The Writing Process Blog Tour

I received an invitation to join the Blog hop from Rebeca Schiller. She and I met on the Writer Unboxed Facebook group. We share a love of writing and of politics.

I've recently gone back to blogging. I thought it would be fun to write about slices of history.With an M.A. in the subject it's hard for me not to still have an avid interest, but when I started writing the creative side of me craved fiction- not just any fiction, but mystery and set in quaint little towns with an amateur sleuth. I hope you know where I am going with this, because it surprised me as much as anybody. I thought I would write great tomes of history.

What am I currently working on?
I am writing a mystery series set in a southern town during the years prior to World War II and continuing through 1945. I had always been fascinated with the year 1939, so it seemed a good start. My heroine who is a nervous, good- hearted soul, seems the last person to solve murders. In fact they had to be forced on her. All Clemmie wants is to find room and board without holding out a can for donations. What she ends up with is a body.

Another major character is an old boyfriend she refused to marry. Charlie is the Sheriff in the small town of Tuscumbia. He is an unmarried, older man dealing with a old maid sleuth. Still nothing deters him.  He is determined to find a killer so he enters the world of Pentecostal religion.

A cast of smaller characters.

I sing opera.

Her alcoholic Landlady who was a traveler and a great beauty in the Belle Epoque days of Paris. She is forever singing opera. But  a fierce champion of freedom she reminds her Neighbors women wore no underclothing in the 1920's not just today.

I sing opera too.

Her Parrot who loves dogs.

.








Why do I write what I write?

I enjoy mystery, sleuths that come in and solve things all while baking apple pie. Not that my Sleuth does very well at that art. She does however excel at reading people. I love humor within the page and I like to eat while I read so I abhor too much gore. But writing in this era also gives me the chance to research 1939 and the World War II Era as the series progresses. I like the social movement, the clothes, the hair, the movies what don't I like? Even though historically it was a hard decade with lots of rationing and anxiety about War.

How does my individual writing process work?

I sit down and write. I simply begin with a what if? Then I let my  main character do a lot of the work. She is in the middle of  finding a body. What would her reaction be? I ask a lot of questions while I am letting the words flow. I should point out the words don't always come easy and some days I know they are rubbish. Pure junk.   I really can't seem to do it any other way because I have a hard time writing and sticking to outlines. So I let the WIP flow until about page 100. At that point I usually need to sit down and see how this will wrap up. It's not perfect and the first draft will certainly need editing. But it seems to be the way I work best.


Thanks to Rebeca Schiller for tagging me. You can reach her here.

Twitter: @SchillerRebeca
http://www.rebecaschiller.com/

I now tag:
Maggie Secara Author
Twitter: @MaggiRos)
http://www.maggie-secara.com/

The blue doors of Paris..

Doors are a portal to our dreams.
If only knew what was on the other side...we think.



But this blue I’m compelled to glorify—
it’s not robin’s egg, navy, or indigo;
it’s a shade that should be named “devastation blue,”
the excruciating, lacerative blue of today’s sky
whose incandescence suggests
that its nearest blood kin is neither
violet nor emerald,
but gold—this blue must be
gold’s daughter,
the flame inside the flood,
the flood inside the wind,
the wind inside the flame.

Open wide the blue door in front of me

That portal to the sea and to the mountains beyond
On terraces carved from the salt kissed air
Where I will sit until the sun gives birth to the stars
I gather up my papers
Tussled by the evening breeze
The ink dries quickly
And my songs rest quietly upon the page
My friends and I we chat until it is a bit to cold for comfort


Maybe they are a source
   of creativity.

 


    But how will
    we ever know
    unless we have
    the courage to
    open them? 














References "Another Poem on Blue" Weekly Hubris and
"The Blue Door (A Poem) L'Ennemi

Swans...

We have created Art around them celebrating their grace. We have written poetry...listen to the words of William Butler Yeats from the Wild Swans at Coole.... 

 'The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,                               
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
 The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?"

 

 

 

 

We have celebrated Kings feeding them.

RENAISSANCE TAPESTRY 15TH CENTURY The Lohengrin legend. Young Duke Elias, Charles the Bold of Burgundy, feeding the swans. From Flanders.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We have given them a wild mysticism.

References: William Morris at the Victoria and Albert Museum and Wawel Castle Cracow Poland. Leda and the Swan Flemish medieval tapestry unkown source.