I’ve tried to write every day for the past week but I’m completely empty. Blocked. Nada. Caput. How do I move on when writer’s block strikes? Not just this blog post, but also my second novel for which I just received the developmental edit letter from the world’s best Dev-Editor (no I will not be… Read the full blog post …
Named after the small village of Gwennap located just outside Redruth in Cornwall, the Gwennap Pit came into existence as a natural depression formed by a collapse into an abandoned underground mine shaft. The massive pit was a chaotic cavity of stone and earth in a disorderly array. How long it existed as such is… Read the full blog post …
August 3, 2020, I did a post with the first half of Chapter I of Elizabeth Bennet’s Bad Days. My apologies that I’ve been so long in getting more of this story done. August was when I had just gotten to Illinois and moved into my daughter’s house until I could get a bit done… Read the full blog post …
“If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad.” So writes Jane Austen in her delightful novel Northanger Abbey, as her heroine Catherine Morland sets off on her quest to become the heroine in her own story. And I, likewise, am setting off for adventures as well.… Read the full blog post …
I decided it would be fun to do a top ten list featuring some of the best moments in Pride and Prejudice. Seeing as the novel has so many great moments, it was a bit hard to limit myself to ten, but I forced myself to do so! I’ve included a snippet from the book for… Read the full blog post …
I cannot believe April is over already. What a whirlwind of a month––including days where we experienced at least three seasons in less than twenty-four hours. So here we are in May (the lusty month of May as they sing in Camelot, which I happened to go see last Sunday at our regional theatre), and… Read the full blog post …
The assembly is used as a major plot point in a lot of Pride & Prejudice variations. It seems to be an important part of most stories in this genre, and why not? Jane Austen used it to introduce us to Mr.Bingley and his friend, Mr. Darcy, and to set in motion pretty much everything… Read the full blog post …
If an earworm is a musical tune that you hear playing over and over in your mind, a bee in a bonnet is a parallel idiom, expanding to a thought or topic that one can’t quite set free, like a bee buzzing around in the brain, trapped. The host subject proceeds to bring the topic… Read the full blog post …
With Mother’s Day just around the corner in the US, I thought it might be fun to explore some of the mothers in Austen’s books. Jane Austen wrote a lot of mothers and mother-figures. Some are so loveable, you want to squeeze them in a big bear hug. Others, you might like to rip to… Read the full blog post …
“In vain I have 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.” – Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 34 Say what you will about Mr. Darcy’s first proposal to Elizabeth. Presumptuous—yes. Misguided—no doubt. Disdainful—well, sure, from Elizabeth’s perspective. But… Read the full blog post …
Today I thought I would talk about the Grand Tour, a rite of passage for many young men and women of a certain level of society in the time immediately preceding the events of Pride and Prejudice. You likely already know something of this subject, and there may even be posts on this site discussing… Read the full blog post …
Like many of my fellow Janeites, I recently indulged in season 2 of the series Bridgerton. Although Bridgerton does a marginally better job to follow Regency customs and etiquette than other shows (Sanditon, I’m looking at you), it does little more than find inspiration in the era. Instead, Bridgerton builds a fantasy world based on… Read the full blog post …
In many books set in Regency England, both JAFF and non-JAFF, characters frequent bookstores. They carry books with them, in their pockets and in their luggage, and they have libraries in their homes. I have long been curious about those books, what they looked and felt like, their sizes, and their weights, and thought maybe… Read the full blog post …
