Office update and first guest blog

Yesterday I guest blogged at History Hoydens, talking mostly about my research process. And I learned that I'm going to have to be very diligent during my blog tour if I'm going to get any work or writing done, instead of, you know, just obsessively checking the blogs every 15 minutes to see if there are new comments.

Speaking of writing, my office is coming along. I don't have my desk set up yet, nor my Inspiring Images up on the wall, but the walls are painted and I'm starting to unpack my books. Behold!



The darker wall is Okra, the lighter one Oolong Tea. Those are my research books, about half unpacked--lots of military history, with a heavy focus on Napoleon and Wellington and their campaigns, plus a goodly amount of general Regency sources and stray books on subjects unrelated to the 18th or 19th century that I might write about if I ever get tired of mining the Napoleonic Wars. Want to know how ladies wore their hair in 1818, or who-all Wellington wrote to right after Waterloo (his letters from that period were unusually full of exclamation points!!! to the degree that I asked him if he were 46 or 16!!), or how the Athenians tricked the Persians into engaging their fleet at Salamis? I've got you covered.

For those who came in late, here's what my walls used to look like. Big improvement, no?