This girl keeps popping up in my head

I shared this on facebook and twitter earlier today, so I thought I would elaborate a little.  I get asked by a lot of people who read The White House what happens to Lizzie Poole after that story ends. 

For a long time the truth of it has been that I don't know and I kind of liked it that way. I like leaving readers hanging. I like getting asked what happens next because it means that people care about Lizzie. I certainly do. 

The funny thing about Lizzie is that she was introduced to me, the same way she was introduced to you. I needed another female character in The White House, if for no other reason then to provide a foil for Annie. So I thought I would add a servant girl, and just to show what a louse Silas Poole is I thought we would meet her when he reached out to cuff the back of her head. 

That was when something magical happened. Lizzie ducked. I didn't expect it anymore than the rest of you did. With that one action, the story was no longer just about Annie, or Israel or even Blackbeard. It suddenly became a story about this girl. She just took over. For a writer to have a character surprise us or do something that even we as their creators don't expect is an incredible experience. 

I fell in love with Lizzie Poole, and even though I've moved on to other worlds and other characters that I also love she just keeps popping up in my head. Every once in a while I'll start to wonder what happens next for Lizzie. Where did she go? What kind of opportunities would there be for a girl on her own in the colonies in 1718 and what would Lizzie make of them?

With that said, a few ideas have popped up. Bear in mind that I've done very little research, have no outline, and I have a whole host of other characters to be exorcised before I can get back to our Lizzie. Still, she's there in the back of my brain standing on the porch of the white house looking left and right trying to choose where to go next. 

Which is where this morning's passage came from. It's short, but I think it's a promising start. 

WARNING: Spoilers ahead. If you haven't read The White House, you might want to stop now.

You wouldn't think it would take a man's head so long to rot when mounted on a stake in a marsh, but even now Lizzie could see tufts of his famed black whiskers that clung to the slack jaw hanging in mute mockery. He'd been jolly once, a right jovial character for all he'd just as soon kill a person and laugh with them. She reckoned it was the cold that had kept it preserved these weeks hanging at the mouth of the river. Still, she hadn't expected it to look like the man she'd known. She hadn't imagined that it would bring back so many memories of the man himself. For unlike many of the others gawking at the rail as they sailed by, Lizzie Poole had known Blackbeard.   

It was less than a year since she'd seen him last. He'd been loud and boisterous as he'd pulled her into his lap, his ale sour breath wafting over her face as she looked up across the table into the eyes Israel Hands.  For the first time in her life, she'd seen a man that cared enough about her to be bothered by the old pirate's rough handling. It had given her hope. Of course, that was before Teach had ordered the murder of the only friend Lizzie had ever known, before Mr. Hands had beaten her father near to death and Lizzie had learned that hope only got a girl so far. 

The broad woman in filthy homespun beside Lizzie snorted noisily and spat into the water below. "I reckon he got what he deserved." 

"Mmmm," Lizzie muttered, not taking her eyes off the pirate's head. "I reckon he did."

News Roundup

Today I was bombarded with news stories related some of my own stories.  Thank goodness for facebook, reddit and news alerts. I've been working hard in instructional design mode that I might have missed them. But they're pretty exciting. First, archaeologists with the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources will be attempting to recover 8 cannons from the wreckage of Blackbeard's ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge. The ship ran aground near Beaufort Inlet in June of 1718. If you've read my story The White House (currently FREE on Smashwords) you know that it speculates on the events leading up to the demise of the Queen Anne's Revenge and is loosely based on some other legends surrounding Blackbeard and his relationship to the town of Beaufort, NC.  If you haven't read it then you really should. Did I mention it's FREE right now?

Then I saw a series of stories that relate to The River Maiden. (Yes, I am still working on it, I promise.) Actually, they relate more to the books following The River Maiden than they do to the first installment of Dermot and Sarah's story. So, I'll list these articles without comment to avoid possible spoilers. My husband will say I giving away too much, but he knows how my brain works better than you do. I'm hoping for you these are thought provoking teasers rather than spoilers.

1) A very interesting commentary on the role of Gaelic in the Scottish Independence movement.

2) A mysterious network of Stone Age tunnels stretching from Scotland to Turkey (or vice versa).

3) A European style Bronze Age monument found submerged in the Sea of Galilee.

Yes, I am just nerdy enough to be thrilled by these articles. I get super excited about languages, politics and history of any era, and if I can get them all in one day it's a very good day.

Give back...My Hurricane Relief Pledge

I am an east coast kind of girl. I grew up in the Virginia Piedmont and now live on the inner edge of the Tidewater region just below the fall line of the Rappahannock. I like tall trees and walkways made of crushed oyster shells, and blue crabs. I like our history, the good parts that we're proud of and even the bad parts that we're not proud of.  I like to write stories about our history, more specifically our coast and as many people know living on the coast can be hard. My great Aunt and Uncle owned a condo at Fort Fisher in North Carolina, and I spent many a summer there playing in the surf and learning the history and legends of the area. It's those many summers that inspired my interest in the legends of the Outer Banks, and inspired me to write The White House and A Fond Kiss and the many other stories of the coast that are churning around in my head to be written in the future.  But like so many people along the Southern coast, we also dealt with our fair share of hurricanes. After getting hit three years in a row, my Aunt and Uncle sold their condo and our trips to the beach have gotten less regular. Hurricane damage is a fact of life on the coast.  Although it's something that our friends up north don't have to deal with as often. I think those of us who have been through this should stand up and help those who are dealing with it now.

So, I just made our family's donation to the Red Cross for storm relief. I encourage everyone reading this to do the same. In fact, here's the link to donate.

But I'm also going to take it a step further.

During my previous life as a corporate trainer, I worked for Intuit, the makers of Quickbooks and TurboTax (no, I will not help you with your bookkeeping or taxes). Intuit is a great company to work for because their Operating Values are as good as their products. One of the key Operating Values at Intuit is "We care and give back." Which means that they make an effort to contribute to the communities around their facilities and they encourage their employees to do the same. I've been away from Intuit for four years now, I don't even think about tax software outside of tax season,  and I couldn't tell you what the newest features of QuickBooks are, but that Operating Value is one that I will never forget.

With that said, I am pledging 100% of my royalties from this quarter to the Red Cross. That's right, 100% of royalties from Oct, Nov & Dec.

Admittedly, my books only cost .99 and I'm not exactly swimming in royalties. That's where you come in. If you've been thinking about buying one of my books and just haven't gotten around to it, now is the time. Tell anyone you know with an ereader, that if they buy my books, I will donate ALL the royalties to the Red Cross. This goes for all royalties from Kindle, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords.

In case you don't trust me. I will happily share pics of my sales reports and my donation receipt, once the donation has been made.

As I mentioned before, my royalties are not huge, so we've already made a personal donation to the Red Cross. If you want to be absolutely sure of giving more than the .30-.60 that I will collect from selling a book, then you too can make your own donation here.

Please keep all of the people affected by the storm in your thoughts (and prayers if you're a praying person) as I can assure you they are in mine.

Now Available - A Fond Kiss

The weather threw a wrench in my plans today by keeping both children home due to snow. Still, I managed to get A Fond Kiss uploaded to smashwords and am now awaiting the approval process for KDP and Barnes & Noble. I expect the Kindle and Nook versions to be ready in the next 24 hours. Yay!

Progress Update

I'm getting closer to releasing A Fond Kiss, my next novelette. I'll working on the final edits as soon as I finish this post. After posting the previous cover and getting some feedback on it. I made a few modifications. I think this new cover strikes the right tone for this story.

I also have a few things coming up to help get the word out.

I'll be doing an interview for the blog of fellow writer John B. Campbell. I highly recommend you check out his book, Walk to Paradise Garden. I'm also excited to be posting an interview of John here in the near future. So there should be some juicy shop talk about editing and characterization.

And a guest post on Sean McLachlan's blog Civil War Horror to talk about research, some online research tools. This is especially fitting for A Fond Kiss because it's based on a true story.

I can also be found reviewing books at Read All Over Reviews.

I'll let you know when A Fond Kiss is ready for release.

As always, I am also hard at work on the novel. If you haven't already you can get a sneak peak here and here.

A Fond Kiss

What with colds and stomach viruses, I haven't had much time to get work done in the last week or so. So, I will ply you today with a teaser from my upcoming novelette, A Fond Kiss. The ebook should be available soon. A Fond Kiss

“Mr. French, will you be able to visit your family before beginning your clerkship?” Mrs. Manney, as was her habit, made polite conversation while Minerva, bustled around the table serving dinner. This was the regular way of things at meals in the Manney household. Despite her northern roots, or perhaps because of them, Maria Manney was forever striving to outdo her southern neighbors in hospitality and elegance. Each day at the dinner table she set about providing her daughters with an ideal example of womanly behavior. She kept up a steady stream of pleasant if vapid conversation, diffused potential conflicts, and demonstrated impeccable manners for her children. The result of her hard work being that her children all had manners so fine that she never realized that they found her efforts at conversation to be a somewhat of a nuisance.

Charles cleared his throat. “I’m afraid not, ma’am. I will be starting in Philadelphia almost as soon as I arrive. I am told that the attorney I’ll be working with is a stern taskmaster. I doubt that I will have time to visit them before I become an attorney myself.”

“You should try to find the time, young man.” Dr. Manney’s gruff voice cut in from the head of the table.  Where Mrs. Manney ensured that meals were pleasant for everyone, Dr. James Manney ruled like a stone-faced monarch caring little for the opinions of the others. Although he never missed meals, Charles had always had the impression that his mind was frequently elsewhere, likely on his next business venture. Rarely did he allow himself to be drawn into the conversation, save the rare occasion when something caught his attention. “Family is important. You’ve been separated from yours for too long.”

“I have, sir, and I do miss them. However, my mother and I correspond frequently. She keeps me abreast of the news at home, and living with a family as generous as yours has prevented me from getting homesick.” He smiled around the table being careful not to let his gaze linger on Nancy too long.

The doctor merely grunted and returned to his beef. When the main course was removed and Minerva brought the dessert, the doctor picked up the subject. “I suppose a young man in your situation has to be willing to leave family behind in pursuit of professional success.”

Charles wasn’t sure how to respond to that. What had the doctor meant by ‘your situation’? He was rescued by Nancy who asked in seeming innocence, “You mean the way that you did when you moved here from New York, Papa?”

All eyes turned to the doctor to guage his reaction to this question. He eyed his eldest daughter for a moment one eyebrow cocked high.  “Hmph, indeed.”

“I do believe this pudding has been burnt!” Mrs. Manney burst in from the foot of the table. “Minerva. I have told you that I cannot abide an overcooked pudding.”

“Yes’m. Can I get you some of that cantaloupe?” the house slave deftly lifted the pudding from in front of the doctor’s wife and placed it on the tray of dishes to be returned to the kitchen behind the house.

“No, I believe I have had enough. Nancy, when you are finished I would like for you and Francis to walk with me down to the mercantile. I want your help picking some ribbon for the new bonnets.”

“Yes, Mama.” Nancy cast Charles a look as she lowered her head appearing suddenly very interested in her pudding.

***

At the sound of her footstep in the hallway, Charles stepped from his room and silently followed Nancy into hers easing the door shut. “I’m going to talk to him while you’re out.”  He whispered.

She took a nervous breath. “Should I try to delay us returning?”

“I hope there will be no need for that.” He took her hand in his. “I will give him the final progress reports on James and Julia, and that should conclude any work that I have left to do. Once I’m no longer working in the house, I don’t see how he can object.”

“I wish I had your confidence. I just don’t know how he’s going to take this.” She stepped away from him to her wardrobe to retrieve her bonnet and lace gloves from a top drawer. Charles was suddenly struck by the novelty of being in her room, of knowing in which drawer her gloves were kept. Had he not been so nervous he would have savored this small intimacy. “You’ve seen all the young men he’s introduced me to over the last couple of years.”

“I have," He refocused his eyes on her face. "And in a few years once I’m practicing law I’ll outshine them all. He saw enough promise in me to bring me here, surely he can believe in my future success.”

A sound in the hallway silenced them and they held their breath for a moment afraid of being discovered. It wouldn’t do to find the family tutor in Nancy’s room. They had managed to keep their romance a secret for over a year.

When she was satisfied that they had not been overheard, Nancy began fumbling with the tiny crocheted buttons at the wrist of one of her gloves. She made a guttural sound of impatience. “My hands are shaking. This blasted button loop is twisted!”

He took her hand and attempted the button himself, but his blunt fingers weren’t of much more use on the tiny buttons and the twisted loops that were supposed to fit around them. “How do you ever wear these things!”

“Charles, what if he says no?” Her voice sounded impossibly small. He looked up to find her watching him, in her eyes a blend of uncertainty, hope and fear.

“He won’t.”  He turned back to the button and finally managed to push the button through the tiny loop. He held her wrist up to show her. “See? It will work out.”

Her eyes began to get misty and she merely nodded and began fervently examining her bonnet.

He titled her chin up with his other hand and tried to sound more sure than he felt. “No matter what he says, we will be together. We were going to wait anyway until I am set up. If I can’t convince him now, then I will convince him then. I would rather leave here knowing that I have his blessing to return, but even without it I will be back for you. As long as I know that you believe in me, I can bring your father around eventually. You do believe in me, don’t you?”

“Of course, I do.”

“Then that is all I need.” He lifted her gloved hand and placed a kiss just where the glove ended at her wrist feeling her pulse jump. “I love you. No matter where I go or how long it takes me to return you have to know that.”

She swayed toward him and leaned her cheek against his lapel. It was the most contact they had allowed themselves in their long but secret courtship. Charles fought against the urge to wrap his arms around her and simply hold her there until all else fell away. He had to satisfy himself with bending to his head to kiss the top of hers taking a moment to mark the lemony scent of her hair.

“Nancy!” Her mother’s sharp voice barked from the bottom of the stairs. They both leapt apart.

They said nothing more but sought courage in each other’s eyes for a few more heartbeats before Nancy opened the door just enough to slip outside. Charles stood listening to the silence in the hallway and staring at the door she had just closed. He muttered a quiet prayer to himself before slipping into the hall.

Moving Right Along

Ha! Now you have that song from The Muppet Movie stuck in your head. You're welcome. On a serious note. Feedback on the upcoming novelette is coming in from my awesome beta readers, and so far things are sounding pretty good. While I'm waiting to hear from the rest of them I thought I would go ahead and work on the cover. I'm a DIY kind of gal and this little gem is going to sell for .99 so I didn't want to spend a ton on getting someone else to design the cover. Unlike last time I didn't have a photo in my pipeline that was ideal for this story though. So, I joined istockphoto.com and found a great photo to use. I know some of you are  probably saying that there are plenty of free photo places online. Truth is I looked at those and the license agreements on most of them were a little murky. I decided that I would rather pay a little money up front, than potentially have to pay out later if I was misinterpreting or if the free site wasn't as scrupulous in where they got their pics. I'm not knocking those sites and if you know of one that you trust completely, I would love to hear about it.

Being a content producer I'm sensitive to copyright issues and try to operate under a standard of courtesy when it comes to intellectual property. We see this a lot in the craft world. My sister-in-law for example has a pretty successful business going through etsy and various retail boutiques selling her hand stitched felt goodies. She's been at it for a few years now and even has a book coming out. If you're crafty you can pre-order it here. Just the other day she discovered another etsy seller who was not only selling similar felt goodies, but had copied her signature stitch pattern and even copied some product descriptions word for word. Now, it's might hard to enforce copyright in the crafting business, but a lot of crafters especially those selling things operate under a general rule that you don't copy other peoples designs. I don't want to get caught up in a similar misunderstanding (I'm being very generous there to my SIL's copier) with my book cover, so I'll pay a little and it really is only a little.

With that said, here is the cover for "A Fond Kiss". Since this is only my 3rd cover, I am certainly open to feedback. Please let me know what you think. To leave a comment please keep scrolling all the way down. I don't have a specific release date for this piece yet, but I'm hoping to get it done this month.

The Inspiration for "The White House"

Years ago on our first trip to Beaufort, NC my husband and I were sitting atop the rather conspicuous doubledecker bus that provided tours of the beautiful historic town. It was a hot July afternoon, and I'm sure we would have been more comfortable in the shade of the first level, but I'm a sucker for historic architecture and was willing to endure the heat to have an unobstructed view. At the edge of the historic district stands a 2 1/2 story white house with a 2 story porch on a slightly raised plot of ground, it's view from the street slightly obscured by trees. The vernacular architecture enthusiast in me identified the "hall and parlor" layout of the first story. It was also clear that this is one of the oldest houses we had seen on the tour. The tour guide called this the "Hammock House" for the slight rise on which it was built.  She also told us some of the many legends attached to the house that had been at that location almost longer than the town. The story that stuck with me the most was also the story that also was the murkiest without many supporting facts or specifics. The Hammock House first appears in a 1789 map of the coast and is prominently identified as The White House. However, it is believed to have been an old establishment by the time that map was made possibly dating back as early as 1713 when the town was first being planned. It is believed to have been an inn or ordinary. According to the earliest of the legends. Blackbeard was a regular guest, as the inn's location and Beaufort's deep natural harbor offered strategic advantages. On one occasion he is said to have brought his "wife" there on a visit. After staying at the inn for a few days, the pirate is said to have left and left his "wife" hanging from a tree in the back yard.

Of the many stories that I heard that day, this is one that sparked my imagination. I immediately began imagining scenarios that would have led to such cruelty, not that a notorious pirate would need much inducement to be cruel. What kind of woman must she have been? How had she come to be with Blackbeard? The story sparked so many questions that I had to learn more about the pirate, the town and the house.

In my research I discovered a couple more stories that further inspired me. Blackbeard's ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, ran aground near Beaufort inlet in 1718. In 1996, marine archaeologists discovered a shipwreck near Beaufort Inlet that they are almost certain is the Queen Anne's Revenge. Some believe that Blackbeard grounded the ship on purpose as a sort of downsizing of his crew. I was fascinated by the idea of the pirate intentionally abandoning the ship that had served him so well and on the idea of pirate layoffs. What strategy would drive the pirate whose career seemed to be at it's height to jettison one of his most useful tools?

Another character that I came across in researching was Israel Hands, a person that not much is known about. As a writer that gave me a bit of freedom with which to flesh that character out. I also found intriguing, a story from Daniel Defoe's "General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates". During a card game, Blackbeard is said to have attempted to shoot another crew member, but hit Hands in the leg instead. When asked why he had done it, the pirate is said to have responded that “if he did not now and then kill one of them, they would forget who he was.” which is to say "the BOSS". This sent my mind down the line of questions about how a man maintained rule over a crew that at it's zenith numbered around 300 cut-throats. By all accounts, Blackbeard was notoriously ruthless, not just with the people of the ships and towns he terrorized but also with his own crew. We can only speculate that it was that kind of behavior that inspired loyalty out of fear, but also inspired the kind of pragmatism that cause Israel Hands to testify against the corrupt officials along the North Carolina coast who helped Blackbeard elude the colonial authorities for so long.

All of these different aspects of the Blackbeard and Hammock House legends went into the creation of my story "The White House". I have tried to weave these loose bits of legend into characters and a narrative that attempts to answer some of those questions inspired by what we know of Blackbeard, his crew and this one of his many wives.  Although the story is set in 1718, the questions that it attempts to answer about power, love and humanity are timeless.

The White House is now available via: Smashwords, Amazon, Barnes & Noble