April 19, 2013 – 5:46 pm
Today on the Ashdown House blog I am chatting about the connections between Ashdown, the Craven family and Jane Austen. There’s also a link to King James II and a mysterious legend of secret passageways lost for centuries! When it comes to inspiration for writers you can’t beat Ashdown’s history! Please drop into the blog if you would like to find out more about this beautiful house and its story.
April 17, 2013 – 8:10 am
Hi everyone! My newsletter system is currently being upgraded so anyone who subscribes to it will be getting an email from newsletter@nicolacornick.co.uk asking you please to re-verify
your subscription. Those people who aren’t already subscribed, if you would like to join up at this point, that would be fantastic!
As a thank you I am running a very special contest for subscribers only. The prize is a present box from the Literary Gift Company including a journal, pen, set of note cards, bookmark and a literary duck. (Not the one in the picture, of course, but I do love Jemima Puddleduck!)
The drawing will be made on 30th April.
Other ways to join are via my subscription process at www.nicolacornick.co.uk/contact.php and if you have any problems you can email my web team at web@nicolacornick.co.uk with the specifics of your technical issue. Thank you very much!
April 12, 2013 – 11:15 am
Today on the Word Wench blog we are chatting about the cult of celebrity in the Regency era and I am giving away a copy of my “celebrity Regency” book, Lord of Scandal. Please drop by to
share with us which personalities of the Regency age interest you and tell us what you think about celebrity! Here’s the link!
April 9, 2013 – 3:49 pm
Congratulations to Amanda, Hannah, and Alexandra who have won copies of Forbidden in the blog contest. Thank you to everyone who shared their favourite reality TV show – or took
the hermit pledge! Happy reading, everyone!
April 5, 2013 – 5:25 pm
Today is UK release day for Forbidden. Hooray! My final Scandalous Women of the Ton book hits the shelves on this side of the Atlantic at last, published by MIRA UK. To celebrate
Forbidden’s UK debut I am offering 3 copies of the book to readers. Just leave a comment here on the blog. I am so excited to see it in the supermarkets in its gorgeous UK cover. I’m even more excited that it is going to feature on the Channel 4 reality TV show The Intern hosted by Hilary Devey ofDragon’s Den fame! The programme will be going out at the end of this month and will show the process by which the cover for Forbidden was designed. My only regret is that I wasn’t invited along to watch the filming because I am sure I would have found the whole process fascinating.
To celebrate Forbidden’s UK debut I am offering 3 copies of the book to readers. Just leave a comment here on the blog. The question – if you were going to be on a reality TV show, which one would you like to feature in and why? Or would you rather become a hermit than ever be on reality TV? Tell me what you think!
April 4, 2013 – 11:37 am
It’s been a little bit quiet here on the blog over the past 10 days. In fact it’s been quieter than I had intended it to be! My book deadline was brought forward and I have been writing
frantically to meet it. Now I have pressed send and the manuscript winging its way to my editor so I have space in my head for other things again – and also time to catch up on jobs like the washing, the ironing, and everything else that gets neglected when I’m on a deadline. (Husband? Dog? It’s lucky they have each other!)
Normally when I write it isn’t so intense. There may be hours or even days when I am so involved in the story that I forget the time or even what day of the week it is. Most of the time though it’s a question of meeting my word count and trying not to get distracted by the internet. Some books are a dream to write. Others are made up of words dragged out of the treacle swamp. But there is something different about those last few days as I race to meet a deadline. I dream about the book or lie awake thinking about it at night. The characters and their conflict consume me. I simultaneously can’t wait to finish and don’t want to finish. And finally I stagger out looking wrecked and slightly mad. I’m sure I’m not the only writer who does this. I’m hoping it’s not just me.
So now it’s on to announcements and I’m happy to report that Heather, Victoria, Joanne and Denise are the winners of the February and March website contests (yes, I am that far behind!) Congratulations to them and thank you to everyone who entered the contests. You may already have checked out the new contest this month. I think it’s another really nice one, to win a china mug fit for a Queen (it has crowns on it!), a set of Jane Austen themed stamps and one of my backlist books. You can enter the contest here.
Last but not least, tomorrow sees the publication of the UK edition of Forbidden (hurrah!) and an exciting announcement and a giveaway so please check back tomorrow or over the weekend! Have a good day!
March 27, 2013 – 9:22 am
Today on the Word Wenches I’m blogging about ways to keep warm in the Regency period. Whether it’s by a hot brick for the feet or shared bodily warmth (!) come and tell us your winter
warmers!
March 21, 2013 – 9:03 am
It is officially spring today in the Northern Hemisphere! For the next six months the days will be longer than the nights. Here in the UK, winter has clung on for longer than usual.
According to the Met Office, March has been colder than both December and January. There is still snow in Scotland and gale force winds, rain, hail, thunder and every other weather variation you can imagine.
I like stormy weather and I love noticing the differences between the seasons. In books I think a bit of weather can add a lot to the atmosphere the writer is creating. But in real life I’m struggling a bit and still have my UV lamp on in the mornings. This year the cold and the dark does seem to have impacted more than ever on people’s mood as well as their livelihood. It’s hard to avoid. How many of us have woken up and simply wanted to pull the covers over our heads and refuse to face the day until we are ready? At one time or another all of us have tough patches that we go through and the last few weeks have been very tough for me with a very poorly puppy and various other domestic crises. So today I am posting a gorgeous blue sky and blossom picture to celebrate the start of spring and wish everyone happy times.
March 15, 2013 – 11:12 am
It’s a while since I blogged about Ashdown House, the National Trust property where I work as a guide and historian. Today I would love to share what has been going on at Ashdown and
what we have planned for the season ahead. As many of you know, I feel so lucky to be able to work in such an inspirational historic house and it has many amazing stories to tell.
Although the house has been closed over the winter, there has been plenty going on in Ashdown Virtual World! On the Ashdown Blog we are running an A-Z of fabulous facts about our gorgeous little gem! Today’s post is about Ashdown’s big sister, Hamstead Marshall Palace, built by William Craven for Elizabeth of Bohemia as a place where she might “live quietly in the country.” You can read all about it here. Ashdown also has a Facebook page here (please “like” us!) and a Twitter account where we post information about other historic houses and snippets of history. We also tweet some gorgeous photos. Please follow us if you enjoy historic buildings and their history! You can find us here. Finally, speaking of photographs, Ashdown also features on Pinterest. You can see our fledgling board here. We’ll be adding interesting pictures to it as we go along. We think it’s nice for people who can’t necessarily come and visit still to be able to share in Ashdown House and its history!
Meanwhile we will be opening for the season on April 3rd and it’s going to be an exciting year. Our conservation work is complete and we can’t wait to show off our beautiful little house to the visitors now that it has been restored to it’s 17th century glory! In the Information Centre we have a new display and we are celebrating our links to Jane Austen with a bit of Georgian and Regency Ashdown history. There is so much to see at Ashdown; not only the house, its portrait collection and its parterre gardens, but the walks through the medieval hunting grounds and of course the atmospheric hillfort of Alfred’s Castle, reputed to be the site where King Alfred gathered his troops before the Battle of Ashdown in AD 871. To those who would like to visit, we can’t wait to show you around and to those too far away, if you would like to keep up with our activities on line we would be delighted to share them with you!
Today on the Ashdown House blog I am chatting about the connections between Ashdown, the Craven family and Jane Austen. There’s also a link to King James II and a mysterious legend of secret passageways lost for centuries! When it comes to inspiration for writers you can’t beat Ashdown’s history! Please drop into the blog if you would like to find out more about this beautiful house and its story.
