England
Have you noticed the widget at the bottom of the right column? I'm taking off for England in just 28 days! I'll be there two weeks, touring and visiting friends.
Of course, the first stop on my trip is Hampshire and all the Jane Austen sites. I'll stay three days with a friend in Winchester, where I'll visit her grave at the cathedral. I'll also take the bus out to Alton to visit the Jane Austen's House Museum and possibly Chawton House Library. (My only hesitation is that I don't know if I'd have time to actually use the library.) Then I'll be off to Portsmouth and the Royal Naval Museum so I can take notes for a future story featuring Wentworth. When I'm in Bath the following week, I'll go to the Jane Austen Centre there.
I'm reaching out to you, friends. Do you know of any place special I ought to visit a Janeite? Maybe there's a bookstore that carries a wide selection of her works and related criticism, or... well, I don't really know what else.
Research
That brings me to my second point. I'm in the middle of edits, and I am constantly finding things I need to research more. What resources do you turn to? I'm interested in books, blogs, or websites--anything that might give more insight into the early Regency. I do have quite the library of my own, but I still feel like there's something I'm missing.
Right now I'm interested in the life of a Regency gentleman. There are several good books out there on Regency women, but I haven't seen anything focused primarily on the men.
More
I will post the first Austenesque Lesson on Thursday. As you can imagine, I read a lot of Austenesque novels. I try to learn something from each book, a lesson that will make my own stories stronger. Some will relate to the broader craft of writing, but oftentimes they will highlight things unique to writing Jane Austen sequels.
