Regency vests and waistcoats

Since I write Regency-period historicals, I'm always on the lookout for tidbits of information about that era -- and how they relate to today's world. So I was intrigued to find out why a stylish modern man leaves the bottom button unfastened on his vest.

It's because the Prince of Wales, Britain's regent ruler during the 1810s and the reason the Regency period got its name, was ... well, let's just say he got pretty portly over the years. When his stylishly-tight clothing got to be uncomfortable, he'd unbutton something. Finally, he just started leaving the bottom button open all the time.

So when your guy gets dressed up in a three-piece suit, he's paying homage to a British ruler from two hundred years ago. 

The illustration here is of George as a young man -- or perhaps the artist just knew how to flatter his patron.

Here's another interesting tidbit. In the US we call the third piece of a three-piece suit a vest, but in Britain, it's called a waistcoat. What Brits call a vest is what we American's call an undershirt. So you can imagine how silly it sounds to a British reader when an American author refers to leaving the lowest button of a vest unfastened. Sigh. 

As playwright George Bernard Shaw once said, England and the United States are two countries "separated by the same language." And that brings up a question. Have you faced a situation where it was tough to make yourself understood -- or tough to get what the other person was talking about -- because of an oddity in the language?

Waiting to Hear

As the date draws closer for the release of my new Regency-period historical romance, I find myself most anxious to hear the audio version.

The Birthday Scandal is my fourth historical romance... my 84th romance novel... at least my 105th book... but the very, very first which will be released as an audio book.

A few weeks ago, when the book was being recorded, actress Rosalyn Landor and I had a lovely conversation via email to talk about accents. One of the three heroes in the book is American, and she asked where he was from, so she could make him sound just right.

Rosalyn is an experienced narrator and I can't wait to hear how she shares my story about the three Arden siblings (Lucien, Isabel, and Emily) as they find love at their great-uncle's 70th birthday ball.

In the meantime, I'm in production with four more audio projects. Creating Romantic Characters will be out soon -- it's a non-fiction book about building characters from the ground up. It will be followed by Wedding Daze, which is a Regency short story (it'll only be about a half-hour long, though I wish it was more -- the narrator has such a lovely accent!). The other two projects are contemporary romances -- The Best Made Plans and The Lake Effect, which will probably be coming out at the beginning of next year.

Of course the narrator has the really hard job in this enterprise -- I've done enough radio spots in my time to have a great appreciation of the work they do. Still, I'm finding that the producer doesn't have an easy time of it, either. Part of my job is to listen to each book all the way through -- sometimes multiple times. While that sounds like fun (and indeed it is) it's also a challenge to stay completely alert in order to catch a wrong word or an unclear phrase, and then get it noted down quickly with the exact time spot in the recording, so it can easily be redone. Not at all like listening to a book for fun!

Greystone Manor Tour Continues

My apologies for abandoning the blog for a couple of months -- and my thanks to the followers who have followed up with me to say they've missed the posts, especially the promised tour of Greystone Manor, the miniature house that my husband built for me.

One of the "residents" of Greystone is a little girl about eight years old. Not a very neat little girl, you'll notice from the way her toys and board games are strewn around her bedroom -- but one with varied interests, from dolls to soccer. Yes, that is a dollhouse at the foot of the bed -- a 1/144 scale Victorian farmhouse that even includes a few pieces of furniture. All the drawers open, and one of these days I really must get her coverlet finished and on her bed...

Signing Books & Making Friends

While I was attending ORACON this weekend (the Ozark Romance Authors' annual conference in Springfield, Missouri) I got to share a table with Jennifer Brown and Steven Anderson Law at the Barnes & Noble booksigning event. That's Jennifer and Steven sitting at the signing table.

Jennifer has been a favorite of mine since a mutual friend recommended I read HATE LIST -- and I loved it. The subject matter is heavy, but Jennifer's treatment of the aftermath of a school shooting is compassionate, sensitive, and even upbeat -- without being Pollyanna-ish. The best thing about it is that there's not a single stereotypical character in the entire book. Nobody is predictable.

Though I hadn't met Steven before, I was delighted to learn that he's a fellow Iowan at heart and he even attended the college that's less than a mile from my house. Plus I learned a whole lot about promotion and publicity from this talented guy.

Great events sometimes come in small packages. ORACON is a one-day conference, but its impact on writers and readers is huge. Mark your calendar for September 21, 2013 -- the next ORACON!

A question from a reader about creating and using secondary characters prompted me to think about the people in a book as though they were actors in a movie -- complete with pay scales.


If an actor speaks in a movie, even if it's just one line, the pay scale requires that he be paid a great deal more in terms of money and screen credit than if he just walks through as an extra. And of course, the more actors you hire for your movie, the more money you're paying out -- even if most of them don't talk.


So authors can often benefit from asking themselves this question, before they create yet another character: "If I had to pay this person to show up and say these lines, would it be worth the money? Or could I give that comment to a character who's already in the story, and save the fee?"


In writing, of course, extra characters don't actually cost money. But we "pay" for them with space, and word count. Each new person has to be established and identified, and that takes up room on the page. But if we can use a character we already have in the story, then we can save the space it would take to create that second person -- and use it to further develop the hero, the heroine, and the love story.


Though this is especially true in romance novels where we keep a tight focus on the hero and heroine, it's something for every author to think about. Sometimes (like with a cozy mystery or a romantic suspense) we need to have more characters so that the bad guy isn't obvious. But even when the cast is bigger, it's wise to ask -- "Do I need this person? Does he play a significant and unique role in the story?Or can I combine his attributes and his contribution and his dialogue with someone else, and keep things simpler for the reader?"

Chief Wapello Comes Down

A storm packing heavy rain, lightning, and 70 mile-per-hour straight-line winds hit my town this weekend, tearing up trees, tearing down power lines, and tearing a bronze statue off the top of the county courthouse where it has stood for 120 years.

 

The statue of Chief Wapello, for whom Wapello County, Iowa, was named, used to stand on the tall peak just to the left of the crane arm (above). During the storm, the statue tore loose and slid down the roof peak to lodge in the valley three stories up, head aimed toward the street, with nothing much holding him there.

























After much maneuvering, the crane operator gently lifted the statue free and swung him to the ground as the storm clouds gave way to a beautiful sunset.

Free book on Father's Day Weekend

I often write about glamorous characters who eat very fancy food -- which is why I keep my elaborate cookbooks in my office and not in my kitchen. :-)  As a working writer, I need an easier way to keep my husband fed -- so the cookbook I actually use is one I put together years ago and published, mostly so I'd have extra copies whenever one got splattered up. (Do you have any idea of the mess it makes when a pumpkin pie doesn't make it into the oven? A whole lot more than if it was dropped on the way out!) However, as the years go by I've found other recipes, fine-tuned some of the earlier ones, and moved on to an e-reader instead of hard copy... so I redid the cookbook. It's going to be a free download on Amazon this weekend -- June 16 and 17. http://www.amazon.com/Simply-Good-ebook/dp/B007XIZLVU/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1339426867&sr=1-1   '  You don't have to be a member of Amazon Prime to get the free download (though it's only free on Saturday and Sunday). And you don't need a Kindle to read it -- you can access it on your regular computer if you have the Kindle for PC or Kindle for Mac free software.

To give you a bit of a preview, most of the recipes I've shared here in the blog are included in the Simply Good cookbook.


I hope you'll enjoy sharing some of my favorite food!