Maggie Mackeever's Blog

I wasn’t paying attention, and the holidays took me by surprise. As a result, I’m spending Christmas Eve alone for the first time in over forty years. I decided I’d talk to some old friends back east, drink some eggnog and watch a movie.

The eggnog was alcoholic, both old friends are dealing with cancer. The movie I chose was Barbie, and I watched maybe a third of it before I decided I was bored.

A neighbor brought some Christmas cookies. I ate them. In atonement, Tuesday I’ll head back to the gym.

Lee has been gone over three years now. In general, life these days is good. I like living alone. I also get lonely. One bored evening, I signed up with an internet dating site.

It’s been a revelation.

2024 is promising to be interesting, indeed.

Here’s a picture of Lee and me at a Woodstock anniversary party in 1989.

A while back, I decided to move my blog to my website. They were two different entities, because I kept changing my website provider for one reason or ten. Now, because my current provider is both increasingly expensive and difficult to navigate, I’m moving everything to WordPress.

Naturally, due to the current website’s previously-mentioned difficulty of use, this isn’t simple. I just hope, not being technically savvy, I can manage it without shutting everything down.

Keeping my fingers crossed…

I love language. Because I wrote so many Regencies, I have a huge collection of Regency slang. However, my current series is set in Gilded Age New York.

Early 19th century English slang and late 19th century American slang are very different. So are late 19th century English and American slang. Since I have a horror of anachronisms, I went on a quest. Here are some of the results:

All-overish: uncomfortable.
The biggest toad in the puddle: the most important person in a group.
You’re as like to catch a weasel sleeping: expression of disbelief.
Carrying water on both shoulders: playing a double part.
Fiddler: a cheat or sharper.Gone goose: one lost beyond recovery.
Rumbumptious: pompous, haughty.
Shrieking sisterhood: group of female suffragists.
Skin your own skunk: do your own dirty work.
To wake snakes: to get into trouble.
Tune the old cow died of: any discordant music.
Those who took a drink or two too many might find themselves foggy, swipey, glorious, top-heavy, obfuscated — or, my favorite, in a state of mops and brooms.

To be continued…

Every once in a while when I’m not writing due to reality having gotten in the way, the universe gives me a gentle nudge. A lovely reader’s comment popped up today, in response to a blog post from some time past entitled ‘Saying Goodbye to the English Regency’ (something I’ve done several times, though it has yet to permanently stick). She reminded me of some of my old Regencies, including one about a Duke with two wives, and another with ‘Gus and Conor and the pig’.

I have fond memories of Gus and Conor and that pig.

These days I’m not writing about Regency England, but Gilded Age Saratoga. Though the current story may lack a pig, it does have a parrot and a toad.

Now that I think about that story, I realize I’ve missed it.

Time to get back to work.

An actress in her time plays many parts. Will this be Delia’s last?

Delia Ross has freed herself from society’s expectations.

Luke Kelly has not.

The emancipated actress and the disapproving police detective set out for Saratoga in pursuit of a fugitive jewel thief. Along the way they will encounter collusions and contrivances, diabolical double-dealings, a talented table-turner and a murderer and, maybe, a very irritated ghost.

EXCERPT:

From an inner office came a low hum of conversation. The door was ajar. Through it Delia saw, seated at a long scarred walnut table, a wiry clean-shaven man with unruly auburn hair. On the far side of the table, in front of the window, stood an imposing barrel-chested figure with heavy jowls and bushy brows and a receding hairline. “Tell me I didn’t hear you say you mean to employ a female,” protested an unfamiliar voice.

“A person might think you don’t like females, Kelly,” the auburn-haired man observed. 

“I don’t like this new breed of mushy-headed suffragists who think they should leave off their corsets and work side by side with men,” the unseen speaker growled.

If ever she had heard an entrance cue–
​
Delia walked into the room.

​
 Release date 7/1/2022. Available now in both print and ebook format. Amazon.

This is the first of a five book mystery series set in 1890’s New York.

Much as I’ve enjoyed my time at WordPress, I’ve decided to move my blog to my website: https://maggiemackeever.com/blog.html

Writing doesn’t seem to be much of a priority for me at the moment. Either my ability to focus has lessened as I’ve gotten older or there’s way too much other stuff going on right now.

Or I need to lock myself away somewhere and do major surgery on my New York plot.

Which is now my Saratoga plot.

With characters that are changing on a daily basis.

Large amounts of chocolate may be required.

…to be too busy to post in this blog, apparently.

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Lee — my husband — had carotid surgery Wednesday. It was more complicated than expected; the artery was 95% blocked. Since the other one is 100% blocked and inoperable – a side effect of the radiation therapy he had in 2000 for cancer at the base of his tongue – this was a scary thing. (Apparently radiation calcified any plaque in his carotids – another of the side effects they don’t tell you about.) He’s fine, was awake for the procedure (and could hear the scraping). All went well and he’s now home and recuperating.

It’s been a rough few days – a few weeks actually because we knew this was coming up but scheduling was a problem; fortunately we didn’t know how serious it was.

I came home from the hospital after his surgery, checked my email, and found a notice that someone had commented on my Caprice cover post. She liked the book, and had very nice things to say about my other books as well. I felt myself smiling. It was a perfect ending for a very stressful day.

Words matter. Sometimes very much.

Time now to sit back and take a few deep breaths.

Nope. Not rewriting those remaining three old books. Though there’s nothing wrong with the stories themselves, there’s everything wrong with the way I wrote them. I packed them up and laid them to rest in the back shed.

Someday I really need to clean out that back shed.

One fun thing: I found a saying of my great-grandmother South’s, as told me by one of my uncles. Whistling girls and crowing hens always come to some bad end.

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