Monday, October 9, 2017

Guest Post by Jeanette Watts, JANE AUSTIN LIED TO ME


Have you ever had conversations while teaching the waltz make it into one of your books? Do you include a lot of dance scenes in your books?

While I’m teaching I’m very focused on teaching, not directly that I can think of… but I really ought to write a romantic comedy about a dance class. I’m very tongue-in-cheek while I teach. Dancing is one of the great loves of my life, and I want to teach people to love it as much as I do. So it needs to be fun. I’m also aware the dancing is often seen as a mating ritual; most dance instructors try to ignore that part. I don’t. So class tends to be filled with off-color jokes and innuendos. It gets so that I say something and the class doubles over in laughter, and I have to backtrack through what I said, and then say, “Oh. Yeah. Well, YOU find a way to say that which doesn’t sound naughty…” My waltz book has a very, very casual tone for a textbook. Because, again, the most important thing is to keep it fun. 

I can’t NOT have dancing in my books. Wealth and Privilege and Brains and Beauty begin with a birthday ball.  I also fit in tidbits of etiquette which Vintage dancers tend to know. But while Jane Austen Lied to Me is a modern story, I had to throw in a dance. Had to, of course. Jane Austen wrote about dances… It’s on page 220, and you can totally see I’m a dance instructor. After the dance, they are talking about lead-follow skills, one of the single most important things I stress in my classes. Then one of the characters says “Dancing is a matter of trusting your partner.”  The entire scene is meant to reflect a scene in Emma, but at the same time, it is very much me.

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BLURB:

What college girl doesn’t dream of meeting Mr. Darcy? Lizzie was certainly no exception. But when Darcy Fitzwilliam comes into her life, he turns out to be every bit as aggravating as Elizabeth Bennett’s Fitzwilliam Darcy. So what’s a modern girl to do?

Jeanette Watts’ satire pokes loving fun at Jane and all of us who worship the characters who shall forever be our romantic ideals.

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Jeanette Watts had been writing historic fiction when the inspiration for Jane Austen Lied to Me hit her on the drive home from the Jane Austen Festival. The idea was simply irresistible, and she put aside other writing projects in order to focus on writing a satire, thinking it would be a "mental vacation." It turned out to take every bit as much research to write a modern story as it does to write a historical one.

She has written television commercials, marketing newspapers, stage melodramas, four screenplays, three novels, and a textbook on waltzing.  When she isn’t writing, she teaches social ballroom dances, refinishes various parts of her house, and sews historical costumes and dance costumes for her Cancan troupe.

Links:

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@JeanetteAWatts





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