Eleven months!

I was chatting with an old friend today about blogging and she asked me a question about my blog. It wasn't until I popped on to tell her what font I use (that's the kind of things people with blogs chat about!) that I realized my last post was ELEVEN MONTHS AGO! 

Where did time go? What have I done in that time? Well, to be honest, I didn't do a whole lot of anything for most of the time. I tried to write. But my mojo had gotten up and stormed out the door in diva fashion. Luckily, we went on a trip to England in October and while I was there I started to feel the strings of stories wanting to be told. 

In October I wrote a Christmas short story, A Kiss Worth Chasing. That's now on offer for free to anyone who signs up to my mailing list. See the box to the right of this post? You can sign up over there! 

Then in December I chatted with my print publisher, Flanker Press, and we made a deadline for book 5 in the Heart's Ease series. Between then and now I wrote a novel, flew my editor down work with me, set it to Flanker, set it up as an ebook and am now preparing for it's release next week. In between all of that my son and I battled wicked chest infections, and on the day the book was sent to the printer, I ended up in hospital having emergency surgery. I'm fine. :) 

So that's it for 11 months. I'm going to try my best to blog a bit more regularly. I know. I know. If you follow my blog you know I've said that many times in the past. But hey, at least I keep trying. 

So tell me in the comments. What have you done these past eleven months? 

Romance Writers Weekly: March 3, 2015

I love it when we have photo challenges. :) This week Elizabeth Janette asked us to share photos of our writing space. Well, this certainly is a challenge for me because I don't have a dedicated writing space. As they say, "Have laptop, will travel." So I'm going to share some photos of the various places I've taken pictures of while I'm writing in the past, plus where I'm writing today. At this moment. It's a fleeting moment. :) 

This was taken about ten minutes ago. It's my kitchen table. And it's not normally this pretty. It just happens that there was a tv crew here yesterday so the house is currently in a state of cleanliness that's only stayed this way because the wee one is at the sitter today. 

I write in my car on my iPad. 

I write in the TV room with broken toes iced with berries. Granted, this is a little unusual. But it's happened. And it proves I will write anywhere, at anytime. 

Ohhh. This is one of my favourite spots to write. I love writing in the woods. This is at my parents cabin. Interestingly, after I posted this photo on Facebook a year ago, they painted the deck. I sort of liked it like this. 

This is sort of cheating, since I wasn't writing the day I took this picture. However, this is one of my normal writing spots, and this is the view I have while I'm there. This is at our provincial museum, archives and art gallery. We call it The Rooms. I love it there. It's great for quiet writing. And it's awesome for letting toddlers run wild. 

And that's about it. If I've dashed your hopes of what a romance writer's space is like, fear not. The ever-wonderful Collette Cameron will deliver in spades. I'm a little ashamed that she is following me, because I know her writing space is so over-the-top romantic that it's going to make my willy-nillyness look even worse. I can only dream of a dedicated place to write. But when you're balancing a full time writing career with a busy toddler, well, you do what you can.  

Have a great day everyone! And make sure to make all the stop on the blog hop this week! 

Historical Wednesday: December 10, 2014

Another Wednesday, another fabulous post about the regency era. Thanks so much to my fellow Romance Writers Weekly pal Collette Cameron (author of fantastic regency romances!) for coming along today to share her knowledge with us. I'm so pleased with this post for many reasons, high amongst them Collette's use of images. On Facebook Collette spends a lot of time sharing the most beautiful images with her friends and it always brightens my day. 

The Quill by Collette Cameron

Today I'm talking about Regency writing. No, not writing Regency romance, but actually writing with a quill. You know, a feather.

As an author, it's nearly impossible for me to imagine writing with a quill pen. I can barely write legibly with a fine point gel pen. 

During the Regency Era, though metal nibs had been invented, they were rarely used. Quill pens were preferred and much more economical. 

I had no idea that different sized quills were used for varies sized text. It makes sense. It's not like they had a computer they could change the font size with a simple click of a mouse.  

Goose feathers were a popular choice for quills. (I've had geese and turkeys and often wondered if their quills would have been used for writing. Both were.) The most desirable quills came from swans or peacocks. The tip of the quill (the nib) is trimmed with a knife before writing with the feather. 

Why you ask? Well, how else were they to vary the thickness of the writing? I suppose this was done when one didn't have a smaller feather sitting about. 

Feathers from crows, hawks, owls, pheasants, and eagles were also used. And lest you worry about the foul from whence said feathers were obtained, molted feathers were used. No chasing unsuspecting birds about the barnyard yanking feathers from them. Feathers were sorted into three grades, primes, seconds, and pinions, according to size of the quill. 

The feathers had to be hardened too. This was done by dipping the tip of the feather into hot sand until the outer membrane pulled away. The softened quill was then flattened and the end rounded. Another method to harden the quill was to boil the ends for a minute, and then lay them out to dry. This process was repeated on the finer quality pen, those longest and largest, several times. Hardened quills were more flexible and less brittle.   

Another interesting tidbit I discovered while researching Regency writing implements was that the word pen actually comes from the Latin word penna. Want to guess what it means? You're right: feather. I read contradicting accounts on whether left-handed people preferred feathers from the right wings and right-handed people preferred feathers from the left wing. Some sources said this was true, while others maintained it wasn't. 

I also learned that the barb, the actually feathery part of the pen, was trimmed as the nib was shortened from use. Some people cut away the barb completely before they began to use the pen. Those pictures we see of the huge plumes on the ends of quill pens? 

Nope. Didn't happen. 

To write, the tip was dipped into an ink pot. The quill held a small amount of ink, so redipping every little bit was necessary. (I can just imagine the unholy mess I'd make.) A blotter was used to pick up excess ink. Then, the document was sprinkled with sand to speed up the drying process.  If one needed to transport their quills, a metal quill case was often used. 

I'm trying to picture Jane Austen writing away with her quill.  Have you ever written with a quill pen? What was it like? 

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Award winning, Amazon best-selling, and multi-published historical author Collette Cameron was born and raised in a small town along the northern Oregon coast. To this day, the beach continues to remain one of her favorite retreats. If you've ever lived near the ocean, you understand the irresistible, captivating draw of the sea! An enthusiast of times gone by, Collette currently writes Regency and Scottish historical romances.

Learn more about her on her website. 

Resources: 

http://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/tag/letter-writing-in-the-regency-era/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quill

http://regencyredingote.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/the-quill-the-regency-pen/

http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/tools/quill.htm

All pictures courtesy of Wikimedia Commons