Hello, dear readers! It's been a while since I've done an update here, and I thought I would give you an update on what I've been up to over the past couple of weeks. As you might have seen if you follow my Facebook or Twitter feeds, I've been in England burning some more shoe leather and taking loads of photos to share with you all. I visited five great houses and also spent some time in the Lake District, where I'm planning on setting a portion of A Generation's Secrets.
So watch this space for future Austen Authors posts on the carriage museum I visited, those great houses, and my experiences walking in the Lake District. For now, though, here's a picture of the incredible long gallery at Syon to whet your appetite.
I also went to JASNA's AGM, as it was in Williamsburg this year which is not too far from me (although anyone who dealt with Sunday's I-95 traffic might disagree!). I was fortunate to go with a friend who is as much a Janeite as me, and we decided to dress up the whole time, which I enjoyed even more than I'd expected I would. Although I've certainly worn the clothes all day before and dressed up for the ball at the Washington D.C. AGM a few years ago, I've never actually worn them outside. But given there are already a bunch of people in colonial dress there, it wasn't at all intimidating to walk around in Regency clothing, and it gave me a sense of how it felt to hold a parasol (and how to keep it from bopping one's bonnet).
It also made for some fun moments as we decided to walk up and down Duke of Gloucester Street, which is the main street of the historic area. It turns out a lot of people probably didn't know the difference between Regency and colonial clothing, because we got stopped a number of times by people wanting to take our pictures or have photos taken with us. Our brighter Regency colors and parasols perhaps stood out from the more workman/woman-like clothing most of the people in the colonial area wear.
I think we were not the only ones who dressed up more since it was in Williamsburg, because I felt like I saw a lot more people in period clothes over the whole course of the conference than there had been in D.C. Wearing a new bonnet myself did not prevent me from having bonnet/hat envy as there was some incredible millinery on display.
The conference itself was focused on Northanger Abbey, which isn't my favorite work of Austen's, although it is one I appreciated more the second time I read it. And over the course of the conference I found myself glad that it was on a book I hadn't studied as much, because hearing various analyses made me consider it in different ways, and I think I appreciated it far more by the end of the conference.
The most interesting sessions I attended were:
And of course there was a ball!
I think my favorite part of the ball is actually the procession beforehand. I remember from the Washington DC conference how amazing it was to see so many people dressed in Regency garb. While there we were riding on escalators, though, in Williamsburg there was a torchlight procession through the historic area.
It was so historically authentic that we needed modern gentlemen in Regency clothing to shine their phone flashlights on patches of horse manure so our dresses would not be soiled. I feel reasonably sure that's the first time JASNA has been THAT historically accurate!
That's not it for my traveling and meeting up, however. For once I actually get to do some location research MUCH closer to home, as Baltimore is also one of the settings in A Generation's Secrets, so I'll be popping up there at some point. And I'll be attending the JAFF Reader Writer Get Together in November, so I hope I'll get a chance to see some of you there!
And yes, in and amongst all of this, I've also been getting some writing in. Mild spoilers for what one of the plotlines will be in A Generation's Secrets below...
One of the elements of the AGS plot are found journals of Lady Anne Darcy's (one of the elements that drives the title) and I decided to write the entries as an actual journal, meaning long-hand in a journal. Although not with a quill pen...I've had quite enough of that for now! I think it's helped to form a different voice for them, and one more in keeping with them being journals than if I had just tried to type them out in and amongst the rest of the story. So I'm currently working my way chronologically through the pertinent events in Lady Anne's life, and then I'll be back to the main manuscript, pulling from the journal entries as I need them.
If you can read my handwriting (which I realize is a big if!), you can get a little sneak preview below, and see how the medium helped influence the tone:
I think that's it for now, dear readers! I hope to see some of you in November!
So watch this space for future Austen Authors posts on the carriage museum I visited, those great houses, and my experiences walking in the Lake District. For now, though, here's a picture of the incredible long gallery at Syon to whet your appetite.
I also went to JASNA's AGM, as it was in Williamsburg this year which is not too far from me (although anyone who dealt with Sunday's I-95 traffic might disagree!). I was fortunate to go with a friend who is as much a Janeite as me, and we decided to dress up the whole time, which I enjoyed even more than I'd expected I would. Although I've certainly worn the clothes all day before and dressed up for the ball at the Washington D.C. AGM a few years ago, I've never actually worn them outside. But given there are already a bunch of people in colonial dress there, it wasn't at all intimidating to walk around in Regency clothing, and it gave me a sense of how it felt to hold a parasol (and how to keep it from bopping one's bonnet).
It also made for some fun moments as we decided to walk up and down Duke of Gloucester Street, which is the main street of the historic area. It turns out a lot of people probably didn't know the difference between Regency and colonial clothing, because we got stopped a number of times by people wanting to take our pictures or have photos taken with us. Our brighter Regency colors and parasols perhaps stood out from the more workman/woman-like clothing most of the people in the colonial area wear.
I think we were not the only ones who dressed up more since it was in Williamsburg, because I felt like I saw a lot more people in period clothes over the whole course of the conference than there had been in D.C. Wearing a new bonnet myself did not prevent me from having bonnet/hat envy as there was some incredible millinery on display.
The conference itself was focused on Northanger Abbey, which isn't my favorite work of Austen's, although it is one I appreciated more the second time I read it. And over the course of the conference I found myself glad that it was on a book I hadn't studied as much, because hearing various analyses made me consider it in different ways, and I think I appreciated it far more by the end of the conference.
The most interesting sessions I attended were:
- Jocelyn Harris' opening plenary, where she framed Northanger Abbey in very modern terms like "gaslighting" and "fake news" and had a harsher view of Henry Tilney (as sexist and proud of his education and position as a man) versus my own (and I think many others') take of him as teasing and flirtatious. I didn't necessarily agree, but it made me think.
- Kristen Miller Zohn's talk on portraiture and architecture as it relates to Northanger Abbey, particularly the common trope of portraits coming to life either literally, or in someone viewing a portrait and then immediately meeting the subject. Until she called it out, I had not realized that Austen used this in Pride and Prejudice, nor that I had planned the same within my outline of The Crimes of Elizabeth Darcy without consciously understanding I was doing it. I wonder if Austen's use was conscious or unconscious?
- James Nagle's talk on the British Army. Sometimes I find both Austen talks and Austen books too narrowly focused on just examples from her work, but Nagle did a fantastic job of explaining the much broader context of how the army worked and was structured, and then explained the examples seen in the books.
- Roger Moore's closing plenary on what Austen had to say about the Reformation. Moore also used the example of Northanger Abbey as a fictitious abbey to tell the greater tale about what happened to the abbeys seized by Henry VIII and their legacies.
And of course there was a ball!
I think my favorite part of the ball is actually the procession beforehand. I remember from the Washington DC conference how amazing it was to see so many people dressed in Regency garb. While there we were riding on escalators, though, in Williamsburg there was a torchlight procession through the historic area.
It was so historically authentic that we needed modern gentlemen in Regency clothing to shine their phone flashlights on patches of horse manure so our dresses would not be soiled. I feel reasonably sure that's the first time JASNA has been THAT historically accurate!
That's not it for my traveling and meeting up, however. For once I actually get to do some location research MUCH closer to home, as Baltimore is also one of the settings in A Generation's Secrets, so I'll be popping up there at some point. And I'll be attending the JAFF Reader Writer Get Together in November, so I hope I'll get a chance to see some of you there!
And yes, in and amongst all of this, I've also been getting some writing in. Mild spoilers for what one of the plotlines will be in A Generation's Secrets below...
One of the elements of the AGS plot are found journals of Lady Anne Darcy's (one of the elements that drives the title) and I decided to write the entries as an actual journal, meaning long-hand in a journal. Although not with a quill pen...I've had quite enough of that for now! I think it's helped to form a different voice for them, and one more in keeping with them being journals than if I had just tried to type them out in and amongst the rest of the story. So I'm currently working my way chronologically through the pertinent events in Lady Anne's life, and then I'll be back to the main manuscript, pulling from the journal entries as I need them.
If you can read my handwriting (which I realize is a big if!), you can get a little sneak preview below, and see how the medium helped influence the tone:
I think that's it for now, dear readers! I hope to see some of you in November!
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