How do you sum up your core identity?

Can tag lines apply to life as well to our writing?

We present faces to the world that match our roles: mother, friend, sister, boss. But in truth, who are we? Behind all your faces, who are you? 

• What do you care about?
• What do you want?
• What cheers you, what causes you harm, or drives you?

What tag line sums up who you are?

I've thought about those questions. I've searched for answers, direction, and inner peace. In the distant past, I thought I was the only one searching for these answers. Turns out I do not have a monopoly on the questions. Everyone I've met has asked these or similar questions more than once in their lives.

We start as babies with a clean slate. People we meet, the circumstances of our lives, and all the actions we take, inscribe indelibly on the slate that represents who we are. But do we let the writing of others define us? Or do we search out our own identity? Can we learn from our histories?

Each of us is unique and our answers will be ours alone.

I don't pretend to have answers for you. I have found a few for myself. However, those answers shift with my mood, my circumstances, and my heart. I continue to search, to redefine, and add new purpose in my life. At seventy+ years old, I know certain truths about myself. I have chosen tag lines to guide my behavior.

In stories, I like a puzzle, struggling human characters, and an ending that offers hope. In my writing, I strive to offer those ingredients to my readers.

In my books, you’ll find stories about:

• the puzzle of inner and outer identity
• the impact of people and circumstances on my characters
• the course of overturned lives
• characters who find inner strength and skills to put things right in their world

In life, my frequent questioning about who I am, why I’m here, and how I can cope shapes my life. I seek to find answers for myself.

For stories, my tag line is:

Stories that set things right.... characters that find their way.

Here’s a tag line my mother taught by example.

Leave everyone and everything better than you find them.

• When we ate at a campground on a road trip, she picked up trash left by others.
• When we used a public washroom, she wiped down not only the sink she used but the others as well.
• She picked up children who had fallen, held doors open for seniors, and smiled at people she passed.
• Small actions that took moments but left things better than she found them. They may seem trivial, but like sands make a beach, small actions make a good life.

Her life might have also had this tagline

When you fall, get up and try again, and never turn down a good laugh.

For me, that line helps me stay focused and to make daily decisions in all areas of my life.

Learn, love, and share.

Writers - Do you have a tag line for your books?

People - Do you have one for your personal life story?

• Is your purpose to help? Teach? Create? Fix? Build?
• Which of your actions leave you smiling and joy-filled?
• What is your daily intent? Can you sum it up in one line?

How would you summarize your life ideas into one line?

Introduction to Saturday's Child by Rosemary Morris

To learn more about Rosemary's work please click on the cover above.


I enjoyed writing my new novel, Saturday’s Child, set in Brighton on the south coast of England during the Regency era.
My research included interesting facts about libraries, boarding houses, fashion and much more.
Before I began the novel, I spent hours thinking about the characters. Then, from the first paragraph to the last, Annie took me by the hand and led me through the challenges she overcame.

“After the Battle of Waterloo, motherless ten-year-old Annie travels to London with her father, Private Johnson. Discharged from the army, instead of the hero’s welcome he deserves, his desperate attempts to make an honest living fail. Without food or shelter, death seems inevitable. Driven by desperation Johnson pleads for help from Georgiana Tarrant, his deceased colonel’s daughter.
Georgiana, who founded a charity to assist soldiers’ widows and orphans, agrees to provide for them.
At Major and Mrs Tarrant’s luxurious house, Annie is fed, bathed and given clean clothes. Although she and her father, her only relative, will be provided for there is a severe price. Johnson will work for Georgiana while Annie is educated at the Foundling House Georgiana established.
Despite the years she spent overseas when her dear father fought against the French, the horror she witnessed, and recent destitution Annie’s spirit is not crushed. She understands their separation is inevitable because her father cannot refuse employment. Annie vows that one day she will work hard for her living and never again be poor. It is fortunate she cannot foresee the hardship and tragedy ahead to be overcome when she is an adult.”

http://bwlpublishing.ca/morris-rosemary

www.rosemarymorris.co.uk

Death of King Charles II By Katherine Pym

 

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First, a little about him…

King Charles II

King Charles II lived a life full of sex and sport. During his youth, he learned to keep his own counsel. He was kind natured, only allowing his need for revenge against a few of the regicides. Cromwell was one of these, even though already dead and buried.

Charles took a long time to come to a state decision. He’d put it off with a wave of his hand, and play with one of his women. He loved spaniels, and several romped in his private chambers, soiling the floors so that no one could walk across the room in a straight line.

Charles' siblings with their spaniels

Even though he reigned in a Protestant country, while on the run in 1651 after his defeat at the Battle of Worcester, Charles was protected at their peril by Catholics. For a few hours, Charles hid in a priest hole, very snug and claustrophobic, while Parliament men searched for him. By the end of his trek through England and into exile, Charles had gained a high regard for Catholics and Catholicism.

But I digress.

While Charles reigned, he did not confide in many. He was considered an enigma by both his contemporaries and those who study him. He had a kind heart. His nature made people comfortable. They confided in him, wanted to be near him. But when Charles wanted to be alone, or was tired of the subject, he’d pull out his watch. Those who knew of this would quickly state their business, for soon their king would walk away.

Charles loved reading (not political or religious). He brought great strides to the theatre sector, and he enjoyed science. In 1660, he approved a charter for The Royal Society. The group of great minds, Isaac Newton for one, met at Gresham College in London City. Experiments took place there, including draining the veins of a dog into the veins of another dog. The results amazed those curious people.

So, we come to his death…

Cruel Medicine

‘He fell sick of a tertian fever’, but the official cause of death is: Uraemia (per dictionary.com—“a condition resulting from the retention in the blood of constituents normally excreted in the urine.”), chronic nephritis. Syphilis.

On the evening of February 1, 1685, Charles went to bed with a sore foot. By early morning, he was very ill with fever. His physician (Sir Edmund King) tended to his foot whilst a barber shaved his head. Suddenly, the king suffered apoplexy. His physician immediately withdrew sixteen ounces of blood. Sir Edmund took a big risk, and could have been charged with treason. The protocol was to get permission from the Privy Council prior to a bloodletting.

But they were learning. First microscope

For several days, Charles was tormented by his physicians. As a private man this must have been difficult. Surrounded by more physicians than could gain his bed, they attempted to remove the ‘toxic humours’ that penetrated his body.

He was bled and purged. Cantharides plasters were stuck to his bald pate. They caused blistering. They attached plasters of spurge to his feet, then red-hot irons to his skin. Besides the large number of physicians crowding his bed, His Royal Highness’ bedchamber was filled to the walls with spectators (family members and state officials).

They gave the poor king “enemas of rock salt and syrup of buckthorn, and ‘orange infusion of metals in white wine’. The king was treated with a horrific cabinet of potions: white hellebore root; Peruvian bark; white vitriol of peony water; distillation of cowslip flowers; sal ammoniac; julep of black cherry water (an antispasmodic); oriental bezoar stone from the stomach of a goat and boiled spirits from a human skull.”

After days of this, he apologized for taking so long to die, then added, “I have suffered much more than you can imagine.”

Finally, on February 6, 1685 “the exhausted king, his body raw and aching with the burns and inflammation caused by his treatment, was given heart tonics, to no avail. He lapsed into a coma and died at noon on February 7.”

His death is considered by historians as “iatrogenic regicide”.

~*~*~*~

I give thanks to Royal Poxes & Potions, The Lives of Court Physicians, Surgeons & Apothecaries, by Raymond Lamont-Brown.