A review of A Time to Change

by Callie Langridge

“I would rather love passionately for an hour 

than benignly for a lifetime.”  

 

Lou's life is a shambles.  Lou was supposed to run an errand, got caught up in her own business.  Time passed, her mother went to run the errand, and was killed in an accident.  And Lou blames herself for the death, the grief, the loss of energy, and the wreckage of her relationship with her brothers.  She is living with her two brothers, caught in self-blame for their mother's death.  

It is close to Christmas, and the contrast between the season of celebration and the season of grief and self-blame in her heart is expressed beautifully. 

At loose ends, she visits a derelict old 'stately home'. Hill House, once owned by the Mandeville family.  While roaming the wrecked stables and grounds, she meets an old man, the child of servants there, who looks at her with knowledge and says, mysteriously, 'one out, one in'.  She moves through the corridors and is suddenly transported to 1913, when the First World War was a roaring on the horizon.  She is a guest in the house, welcomed by the Mandevilles, and she is caught up in their life even as she knows that Hill House and its family will fall into ruin. 

She catches threads of danger to the family, threads that she must unravel.  And she falls in love. 

The story progresses very well to an ending that ties up all the loose ends, both past and present. 

I will not 'give away' the ending: read the story for yourself.  It won't be hard to suspend your disbelief, and you will be happy with the ending, even though you may find yourself shedding tears.

 What is good:

The author did her research into the historical period.

The author writes believable characters, though the villain of the piece is very dislikeable.

The author handles what I will call 'fantastic' elements and people deftly and believably.

 What is not so good:

The villain’s villainy is revealed to the heroine rather abruptly.  This really isn’t a black mark, simply a matter of taste.  Others might disagree.  As villainous as the villain was, I confess that it would have been lovely for one of the men of the Mandeville family to give him a bloody nose.   

The twist(s) at the end were unexpected, but were in full accordance with the story, and surpassed my expectations about the resolution.

To be brief:

The story line was compelling.

The characters were believable and engaging.  The villain was also believable, and one wished, believably, to see that he is foiled.  Was he?  Read it and see.

The historic points were pretty much spot on.  The behavior of the servants and the Mandeville familyfit well with what we know of the norms of behavior during that time.  The story line did allow for some flexibility.

The fantastic elements (there weren't a lot of them) worked very well.  No 'creaking' events.

The characters, of all kinds, were true to themselves and the situations and parts that the author assigned to them.

And the ending surprised me. (I generally read the ending first.  I didn't do it this time, and it was worth it.)

I highly recommend this book.  ...But don't sit down to read it if you know you are going to have a busy day with a lot of distractions.

Research

Research is one of those indispensable features of writing that either drive you mad or make you waste an entire afternoon saying "Wow!  That's neat!"  For me, at least, one bit of information makes me look for another, and by the end of it, I am far, far away.

Anyone who writes historical fiction knows how crucial research is to the finished product.  If the information is available, it needs to be heeded.  If it is not available, then some careful thought is required.  Even if you are inventing worlds, or countries with their own histories, you have to have some notion of the flow of time and the development of the civilization that you are dealing with.

Sometimes you can get tripped up rather spectacularly, as I discovered while I was writing the first book of my French series, THE ORPHAN'S TALE, set in Paris of 1834.  I love maps, and I consult them very carefully when I am writing.  I had some beautiful maps of Paris, which I pored over as I wrote.

...and then I discovered that all was in vain.  First of all, it seems to be the normal thing in Paris to rename streets on a regular basis, depending on which person the government wishes to honor.  As a result, I had Paul Malet, the hero of the series, crossing a square that led to the flower market, named for a Parisian Prefect of Police who served around 1890.   In one scene, baffled and embarrassed, he stormed across the Place Andre Honnorat, named for a politician who lived between 1858 and 1950.

Add to that the fact that Napoleon III effectively tore Paris apart in the middle of the 19th century, altering the courses of streets, tearing up structures and making it difficult to figure out what was where during the time I was writing about.

And then I found this map.  It was a fold out map of Paris, current as of about 1830.  Someone had owned this map around that time, and it had been preserved to now.  Streets, an idea of the sizes of the buildings.  Indispensable.


https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_map_of_1830_published_by_Goujon_and_Andriveau_-_Gallica.jpg#/media/File:Paris_map_of_1830_published_by_Goujon_and_Andriveau_-_Gallica.jpg

Delightful - A Review of I'd Rather be Reading by Anne Bogel

I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life by Anne Bogel
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A delicious book that combines the best parts of philosophy, description and humor. Rather like sitting down with the author and asking about her reading habits, preferences and observances and listening with a smile as she obliges. And you feel that she would make a good friend (and you want to go raid her shelves and renew your library subscription).

This is not a novel. There is no 'plot'. It's just listening to a chat about books, reading and things connected to those two.


View all my reviews

Catching the Echoes - An observation About Love, Loss and Memory

I have owned Burmese cats for years, starting in 1980.  They are a lively, affectionate, intuitive and very smart breed.  Burmese originated in and around Thailand and Myanmar, and spent centuries hanging around people - generally in temples.

Merlin and Morgan

My first two Burmese cats were a pair of brothers named Merlin and Morgan. They were supposed to live to their mid-twenties. Or so I thought. I did wake up when they were fifteen and realized that they were old, but they were with me, they were fairly healthy, though the one boy's kidneys were iffy, and we would all continue as we were, unchanging. Or so I thought.  The first one died in my arms of a heart attack on August 28, 1996.  I was stunned.  His brother died one month later to the day of kidney failure secondary to a severe hantavirus that his old body survived, but which threw him into a decline. I hadn't wanted him to go, but I had realized that I was fighting against his best good, and I told him that I wouldn't insist on his living and would let him go if that was what he wanted.  It was.

Merlin

There is no 'back to the drawing board' when love has touched you.  Whether you believe in forever or not, the very fact that your life has intersected and run together with another's has changed you. You are not the person you were before you came to love the one who has departed. You have an altered perspective, you have a part of you that grew in response to that other one. You have a way you would respond to the other's voice, jokes, antics, love. You can't go back to what you were before you loved the other.

But life does go on, and grief must be dealt with and resolved in one way or another. I didn't expect to 'replace' my boys, but I needed to have pets in their places, so Boomer and BJ came to me. Boomer is a Burmese. BJ's father was a Burmese (a particularly nice one!), so though he's a Bombay and black, he looks, through the face, like my first Burmese. That is when I encountered the echoes. 

Dad

I started catching hints, sometimes faint, sometimes very strong, of my old boys.  A way one of the kittens reacted to being stroked. A way of tilting the head.  Finding one curled up on a pillow and raising its head to blink at me in a familiar way.  The sound of a voice.  It was not as though the lost ones had come back as those two kittens, but as though, somehow, I was given back the part of me that had loved them. As though I had been given a chance to re-live their kittenhood, to revisit memories I had forgotten in the rush of the years, to have the hurts, the sad memories somehow smoothed away, and the memories of the young, strong, lively ones returned to me, fresh and clear, unspoiled.

I have experienced this with all lost loves, memories that touch my shoulder and remind me that love still exists in me.  I recently opened a book and found a folded slip of paper with a note from my father saying that he believed in me, and enclosing a check to 'keep the wolves from the door'.  Driving through Vermont one autumn afternoon, seeing a hillside with a familiar slant behind a yellow house...  My grandparents' old house, which they sold decades ago, now repainted.  Landmarks had changed, but I remembered.

Those memories, touching our experiences, are a part of us, a reminder.   Something to be embraced.

IWSG for January, 2018 - Plans and Dreams

This is the January entry for The Insecure Writer's Support Group Blog Hop.

The hop takes place on the first Wednesday of every month.  All are welcome to sign up and participate, and visit the blogs of the other participants.  

The co-hosts for the January 3 posting of the IWSG are Tyrean Martinson, Ellen @ The Cynical Sailor, Megan Morgan, Jennifer Lane, and Rachna Chhabria Go visit their blogs!

The question for January's blog hop is: 

What steps have you taken or plan to take to put a schedule in place for your writing and publishing?

Tempus Fugit...if you haven't noticed.

Speaking as a writer who had not written anything substantive or published anything at all in three years for a lot of very good reasons (there: I've said it!), even thinking of writing was a step in the right direction. But that was only the first step. 

I read a man's blog where he mentioned an app that reminded him to write 1,000 words per day. It was on his iPhone, he couldn't avoid seeing it, and it was a nice reminder for him. I sat back, blinking. That was what I needed! A reminder, rather like getting jabbed in the ribs with a thumb, rather than a rather muzzy, wistful 'Gee, I should really be writing...' thought I.

I went hunting for the app and discovered that it is an older one and unavailable right now. Apparently it is not mainstream and is undergoing an overhaul.

After some searching, I found a similar one for iTunes: Momentum Habit Tracker.  

I have set it to remind me to (1) write 1,000 words per day; (2) READ (amazing how you can stagnate if you don't read other peoples' work...), and SCOOP (my cats' litter box).  Hey, what's good for writing is good for cleaning.  It also offers to 'discuss' any issues with you.  I haven't taken it up on that offer just yet, since I am not sure how to address  my iPhone.  I'm sure I will learn.

So far, so good.  I get pinged around 8pm if I haven't set up my writing time.  Or reading time, or scooping time.  I've enjoyed getting reacquainted with other writers like Georgette Heyer and Tolkien.

Once writing, I have to keep up with it.  There is a nice (?) little app called 'Write or Die' (by Dr. Wicked), which I encountered during NaNoWriMo:

Write or Die by Dr. Wicked

This is the dashboard.  You set the time (in this case, 60 minutes) and the output (1,515 words in this case - attainable).  You can select the screen background - white works for me - and any deterrents or incentives that will keep your nose to the grindstone.

There are levels of motivation,  including one where the program starts erasing what you have written if you don't write fast enough to suit it.  This was a little too harsh for me, so I selected different motivations and rewards. 

If a certain amount of time passes with no output (I selected two minutes), an alarm sounds and I am treated, so to speak, with an alarming image - in this case, it is Grumpy Cat, superimposed on my typing and scowling at me.  It is hard to be alarmed and buckle down to slave at the keyboard while laughing like a fool, but it does help.  The beep is more effective than Grumpy Cat's scowl, but the grin is helpful at any rate.

If you manage to meet your goal, you are treated to a rewarding image.  I chose a cute puppy wearing a birthday hat, which appears behind the text that I have typed after I have reached my goal.  If I am cooking along at a great rate, it is a little startling to see that I am scattering text over the face of a cute puppy in a party hat, but it makes me laugh and continue typing.

Have I written every day?  Well, no.  But I'm reading more and writing more and thinking more and jotting more, and the cause of the blockage, a combination of work, eldercare, health issues and exhaustion, is now beginning to crumble.  The momentum is back, and while it may be a bit of a struggle, I am going to commit to having my most urgent WIP, an eagerly awaited (by my readers, at least) installment in my Egyptian series, in a state to be published by September.  I can do it.  Besides, I don't want to have Grumpy Cat mad at me.  

I know that cat is SOMEWHERE!

How about yourself?  Do you need to do something to get going?  It's a common problem, and not just with writing.

Read the other entries in this hop and see what they say - I will be reading them, too!

This is the July entry for The Insecure Writer's Support Group Blog Hop.


The hop takes place on the first Wednesday of every month.  All are welcome to sign up and participate, and visit the blogs of the other participants.

This month's co-hosts are Tamara Narayan, Pat Hatt, Patricia Lynne, Juneta Key, and Doreen McGettigan. Go visit their blogs, and join in!

The question for July 5 is:

What is one valuable lesson you've learned since you started writing?

That one is easy, though I find I have to cut my way through various good lessons I have learned in my writing path.  You know: setting the scene correctly, keeping your characters straight, avoid cliches, allow for development, let the plot unfold skilfully...  Lots of good lessons that will help you to write better, keep your stories unfolding properly, clarify characters...

A few of my notebooks

But the valuable lesson that underlies all of that, without which I, for one, can't write, is easy and embarrassingly basic.

Write it down.  

To expand: if you get an idea, preserve it in a form that you can retrieve.  

Have access to something that will help you capture the ideas.   Carry a pen and a notebook.  

Wax tablets and stylus: the past never leaves us

Wax tablets and a stylus are rather  cumbersome, but they have served over the millennia.  And if you are writing about the distant past, you can get a feel for how they worked. (Some stores actually still sell them, like this one...)

Enable the dictation feature on your iPhone (if you have one).   Or call yourself and leave yourself a message.  (But do tell your family not to delete such messages until you have had a chance to listen to them.)

  

The important thing is to capture your thoughts.  I have had too many times where I had a brainstorm - a plot twist, the answer to something that had been puzzling me - and thought 'Oh, yeah.  That is perfect!  I'll write it down when I get home.'

A few of my notebooks

The thing is that I often get busy and forget to write that scene when I get home.  In fact, I find myself trying to recall what scene it was, what story line, and what characters.  

We all have a lot going on, whether or not we are writers.  Things that snag our attention, and we're all to willing to succumb to a lovely distraction.  Or a disgusting one.  Sometimes we get tired.  And sometimes life really gets in the way and we lose our focus while dealing with concerns like death, unemployment, friends' celebrations and scooping litter pans.

I started carrying a notebook around with me and jotting down whatever I thought.  Over the years I developed a system with notebooks that were dedicated to whatever I was working on at the moment.  I would date the note, jot whatever it was that I thought and then, once I got around to transcribing it, making a line across the entry.  But what if you are working on, say, a story involving the Cat Show world and you have an idea for something a French veteran of the Napoleonic wars might say?  Write it down as you can.   Or...  Get a notebook with different sections and jot it in there.  It doesn't matter, so long as the idea is captured.

Paper towels work, too...

I worked for a clothing store, part time, a few years back.  I had long stretches where I had to monitor the store's dressing room.  I was working on one of my Egyptian stories at that time, and ideas were coming thick and fast.  I had no way to carry in a notebook, and I needed to capture the ideas/ clarifications/ brainstorms as they occurred...  So I used paper towels.  I wrote a post about it a few years back.  Here's a photo of the notes.  Some are crumpled from being shoved into my pocket.  

Sometimes, if I am at loose ends with a story, I will leaf through my notebooks.   For me, it helps to rekindle the ideas, the sense of adventure.

That is one of the most important practical lessons I learned when I started writing.  Other lessons?  There were plenty.

I'm off to read everyone else's insights.

I Quit! (Or do I?)

Today is the first Wednesday of the month, which is the date that the Insecure Writer's Support Group holds its monthly blog hop.

If you haven't heard of the IWSG, you need to look into it:



Purpose:
To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds.  It's a good place to go to for advice, reassurance and a lot of enjoyment.

Today's question is:

Did you ever say “I quit”? 

If so, what happened to make you come back to writing?

This month's co-hosts are:

JH Moncrieff, Madeline Mora-Summonte, Jen Chandler, Megan Morgan, and Heather Gardner  

Go visit their pages!

So...  Have I ever decided to quit writing?  

No, I can't say that I  have.  I  have been discouraged, I have wanted to burn whatever story I was working on, and call various people idiots for various reasons, but I haven't decided to quit.  How can I?  I'm a writer.

...But I have trickled to a near-halt.  Inertia.  I wrote about it, obliquely, here and here.  I've been in dry spots, as you see.  Sometimes they seem to stretch on forever, and you wonder if they will ever stop.

I am in one right now. I haven't published anything new in three years.  I have followers, people have read my work, but I haven't put anything out.  Sales are falling off.  

I have a number of works in progress.  The second book in my Orphan's Tale series is nearly complete.  It was delayed, in part, by a plot revelation that required an internal rewrite. But it is nearly finished...and I haven't touched it in a year.  I have a fable, a 'short' (say, 45,000 words) that is nearly done. Nearly.  There are several stories in my Memphis Cycle that were coming along.

So what happened?

Life.  Eldercare issues.  Work issues.  Money issues.  (It costs me nothing to write, thank goodness).  And I have been very tired.  Very tired.  It's hard.

A friend told me of a time that she was discouraged.  She was at a show, and was talking with the man who had been mentoring her.  She recounted children problems, worries about her husband's job, illness, disappointment.  It was all so hard, she said.  Her mentor, who had been busy jotting notes about the things that were going on at the show, said without looking up, "Quitting is easy." 

My friend stopped speaking.  Quitting is easy.  But it was not an option those ten years ago.  She moved past that point and is doing well.

As for me, quitting is easy, I suppose.  Except that I can't quit.  I am a writer.  I write stories.  I have stories to write.  I can't go back.  I don't want to.  And I have been through this before and may well go through it again, all things being equal.  I'll survive.

So...  What can I do to get out of this particular situation?

I can wake up.  My job issues are behind me, along with that job.  I will set my timer for, say, half an hour.  And during that half hour I will write.  At my desk.  On my laptop.  No internet.  Just write.

Sales are down?  I'll finish the various books, half an hour at a time, and get them out there.  

Writing doesn't need to be lonely: I have begun to participate in writing activities.  Joined groups (including rejoining IWSG).  Maybe go on a retreat.

And I will get more sleep.  That's more important than I realized.

The blog hop is here.  Check it out!