The Rewards of Random Reading by Sheila Claydon

When I go on holiday I rarely read the books I take with me. Instead I read the books previous holiday makers have left behind. Crammed onto shelves in the hotel reception area, scattered on tables in the guest lounge, stacked beside the TV in the villa or apartment...wherever we happen to be staying there are always abandoned books. And what treasures they are. On holiday I've discovered authors I've never heard of, learned new things, been reminded of  long forgotten stories, looked at situations in a different way and, in the reading, remembered why a new book is always such a joy.

Of course reading on holiday has an added bonus because it's one of the few times it's possible to read a book  from cover to cover in an afternoon.  On my last holiday I read The Color Purple by Alice Walker, and in the process learned a whole lot more about the American Deep South in the early part of the twentieth century. By the time I finished it I was so entranced that I followed it up by listening to a podcast of the actress Whoopi Goldberg being interviewed on the UK Radio programme Desert Island Discs. Whoopi Goldberg won so many acclaims for acting in the Steven Speilberg film of The Color Purple that I wanted to find out more about her, and thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I did just that. Apparently she was so deeply affected when she read the story that she wrote to the author asking for a part if a film was ever made of the book. Alice Walker wrote back about two months later to tell her she had sent  the necessary paperwork to the studios. The film script for The Color Purple was then written specifically for Whoopi Goldberg. It was her first big motion picture. The rest is history.

After I'd allowed myself enough time to think about what I'd just read, I turned to something that I thought would be very different but which turned out to be linked in the strangest way. This was Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeannette Winterson who is a well known British author. It is a semi-fictional autobiography. I know this sounds like an enigma but I assure you it's true. To understand what I mean, however, you'll have to read it.

Like Celie in The Color Purple, Jeanette Winterson is someone who lives on the edge and who also spends much of her life searching for love as well as for a lost love. I didn't see the similarities while I was reading because  one was about a black community in the American Deep South in the 1920s while the other was set in the 1960s in a poor northern town in the UK. In both books, however, the main character was lonesome and abandoned, and immensely brave.  It was only afterwards that the similarities became clear, and that is another benefit of this random holiday reading...there is far more time to think.

There were other books too, more random choices, and while I read them an amazing thing happened. In each one of those holiday books I discovered a fact that was crucial to the novel I had just started writing.  I had an outline clear in my head and the first two chapters written but what I didn't have was the detail. I needed to research a lot of things if I was to get my facts right but it was hot and sunny and I was on holiday, so I decided to concentrate on enjoying myself and worry about the detail when I returned home. Ignoring that little voice in my head that said I should at least think about my story,  I just chose those random books and settled down to read.

I had no plan...I knew very little about them. I wasn't even sure I was going to enjoy them, but although I didn't realize it, they had a plan for me. In each book I read I discovered a nugget of information that I needed to flesh out my own story. I was also confronted by a new way of looking at a situation, something that made me reconsider how one of my characters was going to react. After two weeks of reading these random stories my research was complete without any effort on my part...so to every writer whose book I read in that villa in the sun, thank you. And to every holiday maker who has ever left a book behind, thank you. Random reading has much to commend it.

This link will take you to Sheila Claydon's titles, including her latest release, Book 3 of her Pathways Trilogy,  Saving Katy Gray 
 http://bookswelove.net/claydon.phpsheilaclaydon.com

Writing About What You Know by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

       

       I took many writing courses and bought just about every book I could find on writing when I was an aspiring writer. In the classes and in most books I was told to write about what I knew. I had to experience life before I could write about it. I also found out that to compensate for lack of knowledge many writers do months of research to get an understanding of the subject they want to write about. They learn what a lawyer would say in court or what a pilot would do in a certain situation.

       But it is the hard emotion that goes with any experience that is hard to duplicate. We have all been scared, but how many of us have felt a deep-seated fear that is immobilizing? We have all felt sadness, but how many of us have had our sadness lead to depression and suicidal thoughts? Experiencing the emotions make it almost effortless to write about them in an authoritative voice.
       Plus, living a certain lifestyle makes it easier to describe that way of life. Many writers do dredge up life’s trauma to make their writing more believable. And many authors have turned their unusual upbringing into bestselling fiction and non-fiction. Take for example, the non-fiction bestseller Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. To make up a childhood like Frank’s would be tough for someone who has not lived it.
       When I was doing my assignments for class I tried to write about what I knew but it was hard to make something exciting out of something so boringly normal. So I wrote the following poem.

 

What I Know

 

My parents never divorced, they
seldom even fought. I was not
abused, not emotionally,
physically, mentally.
I was never raped.
I was not kicked
out of the
house.
I
did not
live on the
streets. I do not
smoke. I don’t do drugs.
I’ve never had a merciless,
pounding hangover. I have not
been in an accident. I have not had a
serious, debilitating, life-threatening illness.
                    I am no minority.
                    I am not disabled.
                    I have no physical
                    deformity. I have
                    not been a victim
                    of a crime, nor am
                    I a shady criminal.
     I have not been discriminated against.
              I am not a lesbian. I am not gay.
                      I am not too skinny nor am
                           I overweight. I have not
                               loved and lost; I have
                                  not lost a loved one
                                        I am not too tall
                                               or too short.
                                                                 I
                                                    certainly
                                               do not stand
                                           out in a crowd.
                                         I have not, at all
                                  been very noticeable
                  With such an ordinary, tedious
           mundane, uneventful life, how will
I ever be able to write about what I know?


       My first published article was about an injured hawk my son and I had found alongside the highway and how we looked after it for a few days until it was able to fly away. Then I tried historical and travel articles. I progressed into travel books, writing seven about what there is to see and do along the roads of British Columbia, Alberta, the Yukon, and Alaska.
       I have loved reading mysteries since I was a child so I decided to try my hand at a mystery novel. Since I knew about travel writing, I made my main character a travel writer. She gets drawn into solving murders while researching places for her travel articles.
       So my experiences have made it possible for me to write about what I know.

 

http://thetravellingdetectiveseries.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/writingsbyjoan

 

Books of The Travelling Detective Series boxed set:
Illegally Dead
The Only Shadow In The House
Whistler's Murder

http://amzn.com/B00KF07FQM


Gold Fever

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PEOSJR8

DRAMA IS ALL AROUND YOU BY RITA KARNOPP

Have you ever noticed there is drama all around you?  Pay attention!  There are always people who wear their problems on their sleeves – as the old cliché goes!  But that’s great for us . . . listen to their passions, their dramas, their dilemmas, their successes and failures, and even their sorrows.  You can even pick up drama in newspapers, magazines, and the news.  It’s all around us . . . start jotting down notes of inspiration.

You might see an interview on TV – the guy is a sole survivor in a war-torn country.   Don’t you really want to know how he survived when no one else did?  How about a mother who takes her life . . . and that of her daughter – why?  Aren’t your story-telling feelers asking you ‘what would make her do that?  If you see a guy that is trying to survive in the desert, no modern help-just him and the elements – don’t you wonder what on earth brought him to make that decision?

You hear about a priest who leaves his devotion and suddenly marries.  Wow – doesn’t that spark your creative spirit and make you wonder why?  What would bring him to this decision?  How difficult was it?  What does his family and friends think about this?  How does this affect his life now?  Does he regret it? 

There are the numerous, horrendous killings and sad disappearances in real life . . . that could spawn hundreds of books. 

So why don’t we write about them?  Well . . . we do!  There's drama all around us and if you’re one of those smart authors – you’re finding material for your stories every time you listen to the world around you or you open your eyes – drama unfolds at every turn. 

What sets one writer out from another is their passion to write the story.  They take the ardent fervor for life and fill in the blanks that take the reader on a journey.  Sometimes it’s uplifting and other times it’s nitty-gritty and even devastating.

The drama all around us results in the birth of innumerable ideas that becomes the basis – the drama – for yet another wonderful read.  Key here is to tell your story with passion.  Your reader will believe every word as though they heard it on the news or read it in a paper or online. 

 Rita Karnopp
Author ~ Romancing the West

ritakarnopp@bresnan.net

http://ritakarnopp.com

http://mizging.blogspot.com

Waiting for Downton Abbey by Karla Stover

Waiting for Downton Abbey, by Karla Stover

     We are eight weeks away from the next season of Downton Abbey and many viewers are hoping the eldest daughter, widow and born-to-the-manor, Lady Mary will find romance with her widower brother-in-law, Tom, the Irish Republican and the family’s former chauffeur. Tom has settled in above-the-stairs fairly well, and is accepted by most people, but in real life that was not always the case. Take Margaret Powell’s autobiography, Servants’ Hall, for example. Ms Powell worked for the Wardham family at their Redlands estate. In the book, she recounts her life as the family cook, along with the marriage of parlor maid, Rose to the son-of-the-house, Gerald. The fact that Rose insisted on maintaining her friendships with the staff after her marriage didn’t bode well.

     I’m a sucker for well-written memoirs. When I want to binge on a particular type of book, such as life-below-the-stairs, I go to Alibris and plug in the title of a book, such as Servants’ Hall. When the book comes up, there is a spot on the right side labeled,” More Books Like This.” Thus, I read Rosina Harrison’s book, Rose: My Life in Service, which led me to her biography of the Astor’s butler, Edwin Lee and that led me to Eric Horne’s What the Butler Winked At. Though pretty tame by contemporary, tell-all standards, Mr. Horne’s book was a sensation when it came out, as those above the stairs panicked for fear of what they might read about themselves.

     When Call the Midwife, a series based on Jennifer Worth’s books, started showing on PBS, I found her other books on Alibris and read them all. That’s not to say, “More Books” doesn’t sometimes go off on a bit of a tangent. It also recommended Belle de Jour: Life of an Unlikely Call Girl. Maybe the anonymous who wrote it needed a midwife.

     And now I seem to be off on my own tangent. Here I sit, reading Mollie Moran’s, Minding the Manor while I wait for Downton Abbey to start. I sit knowing full well Lady Grantham will soon be simpering over Lady Mary; Lady Mary will be swanning around, and poor Lady Edith will still be looking for a man.

                                                                 Author of A Line to Murder

Shabby Chic Birthday Card by Cheryl Wright

It was recently a crafting friend's birthday, and knowing she shares my love of cards that are vintage and/or shabby chic, I got to work.

Shabby Chic, in particular, is generally based around pastel colors such as pink, blue, mint, and soft lemon or lavender. It often includes flowers, pearls or rhinestones, ribbons, and generally contains some distressing. (Distressing is the art of making something look old, even though it's new.)

Go to this link on Pinterest for a great example of shabby chic.

I just adore this style of cardmaking, and use it a lot.

Taking into consideration my friend's style preferences, this is the card I made for her.

My friend loved her card, as I knew she would (simply because of the style).

Thanks for stopping by, and don't forget to join my Facebook page. I have a giveaway running at the moment, and I'd love for you to enter.

This month's prize is a print copy of Don't Tell, Don't Die plus a custom-made keychain.

Til next time,

Links:

My website:  www.cheryl-wright.com 
Blog:  www.cheryl-wright.com/blog
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/cherylwrightauthor

A Soldier’s Breakfast by Jude Pittman

A WWII Memory, dedicated to my Uncle William (Bill) Shipton (Canadian WWII Veteran) and my daughter Major Billie Cartwright (Active US Army Reservist)

Originally published in Western People Magazine, May 1991 as Egg on His Face

Bill was in his glory. Finally after weeks of courting young Phyllis Quelch, he'd been invited home to dinner. He pressed his uniform until the creases cut and shined his shoes until he could see his reflection.

Bill wanted to be sure that the Quelches recognized him as a serious young man with his own land and big plans for the future. Once the war was over he'd be returning to his homestead in Alberta, and it was going to take some doing to convince Phyllis to give up her life in England for the rough Canadian prairies. This dinner was Bill's chance to win the Quelches approval, and when he met them at their humble cottage he flashed his brightest smile and prepared to charm them with his native Canadian wit. The Quelches were a pleasant couple slightly reserved in the manner of the British but they soon warmed to Bill and after dinner they invited he and Phyllis to join them at the neighborhood pub.

The evening passed in easy camaraderie. Bill entertained the Quelches with amusing tales of life on the Canadian wilderness, and they responded with anecdotes of English country life. By the time they started home it was raining heavily, and Mrs. Quelch insisted that it was not a fit night for Bill to bicycle back to the base. He gratefully accepted a bed on the living room sofa and was soon fast asleep.

Rising early the next morning to the smell of sizzling bacon, Bill slipped into the little kitchen to greet Mrs. Quelch.

"The top o'the mornin to ya," he quipped. "When I heard you humming away at that stove I thought for a sec I was back home with my Mum."

Smiling shyly, Mrs. Quelch poured him a cup of tea, dished up several slices of bacon and four eggs onto an old crockery plate and set it carefully on the warmer.

"That smells mighty good, ma'am," Bill said, gratefully carrying the plate to the little breakfast nook and happily digging into his breakfast. The portion was just right for his vigorous appetite, and pleasantly filled, he waited eagerly for Phyllis and her Dad to join them. When they finally gathered around the table, Bill wondered that all they ate was toast and tea, but assumed they'd adopted the modern habit of saving their appetite for the mid-day meal.

When Bill prepared to leave for the base Phyllis offered to ride part way and Bill delightedly accepted her company. They hadn't gone far though, when she stopped her bicycle and turned to him with a serious expression on her face. "Bill," she said. "Have you any idea what you've done this morning?"

"Done, why I haven't done anything at all, other than pass the time of day with your Mum and enjoy her fine breakfast."

"That's just it. You ate the entire family's ration of bacon and eggs this morning. We save our eggs all week long so on Sunday morning's we'll have enough to share at breakfast."

Well, the ground should have opened up and swallowed Bill. Never had a young man been so embarrassed. Back home in Canada--what with their own hogs and chickens--it was nothing to eat a rasher of bacon and six or seven eggs for breakfast. It hadn't even occurred to him that the plate Mrs. Quelch put on the warmer was for anyone but himself.

Bill's face flamed. He mumbled his apologies to Phyllis, bid her good day, and pedaled like a madman to the base. Wheeling in through the gates he headed straight for the mess hall. Bill had long been in the habit of offering a helping hand in the kitchen when no one else was willing, and his easy acceptance of even the meanest chores made him a favorite among the cooks. Therefore, when he reached the mess hall and tossed his knapsack in the door he was met with good natured grins.

"Fill 'er up lads," he said. "Whatever we've got to spare and don't stint the bacon and eggs. I've a debt to repay and I'll be thanking you not to make me look bad."

Next, Bill charged across the compound and descended on the warrant officer. "Sir, every month we're entitled to our ration books." he told the startled officer, "and in all these many months I've not drawn any of mine. This morning I made a colossal donkey of me, what with not knowing how hard-up these people are for food, and I'm sure in need of my ration books."

"Well soldier," the officer replied, "you're certainly entitled to them, but it'll probably take a little time for me to round them up."

"That'll be fine Sir. I've a few things to attend to and then I'll be back to pick them up."

With that Bill headed back to the kitchen, and finding the knapsack filled to overflowing, he thanked the cooks and swung the heavy knapsack onto his shoulders.

When the ration books were ready, he shoved them in his pockets, and fetched his bicycle. Then he pedaled furiously for Maidenhead and was soon knocking on the door of the cottage.

"Why Bill," Mrs. Quelch said, when she answered the door. "Whatever brings you back here this morning."

"There's a little matter I need to attend to," Bill said stepping inside the door and heading for the kitchen. "You know ma'am," he said, removing the knapsack from his shoulder. "I've never been so embarrassed in my life as when Phyllis told me I'd eaten the family's breakfast. Now, I'm hoping you'll let me makes amends."

Stunned, Mrs. Quelch's eyes widened in wonder as Bill began spilling the contents of his knapsack across the kitchen table. Then, turning to the astonished woman he reached in his pockets and pulled out the stack of ration books.

"Mrs. Quelch," he said. "I want you to know that as long as I'm around here there won't be any more breakfasts of dry toast and tea," and Phyllis, coming into the kitchen, watched in amazement as her mother burst into tears.

"You know," she told Bill later, "in 21 years I've never seen my mum cry, and I'll never forget what you've done for her today."

 Find more by Jude Pittman at http://bookswelove.net/judepittman.php

A PILGRIMAGE TO THE WW1 BATTLEFIELDS - MARGARET TANNER

REMEMBRANCE DAY - A TRIBUTE TO THE FALLEN OF WW1

At 11a.m. on the 11^th November, 1918, an Armistice was signed and the guns fell silent. The Great War had ended but the repercussions would be felt for years.

If you get the chance, please buy a red poppy and wear it proudly, in memory of the fallen.

Australia was a small country in 1914, with a population of less than 4 million, yet we sent over 300,000 men to the front, Gallipoli in Turkey, Egypt, France and Belgium.  More than 60,000 of our soldiers lie on Gallipoli or in the beautiful cemeteries of France and Belgium, 12,000 miles from home.

Our pilgrimage commenced in Amiens where we were met by our guide who runs tours of the French and Belgium battlefields. He has a wealth of knowledge regarding the battlefields. Using war time maps, he was able to point to within a hundred yards, where my grandfather’s cousin was seriously wounded near the village of Hermes in 1917. Chills ran down my spine, I felt as if a hand was gripping me from the grave. Unfortunately, this relative died of his wounds, leaving a wife and two small children behind.  He is buried in the war cemetery at Rouen, and we were elated but sad when we found his grave.

We visited large cemeteries where hundreds of white headstones stood amongst green lawns with pretty flowers nodding their heads between the graves.

At Thiepval we saw a monument with thousands of names engraved on it, for English soldiers who fell in the area but have no known grave. One of the most memorable monument wasn’t very big.  It was at Fromelles, a bronze statue of an Aussie soldier carrying his wounded mate. 

The battle for Fromelles was fought on the 19^th and 20^th July 1916, Australia had 5,500 casualties the British 1,500.  For over 90 years no-one knew the fate of nearly 300 of these soldiers, but there had been rumours for many years of mass graves in the area, and it was only after a tenacious campaign waged for years by an Australian school teacher that the authorities finally acted, and four mass graves were discovered about three years after our visit. 250 soldiers have now been laid to rest in separate graves in a new Commonwealth war cemetery.  Of the 250 bodies, nearly half have so far been identified by name using DNA volunteered by relatives, but the authorities are still hoping that more soldiers will eventually be identified.

At Beaumont-Hamel is the Newfoundland Memorial, a giant bronze caribou monument, the caribou being the 1^st Newfoundland Regiment’s emblem. The losses here were horrific. During one of the most costly days of the 1916 campaign, the 1^st Newfoundland regiment lost three-quarters of its soldiers in less than half an hour.

On the 28^th May, 1918, the 1^st American Division attacked Cantigny and took the village against overwhelming odds.

The men of the various American regiments who fell in the battles of 1917-18, are buried in a large American Cemetery at Bony (Aisne) on the Somme.

There is a lovely chapel there and staff at the visitor centre were very nice and showed us around. They were surprised at our interest, because they said that sadly not many Americans visited there. Those who came to France always went to the Normandy beaches. Hopefully, with the Centenary of the 1^st World War, this will be rectified and Americans in greater numbers will now come to pay homage to their heroes who fell on the Western Front.

In the Belgium city of Ypres is a soaring stone archway at an entrance to the town. The Menin Gate memorial to the Missing has etched into its walls the names of 50,000 thousand British and other Commonwealth soldiers who served in the region but have no known graves. Even after all these years, they still play the last post every evening as a mark of respect for the fallen.

The largest Commonwealth War cemetery is Tyne Cot with over 12,000 graves in it. More than half the headstones have no name. They bear the inscription “Known Only To God.

We visited large war cemeteries here and beautiful and sad as they were, the most touching was a small cemetery near Passchendale with only a handful of white headstones. Night was falling as we passed through this cemetery, and as we stopped to read the inscription on an eighteen year old soldier’s grave, we whispered that someone from home had come to visit him. When we turned and walked away through the misty rain, all we could leave behind for him was our tears and a red poppy.

Find Margaret Tanner's WWI Centenary Edition and her other titles here: http://www.bookswelove.net/tanner.php