Wednesday, August 7, 2019

A Walking Tour of My Next Novel


                                                  Click here for purchase information
                                                  Click here to visit Eileen O'Finlan's website

Ever since I decided to set the sequel to my debut novel, Kelegeen, in Worcester, Massachusetts, I’ve been seeing the city in a new way. I grew up and still live in a town that abuts Worcester and work a full-time job located in downtown Worcester. I’ve spent countless hours in the city of Worcester. I even rented a house there many years ago. Naturally, I thought I knew Worcester. I know how to get to a lot of places in the city and even when lost, I’ve been able to use landmarks I can see in the distance to figure out in which direction I should head. Of course, now that I have GPS, I don’t need to do that, but sometimes I do just to know I still can.

Recently, I discovered Crown Hill, a hidden jewel in a section of Worcester I never knew existed. My friend and fellow writing group member, Cindy Shenette, is a docent for Preservation Worcester. While discussing where my Irish domestic servant characters would have lived and worked, Cindy mentioned Crown Hill.  This, she said, is where Worcester’s middle class resided. They were the folks who could have afforded to hire one, possibly two, domestic servants. Perfect! Luckily for me, Cindy conducts walking tours of the Crown Hill area and offered to take me on a private tour. Naturally, I jumped at the chance.

On a lovely morning in late June, Cindy picked me up and off we went. The tour began outside a house a on the corner of Pleasant and Oxford streets. It was built in 1844 by Asa Walker, a merchant tailor who owned a store on Marion Street. Asa lived there with his wife, Lucy.  Made of brick, the house is unusual for the area since most were made of wood.

Greek Revival home of Asa and Lucy Walker built in 1844
Across from the side of this house stands a brick building that is now Rob Roy Academy Hair and Beauty School, but in the time of my story was the Pleasant Street Primary School. Could this be where the children of Meg's and Kathleen's employers were educated?

Originally the Pleasant Street Primary School - Now the Rob Roy Academy Hair and Beauty School

As the tour continued along Oxford Street, Crown Street, Congress Street and the sections of Pleasant Street and Chatham Street that pass through the Crown Hill area, we saw a plethora of homes that would have stood at the time of the setting of my novel. Most were Greek Revival along with a few Italianate and Second Empire houses.


Greek Revival House


Elijah and Mercy Brooks House - Served as a parsonage for a nearby Quaker Meeting House



Two views of an Italianate house
As we strolled along, the morning grew warmer and we were grateful for the tree lined sidewalks. We stopped to note the few remaining gas streetlamps (still in use!) and hitching posts for horses (not still in use).

Gas streetl lamp - still in use

Since Crown Hill is a designated historic district there are strict rules governing what residents are and are not allowed to do with the outside of their houses. Though now, many of the Greek Revival houses are painted in various colors, in the mid-1800s they would all have been an off-white, making the street resemble a row of ancient Greek temples. As Cindy noted, if all the vehicles were removed, the paved roads replaced with dirt, and the houses all painted the same color, it would look pretty much the same as it did back then.  It didn’t take much imagination to picture myself as one of my characters walking down these very streets. What an amazing feeling to enter into the world of my characters!

Tour guide and fellow writer, Cindy Shenette


Author, Eileen O'Finlan taking notes while happily walking the same streets as her characters


Tuesday, August 6, 2019

What the heck is Blueberry Grunt?



August is Blueberry month in Maggie's world.

What do YOU do with blueberries?

Foods in my books, including The Left-Behind Bride, are often specific dishes found in the community around Bridgewater, Lunenburg, and Riverport. Dishes called Hodge Podge, Solomon Gundy and Blueberry Grunt are commonplace there.

August through September is the blueberry season and the berries are prolific and delicious. If you’ve never had Blueberry Grunt, you're in for a hot, steamy, blueberry treat that rivals blueberry muffins. My mother made it is the pressure cooker or a large pot with a tight lid. Some people make it in a cast iron frypan and a lid. The name comes from the popping sound made by the blueberries as they heat up. Here’s a recipe.


BLUEBERRY GRUNT
 (From the Pages of Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens, collected by Marie Nightingale, 1975 printing)

The Sauce
  •  ·        1 Quart of blueberries
  • ·         1/2 cup of sugar (more to taste optional)
  • ·         1/2 cup of water
Put berries, sugar, and water in a pot, cover and boil gently until there is plenty of juice.
   
 The Dumplings
  •   ·       2 cups flour
  • ·         4 teaspoons baking powder
  • ·         1/2 teaspoon salt
  • ·         1 teaspoon sugar
  • ·         1 tablespoon butter
  • ·         1 tablespoon shortening
  • ·         1/4 to 1/3 cup milk



Sift flour, baking powder, salt and sugar into a bowl. (I put it in and whisk it instead of sifting.) Cut in the butter and shortening and add enough milk to make a soft biscuit dough. (A bit dampish.)
Drop by spoonfuls onto the hot blueberries. Cover closely (tightly) and do not peek for 15 minutes. Serve hot.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON WHEN AND WHERE TO GET NS BLUEBERRIES GO TO:
This blueberry trivia comes from their site.

Wild Blueberry Trivia

  • chartNova Scotia's provincial production is over forty million pounds.
  • The wild blueberry is the number 1 fruit crop in acreage export sales, and value.
  • Oxford is the wild blueberry capital of Canada.
  • Wild blueberries are high in antioxidants which have many health benefits including anti-aging effects, cancer inhibiting properties, heart health, urinary tract health, vision health.
  • Nova Scotia wild blueberries are exported to the United States, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom and other countries.
  • Harvesting of wild blueberries begins in August and continues until late September.
by Mahrie G. Reid, Author


 

Monday, August 5, 2019

Brighton A Famous English Seaside Resort by Rosemary Morris


For more information on Rosemary's latest novel please click on the cover.



Photo Credit Brighton-royal-pavilion-Qmin Creeative Commons

I am enjoying the research for my next novel, Saturday’s Child, Heroines Born on Different Days of the Week, Book Six, set in Regency Brighton, so much that I have shared some of the facts in this brief blog, which I hope you will enjoy.
The assumption that until the Regency era, Brighthelmstone, later called Brighton, was a small fishing village is false. The town became a popular health resort in the 1750’s due to the belief that bathing in the sea and drinking brine cured every ailment. (A subject I blogged about last month.)
When the twenty-one-year old heir to the throne first visited Brighton to enjoy merry-making, it was already a centre of fashionable, somewhat louche society. Nevertheless, in 1811 when the population numbered 14,000 residents, crime was negligible, and doors were not locked at night.
Fashionable Regency Brighton boasted elegant houses on the north side of Marine Parade, which was parallel to the ocean, facilities for bathing, assembly rooms, a theatre, shops, libraries, and the future Prince Regent’s ground where the nobility played cricket.
Parliament rose in June, after which the heat in London became intolerable and the capital city was considered unhealthy. Families retreated to their estates in the country or to a seaside resort along improved roads that shortened their journeys.
Those who did not own a house in Brighton could lease one, stay in clean, comfortable hotels, boarding houses or lodgings, which replaced accommodation in previously dirty, overcrowded inns.
An illustrious visitor was the future King George IV. The twenty-one-year-old Prince, later the Prince Regent, first came to Brighton to escape from his father’s rigid control and the court’s formality. In 1785 he rented a farmhouse situated by the River Steine, on a site only six hundred yards from the sea. Subsequently he bought the property. During the next thirty years the modest building was transformed into The Royal Pavilion which has been restored and is open to the public.
The Prince Regent knew more about architecture and fine arts than any other European Prince. He put his knowledge to good use when he commissioned the building. Yet, because of its domes and pagodas Sidney Smith commented that it looked ‘as if St Paul’s had gone to sea and pupped’. The Royal Pavilion became a Chinese fantasy with paintings of emperors and empresses, mandarins and high-born ladies on the walls, tasselled canopies with bells overhead and a profusion of imperial five-clawed dragons. As well the magnificent décor, the prince installed bathrooms, gas lighting, an early type of central heating, and the most up to date kitchen gadgets. He was so proud of these that he often took his friends to the kitchen to admire them.
Brighton is still a popular seaside town and a visit to The Royal Pavilion is a worthwhile experience.

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, Thursday’s Child and Friday’s Child.

(The novels in the series 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

Sunday, August 4, 2019

The Perils of an Outhouse by Katherine Pym







~*~*~*~*~

Canvas Tent in the Woods


Based on true events, you are about to read a grumbly tale:

One weekend my dad announced we were going camping. He professed it was cheaper than motel rooms with 7 people crammed on beds and rented cots (2 adults and 5 kids), and all the meals eaten in restaurants. My parents were new to this and had borrowed the gear.

Brown Bear ready to Eat me.
Camping never appealed to me. Far too rustic and dangerous, crevasse-like gouges marred trees where bears had scraped their claws down the length of the trunks. Deep lakes and river rapids spoiled the fun. Never heard wolves howl in the distance, but we were warned of skunks and wolverines. Rabid squirrels had been found in the area. Biting insects swarmed about our ears. Horrible.

I disliked going on vacation only to work my fingers to the bone: Cooking over a campfire and lugging buckets of cold water to wash tin dishes took away from swimming and exploring. The soap always thinned in the hard water or seemed to go away altogether, which meant stuck-on food took forever to scrape off. Then, I had to find a way to dump grease from the cast iron skillets so that beasties wouldn’t find their way into camp.

I was given the task to air out sleeping bags in the morning and return them to their places in the afternoon. They always dwarfed me as I dragged them across the ground, and the sun beating down on the old canvas gave the tent a strange smell.

Headaches plagued me after sleeping on the ground. One trip we were without a tent, and arriving late to the campground, the only place left was on a hill. The next morning I had slipped to the edge of a precipice and nearly died in the night.

Memory: when between chores, mom and I walked along a path by the river, where we found a dam made of branches and sticks. “Now, Kathy don’t let your brothers disturb the dam,” Mom said. “It might be a beaver’s house with baby beavers inside.” It was interesting to think a small animal could make such a large footprint, and disturb an entire flow of a river.

Outhouse in the wilderness
Going to the toilet in the bushes or wait my turn at the outhouse was always the worst. Flies were a terrible bother, and one never knew if a bee’s or wasps’ nest had taken residence somewhere in there.

We used flashlights to guide our way through the groaning, spooky forest in the night, sit over holes where many others had squatted, and smell the leavings from those bodies. Really gaggingly horrible.

One night my brother dropped the flashlight in the hole. He returned the next day with my other brothers, one of whom was around the age of 5 or 6. They realized the flashlight hadn’t taken a dive into the sludge, but fallen onto a large pile of poop topped with toilet paper. Horrifying with stinky residue, but retrievable.

“Hey Jimmy,” Tom said. “We’ll lower you down so you can grab the flashlight.”

John nodded. “Sure. Let’s do it. We won’t drop you.”

With heartfelt innocence, Jimmy smiled at them.

“We promise,” John said as he raised the platform with the holes.

A Two-Seater
They grabbed Jimmy around his ankles and slowly lowered him into the cesspit. 

Birdsong paused. Insects stopped flying, their buzzes strangled. A raven cried terror from a tree.  Even the breezes had died in morbid expectation.

Lower and lower Jimmy went until his ankles were just above the walls of the pit. 

“Can you reach it?” Tom yelled.

Jimmy coughed. “Almost.”

Tom and John lowered Jimmy so that his entire body was beneath the pit’s rim. “Can you reach it, now?” John demanded.

“Got it,” Jimmy yelled. “Get me out of here.”

They hauled him up, clutching the fouled flashlight. “Here.” He handed it to Tom.

They ran out of the outhouse with their prize, placed it in its proper spot for the next person, never telling anyone where it had been.

Until much much later.

Truly horrible. 

~*~*~*~*~

Many thanks to wikicommons, public domain & my memory.

Saturday, August 3, 2019

The Who, What, Where, Why and WHEN of Writing - Part 5 by Diane Bator


http://bookswelove.net/authors/bator-diane-mystery/  

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?

Where – location, location, location.

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…




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...






Friday, August 2, 2019

I Miss Camping - But so much more to do





A couple years ago, we sold our camper and bought a house. It was the right decision. Camping was only a couple months a year and maybe six camping trips at best, where as the house is permanent. 
Of course along with the house comes other responsibilities. Cleaning and painting, just to get the house ready to live in for one. The place was filthy. I think they previous residents had food fights in every room. Seriously, there was food streaked down every wall in every room. Okay, every room but the bathroom. 
Apparently the people who lived here previously (renters) had tempers. I heard she kicked the man out several times and he broke in. Obviously, the missing screens, windows replaced with Plexiglas, and damaged entry doors was proof that someone broke in or attempted to break in often. 
At any rate, we had our hands full just cleaning. Add to that discovering a hole in the bathtub, that even the inspector missed, we ended up gutting the bathroom. 
But all of that is done and out of the way.  On to the outside. Of course there's normal lawn maintenance, cutting the grass, which is fairly easy in the front. I have a self-propelled lawn mower. The shrubs needed trimming, which I attempted and came to the conclusion, they're too old and will have to be replaced. Next year's project or at least not until fall. I planted a few flowers in the front and my son painted our house - it was in desperate need and we'd really have loved to reside it, but that wasn't in the budget. Besides, we needed a new entry door and  storm door. Once the garage door is painted, the house itself will be done. On to the back yard.  Lord, help us. We aren't sure what to do there.  We had the maple tree cut down last year - it was leaning toward the neighbors and the roots made it impossible to cut the grass. It scared the heck out of me every time we had a storm. So down it went. This year we had the oak removed after we noticed several squirrels going into a hole where a branch had previously been cut. And there were several other
holes just not as deep.  I asked for a price in trimming the tree and cutting it down. I pointed out the hole, and he didn't even give me a price for trimming it. The maple tree, he had said there wasn't anything wrong with, that it was healthy. Not so the oak. (Not to mention I didn't care for all the leaves to rake and the acorns, oh the acorns, millions and millions of acorns. I won't miss that tree.)
My kids wanted the wood from both trees so, the tree removal crew stacked everything in a pile, cut to firewood size.  The kids rented a log-splitter and came over and split the wood. It was an all day project. We started the day with coffee and donuts, I made sloppy joes for lunch and hubby grilled a turkey for dinner. Of course, it was one of the hottest days this year, but they did a great job and they'll have plenty of firewood for next year.   They took the wood from the maple (cut last year) for their camping trips. I don't mind telling you, I was happy to see it disappear, although I now have another huge pile and this time in the middle of our yard. since the back part of our yard floods something terrible. One of my neighbors said there used to be a creek back there before they built the houses. Truthfully, I wish they would have left the creek. I don't need a pond every spring. We even had ducks. After the rainy May and June, I didn't think the yard would ever dry.  
Which leads me to my next problem. What to do? It would take truck loads of dirt to fill it in.  And I'm not sure that would even solve the problem. For now I guess I'll just keep cutting the part of grass that isn't under water and leave the rest for another year. We have an idea what we'd like to do back there, but that will be a project for another year. 
Anyway, back to my original statement. I still miss camping. The kids all went for the 4th of July and it's the first year we've been alone. Usually we celebrate with them, but this year, it was just the two of us. I really really miss camping - or maybe I just miss the kids. 



Thursday, August 1, 2019

August New Releases from BWL Publishing and monthly Free Read


BWL PUBLISHING'S AUGUST RELEASES
visit http://bookswelove.net and click the book covers for book details and purchase information
     
 
       
 
 
 
   


August's free read is from Susan Calder
A Mystery set in Calgary, Alberta home of the world famous Calgary Stampede
visit http://bookswelove.net  to download a free PDF of Ten Days In Summer

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