A Tasteful Tuesday Guest Blog with Annie Burrows!

Oh, I think ballroom dancing is very Tasteful, and historical novels are all about what's Tasteful, so many thanks to Annie Burrows for bringing both to the Playground for today's Tasteful Tuesday!


Hi! I’m Annie Burrows, and I’ve never blogged on this site before. Just to introduce myself, I write Historicals for Harlequin, mainly set in the Regency era. And, for “Tasteful Tuesday”, I’m going to be talking about ballroom dancing, in particular, the waltz.

Fans of shows like “Strictly Come Dancing” or the US equivalent, “Dancing with the Stars” will not need to be told that the waltz is danced in 3 / 4 time with a strong accent on the first beat, and a basic pattern of step-step-close. The lady performing the waltz in these kind of shows usually wears something long and floaty that swirls as she twirls, and the man quite often adopts white tie and tails. It looks so tasteful, and romantic, doesn’t it, when you see couples such as Jade and Ian waltzing round the set of Strictly Come Dancing? And I have often set key scenes between my heroes and heroines during balls, describing the romance which sparks as they waltz in each others arms.

And yet, at the back of my mind, I always wondered how it could be possible to decide on a potential spouse during the course of one or two waltzes. And totally dismissed the old-fashioned notion that there was anything the least bit indecent about the waltz. Because, as I’m sure many of you know, at the time most of my stories are set, many people thought it was quite a shocking dance!

"We remarked with pain that the indecent foreign dance called the Waltz was introduced (we believe for the first time) at the English court on Friday last (reads an article from the Times of 1816)... it is quite sufficient to cast one's eyes on the voluptuous intertwining of the limbs and close compressure on the bodies in their dance, to see that it is indeed far removed from the modest reserve which has hitherto been considered distinctive of English females. So long as this obscene display was confined to prostitutes and adulteresses, we did not think it deserving of notice; but now…we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion."

What? Voluptuous intertwining of limbs? A fatal contagion? Is that the same dance we’re talking about? Surely not!

Yet another group of people who strenuously opposed the introduction of waltzing to polite society were, strangely enough, dancing masters. They claimed that the basic steps were so simple, they could be learned in a relatively short time. Which might have posed a threat to their profession.

Simple! Hah! It might be simple for some people. Those who know their left foot from their right, for instance. But once I began to take ballroom dance lessons myself, I soon learned that doing the waltz is a vastly different experience from watching the waltz. For a start, you would not believe how much all that rising and falling makes your calf muscles ache. And then, once you master that basic step, there are reverse turns, spin turns, contra checks and hovers. Not to mention hesitations, and reverse spin turns.

But then, all of a sudden, something clicks, and…you’re dancing! And – wow! I could not believe how sexy it is, having my partner twirling me round, whilst holding me almost as closely as he would if he was just about to kiss me. It is, quite simply, one of the most erotic experiences you can have in a public place with all your clothes on! (The flip side is that there is no easy way to overcome the shock of being held, face on, by a man who is a virtual stranger to you. When he plants his feet between your legs, to push you into a reverse turn…yeeurgh!)

Ok, you get the picture. It is a very intimate experience, waltzing. Wasn’t it Oscar Wilde who described ballroom dancing as a vertical expression of a horizontal desire? How right he was! Now that I’ve done some waltzing myself, I can completely understand why it is that so many of the celebrities involved in “Strictly” embark on affaires with their dancing teachers. And why a girl could decide, during the course of one waltz, if she could marry her partner. Or not.

So, if you want to inject some romance back into your relationship, I can thoroughly recommend going along to your nearest dance school, and booking a course of lessons.

There is absolutely no guarantee you are going to end up looking like an Alesha Dixon, or a Tom Chambers (recent winners of Strictly…) My partner and I certainly don’t have “The Look”. For one thing, we are getting on a bit. And one of us (I won’t specify which) might possibly have two left feet. As one teacher remarked to my husband, whilst learning the tango, (which is supposed to be one of the sexiest dances) “You look about as romantic as if you’re pushing a trolley round a supermarket!”

But we are not going to give up our lessons. Spending the evening in each other’s arms, giggling as we blunder into the furniture, yelping as we tread on each other’s toes, and occasionally, gloriously, experiencing the triumph of mastering a complicated step, is always an utter delight.

And we can’t wait to get home!

Annie

Visit Annie at www.annie-burrows.co.uk. Annie's November book, Devilish Lord, Mysterious Miss, is available now. Click below to read the first chapter!

Guest Blogger: Pearl Wolf

We have a special guest on the playground today. Her first historical romance from Kensington was released in March. And she has two more in the works. Please scoot over and make room for Pearl Wolf.

THE ROAD TO PUBLICATION

I was the youngest, by ten years, of four children (one sister and two brothers), which amounted to too many bosses. My widowed working mother never had to discipline me as a result. She left it to my loving, well-meaning siblings because she was too busy earning a living for us. To escape torture, as soon as I knew how, I wrote fairy tales in which I was a princess, beautiful, bold and benign, magnanimously forgiving my sibling torturers their many sins. I also occupied my time by reading, reading, reading. I still do.

At the age of 79, I’m an orphan who treasures those early years, and the many confrontations (I did NOT go gently into the night, but fought back tooth and nail) for they shaped me far beyond anything I could imagine. Little did they know they were to provide the stuff good novels are all about.

Born in 1930, I grew up during the Great Depression. My mother managed the necessities for us—food, clothing and shelter. But I never felt I was missing anything. There were no rich neighbors and friends and relatives to envy—we were all poor.

My first sale at the age of fourteen was a short article for Reader’s Digest, for which I received the grand sum of $5.00. I never stopped writing, but it took me almost thirty years before I saw my name in print again.

In the meantime, I went to college in 1948, at a time when there were virtually only two careers open to women—nursing and teaching. I chose teaching, but my ‘writing’ dream never left me. I wrote for the college paper, and for the college literary journal.

I taught for twenty-five years in a variety of settings; elementary school, junior high school, high school and graduate college courses to teachers. It was when I became a public school librarian in East Harlem, that I sold my first children’s book: GORILLA BABY: The Story of Patty Cake (Scholastic-c1974) New York City Zoo’s first gorilla ever born in captivity. To my astonishment, 250,000 copies were sold. I still hear from fans, now grown, who loved the book. Out of print now, there are used copies for sale on the Internet.

Anyway, two more children’s books followed before I became obsessed with writing the book of my heart—SONG OF MIRIAM (Hilliard and Harris, c2003). This historical fiction (Russia-1784) is still available by order from bookstores and the publishers. You can read an excerpt on my web site www.pearlwolf.com.

This was followed by a mystery, DYING TO TEACH (Hilliard and Harris, c2005) based on my years of teaching in Harlem.

But my big break came in 2008, with a new agent who sold a two-book contract for historical romance to Kensington Publishers, one of the largest publishers of romance in addition to other genres.

And here is where it all came together for me; my big family, my teaching background, my dreams. MEET THE FAIRCHILDS on my website. I’m no longer an orphan because they’re my family now. The series begins in 1816 in England with TOO HOT FOR A SPY (2009) in which a determined debutante, Lady Olivia Fairchild, the oldest daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Heatham, parents of six children, flouts convention by worming her way into spy school. Does she succeed against all odds? You bet! TOO HOT FOR A RAKE (2010) is Lady Helena Fairchild’s story. This one’s finished, ready for publication next year.

I’m currently working on book three in this series, TOO HOT FOR A SCOUNDREL, whose heroine is the dangerous Lady Georgiana Fairchild, who breaks hearts and thrives on danger--thrills, chills and excitement. Lord Edward Fairchild, the heir apparent will have his own book, TOO HOT FOR A DUKE, as will Lady Mary Fairchild, a shy, gifted pianist, in TOO HOT FOR A ROGUE. And then there’s Lady Jane Fairchild, who is a chubby eight-year-old at the start of Book One who spies on everyone else when she’s not eating scones. She is the heroine of TOO HOT FOR A THIEF.

I divide my working day into three parts. The first is writing—I do my best work in the morning—the second is research, left for later in the day, and the third is publicity, writing blogs, answering emails, paying bills, etc. I go to bed happy on those days when I accomplish all three, no easy task.

Writing is a lonely occupation, an all-in-your-head sort of activity. My way of counteracting that is to belong to several writers groups—Romance Writers of America, New Jersey and Florida (in winter) chapters, Liberty States Fiction Writers and Mystery Writers of America, New York City chapter, where I live. I attend as many meetings as I can because I learn a great deal from other writers and they enrich my work. In addition, my writing partner, published author Shelley Freydont, is always available to critique my work and help me out with stubborn problems, as indeed, I hope I am for her.

Do you want to be a writer? Join writers groups! You don’t have to be published and you will make friends and learn a lot. Start collecting books on writing and read them. Read what’s currently being published in whatever genre in which you hope to publish.

Edna Ferber wrote: “Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth. It may be absorbing, racking, relieving, but amusing? Never.” (From “A Peculiar Treasure”)

Why do I do it? Because I love it!—Pearl Wolf


Well... uhm... okay... she just took away every excuse my fifty-eight-year-old brain has ever come up with. Did she take away some of yours too?

P.S. I'll be guest blogging on Friday at Riding with the Top Down. Come on over and see me!

P.P.S. Remember to send your big hair photos to Problem Child.