Make Believe World by Roseanne Dowell

I live in a make-believe world. Okay, not literally, but vicariously through my characters.  I decide where they live, name their towns, or sometimes I let them live in a real city/town.  I prefer small towns, maybe because I’ve always wanted to live in one. I especially like towns with Victorian houses and apparently so do my characters, because I use them a lot.  I often say I must have lived during the Victorian area, probably as a mean old nanny. I’m sure I wasn’t the lady of the house, and by house, I mean mansion. Queen Anne Victorian homes are my favorite. I love the round turrets, all the gingerbread, and wrap-around porches. It was always my dream to buy one and restore it. Unfortunately, that wasn’t to be and I’m past the point of wanting one now.  

Back to my make-believe world. I’d like to say I choose my characters, but truthfully, they choose me.  Sometimes I even get to name them, but if they don’t like the name, well, believe me, they misbehave until I change it. And, yes, that’s happened several times. Just because I like a name doesn’t mean they do. The last time it happened it wasn’t even a main character. She was only in the story for a short time, but boy was she stubborn. She refused to talk to me and anything I wrote was garbage, better known as dreck in the writing world.  

As I’ve said previously, I write many different genres, from Women’s Fiction to Romance to Mystery and even Paranormal. Most of my books are a combination of romance and another genre. As a reader, I’ve always favored mystery and romance, so it only made sense to combine them.  Mine would be classified as cozy mysteries; the gory stuff takes place off-scene. 

 I also love ghost stories – not evil mean ghosts though. One such story is Shadows in the Attic and another Time to Love Again. I’ve always been fascinated by ESP, hence my story Entangled Minds – previously published as Connection of the Minds.  

My character’s ages range from their mid-twenties to middle age and into their seventies. Yes, seniors need love, too. Geriatric Rebels is a favorite.  It’s fun working with different characters, and I especially like when they add a bit of humor. I really form an attachment to them. Once a character chooses me, I make a character worksheet so I know everything about them, not just what they look like.  

I love creating my characters, picking their careers, anything from housewives, authors, teachers, floral designers, and interior designers. Sometimes their careers play a part in the story, sometimes not. The character in my work in progress (WIP in the writer’s world) is a former teacher. It’s not a big part of the story, but it’s something I needed to know. She’s a real character in the true sense of the word. She came into being in a previous story, All in the Family. It started out with her having a small part, but Aunt Beatrice Lulu (ABLL) grew into a big part of the story. Once I finished that book, she popped up again and demanded her own book. Problem is, she takes fits and goes into hiding every so often, which is where she’s at right now and has been for some time. Sometimes she pops up for days of writing. Other times, I get a paragraph or two. I’ve never had a character do that before.  Oh, I’ve had writer’s block a time or two, but once I’m over it the writing flows. Not so with ABLL.

  

  It’s also fun describing my characters, their hair and eye color, height, even their weight. I’m often asked if I’m a plotter or punster. I tried plotting once and ended up blocked for almost two years. For me, plotting doesn’t work. I usually know the beginning and end of my stories. What happens in the middle is as much a surprise to me as it is to my readers. ABLL is full of surprises. What that woman doesn’t get into. So even though she goes into hiding, it’s generally worth it when she reappears. I’m not sure where she came from, but I’m sure enjoying working with her. Okay, I’ll be honest, a little bit of her is me, a little bit my sisters, and even my mother. She’s a combination of all the people I love and it’s so much fun living in her make-believe world.  I've enjoyed working with her in three books of the Family Affair Series. Now she's hiding in the fourth book, No Good Deed Goes Unpunished or Live And Learn - working titles. I won't know until the book is finished what the title will be. I hope she reappears soon so I can finish the book.  Here's the first paragraph: 

"You think you're so smart! I'm warning you Ethel Mae Capony, don't do it. If you do, I'll never speak to you again." Beatrice Lulu slammed the door, stomped down the steps, and slammed her car door so hard, I'm surprised the window didn't break.  The car screeched out of the driveway.  I'd never seen her so angry. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had our differences, even arguments, but we’ve always gotten over them. This time was different.  

You can find my books on  BWL

The Intimate Mozart

Click here to view and purchase all Juliet Waldron's novels including The Intimate Mozart

Sadly, the book with the perfect title, Mozart's Wife, has had to be issued with a new name, owing to shenanigans on the part of a monstrously large retailer whose name I shall not speak. I wrote this book quite some years ago, now in the last century.  

What began for me as a Mozart obsession soon became entangled with the story of the women who lived with a genius for nine short years, and who took his Viennese rocket ride to fame and fortune and crashed into poverty beside him. This little woman, who was even more diminutive than her vertically challenged husband, saw our hero at his best and at his worst. Her name was Constanze, or, using the German spelling: Konstanze. In his letters, Mozart often called her "Stanzi" or "Stanzerl" when he wasn't teasing her about her "Needle Nose."

It began with a romance, as this least favored of the Weber daughters married her big sister's erstwhile boyfriend, a young fellow who'd been a wunderkind and who was now attempting to be taken seriously as an adult musician. It appears that Mozart suffered from all the familiar problems of a child star attempting to bridge the gap. Accustomed as he had been to fame and adulation from his earliest years, this was made supremely difficult, not only because of Mozart’s own high opinion of himself, but because of the understandable resentment of older musicians who believed they had achieved official appointments “the hard way.”

I found that many of Mozart’s biographers had no love for Constanze. They either belittled her as someone who abandoned her man when the going got rough—as things certainly did in the later years in Vienna—or they dismissed her as a silly young woman from an insignificant family who’d married a genius she was ill-prepared to handle. I immediately doubted the “insignificant” part, at least in terms of the Weber family’s musicianship. Constanze’s two older sisters became famous singers, performing the most demanding vocal music of the day—some of it written specifically for them by their brilliant brother-in-law.

Mozart’s largest problem in finding financial security was that upon voluntarily leaving the Archbishop of Salzburg’s service, he became the first freelance musician (of any stature) in Europe. With an almost impenetrable class system in 18th Century Europe, he paid a high price for his daring. No nobleman could allow such an insult to pass, because in those days, "inferior"  was what musicians, no matter how brilliant, were. (Every great musician who came after him, even the fiercely proud and independent Beethoven, would carry the image of Mozart’s rebellion like a banner.)

It is a modern axiom that “anonymous was a woman,” and so it proved to be as I searched for facts about Constanze among a host of biographies. In the second volume of The Mozart Family Letters,* I found many written by Mozart himself, most sent from Vienna to his father in Salzburg. They make good reading, for Wolfgang was a witty observer. These letters may be the horse’s mouth in one sense, however, we must also bear in mind that they were also carefully tailored to soothe the recipient, the stern and possessive Leopold.

Leopold Mozart had not spent his life schooling and grooming Wolfgang for the pure pleasure of the exercise. He always hoped that his son would receive a good appointment at an important Court and would then be able to support his parents in high style. An early marriage—to anyone, much less to a penniless girl with no useful social connections—was not his plan.

When Mozart began to lodge with the Weber’s, tongues began to wag. Despite the expense, slowness, and difficulty of communication in the late 18^th Century, Leopold Mozart seems to have had a network of informants who were only too happy to supply him with information that the proud old man would find disagreeable.  And by simply looking the other way, it was easy enough for the recently widowed Mama, Cecelia Weber, to allow Mozart to compromise Constanze. What amounts to a shotgun wedding was eventually forced with connivance between the widow and a court-appointed guardian.  

 “But who is the object of my love? Again, do not be horrified, I beg of you! Not one of the Webers? Yes, eine Weberische—Constanze, the middle one...my dear good Constanze, she ….is the best of them all. She makes herself responsible for the whole household, and yet she can never do right! …One thing more I must tell you, which is that I was not in love at the time of my resignation. It was born of her tender care and service when I lodged in their house…” 

Stanzi wanted to escape her domineering and critical mother; Mozart hoped to take a wife and have a safe and comfortable home to return to after his battles with the world. He looked forward to having his supper fixed, his clothes cleaned, pressed and mended. He seems to have not thought much about the expenses of a family, nor about the inevitability of children nor any of the difficulties of marriage.

The Mozart’s union took a classic form—young people wanting to escape from restrictions and injustices at home. Wolfgang and his Constanze jumped out of the frying pan of parental domination into the fire.

 Another feature of Constanze’s life is rarely mentioned by Wolfgang’s biographers, one I came to believe that this was the key to her story. Frau Mozart was pregnant or convalescent from childbirth for six years out of the nine she was married to Wolfgang. The longest interval between pregnancies was seventeen months, the shortest (on two occasions) six months. In 1789 she was bedridden. Her legs swelled, she had intermittent fevers and a terrible pain in her legs and abdomen throughout the entire pregnancy. The daughter she bore that year died at birth and very nearly took her mother with her.

From the letters, and from what I’ve read to research the symptoms, it would appear that Constanze nearly died of puerperal fever on two separate occasions. Childbirth and the resulting illnesses brought doctors, midwives, wet-nurses, and prescriptions--and expense. It would be difficult, even today, to keep a woman with such an obstetrical record “in good general health.” 

All large European cities were dirty. There were backhouses behind crowded apartment buildings. What this meant for the summer water supply is not hard to guess. The brief life of four of Mozart’s children and the illnesses of the parents were not unusual. However, it can only be imagined how difficult the birth and death of four infants in such a short space of time was for a young mother.

“My dear wife….will make a full recovery from her confinement. From the condition of her breasts I am rather afraid of milk-fever. And now the child has been given to a foster-nurse against my will, or rather, at my wish! For I was quite determined that whether she should be able to do so or not, my wife was never to feed her child. Yet I was equally determined that my child was never to take the milk of a stranger! I wanted the child to be brought up on water, like my sister and myself. However, the midwife, my mother-in-law ... have begged and implored me not to allow it, if only for the reason that most children here who are brought up on water do not survive as the people here don’t know how to give it properly. That induced me to give in, for I should not like to have anything to reproach myself with.”

It was a good thing that Mama Cecelia, tactful for once, managed to persuade Mozart that babies cannot live on sugar water, whatever wicked nonsense Leopold had retailed! The wet nurse system being what it was, women took on more babies than they could feed in return for the pittance they were paid. The more I learned, the less surprised I was that only two of the six Mozart babies Stanzi bore in the nine years of their marriage survived to adulthood. 

This letter changed my focus once and for all. All I could see was Stanzi, no doubt ill-prepared and injured by the rigors of childbirth, now ordered not to nurse her child--and being sickened with milk fever as a result--by a man who apparently lived in a dream world. Genius or not, my musical hero had feet of clay. Sisterhood is Powerful!

The emotional toll of so many births and deaths had to be great.  I cannot imagine that Constanze ever felt very well—or was able to function efficiently on any level—while her husband’s moods swung from despair to elation and back again. Their sixth child, Franz Wolfgang, was born at the very nadir of Mozart’s fortune. He survived—perhaps, as I wrote, because the family was now so destitute that his mother was forced to feed him herself. 

After Leopold Mozart, a demanding correspondent, died, the picture of the Mozart’s family life becomes less clear. The other reason we know less is because Constanze, like other wives of famous men,* destroyed many letters written by her to Mozart and most of the letters he wrote to her when she was at the spa or times when he was touring. Those that survive are filled with names that she carefully blacked out during the long years that remained to her after Mozart’s death.

Was she protecting her own reputation? Or was she protecting the reputations of people who were then still alive—and still powerful? Was she covering up something? A few bits of gossip remain.

 “Mozart,” it was said, loved his wife tenderly, although he was sometimes unfaithful to her. His fancies had such a hold over him that he could not resist them.”*

While Mozart was probably no Don Giovanni, he was a profoundly talented man working in a profession full of beautiful, talented women. These artists shone the glory of his creation back upon him—a most seductive mirror. Or, perhaps, as has been suggested: “Mozart disguised his own hyper sensitivity by expressing himself through women.”*

The end of the story, culminating in the mystery of Mozart’s death, was created from hints in a multitude of diaries and letters. In the end, I was forced to trust the characters to tell me what had taken place. Whether it is fact or fiction, I allowed the last few chapters of The Intimate Mozart to unfold exactly as my characters explained. 

We women know how much we bring to the table and yet how little we are still regarded. I began by wanting to write a novel which would center on a great man. I ended by depicting an 18th Century wife's world, complete with all the challenges, the successes and failures, the light and joy as well as the sorrows and shadows.

~~Juliet Waldron

*Mozart, by Marcia Davenport, 
*The Mozart Family Letters, translated by Emily Anderson
*Jean-Baptiste-Antione Suard in his Anecdotes of Mozart, 1804
*Martha Washington and Elizabeth Hamilton are known to have destroyed letters "too personal"
* The Mozart Brothers, Swedish film, 1986

Erica Morris Tells All

Dealing with divorce isn’t easy. Dealing with children during divorce is hard. Dealing with an ex-husband who doesn’t care about his kids is almost impossible.

How do I know? I lived it. After fifteen years of marriage and two kids, my ex walked out. Left us on our won, almost penniless to deal with life without him. Not only that, he left me to tell the kids. How do you tell an eight and ten year old, their father’s gone and not coming back?

Not that he was a great father to begin with, the kids rarely saw him, but he was their father. I’ll never forget the day he told me he was leaving. It wasn’t working for us, he said. He found someone else. You could have knocked me over with a feather. But I should have known. All the signs were there, working late, lipstick on his collar. How could I have been so stupid to ignore it?

He wanted a quick divorce to marry his pregnant secretary. Can you beat that? He never called our kids, never visited. The worst part, he refused to pay child support. I’d about had enough, but what was I to do? How do you force a man to pay?

I know, I could take him to court, they’d tell him to pay, but how to make him. Worst part, he was a lawyer. They tended to stick together no matter how wrong they were.

So I formed a group with a few friends who’d gone through the same thing. I was shocked to see how many women experienced the same thing. Had the men of this town gone crazy? How does anyone walk away from their kids? How does an self-respecting, responsible man refuse to pay child support?

I didn’t have the answer, but there were a lot of them. Now if we could figure a way to make them pay. Many of these men had disappeared. No one knew if they were alive or dead. Women who supported these men through the hard times were now left to deal with life on their own. I discovered most of these men were controlling. Not only didn’t they allow their wives to work, most of them weren’t allowed out without their kids, except for school functions.

I finally decided to take matters into my own hands. I’d demand my ex pay child support. I’d had enough. So, I went to his work and waited for him in the parking garage. We were going to have it out once and for all and I wasn’t leaving without some money.

What happened next tore me apart. Read about my experience in Deadbeat Dads available for 99 cents for a limited time from Amazon.

Read more about my books from my website: www.roseannedowell.com

Or my blog: http://roseannedowellauthor.blogspot.com

Excerpt:

“Okay ladies,” I looked at the women gathered around me. Lisa Daly, who encouraged me to start this group, was here and Nicole Brown. Poor thing never went out while she was married. Oh, and Louise Conners, I still couldn’t believe her husband ran off with his receptionist, and now they were going through a nasty divorce. Not sure why that surprised more than the others. It shouldn’t. There was quite a turn out. Half the women I didn’t know.

I brought my attention back to the meeting. “First order of business, a name for our group, any ideas?”

“Deadbeat Dads Anonymous,” someone called out. 

“Wives of Deadbeat Dads,” someone else yelled. “Or Women Against Deadbeat Dads.”

“Better yet, how about Mothers Against Deadbeat Dads.  MADD!” Lisa Daly shouted.

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. There certainly wasn’t a shortage of names. “We’re mad for sure but that sounds too much like Mothers Against Drunk Drivers.”

“ADD,” someone else yelled. Against Deadbeat Dads.”

Nicole Brown’s hand went up. “Nicole, what’s your idea?”

“How about Wives Enraged at Deadbeat Dads. W.E.D.D.?” Nicole’s voice barely reached above a whisper.

Poor Nicole. Her ex-husband had knocked her self confidence so low. I was surprised to even see her here.  I met her at a school function. Nicole’s daughter, Cindy, was in the same class as my Josh. I had heard through the grapevine that Bob, Nicole’s ex, had run off with a stripper. Talk about humiliating. I shivered at the thought. 

Suddenly everyone came alive. Shouts of “Hey, that’s great, I like that,” sounded throughout the room. 

“Okay then it sounds unanimous, Wives Enraged at Deadbeat Dads it is. All in favor raise your hands. W.E.D.D.”  Kind of funny when you thought about it. None of us were wed any more.

Twelve hands went up.  “Motion carried. We are officially Wives Enraged at Deadbeat Dads. Now we need to set up a schedule for our meetings and discuss our agenda.  First, we need to choose a Chairperson.”

Nicole’s hand went up again. “I nominate Erica Morris for chair person.”

“I second that motion.” Lisa Daly raised her hand. “This group was your idea.  I think you should chair it.”

Me as chair person? I wasn’t too crazy about the idea. “Any other nominations?” I hoped someone would raise their hand. No such luck. Heat rushed into my face. I had a feeling it turned as red as my hair, which was pretty red. I wasn’t used to being the center of attention. Never liked it and sure didn’t care for it now.

The room remained quiet.

No other nominees. “Okay then, all in favor, show of hands. Motion carried, I guess I’m the chairperson. Thank you, I’m flattered.” Flattered but a little taken aback. Hopefully, I wouldn’t let anyone down.  “Let’s break for refreshments and we can continue our discussion while we snack.”  I needed a moment to myself.

I never expected the group to name me chairperson. I’d never chaired anything in my life. In fact, the parents group at my children’s school was the only other group I had ever joined.

Johnny didn’t like me to go out and do things. He expected his wife to stay home, and God forbid, I even suggested going out alone while he stayed home with the kids.  Anger flared in me as I recalled how often he came home late.  Working, yeah right, spending time with his playmates was more like it. How could I have been so stupid? I remembered the day he told me he was leaving. Just like that out of the clear blue sky.

“It’s not working for us, Erica,” Johnny said. “I found someone else.”

Oh, he found someone else all right, his young, sexy secretary. You could have knocked me over with a feather.  I should have known. All the signs were there, his late hours and lipstick on his collar. He was comforting the wife of a friend, he lied. I did a slow burn as the memories returned. And then he left, packed his clothes and just walked out without even a goodbye to the kids, left me to deal with them as usual. 

Katie and Josh woke up the next morning expecting to see their father. Not that they saw much of him, but sometimes he ate breakfast with them and made polite conversation. That was nine months ago, and he hadn’t been back since, not even to visit the kids. He wanted a quick no fault divorce so he could marry his pregnant secretary.

I almost refused, but figured why fight it?  The kids and I were better off without him, but how do you explain to an eight and ten year old that their father doesn’t care about them, that he had a new life with a new baby?  It was one thing to forget about me, but not the kids. And I haven’t received even one of the child support payments he agreed to pay in the divorce settlement.

“Erica, hey are you okay?” Lisa’s hand on my shoulder startled me. “You look mad enough to spit nails.  Thinking about Johnny, I bet.”

“Huh, oh yeah sorry, my mind was wandering. Yeah. I was thinking about Johnny. I just can’t believe he doesn’t care about the kids. He’s missed every scheduled visit. He doesn’t return my calls, and of course I can’t get past his secretary, uh wife, at the office or at home.  I could have him arrested, but with his connections he’d get off Scott-free. I know it.”

“Well that’s why we started this group isn’t it? Come on if we all put our heads together we’ll come up with something to make them pay.”

The rest of the meeting involved mostly chit chat about this ex hubby or that one and how rotten they all were. It was small consolation to know others had the same problem.

Sarah's Heart by Ginger Simpson

Hi,

I’m Sarah Collins, and I’m here to tell you that my… well Sarah's Heart is my story, but actually Ginger Simpson’s book, and is free today on Amazon.  When I shared the idea with Ginger, I couldn’t really decide which genre best suited my experience, so I guess I’ll let you read and decide if historical, women’s fiction, romance, western, or perhaps some other category strikes your fancy.  If nothing else, the cover by Michelle Lee has to leave you breathless.  But then, a little about the story:

After my folks died, and I found myself alone and pursued by an ugly and unscrupulous banker, I decided to sell what I could, buy a wagon and team and head for California.  I truly would've re-considered my actions had I known the wagon train I traveled with would be attacked by a war-party and I’d be the sole-survivor.  God knows I tried to save my friend, Maggie, but to no avail.  After what I’d been through, I hardly expected a snakebite to take me down…and it might have had it not been for Wolf.  Not the animal, of course, Grey Wolf, a half-breed who really had reason to leave me right where he found me, but he didn’t know that at the time.

If you think prejudice runs rampant today, it’s not anything new, trust me.  Try traveling with someone of mixed blood, especially when people hold the Indians in such low regard.  Here’s a little excerpt to show you what I mean:

Set Up – Wolf and Sarah are traveling to Independence but stop for rest at a mission along the Oregon Trail.  The army arrests Wolf on suspicion of stealing from the post, although he’s never been there.  Sarah is left alone with the priests and nuns, wondering if Wolf will ever return or if staying to help teach the children is her fate.  She’s just taken three little girls on a flower-picking outing and they’re returning when…

As they trudged along the grassy path back to the mission, the unmistakable spots of a painted mare caught Sarah's eye. She hurried the children inside, handing them off to a passing nun, and then ran around to the front. Her heartbeat echoed in her ears.

It had to be Scout tethered to the hitching rail alongside a black horse with a patch of white just below its forelock. Both wore no saddle, and the dappled mare greeted her with a friendly nicker. Sarah approached, brushed her hand down the animal’s muzzle and turned toward the church entrance.

Wolf stood in the doorway, his dark hair hazed gray with dust and his left eye swollen. Blue, purple and yellow hues tinged his cheek, but the bruising did little to detract from his handsome face.

Sarah ran to him, flung herself into his arms, and hugged his neck. “Oh, am I ever glad to see you. I was worried sick you wouldn’t come back.”

Sensing him stiffen, she realized her forwardness and quickly backed away, fixing a crooked grin on a face that burned with embarrassment.  “Forgive me. I’m just so excited you‘re here.” She nervously picked at her fingers.

He smiled then winced, dropping the puffy lid of his injured eye. “I would have been back sooner, but the army took its time in proving I wasn’t who they thought I was.”

“Thank God, they finally believed you.”  Sarah blinked back happy tears.

“Oh, it wasn‘t my word they trusted.  The quartermaster was on leave and the only person who could identify the man who stole the rifles and ammunition. Luckily, my description didn’t fit the details he’d provided for the wanted poster. I’m missing a scar running the length of my face, and my eyes are the wrong color. I never thought I’d be so grateful to have hazel ones.”

“Or me so thankful to see them again.” 

Still reveling in their moment of closeness, but pained by his obvious discomfort at her show of affection, she took a composing breath.  “You must be so tired. Come in and wash up.”

“How are you?”   His gaze drifted over her.

  “The people here have been wonderful to me. I couldn‘t have been in better hands. From the looks of your eye and cheek, you didn‘t fare nearly as well.”

“Just further proof that half-breeds aren’t any more appreciated than full-bloods.”  He opened his mouth, working his jaw back and forth. “The beating is a reminder from the guards in the stockade that I don’t measure up to their standards.”

Sarah reached to touch his bruised face, but he grasped her wrist, holding it in mid-air. “It’s all right, I’ve gotten used to it over the years. It’ll heal.” He gave a half smile and released her. “I sure would like something to eat.”

I hope you'll pick up a copy and enjoy the read.  I appreciate "likes" on Amazon if you truly enjoy Sarah's Heart.  I loved writing for you.