year, we Riskies wish you a peaceful and joyous holiday season.

I'm not religious yet I find the images of the birth in the stable powerful and moving, as is so much of the music associated with Christmas (The Messiah rather than Bing Crosby et al). I can feel the anticipation, the buildup to the big day. Here's a poem I'm particularly fond of, written by Thomas Hardy in 1915; it's based on English folklore that animals in the stable fall to their knees on Christmas Eve, as they did long ago in Bethlehem.

The Oxen

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
“Now they are all on their knees,”
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen.
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few believe
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve
“Come; see the oxen kneel

“In the lonely barton by yonder comb
Our childhood used to know,”
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.

Happy Christmas Eve!

And apologies that this image is the only Regency-related item in this post. Right now, I’m snatching time to compose this post between school winter parties and packing for a trip to my parents and I have nothing relevant to say, except that maybe some of you can relate to my state last Saturday afternoon…

After coming home after running errands in blistering cold, I stared at my To Do List and felt so overwhelmed that I decided to make a fresh pot of coffee. So I rinsed the pot, ditched the old filter and discovered that the garbage can in the kitchen was full. I went out to the garage to throw it out.

As I returned to the kitchen, I saw the tray of cookies we were going to use as part of our Christmas tree decoration and remembered that I needed to put yarn through them for hanging. So I went upstairs to look for the white yarn, which I thought was in the sewing basket in the linen closet. Well, the yarn wasn’t in the sewing basket, but I ran across some crochet hooks, which reminded me that I planned to make a scarf for a friend and was going to shop for materials the next day. So I went through the crochet hooks and made a list of the sizes I own, to avoid buying more duplicates.

Then I remembered that I was there for yarn and concluded it must be in the larger craft box in the garage. As I headed to the garage, I passed the downstairs closet, saw my purse and remembered I was out of tissues. I made a mental note to get a small packet from the upstairs closet (where I’d just been, of course). Then I wandered into the kitchen and saw that I hadn’t put a new liner into the garbage can. I did that and then noticed the coffee pot still in the sink.

So I made some coffee, which made me want a cookie, which reminded me that I still needed that white yarn. So I headed back out to the garage and got the yarn. I drank some coffee, prepared the cookies for hanging, and felt a glowing sense of closure as I got ready to tackle the rest of my list.

But I didn’t get a packet of tissues into my purse until Monday.

Anyone else have days like these?

By the time this is posted, I will be on my way to my parents’ house, looking forward to a traditional Lithuanian Christmas Eve dinner, complete with smoked eel (ugh) and honey spice cookies (yum)! I hope you are all planning something fun and warmest wishes for a happy holiday!

Elena
www.elenagreene.com

Cara's Mostly Fictional 2008

Last year, I posted a copy of my annual faux-holiday letter (or, more correctly, my holiday faux-letter) here...and it got very few comments. Which may mean that no one's interested.

But when has that ever stopped me? (After all, I'm supremely lazy, and I also believe that recycling is good for the environment.)

So here, unrequested, is a copy of my 2008 holiday-card-letter-insert-thingy:

CARA'S POLITICALLY GROUNDBREAKING, OVEN-BAKED, ADJUSTABLE-RATE, TRANS-FAT-FREE, RECESSION-PROOF, MORE-BELOVED-THAN-ROBERT PATTINSON, SO-GOOD-YOU'D-THINK-TINA-FEY-WROTE IT 2008 HOLIDAY LETTER

Greetings from the House of Books! My, a lot happened in 2008...

First: you may have heard of the Large Hadron Collider, a joint project by 100 countries and 10,000 scientists to discover sub-sub-atomic particles, further our knowledge of the universe, and win grant money, all while not creating a giant black hole that would eat the planet. The Large Hadron Collider succeeded in its last aim, but ran into a temporary snag on everything else.

What you may not have heard of was the Large Feline Collider, a joint project by two humans to discover super-super-evil kittens, further our knowledge of caring for lacerations and broken vases, and waste vast amounts of time saying intelligent things like "oh, what a cute tummy!" and "no, you can't sleep in the fruit bowl," all while creating two giant cats that would eat us out of house and home if only they could open their jaws wide enough. The Large Feline Collider succeeds in colliding with great destructive force several times a minute, with such energy that it turns any nearby object into several smaller objects.

I found sudden fame online this year, after my scholarly essay JANE AUSTEN'S "BATMAN" gained unexpected popularity with the surprisingly large intersection of the following three sets: (1) people who read Jane Austen, (2) people who saw THE DARK KNIGHT, and (3) people who think I'm funny. (I had until recently thought that the only member of all three sets was Todd, but apparently he has been joined by John Scalzi, several Australians, one of my long-lost friends from junior high, and a penguin.)

In other news, my novel MY LADY GAMESTER was translated and published in Germany. The part I don't understand: in the book, the heroine's little brother is a very bad student, struggling even with basic Latin. So how can he suddenly speak fluent German? Surely no lazy schoolboy could guess that the German word for "Elephant" is "Elefant"!

This summer, Todd and I and our stuffed cat attended the World Science Fiction Convention in Denver, where Todd chaired a seminar that explained how to build a time machine in your basement. So, you ask, why don't I have more time to write, now that I have a time machine? Well, I answer, I don't have a time machine, because our condo doesn't have a basement. (So why, you ask, doesn't my future basement-owning self send a time machine back in time to me? Hmm... I'm asking myself the same question. And when I meet my future self, I'll ask me in person.)

In still other news, it seems my cat has been running a Ponzi scheme, and has singlepawedly ruined the world economy. When asked to explain himself, he gave a muddled answer which included the words "mew" and "it wasn't me, it was the evil aliens from Pluto." (Sources close to the feline tell us that he once drove to Pluto in a Hyundai and unintentionally taunted the inhabitants about their deplanetation, giving the Plutonians a cold grudge against the hapless Earth cat. However, sources even closer to the feline say "he's dirty as a three-dollar bill, and could really use a bath.")

In national news, 2008 was a momentous year. Senator Barack Obama built himself an iron man suit and defeated the terrorists, the pessimists, the paparazzi, and the Volturi, to win the American presidency and become box-office champ. (Sources close to Obama once overheard him mutter "Yeah, I can fly.") Mr. Obama's next goals are rumored to be saving the TV show "Pushing Daisies" and improving his high score at "Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock."

And remember -- join us on the first Tuesday in January when we discuss the first Ioan Gruffudd Horatio Hornblower movie! And then come back the first Tuesday of February to discuss the Leslie Howard version of The Scarlet Pimpernel...

So, does anyone else out there have a Large Feline Collider? An Iron Man Suit? A time machine?

Cara
Cara King, who occasionally defeats her cat at Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock...

What I Want For A Regency Christmas

I like to imagine myself in a Regency Christmas, gathering evergreens and mistletoe with my beau (who looks a lot like Colin Firth); ice skating on the nearby pond.

Riding to church in a horse-drawn sleigh.







My Christmas gifts would be a copy of Pride and Prejudice by A Lady and a lovely silk and ivory fan.







We'd have a delicious Christmas dinner.



And afterward dance and play whist.



And I would have a wonderful Regency Christmas!

My friendships are the treasured gifts I'm thankful for this 2008. Thank you all for your friendship and for making Risky Regencies almost as nice a place to be as the real Regency!

What would you like for a Regency Christmas? Or for this 2008 Holiday?

Stop by the Wet Noodle Posse blog today and read all about when Snoopy knocked down the Christmas tree. There's a photo of me and one of Snoopy, too.

The bookcover is the 2007 anthology that included my novella, A Twelfth Night Tale.

Winner of Jane Austen Birthday Week

Congratulations!
The winner of our Jane Austen Birthday Week is
Maggie Robinson

Maggie email us at riskies@yahoo.com and send us your address.

Thanks!
The Riskies

My First (Austen) Time

Victoria and Abigail McCabe wish Jane Austen Happy Birthday!

My first Austen was Emma! I read it when I was about 9 or 10, and like all my reads at that time was supplied by my grandmother. She went to lots of garage sales and thrift stores as well as regular bookstores, and lots of people gave her books, too. So there were always boxes of wondrous paperbacks stacked in her hall closet, oodles of Heyers, old Fawcett Regencies by authors like Joan Smith and Marian Chesney, Cartlands, and classics. When we visited her in the summer, I would hide in that closet to get away from my wild cousins and read, read, read!

An old copy of Emma was in one of those boxes, and as I was currently on a 19th century England obsession, I was delighted. I had just finished Jane Eyre and loved it. Emma was a very different book, with a very different heroine, but I loved it, too.

At the time, I knew little about Austen and her stories and didn't realize that: 1) there was a 'mystery' in the story (I took it for granted all along that there was something going on between Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill, and Emma was silly for not seeing it. On the other hand I was shocked--SHOCKED--by the appearance of Bertha-in-the-attic in Jane Eyre, so was not a very perceptive child), and 2) that I was not supposed to like Emma.

Austen herself wrote, "I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like." But how could I help but like her?? She was "handsome, clever and rich"; everyone in the story seemed to like her; and she seemed well-meaning and good-hearted, even if her schemes didn't often work out very well. She had perhaps "a disposition to think too well of herself," but at age 9 I liked her self-confidence, her popularity and sense of belonging, and the cozy little world of Highbury. I guess I still like those.

Later on, I was surprised to find that Emma was unique among the Austen heroines in that she had no financial concerns (unlike poor Jane Fairfax!). Her worries were more subtle. She was an intelligent woman who wanted to do good, even though she was not sure how to achieve that to the best ends. She had little to engage that intelligence, so perhaps it was mostly boredom (plus a lot of that self-confidence!) that led to her misguided machinations? She really had no power to change her location or routine, which, as a shy and dreamy 9-year-old who wanted to be Jane Eyre, I identified with strongly!

After Emma, I ran to the library and grabbed the other books, quickly consuming Pride and Prejudice (plus a video of the Rintoul/Garvie series), Sense and Sensibility (I liked the sisters in that one!), Northanger Abbey (Catherine was my favorite heroine at that age), Persuasion, and Mansfield Park. I didn't much like Persuasion and MP then--I was just too young for them, I think, much like Wuthering Heights, Middlemarch, and Madame Bovary (no, my parents didn't pay much attention to my reading habits!). Persuasion is now possibly my favorite book of all time, but I do have a soft spot for Emma. Thank you, Miss Woodhouse, for starting me on this journey!

I like both the '96 film versions of Emma (Paltrow and Beckinsale) though they are very different from each other, and neither is quite the story in my head. I'm not sure such a thing is even possible! I'm just grateful for all the Austen books and films out there to fill my rainy days. They always brighten things up.

Happy Birthday, Jane! From all your fans here at Risky Regencies.


(And check out High Seas Stowaway on Eharlequin for special savings this week. What could be better in a cold December than warm, sandy beaches and hunky sea captains??)

Elizabeth+Fitzwilliam 4EVA!

Like Janet, I don't remember precisely when I started reading Jane Austen. I do know it was early on, because I'm pretty sure I read Pride & Prejudice when my family was living in New Hampshire, and we moved away after sixth grade.

I was lucky enough to be raised in a household filled with books, and with a person--my dad--who loved language and wordplay. And consequently I had a huge vocabulary for my age, as well as an appreciation for Austen's wry, witty commentary on society and life in general. I specifically loved her portrayal of Mrs. Bennet, whose machinations I saw through because of Austen's inciteful skewering.

Plus it had a love story! And even though I read the book multiple (MULTIPLE!) times, I was never quite sure it would end up happily ever after. I saw the movie with Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier, and loved that, too.

At the same time, I was reading and re-reading Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, and in hindsight I can see those three books completely defined me as a writer and a reader. I read other Austens, too, but Pride & Prejudice had--and continues to hold--a special place in my heart.

When I was 15, I dated the captain of the football team (yes--really!) and made him watch that version of Pride & Prejudice with me (and what does it say that he actually watched it?). My husband puts up with me sighing over men in cravats, and promises to read Austen someday himself (he read Emma in college, but his teacher does not appear to have understood Austen's wit).

Austen's legacy to me, and to romance writers in general, is that it is indeed possible to write a fantastic, heart-wrenching love story that nonetheless disperses a wider commentary on society, offers clever writing, and can surpass its tag of 'romance.'

Thanks, Jane.

What do you think Austen's best legacy is? Is your favorite part the wit, the love story, the characters, the setting or something else?


Megan

All Austen, all the time

I can't remember my first.

What an embarrassing confession. I know that I had my massive teenage Heyer binge after I read Austen, which must have been for high school, because I remember telling my English teacher that Heyer was just like Austen. Hmmm. But I can't remember which book it was, although I remember earlier listening to girls complain about having to read P&P and it was so boring. Ha. The rest of us were blessed with Silas Marner, chosen, I'm convinced, because it was the shortest George Eliot--that it's also complex and difficult apparently wasn't a problem for a bunch of teenage girls who were really only interested in John, George, Paul and/or Ringo.

I remember watching something on a black and white TV with terrible reception and realizing, despite the blizzard onscreen, that it was the BBC Persuasion (the one from long ago) because I recognized the words. But I really fell in love with Austen after college, when I lived in Bath, and found that you could retrace Ann and Wentworth's steps through the city.

And she's been pretty much a constant in my life ever since. Every time I reread one of her books I find something that relates to where I am at that time--falling in love, falling out of love, married, unmarried, being a parent, growing older. Her novels offer consolation, inspiration, and a challenge. I admire Austen's toughness, her unflinching clarity on family relationships.

Here's a great poem by Kathe Pollitt, Rereading Jane Austen's Novels, which I borrowed from a collection of Austen-inspired poems at pemberley.com. It's bleak and biased, and not altogether accurate--Lizzie Bennett thinks nothing of a five mile hike (in the mud)--but I hope you'll like it.

This time round, they didn't seem so comic.
Mama is foolish, dim or dead. Papa's
a sort of genial, pampered lunatic.
No one thinks of anything but class.

Talk about rural idiocy! Imagine
a life of teas with Mrs. and Miss Bates,
of fancywork and Mr. Elton's sermons!
No wonder lively girls get into states --

No school! no friends! A man might dash to town
just to have his hair cut in the fashion,
while she can't walk five miles on her own.
Past twenty, she conceives a modest crush on

some local stuffed shirt in a riding cloak
who's twice her age and maybe half as bright.
At least he's got some land and gets a joke --
but will her jokes survive the wedding night?

The happy end ends all. Beneath the blotter
the author slides her page, and shakes her head,
and goes to supper -- Sunday's joint warmed over,
followed by whist, and family prayers, and bed.

And remember, this week we're holding a contest for Austen's birthday--so comment often and early!