Do you ever get paranoid? I tell you, the internet can do that to a person. I don’t know what’s going on, but there’s currently a whole list of things I’m paranoid about!

(1) I get a blunt-sounding email from a friend, and I wonder why she’s angry with me (even though logically I know that it’s impossible to determine tone from email).

(2) My writing critique partner didn’t ask me to critique her latest book. What does it mean? Was my last critique useless? Did I make her angry about something? Did I do something wrong?

(3) Someone on a chat board I’m on posted that she’s ignoring the posts of a certain other poster. I immediately assume it must be me, even though there’s no logical reason for me to think so. We’ve never had a run-in (that I know of!). We’ve always been friendly. But have I said something? Does my personality annoy or offend her? Is it me?! Argh.

I wish there was a pill to take to eliminate paranoia. I don’t need it in my life. But to my friend, my critique partner, and my board-mate: If I upset you, please forgive me! I didn’t mean to! I really like all three of you and don’t want to cause discord! Hugs and chocolate all around! I’ll even splurge on a cafe-mocha-vodka-valium latte (nonfat and sugar free!) for all of us. 🙂

Okay, I feel a little better now. Back to writing. I have a deadline in…3 days!

An average day in Jennifer’s life:

6:30: Mr. Haymore wakes me up. I’m not very happy about this and I turn over and try to go back to sleep. He’s forced to yank the covers off me and drag me to the shower.
7:00: Get the kids dressed, breakfast made, lunches made. Make sure everyone’s backpack is ready to go.
8:00: Drive carpool. Me and six kids in my car. Fortunately, I’ve discovered that books on tape is one way to calm them down. We’re currently listening to Lemony Snicket’s The Grim Grotto. Poor Sunny!
8:30: Go to the post office, run to the store to buy a birthday card for the preschooler’s teacher.
9:00: Take the preschooler to school. We arrive late, as usual.
9:30: Get home, finally get a cup of coffee and open my emails. As always, there are bunches of time-consuming issues to deal with and responses to make.
10:30: Finally get to work. Today I’m finishing up edits on a manuscript. I’d like to finish before picking up the preschooler. I don’t.
12:30: Pick up preschooler.
1:00: Pick up the two boys early from school and hurry them home to brush their teeth for dentist appointment.
1:30: Dentist appointment. I have computer propped on my lap in hopes of finishing the edits (I don’t).
3:00: Leave dentist, expressing disappointment in the oldest’s toothbrushing capability. He has four cavities. FOUR!
3:15: Run around like a chicken without its head looking for the middle child’s gear for baseball. He needs about 20 different items for these games, and never can find about half of them. Nor can the oldest find his fencing gloves (which I told him to put in a safe place!).
3:45: Arrive at baseball game in the cold. Bundle up and set computer on my blanket-covered lap in hopes of finishing edits (I don’t). Supervise the oldest doing homework while the game starts. The preschooler finds a friend and is occupied.
5:30: Mr. Haymore arrives at game, which is going fairly well, despite my son having a tantrum because he hasn’t gotten a hit. I immediately leave to take oldest to fencing class.
6:00: Fencing starts. My computer battery dies and there are no plugs (hence I’m still not able to finish those blasted edits!), so I watch my son fence instead.
7:30: Arrive home from fencing. Make dinner, get everyone ready for bed.
8:00: Deal with broken vacuum cleaner. It’s a true family affair as we debug the problem.
9:00: Kids are in bed, I’m exhausted, and…

My writing day begins!!

I mostly write when the house is quiet and no one’s around to use as a distraction. Last night, though, I was sooo tired. Instead of writing 3000 words (my goal) and finishing the edits, I wrote about…oh, zero and got through only about 2/3 of the edits. By by nine, I just couldn’t face any more, so I took a respite and watched the Oscars (Mr. H. DVRed them for me while I was off somewhere writing). Unfortunately, they cut off just as they were about to announce the winner for best actress. I could have cried. Thank goodness for internet…but it still wasn’t the same as seeing it live (well, DVRed, but live to me, anyway!).

Maybe I’ll get that 3000 words written today… Sigh! I tell you, some days I think it’s a miracle I’ve managed to write anything at all…

Pretty much sums up my 2009 so far…

So I just finished researching marriage traditions of the 18th century. There are actually two marriages in this book…ahhh, but no spoilers today!

As usual, I ended up getting distracted–this time by marriage rites of various cultures during that same century, and I came across a description of the marriage ceremony of the Hotentots:

The Suri, or master of religious ceremonies, pisses on the bridegroom, who receives the stream with eagerness and rubs it into the furrows of the fat with which he is covered. He performs the same ceremony on the bride, who is equally respectful.

Sketches of the History of Man By Henry Home Kames, 1813

Um….yeah.
Just makes me happy I write romances that take place in the United Kingdom! The culture and society was different from ours…but rather easier to portray as romantic, in my opinion. 😉

One of my favorite romance blogs is Risky Regencies, where they’re talking today about “The First Time,” i.e. the virginal heroine and how she is portrayed in historical romance.

Kate, the heroine of my current book, is my very first virginal heroine. Kate is a woman whose rampant curiosity nearly overwhelms the entire experience of her deflowering. So I find this topic particularly interesting, because they’re talking about what makes and breaks a “first” sex scene in historical romance (particularly Regencies).

Along a similar vein, I’ve been reading about women’s ideals of romance and maidenhood, and how they were viewed by writers in the 19th century. Here’s one opinion:

Madame St. Henry was as sweet and amiable a woman as I have ever known. She bore her husband’s ill-treatment as saints do their earthly injuries, and made him such a wife as all men desire but few deserve.

She had one–fault, shall I call it? No; it was a weakness: her sensibility of disposition was the grave of her happiness. In the days of her romantic maidenhood she had indulged this passion so fatal to the serenity of human life; so that when the blast of the world came she had no strength to resist it. She had formed an idea of the happiness of married life, such as all women of refined and sensible dispositions will form; and she was disappointed, as all such women assuredly will be.

So highly wrought had been her feelings that she found no fortitude within herself to sustain this cruel shock. Soon after having given birth to the subject of this memoir she died, and was perhaps glad to get to her grave.

—The London Magazine By John Scott, John Taylor, 1824

So much for romanticism, huh? Sigh…

The heroine of the book I’m currently writing, A Touch of Scandal, is a lady’s maid. In A Touch of Scandal, Kate has just been upgraded to the position, and unfortunately, she’s not very good at it.

So off I ventured into Google Books, looking for more information about lady’s maids. And look what I found! Perhaps if Kate took some advice from Punch, she’d fare better. For example:

“…you should pocket any trifle that is left carelessly out of its place. I do not mean to say you should become a thief, for if found out you would lose your place … but you may take care of a thing till it is missed … It is then time enough for you to find it in some hole or corner into which it has of course got by accident.”

(Very wily…hmm…perhaps Kate can “find” something her mistress is searching for…something ever-so critical…)

“You should endeavour at all times to save your mistress trouble by acting for her as much as you can … dress as much like her as possible. Order about other servants just as she would herself and talk to tradespeople exactly as if they were being spoken to by your mistress…”

(Of course! If Kate acts in this way, then it won’t surprise a soul when she marries a man with a title!)

“Manners form an essential part of the qualities of a lady’s maid, and making one’s self agreeable is the best mannered thing one can possibly accomplish. This is to be done by praise, for nothing is more agreeable to a lady than flattery. However sensible your mistress may be, she is sure to have a share of female vanity; and even if she knows herself to be ugly altogether, she will fancy she has some redeeming feature. If she squints, praise her complexion; if that is bad, tell her she has beautiful eyes; if she has a dumpty figure, praise her face; and if her countenance is as ugly as sin, tell her that her shape is exquisite.”

(Yet another way for my Kate to win her mistress’s favor…isn’t Punch brilliant?)

These are excerpts from an article entitled “The Lady’s Maid” from a Punch Magazine dated 1845: Punch By Mark Lemon, Henry Mayhew, Tom Taylor, Shirley Brooks, Francis Cowley Burnand, Owen Seaman.

Too bad it was written a good 20+ years after Kate’s lady’s maid dilemmas are solved, or I might actually have her consult Punch for advice at some point. 😉

First off, Happy New Year! I’m excited to be here, excited to have a new website, excited about my upcoming book…I’m just excited! I’m so glad it’s 2009, too. 2008 was a wild ride, and I need to rest for a while, I think.

I hope to jam pack this blog with all sorts of…um…interesting things. You see, in the course of my research for A Hint of Wicked, I visited Google Books quite a lot. Google Books is this massive archive of all kinds of books, from way back when to the here and now. I usually looked for books in the 1800-1825 range to search for information for A Hint of Wicked. The kinds of things I looked up were along the lines of “bigamy divorce annulment 1800-1825” or “arm arteries stopping bleeding” or “opium overdose cure” (thus in A Hint of Wicked, you’ll find the solution of drenching an opium addict in ice water!).

As I slogged through countless works written in that time period, I came across some extraordinary opinions, writings, and facts. Things that were a very strong reminder that times have changed and that people aren’t the same now as they were in the early 19th century. Things that if I suggested I write about to my editor, she’d probably dismiss me as the biggest lunatic of a writer she’d ever worked with.

I’d like to share some of those things here, because I think they are not only interesting, but funny, enlightening, and sometimes frightening. I hope you agree, and I hope you’ll come back to visit me again!

Stay tuned for the first blog post coming soon!