Inspiration is a peculiar thing. Personally I find it flighty, fleeting, hard to catch, and harder to predict. It would be lovely to say I do this or go here or listen to that for inspiration. That would make my life so much easier. But, alas, my muse who takes the avatar of a humming …
This month for Jane in January, we are discussing the various inspirations that have caused us to pick up our pens and keyboards to honor The Lady. I wish I could tell you that I had traveled to Venice like Diana (doesn’t that look incredible?), or had been steeped from my infancy in Jane Austen …
One activity for our Jane in January month on Austen Variations, will be to reflect upon what inspires us in our writing. “Nothing so easy, if we have but the inclination,” as Lizzy told Miss Bingley. For it’s easy to see that it is Jane Austen herself who principally inspires us. She does this in …
Happy New Year! It’s hard to believe another year has come and gone, and yet – here we are at 2019. Is anyone else as astonished as I am that it has been 19 years since we entered this century? We are ringing in the New Year with our annual Jane in January 2019! This …
When Emma Thompson’s lovely Sense and Sensibility came out on video, my mother chose it at the rental store. I’d never read Jane Austen, but she insisted on seeing it. I remember sitting down, not knowing what I was going to be watching when the movie started. Not long in, my mother’s little giggles were …
One of the first things I noticed when I read Pride and Prejudice in high school was how incredibly human Jane Austen made her characters. I loved ALL of them, even when I didn’t like the way they behaved in the story! The heroes, heroines, and various secondary players who inhabited JA’s novels were so …
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the theme of second chances, perhaps because I’ve been working on what I’m hoping will grow up to be at least a novella. I love stories about couples who dated when they were young but broke up and eventually married other people. Then years later, they are reunited …
Did you know that Jane Austen’s ideas of romance were radical at the time? Yet today, we see her influence everywhere. She has almost defined our ideals of romance, even for people who have scarcely heard her name. Have you spotted her at a coffee shop or a movie theater near you? This last Christmas, …
Jane Austen’s heroes are some of the most varied, most intriguing, and definitely the swooniest out of all classical literature. Even people who haven’t read Pride & Prejudice know who Mr. Darcy is (at least, I’m assuming they do otherwise what kind of world do we live in?). If Helen was the face that launched …
Mr Wickham returns with a tale of bigamy and a chance to win a book; read on and find out how! —oOo— Friends, it is no secret to anyone that I am a romantic sort of fellow. Why, what is more pleasurable than a shared glance, a turn about the floor, the whispered words of …
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