Tag: western North Carolina

Saturday’s 1st Anniversary of Hurricane Helene

If you’re tired of reading my blog posts about Hurricane Helene, just imagine how tired of the slow road to recovery the residents of western North Carolina are.

Saturday marked the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Helene ravaging much of western North Carolina. As I wrote this on Saturday, North Carolina was in a State of Emergency in preparation for a possible hit from what was developing into Tropical Storm or Hurricane Imelda.

As you can imagine, the word “hurricane” rattles us in North Carolina – all 500 miles or so from the Outer Banks to the Tennessee line.

I have tried to include a report on the area’s recovery every Monday in my blog. You may be tired of reading about it, but I believe it is important for me to use my little blog to remind all of us that it takes years for people and a landscape to recover from a natural disaster.

We tend to have short attention spans now, and there are so many things happening in our country and world that news organizations cannot dwell on the past.

We tend to think in terms of hurricanes being a coastal threat, but most of Hurricane Helene’s rath was visited upon the Blue Ridge Mountains in western North Carolina, some 500 miles north of where it made landfall on the Gulf coast and dumped up to 31 inches of rain on a rugged, remote terrain. It was a “perfect storm” of wind and rain coming on the heels of several days of heavy rain.

It is estimated that Hurricane Helene did $60 billion in damage to North Carolina alone. Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee also had damage, but my state’s damage was so severe that I have chosen to concentrate on it.

Likewise, I have primarily reported on the status of road repairs. That is not to ignore the fact that damage to homes, businesses, and lives is even more important. It is just not possible for me to gather details about the recovery of those aspects of life. I hope my weekly updates about the repair and reconstruction of our roads and highways have served as an indicator that people’s lives are still in disarray.

Today I will share with you a sampling of the damage, the progress being made, and the never-give-up spirit of the people of western North Carolina. There have been many milestones in the recovery, but there is still a long way to go.

Please don’t forget the people.

A NASA photo looking down on a hurricane
Photo by NASA on Unsplash Not Hurricane Helene.

Coal deliveries via rail

WLOS-TV in Asheville reported that a CSX coal train arrived in Spruce Pine on Thursday – the first train headed south to arrive in Spruce Pine since Hurricane Helene hit a year ago. Sixty miles of CSX railroad tracks were severely damaged in the storm.

Fish hatchery

The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission reports that the Armstrong State Fish Hatchery in McDowell County, which was nearly destroyed by the hurricane, is anticipated to be fully operational in November. More than 600,000 hatchery fish died in the storm. The facility was partially operational last spring.

“Each dollar anglers spend to fish for mountain trout in North Carolina returns $1.93 to its economy and results in a $1.38 billion impact, according to new data from the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC).”

Federal Emergency Management Agency

Some people are still living in FEMA housing. In fact, people are in some cases opting to purchase the FEMA trailers to continue to live in.

WBTV in Charlotte reported that “state officials estimated as of Wednesday, Sept. 24, North Carolina had received federal funds to cover about 10.6% of the state’s total $60 billion Helene damage estimate.”

The station’s online report quoted an Avery County elected official as saying, “They keep changing the goalposts.” There is growing frustration in Avery and Yancey counties after FEMA denied funding for debris removal that local officials thought were eligible for reimbursement. Mountains of tree debris create fire hazard during dry spells in such heavily wooded areas.

Local officials in mountain counties are complaining about how slow the paperwork is being processed by FEMA along with inconsistency in guidelines. A FEMA spokesperson decline an interview with WBTV and offered no explanation of the cleanup projects in Avery County.

Veterans Restoration Quarters

Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry’s decades-old transitional shelter for homeless veterans was severely damaged and uninhabitable after the hurricane.

The more than 250 residents were evacuated during the hurricane induced flooding of the Swannanoa River during the storm. Water was more than a foot deep as the last evacuation bus pulled away from the property.

The WBTV report stated, “The timeline for reopening the Veterans Restoration Quarters is likely years away and is estimated to cost at least $13 million.”

Food relief

Last week 1,800 boxes of groceries were packed by volunteers in Charlotte and distributed near Asheville by MANNA FoodBank, Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina, and Food Lion.

The CEO of MANNA FoodBank was quoted in a WSOC-TV report as saying, “And what we’re seeing is the highest need for emergency food assistance that we’ve ever seen in our 42-year history.”

Beloved Asheville

Excerpts from Beloved Asheville’s website: https://www.belovedasheville.com/:

“We became a major distribution hub sharing life-saving supplies with 15,000 people a day in impacted zones from Marshall to Chimney Rock, Barnardsville, Burnsville, Spruce Pine, Pensacola, Waynesville, Marion, Old Fort, Black Mountain, Swannanoa, Asheville, and Fairview–towns big and small and mountain hollers. We shared millions of pounds of food, millions of gallons of water, and millions of necessities from hygiene, first aid, and tools for clean up and repairs.”

“We know it will take years to heal these mountains and our people. And we are committed to be here for the long-haul until the last nail. And we need people to join us in this commitment. We carry deep wounds from this storm, but we are stronger than we could have ever imagined. We know that together we can restore, heal, and rebuild this beautiful land and lift up our mountain neighbors. We invite you to join this movement to heal Appalachia.”

Brother Wolf Animal Rescue

Excerpts from Brother Wolf Animal Rescue’s newsletter last Thursday, looking back over the year since Hurricane Helene completely wiped out their facility…

“We lost neighbors, communities were swept away, and Brother Wolf’s entire campus…everything we had built since 2007, was swallowed by floodwaters. Every physical asset we relied on to save lives was gone overnight.”

“The day before the storm hit, something extraordinary happened. In just two hours, 100 animals were urgently evacuated from our shelter and carried into the arms of loving foster homes, saving them from a fate we can’t bear to think of.”

“In the days after, with no power, no water, no internet, our staff met in parking lots and drove through broken roads to orchestrate the transport of 150 animals out of the disaster zone. With partners, we treated over 1,200 injured pets—covered in fish hooks, with broken bones, sick from toxic floodwaters—and stood beside their families as they survived a nightmare.”

“These are the facts, but no list of numbers can tell the whole story. Because the hurricane did not end when the waters receded.It is still here. It is in us. It will be with us forever—a lasting scar and, somehow, a guide for what’s to come.

“And through all of it, the animals have been our compass. 

“When people think of animal rescue, they often picture the animal being saved. The dog carried out of floodwaters, the sick cat adopted from an overflowing shelter. And yes—that is true, we do save them; but what is just as true is how those same animals save us.”

“Today, one year later, the world feels heavy – full of griefs far beyond our own. In this shared sorrow, we’ve discovered that even as we mourn what was lost, animals are finding new beginnings. Families are laughing again. Neighbors are still helping neighbors. And together, we are slowly healing.”

“The ASPCA opened their doors to us, temporarily sharing their space so we never had to stop helping animals. Not for One. Single. Day.”

“As we look ahead, we carry both the weight of what was lost and the bright hope of what is to come. The road to rebuilding will be long, but also filled with possibility—and we are more certain than ever that the future holds incredible things for Brother Wolf, for the animals, and for our community.

“A new chapter is unfolding for Brother Wolf, and your kind heart is woven into the fabric of our story. Your belief in us has carried us through the darkest year of our lives, and together we are stepping into a future brighter than we could have ever imagined. Our story continues, written in every life touched, and enduring beyond storms and time: in saving them, we save each other too.”

Jake Jarvis of Precision Grading

I have mentioned Jake Jarvis of Precision Grading of Saluda, North Carolina, several times on my blog since September 27, 2024. I continue to follow him on Facebook. He is still out and about with his heavy equipment in the mountains of North Carolina every day, helping people and not charging them a penny unless that have insurance money with which to pay him.

Hurricane Helene Update at the end of Year One of Recovery

As of Friday, 38 roads in North Carolina were still closed due to Hurricane Helene. That count included five US highways, two state highways, and 31 state roads. That’s the same as last Friday’s NCDOT report. Progress seems slow, but remember that more than 1,400 roads were closed a year ago Saturday.

Of course, sections of the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina will remain closed for another year or more, and I-40 at the Tennessee line will continue to be just two lanes at 35 miles-per-hour for a couple more years while five miles of the highway are being rebuilt in the Pigeon River Gorge.

Janet

Books Read in October 2024 & a Hurricane Helene Update

I struggled to get any books read or listened to in October. It seems I spent too much time watching webinars about the craft of writing and picking up and burning the limbs that came down in our yard during Hurricane Helene.

We had no property damage, but when you live on several acres of big, old hardwood trees, this is a constant chore. Perhaps I need to add “Lumberjack” to my business card! (In case you’re wondering, I burned the limbs in a big, old, steel oil drum set on bricks on a crushed stone driveway, away from anything that could catch on fire.) Not exactly what I want to do with my time and energy, but….

The Three Books I Read Last Month:

Poster Girls, by Meredith Ritchie

Poster Girls, by Meredith Ritchie

This novel had special meaning to me because it is set in Charlotte during World War II. The specific setting is “The Shell Plant” – a 2,300-acre facility in south Charlotte where 75-millimeter anti-aircraft shells were assembled for the US. Navy around-the-clock from January 1943 until the end of the war.

The plant was operated by United States Rubber Company and employed 10,000 people. The book tells the story of the women who worked at the plant and how that was a huge cultural shift in the country during the war. Prior to the war, women were mostly relegated to jobs as nurses, secretaries, and teachers.

The book addresses the discrimination women employees face due to their gender, and how women can bond and work together against their common enemy:  misogyny.

The book also addresses racial mores of the day, as it follows several black female workers and how they were treated by their white counterparts – both male and female. The black and white workers were segregated and the book explores what happens when attempts were made to break down racial barriers.

The book also addresses how these women, who had worked so hard on the home front to win the war while balancing raising children in the absence of husbands who were overseas for the duration of the war, had to adjust to the sudden post-war days when men returned from the military and women were no longer wanted or considered for work outside the home.

As a child in the 1950, I heard my parents make references to “the shell plant,” but I was too young to take an interest or ask questions about the facility. Not having lived through World War II, it all seemed like ancient history to me as a little child.

There has been a spate of World War II novels over the last few years and many readers are yearning for a new topic; however, I found this novel to be different from other war-era books because it explored some down-to-earth real issues women faced at that time.

Fire and Bones, by Kathy Reichs

Fire and Bones, by Kathy Reichs

This is the 23rd and latest novel in Kathy Reichs’ Temperance Brennan Series. I haven’t read all of them, but I have enjoyed the ones I’ve read.

Fire and Bones finds Tempe Brennan called away from her job at the Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner’s Office in Charlotte to help with an arson investigation in the Foggy Bottom section of Washington, DC. She stumbles upon a body in a burlap sack in the bowels of a burned building. As is prone to happen, she gets dragged more deeply into this investigation and a longer-than-anticipated absence from Charlotte than she wanted.

There is friction between Tempe and the DC police, and there is an awkward alliance formed between Tempe and a TV news anchor.

The references to Charlotte and this area were pluses for me. I think most people enjoy an occasional novel with locations with which they are familiar. It was coincidental that two of the three novels I read last month fell into that category.

Table for Two: Fictions, by Amor Towles

Table for Two: Fictions, by Amor Towles

I have enjoyed other books by Amor Towles, including A Gentleman in Moscow, so I looked forward to Table for Two – a book of short stories.

I made the mistake of trying to listen to Table for Two on CD. Since I don’t have consistent time in which to listen to a book, I found it difficult to keep up with which story I was listening to. This is not a reflection on the writing by any means. It is just my poor choice in how I chose to “read” the book.

I usually only get to listen to books now late at night when I’m tired, so I tend to drift off and miss key points. This is especially not ideal when listening to a recording of short stories. While I was distracted (or dozing off?) I sometimes found that I’d missed the end of one story and landed in the next story.

My favorite story in the collection was “The Ballad of Timothy Touchett.” I loved the humor and the fact that the main character was a writer trying to learn his craft. I could identify with that! The poor guy, though, gets sucked into a scheme of forging authors’ autographs.

I also enjoyed “Hasta Luego” in which a man finds himself befriending a stranger while stranded in a snowstorm. Things take a turn when he discovers his new friend has a drinking problem and the friend’s wife starts hounding him long-distance to do something about it.

“The Bootlegger” involves a couple attending a series of concerts and being stuck in seats next to a man who insists on illegally recording the performances.

“I Will Survive” was one of the weaker stories in the book. It is about a woman who is convinced her husband is having an affair. She recruits someone to follow him and report back to her. When the true is revealed, the story sort of fell flat for me.

I think I would get more out of “The DiDomenico Fragment” and “Eve in Hollywood” if I checked out the printed or Kindle book. I’ll get on the waitlist for one of those formats.

If you’d like to read what a professional book reviewer had to say about each of the stories in Table for Two, I recommend this blog post from FictionFan: https://fictionfanblog.wordpress.com/2024/09/30/table-for-two-by-amor-towles/.

Hurricane Helene Update on Western North Carolina

I’m pleased to be able to give a shorter hurricane recovery update today for western NC as we come up on the six-weeks anniversary of the storm.

Statistics: The death toll from Hurricane Helene in NC exceeds 100 now.

The estimated damage from Hurricane Helene in North Carolina is a staggering $53 billion.

Timber: I read that more than 800,000 acres of timberland in western NC sustained damage due to the 100-mph winds, torrential rain, and mudslides during the hurricane.

Roads: Interstates 26 and 40 are still closed near the TN line. Some 400 roads remain closed and 140 bridges are still in need of repairs or replacement.

Electricity: According to Duke Energy, “The remaining outages are largely concentrated in Bat Cave, Spindale, Lake Lure, Spruce Pine, Swannanoa, and other communities where there are broader recovery efforts due to catastrophic damage to buildings and infrastructure. We’re using helicopters and tracked vehicles to assist operations in the hardest-hit areas.” On the accompanying map, a strip from Hot Springs to Marshall was also shown as catastrophic damage.

Water system in Asheville: The City of Asheville is still under a Boil Water order. Water treatment and testing continue daily. Turbidity reports are moving in a positive direction. A Mama Bear and her cub took an interest in the treatment and testing activities at the North Fork Reservoir on Thursday.

Blue Ridge Parkway: There is no estimated reopening date for all of the beautiful parkway in North Carolina. Portions of it that are used by residents to get from one side to the other for work or school are receiving top priority in reopening efforts, so there are places where two-mile sections have reopened. Debris removal continues and much repaving is taking place. There are places where the roadbed itself is gone. If you’re planning a trip, visit https://www.nps.gov/blri/planyourvisit/roadclosures.htm is a great source for details of closures from milepost to milepost.

Public School Systems: Just to give you an idea about the recovery situation 39 days after Hurricane Helene hit western NC…

Avery County. Today and tomorrow are required teacher work days. School reopens for students on Wednesday on a two-hour delay with modified bus routes and pick-up/drop-off points.

All the affected counties continue to struggle with bus routes due to so many road closures.

Colleges and universities:

Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk: Classes will be conducted online through today.

Tourism: Towns are beginning to open back up to visitors, but many rural areas are still very much in recovery mode… and will be for months, if not years. Check reliable sources before making travel plans.

Until my next blog post

Pray for a violence-free Presidential Election Day in the US tomorrow.

I hope you have a good book to read.

Remember the people of Ukraine; western North Carolina; and Valencia, Spain. As western North Carolina slowly recovers from flooding, the Valencia region of Spain is in the early days of unimaginable flooding and destruction.

Janet

My DIY Writer’s Retreat & a Hurricane Helene Update

I read about various writers’ retreats and they sound wonderful, but I don’t have the money or necessarily the energy to participate in them. Therefore, I decided to have my own private Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Writer’s Retreat a couple of weeks ago.

It went so well that I intend to do more DIY retreats in the future.

I planned a schedule for it to last on a Thursday through Saturday. It was going to be three days for me to do nothing but write. Specifically, except for writing a blog post, I planned to work on my historical novel, The Heirloom (tentative title).

As I blogged on September 30, 2024 in Best laid plans…, life happens. None of the three days went exactly as planned, but overall, it was a productive time for me.

I learned on Day 1 that by the time I had written an hour that morning and five hours that afternoon, it had been a big mistake for me to schedule three more hours of writing that night. Hence, my schedules for Friday and Saturday were amended. Lesson learned!

Photo by Kaitlyn Baker on Unsplash

On Day 3, I needed to take a break from writing and burn some of the limbs picked up after Hurricane Helene. My writing and that project are both works in progress. Such is life when one lives on several acres of big trees out in the country.

However, in those three days I added 6,000 words to my 35,000-word manuscript in addition to writing a 2,100-word blog post for October 7. Not bad for me, after accomplishing very little on the novel so far in 2024.

I took a Resilient Writers “Book Finishers Boot Camp” online class leading up to my DIY Writer’s Retreat. The class emphasized the importance of writing consistently and measuring writing goals on a weekly basis by whatever measuring stick one chooses.

Word-count goals never worked well for me, so I took a suggestion from the class and have started setting scene goals for myself. They are flexible and based on looking ahead at my calendar. Some weekly goals are higher than others, but the point is to have an end date insight for completing the first draft. In fact, the class instructed participants to have a projected completion date and a “life happens” completion date additional weeks or months down the road.

My ideal rough draft finish date set on September 18 is November 30, 2024. My realistic rough draft finish date set on that same day is January 11, 2025. So far, I’m just one scene behind schedule, with seven of my remaining 30 scenes completed. I admit, though, that no weeks since September 18 have gone as planned. These dates aren’t deadlines, they are self-imposed goals.

It has been fun (and hard work) to get back into the heads of my characters. I “talk” to Sarah, my main character, during my daily walks and ask her what she has for me that day. The great thing is that sometimes she answers!

Hurricane Helene Update on Western North Carolina

Since I live in North Carolina, I decided to give western NC recovery updates in my weekly blog. I hoped today’s update would be much shorter than last week’s, but the recovery efforts are still beyond comprehension 25 days after the disaster.

Weather conditions: Parts of the mountains received the season’s first snow last Tuesday and freeze warnings as some people are still sleeping in tents.

Statistics: As of last Tuesday, 92 people were still unaccounted for in NC. The death toll from Hurricane Helene stands at 95 in the state, but that number will surely rise.

Roads: As of Friday, October 18, 670 roads in western NC had been reopened, but more than 500 remained closed, according to WNCN in Raleigh. There are more than 6,900 sites where roads and bridges were destroyed, according to the NC Department of Transportation.

Electricity: As of last Thursday, 8,400 homes and businesses were still without power in five counties. Helicopters and off-road vehicles are being used to install power poles in some otherwise inaccessible areas.

Water system in Asheville: Water is slowly being restored in Asheville. Due to low water pressure where the system is in operation, residents are still under a Boil Water Notice. As of Saturday, the city reported that the treatment of water in the North Fork Reservoir will be a long process to deal with the high level of sediment resulting from the flooding.

The Rocky Broad River in Chimney Rock was restored to its original channel last week with the help of the US Army 101st Airborne Division.

Blue Ridge Parkway: The Blue Ridge Parkway remains closed in North Carolina, with tens of thousands of trees down and across the roadway and more than 30 rock and mudslides. There is no estimated reopening date for the beautiful parkway.

Public School Systems: Just to give you an idea about the recovery situation 25 days after Hurricane Helene hit western NC…

Avery County. Schools are scheduled to reopen on November 6.

Ashe County. Schools are scheduled to reopen on October 29.

Buncombe County. Schools are scheduled to reopen on October 25.

Watauga County. Schools are scheduled to reopen on October 24.

Colleges and universities:

Appalachian State University in Boone: The campus reopened for students to return as of 5:00 p.m. on Friday. Classes resumed in all but one classroom building on October 16.

Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College: Closed until at least October 28.

Blue Ridge Community College: Reopening today.

Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk: Classes will be conducted online through November 4.

Montreat College: Started welcoming students back to campus yesterday.

Warren Wilson College: As of last Thursday, planning to welcome students back to campus on October 27. Roof and other repairs will continue over the coming months.

IV Bag Manufacturer:  Through the US Department of Health and Human Services, President Biden invoked the Defense Production Act so the company will have priority access to specific material needed so Baxter can get back to production.

Convoy of Farm Supplies from Ohio

A convoy of trucks pulling trailers of hay and other farm supplies from Ohio arrived in Deep Gap, Watauga County, on Tuesday! Thank you, Ohioans! The videos were heart-warming! I read of hay bales also coming in from Pennsylvania. Thank you, Pennsylvanians!

Fundraising Concert

The Avett Brothers from here in Cabarrus County and another North Carolinian, Scotty McCreery, have been added to the lineup for the October 26 “Concert for Carolina” at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte. The concert is sold-out, but can be live streamed for $25.

Tourism: Autumn is the peak tourism season in the mountains. Some towns are accessible now and encouraging tourists to come and support the local economy. Those invitations are accompanied by words of caution to travel to the towns you know are ready for you and don’t venture out in the countryside where your presence will be a hindrance to recovery efforts. If you want to visit our beautiful mountains, do your research online or call your destination to learn about current conditions.

The Biltmore Estate announced on Friday that it will reopen for visitors on November 2

Until my next blog post

I hope you have at least one good book to read this week.

Don’t take family and friends for granted.

Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.

Janet

By the way… if you have not signed up for my e-Newsletter, please visit https://www.janetmorrisonbooks.com, click on “Subscribe,” and enjoy a free downloadable copy of my “Slip Sliding Away” short story which is set in the Appalachian Mountains. Then, look forward to my November e-Newsletter!

19 Blue Ridge Mountains Trivia Answers

How many of the Blue Ridge Mountains trivia questions I asked in last week’s blog, https://janetswritingblog.com/2019/08/11/19-blue-ridge-mountains-trivia-questions/, were you able to answer?

#BlueRidgeMtnsOfNC #PostcardBook
The Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina by Janet Morrison

I indicated that all the answers could be found in the vintage postcard book I wrote, The Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. These trivia questions (and the answers supplied in today’s blog post) are my way of celebrating the fifth anniversary of the publication of the book by Arcadia Publishing on August 25, 2014.

Here are the questions and answers

1.  Why was Grandfather Mountain named a member of the international network of Biosphere Reserves in 1992?  Because it supported 42 rare and endangered species. Just on that one mountain!

2. What does Linville Falls in North Carolina have in common with Niagara Falls?  They are both caprock waterfalls, meaning the top layer of rock is harder that the underlying stone. Erosion causes the waterfall to migrate upstream over time. It is believed that Linville Falls was once 12 miles downstream from its present location.

3.  How did Edwin Wiley Grove make his fortune which enabled him to build the Grove Park Inn in Ashevile, North Carolina?  He sold Grove’s Tasteless Chill Tonic.

4.  What part did the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) play in the construction of the Blue Ridge Parkway during The Great Depression?  The men who were members of the CCC assisted with the paving and landscaping of the Blue Ridge Parkway. What a magnificent gift they left us!

5.  When George W. Vanderbilt purchased Mt. Pisgah in 1897, what grand plan did the mountain become part of temporarily?  The 125,000-acre Biltmore Estate. (It’s no longer part of the estate.)

6.  What groups of people were housed at Assembly Inn in Montreat, North Carolina in 1942?  290 Japanese and German internees.

7.  Jerome Freeman bought 400 acres of land in Rutherford County, North Carolina that included the Chimney Rock around 1870 for $25. How much did the State of North Carolina pay for Chimney Rock Park in 2007?  $24 million.

8.  What new breed of hunting dog was developed by a German pioneer family in the late 1700s in the Plott Balsams subrange of the Blue Ridge Mountains?  The Plott Hound, which just happens to be the official State Dog of North Carolina.

9.  What is an early 20th century feat of engineering on the Newfound Gap Road in Great Smoky Mountains National Park?  The road crosses over itself. This example of a helix is called “The Loop.”

10.  How fast can a black bear run?   30 to 35 miles per hour.

11.  It is illegal in Great Smoky Mountains National Park to willfully get within how many feet of a black bear?  150 feet.

12.  What is the name of the 57,000 acres of land purchased by the Cherokee in the 1800s and held in trust by the United States Government?  Qualla Boundary

13.  Is Qualla Boundary technically a reservation? No, a reservation is land that the United States Government gives to an American Indian tribe. The Cherokees purchased their land.

14.  Did the Cherokee people lived in tipis in the 1700s and 1800s?  No, they lived in houses.

15.  What forest contains one of the largest groves of old-growth trees in the Eastern United States?  Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest

16.  What hydroelectric dam was used in the 1993 Harrison Ford movie, The Fugitive?  The Cheoah Dam

17.  What is the tallest dam east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States?  Fontana Dam.

18.  One of the oldest postcards in my book is of Cullowhee Normal School in the mid- to late-1920s. What is the name of that school today?  Western Carolina University.

19.  Started in 1935, the Blue Ridge Parkway’s “missing link” was completed in 1987. What is the connecting one-fourth-mile long piece that filled the “missing link” called? The Linn Cove Viaduct.

How did you do?

How many of the 19 questions did you answer correctly? I hope you enjoyed trying to answer the questions and seeing the answers today. If you want to learn more about the mountains of North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, please ask for The Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, by Janet Morrison, at your local bookstore, online at Amazon.com, or purchase it directly from the publisher at https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/. It’s available in paperback and as an ebook.

The contract I signed with Arcadia Publishing was for five years, so you’d better get a copy of the book while it’s still being published. I don’t know if my contract will be extended.

Since my last blog post

I’ve finally gotten into a rhythm for writing the scene outline according to C.S. Lakin’s template. It sounds backward to be writing the scene outline after writing the book, but the questions asked in the template, along with five questions I added after reading a couple of articles by Janice Hardy, are making every scene in the book stronger. It’s slow going, but well worth the time and effort.

Due to technical problems, I was unable to include images of any of the postcards from my book in today’s blog post.

Until my next blog post

If you’d like to follow me on Twitter, @janetmorrisonbk. If you’d like to follow my business page on Facebook, it’s Janet Morrison, Writer.

I hope you have a good book to read. I’m reading The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead and still listening to Resistance Women, by Jennifer Chiaverini.

If you’re a writer, I hope you have quality writing time.

Thank you for taking the time to read 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

Feel free to let me know in the comments section below or on Twitter or Facebook how you did on the trivia questions. If you have any other comments or questions for me about the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains, I’ll welcome and try to answer them.

Janet

“On a third-floor ledge, threatening”

“On a third-floor ledge, threatening”

Do I have your attention? Good! That’s the purpose of a hook in a novel. I made a note of this one when I read Tricky Twenty-Two, by Janet Evanovich in 2015:

“Ginny Scoot was standing on a third-floor ledge, threatening to jump, and it was more or less my fault.” – Tricky Twenty-Two, by Janet Evanovich

TrickyTwentyTwo
Tricky Twenty-Two, by Janet Evanovich

After reading that opening sentence, you have to keep reading. The next sentence clarifies things a tad for any reader who has not read any of Ms. Evanovich’s previous 21 Stephanie Plum novels:  “My name is Stephanie Plum and I work as a bounty hunter for my bail bondsman cousin Vinnie.”

I read Janet Evanovich when I want something light and amusing to read. She did a good day’s (years’?) work when she came up with the characters in her Stephanie Plum series. Great character development!

Fans of the Stephanie Plum series know there is a story to follow that hook, no doubt filled with numerous missteps by Stephanie and probably at least one blown-up car. The opening sentence introduces Ginny Scoot to you and tells you she is in dire straits. You wonder what has happened to push her to the edge. What in the world did Stephanie Plum do to cause this crisis?

A good hook grabs you. It gives you just enough information that your curiosity is piqued and you are compelled to keep reading. The first sentence doesn’t have to carry the whole load; however, if the reader isn’t hooked by the bottom of the first page, chances are he or she won’t read the second page. That’s a lot of pressure for a writer!

Since my last blog post

I was fortunate to find one copy of The Carolina Backcountry On The Eve Of The Revolution:  The Journal and Other Writings of Charles Woodmason, Anglican Itinerant, edited by Richard J. Hooker in circulation in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library System. It has been useful in my research for the historical novel I’m writing.

More letters have been sent to independent bookstore owners to encourage them to place orders for my vintage postcard book, The Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, as spring is finally approaching in western North Carolina.

I’ve continued to hone my new skill of creating graphics for Pinterest using www.Canva.com. In fact, someone at www.Canva.com saw my last blog post and contacted me. She was complimentary of my blog but requested that I give the whole URL (www.Canva.com) instead of “Canva.com” as I had in my blog. I corrected that in last week’s blog post.

Last week’s blog post, How Can a Writer Use Pinterest?, has only been liked by four other WordPress.com (or WordPress.org) bloggers, so Pinterest doesn’t appear to be a popular blog topic for me. I have gained several new followers via email, though, so perhaps it was of interest of a few people. I’ll be watching my Pinterest analytics to see if my original graphics get any attention.

I read on www.Goodreads.com that Jennifer Ryan is considering writing a sequel to The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir. I commented on how much I liked it in my April 1, 2017 blog post, The Authors I Read in March. I look forward to reading the sequel, if it comes to fruition.

Going off topic

The highlights of my week were seeing several birds that make rare appearances in my yard. First came a male scarlet tanager to get a drink of water on Sunday. Two days later, two male indigo buntings, and a rose-breasted grosbeak came to eat. The grosbeak usually stops by our bird feeder every spring, but he’s just passing through. The indigo buntings graze on the ground under the feeder.

Sometimes the rose-breasted grosbeak stays for two or three days, but this year I only saw him once. He feasted for a good 15 minutes before flying away. Other birds came and went, but he was not deterred. This is much different behavior than is displayed by the northern cardinal. The northern cardinal is the most skittish bird I’ve seen. We have them in abundance.

I’ve only seen indigo buntings a few times in my life, but this was only the second time I’d seen a scarlet tanager. I didn’t get any photographs this time, but I found it interesting when I looked back in my photo files that the indigo bunting and rose-breasted grosbeak showed up on the same day in 2007. I photographed them on May 9 that year. It was the first time I’d ever seen either species.

This year they showed up on April 24. Concluding that the two species apparently migrate together, I did a little research. I learned on https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/indigo_bunting (The Cornell Lab of Ornithology) that indigo buntings “migrate at night, using the stars for guidance.” Perhaps it is coincidental that they and the rose-breasted grosbeak both show up in my yard on the same day.

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Male Indigo Bunting, photographed March 9, 2007.

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Male Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, photographed March 9, 2007.

When I chose the topic for today’s post, I had no idea I would include a segment about birds. I selected the above photo of the grosbeak because it was the best picture I took of him. It just occurred to me that he sort of illustrates the title of this blog post. Okay, use a little imagination. Work with me here!

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good place to watch a variety of birds.

I also hope you have a good book to read. I’m reading the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, Less, by Andrew Sean Greer. I’m usually years behind in reading award winners, so I decided to jump right on this one.

If you’re a writer, I hope you have productive writing time.

Feel free to share my blog posts on Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, or via email.

Thank you for reading my blog! What birds have you seen recently, and what are you reading?

Janet

Reading and Writing in January 2018

January is over, so it’s time for me to “fess up” about how I spent the month. Perhaps a better way to say that is “what I accomplished.” In my January 8, 2018 blog post (2018 Reading, Writing, & Living Plans) I felt I needed to be accountable to my blog readers. In order to do that, I said I’d set monthly writing goals. For January, I set a modest goal of adding 2,000 to the scenic plot outline for my historical novel, The Spanish Coin.

My writing

For starters, I failed miserably on reaching my 2,000-word goal. What I did, though, was brainstorm about story location. I continue to wrestle with what direction to take in re-writing my historical novel manuscript. The working title remains The Spanish Coin.

Historical novel progress

In January I settled on a location for the story. At least, I hope I will not change from this latest locale. I did some 1700s research on the place and worked on the story’s timeline. Location plays an important role in historical fiction. The era for the novel is the 1760’s, which is a decade earlier than my original plan.

Spanish Coin location reveal

Curious about the story’s setting?  The Camden District of South Carolina. Choosing a location for the story has freed me to proceed with the outline.

Goal for February

I tend to write detailed outlines, so I’ll go out on a limb and set a goal of 6,000 words for February.

My reading

I got my concentration back and had fun reading in January. I read what I wanted to read instead of tying myself down to any particular reading challenge.

That said, I picked up the rules for the 2018 reading challenges for the public libraries in Harrisburg and Mint Hill (I couldn’t help myself!), but I don’t plan to let them dictate what I read. With 500+ books on my “want to read” list, though, I might meet those two challenges without really trying. Incidentally, even though I read seven books in January, my “want to read” list had a net gain of 39. I realize this is not sustainable. I would have to be a speed reader and live to be a centenarian to finish my ever-growing list.

52 Small Changes: One Year to a Happier, Healthier You, by Brett Blumenthal

The book title says it all. I took note of the suggested change for each week. This week seems like a good week to start, since I didn’t begin in January. This week’s small change:  Drink enough water to stay hydrated. I’m told I should drink approximately 80 ounces of water every day. Since I normally drink less than half that amount, this constitutes more than a “small” change for me.

The Rooster Bar, by John Grisham

This latest John Grisham novel took a little different tack from his earlier books in that The Rooster Bar is about a group of law school dropouts practicing law without licenses. I found it to be more humorous than other Grisham novels I’ve read, but it was still full of suspense.

Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work that Lasts, by Ryan Holiday

I blogged about this book on January 22, 2018, so I direct you to that blog post if you missed it: (Works That Last.)

The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home, by Denise Kiernan

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The Last Castle, by Denise Kiernan

I’ve been reading so many novels the last couple of years that I’d forgotten how long nonfiction book titles tend to be. Or maybe it’s just the three I read in January.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book about the Vanderbilt family and the Biltmore Estate. Living in North Carolina, I have toured the Biltmore House four times. The first time was on a sixth grade field trip. Motion sickness on the bus as it wound around the endless curves on old US-74 east of Asheville is my main memory from that day, but I digress.

My other visits to the Biltmore Estate have been very enjoyable. Reading this book made me want to plan another trip to Asheville and tour the mansion again. It is a delightful book.

Before We Were Yours, by Lisa Wingate

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Before We Were Yours, by Lisa Wingate

This novel was inspired by the shocking history of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society during the first half of the 20th century. It is a gripping story and is expertly written. It is not a happy read, but I highly recommend this book.

The King of Lies, by John Hart

This was the January book choice of the Rocky River Readers Book Club. The novel is set in Salisbury, North Carolina, so I was familiar with some of the streets and buildings referenced in the book. It’s fun sometimes to read a book set in a location you have visited.

I though Mr. Hart could have omitted some of the “woe is me” theme in the first third of the book. The narrator’s whining about the wealthy people in this small town got old after a while. If you’ll hang in there, though, you’ll probably get so involved in trying to identify the killer that you’ll get to the point you can’t put the book down. You’ll think several times that you’ve figured out the villain’s identity but, chances are, you haven’t.

Nightwoods, by Charles Frazier

This novel has been on my “to read” list for several years, so I felt a sense of accomplishment when I finally read it. It is set in the mountains in western North Carolina.

Nightwoods is a tale about a woman who unexpectedly “inherits” her deceased sister’s twin boy and girl. The children give their aunt/new mother a challenge every day – and then her late sister’s widowed husband/killer comes to try to get the large sum of money he thinks the children took with them. The children are wild and uncommunicative. Add to that the fact that the aunt has no idea why her ne’er do well ex-brother-in-law has suddenly shown an interest in his children and has come to hunt them down.

What about December?

I just remembered that I never did blog about the books I read in December. They were a mixed bag of novels:  The Quantum Spy, by David Ignatius; Hardcore Twenty-Four, by Janet Evanovich; and The Secret, Book and Scone Society, by Ellery Adams.

David Ignatius’s political thrillers never disappoint me. The Quantum Spy was no exception.

The last two Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich disappointed me. I used to eagerly await her annual next installment of these funny novels, but “Twenty-Three” and “Twenty-Four” were too predictable.

The Ellery Adams novel is an entertaining read about four women who want to form a friendship, but each one is required to reveal a secret about herself before they can truly trust one another.

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read. I’m reading Fighting to Win: Samurai Techniques for Your Work and Life, by my fellow-blogger David J. Rogers; The Salt House, by Lisa Duffy, which was recommended by my friend Karen; Beartown, by Frekrik Backman, which is the February pick for The Apostrophe S Coffee Chat online book community; and The Woman in the Window, by A.J. Finn. That’s about one book too many for me to read at the same time, but they are different enough that I’m not getting the story lines confused.

If you’re a writer, I hope you have productive writing time.

If you subscribed to my mailing list last week, you renewed my faith in mankind. Thank you, Vicki, Colby, Katrina, and Glen!

In case you haven’t signed up for my mailing list, you have another opportunity to do so using the fill-in form below. I appreciate it!

Janet

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