Category: Regency era
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Packet Ships, Peril, and Persuasion: Setting Sail in 1813 (+ an Excerpt)
There’s something gloriously impractical about sending a lady to sea in the Regency era. The skirts! The cockroaches! The chamber pots that slid everywhere! Yet by 1813, Britain was bursting with people doing exactly that—soldiers, diplomats, merchants, and, occasionally, their wives—rattling around the globe in those sturdy little packet ships I’ve been describing lately. My…
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Orwell Nailed It
#PrideAndPerjury #JAFF #HistoricalFiction #SelfPublishing “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.” George Orwell First, please note what Orwell did not say. Writing is often intensely enjoyable – even non-fiction. It’s when your enjoyable project turns into a judgeable, sellable, editable book that the illness kicks in… My…
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Rules of the Road for Regency Language
Writers of Austen-based or broader Regency fiction regularly discuss the use of language by a modern writer for that period. I, too, reflect on my approach—which I considered for quite a while in my historical fiction based on Jane Austen’s life. For general language, I take the actor’s approach when preparing to play an historical…
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A Sneak Peek at What’s Coming
Growing up with two younger brothers was an adventure. I may not have found a snake in my bed, but that did not mean restful and peaceful sleep was always had. What I also remember was trying to tell them how to avoid my mistakes, like taking a bike down a hill that had a…
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Pride, Prejudice, and the Royal Ascot
I just watched the final Downton Abbey movie this weekend. I won’t give a movie review here (unless someone asks!!), but I was struck by one scene in particular: the whole family attending the Royal Ascot races together. I was already vaguely familiar with the famous races, but wow! The crowds, the clothes, the elegance!…
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Murder, Theft, and Guillotines: The Colorful Lives of Jane’s Family & How They Influenced Her Novels
Murder! Theft! Guillotines! Dive into the colorful lives of Jane Austen’s family members and how they influenced her novels.
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Song of Pemberley
In 2021 I started a novel called ‘Song of Pemberley’ but never finished it. Between selling my house in Texas, packing up everything and moving to Illinois, a number of things fell to the wayside until lately. Now, I’m working on playing catchup, and you know how much fun that is. However, since I am…
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Ghostwriting and Other Gory Tales
Ghostwriting, and other gory tales ‘Though I prefer first-rate fiction, for the last few years my reading seems to have been concentrated on letters and journals and biographies. It doesn’t bother me to read while I am writing… I mean, I don’t suddenly find another writer’s style seeping out of my pen. Though once, during…
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Vertigo in the Regency
In January of this year, after having 4 barometric migraines in 5 days, I found myself on the floor in my library, vomiting into the trash bin. For the next two weeks, I was told I had positional vertigo, but they didn’t want to treat it beyond medications to control the dizziness and nausea until…
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What Did Jane Austen Look Like?
What did Jane Austen look like? No one really knows. Which is to say: We know fairly precisely her size and shape, but only a little of what her face looks like. A forensic analysis done by clothing expert Hilary Davidson in 2015 details Austen’s figure. Davidson has since written books on Austen and Regency…