Spills

Nope, not talking about liquid spills. Talking about wood shavings.
I learned something new today! I love when I learn something new. There are certain items we take for granted even when writing historical fiction. Fire is one. I always assumed the fire would be there when needed. If the fire wasn't already going in the story, then flint?

I never even thought to do a history search on matches, but after today's brief visit with our local tool expert, I did just that. First evidence of a match is around 577 in China but then the miracle was lost and it wasn't until 1826 that matches were re-invented. Even then, they probably weren't used much until after 1860.

In the meantime, what did folks do to preserve the fire? One thing they used was a "curfew", a fire cover. At night, the coals were raked to one side and placed in the chimney recess, then covered to keep it going until dawn. But let's say you need to light a candle. That's where the spill comes into play.

Woodworkers would plane wood and the spill or curled shavings from the wood would be saved and kept in a special cup. They could then use these curled bits of wood to carried the flame from one location to another. Spill planes were built just for planing the wood to get these special curls.

My buddy came into my art room to show me his handbuilt spill plane and proceded to give me a brief history lesson at the same time. Wow. Just amazed. So yeah, my next historical will mention spills.

Change is good

This is my new mantra for the year. If I tell myself this often enough, it must be true. Right?

I've been doing basically the same things for 25 years, but all of a sudden things at work are changing. Next year, I'll be in a new room with new duties. I may have to teach a new course. My best friend at my school is moving to the new school they just built. I've also gained new responsibilites.

Don't get me wrong. I love challenges but don't hit me with them all at once. Yikes!

On the other hand, all of this change is giving me a ton of new ideas for various characters. I'm at 60,000 words on my newest wip with hopes of wrapping it up at 80,000. My goal is to finish the story by spring break. Wish me luck.

We have a house guest

My husband was cleaning for super bowl party. Sweeping out on the back porch, he turned around just in time to avoid the "shit bomb." Splatted on top of the glass topped table was the largest pile of bird poop. He's always finding evidence of our friendly birds and has never thought much about it but since this was rather fresh, he looked up to see if he could find the miscreant.

Perched in our eaves was a sleepy-eyed owl. Seems he's rather fond of our porch roof. Though you can't tell by this photo, he's rather small, about the size of my husband's hand. Too fun.

Strange Weather

Texas has some of the most bizzarre weather but still, I won't complain - too much. Friday was quite the day. It dawned rather foggy and misted off and on, but the temperature was about 70 all day. Very pleasant for winter, which is what made that evening's storm so unusual.

I finished cooking around 6:30 and invited my son to come over to eat. Chili was a bribe to get him to look at my computer and help his dad move something heavy. He showed up right before 7:00 PM. The storm hit right after he arrived. He glanced down at his phone that had just signaled a message and said, "My Aggie Alert system says we're under a tornado warning." No worries. We went about our business inside the house knowing if we heard the "roaring train" sound we'd need to head for the hall closet.

Fifteen minutes after that, the rain fell in torrents, pounding the metal roof. My husband had already been next door to the rent house to make sure the gutter he'd just installed worked and the trenches he'd dug were helping to keep the one end of that house dry. So far, so good. But the thunder and lightening made us turn off computers.

Thirty minutes into the storm, the garage flooded. We rushed out to save anything that was on the floor that could be ruined. The water continued to rise. The boys braved the elements and opened the garage door from the outside about two inches and a woosh of water trailed toward the drive. Right after that, water seeped into our back room. Luckily, that room is under construction for remodelling and all we had were cement floors.

And that's when the hail hit. It hailed for a good five minutes. Hail with a diameter of nickle rained on the metal roof. We looked out the front door to check on the cars. Mine was parked on the curb under a tree limb. I was concerned the limb would break. DH laughed and said, the limb was protecting the dar from damage. My son's car was also under a tree limb. The truck, on the other hand, well -- it's just a truck so no worries, right?

Held captive in the house with no computers or TV for about 45 minutes, my son was at my disposal and I put him to work. We rearranged my office, moving around the computer stuff so it would be more efficient for writing. God, I love that boy.

But when it was over, check out the ice piles. Yeah, ice piles in 70 degree weather. Go figure.

Why did I choose Indianola?

I'm working steadily to finish what I thought would be a novella set in Indianola, Texas in 1875, but I have 50,000 words already and I'm no where near the end of my story so....could this be another full length novel? As a pantser I won't know until I reach the end but it's looking that way.
I chose the town because I wanted a ghost town. Ghost towns have a fascination unlike real or fictional towns in that they possess mystery. Why did the town die? I wanted that part of the town to be a real element in the story. At the time I went searching for a setting, I had no idea how that history would play into my story but wow - I'm so excited about this one.

Indianola rivaled Galveston back in the day and was known as "the" port for shipping and for newly arrived immigrants. It was perfectly situated with easy access. In fact, it was the county seat at the time, but nature had other plans. A very distructive hurricane swept through in on Sept 16, 1875. Folks managed to rebuild, but another hurricane in 1886 sealed her fate and the post office was officially closed in 1887.

After reading some of the town's history, I told my mom about my selected location and she got all excited. She actually had a book on the town's history because she's huge into geneaology and that's the port where my forefathers entered the US for the first time. Having the book made my research go a lot smoother. Yes, there's plenty of info on the Internet, but not the wonderful tidbits offered by Indianola: The Mother of Western Texas by Brownson Malsch.

Even more fascinating is the culmination of the Sutton/Taylor feud. The trial of Bill Taylor was in progress when the hurricane hit so the town was full of visitors seeking a bit of excitement. I started my story in August and I'm now at the point where the hurricane hits. Can't wait to see how my hero and heroine react, how they survive. So many lost their lives to nature's destructive forces.

I'm planning a trip to the actual site sometime in March. I'll post pictures later.

It's all about the dance

This has been a strange week and I apologize for going so long without a post. We lost a friend, a young man who fought for our country. Though he died here in the states, I still consider his death a casualty of war in a way. It's funny though how we deal with grief differently. Two nights after his passing, we consoled his best friend. A group of young folks gathered at her home and when we got there, they were dancing. Her circle of friends were doing all they could to lift her spirits. So - we danced with them. Every other song we danced and in between we cried and spoke of memories, the good kind that sealed his essence in our hearts.

That was Friday.

Today, I've been reminiscing about my own life and trying to recall where I was when I was his age. I have students who come to my class during lunch, and today, they wanted to dance. So they did line dances and urged me to join in. Of course, I don't know the new ones but I learned the Wobble. They got a kick out of my attempts and so did I, but I tried to tell them about the line dances we did when I was their age. The main two were the Cotton Eyed Joe and the Schottische. Later, we also added the Freeze.  But we danced the Freeze to a song by a different title so tonight I spent the better part of an hour trying to remember the song. Very appropriate that it was titled "I Still Remember" by Dan Hartman. I was very dissappointed to discover it wasn't available on itunes. But I did find it on youtube.


This post is for those that need to remember. To remember to live, to love and to laugh. Miss you, Mike.

I'm booked for life!

Hubby just got through building my seventh bookshelf. OMG, it's absolutely gorious. Covered all in cedar planks, it smells divine as well. So the first picture looks just like a door to a closet and that's what it is. We covered the entire room with the knotty pine including the ceiling and it has a warm, cozy feel to it. You can also see shelves to the side (yep, more book shelves!)

A writer can never have too many books. I'm addicted to rummaging through Half Price Books for any type of resource book. I have books on Indians, Texas Rangers, vikings, astrology, how to read dreams, language dictionaries, rigging a sailboat, medicinal plants, etc. Have I read them all? Well, no. I've read parts of them all and I figure I'll have tons of time when I retire.
Sure, the Internet is great for research but you'd be amazed at what you still can't find by going to the web. In that respect, ebooks haven't totally taken over - yet. As much as I love my kindle, using bound books for research is still a lot easier in my opinion.

So yeah, I'm excited to have my seventh bookshelf. As you can see, I still have room to add more books. And yes the other six bookshelves are equally filled. Of course not all are research books. I do have a few of these shelves committed to my favorite authors.