Monday, July 8, 2019
Sunday, July 7, 2019
My New 19th Century BFFs
Click here to purchase
Click here for Eileen O'Finlan's website
Click here for Eileen O'Finlan's website
|
Labels:
#Books We Love Blog,
#BWL Author Blog,
19th century,
Catharine Beecher,
domestic science,
Harriet Beecher Stowe,
housewife,
housework,
Lydia Maria Child,
Women
Eileen O’Finlan was a member of the Worcester Writers Workshop for many years and now hosts a writing group at her home in Holden.
Kelegeen, published by BWL Publishing, is her debut novel. She is currently working on the sequel to be titled Erin's Children set in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Eileen is a holds a Bachelor’s Degree in history and a Master’s Degree in pastoral ministry.
When not writing or working her full-time job, Eileen facilitates online courses for the University of Dayton, Ohio.
Saturday, July 6, 2019
Nova Scotia Ghosts
Ghost Stores – how true are they?
Although the stories of women are scarce, there is an unlimited supply of ghost stories for the Maritime Provinces. They comprise a collection of forerunners, apparitions, and other-worldly events. Forerunners foretell a death. They include:
- three knocks on the door with no one outside
- visions of a relative seen in the night
- ghostly figures following you on the road
- non-existent figures are seen in a rear-view mirror
- footsteps heard on the stairs with no one there
- footprints are seen on a floor where no one has walked
- the sound of a vehicle arriving but no one is there
Usually, forerunners are followed by the death of a family member or friend often before that person has reached a ripe old age.
For two real ghost stories of this generation, told to me by a reliable source, visit my blog on A Plethora of Ghosts
Stories of ghostly events and their outcomes are available in many books.
(The Books are linked to Amazon.ca if you would like the book.)
I've also shivered to the Ghost Stories of authors like Vernon Oickle.
Labels:
forerunners,
Ghost Stories,
South Shore apparitions
Friday, July 5, 2019
The Sea Kill or Cure by Rosemary Morris
To explore more of Rosemary's work please click on the cover.
In September 1804, Jane Austen, wrote to her sister, Cassandra, from Weymouth, “I continue quite well in proof of which I have bathed again this morning.”
Dr Richard Russell had developed the ‘sea water’ cure and made swimming in the sea and drinking the water fashionable. The doctor’s description of the sea was ‘a vast medicated bath’ which patients could benefit from.
In 1783 when the Prince of Wales was twenty-one, he visited Brighthelmstone, later called Brighton, and from then on visited the seaside resort every year. Society followed the pleasure-loving prince to the seaside where they enjoyed sea-air and swam.
Clean sea-air provided relief from smoke from coal fires which polluted cities. Due to poor diet deficient in fruit and vegetables and lack of personal hygiene, chronic constipation, gout, skin diseases, and other health problems were rife. Drinking sea water either killed, cured or had no effect on patients.
In my novel Friday’s Child, the heroine, Lady Margaret declares the spa water in Cheltenham tastes disgusting. However, for hundreds of years, drinking the waters had purged those who drank them, and in Dr Robert Wittie’s pamphlet published in 1667 he also mentioned the benefits derived from sea water.
Spa water was bottled and sold. Subsequently sea water, to which crabs’ eyes, tar and sponges were sometimes added, was bottled and marketed. Mixed with milk, patients drank a lot.
As a child I shuddered when my mother dosed me with milk of magnesia but, looking back, I would prefer her noxious medicine to that sea water and its additives. I doubt even spoonful of sugar would have helped me to swallow the foul-tasting medicine.
In my novel Wednesday’s Child, Amelia, the heroine protests when Dr Cray breaks the news that her grandmother is suffering from a fatal tumour in her stomach. Amelia protests. “But, before you examined my grandmother, on Doctor Sutton’s instructions she has been bled, blistered and purged, besides drinking seawater with roasted crabs’ eyes, and bathing in the sea, all of which he assured us would cure her.”
In common with the fictional characters, Cray and Sutton, many doctors in seaside towns made their fortunes from those seeking cures.
At the thought of drinking sea water every day, I am grateful for conventional treatment and after reading this I am sure you will agree.
Novels by Rosemary Morris
Early 18th Century novels: Tangled Love, Far Beyond Rubies, The Captain and The Countess
Regency Novels False Pretences.
Heroines Born on Different Days of the Week Books one to Six, Sunday’s Child, Monday’s Child, Tuesday’s Child, Wednesday’s Child and Thursday’s Child. Friday’s Child. (The novels are not dependent on each other, although events in previous novels are referred to and characters reappear.
Mediaeval Novel Yvonne Lady of Cassio. The Lovages of Cassio Book One
www.rosemarymorris.co.uk
http://bookswelove.net/authors/morris-rosemary
Thursday, July 4, 2019
Wild Bill or Buffalo Bill by Katherine Pym
~*~*~*~
From L-R: Wild Bill, Texas Jack, Buffalo Bill |
I get these
two mixed up. Even as they are different, they look sort of alike, maybe
because of their long hair and similar beards. They both lived life to extreme,
and they were friends.
Nine years
difference in their ages, their lives paralleled in many ways. The two Bills
were born in the same neck of the woods; James Butler Hickok (Wild Bill) in Illinois in 1837, and William
Frederick Cody (Buffalo Bill) in
Iowa in 1846.
Both came
from religious families, Wild Bill-Baptist; Buffalo Bill-Quaker. Both families
disagreed with slavery. Wild Bill’s parents worked in the Underground Railroad,
helping slaves escape from the South. Buffalo Bill’s father was stabbed to
death during an anti-slavery rally.
Both Bills
rode for the Pony Express (at different times), and fought on the same side
during the Civil War, where Wild Bill and Custer became fast friends. During
the Indian Wars, Buffalo Bill guided a wagon train with Custer.
Both worked
for the same stagecoach company in Fort Leavenworth, KS. During one trip, the
stagecoach broke down, and Wild Bill, waiting for the repair crew, slept in the
bushes while the passengers remained in the coach. During the night, Wild Bill
was attacked by a bear. The passengers found him the next morning critically
wounded, the bear dead with a stab wound.
Our daring
Bills performed in the same stage play where they showed their prowess shooting
at targets, thrilling the audience.
After the Civil War his life
and Wild Bill's found separate paths, although they were lifelong
friends.
Wild Bill Hickok |
Captain Jack
Crawford summed up Wild Bill as one
fraught with faults but carried a gentleness about him until riled by insults.
He was a good friend and generous to a flaw, but he had no qualms killing a man
who did him an injustice. Toward the end of his life, Wild Bill spent most of
his time wandering saloons, & playing cards.
He usually
sat in a far corner with his back to the wall, but on one particular day, someone
sat in his usual seat. Wild Bill reluctantly found a chair at the corner table,
and sat with his back to the door. That’s
where Jack McCall found him, and shot him point blank in the back of the head.
Buried in
Deadwood SD, everyone who knew Wild Bill mourned his death. He was only 39
years of age.
Buffalo Bill Cody |
Charismatic Buffalo Bill’s moniker came when he
worked for the Kansas Pacific Railroad, hired to provide buffalo meat for the
workers. Over a period of 18 months, he killed more than 4000 buffalo.
From Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Bill):
"Cody and another hunter, Bill
Comstock, competed in an eight-hour
buffalo-shooting match over the exclusive right to use the name [Buffalo Bill],
which Cody won by killing 68 animals to Comstock's 48."
Buffalo
Bill was a restless man and entrepreneur. He went on to tour with his Wild West Show in Europe and America, where most of the audience knew the names of his headliners, both American Indians and gunslingers. They showed the world how crazy was the wild west. It ran successfully until its final show in 1906.
Buffalo Bill
died in 1917 while visiting his sister in Denver, CO. He requested to be buried
on a mountain overlooking the Great Plains, but rumor has it his body was
spirited away and now rests in the hills above Cody, WY. He was 70 years old.
~*~*~*~*~
Many thanks
to:
Wikipedia,
& Wiki Commons, Public Domain
Labels:
Buffalo Bill Cody,
BWL author,
Civil War,
Custer,
Deadwood SD,
saloons,
Wild Bill Hickok,
Wild West
Author of historical novels set in 1660's London with one novel of the French Revolution.
Wednesday, July 3, 2019
Visit Diane Bator's BWL Author page for information and purchase options
When should you start to write?
When should you start to write?
Today we’re at the end of my original list of the
five Ws of writing. We’ve already gone through:
Who – as in
Who are YOU as a writer?
What – for
What do you want to write?
Why – what
drives you?
This blog post is brought to you by When. When can mean a
couple of things, the best time of day to write or the best time of your life to
start writing. Let’s start with the time of day, shall we?
Some writers swear they are the most creative early in
the morning. In order to be at their best, they start the day by doing Morning
Pages as per Julia Cameron in her book The Artist’s Way. Julia describes
Morning Pages as “three pages of longhand writing, strictly stream-of-consciousness.”
(The Artists Way, page 10.) A lot of writers I know use this time to clear
the noisy thoughts from their minds so they can focus on the task ahead. Their
creative writing. Some writers even find ideas come from this flow of consciousness,
sometimes while they sip their morning coffee or tea.
For me personally, I used to get up before I awoke
my kids for school when they were younger and was happy even when I only had
time to write a page or two out on my back porch. Now, I’m able to carve out
time in the morning before my full-time job since my kids are much older. At
least a couple days per week, I will use my half hour lunch break to write as
well and like to keep a couple evenings open to create as well.
Recently someone on social media asked how old you
have to be to become a writer. That created a whole new conversation and
received a lot of answers. Some not so nice as people are bound to be online.
It did prompt me to do a little digging.
I’ve been a storyteller and writer since I was young
and still have handwritten stories and poems from when I was a teenager when my
first two poems were published. I was about 15 years old.
There are no real age limits to writing or even being
published. The youngest person I discovered online was Dorothy Straight who
wrote her books at age 4 and was published her book “How the World Began”
at age 6 in 1964. The oldest was Jim Downing who published “The Other Side
of Infamy” in 2016 at the age of 102!
A few of the more famous authors published at
various ages are:
· Age 21 – Victor Hugo and Mary Shelley
(Frankenstein)
· Age 22 – Margaret Atwood and Ray
Bradbury
· Age 24 – Ernest Hemingway and
Jack London
· Age 28 – Jack Kerouac
· Age 30 – Agatha Christie and Mark
Twain. It is also interesting to note Stephen King had published Carrie,
Salem’s Lot, and The Shining all before the age of 30.
· Age 41 – Maya Angelou
· Age 50 – Bram Stoker (Dracula)
· Age 57 – Anna Sewell (Black
Beauty)
· Age 66 – Frank McCourt (Angela’s
Ashes)
I belong to a writing group and love that our ages
range from 25 to mid-eighties. Some are published, some have been working on
the same books for many years, and some just attend to write and learn. We all
have that one common love though: Writing. It has no age limit, education, or socio-economic
limits.
All you need is a pen and paper to get started…
Diane
Bator
Author
of Wild Blue Mysteries, Gilda Wright Mysteries and Glitter Bay Mysteries
Mom of
3 boys and 2 cats and a mouse who is too smart for mousetraps...
The Who, What, Where, Why and WHEN of Writing - Part 5 by Diane Bator
Visit Diane Bator's BWL Author page for information and purchase options
When should you start to write?
When should you start to write?
Today we’re at the end of my original list of the
five Ws of writing. We’ve already gone through:
Who – as in
Who are YOU as a writer?
What – for
What do you want to write?
This blog post is brought to you by When. When can mean a
couple of things, the best time of day to write or the best time of your life to
start writing. Let’s start with the time of day, shall we?
Some writers swear they are the most creative early in
the morning. In order to be at their best, they start the day by doing Morning
Pages as per Julia Cameron in her book The Artist’s Way. Julia describes
Morning Pages as “three pages of longhand writing, strictly stream-of-consciousness.”
(The Artists Way, page 10.) A lot of writers I know use this time to clear
the noisy thoughts from their minds so they can focus on the task ahead. Their
creative writing. Some writers even find ideas come from this flow of consciousness,
sometimes while they sip their morning coffee or tea.
For me personally, I used to get up before I awoke
my kids for school when they were younger and was happy even when I only had
time to write a page or two out on my back porch. Now, I’m able to carve out
time in the morning before my full-time job since my kids are much older. At
least a couple days per week, I will use my half hour lunch break to write as
well and like to keep a couple evenings open to create as well.
Recently someone on social media asked how old you
have to be to become a writer. That created a whole new conversation and
received a lot of answers. Some not so nice as people are bound to be online.
It did prompt me to do a little digging.
I’ve been a storyteller and writer since I was young
and still have handwritten stories and poems from when I was a teenager when my
first two poems were published. I was about 15 years old.
There are no real age limits to writing or even being
published. The youngest person I discovered online was Dorothy Straight who
wrote her books at age 4 and was published her book “How the World Began”
at age 6 in 1964. The oldest was Jim Downing who published “The Other Side
of Infamy” in 2016 at the age of 102!
A few of the more famous authors published at
various ages are:
· Age 21 – Victor Hugo and Mary Shelley
(Frankenstein)
· Age 22 – Margaret Atwood and Ray
Bradbury
· Age 24 – Ernest Hemingway and
Jack London
· Age 28 – Jack Kerouac
· Age 30 – Agatha Christie and Mark
Twain. It is also interesting to note Stephen King had published Carrie,
Salem’s Lot, and The Shining all before the age of 30.
· Age 41 – Maya Angelou
· Age 50 – Bram Stoker (Dracula)
· Age 57 – Anna Sewell (Black
Beauty)
· Age 66 – Frank McCourt (Angela’s
Ashes)
I belong to a writing group and love that our ages
range from 25 to mid-eighties. Some are published, some have been working on
the same books for many years, and some just attend to write and learn. We all
have that one common love though: Writing. It has no age limit, education, or socio-economic
limits.
All you need is a pen and paper to get started…
Diane
Bator
Author
of Wild Blue Mysteries, Gilda Wright Mysteries and Glitter Bay Mysteries
Mom of
3 boys and 2 cats and a mouse who is too smart for mousetraps...
Labels:
All That Sparkles,
Dead Without Honor,
Julia Cameron,
Morning Pages,
Stephen King,
The Artist's Way,
The Bookstore Lady,
the five Ws of writing
Prolific author, Editor, Associate Publisher, and Book Coach. Also mom of three grown ups and two fur babies.
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