Guest Blogging: Victorian Children

I'm guest blogging for New York Times Best Selling author Deanna Raybourn today. I'm writing about Victorian Children and the struggles they faced.

If you want to learn more about my forth coming book THE DEAD AMONG US, stop over.

 http://deannaraybourn.com/blog/in-which-we-welcome-tracy/

Time Stamp

Yesterday I ventured to a nearby archaeology  here in southern Ontario where historians have found evidence of a native long house village. In the 1800s the Crawfords, a pioneer family settled along the shores of a small lake in the Niagara Escarpment. Though they lived on this land for a short period, during that time they found countless artefacts linking the area to a native village that once stood on the site in the 1400s. Because of their discoveries the lake was named after them and today the land is a conservation area boasting reconstructed long houses and archaeological dig sites.

The largest artefact found on the site is a stone once used to ground dried corn. You can see in the picture how the rock had been indented and when I felt the surface it was smooth. The guide, who was a member of the First Nations, explained how the tribes people received their calcium needs from small particles of rock that would end up in the food after  grinding.

The village housed over 250 inhabitants, men, women and children of the Iroquion nation lived here for a short time but left their mark on the landscape nonetheless. Corn pollen had been found at the dig sites and carbon dating assisted in tracing the time period for when the village would have thrived.

In recent years I have developed an interest in native culture and its historical context. It was not really my intent to write a book involving this time period of North America. I doubt I could ever truly capture the essence of their belief structures or their way of life. I am however working on a fur trade mystery set in the Canadian Rockies and I am glad I will get an opportunity to look into the lives of the Native tribes from that place and time. My research continues and my knowledge grows. This book will be different from my Ainsley books and it's a prospect that excites me and scares me at the same time.



I recently read a book, People of the Long House by W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear. The book is really good and I devoured it quickly. It's part of a long series that I will complete because I just need to know what happens. Suspenseful, educating and fascination, this book is great for anyone looking to escape into native culture, the good, the bad and the terrifying.

Seascape Writer's Retreat

I went on a writer's retreat in New England a few weekends ago, I tacked on a week at a seaside cottage in the area to make it worth my drive. In retrospect this was probably not a good idea. I felt so pumped at the end of my "weekend with writers" that all I really wanted to do was hide away in a room and finish my book. Sunbathing on an Atlantic beach was the farthest thing from my mind. I wanted to write damn it and here these kids were begging for my attention. You`d think I had been away for three days or something.



So now I am home and fully removed from the critique groups and the information sessions. Over my vacation though I was able to think about what my fellow writers said about my work in progress. I would say 80 per cent was helpful and even encouraging, the other 20 per cent just served to confuse the crap out of me. No guff. And now I am stressing. Stressing about whether my preference to keep something is, in effect, literary suicide. Stressing about my voice, style and use of language and wondering if I truly am `wordy` or if I am remaining true to my historical genre, and my formulaic style.

I was the only person writing a historical and it was a challenge to convey that, yes, I have done my research and yes, I am not just `making this stuff up` because it makes for a good backdrop.

I feel great about my character though, Peter Ainsley, and my ability to spin a tale. The style in which I tell it, well now, isn`t that the subjective part? Isn`t that all up for creative interpretation?...oh great, now look at me, I am one of those whiny, defensive attendees who is just digging my heels in and claiming it to be art, an expression of me and my pysche. Good Lord, I am in trouble.




Changes I will make, but only after I finish. Nothing negative was said about my story and did get many encouraging words in this regard, so I believe in the whole I am on the right track plot-wise. I simply can not go back now, not when there is only 30,000 more words to write. I am so close I can taste it. Substituting words here and there, rewriting the odd sentence or two will only serve to derail my forward progress. I have however, formulated an opinion about these types of shindigs, these critique groups and gatherings of authors but that is a post/rant for another day.

Rejection & Progress

I recieved another rejection letter this week for a short (15,000 word) romance I wrote two summers ago. This is the one I recieved such good praise for from Harlequin except for the absence of erotica. I dusted it off a month or so ago and submitted with a small romance e-press. This time I simply got a form rejection. And now I recall what these feel like.

I can not say how many hours I have invested in this short piece but it seems that now it is destined for the archived folded on my hard drive. Perhaps it's just not good enough to be worth much of anything other than an exercise in writing.

All I can do is move forward, resolve to write better and keep submitting.

Of course this rejection came at a crucial time in my current manuscript. I spent the majority of my writing time this week rearranging scenes and smoothing out the transitions so they make sense. I was nearly frozen at the beginning of the week not knowing how to move forward. There was something wrong with the last few scenes I wrote and my temporary solution was to avoid it because it was difficult.

I finally sat down Tuesday evening and hacked away. Coming up for air on the other side of what was a very tedious and nail biting process, I saw that I did what I had to do in order to keep the story in line and moving forward. I am happy with it now and hoping I can make quick work of the last third of the novel.