Poor Mary. Even after recording an entire season with Brandon, Dan, and Howard, she still scratches her head sometimes and asks herself “why?”

“Why does Dan say ‘these marshmallows are delicious’ in a funny voice? And why do Brandon and Howard think it’s funny?”

“Why” indeed.

In this particularly self-indulgent episode of Writing Excuses we take you behind the marshmallow. We explain the origins of the ‘cast, and offer you rare insight into what makes this show what it is. We talk about how the show evolved, how our equipment came to be “borrowed,” and how Mary came to be involved.

And throughout the discussion we abandon our typically tight style and talk all over the place (and each other.) Will this help you with your writing? Maybe. If the knowledge that we are silly allows you to relax a little bit concerning your own secret goofiness, then maybe this episode has instructional merit.

It may be, however, that it’s just a warning.

via Writing Excuses 7.6: Behind the Marshmallow » Writing Excuses.

On the first day off from the Month of Letters Challenge, I thought I would report in on how it was going. So far I think it is going really, really well. I should pause here to say that I did not expect this to go viral but, lo, it has. I have no idea how many people are participating at this point beyond suspecting that it is way more than the number of people signed up at the website.

The Month of Letters Challenge has been covered by The Guardian, the New York Times, The Spectator, GalleyCat, and blogs in languages ranging from English to Hebrew. I had no idea — NO idea that it would take off like this. I think it has because I’m not the only one for whom the computer has become a place of work. Other people also want to step back a little and letter writing allows you to do that without pretending that you don’t also love the internet.

I have, at this point, answered seventy-seven letters or postcards and that only takes us through Day Four. Yes. That is a lot of correspondence. But I am loving it. I’m hearing from people that I would never get to talk to otherwise. Housewives from Lousiana, fountain pen enthusiasts from Minnesota, artists from Estonia… It’s amazing.

As much as that, I’m also loving sending out mail to my friends. Before the month started, I used the Month of Letters Calendar to decide who I would write to each day. Even with the volume of mail that has been coming in, I’m still mailing something to one of my friends every day, knowing that they probably won’t write back.

That’s okay. They don’t have to. What’s satisfying is taking the time to think about them and — weirdly — to complete a task. Jackie Gamble pointed this out to me and, by gum, she’s right.

Apart from the magic, which is undeniable, I’m enjoying the sense of accomplishment. It only takes a few minutes to write, seal, stamp, and walk down to my mailbox. As soon as I flip up the flag, I’m done. I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. If only all goals were as easily met! That’s magic, too, I think.

Having a goal of mailing one thing a day is a simple, achievable task. It means that there is at least one thing every day that I can complete and feel good about. You know? So many things that I need to do are open ended.

Yes, I’ve finished writing Without a Summer, but it’s just a second draft. Yes, I’ve finished proofing Glamour in Glass, but I have to plan the launch party. Yes, I’ve finished carving the Fuzzy’s toes, but I still have to ship him. There’s almost always one more step, even after finishing something. Not so with a letter. Once it is in the mail, you have completed your task. All that remains is the potential that someone might write back.

So, yes. Having a passel of people to write back to is terrifying, but awesome.

Are you participating? If so, how’s it going for you?

I am delighted that my story has been picked for the new anthology WILFUL IMPROPRIETY: 13 Tales of Society and Scandal (to be published in the US by Running Press. This is a Victorian YA anthology that takes a fine look at the social restrictions of the period.

Having already seen the proof, may I say that there are some darn good stories in here. Just look at the TOC.

Introduction by Ekaterina Sedia

• THE DANCING MASTER by Genevieve Valentine
• THE UNLADYLIKE EDUCATION OF AGATHA TREMAIN by Stephanie Burgis
• AT WILL by Leanna Renee Hieber
• STEEPED IN DEBT TO THE CHIMNEY POTS by Steve Berman
• OUTSIDE THE ABSOLUTE by Seth Cadin
• RESURRECTION by Tiffany Trent
• MRS BEETON’S BOOK OF MAGICKAL MANAGEMENT by Karen Healey
• THE GARDEN OF ENGLAND by Sandra McDonald
• FALSE COLOURS by Marie Brennan
• NUSSBAUM’S GOLDEN FORTUNE by M. K. Hobson
• THE COLONEL’S DAUGHTER by Barbara Roden
• MERCURY RETROGRADE by Mary Robinette Kowal
• THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS by Caroline Stevermer

You can read an excerpt from the introduction at ekaterinasedia.com » Blog Archive » New anthology.

If you are a writer seeking an agent AND participating in the Month of Letters Challenge, let me tell you about a neat thing. My agent, Jennifer Jackson, is offering to respond with letter to one randomly chosen query letter per business day. That’s right. A  personal response, mailed back with feedback on either the query itself or the concept of the novel.

In support of this endeavour, I am offering a special query letter #LetterMo. Due to the nature of this proposal, the kind and beneficent Mary Robinette Kowal has given me a variance on rule #2 (see official site here and sign up to participate in the challenge). I will only be responding to the queries received once and not engaging in additional correspondence (unless, of course, I request your manuscript).

For full details, go over to The Month of Letters Challenge | Et in arcaedia, ego. And for heaven’s sake, read the guidelines.

So, people who are new to following me on Twitter sometimes wander in when a game of #marygoround starts up and are justifiably confused. Allow me to explain.

I have had some extraordinarily bad travel karma. It ranges from things like being delayed for two days coming home, to an airline stewardess being so severely shocked that she had to be removed from the plane, to brake failure. On a plane.

Someone suggested that there needed to be a drinking game. So there is.

The rules are simple.

1. When travel goes right, you take a drink (This does not need to be alcohol, nor the entire beverage)
2. When travel goes wrong, I take a drink.

(The advanced version says that for Rule 2 you get to take two drinks.)

You can follow along on Twitter with the hashtag #marygoround

The Guardian has written an article, “Writers bid to revive letter-writing,” about the revival of letter writing. I’m interviewed about the Month of Letters Challenge along with Rumpus editor Stephen Elliot, and publisher Scott Pack who are also bringing back letter writing.

Also… The Guardian. Eep.

My outgoing mail. I keep it on the typewriter closest to the door so I can just grab it as I head to the post office.

I feel like this is the little challenge that could. I had thought that I was going to issue a challenge to my readers and that it might spread a little beyond that. To say that I am stunned by the reception that my Month of Letters Challenge has received would be to understate it quite a bit.

Something in the neighborhood of 20,000 people have at least read the challenge. I’m not certain how many of them are participating but it has certainly spread far beyond my expectations.

I started a website for it, where I’m also blogging throughout the month. And of course, I’m writing letters and postcards.

Here’s my post, Welcome to the first day of The Month of Letters from A Month of Letters Website.

I know what you might be thinking… depending on where you are, it could still be January 31, but in Australia people are already starting to send their missives.

You can send anything. A letter, a postcard, a ticket from a movie you saw with a note jotted on the back… You can hold something in your hands, put it in a little box, and then somewhere else the person you were thinking of can hold the same thing. It’s sort of amazing, when you think about it. Sometimes starting the letter is difficult, but let me share with you some advice from Hill’s Manual of Business and Social Forms, published back in 1879.

“The expression of language should as nearly as possible be the same as the writer would speak. A letter is but a talk on paper. The style of writing will depend upon the terms of intimacy existing between the parties… In your letter be yourself write as you would talk.”

There is a tendency to overthink before putting pen to paper because it seems more permanent somehow than a computer screen. There is no delete key. Don’t fret. The letter you are sending will delight the recipient simply because you thought of them. The little bobbles simply prove that you are not a robot.

Be yourself.  Are you ready?

I have been a little nervous, waiting for the official reviews to start coming in. Library Journal has this in their current issue. May I just say, whew.

Kowal, Mary Robinette. Glamour in Glass. Tor. Apr. 2012. c.336p. ISBN 9780765325570. $24.99. FANTASY

At the start of 1815, newly married and eager to explore her gifts as a glamourist, Jane Vincent (Shades of Milk and Honey) is pleased with life. A recent glamural, commissioned by the Prince Regent, has provided the Vincents with the funds and status to travel abroad. Their destination is Binché, near Brussels, and the workshop of artisan M. Chastain, where they secretly attempt the groundbreaking work of containing a glamour within glass. But soon Jane’s husband’s erratic behavior and misleading communication leave her feeling unsure of her future. VERDICT This sequel to Kowal’s Nebula Award–nominated debut continues to build a historically recognizable world made anew by the addition of “glamour.” The focus remains on Jane’s internal struggle to find a satisfying balance between society’s restrictions and the person she’d like to be, endearing her further to series fans. Espionage and tangled feelings over family create a nice sense of mystery and provide great action and drama. Prepare to settle in and snuggle up in your comfiest chair; once you start reading, you won’t want to stop.—Stacey Hayman, Rocky River P.L., OH

The current Battersea Bridge crosses the Thames and is an iron structure. In the days of The Glamourist Histories, it was still a wooden bridge and the oldest remaining wooden bridge crossing the Thames. This painting is from 1840, so twenty-five years after the events in Glamour in Glass, but looking very much the same. It does give you a sense of how much more rustic certain parts of London were.

An excerpt from Glamour in Glass

The following morning, Jane rose with the intention of visiting her family before their mutual journeys separated them. Vincent declined the opportunity to accompany her, saying that he wanted to paint the Battersea Bridge and catch the morning light. After the fi asco of the previous evening, Jane could hardly blame him for wanting to escape under the thinnest pretence.

Dan and Mary were joined by Sam Sykes at World Fantasy, and invited him to talk about sensory writing, which he had recently discussed in a workshop.

The heart of the discussion is which senses (typically beyond sight) to include as we write. Sounds, smells, tactile information, and even tastes are necessary to engage the reader. And while it’s possible to include too much of that, Sam counsels writers to err on the side of excess because it’s always easy to edit things back a notch should you find upon re-reading that you’ve gone too far.

Sam, Mary and Dan offer lots of good advice on the matter — when it’s important and why, how to do it well, and how not to overdo it.

via Writing Excuses 7.5: Sensory Writing » Writing Excuses.

It is also tempting, watching that last very long sentence, to see how long I can make a single sentence without either resorting to semi-colons, which is a form of cheating since it combines two sentences into one, or to parentheticals that contain entire other sentences, (although I will grant that a parenthetical such as this one, which contains a diversion that is directly relevant to the subject at hand, could be interesting under the right circumstances provided that it is part of the current thought and not some tangent thrown in for the express purpose of making a sentence longer through perambulations into areas of no import) because the exercise might be one that would allow me to explore both structure, and theme, in an expanded form in the same ways that something like a haiku allows one to explore structure and theme in a very condensed form, but the nature of a long sentence is such that it requires utmost attention not only from the person writing the sentence but also from the reader, who is, without a doubt, wondering at the length and attempting to parse the various parts of the sentence while laughing — at least I hope laughter comes at some point — at the very length and the structure that is the subject of the exploration while at the same time recognizing that the entire sentence is an exercise in punctuation and the effect it has on breath and also that there is a distinct possibility that the sentence might never come to an end and then it does.

In all seriousness — well, perhaps not ALL seriousness — or at least in partial seriousness, try to read it outloud because the punctuation actually works for breath management even if it is not, at all times, grammatically correct.

It was late. The scene was making me cranky. That is all the explanation you get.

I have just realized that Jane, from Shades of Milk and Honey should participate in the Month of Letters Challenge. So, she is.

If you want to write to her, address correspondence to:

Mrs. David Vincent
P.O. Box 13346
Portland, OR 97213-0346

I will tell you, as a teaser, that she will be writing back to you with an actual quill pen on a writing slope from the 1800s. The letters will be “Real time” for her in that they will be coming from February, 1815. This means that they will contain references to the first chapters of Glamour in Glass and definite spoilers from Shades of Milk and Honey.

As the subject line says, Scalzi has thrown his hat in the circle for another run as SFWA President.  On his blog he speaks of were-badgers and our work with the volcano powered laser.

Then he closes by saying:

Let me also take a moment to note to the SFWA members among you that you may wish to consider to run for office as well, even for the position of President. There are five positions up for election: President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer and Western Regional Director. SFWA does good work for its members and for writers, but that work is dependent on the service of volunteers, including board members. It’s entirely possible to serve on SFWA’s board and maintain an active career — I’ve written two books while serving on the board (and am working on one now) and will have released three by June 30. Serving on the board is work, but it’s not all-consuming. Think about what SFWA does for you, and then ask if it’s time for you to do for SFWA. Here’s the call for candidates, in SFWA’s forums. Give it some thought, please.

I want to echo that. I’ve said before that I’m not running for the board again. It was tempting to run again, for all the reasons Scalzi is — the real reasons, like the work that we still want to do — but I’ve been on the board for four years.

I’m also moving this year.

I need a break. Now, I’ll run again in the future because I’m committed to the organization but this year, I need to step down.

And I need you to step up.

If you are committed to the future of science fiction and fantasy, this is a pivotal time in the industry. We need smart, engaged people on the board. Please consider running for office. If you have any questions, drop me a line and I’ll talk to you about the time commitment.

Meanwhile, you can read Scalzi’s post I Am Running For SFWA President (Again) (Again) at Whatever.

As you might imagine, we’ll be meeting some new characters in Glamour in Glass. Allow me to introduce you to one of them, or at least to her dress.

When Jane was introduced to Mme Meynard, she had a moment of coveting the belle’s beautiful Pomona green gown with blond lace embellishments.

The original dress was Published in Ackermann’s Repository of Arts, September 1815 and described thus:

A white satin slip, worn under a dress made in pomona green French gauze, terminating at the feet with a full flounce of blond lace, headed with a double border of the same, gathered in full, and confined with folds of satin, of corresponding colour to the dress; handkerchief-front, trimmed with white satin, and a falling collar of blond lace; long sleeve of white satin, the fulness upon the shoulder confined under an epaulet of the French gauze, trimmed with white satin; the sleeve drawn alternately across the arm with the pomona green satin ribbon. Long white sash of white satin, tied in front.
The ends of the hind hair brought forward, to fall in ringlets over the temple, confined with a plain white satin ribbon, and ornamented with a tiara of pearl. Necklace to correspond. Gloves, French kid. Slippers, white satin.

One of the things that I’ve found interesting in the response to the Month of Letters Challenge is the notion that mailing something everyday is too much. The idea that writing a letter, postcard, addressing socks… what have you, is somehow more difficult than other forms of communication.

How many tweets, status updates, and emails do you send in a day? I’ll grant that you do not need to look up an address for those. You do not need to  scrounge for paper, put a stamp on a page, or walk to the mail box. I grant that it is easier to click “Send” than any of those.

I suspect, however, that the physical is the smaller of the difficulties. Because the only personal things that come in the mail now are Things of Import, like wedding invitations or birth announcements, we’ve attached an unconscious weight to mail. If one is going to send a letter, then it seems like it should be something significant.

Not really.

I mean, that’s nice and all, but the significance is the connection and the fact that it is tangible proof that you thought about someone specific. Where a tweet expresses my thoughts about me, a postcard is for someone else.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a heavy social media user and I love twitter. This Month of Letters Challenge is not about dissing anything modern. It is about finding out what the archaic medium of postal mail is good for. Much the same way photography did not replace painting, but taught us what painting was uniquely good at, postal mail is good for something different than electronic communication.

Do you still feel daunted?

Then, let me put this into perspective for you.

• A postcard is a slow tweet or status update.
• A letter is a delayed blog post or an email.

It’s just that it is for an audience of one.

Brevity! Use fewer words!

After the obligatory “we-are-going-to-cut-this-short-after-the-intro” joke, we talk about how we can be appropriately brief, even in the context of writing epic fantasy. Mary offers us some rules of thumb for story brevity in the short fiction she writes, and Howard talks about how he accomplishes the extreme brevity of language required by his comic. Dan points out that the shorter you work, the more important your individual words become.

via Writing Excuses 7.4: Brevity » Writing Excuses.

Feel free to download this web badge and post it to show your participation.

Last September, I took a month off from the internet. During my vacation, I told people that they could correspond with me by paper letter. Some people did. Some people still are. Every letter delights me.

When I write back, I find that I slow down and write differently than I do with an email. Email is all about the now. Letters are different, because whatever I write needs to be something that will be relevant a week later to the person to whom I am writing. In some ways it forces me to think about time more because postal mail is slower. “By the time you get this…” It is relaxing. It is intimate. It is both lasting and ephemeral.

How so? I find that I will often read the letters that I receive twice. Once when I get them and again as I write back. So, that makes it more lasting. It is more ephemeral because I don’t have copies of the letters that I write and I am the only one who has copies of the letters that my correspondents write. So, more ephemeral.

When was the last time you got a letter in the mail? December sees a lot of mail and you remember that sense of delight when the first card arrives. You can have that more often.

I have a simple challenge for you.

1. In the month of February, mail at least one item through the post every day it runs.  Write a postcard, a letter, send a picture, or a cutting from a newspaper, or a fabric swatch.
2. Write back to everyone who writes to you. This can count as one of your mailed items.

All you are committing to is to mail 24 items.  Why 24? There are four Sundays and one US holiday. In fact, you might send more than 24 items. You might develop a correspondence that extends beyond the month. You might enjoy going to the mail box again.

Feeling intimidated? It’s fewer words than NaNoWriMo and I know how many of you do that. Join me in The Month of Letters Challenge.

FAQ – Website (Yes, I just made one) – Facebook – Twitter or as #LetterMo

When I started going to Regency events I looked for tutorials on how to do a Regency hair style. Most of them were for ladies with long hair. My hair is no longer than my shoulders and has been shorter than this. I’ve learned that with a sufficient number of bobby pins, I can approximate a Regency hairstyle.

Here is a slideshow of how I go about it.

I am very pleased to announce that next year, I will be attending the 39th ConFusion as the Special Guest of Honor.  The line up looks like it is going to be great fun. The Pro GoH is Charles Stross, along with editor GoH Scott Edelman and Fan GoH James Nicoll.

And there will be puppets. Oh yes.

Mark  the dates January 17-20, 2013 on your calendar.  I’ll see you in Troy, Michigan.

I have to thank Madeleine Robins for pointing out that the carriages in French and Belgium at this point were called dilligence. By the way, if you have not read her truly excellent The Sarah Tolerance Mysteries, allow me to recommend them. If Jane Austen writes comedy of manners, Madeleine Robins writes mystery of manners. It’s an alternate Regency, good mystery and a thoroughly charming heroine who is an Agent of Inquiry.

And now, here is how the dilligence appears in Glamour in Glass.

Despite the charming name of France’s national system of carriages, the dilligence was too crowded for comfort, and the views out the windows— though of unfamiliar scenery— were only glimpsed by twisting one’s neck. The dilligence exchanged passengers at inns, crossings, and stables so that they had an unending variety of new travel companions.

Despair!

(Hat tip to Two Nerdy History Girls)

Enjoy the master classes by Bogie, Bette Davis, Carole Lombard, Claudette Colbert, Errol Flynn, Claude Rains, Kay Francis, Edward G. Robinson, Jane Wyman, George Brent, Merle Oberon, Patricia Neal, Mickey Rooney and more.

They still teach most of this today.

You’re a geek, too, right? I thought so. Nothing particular gave you away, just the fact that you hang around here made it a good bet. Which is why I thought you’d like to know about Geek Seekers. My friend Monte Cook is putting together a webseries with Jen Page which promises to be hilarious and occasionally informative.

Check out the video they put together for Kickstarter.

See? It appeals to all your geeky instincts, doesn’t it. Consider becoming a backer?

Today’s preview does not contain a description of the dress, but the circumstances in which one would wear such item.

The January wind whipped off the coast and lifted sails and skirts alike. Despite the chill, Jane stood at the rail of the Dolphin, feeling as if a series of stays were releasing their laces with each length they moved away from the shore.

So what does one wear aboard a ship? A carriage dress like this would meet your needs while traveling.

For the past several years, we have been trying — as typewriter collectors — to identify the typewriters on the shelves in Richard Castle’s office. Yeah, the fictional character in the show Castle. I was pretty sure we were looking at a Royal and an Underwood, but not certain. Even then, which models?  In the most recent episode, there were two shots that were clear enough that we actually could get screen shots.

What? You didn’t think that Rob and I were that geeky?

Please…

First up is the one closest to the door. The rounded front lead us to think that it is likely a Royal from the late 30s or early 40s as does the powder finish.

There’s a line of chrome detailing across the front that points to this being a Royal KMM. There’s a chance that it could also be the Remington-Rand Model Seventeen, which had a similar curved front profile and chrome detailing.

The telling detail?

The carriage return swoops up on a Royal and down on the Remington.

So, Rob and I feel pretty darn confident that this is the Royal KMM from 1941. It is noted for being the machine in which Royal introduced the Magic Margin system.  It’s a workhorse of a machine and there were a lot of them.

My question — if it is an Underwood — is why would the wealthy Richard Castle, collector, writer, and geek have such a fairly run-of-the-mill machine? Why not a Blickensderfer or a Daugherty Visible or a Columbia Bar-lock or a Franklin 7? What is it that makes these typewriters special? Maybe who wrote on them.

The other typewriter is stumping us.

The scoop in the front made me think it was probably an Underwood and there seems to be the gold detailing of a classic #5. The problem is that silhouette which makes it look like the platen is very far forward with a giant base behind it.

We’ve looked at other machine’s with a similar scoop, like the Fox, Remington, Victor, and even a couple of Woodstocks. Nothing seems to have a similar back end.

Of course, it could be screen distortion, since I’m grabbing this off of a YouTube video. I’ll have to wait for the next time they show one of these. Still, inquiring minds want to know.

If you aren’t familiar with SOPA allow me to show you this handy video which explains what it is and why it is bad for the internet. More specifically, why it is bad for you. SOPA stands for Stop Online Piracy Act. While I believe that content creators should be paid for their work, this bill is not the way to go about it. It will cause far more problems than it will prevent and the potential for abuse is large.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

If you prefer your information in text, Gizmodo has a good primer on SOPA.

Or you can have this amusing song “The Day the LOLcats Died.”

So… in support of the anti-SOPA protest, my site will be dark tomorrow from 8am -8pm. More importantly, I’m writing a paper letter to my representatives.

(By the way, if you are a WordPress user, I’m using the Stop SOPA plug-in to go dark.)

My husband is working on a video project and searching for normal folks who embody informal science.  He would love to find a woman and/or ethnic minority.  Also, while the subject need not live in a rural setting, their story must be relevant to rural life – the target audience is small towns and rural communities.  The subject’s biography should display practical science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

In other words:

Neutrino detection is OUT.  Formulating and baking your own adobe bricks with a solar-powered kiln to build a bunker to store your collection of home-distilled agave spirits based on the recipe you translated from an 18th-century German travelogue citing an Anasazi folk tale is IN.

Do you have any ideas? Use the form below to send them directly to Rob.

To the person who sent me the “Mr. Darcy proposal scarf” from Etsy, thank you. It is cozy. I’ve never received wearable fan mail before.

I found the etsy shop that it comes from, but am resisting the urge to email the shop owner and ask who sent it. My feeling is that if one wishes to remain anonymous, that wish should be respected.

It has a quote from Mr. Darcy’s first proposal in Pride and Prejudice. “In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”

The website says:

The famous words from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice are handwritten by me, and screen printed by my husband. The image of the text is printed in silver on both ends of a long, charcoal grey jersey scarf.

-100% Sheer Jersey cotton, very soft and comfortable

via Mr Darcy proposal scarf by Brookish on Etsy.

In Shades of Milk and Honey, when Jane first sees the professional glamourist, Mr. Vincent, she describes him as, “Tall, and very broad of chest. His hair was chestnut and curled about his head like Bacon’s portrait of Jean- Baptiste Isabey.”

In Glamour in Glass, we see him again.

His brown curls were tousled in the fashionable wind- swept look which so many men struggled to attain, but which came naturally to him.He swept his hands through his hair so much, knotting them in place while he thought, that it was permanently dishevelled.

Note the word wind-swept? It is one of three places I knowingly cheated with the language. That word does not get coined until 1932, but the description for the hairstyle from the period was… not particularly helpful to a modern reader.

Would you have known what I meant by the “frightened owl” hairstyle?

Hey, there’s a quiz about Shades of Milk and Honey over at Goodreads. How well do you remember the book? It’s only ten questions long!

Take the Shades of Milk and Honey quiz.

Animals and plants, round two! We begin this episode with examples where we think people did their flora and fauna wrong, or poorly, or at least in ways we can poke easy holes in. Our examples include:

• Pitch Black
• Twilight
• Avatar

And then we get tired of negative examples, and talk about The Mote in God’s Eye.

We then attempt to brainstorm some flora and fauna on our world of mutagenic meteor dust. Pizza-trees, armored buffalo, fire-dandelions, and more… and that’s before we even get started populating the coast, and Brandon calls can-of-worms on the project and hands the brainstorming to you, the listener.

via Writing Excuses 7.3: Fauna and Flora » Writing Excuses.

Today’s visual teaser for Glamour in Glass is another room in Carlton House.

After the overt glamour of the ballroom, the Blue Room seemed positively staid, though it was appointed in the best manner. The walls were covered in blue damask, which matched the upholstery. Gilt frames bordered the walls, with cleverly rendered oysters on the half shell in each corner. By the very absence of glamour, the Prince Regent displayed his taste and means here as much as in the ballroom, because everything from the elaborate carpet to the massive crystal chandelier was real.

Real gold gilded the arms of the chairs. Real candles stood in the sconces instead of fairy lights, so rather than the faint glow of glamoured light, the room truly was bright and airy.

The only glamour in the room adorned the ceiling, which had a glamural of sky and clouds drifting in a simple repeating pattern. The clouds circled the chandelier so that the crystals would not catch and diff ract their glamoured folds. The effect seemed one part dance, one part storm— very like life at court itself.

My flight back from Chattanooga was without incident. Whew. Now, someone commented that they couldn’t believe that I had a flawless trip, given my #marygoround issues with travel. To which I must point out that on the way to Chattanooga, the airline lost my luggage and that my trip home was delayed by a week and a half.

I think I pre-paid for the good travel karma on the trip home, thank you very much.

It is so good to be here. To be with Rob. Only a week apart but, oh, I missed him.

And I also miss the folks in Chattanooga. I’ve already talked to Grandma, Mom, and Dad. It would be nice if someone would come up with a teleporter so that I could be with my family in Tennessee, North Carolina, Hawaii, Minnesota, and here. Someone get on that, okay?

When I was researching the Prince Regent’s set, I ran across Sir Lumley St. George Skeffington who went by the nickname “Skiffy.”

Skiffy

How could I not use him?

Skiffy was a baronet and a playwright who had some success with his play “The Sleeping Beauty” but was cheifly known for being a dandy.

The Letter Bag of Lady Elizabeth Stanhope includes this account of him.

`He,’ Gronow mentions, ‘used to paint his face like a French toy. He dressed d la Robespierre and practised other follies, although the consummate old fop was a man of literary attainments, remarkable for his politeness and courtly manners, in fact, he was invited everywhere. You always knew of his approach by an avant courier (sic) of sweet smells, and as he advanced a little nearer, you might suppose yourself in the atmosphere of a barber’s shop.’”

I had a good deal of fun including Skiffy.

Here is an engraving of what he is supposed to have looked like. Of the real Sir Lumley, we have an account by John Stanhope:

Poor Skeffington was the Dandy of the day, par excellence. Remarkable for his ugliness, his dress was so exaggerated as to render his lack of beauty the more marked. He was a very goodnatured man, and had nothing of the impertinence of manner of the fops who succeeded him. Moreover, he was a bel-esprit, writing epilogues and prologues, and was at one time the observed of all observers. I have seen him at an assembly literally surrounded by a group of admiring ladies.

And how does he fare in Glamour in Glass?

“Oh! Horrid. Horrid, I tell you. I have never seen a man with less understanding of the nature of cloth than he displays. Why, did you know that I went in on the recommendation of a friend, whose advice I shall not favour henceforth, and M. Lecomte had the temerity to suggest superfine cloth? To me?” He took out a perfumed handkerchief and patted his forehead. “I turned on my heel and left without another sign. It was clear he was not current.”

This is one of my favorite dresses in the Glamourist Histories, so I wanted to show it to you. It appears in Shades of Milk and Honey  and belongs to Miss Dunkirk.

She offered Miss Dunkirk her arm and led her to a bolt of white lawn, the fabric most appropriate to a debutante. Then Jane suggested a deep green velvet which she thought might set off Miss Dunkirk’s hair to advantage…  Between the two of them, they selected a lace which complemented the cloth as well.

The original dress is from Ackermann’s Repository of Arts, the March 1814 edition.

A white crape, or fine muslin petticoat, worn over white satin, embroidered in silver lama round the bottom. A bodice of olive or spring-green satin, ornamented with a silver stomacher. Short, full sleeve, and rounded bosom, trimmed with a full silver border to correspond. A fan frill of fluted lace, continued round the back, and terminating in front at the corner of the bosom. A silver fringe round the bottom of the waist. The hair in irregular curls in front, falling low on each side, drawn smoothly on the crown of the head, and brought in a small bunch of curls at the back. A bandeau of pearl, twisted round the curls behind. Necklace and cross of pearl eardrops, and bracelets to correspond. Occasional scarf of white silk, richly embroidered in silver and coloured silks. Gloves of white kid. Slippers of green satin, with silver rosettes.

Just to be clear, when they refer to “a fine muslin petticoat” they aren’t talking about modern muslin. In the Regency muslin could be so fine as to be translucent, like this example of a hand-embroidered Regency dress. See how the paper shows through it? (Here are more photos of this lovely extant dress.)

I spent the day at Grandma’s today and we got to talking about her mother. She told me stories I hadn’t heard about her first job, and then about her housekeeper who lived in disguise… No. Really.

EDITED TO ADD: I got Grandma to talk more about her housekeeper. She had remembered that it had been Nellie’s husband who had been killed and that it happened in Alabama. She said that Nellie was worried about the same men finding her and killing her. I figured an ax murder should be easy to find records of.

It turns out– serial killers.

From 1919-1923, Birmingham, Alabama had a series of ax murders. I’ve only found two articles online but the timing is right for him to have been a victim of the “ax syndicate.”

FURTHER EDITED TO ADD: Apparently, this trial got some attention because the confession came through an early use of “truth serum.”

It is always a bit unnerving to use real historical figures in fiction, especially someone as well-known as The Prince Regent. Because the Regency period is named after him, it is easy to think that he was an admirable figure in the same way that Queen Victoria was. Alas…

He was regarded as self-indulgent, extravagant, and an adulterer. With good reason, since he made no secret of his mistresses and was constantly living well beyond his means to the point of needing to ask Parliament for more money. He spent 10,000 pounds per anum just on clothing.

He was, however, a great patron of the arts and encouraged much of the look of the Regency period. Among the people he was a fan of was Jane Austen.

The admiration was not returned. In a letter to Martha Lloyd, Miss Austen wrote:

“I suppose all the World is sitting in Judgement upon the Princess of Wales’s Letter. Poor woman, I shall support her as long as I can, because she is a Woman, & because I hate her Husband — but I can hardly forgive her for calling herself “attached & affectionate” to a Man whom she must detest — & the intimacy said to subsist between her & Lady Oxford is bad — I do not know what to do about it; but if I must give up the Princess, I am resolved at least always to think that she would have been respectable, if the Prince had behaved only tolerably by her at first. –”

So how does he appear in Glamour in Glass?

The Prince Regent smiled and patted her hand where it lay on the dark blue cloth of his sleeve.

The portrait above is from 1814, the year that Shades of Milk and Honey, takes place. Glamour in Glass begins on December 30, 1814 so he would look very much like that.

In this mixed media figure, you get a sense of how he would appear in the style popularized by Beau Brummell. Buckskin trousers and a blue coat.

Smiling, the Prince Regent adjusted the sleeve of his
coat, which was, Jane was startled to note, cut from superfine cloth. ¹

For further reading on gentlemen’s fashion, may I recommend Between a Gentleman and His Tailor

I do so love Fred Astaire. The dance starts at 1:56 so jump ahead to that.

Now… if you want to see how he did that.

For Christmas, I got a box.

I did not know what was in the box, but it was from my parents and Rob’s parents, so I knew it was likely to be nifty.

It is beautiful and has a inlay of ivory on the cover. Rob cautioned me that the box was delicate to open. On the side, there is a small brass button.

Which I pushed.

Inside was a set of coral beads.

Not just any beads. These are coral beads from the early 1800s. I knew this necklace because I had been coveting it for months.

See, I went to visit my friend -e- at Maloy’s Jewellers, where she works. They specialize in antique and estate jewelry. We were talking about an upcoming Regency event and how I wished that I had period appropriate jewelry. Coral beads were very popular and it seems that they appear in half the portraits from the period. -e- showed me these. They needed to be restrung, but they were unquestionably lovely.

And I could not afford them.

She had them restrung. Got in touch with my parents and Rob’s parents and made arrangements. She found an old watch box and refitted it to hold the beads. Rob snuck them to Chattanooga.

I opened that box, recognized the coral beads, and then had difficulty seeing them because of the tears. I think the only thing that kept me from fully weeping was knowing that my father had a video camera trained on me.

Two weeks later, I am still stunned by the thoughtfulness of all involved.

This may be the most thoughtful gift I have ever received. It may also be the oldest.

Jim Hines makes a ton of intelligent posts and this is one that I think everyone should read. He talks about women and the way they are posed in fantasy cover art.

That’s not quite accurate… He poses as women on fantasy covers. Insight and hilarity ensue.

A while back, we had a discussion on the blog about the cover art for my princess novels. For the most part, I really like these covers, but they’re not perfect.

Now I could talk about the way women are posed in cover art … or I could show you. I opted for the latter, in part because it helped me to understand it better. I expected posing like Danielle to feel a little weird and unnatural. I did not expect immediate, physical pain from trying (rather unsuccessfully) to do the hip thing she’s got going on.

I recruited my wife to take the pictures, which she kindly did with a minimum of laughter.

via Jim C. Hines » Striking a Pose (Women and Fantasy Covers).

Today’s teaser for Glamour in Glass is a scenic location. The Carlton House Red drawing room, which appears in Chapter 1.

As the Prince Regent led her out of the Red Room, Jane felt all the eyes of those assembled fall upon her, and under their gaze the unequal nature of her station magnified.

The Carlton House was the Prince Regent’s London residence. It was a magnificent building that showed his fondness for sumptuous elegance.  The history of the royal residences by William Henry Pyne (London: 1819) describes this room as:

On entering this spacious apartment, the eye is agreeably struck with the happy combination of splendid materials tastefully arranged; consisting of a profusion of rich draperies, large pier glasses, grand chandeliers of brilliant cut glass, massive furniture richly gilt, candelabra, tripods, bronzes, elegant vases, and other corresponding decorations, displaying at once the improved taste of the arts and manufactures of Great Britain. To these are added some valuable original pictures by English and foreign masters.

Meet my 106-year old Grandma. My dad, on fiddle, and his friend stopped by to play for her today. I learned that my great-grandfather played the fiddle.

After the camera was off, I also found out that Grandma used to play the slide guitar.

What’s really crazy? I recorded this on my phone and Grandma remembers when they didn’t have a phone. Talk about living in the future.

Yesterday, I showed you a sneak peek of Glamour in Glass through a picture of Jane’s dove grey silk dress. She thought it seemed dingy by comparison… to what?

To this dress.

The dove silk which had seemed so fine when
she had commissioned it last summer now seemed dingy by comparison to gowns such as Lady Hertford’s rich claret velvet, which had long sleeves slashed to allow glimpses of a cloth of silver.

This painting is actually Jane, Lady Munro by Sir Martin Archer Shee but I thought it was lovely and gave it to Lady Hertford.

Lady Hertford is a historical figure who I am using in Glamour in Glass. In fact, unlike Shades of Milk and Honey, I use a number of real people and places.

What did the real Lady Hertford look like?

At her side now stood the inimitable Lady Hertford, who also gazed at the painting. This celebrated beauty’s very presence lent the room an additional elegance. Her claret velvet dress might have been chosen as a deliberate complement to the blue walls. The line of her neck would have been a welcome subject for any artist.

In three months, Glamour in Glass, will hit the book stores. The first chapter is in the trade paperback of Shades of Milk and Honey, so you’ve already had a little bit of a teaser. Since one of the things that attracts me to the Regency are the pretty, pretty clothes, I’m going to offer you pictorial teasers over the next twelve weeks.

Of what? You’ll get a picture of a dress and the line that accompanies it.

This is Jane’s dress from Shades of Milk and Honey. It appeared in that novel like this:

“Her fingers danced in the air, pulling folds together in a small simulacrum of Jane. This tiny manikin wore Jane’s beloved dove silk, but with a open pelisse of the pink. A high waist with a sash of that same pale pink gave the illusion of height and slenderness to her figure. Softening Jane’s face, Madame Beaulieu had added a turban à la Oriental which cupped her hair with cunningly wrought silk roses. A simple shawl completed the picture with elegant grace.”

How does it fare in Glamour in Glass?

The dove silk which had seemed so fine when she had commissioned it last summer now seemed dingy by comparison…

Let’s build the plants and animals for your science fiction or fantasy book!

We begin with a discussion about naming, and about deciding how much evolutionary biology to put into creating cool beasties. We also talk about planning a food chain, building around water, and considering other resources (especially wood, for growing fantasy civilizations.)

Other considerations include migration patterns, life-cycles, and the possibility of turning the whole thing on its head.

We offer examples from Dune, Legacy of Heorot, Inherit the Stars, Ender’s Game, and other places. And if you’re looking for resources, check out Guns, Germs, and Steel.

via Writing Excuses 7.2: World Building Flora and Fauna » Writing Excuses.

Welcome to the new season of Writing  Excuses!

Let’s start with a trip to the dark side! How do you take a good character and make them evil? And why would you want to do this? Brandon, Dan, Mary, and Howard answer that second question first, and then walk you through the process of doing this. We cover establishing the character, venturing onto a slippery slope, and connecting these and other elements to important pieces of the story.

We talk about the types of “evil” a character can fall into, using character examples like Oedipus, Othello, Boromir, and Doctor Horrible, and how you might incorporate tragic flaws into their downward-trending paths. Finally, we offer examples where we’ve seen it done poorly. Hello, Anakin!

via Writing Excuses 7.1 When Good Characters Go Bad » Writing Excuses.

This is one of my favorite memes. It’s a look at the last year, through the first line of my first blog post of each month.

1. Oh, the things one runs across while researching. 
2. I have, of late, been pondering the rituals of mourning. 
3. I’m absolutely delighted to announce that I’ll be attending Baycon this year as their author Guest of Honor. 
4. It occurs to me that, this being April Fool’s day, when I talk about taking a yeti on my trip, people will think that I’m making a joke. 
5. For those of you reading along, I’ve just posted Chapter 19 of The Transfigured Lady draft.
6. One of the interesting things about dialogue is that you can convey a great deal of information with it. 
7. I’m heading to Readercon this month, which is one of my favorite conventions. 
8. Sometimes, when I’m writing I use brackets to keep myself from wandering off to research something Right Then. 
9. While I’m on vacation, I’ve set up “Retro Mary”  posts.
10. Hello! I’m back from my internet vacation.
11. I’ve spent the first two days of November in the company of thousands of other writers pounding down words. 
12. I’m heading off for the weekend to the Oregon Regency Society’s retreat. 

Looking at this, it’s pretty clear that writing two novels — both historical fantasy — meant that my life was consumed by research and writing. I traveled a lot, too.

How about you? How did your last year shape up?

Here we are nearly a week into the New Year and I haven’t posted a thing. You might wonder why.

That would be a little thing called Stomach Flu.

Now, I don’t want you to think that I’ve been sick for the last two weeks. No, no… It’s a plague that swept through my family, knocking my parents down on Christmas Day, sending my grandmother AND my uncle to the hospital, putting me on a rice diet for a couple of days and making Rob unfit to be on a plane.

My own return to Portland is delayed by a week and a half to give the rest of the family time to recover. I think, at this point, everyone has gotten the plague so there aren’t any more surprises.

Everyone is well or on the mend, but… well, let’s just say that the start of 2012 has been a little rocky.

How has it been for you?

Every year, Rob makes eggnog. It is an amazing, amazing eggnog.  This year, he was checking it as he added ingredients and got a funny look on his face. A moment later, he picked up the carton of half and half he’d just added and the look changed to disbelief.

“The half-and-half is sweetened.”

I had a moment of horror. Had I accidentally purchased a sweetened creamer like hazelnut or something? “Really? What did I buy?”

“Low-fat half & half. It has corn syrup.”

Yep. Corn syrup. That is nowhere on the front of the carton, by the way. Apparently, it has more corn syrup than cream… Note, too, that the list of ingredients has an asterisk next to “artificial color” and “Vitamin A palmitate” to indicate that these are “not in regular half & half.”

I hate to point this out to you, Southern Home, but corn syrup is also not a usual ingredient in half and half. I think that is what really disturbs me about the way this is packaged. Like, they are trying to sell the idea that corn syrup is just a normal thing in dairy products.

Now, I’ll admit that I didn’t check the ingredients when I picked this up. I thought “low-fat” would mean that the milk half was skim not that you had added corn syrup. Of course, if the front of the carton had said, “Low-fat and pre-sweetened!” then that might have occurred to me.

Meanwhile, the eggnog turned out okay, although it did form a weird skin on top, which we think was from the carrageenan. Next year, I’ll know better and will avoid the Southern Home half & half or at least know that I need to read the ingredients…

Merry Christmas! Here’s the last episode of Writing Excuses Season 6! We decided to end the season with a discussion of endings. Specifically, we answer cries for help that we’ve gotten. The cries answered include:

• I’m 90% done and I’ve painted myself into a corner! How do I end this book without resorting to deus ex machina?
• The best part of this book was 75% of the way through! I need the highlight to be at the END!
• My outline isn’t working here at the end! How do I know when to abandon it?
• Help! I want both a satisfying ending and room for a sequel! (hint: we use an object lesson here…)

via Writing Excuses 6.30: Help! I Can’t End My Book! » Writing Excuses.