I write southern historical fiction, local history, and I've written a devotional book. The two novels I'm writing are set in Virginia and the Carolinas in the 1760s. My weekly blog started out to follow my journey as a writer and a reader, but in 2025 it has been greatly expanded to include current events and politics in the United States as I see our democracy under attack from within. The political science major in me cannot sit idly by and remain silent.
Author: janetsm
In November 2025, I published Traveling Through History: A Collection of Historical Short Stories. In the fall of 2025, I published a devotional book: I Need The Light! 26 Weekly Devotionals to Help You Through Winter AND I Need The Light! Companion Journal and Diary. I write North Carolina local history and Southern American colonial historical fiction. I enjoy doing extensive research as well as the writing that research supports. My stories and novels-in-progress are about the common people. I'm the author of Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Books 1 and 2 and a vintage postcard book titled The Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.
Before daylight on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the northern coast of California, including the city of San Francisco, was rocked by an earthquake of historic proportions. In retrospect, it was estimated to have been on the magnitude of 7.9.
The earthquake and its resulting fires destroyed 500 city blocks – approximately 28,000 buildings. The fires burned for three days and intensified the citizens’ fears and anxiety.
Photo credit: Christopher Burns on unsplash.com
Some 200,000 people – half of the city’s population at the time – were left homeless. Although usually referred to as “the Great San Francisco Earthquake,” it also resulted in widespread damage in northern California, including San Jose and Oakland.
Cooking food inside standing houses was outlawed immediately after the earthquake in the government’s efforts to minimize additional fires. “Bread lines” were established to distribute food to the homeless and whatever food preparation that was possible was done in the streets.
According to the United States Geological Survey website, (https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/events/1906calif/18april/) 296 miles (477 kilometers) of the San Andreas fault ruptured. The quake was felt from southern Oregon to south of Los Angeles and as far east as central Nevada. Much was learned from this earthquake, but it would be a half-century later before plate tectonics as a field of study would shed more light on exactly what processes were at play to produce the event.
The USGS website contains a drop-down menu through which you can access many more details about this earthquake, including comparisons with the October 17, 1989 quake that struck the San Francisco area just 26 minutes before Game 3 of the World Series was set to begin at Candlestick Park. It was measured at 6.9 on the Richter Scale.
Earth tremors and earthquakes of low magnitude are a daily occurrence in San Francisco. That is something I can’t imagine, since I’ve only felt two earthquakes in my life.
While doing the research for today’s blog post, I remembered reading The Nature of Fragile Things, by Susan Meissner in April 2021. It’s a novel based on the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. You might like to read what I had to say about that book in my May 3, 2021 blog post, 5 Historical Novels I Read in April 2021.
Since my last blog post
Jennie Nash’s book, Blueprint for a Book: Build You Novel from the Inside Out, is helping me outline The Heirloom. Ms. Nash’s “inside outline” helps me remember there must be a reaction to every event and internal reactions are what pull readers into a story.
I continue not to be at my best physically, but I’m constantly thinking about the plotline for The Heirloom and how I can make it better.
As promised last week, today my blog is about the third book I read in March. It’s about the history of handwriting and the debate over whether children today should be taught cursive writing. I say, “Yes!” and I’ll explain why later.
Photo credit: Aaron Burden on unsplash.com
The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting, by Anne Trubek
“Put your John Hancock here.” How many times have we of a certain age heard that? We, of course, immediately know that is a euphemism for our signature. But does a child of the 21st century know that? I understand that children today don’t have a clue what “clockwise” or “counterclockwise” mean. Yikes!
I discovered The History and Uncertain Future of Handwriting, by Anne Trubek while looking for a different book. I found this 154-page book fascinating and thought-provoking.
Trubek meticulously takes the reader on a journey through history. She shares facts about cuneiform and hieroglyphics. (Did you know that most cuneiform clay tablets can fit in your hand? In photographs, they look huge.) She explains how tedious and time-consuming it was for Sumerians to learn how to write and the hours people in ancient oral-based civilizations spent on memorization.
Egyptians invented writing on papyrus. When the Greeks adopted that practice, though, their papyrus was inferior and their scrolls were smaller. (Did you know that the size of ancient Greek scrolls has a bearing on literature today? For instance, the size of a scroll dictated the length of a play. Who knew?)
Socrates was anti-writing. He maintained that if people learned how to write, they’d lose their skill for remembering the spoken word. There’s probably some truth to that.
People in oral civilizations couldn’t look things up like we can today, so they developed elaborate mnemonics and also used additive structure (and… and… and) to help them remember important things. An example of this can be found in the Book of Genesis in The Bible: “In the beginning God created… and… and….”
It was the Romans who stopped using papyrus and started using parchment. Parchment made it easier to make books. Trubek says that bookstores had been established in Rome by the first century B.C.E. Take a moment to visualize that. It makes me smile.
Trubek talks about the development of the various scripts and the high-esteem held for scribes back in the day. She points out that the invention of the printing press put scribes out of business; however, the ones with good penmanship reinvented themselves and traveled around offering handwriting schools.
I’ve spent a lot of time reading handwritten documents from the 1700s and 1800s. I admire the elaborate and visually beautiful handwriting of the 1800s; however, it is sometimes difficult to decipher. One of the most interesting parts of Trubek’s book was about the evolution of handwriting in America in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Although I’ve admired the lovely handwriting of the 1800s, I’d never researched why and how it was replaced with our contemporary handwriting.
Briefly, Platt Rogers Spencer developed that flowing, fancy script we associate with the 1800s. (If you don’t know what I’m referring to, think about the Coca-Cola logo. That’s an example of Spencerian script.) Spencer proclaimed that having good penmanship was a sign that you were a Christian, educated, and a proper person. His students were advised to practice their penmanship six to twelve hours a day. (I’m sorry, Mr. Spencer, but life’s too short!)
Part of a page from my great-grandfather’s 1912 daybook
I’m reminded that in my great-grandfather’s daybooks from the 1890s and first decade of the 1900s, he occasionally mentioned that his children or grandchildren had gone to writing school that evening. That writing school was conducted at night in the Pine Hill one-room schoolhouse in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Notice the curly-ques Great-Grandpa made in his capital F and capital W. Also, he randomly capitalized words. I learned from Trubek’s book that such practice was part of the Spencerian script.
A.N. Palmer came along and made modifications to Spencerian script after he went to work for the Iowa Railroad and saw how time-consuming it was for the employees to record all the details required by industrialization. He removed all the curly-ques required by Spencerian script and made handwriting much easier after 1920.
Trubek’s book also covers such things as the collecting of autographs, which started in the mid-1800s, and graphology, which was started by a French priest in the 1800s.
The science of analyzing handwriting for evidentiary purposes in a court of law has had to evolve over the years. One used to be able to use the force one’s fingers used to press typewriter keys to prove who typed a document. The wear and tear on the parts of a typewriter could prove on which typewriter a document was created.
Photo credit: Csabi Elter
Consider that for a moment. I’m showing my age, but I learned to type on a manual typewriter. Now, the justice system is faced with determining the true identity of a person who electronically “signs” his or her name. How things have changed in the last 50 years!
When I think about handwriting and how people rarely hand write letters today, it makes me sad. Last year, my sister and I assisted a 97-year-old friend who wanted to preserve the letters he and his wife wrote to one another during the Korean War. What a treasure those letters are! We organized the letters in chronological order and placed them in archival binders. Hopefully, some of his descendants will see the value in those letters. When people go off to war now, they can telephone and text their loved ones. Few of those communications are saved for posterity.
In her book, Trubek points out that if a child isn’t taught cursive writing by the fourth grade, an important window of opportunity will close. She says that it is by that age that a typical child needs to master cursive in order for him or her to achieve cognitive automaticity.
Photo credit: Kelly Sikkema
Trubeck says if cursive isn’t mastered by then, the child will continue to struggle with handwriting. It will forever be a skill the person has trouble with because they didn’t learn it early enough for it to become something they can do without thinking about it. She says the “up” side of this is that this child might be able to type faster than someone who is better at handwriting.
To that, I would say it’s a big price to pay. This person might be able to get a higher-paying job later on, but what if he or she grows up and wants to do historical research for pay or for fun?
Photo credit: Alessio Fiorentino
Not being able to read handwritten primary sources will definitely be a drawback. There’s no substitute for primary sources in historical or genealogical research. In my own genealogical research I’ve found many instances where names in census and other records have been misread when they’ve been converted to typed records. When the typed copies are taken for fact, misinformation is perpetuated.
In the arena of the debate over teaching cursive or not, I still come down on the side of teaching it for the very reason I just gave.
Do you think children should be taught cursive?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this and why you come down on one side or the other. Or, perhaps you don’t have an opinion.
For my readers in other English-speaking countries
Is there a debate about continuing to teach children cursive writing in other English-speaking countries aside from the United States?
Since my last blog post
I borrowed another book about handwriting from the public library. Power Penmanship: An Illustrated Guide to Enhancing Your Image Through the Art of Handwriting Style, by Janet Ernst, helped me address several (well, actually, six letters I’d gotten a bit sloppy in writing.)
I blame taking shorthand in high school for ruining my handwriting. Since that was 50 years ago, I decided it was time to stop making excuses and start making corrections. After spending just 10 minutes a day for six consecutive days, I was able to see some improvement. I think we never get too old to try to improve something about ourselves.
After much brainstorming about the opening scenes in the historical novel I’m writing, The Heirloom (working title), I have started working on a new plot angle. I’d hoped to switch gears from brainstorming to rewriting those opening scenes last week, but my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (known as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis in the UK) relapse continued to drastically limit my work. When my energy level is this low, it’s tempting to stop trying to write; however, I was feeling a little better by the time the weekend rolled around. I’m back to work on The Heirloom as of Saturday. My journey as a writer surely is bumpy!
Until my next blog post
I hope you have the energy to do all the things you need or want to do.
I finished reading three books last month. Each of them gave me a lot to think about, and I hope my comments will prompt you to read one of them.
I had so much I wanted to write about two of the books, that I thought everyone would get tired reading about them; therefore, I’ll save one of them for next week’s blog post.
And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer: A Novella, by Fredrik Backman
Most people will think of A Man Called Ove, when they hear the name Fredrik Backman. The novella by him that I read in March is quite different from that full-length novel.
And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer, by Fredrik Backman
And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer takes you on a journey with a boy and his grandfather. The grandfather has dementia or Alzheimer’s Disease, and he knows he’s losing his memories. The older man and the boy have an appreciation of math in common. They go out in a boat for fun and the boy knows his grandfather is depending on him to figure out how to get them home.
The book shows how memories get passed down from generation to generation and a boy becomes a man with children of his own. When the book ends, you’re not sure whose mind you’re in because the memories of one generation become the stories of the next generation, and so on.
Something I took away from this novella is the importance of sharing one’s memories with the people close to them and the importance of those people close to them taking the time to listen and remember. The day will come when you’ll wish you had paid attention and asked questions.
Most of us have been touched by Alzheimer’s Disease within our families and circle of friends. It’s a sad disease with no known cure. It’s a disease that ravages the caregivers as much as it does the person who actually has the disease.
The Year Without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano that Darkened the World and Changed History, by William K. Klingaman and Nicholas P. Klingaman
Volcanoes have always fascinated me, so this book was “right down my alley.” I first heard about 1816 being called “the year without a summer” about 20 years ago. The premise of it stuck with me all these years, so I was pleased to discover William and Nicholas Klingaman’s book at the public library a few weeks ago.
The Year Without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano the Darkened the World and Changed History, by William K Klingaman and Nicholas P. Klingaman
On April 5, 1815, Mount Tambora – thought to be an extinct volcano — on the island of Sumbawa in the Indonesian archipelago erupted. The blast was heard more than 800 miles away on Java. It’s subsequent eruption on April 10 was even more violent.
That second eruption was heard on Sumatra, which is more than 1,000 miles from Mount Tambora. The top 3,000 feet of the volcano was blown off, leaving a three-mile-wide crater one-half mile deep. It is thought that ash rose 25 miles high where the wind spread it in all directions. A tsunami reached eastern Java around midnight and earth tremors were felt there 18 hours after the eruption.
It is thought that Mount Tambora was the largest volcanic eruption in the last 2,000 years. Volcanoes are measured by the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI), which works much like the Richter Scale we’re all familiar with for measuring earthquakes. Each step on the VEI equals 10 times the magnitude of the preceding step. Tambora gets a 7 on the VEI, making it 100 times stronger than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.
As one might suspect from the name of the book, the eruption of Mount Tambora affected weather worldwide, although contemporary documentation is more readily available from North America and Europe than other continents.
Not only were record snowfalls reported in Europe, but the snow was red and yellow. Imagine how unsettling that was! Brilliant red, purple, and orange sunsets were much written about in London.
Quoting from the book: “In fact, scientists have taken advantage of this effect by using the amount of red in contemporary paintings of sunsets to estimate the intensity of volcanic eruptions. Several Greek scientists, led by C.S. Zerefos, digitally measured the amount of red – relative to the other primary colors – in more than 550 samples of landscape art by 181 artists from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries to produce estimates of the amount of volcanic ash in the air at various times. Paintings from the years following the Tambora eruption used the most red paint; those after Krakatoa came in a close second.” (Krakatoa in Indonesia erupted in 1883.)
I’ll share a few specific examples from the book to illustrate how the weather was affected by Tambora.
May 1816: 6 inches of snow in parts of New York; frost in Tennessee and Richmond, VA. Snow in Vermont in late May.
June 6-9, 1816: Snow in Quebec, Vermont, New York, and Massachusetts; Arctic air plunged into the Carolinas. Snow in Lancashire in England. Erratic temperatures in New England, with snow one week, 100 degrees F. the next, and frost the following week.
July 6, 1816: Snow in Montreal. Frost from Maine to Virginia on July 8.
August 29, 1816: Heavy frost in South Carolina. A man in Danville, North Carolina wrote that his fields were white with frost and he had recently visited Mecklenburg County, NC and the cold and drought had left fields from there to the Savannah River bare.
Feb. 14, 1817: It was 30 degrees F. below zero at Dartmouth College and ice was 25 inches thick on the Potomac River at Alexandria, Virginia.
As one would expect, crops failed in Canada, the United States, and throughout Europe. Hundreds of thousands of people starved to death in Europe. Prices for food and grain for human and livestock consumption skyrocketed.
Various theories arose as people tried to figure out the cause of the cold weather. Self-appointed prophets predicted that the world would end on July 18, 1816.
Many families moved from New England to Ohio and Indiana in hopes of better farming conditions. Joseph Smith, father of Joseph Smith, Jr. who founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, moved his family from Vermont to Palmyra, New York. It was there that Joseph Smith, Jr. had his visions. An interesting aside to the story is that after referencing the Messrs. Klingaman’s book in passing in my blog post two or three weeks ago, I was contacted by a descendant of Mr. Smith who inquired if the Smiths were mentioned in the book. Indeed, they are, on pages 119 and again in some detail on page 280.
In addition to the way global weather was affected by the eruption of Mount Tambora, the thing that really caught my attention was how the eruption was heard hundreds of miles away. In the Epilogue, Messrs. Klingaman say that when Krakatoa erupted in 1883, the explosion was heard in Perth in southwest Australia, which is more than 2,200 miles away!
By the way, Tambora is still active. It has erupted several times since 1815 – and as recently as 1967.
I wish I’d been told about Mount Tambora in history class.
Since my last blog post
I’ve been reading and also watching a lot of basketball. The North Carolina State University women’s basketball team gave the University of Connecticut a run for their money on Monday night in a game that went into double overtime. UCONN came out of top in the end and advanced to the “Final Four.”
And only in a North Carolinian’s dreams could the men’s “Final Four” pit the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill against Duke University. That much-anticipated game was played on Saturday night. It was a typical UNC-Duke game, and it was a shame that one of the teams had to lose.
If you aren’t a college basketball fan, please overlook my going on and on about this, but I’m a North Carolinian and we take our college basketball very seriously.
I continue to work my way through Blueprint for a Book: Build Your Novel from the Inside Out, by Jennie Nash as I tweak the plot for The Heirloom.
Until my next blog post
I hope you have a good book to read. At the recommendation of author A.J. Mayhew, I’m reading Writing the Blockbuster Novel, by Albert Zuckerman, and at the recommendation of Mr. Zuckerman, I’m reading The Man from St. Petersburg, by Ken Follett.
I’ve had two relatively close encounters with Three Mile Island. Both were unexpected.
While on vacation in the Pennsylvania Dutch Country in the early 1980s, my sister and I sought out a unique restaurant, Alfred’s Victorian Restaurant, for dinner one night in Middletown. It was only upon arriving that we realized that Middletown was actually the location of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant. We joked about glowing in the dark later that evening, but I know it’s really not a laughing matter.
On a later trip to work on our family’s genealogy, my sister and I flew into the airport in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. On our approach, the plane banked so close to the cooling towers of the power plant, I swear I could have reached out and touched them if the windows had been open!
In retrospect, it’s astounding that a commercial jet was allowed to fly so close to a nuclear power plant, but that was well before 9/11. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to do that.
What happened at Three Mile Island?
Can it be 43 years since this happened? I’m feeling older by the day!
A pressure valve in the Unit-2 nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island near Middletown, Pennsylvania failed to close at 4:00 a.m., March 28, 1979. The result was the worst nuclear power generating facility disaster up until that time.
This cooling malfunction caused part of the core of Unit-2 to melt. The reactor was destroyed, but there were no injuries. A small amount of radioactive gas was released two days after the accident, but it wasn’t enough to cause any adverse health problems.
Personnel operating the facility were unable to tell where the malfunction was in the beginning, which contributed to the emergency. As a result of what happened at Three Mile Island, a raft of changes were made in operating procedures, training, emergency response planning, and other aspects of nuclear power production required by the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
According to the NRC, “A combination of equipment malfunctions, design-related problems and worker errors led to the TMI-2’s partial meltdown and very small off-site releases of radioactivity.”
The other nuclear reactor, Unit 1, was shut down on September 20, 2019. The dismantling of the facility and clean-up is estimated to take 60 years and cost more than $1 billion.
The good news?
Many problems were identified due to the accident at Three Mile Island. The resulting regulatory changes have made nuclear power production in the United States and other countries much safer.
Since my last blog post
I continued to work on that old cemetery project I’ve mentioned in a couple of recent blog posts. It’s troubling how much damage the elements have done to some of the grave stones since I took photographs of them in 2006. I continue to try to decipher some of the inscriptions.
I’ve started working my way through Blueprint for a Book: Build Your Novel from the Inside Out, by Jennie Nash as I continue to work out the plot for The Heirloom.
Until my next blog post
I hope you have a good book to read. I’m reading parts of several.
Watch and listen to the news and read news articles from reputable sources. Stay informed about current events.
When I planned today’s topic, the war had not begun in Ukraine. When I wrote the rough draft, the people of Ukraine were not fleeing for their lives. What has happened in the last month put the topic of public libraries in a whole new light.
Kyiv, Ukraine before mid-February 2022. Photo credit: hristo sahatchiev on unsplash.com
National Public Radio (NPR) here in the United States reported this week that libraries in Ukraine are doing what libraries do. Just as historic statues are being sand-bagged and stained-glass windows in 13th century churches are being covered in metal shields, the library staffs and volunteers are working around the clock to save what they can. Irreplaceable library items and collections are being taken to other countries for safe keeping.
I can’t image living in such a situation as the Ukrainians are dealing with. A couple of months ago, they were working, playing, going to school, eating in restaurants, going shopping, and enjoying the benefits of libraries. Today they are fighting for their very lives and the survival of their democracy.
Lviv, Ukraine. Photo credit: Nataliia Kvitovska on unsplash.com
My library experience
It’s odd how some months I read quite a few books and some months I read only one or two. I couldn’t afford to purchase most of those books, so how did a I manage to read so much?
I have two free public library systems to thank for all of them. Before you say, “Public libraries aren’t free; I pay for those libraries and their books with my tax dollars,” I agree; however, regardless of your tax status or how much or how little you pay in taxes, you can use those libraries.
Harrisburg Branch of Cabarrus County Public Library System
In the big scheme of things, only a few of your tax dollars are earmarked for public libraries. When you want or need to use the vast resources of your public library, it doesn’t cost you one cent.
I have access to the public library system in the county in which I live. A few years ago, my sister and I paid $100 to have lifetime household access to the library system in the adjacent county in which we used to live. It’s the best $100 we ever spent. Some adjacent counties have reciprocal agreements. You might want to check into that.
If you despair of paying local property tax, just pretend that all your tax dollars go to support the public libraries in your city or county. When local government funds get tight, the library system is usually the first service to bite the dust.
We saw library hours drastically cut during The Great Recession, and it took longer for operations to get back to normal than it did for the doors to be locked almost overnight.
In my county, at least, each branch manager can tell you how many people come through the doors and how many books are checked out every month. The director of the public library system uses those statistics every May and June to prove to the county commissioners how important the library system is. The more the commissioners know how much the system is being used, the harder it will be for them to cut library budgets.
A library card is free. All you need is proof of residency to get one. The public library has computers for the public to use, newspapers for you to read, books in various formats for you to check out, magazines for you to read on-site and sometimes to check out, and music CDs for you to borrow.
Most public library branches offer programs for adults and children and classes you can take. For instance, a few years ago I took a free course about Excel at my local library. The library is also a good, safe, public place for your child to meet with a tutor.
I borrow e-books, borrow books on CD, download books on MP3, borrow large print books, and regular print books. I borrow past issues of magazines. I borrow music CDs. I attend programs and get to hear authors speak (or did before the pandemic.) There are reference books I can use on site. I can do research and read microfilmed records in the local history/genealogy room.
If your hobby is genealogy, but you prefer not to pay for a subscription to a service such as Ancestry.com, inquire about it at your local public library. The one in my town has an Ancestry.com membership that’s free to the public. Through it, you can access all US Census records that have been released as public information.
If you aren’t taking advantage of your local public library, please remedy that immediately! While you’re there, see if it has a copy of my book, The Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, on the shelf. If it doesn’t, ask if it can be added to the collection. Did you know you can do that? You can inquire in person at your local branch or you can probably submit a request through your library’s website. There are no guarantees, but such requests will be given consideration by the library system’s administrators.
Free public libraries help to “level the playing field.” We need more of that in this time when the gap between “the haves” and “the have nots” seems to be widening.
Where else can you get all that and more?
Never, never, never take public libraries for granted!
Since my last blog post
Do you ever have one of those weeks when you feel like you were busy but when Friday rolls around you can’t remember anything you accomplished? That sounds like me last Friday when I sat down to type this paragraph.
I didn’t work on my novel like I should have or planned to do, but I made a lot of progress on the old graveyard photography project I mentioned in last Monday’s blog post.
I’ve also been taking pictures of items my sister and I have that belonged to our parents or grandparents. We’re adding them to a photo album we’ve dedicated to such items in which we write the history of each item so future generations that end up with them will know where they came from. It will be up to future generations to decide what to keep and what to discard, but at least they’ll know why each item held importance to us.
I also did some cross-stitching and college basketball watching. After all, it was the first week of “March Madness” in the United States.
Until my next blog post
Keep checking out library books! I hope you have a good one to read this week.
Find time for a hobby.
Read newspapers, listen to NPR, and watch reputable news broadcasts on TV. Don’t shy away from watching the news because “it’s all bad” or you “don’t want to see that.” You owe it to yourself and your fellow residents of your country and this world to keep up with current events.
I cringe every time someone tells me they don’t watch the news – like someone did last week. Just because you choose not to be aware of what’s happening doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
One of my favorite quotes about writing is this one from Russian playwright and short story writer, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov: “Don’t tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on broken glass.”
I included that quote when I touched on the topic of writing all the senses in my February 14, 2022, blog post, Can Movies Help You Write? Today I’m going a bit deeper into the subject.
As an aspiring novelist, I have a lot to learn. To try to remember all the things a scene needs to include can be overwhelming. It’s not enough to stay in the head of your point-of-view character at all times. It’s not enough to be cognizant of pacing. It’s not enough to remember to throw in a red herring once in a while or to vary the length of your sentences and paragraphs. It’s not enough to include all characters’ body language (but only what the point-of-view character notices.) A writer must also remember to include what the point-of-view character sees, hears, smells, tastes, and touches.
In addition, a writer today is told to keep in mind that today’s reader has a short attention span. If that’s true, I probably lost most of my audience midway through the previous paragraph.
For those of you still reading this blog post, I’ll continue. I say all this (1) to make fiction readers appreciate some of the work it takes to write a novel you’ll enjoy; and (2) to lead up to a recommended blog series you might benefit from if you’re studying the art and craft of writing.
In 2020, Joan Hall wrote a series of blog posts about using all the senses, including the 6th Sense, in your writing. Here are the links to Ms. Hall’s six blog posts about the senses:
Sight: Photo Credit: Davidson Luna on Unsplash.com
I couldn’t find a photo to represent the Sixth Sense in the way I wanted to here, so use your own imagination for the sense of knowing in advance that something is going to happen. Have you experienced it? I have, and it can be unsettling.
I might be accused of cheating here by giving you the links to Joan Hall’s blog posts about writing the senses, but she’s far more experienced in writing and more knowledgeable of the subject than I.
The Internet has made it possible for writers to learn from others in ways that weren’t possible before the 1990s. It gives us a marvelous platform on which to share ideas and give each other feedback. I’ve learned a great deal from writers like Joan Hall through blog posts and online articles.
I hope you find Joan Hall’s blog series helpful if, like me, you’re learning to write. I started to say, “write fiction,” but creative nonfiction also entails using all the senses.
I felt vindicated when I read Ms. Hall’s article about the sixth sense, for I was already using it in my The Doubloon novel manuscript. I was pleased that I thought to do that before being told that I should consider it.
Since my last blog post
I took a short break from writing last week to work on a project I started 20 years ago for my church. It involves taking photographs of the grave markers in four of the church’s cemeteries. When a congregation has a 271-years history, it can end up with multiple cemeteries on the different sides of various creeks.
Old Rocky River Graveyard, October 2021
Digital photography allows me to read the inscription on many of the markers that cannot be read in person due to the ravages of time. March and October are the best months to take pictures in these rural cemeteries due to the angle of the sunlight and the number of large trees that surround and have grown up inside them. I’m taking advantage of the month of March to get back to a project I’ve neglected for a few years.
My project might sound morbid to some of you, but I don’t see it like that at all. Some of my immigrant ancestors are buried in each of the four cemeteries, so I feel like I’m honoring them in a small way by making a permanent record of the inscriptions on their grave markers.
Until my next blog post
I hope you have a good book to read — one that you can’t wait to get back to.
If you’re writing, painting, or endeavoring to do anything creative, I hope you produce some rewarding and satisfying work this week.
Stay safe and well. Please come back next week to see what my next blog post is about.
By the way, on Wednesday, pause to consider that it’s National Book Smuggler Day in Lithuania. Here’s the scoop:
In 1864, Russian authorities outlawed the printing of books using the Latin alphabet in Lithuania and tried to force the Cyrillic alphabet on Lithuanian speakers. A newspaperman, Jurgis Bielinis, created an underground network to get Lithuanian books smuggled into the country. Some who were caught were banished to Siberia or shot in the head. The ban lasted until 1904 but is still remembered on March 16, which is the date of Bielinis’ birth. You can find more about this online. It’s an inspiring bit of history I wasn’t aware of until recently.
There are two lessons we can learn from this: (1) The Russian government never stops being Russia; and (2) Regardless of what a book contains, it’s never a good idea to withhold access to it, for book banning and the banning of knowledge never have positive results.
May the free world continue to support the people of Ukraine.
If you’ve been following my blog lately, you know February was not an easy month for me. Various events cut into my reading time, but today I’m writing about the books I read during that short month of 28 days. They represent three different genres. That’s appropriate because my reading interests are all over the place.
Violeta, by Isabel Allende
Violeta, by Isabel Allende
Isabel Allende is becoming one of my favorite novelists. I listened to her latest novels, Violeta, on CD and thoroughly enjoyed it. I listened to the English translation of the Spanish original.
Violeta is written in the form of a letter to Violeta’s adult grandson and follows Violeta from her birth in 1920 during the Influenza Pandemic to the end of her life during the Covid-19 Pandemic. Born into a wealthy family, her father loses everything in the Great Depression which hits South America a little later than in the United States and Europe. The family loses their house and must move out into the hinterlands where they must adapt to life without luxuries such as electricity.
Woven into this story is a character who comes into Violeta’s life at an early age to serve as her English governess; however, it turns out the woman isn’t from England and isn’t at all what Violeta’s parents are expecting.
This is a delightful novel. Violeta would be a good Isabel Allende book for you to start with, if you’ve never read one of her novels. If you’ve read her other books, you know what a treat this one will be.
Our North Carolina Heritage, compiled by Charlotte Ivey Hastings, 1960
This book is well off the beaten path and one you probably can’t find. Just by happenstance, I purchased a copy dirt cheap at a public library used book sale several years ago. I added it to my to-be-read shelves and forgot about it.
I saw it on my bookshelf in February and decided to read it. It isn’t a history book that one can totally rely on for accuracy because it is a compilation of oral history stories. Many of them were written by junior high students.
However… (and that’s a huge HOWEVER), I found lots of little gems of North Carolina history in it that I’ve never seen or heard elsewhere. They are the bits of history that never made it into the history books but offer someone like me a jumping off point to do additional research.
One thing I was particularly glad to find was that the book gave information about a number of women and their bravery and contributions to the patriot cause in the American Revolution. Women have generally been omitted from the history books.
Here’s an example of something I don’t recall hearing or reading elsewhere: By the end of the 18th century, Jewish peddlers in North Carolina traded for eggs since they couldn’t easily come by Kosher meat.
The book reminds me of the series of local history books compiled in the 1960s by Mrs. Mabel Rumple Blume’s North Carolina history students at Harrisburg School in Harrisburg, NC. Every year for five or so years, Mrs. Blume’s students were sent out into the then rural Cabarrus County to interview the oldest residents to capture local history. The students won statewide first-place honors year after year for their books which covered general history, mail delivery and post offices, and grist mills. Much of that history would have been lost forever if not for Mrs. Blume and her students.
With that work in mind, I very much appreciated the contents of Our North Carolina Heritage. It made me sad that the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Library system had made the decision several years ago to weed the book from its collection and sell it for pennies. Sometimes people are put in positions of decision-making who don’t appreciate the true value of what they have.
The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, by Steven Pressfield
This nonfiction book was recommended by Jane Friedman in her January 11, 2022 article, “To Everyone Who Wants Me to Read Their Writing and Tell Them What to Do.” Here’s the link: (To Everyone Who Wants Me to Read Their Writing and Tell Them What to Do | Jane Friedman Ms. Friedman has never steered me wrong, so I checked it out of the public library.
The book is divided into the following three parts: “Resistance ~ Defining the Enemy;” “Combating Resistance ~ Turning Pro;” and “Beyond Resistance ~ The Higher Realm.”
Part One explains that, “Resistance is the enemy within” when we attempt to do something worthwhile. Mr. Pressfield wrote that the rule of thumb for resistance is, “The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.” We fear that inner resistance, but once we “Master that fear… we conquer resistance.”
Mr. Pressfield wrote that resistance is often manifested in the form of procrastination, which can become a habit.
In Part Two, Mr. Pressfield wrote that an artist must stop thinking of himself as an amateur and start seeing himself as a professional. He wrote, “A professional does not take failure (or success) personally.”
He also wrote, “A professional recognizes her limitations. She gets an agent, she gets a lawyer, she gets an accountant. She knows she can only be a professional at one thing.”
In Part Three, Mr. Pressfield wrote that we just do it. We do it every day. It’s work, and we do it. He also cautions artists from thinking of themselves in a hierarchy. In other words, art of all types is not a competition.
Since my last blog post
Every day has brought horrifying images of the suffering and destruction in Ukraine.
I’m disappointed that I didn’t receive an acknowledgement for some research advice I sought for the writing of my novel, but I won’t let that slow me down any longer. That’s life.
I got back to work on a project that relates to my church. I started it 20 years ago and it’s been on the back burner now for 15 years. I’ve been inventorying my unfinished projects lately. It’s overwhelming. I need to complete some, even if doing so cuts into my writing and reading time.
Until my next blog post
I hope you have a good book to read. I’m reading an interesting book about 1816 – known as “The Year Without a Summer.”
May the world continue to condemn Vladimir Putin for his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Sometimes it angers me that the history classes I sat through as a child and teen didn’t include little bits of information like I’m sharing with you today. Instead of memorizing names of general and battles and dates, how much more interesting class would have been if we’d been told stories like this one.
Knowing this story could have served as an example to students of how history can turn on a dime. I’d like to think students learned that last week when Russia invaded Ukraine without provocation.
The incident I write about today brings to mind the following for each of us to think about: If not for ___(you fill in the blank)____, then ___(you fill in the blank)____ wouldn’t have happened OR would have happened.
The 1840s USS Princeton
I don’t recall ever hearing about the USS Princeton until recently, and I wouldn’t have heard of it then if I hadn’t been looking for a topic for #OnThisDay for my blog.
There have been a series of US Naval vessels christened with the name USS Princeton. The one I write about today, as you can see from my blog post title, was the one built in the early 1840s. It was a state-of-the-art warship powered by coal-produced steam. It was built in Philadelphia and was best-known for its two 12-inch cannons/carronades, called “The Oregon” and “The Peacemaker.”
“The Oregon” was of revolutionary design, made of wrought iron, and manufactured in England. It was designed by John Ericsson, a Swede who later designed the Monitor of American Civil War fame.
“The Peacemaker” was manufactured in New York under the partial supervision of Captain Robert Stockton, a political supporter of US President John Tyler. It’s thought that it was believed and claimed to be comparable to “The Oregon,” but there were design differences and short cuts were taken in The Peacemaker’s testing. This was a recipe for disaster, and that’s what happened on the Potomac River on February 28, 1844.
Let’s set the stage
The state of politics in the United States in 1844 contributed to the inevitable disaster. William Henry Harrison was elected US President in 1840, but he died in 1841 only a month after his inauguration. John Tyler being the US Vice President, assumed the office of President. It was the first time in American history that a president died in office and was replaced by the vice president. Tyler had been a Democrat, but he was elected as a Whig. Soon after he assumed office, he openly disagreed with the Whig Party over economic policy, and the Whigs kicked him out of the party. The Democrats didn’t want him back, so he became a US President without a political party.
Tyler wanted to be reelected President in the 1844 election. He thought by running on a promise to annex the Republic of Texas into the United States would win him the election. Mexico and Great Britain opposed the idea.
To ward off foreign opposition to that annexation, Tyler ordered the construction of the USS Princeton. Most warships in the world at that time were sailing ships or steamships with fuel limitations. The USS Princeton was designed with a collapsible smokestack, allowing it to also navigate as a sailing ship. A hybrid in the 1840s! It’s engine and propeller system were below the water line, making it less vulnerable to enemy attack than ships propelled by paddlewheel.
Back on the scene to partially supervised the construction of the warship, Captain Stockton bragged about the ship’s prowess, calling it “invincible.” He thought by bringing the ship to Washington, DC and entertaining politicians, he’d get the money to build more ships.
What happened on February 28, 1844
An afternoon excursion from Washington, DC on the Potomac River was planned for February 28, 1844. President Tyler (who had no Vice-President), members of Congress along with their wives, and some Cabinet members were wined and dined on the ship and were scheduled to witness the fire power of the ship during three demonstrations.
It was Stockton’s decision to fire “The Peacemaker” for all three demonstrations. After two successful firings, a third was launched in honor of George Washington. On that third firing, “The Peacemaker” exploded, sending its parts – some weighing in excess of a ton – flying across the deck. Eight people were killed and more than two dozen were injured.
Secretary of State Abel Upshur and Secretary of the Navy Thomas Gilmer were killed. If President Tyler had not been unexpectedly detained on the stairs below deck, he undoubtedly would have been standing with them.
The hole in the US Constitution
What happened in US Presidential succession in the 1840s should have been remedied posthaste. It was the first time a Vice President had to step up and into the Presidency due to the death of a President; however, we know from history it was not the last time.
It would be 1967, four years after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, before the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution would provide a process through which a Vice President would be replaced in the event of the vacancy of that office.
If President Tyler had been killed in the explosion on the Princeton, the president pro tem of the US Senate, Willie Mangum – a North Carolinian who had been one of the founders of the Whig Party – would have become US President. Among other things, Mangum was an avowed opponent of the annexation of the Republic of Texas.
This fact alone brings us back to the fill-in-the-blanks line from the third paragraph of this blog post: If not for ___(you fill in the blank)____, then ___(you fill in the blank)____ wouldn’t have happened OR would have happened.
If you’d like to learn more
If you want to learn more about the USS Princeton of 1844, I recommend https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/181834, by Stan Haynes, published on November 21, 2021. Also, https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/USS_Princeton_(1843). I drew information from both of these online resources which include more detail than I shared in my post today. In addition, I understand that Stan Haynes has written a historical novel, And Tyler No More, which includes this tragic incident.
Since my last blog post
Our world has changed forever. NATO is being tested like no other time since its inception. No one knows what the future holds for Ukraine, Europe, and the rest of the world. I believe in His perfect wisdom, God doesn’t allow us to know the future.
Until my next blog post
I hope you have a good book to read and time for a creative outlet.
It’s been an unsettling week in our world since last Monday, to say the least. No one knows what this week holds. My heart goes out to the people of Ukraine who are suffering so. May the world continue to condemn Vladimir Putin for his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
My little white dog died last Monday. He was the perfect dog for my sister and me, and we will forever miss him. It’s been a difficult week, but each day gets a little bit easier as we deal with our loss.
Those of you who are “dog people” understand. Those of you who aren’t, I can’t explain to you how sad it is to lose one.
Notice his Carolina Panthers pillow in the background.
He was a rescue dog, and we’ll never understand how his former family turned him out to fend for himself in a city until he was picked up by the county’s animal control personnel. He was rescued from the animal shelter by a dog rescue organization, and it was through that organization that this sweet little white dog adopted my sister and me.
He took us on as his project. I guess we were his “purpose.” He helped us do everything and was our constant companion and caregiver. I think he thought we were helpless, and that’s why it was so hard for him to let go last Monday afternoon.
He was so proud the day in 2014 when my vintage postcard book, The Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina arrived!
I tried to determine if the poem, “My Little White Dog,” by Nell Gay White was in the public domain, but I couldn’t find any information about Ms. White or her poem. I’m going out on a limb here and sharing that poem with you today. I copied it years ago because it touched my heart. I didn’t even have a little white dog at that time, but the one pictured in this blog post has given my sister and me joy every single day of the last eight and one-half years.
My Little White Dog, by Nell Gay White
“I wonder if Christ had a little white dog,
All curly and wooly like mine,
With two silly ears and a nose round and wet,
And two tender brown eyes that shine?
“I’m sure if he had, that little white dog
Knew right from the first he was God.
He needed no proof that Christ was divine –
But just worshipped the ground where he trod.
“I’m afraid that he hadn’t because I have read
That he prayed in the garden alone;
For all of his friends and disciples had fled
Even Peter, the one called a stone.
“And, Oh, I am sure that a little white dog
With a heart so tender and warm,
Would never have left him to suffer alone
But creeping right under his arm.
“Would have licked those dear fingers, in agony clasped,
And counting all favors but loss ,
When they took him away, would have trotted behind
This is a blog topic I’ve postponed numerous times since first reading about the theory more than three years ago. It’s time to address it, although I still have more questions than answers. Can a movie help you write?
Photo credit: Jon Tyson on unsplash.com
Kathryn Ramsperger wrote an article for the Southern Writers: Suite T blog on November 9, 2018: “Improve Your Story by Watching Movies.” I was intrigued by the title so much that I cut and pasted it and saved it on my computer.
Ms. Ramsperger is described online as being “a communications expert and intuitive life coach.” I’m not sure how one becomes a communications expert and I’m less sure what an intuitive life coach is, but her theory about movies made me stop and think. I’m a sucker for any article that claims it will improve my writing.
Photo credit: Katie Rodriguez on unsplash.com
In a nutshell, Ms. Ramsperger said a writer should notice how lighting, the set, and action are presented in a movie and then add sensory detail. She pointed out that the written word can convey things like smell better than a movie can. She said that studies show that a book can evoke empathy better than a movie can.
Ms. Ramsperger recommended that a writer watch a movie set in their genre and then add sensory detail to their work-in-progress.
I decided to give it a try. I write 18th century Southern historical fiction. I couldn’t find a movie that fit that description, so I thought back to the TV series, “Outlander.” I’ve watched all the episodes of this multi-year series. After reading the first four or five books in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series, I couldn’t wait for the TV version.
If you’re not familiar with Ms. Gabaldon’s Outlander books, I recommend them to you. You need to read them in chronological order, starting with Outlander, published in 1992. These books put you in 18th century Scotland and then 18th century North Carolina.
Although Ms. Gabaldon takes some creative license when it comes to the proximity of Cross Creek in present-day Cumberland County, North Carolina in the eastern part of the state to the mountains of western North Carolina, once I got past that I was able to finish reading A Breath of Snow and Ashes, published in 2008. It took me a while, but I’ve forgiven her.
Writers can learn from movies (and even television) how important covering all the senses can be. Just as an entire hour-long TV program can take place in the pouring rain, as a writer I need to remember to convey to my reader if it’s raining in a scene or chapter and that it either continues to rain or it stops.
Photo credit: Filip Zrnzevic on unsplash.com
In the online writing course I recently took, I was told that I should think of a scene in my book like it’s a scene in a movie. That prompted me to think about the theory again.
Have movies helped my writing?
That’s hard to answer. I rarely see a movie. To give you an idea how often I go to a movie theater, the last movie I saw on the big screen was The King’s Speech in 2010. I’m. Not. Kidding.
The last movie I saw on TV was probably My Cousin Vinny. I’ve seen it several times, and it never ceases to crack me up.
I suppose movies have helped my writing just by the fact that I have seen movies. Not many, but some. I get the drama. I get the pacing. I get the body language. I get that the items in a shot usually only include enough to give the viewer a sense of setting. No need to clutter up a scene with a bunch of extraneous stuff unless it’s about a hoarder.
Photo credit: Andrew Haimerl (ANDREWNEF) on unsplash.com
I try to remember to have emotion in every scene I write. I don’t mean the screaming or sobbing kind of emotion. Emotion can be shown through a character’s body language and through what a character is thinking. A writer must keep in mind, among many other things, the following questions: What do I want my character to feel? What do I want my reader to feel?
Photo credit: Tengyart on unsplash.com
The following is a quote from Russian playwright and short fiction writer, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, which I try to keep in mind as I write a scene: “Don’t tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on broken glass.”
What about you?
If you’re a writer, have movies helped your writing? If so, how?
This leads me to other questions
How have movies and television shortened our attention spans? How has this influenced how much time we’re willing to give to the reading of a book?
Following that train of thought, how has the shortened attention span of readers influenced how books are written today?
I read just the other day that the advent of VHF tapes dictated that movies had to be shorter than they’d been in the past. Technology influenced the length of movies, and now movies are influencing how books are written.
Taste in books is ever-changing and always has been. Hemingway shook up the literary world that was used to flowery, long prose. Nothing stays the same for very long.
As an aspiring novelist, I’m told to write a scene as if it’s a scene in a movie because my potential reader will lose interest if I don’t. It’s probably true, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a good thing.
Can a movie help you write? I’m afraid my answer is, “Yes, but it can also limit you.”
I find something sad about the prospect of movies dictating how novels are written, especially if it’s simply because people’s attention spans have decreased.
Since my last blog post
Even as I continued my research into the Great Wagon Road and its offshoots in southern Virginia, I started writing the rough draft for the first book in what I hope will be a series of historical novels. With the working title The Heirloom, it will precede the second almost-finished book, The Doubloon. (These are working titles and will, no doubt, get changed unless I self-publish.)
The more I learn about the Great Wagon Road, the more I’m impressed with what my ancestors went through just to get from Pennsylvania to North Carolina in the 1700s. (Not to mention what they endured on ships crossing the Atlantic before that!)
Until my next blog post
I hope you have a good book to read and/or a good book to write.
Janet's Writing Blog 