Leya Delray's Blog, page 3

My Top Author Buys in 2020 (#1)

I don’t do a lot of product reviews on my blog. Or reviews of any kind, actually. But as I look back over the weird year of 2020, three purchases stand out to me as things that deserve to be talked about. Not only because they were hugely helpful for me in my author business (and life in general) but because they might be useful for you too! (Whether or not you’re an author).

So over the next 3 weeks, I’ll be sharing reviews for my top 3 author buys in 2020. First up is actually a service, n...

A Note to the Mice

Well folks. Here’s another lighthearted poem I just wrote. I don’t consider most of my poems high art, by any means. They are just a fun way of dealing with life’s twists and turns. Enjoy!

A Note to the Mice

This isn’t personal at all, you understand
There’s room for all God’s creatures somewhere on my land

And truth be told, I think you’re really rather cute
Big eyes and ears, and tiny nose and paws to boot

There’s lots of space out in the barn; please be my guest
Or choose the she...

RELEASE DATE ANNOUNCEMENT!

Hey everyone, I’m super excited to announce that the audiobook version of Where Daffodils Bloom is scheduled for initial release on August 30th, which just happens to be a very special date…

Fred and Lily’s anniversary!

I’m SO happy that I get to honor their wedding date with this new release. Two years ago I had planned to release the book on that date, but due to multiple factors, that didn’t work out. So I’m doubly excited that the audio version will be coming out on their anniversary!...

A QUOTE IN CONTEXT – What did Franklin really think about Liberty and Safety?

I love Franklin quotes. He was a genius of a writer. The man himself was a mixed bag, and if Id known him personally I would probably have had serious issues with some of his behavior. But there is no doubt that he left an astounding number of great quotes for posterity. So great, in fact, that over 200 years later, people still love to throw them around.

But do we really know what they mean?

Today, I want to talk about a quote that is very popular among libertarians and others who worry...

A Bit of Poetry

Every now and then, something happens to brings out the amateur poet in me. I don’t usually share those snippets with my readers. But this time I decided to, just for fun.

On the day I wrote this poem, I was sitting out in the yard enjoying the wonderful spring weather, with warm sunlight on my face and a cool breeze rustling up the valley. Looking around, it occurred to me that we were going to need to start mowing the grass soon. And then I noticed how many of the things growing around me were actually not grass at all (our yard is more of a half-tamed meadow, really). Not only were they not grass, but many of them seemed far to pretty (or useful) to go chopping them down at all…

Weeds

My darling, will you mow the lawn?
The spring is here at last
And everything is green again.
Especially the grass

My darling, will you mow the lawn?
But mind the ivy please
I love the way it drapes the stones
In dainty, pointed leaves

My darling, will you mow the lawn?
Just be selective, dear
The daffodils are blooming still
I wait for them all year

My darling, will you mow the lawn?
It really is a sight
But not the violets! Aren’t they sweet?
All purple, green and white

And leave the dandelions too
They’re not “just weeds” to me
They look so cheerful scattered round
Like drops of sunshine, see?

That’s chickweed growing by the steps
Take care you don’t cut that
It’s edible you know, and full
Of vitamins at that

Oh please avoid the the clover too
I feed it to the horse
Wild onions I can always use
To flavor soups of course

The plantain makes a soothing salve
For stings and burns and such
That’s honeysuckle by the fence
I love its scent so much

Spare morning glories, Queen Anne’s lace
And leave the daisies room
Forget-me-nots and crocuses
Well…anything that blooms!

________________

My dearest, sweetest, darling wife
This mower, I’m afraid
Cannot discriminate between
The stems that meet its blade

But fear not, love. For I am still
Your knight on snowy steed
I’ll take some scissors to the grass
Before it chokes your weeds

Hope you enjoyed my little burst of poetic humor. Do you ever delay cutting the lawn because random weeds are blooming in it, or because you like to nibble on wild edibles? Or am I the only one? Let me know in the comments!

Declutter Your Command Center (The Cure for Chronic Writer’s Block)

Hello everybody! I’m guest posting today over at Kellyn Roth’s blog, sharing some tips on overcoming chronic writer’s block (and also quietly hinting that I might be starting another book. Ahem.)

Kellyn was on the Launch Team for Where Daffodils Bloom , and was a huge help in getting the word out to new readers. She also wrote a fantastic review for the book, which still makes me happy every time I read it. (Thanks Kellyn!) Oh, and did I mention she is a talented author of historical fiction/romance herself? If you enjoyed Where Daffodils Bloom, you should definitely check out her books too.

Here’s an excerpt from the post:

“…After almost a year and a half, I knew I couldn’t blame it on being tired from my first book. I was suffering from a serious case of Chronic Writer’s Block, and I had no idea how to fix it. Then came COVID-19. And I had my epiphany….”

Read the full post on Kellyn’s blog

History in Full Color

I love bringing history to life. I love historical books, historical movies, historical theater productions, historical clothing, historical re-enacting. All that. There’s just something about seeing history in full color that’s different from squinting at a blurry black-and-white photo and trying to remind myself that, despite all appearances to the contrary, the person in the photo actually lived in just as many colors as I do.

But speaking of black and white photos, that’s pretty much all I had to work with when I wrote Where Daffodils Bloom. Oh of course knew what most of the important colors actually where (like hair and eyes and such). But sadly, when it comes to actual colored photos from the time period of the book, I had a grand total of ONE colored picture of Fred, and ZERO colored pictures of Lily. In other words, I had to use a lot of imagination.

That’s why I’m SO excited to show you all a couple of photos that I just had restored and colorized. The first one is from Lily and Fred’s wedding day, and if you’ve read the book or hung around my blog much you’ve probably seen the old black and white version. I gave the company restoring the photos careful instructions to make Lily’s dress powder blue, since that’s what color we believe it was. (Bit of detective work there. Based on a passing comment in a letter from one her sisters that referenced the “blue shoes” she wore for the wedding). The pictures itself was an outdoor shot, and not portrait quality, but it’s still so cool to get an idea what it might have looked like in actual color!

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By far my favorite of the two photos is this next one though. During the entire writing/publishing process for the book, I was wishing I had a really good, portrait-quality photo of Lily. I had 2 of Fred, one in civilian and one in military clothes. But for Lily, I only had group shots and a later passport photo. Nothing that really captured her.

However, AFTER the book was already in print, Lily’s daughter Sharon finally found the photo I’d been wishing existed all along. A real quality portrait photo. It was beautiful, even with the discoloration, scratches, and lack of color (yeah, it was still black-and-white). I did some DIY photo editing to get rid of some of the blemishes, and used it alongside a black-and-white version of Fred’s portrait for awhile. BUT I knew what I really wanted was to have a professional completely restore it and add the color the original lacked. This month, I finally got around around to having it done.

CHECK IT OUT!

[image error]The original, in the condition Sharon found it[image error]The restored and colorized version

Isn’t she just GORGEOUS?

I requested that Photojoe, the company who did the restoration, make the background match the one in Fred’s portrait (which they also touched up) so I could have a matching set. I didn’t give them any special instructions for her clothes. They just happened to choose the yellow/gold color. I didn’t think much about it until I put the two photos side-by-side and realized they not only coordinated with each other, they also coordinated with the cover of the book! Blue and yellow. How perfect is that?

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And speaking of the book, before I go I should mention that the ebook is currently discounted 33%, down to just $1.99! I dropped the price for Valentines day, and decided to leave it low in honor of….daffodils? They are blooming all over my yard right now. Yeah. Let’s say I left it on sale in honor of daffodils. Seems like as good a reason as any. Haha. So if you if you’ve been thinking of buying the kindle version, now is a good time to grab it!

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Costume Design: Madame de le Grande Bouche

Time for another post in my costume design series! Today I’ll show you how I used the rest of the refrigerator box I used for Cogsworth, and some fantastic curtain fabric to create the “biggest” costume of the show. Madame de le Grande Bouche, also known as Madame Garderobe (aka: the wardrobe lady).

I was originally a bit intimidated by the idea of creating a walking wardrobe. But by the time I got to this costume I had made so many others successfully that it was no longer very daunting. Once I had my inspiration photos and fabric, I was ready to go.

Inspiration, Concept, and Materials

Obviously, I had no plans to try and recreate the wardrobe from the 2017 movie. Aside from the fact that it was computer generated and not played by a human at all, it was also, well, just a little weird-looking in my opinion. (My younger brother declared it “creepy”).

Anyway, I scrolled through lots of online pictures of stage versions, and decided I needed a giant cardboard box cut into a wardrobe shape and either painted or covered with fabric. I found a set of huge, heavy, textured blue curtains at a nearby thrift store. (It was the same store where I hit the jackpot and found the tulle for Babette, the blue fabric for Belle’s peasant costume, Cogsworth‘s lovely fringe, the Bimbette’s shimmery vest and skirt fabric, and the gold chiffon curtains for Belle’s ball gown – post coming soon!). They were so large that I had plenty to cover the wardrobe, create a matching dress for the actress to wear underneath, and also make vests for the prince and the beast actors! It was quite a lot of fabric.

[image error]Original concept drawing. It turned out very similar to this, even down to the color!

Besides the blue curtains ($10) and refrigerator box ($0), I also used some wide lace I already had on hand ($0), as well as some narrower stuff I got at a giant upholstery warehouse sale ($3). The eyelet lace from the edge of a thrifted bed-skirt went around the bottom of the wardrobe ($4 I think?), and I also found some second-hand, real metal hardware to use on the cabinets and drawers. (abt $6) To complete the look, we gave her a big colonial style wig that had been purchased for another show, and a pair of thrift store shoes ($2).

Total for the costume materials: $25

Construction



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As with all the castle staff, Madame needed a costume that could transform quickly from a “household object” to a human version. The simplest way to do this was to make her human outfit blend with her “Wardrobe”, which she could simply wear over top.

First, I made the human costume. I had to order a new pattern for it, since I had nothing in the actress’s size. However, I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted in the size I needed, so I ended up ordering something that was close (picture at left) and then altering it to get the look I had in my head. (Which, come to think of it, is what I do with almost every pattern I get. Haha. They are never quite right.) This one had the general shape/design I was looking for, and was simple enough to easily change/embellish as needed.

One of the first things I changed was to make it a one piece instead of a two-piece dress. I did this by first constructing the separate pieces and then simply pinning the skirt to the waist of the bodice and stitching it securely with a machine zigzag stitch. I also raised/altered the neckline, which was extremely low (so low that I’m not even sharing a picture of of the front of the pattern in this post, for the sake of any of my readers who might prefer not to see something quite that revealing. You’re welcome).

Of course I did a simpler sleeve version than this, since I was in a time crunch. But isn’t it lovely? The book is good too.

The original sleeves were also all wrong. Much too straight and simple for Madame, who is supposed to have an “over-the-top” clothing style to match her personality. I created a much more flouncy version, taking my inspiration from the lovely sleeve on the cover of this book by one of my favorite authors, Jocelyn Green.

For the wardrobe part, I first made a small cardboard prototype to make sure what worked in my head actually worked in 3D. Once I was satisfied it would, I used the refrigerator box for the main frame, and then smaller pieces of card-board from other boxes to create the “doors” and “drawers”. (In some costumes the wardrobe doors actually open, but I did not have the time to figure out how to make that work. Would have been an interesting challenge if I’d had more time though.)

I’m really glad there was enough fabric to make the dress and then cover the wardrobe to match. Paint would have worked of course, but there’s no way it would have matched as perfectly, or looked as textured and interesting on stage. It probably would have just looked like…painted cardboard. Anyway. Once everything was cut out, I covered the main box and then each drawer and cupboard door separately before gluing all the pieces together. (LOTS of hot glue went into the project!). I ended up doing this part in the middle of the night, because I was on a deadline and almost had to pull an all-night to make it. I gave up and went to bed when I started getting nerve pain in my arm. That was interesting. It felt fine after a couple of hours of sleep though. Which was all I had time for. Ha.

[image error][image error][image error]I know, the photos aren’t that great, but at this was the night I slept a total of 2 hours, so. It’s amazing I took pictures at all.

Similar to Cogsworth’s costume, I made wide fabric shoulder straps to hold up the box, and attached them with lots of glue and brass paper fasteners. I also added a very wide piece of eyelet lace (from a thrifted bed-skirt) to the bottom of the wardrobe to hide the bottom of the actress’s dress but still give her space to walk more easily. The real metal handles that I found at another thrift store were SO perfect, and really brought authenticity to the wardrobe piece. I used actual screws and nuts to attach them to the heavy cardboard, and reinforced them with, you guessed it, more hot glue!

Finished Costume

I unfortunately do not have as many pictures of the complete wardrobe as I would like. But I do have lots of good ones of the dress at least:

[image error]It looks a bit baggy on the stand because my mannequin has smaller measurements than the actress did. It looked better on her.

As you can see in this close-up of the waistline, I just used a zigzag stitch to attach the finished edge of the bodice to the skirt. Not something I dream of doing to a piece of actual clothing, or a period-accurate costume. But for a stage costume, it worked well, was quick and sturdy, and couldn’t even be seen from the audience.

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These next photos show how the back lacing worked. There was a separate panel inside, with eyelets to run the laces through in the middle. This allowed the dress to change sizes a bit, kind of like “corset back” dress. Both the edges of the bodice and the panel itself were stiffened with boning. (Well, technically plastic zip ties, which is my favorite thing to use for boning because they are cheap and easy to cut shorter.) In the third picture you can see how I slide them into channels between layers of fabric. All of that design was more or less original to the pattern. very ingenious.

In the middle picture you can also see the somewhat odd looking darts I had to take in the neckline when we discovered it was too wide for the actress. Thankfully they were much less noticeable on stage. And did you notice there are no actual eyelets for the ribbon to run through in the main bodice? It was a sturdy, loosely woven fabric, and since the ribbon was so narrow and I was in a time crunch, I actually just used a large, sturdy needle to lace the ribbon straight through the fabric. I knew the stitch line and boning would stand up to the pressure, so there was no danger of tearing through.

[image error]Sliding in boning before attaching skirt to bodice[image error]Fully laced up[image error]The interior panel

I embellished the neckline by running a gathering stitch down the center of some flat, ribbon-like lace and pulling it tight to create a ruched effect, then pinning and stitching it in place.

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Here are some close-ups of the sleeve detail. I cut the bottom of the ruffle at an angle so that it would be longer behind her elbow than in front (a classic look from the time period) and used the serger to finish both edges, and then ran a gathering stitch about an inch below the top edge. You can see the two different ways of making a ruffle in this picture. The lace was stitched on with “right sides together” then allowed to drop down, covering and hiding the edges were it joined the sleeve. The blue ruffle, on the other hand, was laid on flat, allowing it’s top edge to be seen and essentially creating another, smaller ruffle at the top.

[image error][image error]I pulled up the blue ruffle here so you can see how the lace is attached.

This is the best picture I have of the actress actually wearing the wardrobe. Aren’t those fantastic handles for the drawers and cabinet? The costume worked extremely well. The actress was able to pull her arms inside and rest her head against the the dip in the top of the cabinet doors, hiding everything but her wig. In her first scene, she stood like that in the shadows at the side of the set until Belle bumped into her, and the effect was really great. She just looked like a furniture prop until suddenly she came alive!

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When it was time to be “human again”, she simply had to slip the wardrobe over her head (with some help of course), her second costume was already there underneath!

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Over all I was very pleased with how this costume turned out. If I’d had more time I would have embellished the dress more I think. But I never do seem to have enough time to do everything I want to do to a costume. Somewhere along the way I eventually have to strike a bargain with practicality and pick something that is actually achievable with the allotted resources. Haha. Maybe someday I’ll do costumes for Broadway and have enough money/time to be as extravagant as a want. No harm in dreaming…

WHERE DAFFODILS BLOOM Reviewed on the “Rebel Christian” blog!

I’m excited to let you all know that Where Daffodils Bloom just received a glowing review on The Rebel Christian blog in June!

The Rebel Christian is on the list of Top 100 Christian Book Review Blogs of 2019. I contacted Vay Elaine a few months ago to see if she would be interested in reviewing Where Daffodils Bloom, and she said yes! You can check out what she says about the book here.

[image error] Click to view full review on the Rebel Christian Blog!

Telling True Stories: (The Good, the Bad, and the NOT.)

Only once in my life have a I shut a book in total disgust.

And it wasn’t because of graphic violence or gratuitous sex. Nope. I don’t pick up that kind of book in the first place. This was simply a family-friendly biographical novel, kind of like Where Daffodils Bloom.

At first, the book seemed innocent enough. It was a hybrid between biography and biographical novel, alternating chapters full of facts and dates with chapters that presented a dramatized version of Bradstreet’s life. But things went downhill fast.

You see, even back then, long before I started working on my own biographical novel,  I had a clear grasp of the basic building blocks authors need to craft that kind of book.

#1. A passion for STORIES.

#2. A passion for TRUTH.

It was on truth that the author failed.

Of course, it’s normal in biographical fiction for authors to add in some, well…fiction. There are  details we simply don’t know, and so we have to fill in from our imagination. But if we are going to be authentic with the story, that fiction MUST be based on the truth we do know. (I.e. We need to use information we have about the character’s personality, viewpoint, historical context, etc, to make our fiction as close to truth as possible.)

And it is definitely NOT OK to ignore and misrepresent the facts in order to create a  character after our own image, putting our own personal opinions, views, and vendettas into a historical figure’s head.

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Sadly, that’s exactly what the author of this so-called biography did.

It quickly became clear that she must have had a strong personal bias against men. (Or at least against the men in Bradstreet’s time.) She presented them as overbearing, controlling, and strict (just about accused Bradstreet’s father of child abuse), and painted Bradstreet as a suffering woman in a male-dominated world who put up with poor treatment from both her father and her husband.

But that is NOT what Bradstreet’s own writing said about her.

True, she did plead for more appreciation of women’s writing talents in the general society. But she gave NO hint of being unappreciated or abused by her own father or husband. In fact, her love poems to her husband are some of the sweetest and most beautiful I have ever read.

I was willing to give the author the benefit of the doubt that she might have information about Bradstreet’s father that I did not have. UNTIL she also attacked Bradstreet’s husband, and flagrantly used quotes from Bradstreet’s own poems to support both these biases, despite the fact that that the quotes were taken out of context and completely misinterpreted in order to back up viewpoints that Bradstreet never espoused.

Sadly, this isn’t really that unusual.

Far too often, authors can’t seem to separate their own agendas and viewpoints from the viewpoints of the people they are supposed to be writing about.

As a result, we have a plethora of books that claim to tell real stories about real people, when in reality they are just fantasies about made-up characters with modern views and sensibilities who have been sloppily dressed up in old-fashioned clothing, plopped into another century, and labeled Anne Bradstreet.

And most readers will never know the difference.

This sad state of affairs is why, when I sat down to write the story of Lily and Fred Overall, I was absolutely determined to do it right.

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I have read a few reviews that question how accurate Where Daffodils Bloom actually is. (I.e. how much in the story is fact and how much is fiction). Well, I am here to assure all my readers that I spent 3.5 years working to make it as accurate as I possibly could in every way. I even double-checked tiny, insignificant details like the fact that Fred loved okra and Lily hated it. (It’s true.)

But what about the sections that ARE fiction? Didn’t I make a lot of stuff up to fill in plot holes?

Yes. There are a lot of details we simply don’t know about the story, and I had to invent them. But it was EXTREMELY important to me that the fiction I added was as authentic as possible. So I immersed myself in Fred and Lily’s historical context, and studied their personalities and views as if I had to impersonate them in public. (Which, you know…I kind of did.) And as much as possible I tried to at least pull together “partial” facts, to create realistic fiction about their lives.

For instance, it was true that the first house they moved into had a missing roof. It was also true that Lily went back to England for a time shortly after that. But did Fred finish the roof in her absence as a surprise? We don’t know. We DO know that when she went on another trip many years later, he surprised her by adding a bay window to the kitchen while she was gone (something she had always wanted). So it was completely “in character” for him to do what I wrote in the book, though we don’t know if it is true in every detail.

That’s the way I tried to do it when I wrote fiction into the story. If I couldn’t make something “true to life” (i.e. I didn’t know the exact facts) I tried to at least make it “true to character” so that it would feel authentic even to those who knew Lily and Fred best. The acid test came when I let their children and friends read the book and tell me what they thought. The verdict?

They LOVED it.

The feedback was unanimous. They say Where Daffodils Bloom PERFECTLY captures the couple they remember. In fact, some say it was almost uncannily accurate, considering I never met either of them.

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“That’s all fine and well.” You say. “But it’s easy for you. You’re a christian author writing about christian characters in the recent past. You’re not going to run into the kind of worldview conflicts that a lot of authors do.”

Well…it’s not as clear cut as you think. There are still differences I have to be careful with.

For instance, Lily’s main mentor was her mother, Alice Brown. So Mrs. Brown’s words and opinions are taken very seriously in the story. However, I personally disagree with her view on marriage and divorce. I do NOT think a christian woman is obligated to remain in a marriage that is abusive. But Mrs. Brown took her wedding vow that seriously, and voiced that conviction to Lily. It was tempting to leave that out, or somehow contradict it later in the story, because of my personal view.

But this is NOT a book about me and my opinions. It’s a book about Lily and Fred. And that particular conviction of Mrs. Brown’s was important enough to Lily that she immortalized it in family stories. So I put it in as authentically and non-judgmentally as I could. And simply left it up to my readers to decide whether they agreed or not.

[image error]Lily Brown and her mother, Alice. Circa 1945

So you see, every author who sets out to write a biographical novel ultimately has the same choice. They can either tell the story as at happened, and present the characters as they really were, or they can let their own opinions and viewpoint get into the way, and try to squeeze somebody else’s story into their own mold.

When I slapped shut that book about Anne Bradstreet, I was so disgusted that for awhile I considered writing my OWN book on Bradstreet to correct the errors. But I didn’t. (There are multiple other books about on her that I’m sure are good. I’d probably pick this one if I was going to order one.)

As it turns out, I was destined to write a different biographical novel. Based on the life of a woman who is perhaps less famous, but just a beloved. And although the flaws in the book on Bradstreet upset me, they also taught me what NOT to do as I started working on Lily’s story.

So when I crafted Where Daffodils Bloom, I did it the same way I would have written a book on Bradstreet. By studying real people, memorizing true stories, and weaving them together into a novel that, more than anything else, rings of truth.

P.S. Have you ordered your copy of Where Daffodils Bloom yet? Find it on Amazon in kindle, paperback, and hardcover!