Wednesday, April 4, 2018

The Great London Fire by Katherine Pym



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London Fire reached Ludgate, September 4, 1666


I understand this is a subject that may have been slightly overdone, especially since 2016 marked the 350 year anniversary of the vast destruction that occurred within a short 4 day timespan. To celebrate, London had a lovely old city effigy burned on a barge in the Thames. BBC had a television show on how it happened, where it started. It looks like Pudding Lane wasn’t quite where we thought it was all these years. The bakery was a block or so farther away. A marker that shows where it was is in a nice, clean street where cars now parallel park.

My current work in progress (WIP) takes place in London 1666. Since the fire was a big event in that year, I cannot not mention it, now can I? The reader would wonder why I’ve listed every other important moment but not that one, which to this day marks many souls as a living catastrophe.

In 1666, England was at war with the Dutch (fought entirely at sea). It was really a merchant’s war, caused by skirmishes over ports of call in the East and West Indies. The English felt the Dutch should share in the profits of spices, new fabrics (cotton), exotic fruits, differently manufactured furniture and fine pottery. After all, the Indies included vast areas of land and people. It wasn’t fair that one country take everything. 

Fighting fire with a 'squirt'. It held 4 pints of fluid, and took 2 men to operate.

Almost 18 months into the war, as the English fleet prepared to meet the enemy in a pitched battle, on September 1, 1666, a gale entered the Channel. A wind so strong, it felled the fleet. Sails ripped from masts. Bowsprits shattered. Ships collided and listed. Gun ports were closed to keep the seas from flowing onto the gun decks, swamping everything in its wake. The winds tore the fleet to shreds, then moved onto England. In the wee hours of Sunday morning, September 2, London winds whipped a spark and London began to burn.

The fire was so fierce, it created its own weather. Lightning slashed, thunder boomed. Warehouses along the Thames contained oils, pitch and tar, which burned fiercely.

People weren't this calm as they ran
Most homes were squeezed along narrow, dark lanes, cantilevered so that top stories were only inches apart. Made of half-timbers, wattle and daub, a material that if maintained did not burn easily, many houses were not maintained. Leased houses and shops were the responsibility of the renters. They had to fix anything that broke, burnt or toppled over. They were responsible for the walkway and road outside their doors. Not many followed these regulations. And with the winds so fierce, it was fodder for fire.

People took their goods to neighbors’, thinking the fire wouldn’t reach them. They took furniture and clothing to churches, thinking the walls were too thick for fire to burn them. As the fire moved west along the river and northwest through town, people removed what they had stored and moved them farther away, into a neighborhood they were sure would not burn.

Black smoke could be seen over 56 miles away. The city looked like daylight when it was nighttime. A contemporary wrote the firestorm sounded like “a thousand iron chariots beating on stones”. It was deafening. Stone facades exploded like bombs. Church steeples engulfed in flame toppled over onto streets and houses.
 
Booksellers lived in the vicinity of St. Paul’s Cathedral. They sold their wares in Paul’s Yard. Their parish church was St. Faith’s located under St. Paul’s church in the undercroft. They called it St. Faith’s under St. Paul’s. They took their presses, paper and books to St. Faith’s knowing with the massive pillars of Paul’s it would never burn. By the time the flames licked Paul’s outer walls, St. Faith’s was stuffed. St. Paul’s was filled with goods up to the choir loft.

St. Paul’s was in disrepair. Over time, the heavy, lead roof had spread its walls outward. Pillars were crumbling. Scaffolding supported some of the pillars and the outside of the church. Just a few days prior, a meeting had been held to discuss renovation of the building. 

The Burning of St. Paul's Cathedral

By 8 o’clock Tuesday evening (September 4), fiery debris had fallen on Paul’s roof. Shoddy repairs of timber caught and burned so hot, a gentleman who stood over a mile away saw the inferno.

“Large parts of the roof, both stone and burning timber fell in, and the Cathedral became a roaring cauldron of fire…”

“Molten lead dripped in silvery beads from the roof, raining down upon the broken stones and tombs that strewed the Cathedral floor, and there collecting, ran out into the streets in a stream.”

Paul’s choir and lower floor crashed into St. Faith’s. When St. Paul’s collapsed, the whole building exploded with an earsplitting roar. Burning papers and books sailed in the air, some of the pages landing miles away in the English countryside.

St. Paul’s was a mass of smoking ruins within an hour.

London after the fire. It poured beyond the old Roman walls into west London.

 
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Many thanks to Wikicommons, public domain,

By Permission of Heaven, the True Story of the Great Fire of London, by Adrian Tinniswood, Riverhead Books, NY 2004

The Story of London’s Great Fire by Walter G. Bell, Butler & Tanner, Ltd., Frome and London, 1923








Monday, April 2, 2018

Outside my comfort zone by J. S. Marlo





What I’ll say next might surprise some people, but by nature, I am in introvert person. I don’t like crowds and I’m not comfortable speaking in public. When my publisher suggested I do a book signing for Voted Out at the local bookstore, I said, “Sure. Sounds like fun.” But deep down, I was scared. So I met with the manager, a wonderful lady named Jackie, a few months ago, and the first thing we did was to select a date. We picked last weekend Saturday March 24th—as you can see I survived.
 

She ordered my books, which arrived in time for the signing, and told me she might be able to  arrange for an interview with the local newspaper and radio station. Again, I said, “Sure. Sounds like fun.” But deep down, I wasn’t just scared, I was now scared out of my wits. Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans...they can go south in a heartbeat. An emergence arose for which I had to fly south on March 12th and I wasn’t scheduled to fly back home until March 23rd around suppertime. Then my returning flight was cancelled and I was re-booked on a later flight arriving at 11pm on the 23rd amid the forecast of a snowstorm. The interviews never happened, but now I was terrified of missing my own book signing. Talk about irony!

Before I left, I had dropped posters at the bookstore so they could advertise the signing, and while I was gone I took care of some details. I had my nails done in romantic-murder-mystery theme, I got a sticky nametag with my name & logo, and I bought chocolate eggs for treats. I took all of these to the store along with business cards and novelty pens (pink, purple, and blue).

During the signing I was told it might help if I mingle with the customers, so lots of...Hello. How are you? What are you looking for? What do you like to read? Well, unless I was standing near my table, my nice nametag with my author name on it was mistaken for an employee tag. I received lots of requests for books and authors I had never heard of, but it also allowed me to suggest my book on a few occasions, and when I added I would also gladly sign it for them, they stared at me with a 'deer in headlights' look before asking, “You’re the author?” Then we would chat about everything, including my hair. Actually, many encounters started with a comment about my purple and blue hair. One lady even asked me to sign her book with the three pens so it would look like my hair. I wrote a lovely thank you for coming and nice chatting with you note inside her book, and each word was written in a different color. I regret not taking a picture...

90% of the people I met that day were strangers and I had an amazing time interacting with them. I was uncomfortable at first, but it got easier as the day when by. Some people came to chat without buying anything, some came to buy without chatting, and some came to chat and buy something. I was delighted to talk to all of them and I want to thank them all for coming and taking a few minutes to brighten my day.  It was so interesting and I had so much fun that I now wonder why on earth I was so scared.

See you next time!
JS

Note: I would also like to thank Jackie, Sarah, and all the staff at Coles in Fort McMurray for hosting my book signing. I couldn’t have done it without you!



Sunday, April 1, 2018

Choosing the Right Name for a Character by Joanie MacNeil





From Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, 1600: A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
The meaning of this phrase: What matters is what something is, not what it is called.

There are authors who write a novel and then choose the names of their characters. There is nothing wrong with this. However, some of us can’t bring ourselves to do that.
Before I begin to write the first draft of a new story, I’m compelled to name my characters. It’s not a case of any name will do for now, I’ll change it later. The name must match the perception of how I envision the essence of my character. I like strong names and these must suit my hero and heroine.
Early in my writing career I’d flick through baby names books to look for the right name for my hero and heroine, especially if I wanted something a little bit different, like my Scottish heroes, Galen and Regan. These days I am more likely to run a few names through my mind, then choose the one that I believe best matches my character.
When choosing a surname for the hero, and a Christian name for the heroine, I make sure that if they are to marry, her first name goes well with the hero’s surname. Of course, in reality, she might want to keep her own surname.
In Sapphire Kisses, I wanted something a little different for my hero, and chose Kent for his Christian name. But the name just didn’t fit how I perceived my hero to be. For me, Kent wasn’t strong enough. He wasn’t the hero I’d envisioned. I changed his name to David, which fitted so much better…bringing life to my perception of him. Only then could I move on with his story…a photographer and author, a recluse, struggling with the reality of losing his sight. I felt it was important for his character to have a strong name to carry him through his difficult journey to his happily ever after with the heroine.

Luke, Jack and Nick are favourites of mine.





Luke DeMarco – back in Natalie’s life in The Trouble with Natalie
Jack Shannon – the talents of Paige Delaney will help save his company in No Boundaries
Nick Sheridan – the bad boy from Claire’s past in Loving Nick…Again

And I’ve always liked Liam. That name suited my up-and-coming executive hero. Not an outdoors man, but responsible for the well-being of his teenage brother, Daniel, in Desperate and Dateless 





In December Heat Wave, my heroine is Nicolette. The hero calls her Nic. I remember watching an interview with Tom Cruise when he was married to Nicole, and when he referred to her as Nic, there was something intimate about the way he spoke the shortened form of her name that struck a chord with me.
I also like my heroines to have strong names, names that will suit from newborn to mature woman.




In my upcoming release, Sweet Temptations, my heroine is called Elizabeth. She hates being called Lizzie. Only her favourite uncle is allowed to call her that. I worked with a Liz who hated being referred to as Lizzie. The hero is Zac. I have always liked that name too.
When choosing a name, the advice is not to give your characters similar names as it confuses the reader. In my current work-in-progress I chose Matty and Mardi as names for my twin characters, but have now changed Matty to Matt, which does make a smoother read.
So, for me, naming my characters with the right name, makes them who they are.

’Bye for now

Joanie




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