Is letter writing redundant? by Priscilla Brown

 

Regretfully, no characters in these contemporary romances write personal letters.

 In future stories, maybe I should make sure they do!

https://bookswelove/net/authors/brown-priscilla-romance

Here, I am considering personal letters, not business or formal communications. In today's time-poor society (or perceived as such)  it's quicker and easier to phone, text, email or message. And there are times and situations where immediacy is essential.But isn't there something anticipatory about receiving a hand-addressed envelope? Open it, find a sheet of paper filled with handwriting - you know the writer has taken the time and effort to think of you.

Checking in my local newsagency I found several differently designed quality writing pads with matching envelopes, and boxed compendiums of attractive paper and envelopes. I asked the manager how the items sold. She told me that while the pads and envelopes on the whole were fairly slow sellers, those pads clearly designed for a child's use do sell, hopefully for the child to write thank you letters, and indicating that parents encourage children to write; others were bought mostly by women. The compendiums are popular especially close to Christmas, she assumes for gifts. And for writing thank you letters!

 So, other than thank you, why write? A few thoughts...


- reminisce on a good time you've had together
- someone you know, or sense, is in trouble, lonely, needs encouragement
- you've lost touch, want to repair a friendship
- forge a friendship with someone you know only casually
- take time to think things through, or apologise, clarifying comments that may be misunderstood in person or on the phone
- introduce a topic of mutual interest, leading to an epistolary conversation

- invite the recipient into the sender's world with descriptions of experiences, feelings, concerns
- recommend with details a book or movie
- with family, share thoughts and information which can be saved for future generations

Further to this, a nearby family is having a house built on previously vacant land. They are writing notes on their current lives to be dated, sealed in non-rusting container, and buried in what will become the garden. The seven-year-old wrote about his school; his four-year-old brother who could write his name dictated to the older child to write about his swimming lessons; for their two-year-old sister, Mr7 wrote her name, age and added kisses. Each parent will write notes to future parents.

Personalised and preferably handwritten letters are social currency with more of a human connection than is possible via technology. I believe such letter writing will not become redundant as long as we acknowledge a fundamental need to keep in touch on a deeper level.

As I cannot write personally to each of you, please imagine that I have handwritten (yes, you can read my writing!) on quality white writing paper using a blue pen, neatly folded into a matching envelope,  a letter bringing all good wishes for 2020. 

May the year be kind to you. And, of course, with lots of wonderful reading. 

Priscilla

 https://priscillabrownauthor.com

Harlots & Nightingales

Nightingale, her Lovers & Mozart

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 Buried in the depths of Hulu is a series based on Harris's Guide to the Ladies of Covent Garden, an erotic guide book to the prostitutes who worked the area. This little magazine was issued every year, at a cost 2 shillings + in London during the period 1757-1795. As the charms and specialities of each woman were described in sometimes graphic detail, it was titillating reading in and of itself. 

Having spent a lot of time imagining exactly that time period in the course of working on various novels, I was instantly drawn in. As befits a British production, the costuming and the opening street scenes on the poor side of town were thrillingly authentic, full of piss, drunks, poverty and danger. I confess, I'm completely addicted to Harlots, which has more engaging characters and more twists, turns and heart-breaks in one episode than some series contain in an entire season. 

Way beyond the soft core flash, Harlots is genuine women's history, served straight up. (!) It's written by women and a stern female gaze informs every scene and every line of dialogue. It made me realize, so much more than the tepid statement: "women had no property rights," that these women were property/chattel, just like their client's carriage horses. 

A woman belonged to her father until she belonged to her husband. If she was married off to a gross rich old man or to a violent young one, she might still be lucky enough to become a widow. Only then would she have a chance to control her own life. In a terrific scene at the end of the first series, an aristocratic woman confides that she doesn't care who killed her husband, but if his whore knows who did, she only wants to say "thank-you."

The best a harlot could hope for was a rich and congenial "keeper," a man who would protect what belonged (often by contract) to him. During Georgian times, in London, one in five women was engaged in the sex trade. There were many sociological factors bringing this heart-breaking statistic about, but whatever was the cause, young women flooded into town from impoverished rural families looking for work as domestics. Even if they were fortunate enough to avoid being recruited or even kidnapped for sex work, they were utterly dependent and could easily be forced into sex with their masters. The practice survives today, in the form of workplace sexual harassment.  

If you think those bad old days are over, take a look at the headlines in the past few years about the trials of women working in the entertainment (and the infotainment) businesses. This also happens in the course of ordinary employment, in offices, in restaurants, where tipped workers are paid (in my state $2.83/hr.) and in factories where women, in ever increasing numbers, have gone to work.  One reason for the vulnerability of working women is because even college educated women are not paid what men are paid for producing exactly the same work. Moreover, the color of your skin decides exactly how much less than a man you will earn. Poor women discover that they can make a great deal more "on the game" than working at a minimum wage job, so, if they are young or need to make their own hours because their children are young and daycare impossible because of cost, sex work might still seem to be the only option. 

My Mozart

The Viennese novels I've written are about the morally sketchy entertainment business, true then as now. Singers, actresses, and dancers enjoy fame and a bit of fortune while their looks and physical abilities last, but in the 18th Century they were never considered "respectable." Glamour and charisma brought wealthy men routinely into a talented woman's orbit. In a time when rich men routinely took mistresses, (and I'm sure it's not any different today) these talented women were collected by gentlemen as objects that proved status and virility--a virility often lodged only in their bank accounts.

My heroines, born poor and talented, Maria Klara and Nanina Gottlieb, live in a world where they always walk a cliff path way, the kind with a crumbling edge and an abyss beneath. Men take them for harlots simply because of their profession. Maria Klara is, quite literally, the property of a dissolute music-loving aristocrat. Her career as well as her comfort depend upon her powerful Count's good will and her ability to please him--both on stage and in his bed. Escape from her gilded cage seems utterly impossible.

Nanina, her family impoverished by the death of her father, barely escapes being turned out by her own mother. Lost virginity was the end of respectability, and, with that went the only other option for a woman in the 18th Century--marriage. Wife or Prostitute were woman's choices, unless she had money of her own sufficient to survive upon.  Artists like Mozart lived on the edge of this fast and loose theatrical world; Papa Leopold Mozart's letters are full of exhortations and warnings to his precious, susceptible son on the subject of whores, who might also be talented prima donnas, the kind of women who have passed through the hands of many men.

Mozart's Wife

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~~Juliet 

New Year’s Resolutions and other Horrible Ideas by Connie Vines

New Year’s Resolutions.  Everyone makes them; everyone breaks them.

Need additional stress in your life?  Then go ahead and make resolutions for 2020.  Proclaim your intent to friends, neighbors, co-workers, and even strangers you might encounter on the street.  Tell everyone so he/she can remind you, about mid-February, that you’ve fallen-off-the-rails—or worst yet, you never made it to the station.

While I’ve had my share of failed resolutions over the years (I’ll share those later in my post), I compiled a list of ‘what were you thinking?’ resolutions.

• Quit Your Job.  Calling your boss up on New Year’s Eve and leaving voicemail that you quite your job is one of the worst New Year’s resolutions you can ever act on? Why? Firstly, your savings account is probably looking rather unhealthy. Plus, after the holiday seasonal hires are looking for new jobs, meaning competition for that position you want is going to be tougher than ever.

• Join A Gym Straight Away. Joining a gym straight away doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to stick to it. Studies have found that 60 per cent of gym memberships go unused and that by mid-February gym attendance has subsided back to the pre-Christmas levels. Instead, sign-up for a gym class, or walk with a friend (human or furry variety) in the early morning or in the evening.

• Travel.  Booking a one-way ticket to some far-flung exotic destination. Great; what about your house, your pets, your job, your partner, your debts? The list goes on and on. Although traveling is great, booking a flight as part of your New Year’s resolution because you hate the monotony of your life.

• Join A Band.  Just because the likes of “insert name of your favorite band” started their epic career in a garage, it doesn’t mean you’re going to follow a similar path.  Bad, very bad idea.

• Find Someone to Marry (in real life).  Yes, I know I write romance novels with always end with a HEA. However, ‘finding someone to marry’ and ‘falling in love’ are not interchangeable terms.  Even if you’ve had your parents nagging you to settle down all Christmas or you’ve been paraded in front of what feels like a hundred happy couples at numerous festive parties, then your desire to find someone to marry might be higher than normal. Yet, love strikes when you don’t expect it. So, don’t try to plan to find “the one”; give it time and you’ll find someone when you least expect it.

My failed, or repeated fails, of past New Year’s resolutions.

• Weight loss, of course.  I’ve joined and rejoined this popular program several times—always with limited results.  The past several years I’ve utilized Pinterest to save ideas and recipes.  I also downloaded “My Fitness Pal” application.  It’s free and I am able to scan, track, and sync with my Fitbit activity tracker.

• Go to bed early.  I’m a night-owl (or a closet vampire). Mid-night is my early-bed-time, never mind that I must bound-out-of-bed at 5:45 AM each week day.  My primary doctor asked me ‘how much sleep to you get each night?’  I hedged, “how may hours should I be sleeping?” He responded, firmly, “at least 7 hours.”  “7?” I was shocked (I come from a long-line of night owls) and confessed, “6 hours. . .maybe.”  He stared me down and ordered me to get at least 7 hours.  When I returned home my husband asked me what the doctor said.  I replied, “He told me that I failed sleeping.”  Unfortunately, my husband found this extremely amusing (he’s an early to bed and get-up at 5:00 AM type of person—he even cat-naps). 

• Which leads me to. . .going to bed by 10:30 each week night.  Sounds like 7 hours sleep, doesn’t it?  If I fall asleep at 10:30 PM (snort), I’m awake for a couple of hours, usually 2:00 AM – 4:00 AM.  However, on Friday and Saturday I stay up late writing and go to bed in the early AM.  I did purchase a satin sleep mask (think: Holly Golightly in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s) for my writing nights.  Of course, my dog (Chanel) tries to pull the mask off and my husband ignores us both. The mask does help.  Sometimes, I even sleep 8 hours.

Are you making resolutions for 2020?  Or do you have a few fails you'd like to share?

Remember my novels are on sale 75% off at Smashwords until January 1, 2020 --saving money and reading a wonderful story written by a BWL author is a great way to start the New Year!

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Best Wishes and Happy Reading,

Connie Vines

"What woman doesn't love a cowboy?"

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