A Prayer Written By Jane Austen

A PRAYER BY JANE AUSTEN

Give us grace almighty father, so to pray, as to deserve to be heard, to address thee with our hearts, as with our lips. Thou art everywhere present, from thee no secret can be hid. May the knowledge of this, teach us to fix our thoughts on thee, with reverence and devotion that we pray not in vain.
May we now, and on each return of night, consider how the past day has been spent by us, what have been our prevailing thoughts, words and actions during it, and how far we can acquit ourselves of evil.
Have we thought irreverently of thee, have we disobeyed thy commandments, have we neglected any known duty, or willingly given pain to any human being? Incline us to ask our hearts these questions oh! God, to save us from deceiving ourselves by pride or vanity.
Give us a thankful sense of the blessings in which we live, of the many comforts of our lot; that we may not deserve to lose them by discontent or indifference. Hear us almighty God, for his sake who has redeemed us, and taught us thus to pray. Amen.

Writing Regency

As I begin my journey into writing Regency, it occurred to me that I know very little about the era or HOW to write it for that matter.  


As a writer, I find myself going round in circles with the writing process itself.  I have read wonderful HOW-TO books by various authors, but find that when it comes to genre, I am at a loss as to where to begin my research. Unlike my absolutely favorite author, Diana Gabaldon, I have no clue as to where to begin in the research department most days and almost cry in frustration at my endless trek through the world of the Google Search engine. Most times it leads me to searching out crazy things and I loose focus.


I found a wonderful site called Writer's Resources by Stephie Smith, and all I can say is Thank You God for her being here!!  Writer's Resources is a wonderful place for someone like myself.  It even has a lot of resources for places of interest in other arenas that I am looking into writing!


Well, I do believe I am well on my way to being a writer.


~Happy Reading

Taking A Temporary Break

I am so sorry for not being here recently.  So much going on and so  much I need to get done. 


My next book on the agenda to read will be Persuasion.  


I have seen seen various versions of this movie and I will add them to the blog soon, but for now I am going to spend the next week or so reading the book.


Technically this will be my first reading and I am looking forward to this particular adventure.


From what I have seen of this as a movie, it seems our Jane Austen has indeed started a trend in her time that is repeated now: lost and never forgotten love.  I am looking forward to this one.


I have also embarked on a personal writing journey of my own.  Under another pen name, I have started something that is beyond anything I could ever hope to imagine.  This journey and the journey through the world of Jane Austen has inspired me greatly and I am looking forward to moving forward with all this information and working to write in a way that will make our beloved  Jane very happy.


A lot of my research has been going towards Regency England and it's many complicated ways.  I am loving every minute of this journey!

Pride & Prejudice Reading

"You are mistaken Mr. Darcy.."

I always had an affinity for our Mr. Darcy, what woman doesn't have it in her heart that she wants this kind of man?

I do question it at times because we slowly get to know him as we continue on our journey from Longbourn to Netherfield Park, and to Pemberly.

I love the way Miss Austen pens this novel, always from the feminine that you never truly know or understand why Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy is so arrogant and seemingly prejudice and full of pride.

Yes, both of our main characters are a little of both in my humble opinion...both full of preconceived notions and to much pride to confront the other in any other way than to vex or hurt the other intentionally in the beginning.

As these two lovers begin to see more of each other, they start to grow on the other in my opinion, and everything falls into place as they start to understand that what they feel for one another is actually a growing love.

My heart goes out to Mr. Darcy as he admits his feeling only to have them thrown back in his face...you have to admit that he went about it in the wrong way, saying things that he shouldn't have said for the sake of justifying why he was allowing these things.

To see him admit to denying the social customs of rank for his time was, even in the modern era not something a woman truly wants to hear. Not exactly romantic if you ask me.

Yet he redeems himself as he explains his dislike of Wickam and the circumstances surrounding him.

Elizabeth is a great character. She is energetic, intelligent and loving...though a bit gullible when it comes to Wickam, willing to believe his tale of woa because he is truly like able, this is, in my opinion, Elizabeth's version of prejudice. Is a man bad because he isn't very social around strangers? And is Mr. Wickam good because he is so outgoing and charming?

I love this book because our Authoress gives such love in writing this tale of two people learning to grow into love.

In modern romance stories, I have seen many follow this format of writing in various ways, many publishing companies and how-to books call this form of conflict great for the readers and fun to write in many instances. It is the formula for a lot of amazing modern romance writers from Historical, to Regency to Contemporary. Writing of two people who are so misinformed and misjudging of the other that they have to overcome this by ways of throwing them together in various scenarios.

I could read Pride & Prejudice a million times and it never gets old and always gives me new things to think about and new things to learn and want to learn. I never tire of it!

I love the movies associated with the books and what each director gives and sees in the making of their versions. I will talk about them soon!

First Drive Through Jane's World

My first visits through Jane Austen's world was through watching Kiera Knightly as Elizabeth Bennett, I loved this movie, but felt there needed to be more.

I had a copy of P&P which had a bunch of annoying sidebars to it that I could not get into, I wanted to read the book uninterupted, so I bought another version and started reading it.

At Christmas this year, 2010, I recieved a copy of the works of Jane Austen (seen below), and I loved this book! I treated it with so much affection that I eventually broke down and opened its brand new spine to read Pride & Prejudice in full, basically for the actual first time.

As I have stated before, I have kind of read the book before and as for the 2005 version of P&P I was not really that impressed with it, but the story idea was wonderful and amazing.

I had since bought the 1995 version of the movie and fell totally in love with it, it was an amazing adaptation and I am currently searching out other versions of the movie to watch and own. Masterpiece Theatre does a great rendition from what I hear and I look forward to finding it and watching.

I sit here now writing, but my heart is being beckoned by my new best friend and I am wondering what will be next on my read list, but for now, I am going to finish P&P and do a blog or two on it.

Welcome

"It is a truth generally acknowledged that everyone is longing to escape..." ~Amanda Price, Lost In Austen

Welcome!

As much as I hate to admit, that Amanda's words in Lost In Austen are more true than most.

This obsession of Jane began with watching the 2005 version of Pride & Prejudice, but at the time I was not as interested as I should have been. I had seen Emma with Gweneth Paltrow but still didn't take much notice, until....

Then a few years ago I watched Lost In Austen and my true obsession began.

I was consumed. I got the 1995 version of Pride & Prejudice with Colin Firth and my heart was on its journey into Pemberly and the world of Jane Austen.

At Christmas, I received the best gift a girl could want-a volume of Jane's novels. I was beside myself with joy because I had owned various copies of some of the books, but was not truly interested in reading til now. I had lost them all, and to receive this gift gave me great pleasure.

After a few months of fondling the book and finally reading Pride & Prejudice, I pondered what I wanted to do. I did research and looked up everything I could from Jane online to the Regency online as well.

I decided that I am going to go on a journey through Jane's world and novels, using them to inspire me in my own writing. So this is my journey...

I will blog about the books, Jane herself, the Regency world, and generally anything I wish as it pertains to myself and how I can be more like Jane or any of her characters, including movies, fan fiction and authors who write sequels, pre-quels and re-writes.

Since I am a writer myself, I may decide to write my own novel of this period.

May you enjoy this journey of escape with me, and read with me!