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Catherine Curzon is the writer behind the personae Madame Gilflurt<\/em><\/strong>, whose online “salon” I attend on a frequent basis.\u00a0 Her blog, A Covent Garden Gilflurt’s Guide to Life; Glorious Georgian dispatches from the Long Eighteenth Century<\/strong>,<\/em> reminds me of\u00a0<\/em> an eighteenth century broadsheet; it’s newsy, lively, highly entertaining and always instructive.\u00a0 Madame<\/em> writes concisely about people, fashion, places, and events of the day — the details that bring the past to life.\u00a0 Or she features salon guests, such as novelist Alicia Rasley<\/a>, to share some titillating bit of 18th century life.\u00a0 Rasley’s topic, posted today, is about masquerades – a favorite subject of mine.\u00a0 I sometimes use\u00a0Madame’s<\/em> posts as writing prompts to explore my own fictional characters and settings.<\/p>\n I wanted to know more about Catherine’s writing process.\u00a0 For instance, how did she come up with her persona, the ginbag Madame Gilflurt?\u00a0 How does she know so much about the “long eighteenth century?”\u00a0 Is her blogging an end in itself or is there a novel forthcoming? Madame<\/em> was kind enough to give me some insight.\u00a0 Catherine Curzon, a.k.a. Madame Gilflurt, says:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ever since I can remember, my life has been full of tall tales. Throughout childhood<\/em><\/p>\n I sat at my granddad’s knee in his cottage on the edge of Sherwood Forest and<\/em><\/p>\n listened with relish to tales of outlaws and highwayman, of willow the wisps in the<\/em><\/p>\n trees and, somewhat improbably as I later realised, the full-blooded tale of Lord<\/em><\/p>\n Byron’s ghost who, he claimed, haunted the rural pub in whose beer garden we<\/em><\/p>\n passed many happy weekend afternoons.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Those stories have never left me and whether bawdy, bloodcurdling of just plain<\/em><\/p>\n silly, my granddad’s tall tales made an indelible mark on my life. Add to that a<\/em><\/p>\n fateful children’s toy brought for me during a pre-school shopping trip and you<\/em><\/p>\n have the makings of who I have since become. As a child my sister and I loved<\/em><\/p>\n paper cutout dolls and we made our own though my sister was always the more<\/em><\/p>\n artistic of the two so imagine my delight when we were both treated to a Marie<\/em><\/p>\n Antoinette paper cutout doll set, featuring the iconic queen and a whole host of<\/em><\/p>\n bewigged flunkies. I fell in love with everything about the queen and her retainers<\/em><\/p>\n from the fine clothes to the powdered hair, the glittering jewels and, best of all, my<\/em><\/p>\n granddad’s spirited retelling of the gruesome fate that befell her.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n My love affair with Marie Antoinette gradually began to expand and grow, as<\/em><\/p>\n these things do, and before too long I was nursing a fascination with the long<\/em><\/p>\n 18th century. Growing up where I did, I was lucky enough to pay regular visits to<\/em><\/p>\n Chatsworth, Haddon and Hardwick and in each of these places I would picture my<\/em><\/p>\n fine ladies and dashing fellows, filling the houses with a thousand childish stories of<\/em><\/p>\n my own making. Eventually I began to tell stories of my own though these weren’t<\/em><\/p>\n period pieces, unless you count a novel I wrote set in 1957, but all the time the<\/em><\/p>\n glorious Georgians were nagging at me.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n For all the love and support of my colonial gentleman , he is not quite as fascinated<\/em><\/p>\n with Georgian history as I and after several years of marriage, it became achingly<\/em><\/p>\n apparent that I really needed an outlet for the 18th century stories that were<\/em><\/p>\n clogging up my brain and, so, A Covent Garden Gilflurt’s Guide to Life was born.<\/em><\/p>\n My approach to blog writing is very disciplined and, since I publish a new tale every<\/em><\/p>\n single day, it has to be. I gather notes, inspiration and stories from everywhere and<\/em><\/p>\n keep them logged in a spreadsheet by date then, every so often, I dive right in. I<\/em><\/p>\n take myself off to my favourite coffee shop, where my order of a sparkling water and<\/em><\/p>\n pot of tea is ready before I even ask for it, sit at my computer and absorb myself in<\/em><\/p>\n the world of the Georgians. In the space of a few dedicated hours and with a steady<\/em><\/p>\n supply of tea and music, I might write a dozen first draft posts. I’ll then hone them<\/em><\/p>\n over the coming days, sure to keep a few scheduled and ready to go at any one time.<\/em><\/p>\n If I get to my blog and see one or two posts there, then it’s time to buckle down and<\/em><\/p>\n really get to it; I love sharing stories of the Georgian era so it’s really no chore.<\/em><\/p>\n When I started blogging I really thought that it might be fun for a couple of months<\/em><\/p>\n and hoped, if I was lucky, that a few dozen people might visit the site and perhaps<\/em><\/p>\n lose a couple of minutes there. Instead I\u2019ve been blessed to meet readers, writers<\/em><\/p>\n and history enthusiasts from all over the world. Over the year and a bit that I\u2019ve<\/em><\/p>\n been publishing the site I\u2019ve featured guest posts from some favourite authors, read<\/em><\/p>\n advance copies of their work and even advised on the state of French roads in 1792!<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n All of this has been an enormous boost of confidence as I work at my own latest<\/em><\/p>\n novel, The Mistress of Blackstairs, in the determination that, unlike my three<\/em><\/p>\n unpublished non-historical works, it will not go unread by all but a few trusted<\/em><\/p>\n friends! I am on the second draft of Blackstairs right now and the coffee shop is the<\/em><\/p>\n same, as is the tea and water, the music and concentration. The only difference is<\/em><\/p>\n that this is fiction, just like those stories granddad used to tell me of Lord Byron\u2019s<\/em><\/p>\n restless ghost and a pub in Blidworth Bottoms!<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Glorious Georgian ginbag, gossip and gadabout Catherine Curzon, aka Madame<\/strong><\/p>\n Gilflurt, is the author of A Covent Garden Gilflurt\u2019s Guide to Life.<\/em> When not setting<\/strong><\/p>\n quill to paper, she can usually be found gadding about the tea shops and gaming<\/strong><\/p>\n rooms of the capital or hosting intimate gatherings at her tottering abode. In<\/strong><\/p>\n addition to her blog at www.madamegilflurt.com<\/a>, Madame G can also be spotted on<\/strong><\/p>\n Twitter<\/a>, Facebook<\/a> and Google+<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Catherine Curzon is the writer behind the personae Madame Gilflurt, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[258],"tags":[288,287,263,7],"class_list":["post-2177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-we-write-a-series-of-essays-by-guest-authors","tag-18th-century-life","tag-blogging","tag-how-we-write","tag-writing-process"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2177"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2197,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2177\/revisions\/2197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madhatdesign.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"madameGilflurt\"](\"http:\/\/www.lindacollison.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/madameGilflurt-225x300.jpg\")
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