Inspiration II

 I had been tempted to leave this a blank page to emphasize the dearth of this essential element in a writer’s repertoire in my own circumstances.

 

Then, lo and behold, this magical ingredient returned and I had a thought for a sequel to my American historical, Pavane for Miss Marcher.

Inspiration struck just as I was having a conversation about a mug that my son sent me as a birthday present which reads “Please do not annoy the writer, she may put you in a book and kill you.” The conversation happened to be about a distant cousin-in-law and I commented that, many years after this CIL had annoyed other members of my family with her “I’m so far superior to you” attitude, I had taken a tiny bit of revenge by casting her attitude as the reason the parents of my character, North (in Pavane for Miss Marcher), refused to attend his wedding.

What has that to do with Inspiration, you may wonder.

North is a veteran of the American Civil War. He and his brother-in-law, Aurelius, have been on my mind since, as secondary characters, they made their presence known — in the proverbial ‘pantser’ form of writing — by appearing as the story unfolded.

Following this conversation, I sat quietly for a moment. A progression of images appeared as the tissue of an idea for North’s story unfolded. Except that his tale will have a happy ending, where it goes from this inspired moment is a mystery.

And I like it that way.

Lazy Fingers & Cognitive Assumptions

Every writer faces the task of proofreading at every stage of the writing process. We sometimes do this onerous task at the end of a writing session or we wait until the entire work in progress is commented to paper or even to the last minute before the novel is published.

Competent typists are usually accurate to within a very small percentage point. Two-finger typists, commonly called the “hunt and peck” variety can actually be better at accuracy but much slower. Whichever we are, we occasionally make assumptions about the manual aspects of producing a written work.

Last year, I happily published my seventeenth novel of twenty written works with my name on the cover. While considering a new cover and further research into that period of American history, I reviewed a small section of the novel and—shock horror—even after careful and intense proofreading of the “Advanced Reader’s Copy,” I discovered a typographical error.

Not much further along, I found another error—the “My brain thought this word but my fingers typed that one” kind. During proofreading, the brain often wins the argument, making the assumption that the word typed was the word thought.

With more than one such error, I began at the beginning of the novel, making note of the errors in pencil and marking the pages with strips of multi-colored plastic stickies (my stash of these useful writers’ tools are well-used).

The whole process of re-proofing an already published novel taught me yet another lesson: Proofread more than once and proofread backwards. If you’re self-publishing, asking a friend or paying a professional editor are options. Even so, there will be the occasional missing letter, word or punctuation mark.

In that instance, take the philosophical approach: No one is perfect.

The Best or the Worst: Our Choice

A little over eleven years ago, the film, Bobby, was released in Europe—my home at the time. Media interest in his contribution to history had been awakened and I, as the resident American, had been invited to give an interview with Wedi Saith (=After Seven, a Welsh language television program) about my experiences on the day that Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy (RFK) was assassinated.

This gave me an opportunity and a very good reason to research his life so that I had something of value to contribute to the interview.

What I learned was amazing—if what had been written about him was true—and bewildering. Sirhan B. Sirhan was a Palestinian Christian who became fixated on Robert Kennedy before the Six Day War in June 1967. What about Kennedy then triggered his hatred?

RFK was a powerfully motivated man from his earliest days in government in the 1950s. His contribution was already huge before he was murdered: civil and human rights, anti-Apartheid, fighting organized crime and rogue unions. He would have worked to end America's involvement in the Vietnam War much sooner than Nixon—a good 5 years before.

There was no evidence that RFK supported Israel in the Six Day War, but that is the reason Sirhan B. Sirhan gave for his action.

Yet, RFK most likely would have put human rights at the center of the foreign policy of the United States and this may likely have made a significant difference to developments in the Middle East.

How much different would the world be if not for a 24-year-old obsessive? This question rings as true today as it did in 2007.

How much of our personal interests are given as excuses for our obsessions? How deeply do any of us delve into the “bigger picture” to look beyond personal opinion, our particular world view, to consider the exponential ramifications of our actions?

Very few of us will have the impact on the course of history of either Bobby or Sirhan but we sometimes act as though we do. If we have a purpose at all, I believe our greatest contributions are in our personal relationships and especially those with our offspring.

The psychologist, Brenda Wade, when asked what parents should tell their children about tragedies and crises in the world, said to the effect, “Why should your children know anything about these matters?” She enjoined parents not to allow their children to watch the nightly news.

In today’s atmosphere, some parents think nothing of exposing their small children to violence and mayhem for the sake of their own jaded  beliefs.

Childhood should be a time of innocence, wonder and limitless possibilities. When we teach our children to hate and fear and judge, we limit their potential to live fully, grow to their greatest expectations and contribute to the best we all can be.

Each new generation can be the greatest or we can spoil their chances with our own blighted vision. If we do that, are we not fulfilling our worst fears for the future?

Writers have always had a role to play, as story-tellers and myth-creators, to enlighten and clarify, not always to expose the worst in us, but to bring a greater vision forward, to stand for the best and the true—the bigger true than the squalid, narrow “real” of the evening news.

In memory of Mollie Tibbets, Kate Steinle and too many others.

Sides of History

Quite often, we hear that someone or some idea is on the "right side of history." When I began talking about my project, Pavane for Miss Marcher, one of my fellow writers said, "Just make sure you stay on the 'right side of history'."

I knew exactly what she meant and the element of threat was blatant. Also obvious was the attempt to censor. Pavane for Miss Marcher is set in post-American Civil War Maine. I had read widely from all sides and aspects of this era in the history of the United States.

Although, like many Americans, I was very well aware of the heated emotions and often disputed facts of this period, I was determined to write the story I felt most clearly expressed my own ambiguous and conflicted  understanding of our shared history.

The main character is a young woman, Cathryn Marcher, who experiences the trauma and horror of the war while serving in a Union Army hospital in Boston. During her service, she becomes involved with an officer who takes advantage of her youth, loneliness and vulnerability. Their affair ends when he returns to his unit and the war comes to an end.

 Many years before, Cathryn had fallen in love with a young man from her town. Her service as a nurse was her contribution to the war, in hope that somehow Rupert Smith was being cared for by a good nurse wherever he was.

Rupert has spent the last year of the war in a prison camp. His courage and honor win him the respect of not only his fellow prisoners but also several of the Confederate soldiers who are assigned to guard the Union prisoners. When the war is declared to be at an end, Rupert is in no condition to return to his small town Maine home. The men from both sides of the conflict have formed a close bond that takes them West.

The encounter with the adamant writer actually sharpened my intention to write a story based on the realities of human interaction and the facts rather than take up camp on any side, right or wrong. In history, there is only one side: the truth with all its convolutions and contradictions.

This story has a happy ending which sometimes happens in life, despite the horror of war and the evil that surrounds us. When confronted by the demand that I "stay on the right side," I determined that I would: to write honestly about what I know.

1000 Words

For writers, it's not the image but the words that create the image in the reader's mind.

Take for instance, this image: 

 or this: 

or this:

or this:

These are all from my newly acquired garden in the extreme north midwest. Each one has its distinct and unique story. And each has its place in my own story which I have told in my recent blog for In Maine. I reprint that post here:

For the past few weeks, I’ve been living in Cathryn Marcher’s garden — without the pumpkins.

Since moving into our new home, I’ve had the pleasure of gardening for the first time in seven years. While living in a city-bound apartment, I made do with potted plants on the balcony. Now I have about 5,000 square feet of lawn, trees and flowerbeds.

I also have hundreds of volunteers — not the helping kind! Since our lawn did not appear from under the layers of snow until late April, trees and shrubs have had free reign to seed the grass with their own progeny: honeysuckle, ash tree, morning glory, dandelions had all grown to the height of at least six inches by the time our new lawn-mower arrived. 

Removing these volunteers from my grassy realm proved beyond my capabilities. Even days of crawling on hands and knees, digging out taproots and consigning leaves and seedheads to the compost bin made no difference to the number of seedlings propagating amongst the blades of green. Even our resident bunny has not made a dent although it has helped in the cropping of the blades’ height in its grazing area.

To my delight, the flowerbeds are less endangered by weed-growth. Although Ground Elder (aka Queen Anne’s Lace) has raised many heads in the lawn and along the back fence, the perennials such as Peony and Daffodils, Iris and Gladiola have a much stronger will to exist. 

Another joy is the abundance of lilacs. When I was a child living in Maine, my favorite hiding place was a grove of lilac bushes at the back of our house. I attempted to grow lilacs on the balcony, but the plant never took hold despite coddling. Because of my fondness for the blossoms, I had them in my wedding bouquet along with red roses and the requisite Baby’s Breath (Gypsophilia).My four lilac bushes had grown so tall, they were competing with the Locust for space and encroaching on the neighbor’s property. With the information from a tree surgeon that lilacs can be treated as shrubs, I cropped and snipped until all the dead foliage and blossoms were gone and the bushes had the energy to produce fragrant spears again. 

From Chapter One: “Rupert smirked, turned his gaze back to the window, waved the mist out of his face, inhaled the summer rain deep into his lungs along with the scent of white lilacs.” 

From Chapter Four: ‘Noam Snyder pulled up on the reins, bringing the old buggy alongside Cathryn’s front yard, tipping his cap and wiping beads of sweat from his brow. “Mighty hot for a lady to be working like that,” he called out to his tenant. 

‘“Now’s the best time,” she called back, straightening her back, pressing a dirty hand on her lower spine. “These pumpkins won’t win any prizes this year unless someone gives them a hand.” She wiped her neck with a handkerchief and wacked at the weeds in her pumpkin patch. “I swear these dandelions know I’ve got better things to do. They just grow out of spite.”’ 

From Chapter Fifteen: “Running and stumbling through the woods like a mad woman got her as far as the clump of lilac she’d hidden in as a little girl, afraid to go home for the licking her father promised when she refused to help her mother with the washing because she wanted to play the piano for a few minutes more.” 

As Pavane for Miss Marcher illustrates, gardening and lilacs are features of my life in fiction and fiction in my life. My latest novel set Down In Maine is available in print and digital editions on all online booksellers and by order from me! Digital Edition $3.95 / Signed Print Edition $15.00 inc postage.

I'm going back to my garden in a bit but wanted everyone to know where I am!

All the best,

Leigh Verrill-Rhys 
Writer, Gardener, Photographer and 1000 other things!

PS: May 28, 2018


And the reward for all the work: 

This pair have never entered the back garden before. I finished the circle flowerbed with hydrangea as centerpiece and crocosmia bulbs surrounding it on Sunday afternoon. By 5:30PM, the ducks that wandered up and down our street, scrounging in the gutters, had taken up residence at the circle's edge. The drake on guard as always.

Now the bunny, "Scamp" to me, has company along with the squirrels and house sparrows that nest under our patio awning. 

Happy Memorial Day to all and God Bless our Troops, Veterans and their families. Thank you for your service.

A Life in Fiction

I recently uncovered a copy of Surviving the Writer’s Life by Suzanne Lipsett, from among the many books on writing and writers that have been packed for months in preparation for moving into a house big enough to accommodate thousands of books and manuscripts. In this autobiographical collection of essays, Lipsett admits that she was in disbelief when a world traveler had no intention of turning his fantastic adventures into a book. “What a waste of material,” she exclaimed.

I don’t approach living as “grist to the mill” experience for my writing, but life invariably insinuates itself into my work. Whether this is conscious or subconscious is difficult to assess, but the infiltration is unintentional…for the most part. I admit to making use of life events—my own and those of others—in my novels. Who doesn’t? But who enters into an event with the sole purpose of writing about the experience? That seems like living life backward.

My debut novel, published in 2012 by Avalon Books, is set in a city with which I fell in love during a visit in the fall of 2007 (or maybe even 2006!) Years before, I had started a story about an artist’s model titled “Sylvia’s Hands” but hadn’t completed the work. My visit to Florence (Firenze) changed all that. In combination with a true-life story I heard while working as a marketing agent for a Welsh magazine that had stuck in my head, the tetra-sided tale became Wait a Lonely Lifetime.

I had not gone on the sister-bonding journey with the objective of gathering material for a book. I did bring a notebook in which I was working on another story and making notes. I hadn’t even packed a camera (which I certainly regretted) because one of my sisters had suggested buying postcards instead.

Immediately, I made mental notes about this amazing city, not intentionally to set a future novel but for my personal education. I embraced the adventure, setting aside the notebook in favor of immersing fully in the moments, absorbing every sensation and all information. Two years later, the tour of Italy with three of my sisters, bubbled and brewed and bothered to the surface with Sylvia’s hands and the lost love of a man I had never met and would never know.

Two years after that, I pitched the work-in-progress to Lia Brown, then editor at Avalon Books during the 2010 RWA Romance Writers’ Conference—the third and last of the WIPs I had prepared. One year later, all the pieces of that story came together to make the finished novel which Avalon acquired, just before the publisher completed its negotiations with Montlake to transfer all of its creative assets (writers!) to Amazon’s publishing subsidiary.

The notebook I abandoned in order to enjoy my Florence experience became my second contemporary romance novel, Salsa Dancing with Pterodactyls, which is almost entirely fictional except …