On a Happy & Settled Life

Mélanie seeing me off to the Merola Grand Finale last weekend. A fabulous end to a great summer program!

Last week’s survey post yielded some fascinating discussion on the series and characters. One point that particularly intrigue me was the idea of how the various characters might be happy and if it’s even desirable for every major character in the series to have a “happy and settled life.” Of course, in a series, as in real life, there’s no such thing as a “happy ending.” As Cordelia says “there’s always an after.” Even characters with the most seemingly settled lives could find their lives upended, which I think is part of what makes a series interesting, both to read and to write. That, and the fact that characters can arrive at happy lives and loves (at least “happily for now”) over multiple books.

But posters also raised the question of if we even want every character in a series to have a happy and settled life. Is that too easy? Should it be more like real life, with some characters remaining alone, some relationships falling apart, some perhaps proving less ideal than they seemed at the start? How do you feel about this, both in this series and in other series you read?

And even if one ultimately wants the major characters to arrive at a happy and settled life, what does that look like? Right now in the series, Rupert and Bertrand are happier and have a more settled life than they ever expected. They’re together, they’ve worked out an amicable relationship with Rupert’s wife Gabrielle (who has her own lover) and sharing the care of Rupert and Gabrielle’s son. Rupert’s father is essentially out of the picture. But their relationship still has to remain secret from all but their closest friends. It’s still, in fact, a hanging offense. Rupert isn’t on speaking terms with his father. We haven’t really dealt with Bertrand’s parents, but they probably at best only acknowledge the relationship by deliberately turning a blind eye to it. Are Rupert and Bertrand settled and happy?

What about Simon and David? Their relationship in some ways is more stable than that that of most of the married couples in the series. They’ve been together for a decade. But David is under increasing pressure to marry and produce an heir, from his family and from his own sense of responsibility. And there are ongoing political tensions between David, the liberal Whig who is still an aristocrat, and Simon, the Radical reformer.

Laura and Raoul seemed to be tentatively beginning a relationship of sorts at the end of Mayfair Affair. But Raoul was leaving for Spain, where rebellion against the restored monarchy is brewing, and warned Laura that he couldn’t promise he’d survive. He also pointed out that he had very little to offer her, including marriage. He has an estranged wife in Ireland. If Laura and Raoul’s emotional bonds grow but he’s away much of the time and their love affair has to remain more or less secret (like Rupert and Bertrand and Simon and David in a sense) are they settled and happy? If they were somehow able to marry but Raoul still disappeared for long stretches of time running crazy risks would that be settled and happy?

Though it hasn’t been discussed in the Rannoch universe, Bow Street Runner Jeremy Roth also has an estranged wife, who ran off years ago leaving him and their two sons, whom his sister is helping him raise. A number of readers have mentioned they’d like Roth to fall in love, but at present he’s in no position to marry. He too could have a secret relationship. Or, not being part of society, he might more easily be able to live with a lover without being married to her. Would that be settled and happy?

Of course even the couples who are married and more or less settled have tensions. Harry, I think, still wonders about Cordelia’s past, and Harry’s own past in the time they were apart may become an issue in the next book. Malcolm and Suzanne live with the threat of her past being exposed. Not to mention that they are still adjusting to the impact of Malcolm learning about her past (Suzanne says in Mayfair that she has more than she ever thought to have but it will never be the same), and their loyalties are almost bound to conflict at some point.

What do you think? Do you ultimately want settled and happy lives for the major characters? Do you at least want to feel they are moving towards them? Or do you prefer real world messiness? And if the former, how do you define settled and happy?

Have a great weekend!

Tracy

 

The Nanny Conundrum

photo: Raphael Coffey

Last night was the Merola Grand Finale, a concert at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco that marks the end of this summer’s Merola training program. A bittersweet night, as it is exciting to see the Merola participants showcase their bountiful talents and the wonderful way they’ve stretched their artistic wings over the summer and sad to be saying goodbye to them. It is also the day of the year I spend the longest time away from Mélanie (eight plus hours). I am inestimably grateful to my wonderful friend Bonnie who watched her. And the evening made me think back to a post I put up recently on History Hoydens and thought I would repeat here. I tend to think of my posts as about my books, about my life as a writer, or about my life as a mom. Often they touch on two of the three, but this one definitely touches on all three.

Summer is a challenging time for me in terms of childcare. I’m very fortunate that I can write at home (or in cafés, at the play park, even on occasion at places like Children’s Fairyland) and I can also do most of my work for the Merola Opera Program (for which I work part time as Director of Foundation, Corporate & Government Relations) remotely. But Merola is a summer training program, so our summer is full of master classes, performances, and other events I need to attend. This summer, in the midst of the Merola Summer Festival Season, we also had the Opera America Conference in San Francisco. I had a hard time getting childcare sorted out for the weekend of the conference, but at last I had it organized. I walked into the first day of the conference on a Friday afternoon wearing a tailored dress and pumps, my beloved Longchamp tote bag for once more like a briefcase than a changing bag, only to get a text from my nanny for Saturday and Sunday saying she’d come down with stomach flu.

I sat in the first session of the conference listening to some fascinating insights into opera marketing while drafting an email on my cell phone to everyone I could think of with children or grandchildren to see if anyone had a babysitter they trusted to whom they could refer me. Incredibly, while still at that first session, I found someone (through a wonderful friend who emailed me while on vacation in New York). Mélanie had a great time, I got to attend the rest of the conference, and we made wonderful new friends. But the nerve-wracking incident made me think about the challenges of finding childcare and the trust involved in leaving your children with someone. A dilemma that my historical characters share as well.

A children’s nurse has been part of middle and upperclass British households for centuries. In the late 18th century many aristocratic women (such as Lady Bessobrough, Lady Caroline Lamb’s mother) breastfed their children. Rousseau was a great advocate of breast feeding, which was part of the romantic idealization of childhood. Fashionable gowns were even made with nursing bodices “designed to allow mothers to nourish their infants in the most genteel manner.” But a number of mothers employed wet nurses. Some wet nurses were part of the household. In Romeo & Juliet, a couple of centuries earlier, Juliet’s nurse was her wet nurse and has obviously spent far more time with Juliet in her almost fourteen years than either Lady or Lord Capulet. Others sent their children away to a wet nurse. Jane Austen’s mother sent all her children to a wet nurse in the nearby village of Deane. Their mother visited them every day, but the young Austens didn’t come home to live until they were eighteen months old. (Mélanie, who is still nursing, maxes out at about five hours away from me; I think the longest we’ve done is eight).

Even those who breastfed would have a “dry nurse” to manage things in the nursery. Later if the family could afford it, governesses would take over not just education, but a great deal of the day to day care of the children in the family. Often the would remain close to their charges long after they grew up. Harriet Cavendish, who I blogged about a few weeks ago, wrote to her former governess Selena Trimmer about her hopes and qualms when she accepted Granville Leveson-Gower’s proposal.

Hiring someone to look after one’s children is a great leap of trust. There’s a level of intimacy in a child bonding with someone else that I don’t think really hit home of me until I faced the conundrum of childcare myself. Whatever one may say about changes in parenting and attitudes toward the parent-child relationship, the love of parents like the Austens for their children is plain from their letters. I can’t believe they didn’t feel some of the same concerns I’ve experienced myself. I’ve been fortunate to find a number of wonderful people to help take care of Mélanie. But it’s still a bit nerve-wracking whenever I leave her with a new person. Perhaps it’s not surprising that my WIP concerns Laura Dudley, the governess/nurse to the two young children of my central couple, Malcolm and Suzanne Rannoch, being accused of murder. Malcolm and Suzanne are convinced Laura is innocent. They care about her, but both have faced the fact that one can never really know even those closed to one. And yet—

“I know it sounds absurd for me to be so certain. But for all Laura’s reserve, I can’t believe she’s a cold-blooded killer,” Suzanne said.

“Why such certainty?” Malcolm asked.

Suzanne’s fingers froze on the jet buttons on her waistcoat bodice. “Because I trusted her with our children.”

It’s an intimate bond, paying someone to watch one’s children. One of Mélanie’s nannies recently moved away. It felt like saying goodbye to a family member. We gave her a necklace with two hearts, one for her and one for Mélanie. Trust is priceless.

What are some of your favorite nurse and governess characters in fiction? Parents, how do you manage childcare? Writers, if you have children, do your thoughts about them and their care taking creep into your writing?

 

Savoring the Moment

Saturday night as part of my work for the Merola Opera Program, I had tremendous fun and the great privilege of interviewing the internationally acclaimed bass-baritone Eric Owens, who is teaching at Merola this summer. Besides being an amazing artist (his Porgy in Porgy & Bess at San Francisco Opera is indelibly etched on my memory), he is a tremendously nice person. He had a lot of fascinating things to say about singing, young artist training, and a career in opera, including the importance of appreciating the moment and not constantly worrying about what’s coming next or where one wants to be in five or ten years. It really resonated with me as a writer. I remind myself to savor things like the fist glimpse of a book cover, the arrival of ARCs, publication day. And most of all to enjoy writing the book. Publishing is such a crazy, unpredictable business that it’s easy to get stressed out or worry about where one wants to be or thinks one should be and to lose sight of the magic of creating a story (not that there isn’t a lot of hard work mixed in with the magic :-)).  As soon as I finish this post, I’m going to try to do that with my WIP!

Hope everyone is managing to savor the summer a bit. For those of you in the states with a long holiday weekend for the 4th of July, hope you have a wonderful time. If you have a chance, head over to History Hoydens where I’m blogging this week about some of the fascinating historical figures within 6 Degrees of Harriet Granville, who has appeared in several of my books.

 

Writing craft – sense memories

Lately, I’ve been struck by the way smells and sights and sounds bring feelings from the past welling to the surface, even before my mind consciously frames the memory. The whiff of jet fuel as Mélanie and I walked to the gate on our recent trip to New York brought the anticipation of childhood travel. The sight of autumn leaves clustering on trees and lying in drifts on the ground while bare branches make a tracery against the rose gold sky (in Ashland, in New York, at home) evokes thoughts of pumpkin lattes, crisp days at football games, evenings by the fire, and a whiff of anticipation of the holidays, along with the more grown up reminder that there’s a lot to get done before the end of December. Lately, whenever I walked downstairs in the morning, the cool air combined with the heat rising from the ground floor instantly conjures up the wonder of Christmas morning.

I try to weave in all of the five senses when I write. Sometimes I even make lists of what sights, sounds, tastes, touches, and smells I can use in a particular scene (I did this a lot years ago when I was consciously making an effort to do more with the five senses to evoke my settings). But I don’t know that I think enough about how the five senses can evoke memories from my characters’ pasts. Without consciously trying to, I did use a scene in the theatre in my forthcoming The Berkeley Square Affair to bring up Suzanne’s childhood memories:

Even an almost empty theatre had its own smell. Sawdust, the oil of rehearsal lamps, drying paint, the sweat of active bodies that could never quite be banished. After all these years, it still sent an indefinable thrill of magic through Suzanne. Jessica seemed to sense it from her mother, for she gave a crow of delight in Suzanne’s arms and waved her hands.

I’m going to try to do more of this, evoking memories specific to different characters’ pasts. The autumn leaf image could translate to many historical settings. So could the cold air and warmth of a banked fire. What would evoke the excitement of travel? The jangle of bridles? The smell of carriage leather or horses? The thud of portmanteaux being loaded?

What specific sense memories evoke the past for you? What conjures up thoughts of autumn and the holidays? Writers, do you try to use the five sense to evoke your character’s pasts?

 

The daunting prospect of a blank screen….

Driving to the vet’s Wednesday with three cats and a toddler (an adventure in and of itself, though we got through the cats’ check ups with everyone in a surprisingly good mood), I heard an interesting interview on NPR with the writer Dani Shapiro. One of the things she talked about was how difficult it is to walk to her desk in the morning and begin to write, how easy it is to get distracted on the way. This particularly resonate with me, as I am beginning to write the next Malcolm and Suzanne book after months of revisions and copy edits. I love the adventure of starting a new book, but there’s no denying the daunting nature of a blank screen. Instead of opening my computer to pages to revise, I open it to the limitless, exciting, and terrifying prospect of words to be written. I love being in my characters’ world. But making the mental jump into that world can be daunting. And with a young child, one can’t afford to spending writing time being daunted.

The trick I’ve settled into to get myself going is to tell myself I only have to write 100 words, then I can check my email, look at Facebook or Twitter, surf the web, or some other tantalizing, short (the key is to keep it short) break. 100 words is much less terrifying than 1000 (which is what I usually try to write a day). Usually somehow I can come up with something to say (it’s even better if I’ve thought it through on the drive to the Peet’s where I do most of my writing). Then a quick break, then another 100 words. Usually by the time I get to 500 I don’t need the breaks anymore or at least I write 200 or 300 words between breaks. On a really good day, I get on a roll after the first 100 words and scarcely need a break at all (sometimes go on to 1500, 2000, etc…). But knowing I can take a break can be the difference between starting to write and spending an hour or so staring at the screen or surfing the web or scrolling through social media. Of course the breaks between 100 word burst also take up precious time (particularly precious if it’s baby nap time). But I find I need to stop and think in any case. My subconscious is working while I read an article in the NYT or browse a fashion site. Or so I tell myself, and I do often find it easier to write again after the break. And telling myself I only have to write 100 more words, gets me to click back into Scrivener after my mini-break.

And so, after our trip to the vet’s, I returned the cats home, and managed to follow a chaotic morning with a reasonably productive afternoon. Today I was able to dive into the new book with reasonable ease after Mélanie and I spent the morning at the Pumpkin Patch. I have no illusions that every day will be this easy. But somehow, 100 words at a time, this book will get written.

What tricks do you use to get yourself to write?

 

Forensics & the Historical Sleuth

photo: Raphael Coffey Photography

In a blog interview I did around the release of  The Paris Affair, Heather Webb asked a question that got me to thinking about forensics in historical mysteries. So much of present day mysteries, in books, on television, in movies, involves analyzing forensic evidence. My Malcolm and Suzanne Rannoch have no CSIs, medical examiners, or forensic anthropologists to assist them in gathering and analyzing data. On the other hand, even without 21st century technology sleuths can still forensic evidence. C.S. Harris has a doctor character whose analysis of corpses is often of key help to Sebastian St. Cyr. The Victorian Sherlock Holmes was, as my father liked to say, a classic empiricist, his solutions built from the data he gathers. Both John Watson and Mary Russell frequently record him bemoaning the lack of data.

Like other literary investigators  in the 19th century and earlier, Malcolm and Suzanne look at footprints, find stands of hair or threads of fabric caught on cobblestones of table legs or left behind on sheets. Of course they can’t do DNA or chemical analysis, but they can do is compare the color of the hair or fabric or look at where the mud left behind by a shoe might have come from. If they’re really lucky someone drops a distinctive earring. They can use lividity and rigor to roughly arrive at time of death They can sometimes determine from a wound whether the killer is left or right handed.

Of course as a writer there are times the lack of sophisticated forensic analysis presents challenges in how one’s detectives will solve the mystery. On the other hand, sometimes it can complicate matters in a good way. A killer in a crime of impulse, who probably would not be wearing gloves, would most likely to caught much more easily today than in the days before fingerprinting, let alone DNA analysis.

Writers, how do you deal with the lack of modern day technology in your books? Readers, what are some of your favorite examples of forensic analysis in an historical setting?

 

Charting Malcolm’s & Suzanne’s pasts

photo: Raphael Coffey

One of the interesting questions Cara Elliott/Andrea Penrose asked when she interviewed me on Word Wenches about The Paris Affair concerned how I developed Malcolm’s & Suzanne’s pasts and how I developed them. In addition to the fascination of researching history, I love creating my characters’ history. I knew from the start that Malcolm & Suzanne’s allegiances would be divided, Malcolm a British diplomat and spy, Suzanne a French agent. Then I began to think about what kind of people would end up their situations. The divide between them seemed to be to strongest if Malcolm came from the heart of the British aristocracy – he doesn’t have a title himself, but his mother’s father is a duke, he’s connected by family or friendship to a good portion of the beau monde, he went to Harrow and Oxford.

Whereas with Suzanne, I had to figure out a background that would have made someone an agent in her teens. It made sense that she had been orphaned and left to fend for herself in the tumult of the Peninsular War. She also needed to have considerable acting ability, so I made her parents traveling actors. I think the fact that she had a nurturing childhood for her first fifteen years and then had her world violently wrenched apart says a lot about her. In some ways she has a very hard edge, but though she might deny it, she’s better than Malcolm at believing in happy endings. Whereas Malcolm grew up in luxury but with parents who were a lot more emotionally distant. The irony is that Malcolm’s and Suzanne’s political ideals are remarkably similar. They’re both reformers, Radical reformers for their day, with a keen belief in human rights. They just have different very different approaches to how to bring about social and political change.

Authors, how do you go about creating backstories for your characters? Readers, what are some of your favorite examples of characters shaped by their personal histories?

 

The ethics of being a spy

photo: Raphael Coffey Photography

One of the things I love about doing book release interviews (aside from the sheer delight of the chance to babble on about my own books) is how the questions can cause me to think about my own books in a fresh light. In the very fun interview about The Paris Affair that I did with her recently on Word Wenches, Cara Elliott/Andrea Penrose asked some wonderful questions, in particular about the themes of loyalty and betrayal that run through my books and why I chose the Napoleonic Wars as a setting for those stories. Meditating on those questions turned into a post on History Hoydens that I thought was worth reworking here.

I first gravitated to the Regency/Napoleonic era through my love of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer. But I also love spy stories, both James Bond adventure and the sort of intricate chess games and moral dilemmas John le Carré dramatizes so brilliantly. The Napoleonic Wars offers are a wonderfully rich setting for both types of story. So many different sides, so many different factions within sides. The French under Napoleon had been bent on conquest, but they had also brought much-needed reforms to many countries. Some liberal Spaniards saw supporting the French in the Peninsular War as the quickest route to progressive reform. And after the Napoleonic Wars, a number of the victors wanted to turn the clock back to before the French Revolution  and saw any hint of reform as one step away from blood in the streets. Friends easily melt into enemies and back again. Napoleon’s longtime foreign minister Prince Talleyrand  later became prime minister under the Bourbon restoration. Joseph Fouché who had been ruthless in using terror against enemies of the Bonapartist government, was equally ruthless in going after Napoleon’s supporters who were proscribed from the amnesty after Waterloo. In the midst of breakneck adventure, a love affair can have political consequences, a tactical decision can shatter a friendship, it can come down to a question not of whether or not commit betrayal but only of who or what to betray.

I’ve always been fascinated by moral dilemmas. And I’m intrigued by how romantic fidelity and betrayal can parallel other types of fidelity and betrayal (whether between husbands and wives or in their relationship with other characters or with a country or cause). I like writing stories of intrigue set in tumultuous times, but I think in those sorts of times (probably always but then more than ever) choices don’t tend to come down to easy, clear-questions of right and wrong. It’s interesting to see how characters wrestle with those issues and how the personal and the political intertwine. The possibility that a loved one or friend isn’t who you thought they were is perhaps one of our deepest fears in a relationship. And yet most of us are somewhat different people in different aspects of our lives and have different loyalties – to spouses, children, lovers, friends, causes, countries, work. Sometimes it isn’t so much a question of betrayal as of deciding which loyalty comes first. It’s not so far from the seemingly lofty sentiment of “I could not love thee, dear, so much, Lov’d I not Honour more” to betraying a lover for a cause.

Or so Suzanne might argue. Malcolm might have more difficulty with the idea. He takes personal loyalties very seriously, though he was the one who went off to the field at Waterloo and risked himself (though he wasn’t a soldier) leaving his wife and son behind in Brussels. In the midst of the carnage, he wondered which loyalty he should have put first. While Suzanne, for different reasons, was wondering much the same thing. It’s a question that continues to haunt both of them in The Paris Affair and to fascinate me as a writer.

Which brings me to one of the discussion questions for The Paris Affair. Suzanne says, “Sometimes honesty can make things worse.” Malcolm replies, “Than living a lie? Difficult to imagine.” Would their situation improve if Suzanne told Malcolm the truth? Or would it make it impossible for them to go on living together

On another note, you may have noticed that the site has a new For Teachers section with information for teachers and anyone interested in a structured read of the Malcolm & Suzanne books with additional materials. It repeats the Historical Notes and Reading Group Discussion Questions found on the detail pages for each book and also includes new Quizzes for each book. These were a lot of fun to put togehter and are a fun way to test your knowledge of all things Malcolm & Suzanne – though be ware, they definitley contain spoilers.

 

 

 

The writing mom – the need to decompress

photo:Raphael Coffey

Ever since I was in my early thirties, my hair has had enough gray that I’ve had it colored every four weeks or so (I was actually excited when I started doing it, because it allows me to play up the auburn). I love to read fashion magazines while the color is baking. But lately, post-Mélanie particularly, I’m more likely to be found juggling a baby and a laptop and trying to get some precious writing time in.

Today I definitely felt I should make use of any time I could get, with promo to do for The Paris Affair and my WIP due in April. I arrived at the salon distinctly frazzled. I was up late working last night and overslept this morning. I went through a flurry of dressing Mel and me, feeding cats, and packing baby snacks, diapers, computer, and other essentials. And on the drive to the salon, my scratchy throat told me I was fighting a cold. When my hair stylist mentioned how she had slowed down to fight off a cold, I realized some decompressing time would probably make me more productive – not to mention happier! – in the long run. So instead of pulling out my laptop, I sipped a cup of green tea and flipped through a copy of Elle. Mel liked the pictures too!

It was amazing how much better I felt after that little break. Enough so that I was able to plan out this blog post while styling my hair :-). A good reminder that sometimes slowing down can actually make one more efficient.

What do you do to decompress? And do you find it as hard as I do to remember to do it?

Have a great weekend!

 

New Year, new thoughts on plotting

Happy New Year! Much as I love the holiday season, I always find I relish quiet, cool January days, settling back into work with a steaming cup of tea and plentiful (or at least more plentiful than in December) time. My WIP, the next Malcolm & Suzanne book, now has a working title, The London Gambit, and I’ve started the new year off by going over my draft of the book so.

I always say I’m the sort of writer who plots in advance, but the truth is a bit more complicated. I do need to do quite a bit of advance thinking and note taking before I can start to draft scenes. I lay out plot ideas on the wonderful Scrivener corkboard and move them around and start to build the story. But at a certain point I need to start actually drafting some of the scenes. It’s as though I need to flesh out the scenes to see how they work, how the characters interact, how different plot strands twist together. Often the very process of writing the scenes gives me additional plot ideas . And in and around writing, I’m continuing to think about the plot and making notes.

I write many of these early scenes out of order – skipping parts of the story I’m not sure of and fleshing out the scenes I know I need. Often I’m not sure where a given scene will fall in the arc of the story when I first draft it. In the past couple of weeks I’ve begun to organize the scenes I have. I spent a couple of days last week not trying to write at all, just playing with index cards on the corkboard and seeing how the story can fit together. A clear structure for the first “act” of the book emerged pretty quickly – which required some additional scenes to connect what I’d already written and sent me back to drafting new material, while I also edited the scenes I’d already written. Now I’m mulling how the second act fits together, though the turning point into Act III is clearly marked.

So for me, plotting the book and drafting scenes are inextricably intertwined, which was never more clear to me than working on The London Gambit over the past few days. While I don’t think I could write without plotting in advance, I also don’t think I could comfortably plot an entire book without fleshing out some scenes along the way. And just as stepping back and thinking about the plot gives me ideas for scenes, sometimes writing a scene gives me plot ideas.

Writers, how do you approach plotting? Has your approach changed through the years? Readers, any questions about plotting?

And to welcome in the new year, I’ve just posted a new Fraser Correspondence letter from Mélanie/Suzanne to Dorothée written in early January 1816.