Which Romance Category?

Beside the advice to write about what you know, the other suggestion for undecided writers seems to be to write in the genre you enjoy reading.

While you can't currently go back in time, you can learn about and experience the past in the here and now.
So I can see the logic of the latter. Every writer needs to read within their genre, so they know the requirements of that category, what's had it's time in the spotlight, and other developments.

While I prefer to write historicals, I'm quite happy to read contemporary, or futuristic. I'll even read fantasy- charming vampires, and werewolves.

(But like any book, if the basic plot idea doesn't appeal to me...)

I've experimented with my writing as I've learnt, but no matter when or where I set the story there was always a romance involved.

As a teenager I wrote a romantic saga set in space- there was even a prequel about the parents of my hero. But that didn't have a happy ending- the father died in an air crash during a snow storm...

I can still remember elements of that saga- the hero and heroine's long marriage, numerous children and grandchildren (some were even part alien), but I never kept the hand-written pages. And as I was a bit vague on the scientific theory of futuristic space travel, perhaps it wasn't quite the category for me forty years ago.

Then there's contemporary. I enjoy romances set amidst a mystery or crime- as long as any murders included aren't gruesome, in fact if they are involved then I prefer the murder off the page. I don't want to actually read about it as it happens.

I've always loved history. I'm lucky my family don't mind the occasional trip to historic buildings and places wherever we are on holiday, but too many and I have to go by myself...

Perhaps I've trained my brain to see my characters in an historical setting? They certainly appear in costume; well usually, apart from a character I started developing when I attended Sally Quilford's pocket novel workshop last October. :-)

I have a couple of contemporary characters who popped in last weekend, 'Hal' and his lady- who I discovered is wearing that red and yellow corset I mentioned recently- and why.

I will probably have a use for them when I do the Kate Walker workshop in May.

(If you know of anyone who might be interested and can get to Nottingham on the 19th May, please pass the workshop details on, there are places still available, and it's very affordable.)

Perhaps in the future I'll be able to create contemporary characters, but at the moment the historicals continue to dominate.

Cooking and Kitchens...

My usual weekend baking session went a little awry yesterday- me at home with the evening meal almost ready (I was planning to make the lemon drizzle cake after dinner) when my husband rang to say the car had broken down and they were waiting for the recovery service.

So the cake never got done, so one of my sons got to take chocolate cake in his lunchbox today instead of lemon drizzle cake...Not that he minds, but I'd like some of the chocolate cake for myself.

The cake-making got me thinking about the cooks of the past and how hard it must have been providing food every day, even for a small household.

We take it for granted that we can pop to the shops for a loaf of bread, a pint of milk or half a dozen eggs, but have forgotten how much time and effort those few items would have taken to obtain in the past- and that's before you even start cooking with them.

Quite a few larger homes open to the public now have kitchens you can visit and they're well worth spending a little extra time looking around. They echo the past in a way grander rooms sometimes don't.

A long time ago I lived in a house that had a small pantry in the kitchen, and it had the wonderful stone shelf for keeping food cool. It's such a shame that many of the houses that still have them, often rip them out during kitchen modernisations.


I was brought up in a late Victorian terrace house which still had a small scullery attached to the kitchen- with a view out to the coal bunker... I became quite adept at cleaning the ash out of the living room fireplace and laying a new fire. :-)

You can see an abandoned Victorian kitchen that was discovered in a basement of an old stately home here. Or on a grand scale there's the Tudor Kitchens at Hampton Court Palace.

For some good illustrations of kitchen objects have a look at this website- Old and Interesting.

Shire books has a section, Household Bygones, which has a selection of books- fire grates and ranges, old cooking utensils and table knives and forks among them.

If you want to look at some old recipes or 'Receipts' as they were called, then you'll find 'English Housewifery' by Elizabeth Moxon, on the Gutenberg website, interesting.

If you've visited any old kitchens open to the public, then please share your recommendations for a visit.