Cinderellas Galore

 

Eileen's BWL page

Did you know that there are more than 700 Cinderella stories?  The theme of the mistreated and underestimated person who rises in the world through true love calls to some deep-seated need in us all, because people never seem to tire of variations on this story.   

Many movies testify to our love of the archetype, from Drew Barrymore’s political strong girl Cinderella in Ever After...

to Julia Roberts hooker-with-heart-and-humor Cinderella in Pretty Woman. 

Even Shakespeare got into the act and turned the Cinderella story into a tragedy in King Lear.

Because Disney adapted the Charles Perrault’s seventeenth century French version with its court and carriage, ball and glass slippers, this is the one that most children know.

 

But in the Celtic world and Native American worlds, Cinderella is less about fancy dance balls and much more in keeping with those cultures.

Both among the Ojibwe and the Iroquois nations, there is a version of Cinderella, in which the young sister is badly burned and scarred by fire, her black hair singed and raggedy. The “handsome prince” of the stories is a magical being, powerful, invisible, drawing a sledge with a rope made sometimes of the rainbow, sometimes of the Milky Way.  To marry him, the girls of the tribe must be able to see him and his magical harness. This adds a component of spirituality to the stories typical of Native Nations values; see well, tell truly. In the Native versions of the story, it is often the sister of the hero who plays “fairy godmother,” admonishing all the girls to be truthful, rewarding the cinder girl for her true vision-- not with coaches and horsemen, but with a ritual bath or baptism of complete transformation.  This is also in keeping with the matriarchal wisdom archetypes of Native Nations.

In an Irish versions of this beloved story, the Cinderella character is a boy.  He’s a short fellow (atypical to the Celts, who were generally over six feet tall), with huge feet, able to cover great distances in a bound.  His “fairy godfather” is a bull, who gives the boy his own tail as protection and talisman. His many adventures occur in multiples of three, which is the sacred Celtic number. Eventually, the cattle boy slays a dragon, wins a princess and leaves behind a giant boot.  The stubborn princess will marry no prince.  She’ll have only the cattle boy who owns the boot.  -- from: "Sisters in Story"

Choosing a mystery novel victim

 

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My three mystery novels all introduce a victim in Chapter One. Winter's Rage, released this month, revolves around a hit-and-run collision that kills a pedestrian. My series sleuth, adjuster Paula Savard, investigates the resulting insurance claims and comes to suspect the hit and run was a murder. 

After I settled on this premise, I started to mull ideas for a victim. Aside from novels about random crimes, mystery plots focus on why someone killed a particular person. For me this is often more important than whodunit.

I can trace my ideas that emerged back to the 1990s, when friends started to tell me about their experiences with repressed memories. One confided that while listening to a radio program on the topic, she suddenly remembered that her father had sexually abused her when she was a child. She'd had no memory of this before, but from then on didn't doubt this had happened. 

Another friend said her sister had accused their older brother of similar abuse. Their parents believed her sister; my friend believed her brother. Not surprisingly, he became estranged from the rest of the family. My friend blamed her sister for making this up, but still got along with her parents despite some tension.   

During the recovered memory episode of the 1980s and early 1990s, I was at home looking after my children and watched daytime television talk shows on the subject. Thousands of people recalled forgotten memories of childhood abuse, spontaneously, like my friend hearing the radio show, or in therapy, sometimes aided by hypnosis. 

My interest led to me read books and magazine articles on both sides of the issue. While cases varied, a large number were young women who sought therapy for general problems and, in the course of treatment, recovered memories of their fathers abusing them when they were children. Therapists encouraged them to confront their families for healing. Typically, the fathers denied they'd done anything wrong, as people do whether they're innocent or guilty. Wives had to choose between believing their husbands or believing their daughters. Other family members took sides. Some daughters sued their fathers for the past abuse; a few fathers sued their daughters’ psychologists for malpractice. Courts of law accepted recovered memories as evidence. In 1990 a man was convicted of a twenty-year-old murder based on his daughter’s recovered memory of witnessing the event.

Today, psychologists heatedly debate the validity of recovered memories. Every time I Google the subject I come up with a different impression on where the profession stands on the issue. One article I read called it the most vicious controversy in modern psychology.

This all struck me as fertile ground for a mystery novel.     

I decided my victim would be a psychologist who'd treated a thirty-year-old woman for recovered memories in 1990. The woman's mother believed her; her twin sister sided with their father. He owns the hit-and-run vehicle that kills the psychologist in 2020, when my main storyline takes place. Paula, my insurance adjuster-sleuth, learns that the man blames the psychologist for tearing his family apart. But he denies he was driving that night. Is he lying? Or did someone else take his car and run the victim down for another reason? Paula’s job is to figure this out. More than that, Paula wants to help this fractured family. She hopes that solving the crime and uncovering the truth about what happened in their past will mend the family rift.    

The Confessions of a Reading Snob, by Karla Stover

For book details and purchase information visit Karla Stover BWL Author page here

https://bookswelove.net/stover-karla/

Billionaire shocks graduating class with surprise gift

Robert F. Smith announced that he'd be giving 396 college seniors the gift of a lifetime during his commencement speech at Morehouse College. Source: CNN.com. Apparently, only seniors who were there to hear the speech got the gift; tough luck for those who weren't there.

Yes, I confess, I love stumbling on another writer's misplaced modifiers, hereafter referred to as MPM. Here are a few examples: the first one is famous.

Neil Armstrong made history as the first man to step on the moon in 1969. Others may have set foot on the moon in prior years but he was the first in 1969.

 Apparently this one caused waves all over the internet: “Rachael Ray finds inspiration in cooking her family and her dog.” Source: the cover of “Tails” magazine. A comma after “cooking” might have fixed it but I’m not sure. Commas are a weakness of mine.

This one comes from a book called Sin and Syntax and apparently came from an unnamed New York Times best-selling author. “We found the address he gave me without difficulty.” Finding the address wasn't hard but I think the person meant it wasn’t hard to find the house/business/park whatever at the address.

 Also quoted in Sin and Syntax,  this time from a student essay: “Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg address while traveling from Washington to Gettysburg on the back of an envelope.”

This one came a week or so ago from Facebook friend: “. . . reading a story on my Kindle, by Joyce Carol Oates.” Perhaps the comma makes the sentence acceptable but I think the sentence should be, “reading a story by Joyce Carol Oates on my Kindle,” not that the Kindle was by Joyce Carol Oates.  Either way, I wish I had a Kindle. I could download books my libraries don’t carry.

Comedian Groucho Marx gave us what is probably the most well-known MPM when he said, “One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in there, I don’t know.”  

This one came up on google when I was looking for a new hot-weather haircut: "layered bob for fine hair over 50." My stylist (and her fine hair) are about thirty. I guess this particular cut isn't recommended for her. 

Since it's apparently not kosher to identify the author, I will just say, I enjoyed the book in spite of the following: "The best room had . . . and a badly executed oil painting above the mantelpiece of hills and heather." Whoever had checked the book out before me underlined the line and wrote in a snarky remark. 

And finally,

I was reading news headlines coincidently during the Britney Spears trial and came across this: "Meghan McCain Hopes Britney Spears Never Speaks To Her Family Again: ‘None Of Them Did Enough.’" Why was McCain 's family expected to do anything?

WHAT IS A MISPLACED MODIFIER:

"A misplaced modifier is a word, phrase, or clause that is improperly separated from the word it modifies / describes. Because of the separation, sentences with this error often sound awkward, ridiculous, or confusing." ragan.com

HOW TO LOCATE A MISPLACED MODIFIER:

"When a sentence begins with a modifying phrase that’s followed by a comma, the noun or pronoun right after the comma should be what the phrase is referring to." ininet.org

HOW TO CORRECT A MISPLACED MODIFIER:

"To correct the misplaced modifier problem, one should place single word adjectives before the word they modify and adjective phrases or clauses right after the word they modify. In the following examples, adjective phrases were placed right after the word they modify to avoid ambiguity." niu.edu > writing tutorial

Okay, I couldn't resist:

"Following Prince Philip's death, Prince William released a never-before-seen photo of his grandfather with his eldest child." People.com/royals. Huh? Prince William is / was the oldest grandchild but the photograph is of Prince George.

 

 

Unique Names...and then again maybe not

 

Coming in October

Names are important to writers. We spend a lot of time researching titles and even more time finding just the right name for each character in our books. I remember early in my writing career, I had settled on a name for my heroine which was tied to a twist in the plot. When my editor read it she told me that name was a well known romance author and perhaps I should change it. (Not really a suggestion.) In changing her name, I also had to change other names and modify the plot. After that, I began taking a little more time when deciding on names.

Just this week, I discovered a whole new perspective on names. My sister came to visit me in Kansas City. Because of COVID we hadn’t seen each other in a couple years, plus the fact she lives in Illinois. But there was an ulterior motive to her visit. You see, her name is Linda, and she was also coming to the L.I.N.D.A. convention being held here. You read right. They have a convention for people named Linda. Check it out at L.I.N.D.A. Club – Lindas Involved in Network Development (lindaclub.org). They’ve been having conventions since 1987 and my sister has gone to so many that she had enough tee-shirts for me to make her a quilt!

 Well, of course, I had to see if there was a Barbara convention, but regardless of whether I looked up “convention”, “conference” or “club”, I couldn’t find one. I did come across My Quest to Find All the People Who Share My Name - The Atlantic. It’s a fun and interesting article from the Atlantic about “All the other Julie Becks and Me”. Even if your name isn’t Julie Beck, the article has interesting information about how the internet has changed our sense of identity.

 Within that article was the website http://howmanyofme.com/. You can put in your first and last name and find out how many people in the U.S. have the same name as you according to the census, although the site does state the numbers aren’t absolute. There is also a section on statistics and famous people with your name. It even lists names similar to Barbara: Barb, Barbie, Bobbi, Bobbie, Bobby.

 Because I know you’re curious, there are 1,638,172 people in the U.S. with the first name Barbara. There are 98,093 people with the last name Baldwin. There are only 481 people named Barbara Baldwin.

 I tried to find a site that gave a list of all the different “name clubs” around the country but without spending days going down a rabbit hole in the internet, I had no luck. I did find Same-Name Clubs - American Profile, which gives information about clubs for people named Betty, Bob, Linda, Phil Campbell, Jim Smith. You would think there would be a club for John Doe or Jane Doe or at the very least “Karen”. I did look to see if there were actually real people with those names and there are 236 John Doe; only 18 Jane Doe. It didn’t surprise me that there are over a million people named Karen. Make yourselves a club, ladies!

 No matter how unique you might think you are, chances are there’s more than one of you out there. (Or in my case 481.) I decided to check out a few of the characters from my novels. According to the “how many of me” website, which as I said is not absolute, the numbers in parenthesis indicate how many real people have the same names as my fictional characters.

            Charles Cannon (644) and Jacy Douglas (1 or fewer!) from “Loving Charlie Forever”

            Joseph Donovan (354) and Cheyenne Tucker (only 3!) from “Prelude and Promises”

            Erin Thomas (652) and Remington Matthews (1 or fewer!) from “Snowflakes and

Kisses” (upcoming release Oct2021)

It’s no wonder many books have a disclaimer at the front stating that characters and places are fictitious and not related to persons past or present.

To find out more about others with my name, I googled myself. I found an actress, realtor, VP of Marketing and an artist to name a few. I was WAY down on the list, but when I put in “Barbara Baldwin author” I was number 2 on the Google search. Not bad! Just so you know if you Google yourself, there are also obituaries!

The U.S. Census Bureau statistics tell us that there are at least 151,671 different last names and 5,163 different first names in common use in the United States, although some names are more common than others. No matter how you do the math, you’re probably not going to get by without someone else having your name.

Barb Baldwin

http://www.authorsden.com/barbarajbaldwin

https://bookswelove.net/baldwin-barbara/

 

           

 

Writing What You No? by Vanessa C. Hawkins

 

 Vanessa Hawkins Author Page

Is it the ninth again? A month goes by fast when you're doing jack! Well... maybe not Jack but certainly his young brother Zilch. As I scratch my head wondering what to write about, I suddenly remember that I have published another book! 

Well, maybe not JUST published, but it came out a few months ago. Unlike Ballroom Riot--which has damsels and dragons and romance and as many F Bombs as a small army barracks--my other book, A Child to Cry Over, is about a young, eight year old girl who is convicted of the murder of a two year old boy. 

Yeah... it's a bit heavy!  

Ballroom Riot= Light as a lady's fart
A Child to Cry Over= Heavy as the solid stuff!

I wrote it a little while ago actually. Before I had my daughter and when I was a callous young woman with no heart or soul and who had tons of time to sleep or brush their hair and could go to the bathroom by herself without a tiny human having to attend every single time. 

Every. Single. Time.

But regardless of whether I could write such a book now that I am a mother, I did write this one, and I set it right dab in the middle of my hometown in rural New Brunswick, Canada. Which had... more than it's fair share of unsexy results. 

See, my little pee-brained, not-yet-famous-but-maybe-one-day author voice told me it was a good idea to write what you know. Write a book about a little girl who grows up in rural NB and jot down all her observations about the place in which she lives. The local people will love it! Until some aspects don't paint the town in a great light... then watch out.

Let me tell you, I got my fair share of critics! As well as some great accolades, mind you, but some people were under the impression I was bashing my home town! Nooooooo! Not at all...

Okay maybe some, but not really. If I didn't love Not Here, New Brunswick, I certainly wouldn't be living there, right? Right. 

Honestly though, it's a nice place.

But despite my sentiments, I did get some flack. I also got a lot of local interviews and newspaper articles so... I mean, no regrets! Writing what you know works! But it also meant that people knew who I was. I got private FB messages, texts, calls! so people could tell me what they thought. Which IS pretty cool but also hella awkward depending on the situation. And it's not to say I never got those kinds of things from family and friends before... but its just... now I got it from people I didn't know... 

 

You read my book and live close to me and want
to talk about it?! Oh. God. No.

Which was an experience to say the least... And Mostly good. 

Mostly...

But it has certainly opened my eyes in regards to writing in a real setting. You're not going to please everyone, so please yourself I guess. Which is funny considering my next book is an erotica.

My puns are funny to me at least...

Wait, what was the point of this blog post? Oh yeah. Writers beware! Oo~ooh! Writing about your hometown and not having the good sense to change any or most of the names in that hometown may be baa~ad! Oo~ooh! And if you do it anyway? Be prepared for lots of messages and  .....*&(#%@( . Oo~oh! 

Or not. I mean, maybe no one wants to read your drivel anyway. 

I want to read your stuff George! Don't cry... 
You just need to write it before the sun explodes.