Website Woes by Renee Duke

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I’m sure everyone here knows how important author websites are for getting an author’s name ‘out-there’ and so, like many a modern-day writer, I have a website to encourage readers to learn more about me and my books.

Unlike many such writers, I am non-tekky, and therefore didn’t even try to set one up myself. I got my son to do it for me but, being some three hundred and eighty-nine miles away, he did the tweaking of it with me over speaker phone when he was ready to activate it.

The conversation went something like this:

SON: Are you on the site now?

MUM: Yes.

SON: Then log in.

MUM: There isn’t anything that says ‘Log-in’.

SON: There has to be. You did use the link I sent you, right?

MUM: It presented me with several options. The one I picked doesn’t say anything about logging in.

SON (after audible sigh): Try another.

MUM: Oh, yes, this one has a log-in button…It says the password isn’t valid.

SON: It is valid. You didn’t put it in right.

MUM: Spell it out for me as I type.

MUM (after he did so): That isn’t how that word is spelled. That word only has one ‘n’. How many times have I told you SPELLING IS IMPORTANT?

(I’ve personally lost count, having been doing so since he was in kindergarten.)

SON: Well, that’s how I’ve got it set up, so that’s what we have to go with.

MUM: But it’s not right.

SON: Just log in, Mother.

MUM: Oh, very well. There. A bunch of little coloured things just started jumping around.

SON: Good. That means it’s loading.

(Once it had loaded, I viewed the Home page and whined because it did not showcase all of my books.)

SON: That’s because I wanted call attention to the latest one (shown). There’s a ‘Books’ page for showcasing all of them. You want to entice people to explore your site, don’t you?

MUM: Yes. I’ll take a look at the Bio page now, then…Hmm. I hit ‘Bio’. Nothing happened.

SON: Hit it from where?

MUM: The tool bar.

SON: That isn’t active yet. You have to do it from the Menu button. When you hit that, it should say ‘Pages’, and after you hit ‘Pages’, a drop down list will appear with ‘Bio’.

MUM: Oh, yes! That worked.

SON: Now you go to…DAMN IT, CAT!

MUM: Jumped on your lap did she?

SON: No, the laptop.

MUM: Oh. Well, anyway, I’m there now.

(Some wrangling back & forth regarding bio photos. I wanted more, he wanted less. He won.                                                                                                                                                     We then moved on to tweaking the text. He told me how to change it, but…well…)

MUM: Okay, I’m back in the text box. Oh, wait, no, I’m not.

(Interval during which I managed to find the section I wanted and typed in the additional text.)

MUM: Okay, now I just…DAMN, IT CAT!

(From whom did you think he learned the expression?)

SON: What did she do?

MUM: Stepped on the keyboard…Uh, there’s something popped up here about having made changes in two windows, and which one do I want to save.

SON: (Pause) Well, that’s never happened before.

MUM: You weren’t on here with me before.

SON: True. Don’t bother about it. E-mail me what changes you want. I’ll take care of it.

MUM:  No, no, I can handle this.

(We then proceeded to undo whatever it was I did, with him ‘guiding’ me.)

SON & MUM (simultaneously): DAMN IT, CAT!

(It was like the two wretched felines sensed each other and were co-ordinating their sabotage.)  

MUM: I’m afraid that startled me so much I hit something that made the screen go away.

SON: Go away?

MUM: Yes. How should we go about getting it back?

SON: We shouldn’t. I think it would be better if you just let me do this, Mum.

MUM: It’s all yours, dear.

The end result is at: https://www.renee-duke.com/.

Regency Travel Part 1 - the Horses by Victoria Chatham

AVAILABLE HERE 

I was once asked if I could write a story without horses in it. As I write historical, and specifically Regency, romance, the answer was a resounding no. From the smallest child’s pony to the largest draught horse, the horse was a necessity of life.

Just as now, a horse was an expense that many families could not afford. To this end, job masters hired out horses at twelve guineas a month, a carriage and pair plus a coachman for about forty guineas a month. Those that could afford their own horses would pay anything from one-hundred guineas for a well-trained carriage horse up to one-thousand guineas for a matched pair and four-thousand or more for a team of four.

The best carriage horses were good to look at, had showy action, were even-tempered and sound. Any reader of Regency romance may be familiar with Georgette Heyer’s description of ‘sixteen-mile-an-hour tits’ in several of her novels. Basically, this is a horse that can cover sixteen miles in an hour. Thanks to an edict by Henry VIII requiring the wealthy to keep good trotting stallions, which made better war horses capable of carrying a heavy man, the likes of the Yorkshire and Norfolk Trotters had been around for centuries.

In the fourteenth century, the Norfolk Trotter influenced the development of the Hackney horse in that county. Great flexion in their knees and hocks produced an exaggerated high, showy and very popular leg action.

Hackney horse Killearn Magician foaled in 1925

The Cleveland Bay, developed in the Cleveland area of Yorkshire in the seventeenth century was a sturdy well-muscled horse and, as its name suggests, always bay in colour. A typical bay will have a black mane and tail, and black legs which made them very popular amongst the driving fraternity for being the same colour and height.

Cleveland Bay

But then along came Scottish engineer John Loudon McAdam, who developed a road-building system that so improved the diabolical highways and byways linking villages, towns and cities in Great Britain, that faster travel was possible. Breeders began looking at the qualities of existing breeds to see how the Roadster, or trotting horse, could be improved. The Cleveland Bays, with relatively short legs in comparison to their body size, were not considered fast enough but nor were the Trotters and Hackneys. Their sharp up/down action actually inhibits speed because their legs do not swing far enough forward from the shoulder with each stride.  

Thoroughbred lines were introduced into breeding and cross-breeding Trotters and Cleveland Bays until a taller, longer-legged horse standing up to seventeen and a half hands high (17.5 hh) but consistently about sixteen and a half hands (16.5 hh) was produced. It was strong, even-tempered, had the classic bay colour, with hard blue-black hooves and became known as the Yorkshire Coach Horse. This horse was the Ferrari of its era and it was popular up until 1936 when declining numbers forced the closure of the studbook.

Yorkshire Coach Horse

In July 1800, a horse called Phenomenon bred by Robert and Philip Ramsdale covered seventeen miles in fifty-three minutes. The journey from London to York could be travelled in twenty hours, with stops every ten to fifteen miles to change horses and, according to Georgette Heyer in Devil’s Cub, the sixty-six miles between London and Newmarket was covered in under four hours.  

The horse, then as now, generated a huge industry as it required grooms and coachmen, farriers and feed merchants, harness makers and carriages - which I will cover in my next post.

Photographs: Pinterest

 Victoria Chatham

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FREE READ The Apothecary's Widow, leeches and blood, by Diane Scott Lewis

In my novel, The Apothecary's Widow, a murder mystery, Free Read for October, I delved into eighteenth century apothecaries. Set in Truro, England, in 1781, Jenna Rosedew has taken over her husband's practice after his death. But soon she'll be accused of murder.

In researching the apothecary business, I found that many of the poorer people used the apothecary as a doctor, since it was cheaper for them.

I visited an actual eighteenth century apothecary's shop in Fredericksburg, Virginia, once owned by Hugh Mercer. We were shown squiggly leeches, and how they were used to heal the sick, sucking out poisons in the body. Leeches are sometimes used today, shockingly now for beauty treatments.
Bloodletting was another popular treatment, a quick cut in the vein, and blood dripped into a bowl. It was supposed to restore the humors.

Hugh Mercer's shop, courtesy of Wikipedia

Hugh Mercer was a Scotsman and a close friend of George Washington. He was a doctor and a soldier. Unfortunately, he was killed during the American Revolution.
Apothecaries of this time mixed their own concoctions, grinding herbs, boiling simple syrups. Melting candy to make cough syrups.

Jenna is diligent in her work, but when a prominent woman dies after drinking one of her tinctures, fingers point at her. Branek, the woman's husband, also comes under suspicion. His marriage was far from happy. But secrets abound and a revengeful constable can't wait to take both of them down for a hanging. Will Jenna and Branek learn to trust one another and work together to find the killer? And what about the attraction they begin to feel, as they are a most unsuitable couple?

Download the FREE READ (scroll down to cover pic of The Apothecary's Widow, that will take you to the PDF, click to download here: BWL FREE READ

For more information on me and my books, please visit my website: Diane Scott Lewis

Diane Scott Lewis grew up in California, traveled the world with the navy, edited for magazines and an on-line publisher. She lives with her husband, and a naughty new puppy, in Western Pennsylvania.