Such a Slump

Dear Reader,

I haven’t written a word for The Rebel’s Touch, something which continues to bother me. However, over the weekend I hosted two swing dancers from Louisville and their interest in my woefully neglected manuscript has begun a spark of something which I hope will ignite into full-blown chapter writing.

These two ladies, being from Kentucky, were most interested in the location of The Rebel’s Touch. I told them the majority of the book is in Ripley, OH, and I had intended to visit the area last summer but never made it down.

They encouraged me to visit them this summer, not only for a bluegrass jazz festival which sounds amazing, but also because they can show me a Civil War hospital, and we could take a bike ride to the waterfront where Tempest would have been carried across to Ripley.

Have to admit, it sounds like a pretty fun weekend vacation. In other news, my entire body aches, and I’m not sure if it’s from allergies or the fact that I kicked my own butt on Monday by running for 20 min on the elliptical machine at resistance level 8. Maybe a mixture of both. Combine that with the fact that I think I ate something bad yesterday, and I feel like I have the flu. Ugh.

So yes. In the meantime, I’m on the hunt for some fun historical romance books to read. Lately I’ve been in such a slump! Everything I read seems to depress me. What is on your radar?

Best,
Belinda

Life as a Writer’s Block

Dear Reader,

Sometimes, we need a break.

After I graduated with my masters in 2010, I was dead-set on having my second book published within the year, which I did.

It took me seven years to write Haunting Miss Trentwood (because I was a full-time student and a part-time writer). I put my hand and head to marketing, and did so for a year… so much time spent interacting on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, etc, meant I wasn’t reading or writing anymore. Just talking about things that I had read and written before Haunting Miss Trentwood was published.

It was draining. Exhausting. It made me despise writing, the thinking and doing of it.

I have felt so guilty lately for not wanting to touch The Rebel’s Touch. I keep printing drafts hoping I will feel that old familiar rush that motivated me to put the Red Pen of Doom to paper. Nothing doing. Instead, I find myself staring out the window, wishing my head didn’t hurt. Or hoping a certain someone calls so we can hang out. Or looking up new recipes because I don’t want to be sitting, I want to be moving around and making something new. Or throwing my dance shoes into my bag because I have a performance or a lesson to teach or a party to enjoy.

Fact is, I have a very particular sort of Writer’s Block: life.

I never had a life before. It’s amazing! In high school, college, and even graduate school, my schedule consisted of…

• School,
• Homework, and then,
• Because I wasn’t allowed to hang out with anyone after dark (in high school anyway which set my pattern for undergrad and grad school), I would read or write or paint or sew.

I love those years, they made me prepared and capable to handle the little fixes around the house.

But the truth of the matter is I have no idea how to balance a full life and my writing.

The first three months of 2012, I tormented myself by thinking I wasn’t being true to my craft. I didn’t want to admit that my “craft,” as it were, was switching. I’m a swing, lindy hop, and balboa dancer. I won’t have this “young” almost-27-year-old body forever. This is my opportunity to make the best of my youth and dance while I can. Writing… well, I hope with all my soul that I will always have my mind available to write one more story.

I’ve also begun exploring religion, something that has always been a part of my life, but never explicitly. I just have so much I’m trying to figure out right now… My psyche is in flux, making it difficult to write about characters whose lives are also in flux. Without knowing myself and what I want to write about, it is almost impossible for me to give my characters minds and thoughts and worries of their own.

Do you have any suggestions for me, to help me balance life and writing?

Anyway, that is my explanation for my radio silence.

All the best,

Belinda

Kentucky Unionist Slaveholders?

Dear Reader,

When you’re in school in the States, it’s really easy to make it seem as though the Civil War was Yankees vs Rebels, North vs South, Unionists vs Confederates, Abolitionists vs Slaveholders. As if Yankee = North = Unionist = Abolitionist and Rebel = South = Confederate = Slaveholder. Without question.

It’s only after doing a (very little) bit of digging that I’ve realized this is not the case at all. You could be a slaveholding Unionist, i.e. supporting the federal Union that made the USA government. You could be a Confederate abolitionist, i.e. someone who supported state rights but disagreed with slavery. And on and on. It’s a fascinating mess.

Anyway, The New York Times is continuing its great series about the Civil War, chronicling the four years on its 150th anniversary. Today it’s a great article about Kentucky during the Civil War, this time about a staunch Unionist family who also happened to be slaveholders.

Though the Underwoods, like Kentucky, stayed loyal, their staunch Unionism made them outsiders at home. Josie’s father campaigned across the state for peace, leading to charges that he was under the sway of “Lovejoy and the abolitionists” and thus not a “consistent Southerner.” Crowds of secessionists shouted “hurrah for Jeff Davis” at trains passing through town on the L and N. “Every man on that train will think Bowling Green is Rebel — when she’s Union,” Josie lamented, “though the Union sentiment is much the greatest in Kentucky, the Rebels have so many rowdies they make the most noise.”

Make sure you read the entire article. It is certainly eye-opening and great material for The Rebel’s Touch, since Tempest is a slaveholding Unionist.

Honestly, the more I read about the Civil War, even though I’m focusing on one year around the Ohio River at Ripley and across the river in Kentucky… I keep learning so much. It is a real struggle to know what to include in the book and what to keep out. Which real people to I add as supporting characters, and why? How does it support the story of a man trying to regain his memory during a tumultuous time in history? My brain hurts just thinking about it. Goodness, why do I have to make everything so difficult…

Best,

Belinda

Old Maps Online

Dear Reader,

I have been beyond busy practicing for a local swing dance/lindy hop team competition, which is exhausting, thrilling, stressful… but we won first place, so all the hard work was worth it! It would have been worth it had we not won, I became close to some really amazing people, but winning… yeah. It was indescribable. I might have almost started crying.

In other news, I just found this awesome website called Old Maps Online, via Flowing Data.

So of course, I had to look up Ripley, OH where The Rebel’s Touch is supposed to be located. They don’t have a specific Ripley map form 1860 – 1865, but they do have a map of Ohio and Indiana linked, which is pretty freaking awesome. And! A map of Kentucky and Tennessee (because Tempest is actually from Kentucky).

Now that the competition preparations are over, I have more time to read and write. I am dipping my toes into The Rebel’s Touch again, trying not to feel like a total loser for not writing for three months and for feeling completely stuck at where I did stop.

Rather than picking up the story right where I left it, last night I let my mind wander and wrote a scene that would happen a couple chapters after the current written point. The scene is internal, Tempest thinking about Daniel and how her feelings might be starting to change but she has no idea how he would react…

Not gonna lie, writing the scene almost made me cry. Sometimes there is nothing worse than the not-knowing, the wondering, the too-scared-to-ask-and-ruin-a-good-thing. Happens all the time in real life, happens in fiction, too. Heartbreak via silence is a tough thing to handle. Not sure if you have experienced it, but believe me, it’s no fun. But boy is it a great thing to draw inspiration from to write about!

Best,

Belinda

When Awesome Happens: To My Old Master

Dear Reader,

I have stumbled upon an amazing discovery where a letter from a former slave to their former master’s request to “return home” has surfaced in blog format.  This is such a great find for me as I continue to do research for The Rebel’s Touch, and I wanted to share the experience with you. Below is the first paragraph. So fantastic.

Dayton, Ohio,

August 7, 1865

To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance…

Tons of thanks to Shaun Usher of Letters of Note for finding this gem and reproducing the letter in full! Read the entire thing at his website.

Best,

Belinda