Catch Up and Victorian Etiquette

I've finally gotten out from under a bunch of deadlines and writing is fun again!

I've updated the entire www.immortals-series.com website with new graphics, new fun stuff, blurbs, and covers. Excerpts are next!

What I'm working on now--a novella for the Immortals anthology, plus a new Victorian historical that has nothing paranormal in it. No pirates either. This is scary.

The research for the Victorian is entertaining. The heroes are Scottish, but the action moves through London and Paris as well as Scotland. My heroine is an unconventional widow (because of course, that's more fun).

I came across a Victorian book of manners called "Don't," first published in 1880, with various editions throughout the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.

Here's something I think should apply today:

"Don't scoff or speak ill of a rival in your profession or trade . . . Have the pride and self-respect to overstate the merits of a rival rather than understate them." (In other words: "It's not all about you.")

I really love:

"Don't play the accordion, the violin, the piano, or any musical instrument to excess. Your neighbors have nerves, and need at times a little relief from affliction of the kind."

Someone tell my neighbors!!

And instruction to ladies:

"Don't make endless adieux in leaving friends. The woman who begins at the top of the stairs, and overflows with farewells and parting admonitions every step of the way down, and repeats them a hundred times at the door, simply maddens the man who is her escort, be he her husband or lover."

Her lover, eh? Hmm. And what a funny character such a lady would make!

I have no idea if any of this will make it into my novel, but it's interesting. :-)