Miss MacLean a la Regency

I’m thrilled to host you for the first Ballroom Blog Saturday Salon! We thought it might be fun to give you a look into the things that inspire us…and every Saturday, one of the authoresses will share something that’s inspired her in the past, or something that’s currently inspiring her. They’ll range from impressive dissertations on some researchy something, to handsome men with calves that make Lady B drool, to books and paintings, videos and songs.

But as this is the first Salon, I thought I’d share something fun that we can all play with!

If you’re a long-time reader of my blog, you know that I’m crazy in love with the Regency Dress Up Dolls of Savivi on DeviantArt. This girl loves her some Regency-era fashion–so much so that she’s created digital paper dolls that you can customize for dressing and printing!  These amazing dolls are available in Regency Hero and Regency Heroine (I’m particularly fond of the fact that the Regency Hero comes with canine and/or feline companions–apologies to Albert, as there are no parrot accessories available at this time, though there is an eyepatch, so I live in hope).

When it comes to inspiration, this is definitely one place I like to stop when I’m cooking up a book. I spend at least a day during every book playing with these dolls, mocking up my hero and heroine, printing them out, taping them to the wall, loving them and pretending that they are talking to each other. Yes. I’m six.

So…as proof, I thought I’d introduce you to Lady Penelope Marbury, the heroine of my next book, A Rogue By Any Other Name (out in February), and her hero, Bourne, who is something of a clotheshorse. Bourne has a given name (and a title), but he isn’t wild about using either of them and as part owner in London’s most exclusive gaming hell, he doesn’t have to.

Of course, when I showed this paper doll amazingness to The Ballroom Blog authoresses, our combined productivity was immediately reduced by half, as we all went off to make little Regency-era avatars of ourselves. We encourage you to do the same…and share the images in comments, below.

If you’re lucky, we may be able to rouse Lady B & Albert from their post-launch lazy Saturday to chat!

**ETA: There’s no “save” function on the dolls–you have to take a screenshot, sadly. On a Mac, you can do that by using command-shift-4 and selecting the area of which you want a shot. On a PC, you can use Print Screen and then crop the image in MS Paint or Photoshop or whatnot. You then have to upload the new image to the web (your own blog, Facebook, or a free image site like flickr.com)…and THEN you can use that URL to post here. A process, I know. I’m sorry! But I hope you’re having fun with the dolls anyway!

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Oh! And we promised to announce the winner of our Introductory giveaway today! Randomly chosen by Albert from Lady B’s punchbowl, the winner of a collection of books by all six of us is: Andrea! Andrea, check your email for info on the win!  Thanks so much to all for joining us for our fabulous first set!