Apr
Something Sensational: Lady B’s Diary
I enter the Ballroom bleary eyed and find Lady B looking hideously alert. Unfortunately the state of my head is due not to anything interesting, like an all night carousal with a rake, but rather the end product of a marathon book finishing session.
In my efforts to placate the wrath of our hostess I looked for pictures of gentlemen with legs
Lady B Miss Neville. I wish to speak to you.
Miranda (winces) What have I done?
Lady B You have been interfering with the past.
Miranda Is that all? I am an historical novelist. It’s my job.
Lady B You had the temerity to invite a couple of unsavory characters to one of my balls in the spring of 1800. Neither Lord Lithgow nor the Duke of Denford is the kind of gentleman I prefer to introduce to delicate young gels.
It so happens that I did set a scene at one of Lady B’s assemblies. And I may have allowed my hero and heroine to attend. And it’s just possible I may have admitted two other men of somewhat shady reputation. But as far as I know not even my editor has yet read the book. Has Lady B somehow got into my laptop? Has she trained Albert–frightening thought–to be a hacker? I decide to bluff.
Miranda I would never do such a thing.
Lady B (with a jaundiced eye in my direction) I have proof. I just read my diary for the year 1800. You’ve tampered with it.
Miranda I didn’t even know you kept a diary.
Lady B Of course I do. One should always have something sensational to read in the carriage.* The account of a ball I gave in the spring of that year has unaccountably acquired some new guests
I find the time-space implications of this revelation too much for my tired brain.
Miranda Rumbled. All right, I plead guilty. But Lithgow and Denford are both extremely good looking with lower limbs of the very best quality.
Lady B So I gather from my diary entry for the occasion. The diary entry I don’t remember writing. Legs aside, are you trying to tell me their presence in my Ballroom was entirely innocent? That this pair of rakish gentlemen are, in fact, reformed?
Miranda Not exactly. But they will be – in later books. Assuming I ever write another word which at this point is by no means a foregone conclusion.
Lady B Harrumph.
I think about mentioning that I allowed my two badly behaved, not-yet-reformed, future heroes to attend Lady B’s ball because I know she has a soft spot for rogues, but I’m not sure she’s in the mood for what she will almost certainly deem impertinence. I switch to mollifying tactics.
I have no idea who these guys are but I love them
Miranda The hero of this book is a very proper gentleman.
Lady B And the heroine?
Miranda Uh oh. I’m not going there.
Lady B What is the title of the book?
Miranda The Importance of Being Wicked.*
Lady B I rest my case.
I beg you, Ballroom denizens, help me! Divert Lady B’s wrath! Now we know she has years worth of diaries and we are able to alter them, write your own entries about a fascinating occurrence. This is your chance to be Lady B and give her something sensational to read in the carriage. Then perhaps she will come and yell at you, instead.
Or, if you prefer to remain on our hostess’s good side (probably a wise decision) tell us about your own diary experience. Have you ever kept one? Do you still? Do you share it with others?
*Stolen, with gratitude, from Oscar Wilde
Apr 9, 2012
7:55 am
Had to think about this — From the Diary of S.E. Nibbles:
“Dear Diary,
Nick has promised he would show up at the ball. I told him he couldn’t without a fuss, but as always he said not to worry, he had everything under control. Mama says that peerage ladies aren’t supposed to be with stable boys, but Nick and I love each other. He is tall, brown, wavy hair and the bluest eyes I have ever seen. He is full of charm and swagger and makes me feel safe and cherished.
Tonight, I was taking a drink of raffia from the footman, when I saw him. He smiled at me and said I told you I would come. Unfortunately for Nick, my mother noticed him, too. Now there is trouble for me AND him and Mama says that we ruined Lady B’s party. What am I going to do now?”
As Jamie, I personally wrote down my feelings before the social network and then wrote them down in a livejournal account. When I got a facebook account, I no longer wrote the feelings of that of my LJ account and my true diary for fear of getting in trouble. You never write down stuff that could get you in hot water. As for sharing the LJ account was shared. They also gave me some tips on how to handle some of the “deep thoughts” question posts.
Apr 9, 2012
12:20 pm
While I deplore a gel who disobeys her mother, Miss Beck, I have noticed that stable boys can be quite appealing. Also, they sometimes turn out to be Dukes in Disguise.
Apr 9, 2012
7:46 pm
Oh, I do love it when stable boys turn out to be dukes, and things like that. I may in fact be planning that sort of hero in the very near future…
Apr 9, 2012
7:56 pm
Oh please do! It’s one of my favorite plot lines.
Apr 9, 2012
12:26 pm
I must say, Jamie. I wouldn’t wish to share my innermost thoughts with the entire internet. There are too many crazies out there! Facebook and blogs are really a fun way to share what’s going on in your life, but for the private stuff there’s nothing like old-fashioned notebook and pen. Then you only have to hide it from the family!
I really enjoyed your Ballroom diary entry and so did Lady B!
Apr 9, 2012
7:46 pm
Nick sounds yummy, Jamie!
Apr 9, 2012
9:30 am
As far as fascinating experiences go, my two years living in Japan were the craziest, most fascinating years of my life. The most memorable ones usually had to do with cultural differences:
- toilets with strange, mysterious buttons (I convinced a colleague to press the big orange one on the count of three and water shot up from beneath… she got so freaked she actually stood up! Guess where the water went then?)
- meeting a good-looking Brazilian gentleman in a bar one night… he spoke Portuguese, some Spanish and some Japanese… I spoke English, French, some Spanish and some Japanese… needless to say it was the most interesting conversation of my life… the beverages helped break down some of the barriers too…
- shopping in a Japanese supermarket for the first time, trying to figure out what things were, trying NOT to look at the strange things in the fish section… I learned the hard way that the pasty brown stuff is miso soup paste, not peanut butter, and that if you want beef (as opposed to horse), you find the meat with the little cow on it.
Apr 9, 2012
12:30 pm
Great stories, Kelly. Did you keep a journal of your stay in Japan? The toilet sounds really bizarre.
That’s an impressive list of languages you speak. The encounter with the Brazilian gentleman sounds *most* interesting. Is there something here you’re not telling us? That’s OK. Save it for your diary
Apr 10, 2012
10:59 am
Hi Miranda,
I did keep a journal (several actually) of my years in Japan. It’s funny to read back through them now.
And nothing happened with the cute Brazilian, sad to say. He was there on vacation and left soon after.
Apr 9, 2012
9:43 am
Thanks for sharing some tidbits about your next book with us Miranda! And the title is totally awesome.
I remember keeping a diary when I was younger, but I never really developed the disciple to write in it consistently for it to be a meaningful record for that period in my life. Plus, looking back, I doubt I really had anything that interesting to say anyway. Most likely nothing more than teenage hormones and angst gone amuck, lol. Then again, it could have been a good source of amusement to re-read them and think, “God! What was I thinking???!!!”
I don’t think I will end up keeping a diary again-I don’t relish the possibility of my private and personal thoughts landing in the wrong hands and/or being made public in some way. Yes, I am thinking of Donna and the diary debacle in S3 of West Wing! lol
And I wouldn’t be surprised one bit if Albert has learned to hack!! lol
Apr 9, 2012
12:35 pm
Ha! You and I (and Sarah) share The West Wing love!
Like you I occasionally started keeping a journal when I was younger but I didn’t have the self-discipline. I have some of those aborted attempts and, as you say, teenage angst isn’t that interesting. My Dad has kept a diary for over 50 years. He uses it mostly to record what he did and whom he met. He can give you a list of dinner guests for any given day in 1965. That would be handy. I often can’t remember what I did last week!
Apr 9, 2012
4:17 pm
Oooh. Does Albert keep a diary too???
Apr 9, 2012
5:59 pm
That is between me and Albert, Miss Darby.
Apr 9, 2012
7:51 pm
I love the title too, Miranda. You always have wonderful titles!
Apr 9, 2012
11:11 am
Hi Miranda, I’m sorry but I’m not drawing Lady B.’s wrath. LOL!!
I kept a diary for a short time when I was teenager and only wrote in it when something fabulous happened. I stopped writing in it and actually destroyed it when I caught my much younger (and natural tattler) sister reading it. I don’t remember much of what I wrote about now but I do remember one of the first and most thrilling events I wrote about when I was 14 yrs old. On vacation in Puerto Rico, I met a young and very handsome man on the beach. He was from Argentina and much older – 22 to my 14 – but he thought I was older, too. I was very mature physically for 14. *wink* He taught me to play backgammon, bought me lemonade, and asked me to have dinner with him. Sadly, that’s when I had to tell him my true age and say good-bye. Oh, but what a day! Romance is a wonderful thing and memories, well … [deep sigh]
Apr 9, 2012
12:37 pm
Great story, Amy. We’re getting a bit of a Latin lover theme in this thread. I’m glad you fessed up to your age – and that the lemonade wasn’t spiked!
Apr 9, 2012
8:48 pm
Oh my goodness! What a thrilling story! (darn that ever tattling younger sister!)
Apr 9, 2012
11:12 am
Oh, thanks for the book teasers, Miranda … sounds like a lot of fun coming our way!! Don’t worry, Lady B. will get over it. ; )
Apr 9, 2012
12:37 pm
Lady B LOVES to get grumpy.
Apr 9, 2012
4:20 pm
Love this post, Miranda! I cannot wait to see what other entries people sneak into Lady B’s diaries. (Apologies, Lady B, but at least your memory is excellent and you know what is original and what is added.)
I kept a journal up through college, at which point my class notes and my journal entries were very integrated. Now I very rarely write out my thoughts in dated computer documents.
Apr 9, 2012
5:56 pm
My mind is slightly boggling, Sabrina, at the idea of your personal journal being integrated in your class notes. Very interesting classes …
Apr 9, 2012
7:59 pm
Sabrina, so funny, I did that too. It was partially notes, partially journaling, and partially fiction.
Apr 9, 2012
5:23 pm
Lady B’s Diary, April 10 1800:
Dear Diary,
Today I received the most enormous bouquet of orange-colored roses from Lord Denford. Have I met him? I don’t remember any Lords Denford, but Beaufetheringstone tells me he has very fine legs.
Anyway, the unusual roses have a heavenly scent, which my ladies’ maid is rendering into perfume as I write this entry. I shall be the best-smelling lady in London.
I think I will like this Lord Denford when I meet him.
Apr 9, 2012
6:02 pm
I often receive magnificent floral tributes from my guests. I don’t think I would be likely to forget a scent such as you describe. I fear Someone (I’m looking at you, Lady Susan of AZ) has been in my diary.
Apr 9, 2012
6:04 pm
Ah, but I left you a gift of perfume, so I think you may find it in your heart to forgive my intrusion.
Apr 9, 2012
6:16 pm
I wondered where this delicious bottle of scent came from. I am mollified. Thank you for your generous gift, Lady Susan.
Apr 9, 2012
8:00 pm
Rakes are always scandalously appealing, aren’t they Susan? It’s lovely that he sent you roses.
Apr 9, 2012
8:05 pm
He sent Lady B roses. Unfortunately, I was born about 180 years too late. Since Albert didn’t like the flowers, Lady B’s maid quickly rendered them into lovely perfume that Lady B happens to like. Good to remember if you inadvertently insult her; give her a gift the next day!
Apr 9, 2012
8:53 pm
Also, good to have an inventive lady’s maid.
Apr 9, 2012
6:03 pm
Hi Miranda. Well, I knew Lady B. and I had to have something in common… I would go insane without journaling on a regular basis. Not that I have much interesting to say to myself in those pages… Usually just me trying to calm myself down by continually affirming that of course I can meet my deadline and the world won’t hate my book when it hits the shelves, etc etc. *g* Ya’know. Typical writerly neurosis stuff.
Gaelen
http://www.GaelenFoley.com
http://www.EGFoley.com
Apr 9, 2012
6:18 pm
I trust no one would have the ill breeding to hate a book by you, Miss Foley.
Apr 9, 2012
7:24 pm
You are too kind, my lady. *g*
Apr 9, 2012
8:01 pm
Seconded!
Apr 9, 2012
6:14 pm
Susan’s Diary, April 9 2012:
Here I sit, sipping Lavender Tea, nibbling a chocolate Easter Bunny, and reading Miranda Neville’s latest masterpiece. I just sent Lady B a gift of perfume across the time-warping media known as The Ballroom Blog. I hope she likes it. I forgot to buy some for myself.
Apr 9, 2012
6:20 pm
You are sweet, Susan! Lavender tea and chocolate sounds like a killer combo. I must try it.
Apr 9, 2012
8:01 pm
Susan, I’m in the middle of it too. Don’t you just love Blake? *dreamy sigh*
Apr 9, 2012
8:42 pm
Sorry. I got caught up. Blake is busy deflowering his “minnie” right now. Gotta go.
Apr 9, 2012
9:05 pm
Uh oh.
Apr 9, 2012
8:17 pm
Miranda, I adore time travel tweaks in history and love it that you caused Lady B’s diary to change.
I kept a diary for a few years of high school. Its pages are filled with the lists of the boys on whom I had crushes and the precise details of when and where I saw each one last. Every day I updated this log of encounters. The order in which I rated my feelings for these boys altered according to whom I’d seen that day and the significance of the encounter. The list was never shorter than six boys and often hovered at ten or twelve. Call me fickle, if you will, but my feelings ran deep. My heart simply saw no need to choose between them, merely to hierarchize… and hierarchize again… and hierarchize yet again.
(It’s entirely possible, actually, that reading and writing romance allows me to be in love with many men at once while remaining entirely faithful to the wonderful man I married!)
Apr 9, 2012
9:09 pm
OMG, Katharine, your organizational abilities are phenomenal. And so well applied! OK, geek confession here. I took two years of ancient Greek in school. I was never very good at the language but I aced the alphabet. So I wrote the juicy bits of my intermittent diary (i.e. whom I had a crush on) in Greek letters which my brother couldn’t read.
I love your reasoning about hot heroes and your husband. Makes perfect sense!
Apr 9, 2012
8:57 pm
I have kept a diary since I was a child. (My early books are filled with very bad handwriting saying how much I hate my sister for being nosy and, conversely, never telling me anything.) I journaled almost daily through college, but ever since becoming a writer, finding the time energy to write just for me gets harder and harder. Perhaps this is why my boyfriend accuses me of putting details of our daily life in my books… because I can’t get them out any other way?
Apr 9, 2012
9:11 pm
I’m so impressed that you kept a diary so faithfully, Kate. Is your sister older? I have THREE older sisters and they never told me anything. Lucky I was a talented eavesdropper.
Apr 10, 2012
1:02 am
She is older. She still doesn’t tell me anything
Apr 9, 2012
9:53 pm
Diaries can be bring fond memories and hard to explain entries. In my journals I can tell the frame of mind I was in. If I knew someone was reading them, my hand writing is horrible, like I am making it up. If it is something that comes straight from my heart, it is very neat, straight, and tells a story.
I have seen the progress of my own handwriting from a childhood scrawl to a very graceful, level, yet firm script.
Lady B would be impressed with my penmanship. However, I can not print to save my life.
Apr 10, 2012
7:56 am
That’s amazing how your handwriting changed to reflect your feelings, Susan. I’m also fascinated that your penmanship has improved with age. Mine is quite the opposite and has degenerated into a horrible scrawl that even I can’t always read. I type almost everything except shopping lists. Makes for some interesting moments in the store when I wonder what this item is supposed to be.
Apr 9, 2012
10:42 pm
Dear Diary,
Tonight I was wicked. Oh, not very, of course, but just a little.
There was a man (as there is always is in these instances), at the ball tonight, that I had never seen before. I know this to be true, for I know everyone- and I certainly know everyone on my own guest list. I should be offended that he attended without an invitation, but I find I cannot.
I’ve never seen hair so black that, under the glow of the candles, it glints the deepest blue of the ocean. And his eyes! Like storm clouds gathering on the horizon, dark, deep and intense. When he bowed over my hand upon introduction and brushed his lips against my glove, I vow, it was the single most erotic sensation I have ever felt.
After a few moments of inane conversation, I reluctantly let him go, seeing his restlessness as we spoke. Unfortunately I did not see him again, though I looked, once he walked away from me. I do wonder if he found what he had come for.
Here is the wicked part, Diary.
While I danced tonight, I pretended that every man who held me was my stormy lord. That he moved with me, holding me in his strong arms and gazing into my eyes, communicating without words.
And where is the harm in that, I ask? I am married, not dead. What Beau doesn’t know won’t harm the dear, sweet man. Every lady has to have a little fantasy now and again…and my stormy lord had a fabulous pair of muscled thighs, the likes of which I do not think I’ll see again…
Signed,
Lady B the Wicked…but just a bit
Apr 10, 2012
8:06 am
Good gracious me! fans self madly . I would never write such thoughts in my diary. Whether I ever had such thoughts is another matter and not one I care to discuss. It sounds to me like the gentleman in question is a Rake and a Bachelor. I wouldn’t mind seeing him in my Ballroom so that he can meet some suitable gels. And I can get another look at those limbs.
Apr 10, 2012
1:15 am
Thank you for your post, Miranda. I kept a diary for a while when I was a kid and a teen, but I made stuff up. Otherwise it wouldn’t be worth reading about in a carriage, or anywhere else.
I did a Google image search on that photo you love. It turns out that it’s four Europeans on a veranda at a house somewhere in Indonesia, circa 1890-1910. It’s in the online collection of the Tropenmuseum, an ethnographic museum in Amsterdam. Of course, at the time the photo was shot, Indonesia was controlled by the Dutch. The names of the subjects and the photographer aren’t listed. Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:COLLECTIE_TROPENMUSEUM_Vier_Europese_mannen_op_de_veranda_TMnr_60008726.jpg#filehistory
Keep up the good work!
Apr 10, 2012
7:57 am
Thanks for checking Mary Anne. I found the photo at wikipedia commons. I’d love to know more about the men themselves.
Apr 10, 2012
7:37 am
Lady B’s secret diary (June 12 1793)
Dear diary,
Today has been a most interesting of days. My dear husband has finally come back from his dreadful trip to the African continent. Lord B is lucky he has such very well turned out legs and handsome features to redeem this fascination he has with this exploring that horrible continent. Or else he would have had no one to greet him at home, humph. would have served him right
He did bring me a lovely surprise from his very long trip… A beautiful and colorful bird. He talks a bit too much and he has a habit of eating rather weird things but I believe me and birdie will get along fine. I have thought of a name for him: Albert Bartholomew Christian, Albert for short.
Now I have to go and plan the even of this season, a ball in honor of Lord B’s coming back to me.
Apr 10, 2012
8:11 am
My dear Miss Laura. What a splendid imagination you have! Lord B will be highly amused to discover he has visited Africa. On second thoughts I don’t believe I shall mention it. It might give him Ideas. Albert is quite upset. He dislikes the name Bartholomew since it reminds him of a kitchen boy who once mistook Albert for a pheasant and tried to roast him.
Apr 10, 2012
9:03 am
Well if you look at the entry of September 24 1798 in your diary it states this horrible incident with the kitchen boy and the following:
“I have decided to take Bartholomew of my poor dear Albert’s name since that is the name of that hideous kitchen boy. He shouldnt have his name tainted in such a way.”
Im sorry Albert, forgot to mention this in my previous entry.