Sep 12, 2007
I’m very interested in period clothing. Everything seems more “more,” somehow, lots of embellishments and furbelows. Bustles, ruffles, buttons. Ribbons, lace, rosettes. My heroine Juliet in Spell Check keeps albums that show her fashion sense through the ages. Since she’s been around since 1762, she’s seen all the crazy things people put on their heads, from miniature barques at full sail to beady-eyed birds to Carmen Miranda’s fruit basket.
Head coverings really took off in the Middle Ages after the church decided to follow St. Paul’s peevish dictates from I Corinthians 11:2-16:
Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, 5 but every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is the same as if her head were shaven. 6 For if a woman will not be covered, then let her be shorn!
You know, we’re still paying the price for some of his ideas. St. Paul is not one of my favorite people. But the wimple resulting from his words, which covered all of a woman’s hair, led us eventually to what we use as a bridal veil today.
I love gorgeous hats…but not on my head. I grew up in an era where little girls went to church with hats and gloves. St. Paul would have been proud of me. Now, I don’t even own a hat, and I’ve got gloves only because I live in Maine and I’ll get frostbite if I don’t wear them. In case you’re worried about my ears falling off, my winter jacket has a hood.
I hate wearing hats. Because I wear glasses, I just think I’ve already got enough stuff going on. Plus my head gets hot and my hair sweaty and/or static-y. Very attractive.
But I love to imagine a Regency miss with a feathered and flowered bonnet. Or a 1950s sophisticate with a flirty little black-veiled hat perched at a jaunty angle.
When I read, I refuse to picture all the married women with the little lace caps they should be wearing to be historically accurate. My heroes don’t let bonnets stop them from stealing a kiss in a carriage either, where more than likely they’d have an eye poked out before they ever got close enough to anything resembling lips.
I haven’t seen a man wearing anything but a baseball hat in ages. My father used to have all sorts of felt hats from the Knox Hat Factory, where he would take me once a year so he could get a hat that looked like all the others in his closet. He collected snazzy checked caps, too.
I know people still wear hats in Great Britain. When I watched Charles finally make an honest woman out of Camilla, I was mostly impressed with the creative designs. Alas, the United States seems to have lost its head when it comes to looking “proper.”
Own any fun hats yourself? Toss your comment into the ring.
A veil can bring on more shenanigans than forgetting your silk underpants.
I don’t think that’s what St. Paul had in mind. For a head-hopping trip through time, check out https://www.vintagefashionguild.org/content/view/604/75/
Sep 8, 2007
Exactly one year ago on September 7, 2006, I submitted the first of seventeen chapters in the Avon FanLit contest. It placed near the very, very bottom of all 513 entries. I was crushed and wanted to quit. By October 20, the chapter I wrote for Round 6 came in fourth out of the top ten (thanks to Tessa’s sainted sacrifice). I admit that felt good, but even better, I learned something about the writing process each week. And more about myself.
I’m sure some of my favorite bloggers/writers will be getting reminiscent right about now thinking of last September and October, where all our hopes were placed on two Regency Rebels Without a Cause named Patience and Damien. The Vagabonds have already done VagabondLit, so perhaps we’ve got FanLit Fatigue all over again. But I want it known that this post was begun a month ago at 6:10 AM on August 12, 2007, after I woke up and felt sorry that summer was almost over for me. Forget the fact that I had two full weeks left to do relatively nothing. I wanted more time off. I didn’t want to return to work. I wanted to be sitting in my garden with a book or in my pajamas all day typing away.
But when I thought of things ahead, my mind returned to the mists of time: last fall’s fabulous, frustrating Avon FanLit contest, several weeks of inconsistency, immortality and insanity. The contest, for those of you who don’t know, pitted hundreds of would-be writers against each other to craft a six chapter novella in a kind of round-robin, building the next chapter on the previous week’s winner. There were some glitches in the voting, but it was amazing to read chapters and see how others used the same bare bones, fleshed them out and fattened them up.
I was lucky enough to final twice in the top ten entries in Rounds 3 and 6, and I “know” quite a few of the participants and ultimate winners now, whose work was bound up into These Wicked Games. Here’s a salute to every man and woman who spent two months pouring their hearts out into a hysterical historical, where the husband didn’t recognize his wife, cats ruled the roost, and purple was the color of choice. I’m drinking the whole pot of chocolate in your honor, and soon, I’ll be reading your published books!
To get mushy, the Avon contest kind of changed my life. For the first time ever, I wrote something that other people actually read. I bonded with lots of great writers. I finished my WIP, two novellas and am 75,000 words through another book. I started this blog. This past year has given me some confidence, even with rejections. I’m more serious and focused—comparatively speaking. *g* So, thanks, Avon. Even if I grumbled a bit, I grew.
Any thoughts on writing contests?
Elyssany entered and won! E-mail maggierobinson8@yahoo.com
Love is the only game that is not called on account of darkness~Thomas Carlyle
Aug 30, 2007
There are lots of articles regarding how difficult it is to write good sex scenes. Those of us who try to write know how true this is. My youngest daughter, the brat, used to work in a store where the employees would take turns reading “the good parts” aloud to each other when there was a lull. They’d snort and snicker in superiority, too young to appreciate they were still limber enough that any inane position they were mocking was still technically possible for them.
I came across the following. No author or title…I’m trying to protect the not-so-innocent.
“With unerring accuracy, he speared her humid depths in a single powerful thrust.”
This is wrong on so many levels. I’m thinking targets, forks, weather, rockets.
Contest!!! Please feel free to add a howler for our amusement from anything you are currently reading/have read. Or, write something bad yourself. Just one sentence, please. Oh, okay, more if you must. I’ll even add this authentic gem from my own writing:
“He entered her with no further preamble.”
Preamble! I hope his constitution was strong.
One random wit will receive September’s prizes. Winner and a new post on September 7.
Aug 24, 2007
…of freedom. The summer season will end officially for me on Monday, August 27 when I sit in the high school auditorium and listen to a bunch of people who probably don’t want to be there either. I got the agenda in the mail the other day, and my school e-mail account is filling up with rules and regs for the new school year. Boo.
I shouldn’t whine. I had a great summer with plenty of days in the sunshine and in the gloom of my writing room. I finished two novellas and worked quite a bit on Paradise. Entered two writing contests. Got a clean bill of health from my doctor. Joined RWA. Bought cute sandals. Got a fabulous rejection letter. My husband and I went on two trips, and we will spend Labor Day weekend at Daughter # 2’s, where we will see Daughter #3, drink, eat lobster and dip in the pool and hot tub. Ah, the good life.
Like most people who work in a school system, I think of the new year starting in September rather than January, so it’s time for some resolutions. #1 on my list is to finish Paradise by December. Totally doable—only 20,000 words to go. Next on the agenda? After the dreaded synopsis and query letter, that is. This is where I need your help. Should I sleep with someone new? Pull the guy out from under the bed and work him over? Pick up the short guy and a couple of others and have a ménage a trois?
Just don’t tell my husband.
What was the highlight of your summer? What’s lined up for your school year?
As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away~Emily Dickinson
Aug 21, 2007
We have previously discussed my tea addiction, but I’ve recently discovered I’m also addicted to my homely Revereware tea kettle. Two have served me throughout my marriage, except for my brief fling with a yellow enamel thing that got tossed on the scrap heap long ago. I’m about to indulge myself with my third Revereware kettle, purchased not out of necessity but severe nostalgia and withdrawal.
A few weeks ago my husband noticed that the old kettle had lost its whistling ability. It didn’t matter to me. Usually I’m hanging out by the kitchen window watching the garden grow or the snow swirl while I wait for the water to boil. And I always snatch it off the stove before it goes into the earsplitting shriek mode anyway. Its inefficiency bothered him, however, and before I knew it, he’d thrown away the old one and got me something that was silver and whistled—but it’s just not right. The handle feels hot to me, the spout is tricky to open, and it’s just not right. It is probably more handsome than the Revereware design, which has always reminded me somehow of a ladybug, but I don’t like it. At all. So unbeknownst to my dearest husband, I am expecting a box from Amazon any day now. And then his new kettle will magically disappear.
Life is short. Everybody has something that they just have to have to make time on Earth more comfortable. Some simple thing. A cup of tea. A good book. I’ve recently discovered Carla Kelly’s backlist thanks to my MRMR visitors, and once I post this, I’ll be reading Miss Chartley’s Guided Tour and sipping some caffeine-free peach tea, which still tastes okay even if I had to use the nasty new tea kettle to brew it. What little thing do you just have to have to make things “just right?” Goldilocks and the bears below want to know.
Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity. ~Gustave Flaubert
Aug 19, 2007
The New York Times has an article today about the trend of new television shows to portray marriage in a rather dim light. After reading it, I’m almost tempted to turn on the TV. I’m not a TV snob; I just don’t watch it often. I’ve never seen an episode of
ER, pre-or-post George. The Tribe has not spoken to me. Ever since Katie Couric left the
Today Show I stopped watching, which used to be a tea-and-toast indulgence before I left for work. Sometimes I’ll catch a home improvement thing on BBC America. Last year I was addicted to Bravo’s
Project Runway and thought Santino should have won even if he was abrasive…and they made a dress out of plants…how cool was that? But I’m too antsy to sit still. Now, mind you, I can lie down on a bed with a book for
days.
But getting back to the article. The author Alessandra Stanley cites Scott Baio is Single…and 45, Mad Men, Californication and Tell Me You Love Me as being particularly gimlet-eyed when it comes to commitment, marriage and sex. And the latter is the problem—TV shows seem to indicate if you’re married, you’re not getting any. This is an old construct, from the twin beds of Ricky and Lucy to sad-sack Raymond begging Debra. They all must have had sex at some point though; there’s Little Ricky and the three baby Barones running around. But kids are big lust-killers. As a character from one of the above shows says, buying Cheerios isn’t hot.
There’s a reason romance novels end when they do. Real life tends to be less glossy, more messy. Alpha heroes may morph into Betas, or even Psi-chos. It’s hard to be insouciant when you’re scrubbing the toilet and wondering what to defrost. Partnership in real life requires constant compromise and balance, particularly for women. We’re expected to be domestic and dynamic in our jobs. Dirty in bed. Guys feel the pressure too.
Here’s Ms. Stanley’s chipper closing paragraph:
You’re born alone and die alone. Framed by silence, secrets and solitude, these modern relationships suggest you also love alone. It’s depressing to look too closely at the inner workings of any marriage. Viewers are advised to keep in mind that wedlock is a little like Churchill’s definition of democracy: an institution that is the worst, except for all the others.
Who are your favorite TV, book or movie married couples? Please tell me there actually is a Happily Ever After!
