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.
In preparation for today’s #TwoForTuesday challenge I read quotes by many inspirational women. It was a difficult choice, but I selected quotes by Malala Yousafzai and Mary Frances Berry.
Malala Yousafzai
Malala Yousafzai is one of the most inspirational women I know – and has been since she was still a child. I love this quote by her:
“Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world.”
Malala is proof of that!
Mary Frances Berry
Mary Frances Berry is an icon of the American Civil Rights Movement and a historian. Here’s the quote of hers I chose for today’s blog post:
“The time when you need to do something is when no one else is willing to do it, when people are saying it can’t be done.”
Wow! Where do I start? Although it was the shortest month of the year, February was jam-packed with good books. I read a variety of fiction, nonfiction, memoir, and “how-to” books.
Truth be known, I started reading several of the books in January and finished them in February. Each one probably warranted its own blog post, but I’ve condensed my thoughts into two blog posts – today’s and the one on March 11.
Here’s what I thought of each book, in no particular
order:
Before
and Again, by Barbara Delinsky
Before and Again, by Barbara Delinsky
I enjoyed this novel by Barbara Delinsky about a woman,
Mackenzie Cooper, who runs a red light and causes an accident in which her
five-year-old daughter is killed. The event results in a divorce and an
estrangement between Mackenzie and her mother.
In an effort to leave her sad past behind and start a
new life, Mackenzie moves from Massachusetts to Devon, Vermont and adopts a new
name. Things go well for her until her ex-husband shows up in the small town
where Mackenzie lives. It turns out that Mackenzie isn’t the only resident of
Devon living with a secret.
I gave this story of forgiveness four stars on
Goodreads.com. I was surprised to see many two-star ratings for it on that
site. With an average rating of 3.5 stars out of 5, from the reviews, it
appears people either really like it or don’t.
Creating
Character Arc: The Masterful Author’s
Guide to Uniting Story Structure, Plot, and Character Development, by K.M Weiland
Creating Character Arcs, by K.M. Weiland
This book is an invaluable resource for anyone writing
fiction. It helped me focus on the protagonist in the novel I’m writing and
organize her journey step-by-step throughout her story. The questions Ms.
Weiland included in her book helped me to know my main character better, which
enables me to write with more confidence than I had before.
If you’re learning to write fiction, I highly
recommend Creating Character Arc: The Masterful Author’s Guide to Uniting Story
Structure, Plot, and Character Development, by K.M Weiland. Or perhaps you
are a fan of fiction and you’re curious about the structure of a good novel.
Then, I think you’ll find this “how-to” book interesting.
A
Week in Winter,
by Maeve Binchy
A Week in Winter, by Maeve Binchy
This book was a bit of a surprise for me. A Week in Winter, by Maeve Binchy was
the January selection for the Rocky River Readers Book Club. Since it’s not
historical fiction, suspense, or a mystery, I didn’t expect to like it as much
as I did. That’s one of the good things about being in a book club. Sometimes
members are exposed to a book genre they wouldn’t usually select for
themselves.
Although I rarely listen to an audio book, an episode
of vertigo prompted me to borrow the book on CD from the public library. The
accent of professional reader, Rosalyn Landor, was delightful and helped to
keep the setting in Ireland clearly in mind. The fact that I enjoyed listening to a novel was a bonus.
The author, Maeve Binchy, was a master of
characterization. Each character has such a unique backstory or quirk, you’ll
have no trouble keeping them straight in your head. In A Week in Winter, each of the ten chapters tells the backstory of a
different guest or pair of guests at The Stone House on the west coast of
Ireland. Ms. Binchy weaves their stories together perfectly as she brings them
all together as guests at the inn the first week the old house was open for
business.
The
Midwife’s Confession,
by Diane Chamberlain
The Midwife’s Confession, by Diane Chamberlain
After enjoying listening to the Maeve Binchy book, I
decided to give the audio version of The
Midwife’s Confession, by Diane Chamberlain a try. Ms.Chamberlain weaves
quite a complicated story and cast of characters together in this novel set in
Wilmington, Chapel Hill, and Robeson County, North Carolina.
One of three close friends commits suicide, leaving
the other two women trying to find clues as to why Nicole felt that taking her
own life was the only option she had. Layer by layer they peel back the parts
of Nicole’s past they knew nothing about.
There was a horrible accident with a baby Nicole
delivered as a midwife. What choice did Nicole make after the accident that
changed the course of not on her life but also the lives of other families?
Where
the Crawdads Sing,
by Delia Owens
Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
The prose in this book is beautiful. Delia Owens
writes about the fauna of the marshlands of the North Carolina coast from a
place of scientific expertise. This is her debut novel, but she has co-authored
three nonfiction books about nature in Africa. She worked in Africa as a
wildlife scientist but now lives in Idaho.
As an aspiring novelist, I’ve been cautioned about
using dialect in my writing. A little bit of it can help put the reader in the
location and time of the story; however, using it too much makes the reading more
difficult and slow and also pulls the reader out of the story. Where the Crawdads Sing is a perfect
example of this mistake.
I loved the descriptions of the wildlife native to the
marshes of coastal North Carolina. Ms. Owens painted such a pictures with words
that I could have visualized the marshes even if I’d never seen coastal
Carolina marshlands.
I loved the story in Where the Crawdads Sing. I was interested in the main character,
Kya, from the beginning. It was a real “page turner” due to the life Kya lived
and the strong character she was. I devoured the book in 48 hours; however, the
dialect was over the top. There was just too much Southern and African-American
dialect. The dialect repeatedly slowed me down and pulled me out of the story.
If not for the excessive dialect and the Confederate
battle flag being in the county courtroom in 1970, I would have given it six
stars out of a possible five.
Until
my next blog post
I hope you have a good book to read. I’m reading/listening
to The Glovemaker, by Ann Weisgarber;
Jacksonland, by Steve Instep; and Girls on the Line, by Aimie K. Runyan.
If you’re a writer, I have you have productive writing
time and your projects are moving right along.
Thank you for reading my blog. You could have spent the last few minutes
doing something else, but you chose to read my blog.
Let’s
continue the conversation
Have you read any of the five books I talked about
today? If so, please share your thoughts with me. Have I piqued your interest
in reading any of these books?
I’ve enjoyed participating in the #TwoForTuesday blog
prompts in February and can’t wait to see what Rae of Rae’s Reads and Reviews
has in store for us in March. Today’s prompt was “Two books that Help you sleep
at night.”
If you’ve followed by blog for a few months, you know that I suffer with insomnia. My sleep is way out of whack. I have trouble staying awake during the day and trouble going to sleep at night. My doctor has referred me to a sleep coach. Yes, it’s gotten that bad.
When challenged to write about two books that help me sleep
at night, I was hard-pressed to come up with a response. The “two” I settled on
are The Bible and just about any audio book. I know – that’s more than two
actual books and not very specific, but they’re what I came up with.
1. The Bible
The Message, by Eugene H. Peterson
This isn’t just the correct “Sunday School” or children’s sermon answer. This is my real answer. My nighttime insomnia aside, the book that allows me to give my troubles and worries to God so I’m not tossing and turning and wringing my hands is The Bible. I still do more than my share of tossing and turning, but it’s not because I despair.
I find The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language the easiest to understand and, therefore, the most comforting. The Message is a paraphrase of The Bible and was written by Presbyterian minister Eugene H. Peterson.
2. Just about any audio book
Until recently, I swore off
listening to any books. I found it stressful. I felt like someone was talking
“at” me and wouldn’t shut up. Got on my last nerve kind of stress.
Then, I got vertigo. In fact, I had two kinds of vertigo. One has cleared up, but the other still has me in physical therapy. Using the computer and reading tend to trigger an episode. Therefore, I’ve listened to two audio books so far this month plus part of a third. Even the ones I enjoy, eventually put me to sleep.
In case you’re having a problem with “Like” button: After two days (or more) of not being able to leave a “Like” on other people’s blogs, I finally asked the kind support staff at WordPress what I was doing wrong.
Someone answered me right away on Chat and said they’re making some changes to the code that governs the “Like” button, so that service has been and will be erratic for a while.
Sometimes I get carried away and forget my blog is for you. It’s not for me. You have a limited amount of time to read, so I’m flattered that you read my blog posts.
If my blog doesn’t fill a need of yours, then reading it is a waste of your time. The pressure is on me every week to inspired you, make you laugh, give you something to think about, or at least put a smile on your face.
Although
I’ve been blogging for almost nine years, I’m still learning. If there is
something on my blog page that isn’t of benefit to my readers, I need to delete
it.
Deleted national flags widget
In an effort
to declutter my blog on February 4, I deleted the widget that showed the flags
of all the countries in which my blog readers reside. I realized that showing
those 93 flags was for my own edification, not yours. That widget was providing
information that you probably didn’t care about. I’m a geography nerd, so I
found it very interesting.
Actually, I
found it shocking and a bit frightening to know that people in that many
countries had looked at my blog at least once. The biggest surprise was when
the flag of the People’s Republic of China first appeared.
My most popular posts
In place of
the national flags widget, I added a widget that lists my 10 most popular blog
posts. This should help my new reader find some of my best posts, and it will help
me see at a glance the topics that garner the most interest.
An unexpected source
I knew my
blog was for my readers, but it wasn’t until I started reading Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen,
by Donald Miller that I was prompted to try to view my website and my blog
through the eyes of a first-time visitor.
Everywhere Building a StoryBrand says, “customer,” I mentally substitute “reader.” Sometimes it works better than others. Although Mr. Miller’s book targets business owners, it made me ask myself how my website and blog portray me as a writer. I’ll continue to make changes that help first-time visitors become loyal readers.
Mr. Miller says a person should be able to look at my blog or my website and know within five seconds what I’m about.
That book prompted me to ask myself, “What does my reader need?” and “What is my reader hoping to gain by reading my words?” Mr. Miller’s book dovetails into Mr. Alda’s book and reinforces what Mr. Alda said about communication.
The purpose of my website and blog
Mr. Miller’s
book prompted me to state the purpose of my website and blog in one sentence.
When I got to the heart of what I’m trying to accomplish, this is what I
concluded:
The purpose
of my website and blog is to show you that I write with authority and skill
and, therefore, you can trust that my writing is worthy of your time.
If it sounds
like I’m boasting, that’s not my intent. I’m setting the bar high for myself,
and will read that purpose every day when I sit down at the keyboard.
Until my next blog post
I hope you
have a good book to read. I just finished listening to The Midwife’s Confession, by Diane Chamberlain. (Audio books come
in handy when a reader has vertigo.)
If you’re a
writer, I hope you have productive writing time.
Thank you for reading my blog.
You could have spent the last few minutes doing something else, but you chose
to read my blog.
What are you hoping to find in my blog? A smile? Humor? Something to ponder? Inspiration? My take on a book I’ve read? Samples of my fiction writing? A variety of these?
My third grade teacher, Miss Ruth Jarrell, was a soft-spoken woman with beautiful handwriting. When a student asked Miss Jarrell how long she’d been teaching, she said that was her 13th year. We thought she was ancient if she’d been a teacher that long. It was only when I was in my mid-30s that I realized I was as old as Miss Jarrell had been when she taught me. Thirty-five no longer seemed old.
Another thing I remember Miss Jarrell for was her reading to us. If we behaved in the school cafeteria, she would read to us when we returned to our classroom after lunch.
White Squaw: The True Story of
Jennie Wiley, by Arville Wheeler
White Squaw: The True Story of Jennie Wiley, by Arville Wheeler
The book Miss Jarrell read to us that is still vivid in my
memory was White Squaw: The True Story of Jennie Wiley, by
Arville Wheeler. Jennie was abducted by Native Americans in 1789 in Bland
County, Virginia and taken to Kentucky. After almost a year in captivity,
Jennie escaped and was helped back to her husband in Virginia.
The word “squaw” is offensive to us today, but since the
word is part of the book’s title, I decided to write about it anyway. Any book
that one has fond memories of more than 50 years after hearing it read deserves
recognition.
Teachers never know which seeds they plant in their
students’ minds will take root and flourish. It was only when I was thinking
about today’s topic that I realized White
Squaw was my introduction to historical fiction. Miss Jarrell didn’t live
to see me pursue a career as a writer of history and historical fiction.
Follow the River: A Novel Based on the True Ordeal of Mary Ingles, by James Alexander Thom
Follow the River: A Novel Based on the True Ordeal of Mary Ingles, by James Alexander Thom
Twenty or more years ago, Janie Snell, a friend of mine who
lives in Ohio, recommended that I read Follow
the River, by James Alexander Thom. It is a novel based on the experiences
of Mary Ingles – not to be confused with Mary Ingles Wilder of Little House on
the Prairie fame.
This Mary Ingles lived in the Blue Ridge Mountains of
Virginia. She was kidnapped by Shawnee Native Americans in 1755. After being
held captive for months, she escaped her captors and by herself followed the
Ohio, Kanawha, and New Rivers back to her home.
It is merely coincidental that White Squaw and Follow the
River are about white women who were abducted by Native Americans in the
1700s. They are the two books that instilled in me a love of books – a love of
reading.
If allowed to name
four books
If today’s blog topic prompt had been “Four Books That
Helped Me Fall in Love with Reading,” the other two I would have written about
would have been Roots, by Alex Haley
and Centennial, by James A. Michener.
Three of the four books I’ve mentioned today were read when
I was an adult. It was as an adult that I started reading fiction. As a young
adult, I was a snob – a nonfiction snob. I thought reading fiction was a waste
of time. When I had time to read for pleasure, I wanted to read something true,
something real.
I have to laugh at my old self. I still enjoy an occasional
history or political science book, but now I prefer fiction. My sister thinks
it’s hilarious that I’m now trying to write fiction after all those years of
turning my nose up at fiction and the people who read it.
Since my last blog
post
I’m relieved that the glitch I was dealing with when I prepared yesterday’s blog post has been resolved, so I was able to include images in today’s post.
Let’s continue the
conversation
Which two books helped you fall in love with reading?
One thing all bloggers are told they must do, if they hope to attract readers, is to include images in every post. I’ve worked hard to do this for the last several years. I did it last week when I included images of the books I wrote about; however, as I put the finishing touches on this post last night, I repeatedly got messages from WordPress.com saying “Given your current role, you can only link an image, you cannot upload.” Therefore, in today’s post I’ve included links to images of the books I’m writing about. I’m unsure how this will appear until the post goes online. I have no idea why this has happened.
Since I read 6.25 books in January, I decided to split my
comments about them between my blog post on February 4, 2019 and today. I hope
you’ll find what I have to say about three of the books I read last month
worthwhile. These are discussed in no particular order.
The Banker’s Wife, by Cristina Alger
The Banker’s Wife, by Cristina Alger
The Banker’s Wife was a change of pace for me halfway through January after reading The Library Book. The Banker’s Wife, by Cristina Alger, is a financial thriller. In this novel, Ms. Alger takes us to Paris, Geneva, New York, the Dominican Republic, and the Cayman Islands. Primarily through the eyes of two strong female characters, we get a glimpse of the vicious and deadly world most of us never experience – Swiss bank accounts, the people who have them, the people who assist them, and those who are unfortunate to love someone in either of the other two categories.
If I had done more research about Cristina Alger’s books
before reading this 2018 novel, I would have known that it is a sequel to her
2012 debut novel, The Darlings. Now,
I want to read that book, although being a North Carolinian, “the Darlings”
conjures up visuals in my mind’s eye of that ne’er-do-well Darlin’ family on
The Andy Griffith Show of the 1960s. It’s difficult to associate wealth with
that name. I’m sorry, it just is. I offer my apologies to all the people with
the Darling surname.
The Banker’s Wife
is Ms. Alger’s third novel. The book captured my attention early on and the
fast-paced writing kept me turning pages to see what was going to happen next –
and to find out which characters were dead and which one’s deaths were staged
to cover up the real story.
If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? by Alan
Alda
If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? by Alan Alda
This book held some nice surprises for me. I’ve been an Alan
Alda fan since the days of the M*A*S*H television series. I became even more
endeared to him when in answer to my request that he donate an autographed copy
of a book he’d written for an autographed book fundraiser held a few years ago
for the Friends of the Harrisburg Library in Harrisburg, North Carolina.
Mr. Alda graciously donated an autographed copy of the
script for an episode of M*A*S*H that he wrote. It turned out to be the hit of
the fundraiser and resulted in a bidding war between two individuals.
That said, I was drawn to the book by the title and the
author’s name. I thought it might be helpful to me as a writer since the book
is about communication. It was, but not in the ways I anticipated.
Here are a few of the impressions I took from the book:
1. Improvisation not only helps actors, it can help anyone get over their fear of talking in front of a large audience.
2. No matter what you’re trying to sell – whether it be a tangible product or an idea – the key is to focus on what the customer is thinking and what he or she needs. As a writer, I need to put myself in the mind of my reader. What does my reader need? What is my reader hoping to gain by reading my words?
3. Mr. Alda has concluded that the key to the great success of M*A*S*H was the fact that instead of disappearing into their separate trailers on the studio lot, they gathered their chairs in a circle and talked and laughed together as a group between “takes.” He said the connections they made off camera carried over when they were in front of the camera. It made them all better actors and their genuine comradery came through to the audience.
4. Much of Mr. Alda’s book is about empathy and the importance of empathy in communications. The book offers several things a person can do to increase their empathy for others. Mr. Alda says that true communication cannot take place between two people unless each one makes an effort to understand the other person and why they think the way they do. I couldn’t help but think of how polarized Americans are politically today. There really is a lack of understanding – or empathy – between The Right and The Left, between Republicans and Democrats. This doesn’t bode well for the 2020 election.
5. As a writer, start with what your reader knows. Don’t insult the reader by including basic information.
Now You See Me, by Sharon J. Bolton
Now You See Me, by Sharon J. Bolton
Published in 2011, Now
You See Me was the first in Sharon J. Bolton’s Lacey Flint series. Flint is
a detective in London. The story opens with her seeing a woman dying while leaning
on Flint’s car. This thriller grabbed my attention from the beginning and kept
me turning pages well into the night. It’s rare that I read a quarter of a
novel in one sitting, but that’s what I did with Now You See Me.
Detective Flint is forced almost immediately to try to
discern who she can trust within the Metropolitan Police Department. Is she
seen as a crime scene witness, or is she viewed as a murder suspect? She’s very
convincing as a witness.
As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that the killer is
patterning his actions after Jack the Ripper. (Spoiler alert: this gets more gruesome than I’m used to
reading, but I had to know what happened next.)
What about Flint’s fellow police officer, Joesbury. There’s
definitely something weird about him. Is he the killer?
No. Someone else is caught… sort of.
I thought the book came to a good stopping point just shy of
halfway through. In fact, I thought I
might not keep reading. This seems like the end of the story. I could move on
to another book.
But I read a few more pages. Wow! What a turn of events! I’m glad I kept
reading!
Since my last blog
post
I continue to do a lot of reading about writing and about
blogging in an effort to get better at writing fiction and blogging. I made
good progress writing a short story I’m calling “From Scotland to America,
1762,” writing 1,400 words Saturday afternoon.
Until my next blog
post
I hope you have a good book to read. I’m reading Before and Again, by Barbara Delinsky; Button Man, by Andrew Gross; and A Week in Winter, by Maeve Binchy.
I rarely listen to a book because I find it irritating to listen to someone
talk on and on and on; however, since I’m having a bout with vertigo, I decided
to give the Maeve Binchy audio book a try and I’m really enjoying it. It
probably has something to do with the lovely accent of the reader, Rosalyn
Landor. It’s nice to just shut my eyes and listen.
If you’re a writer, I hope you have quality writing time and plenty of time
to read.
Thank you for reading my blog. You could have spent the last few minutes
doing something else, but you chose to read my blog. I appreciate it! I welcome
your comments.
Let’s continue the
conversation
If you’ve read any of the books I mentioned today, let me
know what you thought about them.
Mliae challenged her blog readers to get rid of one item every day in January. I missed many days, but made up for it on others. It feels good to get rid of some clutter. Thank you, Mliae!
I finally got around to shredding my income tax records and bank statements from the year 1999 through 2010. That’s not a typo. 1999.
Think back to 1999, if you can. In those days, the bank sent you a statement every month along with all your cancelled checks. The bank and I have come a long way since 1999: from cancelled checks to online bill pay.
In some ways, I’m organized. I keep
each year’s income tax instructions and paperwork together with a rubber band.
In theory, this would make it easy to discard (shred) the oldest year’s
paperwork when adding the newest year’s records; however, I never put my plan
into practice.
Hence, I hadn’t gotten rid of any of
those records in 20 years even though we’re required to only keep our income
tax records for seven years. It was time to tackle that box of income tax
records! I started that project on Friday afternoon and finished it Saturday
night. I thought our poor wee paper shredder was going to blow up!
I am reminded of a line I like from At Home on the Kazakh Steppe: A Peace Corps Memoir, by Janet Givens:
“… if nothing else, a useful reminder early on that the more I can let go of the old, the more room there is for the new.”
In writing that, Ms. Givens was not referring to getting rid of physical items in order to make room for new things. She was writing about a revelation she had in the early days as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kazakhstan.
Ms. Givens realized that she needed to let go of preconceived ideas and the way she had done things back home in the United States so she could learn the culture of the Kazakh people.
The above quote from Ms. Givens’ memoir struck a chord with me. As I let go of some physical items this month, I made a conscious effort to let go of preconceived ideas.
I want to learn something each day. I want to be open to new ways and new ideas. As my 66th birthday approaches, I don’t want to be “a stick in the mud” or “stuck in a rut.”
Since my last blog post
My vertigo is improving. The things
the physical therapist has me doing are definitely making a difference.
Until my next blog post
I look forward to seeing if Mliae will issue a February challenge.
Nevertheless, I plan to continue to tackle the clutter that has accumulated.
I hope you have a good book to read. I just finished reading Now You See Me, by Sharon Bolton.
If you’re a writer, I hope writing brings you joy. I hope you have quality
writing time this week.
Thank you for reading my blog. You could have spent the last few minutes
doing something else, but you chose to read my blog. I appreciate it! I welcome
your comments.
Let’s continue the conversation.
Are you a keeper of things? I think
I got it honestly from both parents. They were in college when The Great
Depression hit in 1929. Their young adult years were lean and full of struggle.
“Waste not, want not,” must have been what they lived by. I never heard either
of them say those words, but they raised their children not to waste anything.
By my parents’ example, I learned at
an early age not to throw away anything that I could possibly need or find a
use for later. Hence, the stack of printer paper that has only been used on one
side. The other side can be used for all kinds of things – like writing the
plot outline for a novel.
Hence, the used letter envelopes on
which grocery lists can be written on the back while the inside conveniently
holds discount coupons. And those twist-ties that come on the bag in which
sliced bread is purchased? Yes, I’m guilty. There is a place set aside for them
in one of the kitchen drawers.
Diane Chamberlain broke away from her usual form of writing novels and did a great job with time travel in The Dream Daughterr. The book begins in 1970 with a pregnant woman, Caroline Sears, finding out that her unborn baby has a heart defect.
The Dream Daughter, by Diane Chamberlain
It turns out that Caroline’s
brother-in-law has come to 1970 from the future. He knows that if Caroline can
find her way to the future, her unborn daughter can have fetal surgery – the
unthinkable in 1970.
I won’t give away any details of
Caroline’s journey. I’ll just say things don’t go smoothly. This trip across
decades will keep you turning pages.
There Was an Old Woman, by Hallie
Ephron
The title of this book caught by
attention and immediately took me back 60 years to nursery rhymes about the old
woman who lived in a shoe and the old woman who swallowed a fly. I’d never read
anything by Hallie Ephron, so I decided to give There Was an Old Woman a try.
The story involves multiple
generations, with an emphasis on several independent-living octogenarians.
Things in the neighborhood keep disappearing. What’s happening? Who is doing
this? Is it the strange man across the street?
There Was an Old Woman, by Hallie Ephron
Thrown into the mix is a subplot
about the B-25 Mitchell bomber that crashed into the Empire State Building on
July 28, 1945. Ms. Ephron sheds a light on that much-forgotten event by making
one of the main characters in the book be a survivor of that plane crash. I
must admit, I did not know about that tragedy in which 14 people were killed.
There Was an Old Woman
is categorized as a thriller, but it did not come across to me as such. It’s
more like a neighborhood mystery in which the daughter of one of the
80+-year-olds is forced to come home and deal with her mother’s illness and
neglected house. The book has received an interesting mix of 1-star and 5-star
reviews, with most reviews falling into the 3- or 4-star categories.
Undaunted: Surviving Jonestown,
Summoning Courage, and Fighting Back, by Jackie Speier
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this
memoir by United States Representative Jackie Speier of California’s 14th
congressional district. I was not aware that Ms. Speier survived the Jonestown
Massacre, so that fact alone drew me to this memoir.
Undaunted, by Jackie Speier
What a life Ms. Speier has had! When
she was 28 years old, she worked for California Congressman Leo Ryan. She and
others accompanied Ryan to Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana on
November 14, 1978 to rescue individuals being held there against their will.
Those who are old enough to remember that fateful event know that things rapidly soured upon the delegation’s arrival. Congressman Ryan was murdered and Jackie Speier was shot five times and nearly died.
For someone like me who is a history
and political “junkie,” this memoir was compelling and inspiring. Ms. Speier
writes about her widowhood, motherhood, her lifelong work in politics, and her
40-year determination to overcome the scars she has from her Jonestown
experience.
Since my last blog post
I continue to receive encouraging comments in response to my December 17, 2018 blog post, https://janetswritingblog.com/2018/12/17/to-write-or-not-to-write/. I appreciate each and every one of them and each and every one of my blog readers. I have a more positive attitude about my novel in progress since being bolstered up by so many of you over the last three weeks.
The holidays turned out not to be
conducive to my getting back to putting words on paper (or the computer screen,
as the case may be.) I’ve mulled the story over and over in my mind, though,
and I intend to get back to writing that book this week. I need my blog readers
to hold me accountable!
I’ve read many helpful blog posts
and articles this week about the various facets of writing. One in particular
hit a chord with me, but I’ve misplaced the link to it. The piece recommends
that an aspiring novelist publish one or more short story collections in order
to build readership. I’m kicking around that idea. It makes sense. The theory
is that more people will want to buy my novel if they have read and liked my
short stories. I needed one more project!
Call me a klutz if you want to,
because I think I qualify. In the last four or five days I’ve broken a toe on
both feet, but not at the same time. Don’t laugh; broken toes are painful.
Until
my next blog post
I hope you have a good book to read. I’m reading The Reckoning, by John Grisham.
If
you’re a writer, I hope you have quality writing
time. I hope I do, too!
Thank you for reading my blog. You could have
spent the last few minutes doing something else, but you chose to read my blog.
I appreciate it! I welcome your comments.
Let’s
continue the conversation.
Have you read any books recently that you’d recommend
to me and my blog readers?
Have any of you writers had experience – good or bad –
in publishing short stories to build readership prior to publishing your first
novel?
I used to think that miracles all
happened 2,000 years ago when Jesus Christ physically walked the earth as a
man. Since December 25, 1978, I’ve known better.
My brother’s family (him, his wife, 12-year-old son, and 10-year-old daughter) drove from Georgia to North Carolina for Christmas. Beth – the daughter – had been sick and they’d given her aspirin and put her to bed at the home of my sister-in-law’s parents. It was the afternoon before Christmas.
A couple of hours later, they tried
to wake Beth up, but she was unconscious. They rushed her to the nearest
hospital. The doctors and nurses were baffled as to what could be wrong with
Beth. At random times, she would scream out and it would take several adults to
hold her in the hospital bed.
Suddenly, on that evening –
Christmas Eve – the pediatrician on the case suddenly remembered having seen a
similar case while in medical school. He ordered specific lab tests and rushed
the vials to the lab himself.
When he came back to Beth’s room, he
told her parents and brother that there was an ambulance waiting to take Beth
and her mother to Duke Hospital in Durham, North Carolina. He told them that
Beth had Reyes Syndrome. He told them that some children survive it and some
don’t. There was no cure for it, and he couldn’t guarantee that Beth would
survive the trip to Duke.
My brother and nephew drove the 125
miles to Durham after being told not to even think about trying to keep up with
the ambulance.
Arriving safely at Duke, Beth was
placed in the intensive care unit for children. The family was told there was
nothing to do but pray and wait. Pray, we all did.
The next morning was, of course,
Christmas Day. After a sleepless night, my mother, sister, and I rose early and
drove to Durham. This was before cell phones and texting, so during that
two-hour trip we had no idea what was happening with Beth. We didn’t know if
she would still be alive when we got there.
When we arrived at Duke Hospital’s
pediatric ICU, we were greeted with smiles. While the nurse was in the room
checking on another patient that morning, Beth woke up and asked, “Has Santa
Claus come yet?”
Little was known then about Reyes
Syndrome. The connection between it and children taking aspirin had not been
established. None of us had even heard of the illness.
The doctors at Duke kept Beth for
more than a week to continue to test and observe her. They followed her grades
in school for a year. They were looking for any sign of brain damage. There was
none. They told Beth’s parents that they had never seen a child come out of a
Reyes Syndrome coma so suddenly or completely. They said there was no medical
explanation for it.
Beth returned to Georgia and
continued to have a perfect record in school. She went on to university and
earned a degree in math before having a rewarding career in Information
Technology with a major airline. She married and is the mother of two high
school and college age daughters.
I cannot imagine how our lives would
have changed if Beth had died in 1978. She is a joy in the life of everyone she
knows. I can’t imagine life without her husband and their two daughters.
And I can’t let a single Christmas
pass without remembering Christmas of 1978 when I learned that miracles do
still happen.
Mary Frances Berry is an icon of the American Civil Rights Movement and a historian. Here’s the quote of hers I chose for today’s blog post:
Janet's Writing Blog 