Jude Stringfellow's Blog, page 55

Robbie Burns Day 2023

 When I posted "Happy Burns Day" on my Facebook today I had a friend from the USA comment in a private message asking me if I was a secret arsonist; and if I was, why would I be advertising it so blazenly (see what I did there, blazenly) across the wall of social media. Ha! It made me laugh.  No, I'm not a pyro. I'm celebrating the life and writings of one of the most gifted writers from my beloved Scotland. Robbie Burns was born poor enough, and without what some would say a chance in hell to become as well known and loved as he has; perhaps posthumously.  His poetry cuts to the core of his own love for Scotland, the land, the people, and the traditions. He knew love, and he lost it. He knew what it meant to work hard, to dream big, and to keep the dream in your mind at all times.

    Today, on this January 25, 2023, I am relaxing at home while listening to fantastic music from two of my very favorite artists, both performing Celtic music, but neither of which is actually from Scotland. I am listening to the South Carolina-based band SYR and to Los Angeles' son composer Alan Williams. If you haven't heard of these groups/people you have some listening to do. I will leave links to both of their respective sites at the end of the blog.

    Traditionally on Robbie Burns's day, I suppose those who are living in Scotland will read some of his poetry, they will shop, have the day to relax with family and friends, and they will typically eat a meal of haggis and tatties. Perhaps haggis and tatties were a favorite of Burns, I don't know. It's easily researched I'm sure. I'll add a link about Mr. Burns at the end of the blog as well so you can read his work. Now, I will say this, that most of if not all of Robbie Burns's work was written in the traditional Scots language, which is NOT typical English. It is not that easy to translate if you're unfamiliar with the language. Even giving you a site to translate words would be daunting as most of the words written are in his native tongue. I've been studying Scots for about three years and it's still quite difficult for me to get through an entire poem without using my Chambers Concise Scots Dictionary! I love it though. I really do. I live to study.

    I'll give you an example: 

‘The Banks o’ Doon’.

"Ye banks and braes o’ bonie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair?
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae weary fu’ o’ care!
Thou’ll break my heart, thou warbling bird,
That wantons thro’ the flowering thorn:
Thou minds me o’ departed joys,
Departed never to return …" (Robbie Burns)

    (the word "brae" is the word for "wide." The word "sae" is the word "so" and the word "fu'" is the word "full")

This one is an easy one. It's short and precise indeed.  He loves the rivers and the birds that he sees along the Doon and he is sad that they come and go, reminding him of times that come and go never to return. Burns had a beautiful affection for a woman who passed far too young, probably of fever or consumption. He only lived to be 37 years old himself.  Tragic really. He was so talented and the world could use a few more like him.

    Well, that's me, that's what I'm doing today at this moment, and in an hour or so I will continue my own writing; and yes, I'll add Burns and one of his poems to my book so that he will be and can be celebrated at every chance given.  Have a blessed day and mind the wild haggis as they seem to know it's a hunting day. You canna catch one any sooner than the day you kill, clean, and dress one for dinner. They can be nasty little boogers.

Robbie Burns: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Burns

Poems by Burns: https://interestingliterature.com/2015/12/10-robert-burns-poems-everyone-should-read/

Alan Williams: https://alanwilliams.com/

Syr Music: https://syrmusic.com/

Photo Credit: Penbaypilot.com (Robert "Robbie" Burns 1759-1796)

Chapters 17 and 18 are WRITTEN!!

 Woot!!  This is too cool.  I have written more than half of the book at this point. I am well into the second act (if this was a play).  I had so much fun writing these two chapters because they had very little to do with the main story of the book, and they were strictly written for intel and filler but at the same time I was allowed to create really intricate characters who may never be seen again and who may never be discussed again, but they are people too. They had real things happen to them, they experienced life and the bad as well as the good. They held their own, and they are more than just a name with a couple of dates scratched into a tombstone. Actually, these people haven't actually died, but sometimes a gravestone is the only narration that a life has. We have a name. We know they lived because they were born in one year and they died in another year. If they are babies and they die within the same year, they may not even have a name. I wanted a few people in the book to be seen as more than just blips of ink describing them as they walked on either side of High Street.

    So, the best part about writing is that I get the opportunity to go inside my own head and create names, lives, events, situations, circumstances, and so forth. If I want to the character can be arrested for something he or she never did. I can have a complete injustice occur. I can hang a man (or woman) on the testimony or a single statement made in the heat of the moment. I can undo every good deed ever attributed to a person with just one single lie told about them. I can also right a wrong. I can bring the entire weight of the law upon the guilty, and if things get really crazy, I can bring the French to assist the Jacobites on that fateful spring afternoon in the Highlands.  After reading what I've read and knowing what I know, I am so torn as to which side of that battle I would have been on if I'm honest.  I am 100% for Scottish independence today, but I really think it's about 200 years late for the most part. In my opinion, and I admit I don't know enough to be accepted as an expert by any means, I think Scotland could have sustained itself in the 18th century to become its own kingdom separate from that of England or Ireland.

    The book is not about Scottish independence, however. It is about the lives of the folks that were in and around the western Highland and the lowlands around Edinburgh. I don't know if I'll trek through the Borders or not, but they are mentioned a couple of times, as the Stringfellow family (my own family) was closely related to and aligned (unfortunately) with that of the Armstrongs, who were border reveries and in more blunt terms, murderers and thieves. I can't take responsibility for any of the things they may have done in the past, but I can give at least one familial relation a good reputation in the book. I'll talk about Penny Stringfellow, a little 11-year-old girl who is a direct relative of Sir Robert Stringfellow who left the area about 70 years beforehand to forge for himself and his family a new life in Virginia.  Penny will be in the next chapter, chapter 19. She'll meet with Aria and sing a little hymn for her while discussing the benefits of repentance. Penny explains that she's not ashamed to be a Stringfellow even though they are kin with and friends of the Armstrong marauders. She knows her own family is precious unto God and that new life starts fresh if you give it that chance to do so.

    Writing can be therapeutic if you let it be. Who says you can't cast out your very soul onto the pages to be produced under the guise of being entertainment? It can happen. In 1657, three years before leaving the lowlands of Scotland and boarding a vessel for the new world, the son of Sir Robert Stringfellow, my 11th great grandfather James Stringfellow, married a Miss Margaret Campbell of Dumbarton; they had a baby girl in Edinburgh the following year, and she and her parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and most of her cousins set sail when Charles II was crowned in 1660 so as not to have to make concessions for their past. One or two of the cousins remained, and mostly they left Scotland for Yorkshire England and they became farmers and administrators of various councils. One man, John Stringfellow, in 1848, discovered heavier-than-air flight long before the Wright Brothers did. Go look it up. Oh, OK, I'll leave a link here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stringfellow

    Fantasy is fun, and so is reality. History can be both eye-opening and devastating. It can be challenging or rewarding. It can send us to any number of places and through many emotions as we put the puzzle pieces together trying to figure out where we came from, so we can figure out where we're going.  I am happy to be who and where I am, but I think I'd be just as happy if I were born of the few Stringfellows who had remained in their native land of Scotland. I wouldn't have wanted to be associated with the Armstrongs, not if I know what I know now, but I would have wanted to be a part of building churches and congregations, bringing people to the saving Grace of Christ. Maybe that's why I write, so I can have a foothold on creating an interest that some may have to find their way eternally safe.

John Stringfellow, a distant uncle or cousin, not directly in line with my father, but if you saw my Daddy's face, you could see the family resemblance. 
Photo Credit: Wikipedia.com

Chapter 15 is Fixed

 That is so not the truth. Why did I lie like that? The 15th Chapter of my book is merely written, it is not FIXED.  It won't be complete until I can canonize the book and go through it page by page. I will FIX it at that time. It is now written. I even used the thesaurus to find a word for "done" and yeah, I got "fixed". I can't say it's incomplete because then my readers and followers are thinking it's not finished so why would I go on to write further chapters if I'm just leaving 15 out to dry? I'm not. It's done, but it's not fully done. None of them are. I find myself realizing (in the middle of the night) that I have said something I didn't need to say, or I should have said, or what needs to be added to in order to make more sense. It's so hard to just step away from the keyboard. I write each chapter from start to end and when it seems like a good place to stop it I stop.  

    The way I write I want each chapter to be able to stand on its own and leave a little to the imagination but also conduct itself in such a manner that if a reader picks up the book and can only spare enough time to read a few chapters, they won't be disappointed with the amount read. I want them of course, to want to continue the storyline, but if bedtime calls or a kid needs attention, the reader can put the book down (or Kindle) and pick it up without feeling they missed out on too much. I like that style rather than cliffhanging all the time. 

    As usual, the disposal of the body is far more important to me than the actual killing of it. In this case, the body would be found eventually, and it would be honored as being made to lay beneath the stacking of stones into a cairn.  Cairns is what I call the ancient equivalent to the game Jenga, but using actual rocks and stones vs. the wooden small rectangles with the word "JENGA" stamped on each. There were no advertisements on these cairns they were in fact their own form of advertising, as they were often used to mark boundaries between places.  Think about the signs you see when you enter a different city or state. "You are leaving Bethany" is what one would say on the one side of the sign while the other sign might read "You are entering Warr Acres".  Cairns stand in places that have for hundreds or even thousands of years have passed with locals knowing what they stood for; what they represented. This one, the one piled high over the body of James MacFarlane is a boundary marker of sorts, telling those who would come from far or near that they chance meeting with dangerous faun and fae should they proceed! Warning! Go Away!! Nothing to see here.

    Aria and Ewan will meet up again in this chapter and take their fruits and wares through the cities between the Clyde and the Castle, and they'll sell things, buy things, talk things out, and no one is the wiser who may see them. No one knows the truth except those few in their party and believe me, those lips are sealed. Even the lips of the three mongrel dogs who accompany them. Merlin and Neville belong to the Broonfords, while Ginger belongs to Ewan. No cats will make the trip to the bigger cities. You can't really trust a cat to keep your secrets anyway. The horses yes, they never tell a word, but the cats can be bribed. So fickle.

    With Chapter 15 written, and the day being early, I'll crank out Chapter 16 for sure, and maybe have time in the day left to write Chapter 17 too. I won't start a chapter without finishing it. I don't write half of a chapter and come back to it. I'll stay up all night if I have to, but yeah, it will be finished if I start it. That's just who I am. Then again, it won't finished finished until I go through it and do more to it. So yeah, there's that too. Fun times!

Photo Credit: Purrfectcatbreeds.com

Chapter 14: In the Bag.

 I wasn't really sure what I was going to do for this chapter, I knew it followed the last chapter, but in some chapters, there will be a bit of jumping around or even flashbacks used, so there was this question in my head as to whether I would leave the drama on the hill where it was and just sort of skip over the Glasgow artesian scene, or would it be prudent to continue the cover-up of the manslaughter (we can't say murder) of James MacFarlane. I decided to continue the links between the events on the hill and the coverup or the distraction we'll say....that's a good way to put it, the illusion! So, Chapter 14 is full of illusions. 

    I did manage to get my own dog into the book at this point. I remember years ago that Faith was called a Golden Retriever and I had to laugh. I mean sure, if you need to tell yourself that, but she was half Chow-Chow and part Labrador, Beagle, and apparently "other traces of dog" as was shown on her DNA test given to her at the Universal Studios in 2007 I think. It's been a minute. I don't remember all the details. Those tests are really not that accurate now, I can only imagine how vague they would have been in 2007. "Other traces of dog" has always been one of my favorite things to say about Faithy.  Of course, there were other traces of dog in her bloodline. Did anyone expect there to be other traces of another species? I don't think so.

    In Chapter 14 I have given Ginger a life within the book. She is now Ewan's dog and she will live with him for the next 12 years at least. He'll marry twice, and she will be at his side both times. She'll be an old gal when the book ends and if I know me I'll have her sitting by the fire warming herself while the masters of the house trip over themselves to bring her whatever she needs.  She is in the book, and I do call her Ginger, but she can't be the breed combination that actually is as there were very few Chinese or Mexican breeds in Scotland in the 1700s; that's where I laugh about Faith and the Golden Retriever mishap. Ginger is probably (no DNA testing) Chihuahua, Dachshund, and Pug...and of course, other traces of dog. She is a mongrel, a mutt, a mixed breed, my Pooh-Pooh as I often call her. She is a small brown terrier in the book, with snappy black eyes and a willingness to please. She's sharp-eyed and sharp-eared, sharp everything and she's genuinely the happiest dog on the planet.  There's no way I would write the book without her. I may put her in the Murder Book too. She could be a common thread. You just never know.

    As I write this now my dog is on my lap and watching me. She can't for the life of her understand why my hands are playing with the keyboard rather than scratching her, so I really think it may be time to go and take care of the Queen. Have a great evening. I don't think I'll get Chapter 15 done today, but I will get two chapters written tomorrow. I am sort of on a writing kick and ready to get this thing done so I can print it out, go over it, change it, add to it, take away from it, and think of other ways to make it pop!

Photo Credit: Me

1211 (It's coming)

 Yeah, I know what you're thinking..."Hey Jude, the year 1211 has already come and gone, and really, it wasn't all that exciting!"  That's exactly what I want you to think! Ha! You fell right into my trap, didn't you?  Here's the thing, after I finish writing the Highlander book, what some are calling the "Sex Book", I'll be writing The Murder Book, which in case you can't figure it out by the title, is actually a book about a book. There's a murder book out there and the detective hero finds it and tries to stop the next events.  After that book, which should be finished sometime in May, I'll be writing a book that I really really (no, really) should have written over 30 years ago, but with life and so many events taking place it got pushed back to the back of the bus for sure. That book, so you know, is titled "1211"; so when I talk about it I'll say "Twelve-Eleven" not One Thousand Two Hundred and Eleven. I thought I might need to clarify that part of it.

    The book will be based on truth and what I imagined to be true at the time I lived in the block apartment housing located in Oklahoma City at the address of 1211 N.W. 30th Street. The house is still standing and no, I have no intention of going into it now and disrupting the lives (possibly crack-house) and the events which are currently taking place within the confines of the structure. I will however, be discussing in vivid and lucid detail, the many antics and crazy things that happened to myself, my friend, my sister (who I will not include in the book), and to the other residents of the place. There are eight individual tiny 500 sq ft. flats inside the building, each with only one resident a piece with the exception of one. I won't go into detail about any of our lives, our occupations, or lack of occupations in some cases, nor will I discuss in blogs how often the authorities, not necessarily just the police, were called to the edifice. It was a few, and by a few I mean yeah, we weren't living all that quietly collectively. I won't discuss it in the blogs but you'll get the full monty on these and more subjects when the book is released. 

    To say the book will be a scream could very well give it away, and that's almost all I'm going to say about it. I will say that I will love every minute of every hour of every day that I'm creating that book because I will be bent over my desk laughing so hard at the antics and the goings on which actually took place (or did it?) that I won't be able to keep my coffee from spewing through my nose! It won't need to be a goal of mine to keep the audience pumped, the very start of the book will keep my readers bursting at their seems begging me to stop...they won't be able to take it. Imagine if you will, living it. I did. It will be one big fat "Welcome to my world" from me to any and all who care to strap themselves into the front seat with me as we go on the ride of a lifetime, cussing and cruising our way through some of the dumbest things young people can ever think to do just because they're out from under their parents' roofs, they have jobs, and can afford to be stupid.

    In some ways, I'm too excited about the Highland book and the Murder Book to blow through them, and then there's the knowing that as soon as the last drop of ink in my keyboard (there's really no ink here) hits the paper (screen) I'm outta here and we're going on that trip baby! We are on our way to 1981....in all its daftness and idiotic glory; Hollywood Nights and Oklahoma City mornings...will it be Marlboro Lights or beef jerky and instant coffee grounds that get us through the first road trip? You'll have to see. You'll have to wait. You and me both...damn it. 

You and me both. I hope the statutes of limitations have run out on all the crap I'm going to share; it would really suck to be arrested now for things I did when I wasn't clearly thinking.

Photo Credit: Flickr.com

Chapters 12 and 13 are WRITTEN!!!

 I think if I had to guess and put a number on it, that the average chapter is 2700-3000 words, which when you consider that a typical novel of the average size has about 280 words per page, then I have written about 13 x 2850 words, or 37050 words, or about 1/3 of the book.  If there are 280 words per page then at 37050 divided by 280 I have now, 132 pages written. WOOT!  I started writing this book last week about a week ago I think. I'll have to go back and see what day I finished Chapter 1. I was going to write one chapter a day, but for the past two days, I've written two chapters each day. This may or may not continue, but I'm really glad it has thus far because it means I can have the book finished sooner and in the hands of the publisher sooner. I've decided to go with Xlibris, a publisher I used way back in the day and have published three books in the past with. I wasn't really all that keen on them after the way they handled the last book I worked on with them, but time has changed their ways as well as mine. I believe this is a good thing. I have another five or six books that I'm planning on writing over the next 12 months. Whew!

    Chapters 12 and 13 deal with the death of James Fraser MacFarlane as well as the coming of age of Ewan, as he has to face some brutal treatment shown to him by his own kin and neighbors. He will survive this and other issues throughout the book, no worries there, but the real hero, or unknown hero, of Chapter 13 is none other than our own Antoin Broonford, who, though I can't say too much in terms of what he does to bring his character to the forefront of being a bit mischievous and quite handy, he will shine through the pages with bright and glorious colors. He will be loved for generations for his thoughtfulness and for his quick actions. 

    I'll leave it at that, it will be a shorter blog than most. I just wanted to let you know that the 13th and 12th chapters are finished. I'll be going over the entire book once I have it written so that I can pluck out what I hate, add to what I think needs t be added and blend things together so that they make more sense. Today when I was writing I realized that I had need to return to the book to correct a timeline problem. This is why God made editors. I'll need one for sure. Have a blessed weekend.

More to come for sure.

Photo Credit: reddit.com

James Fraser MacFarlane (of my book) IS DEAD!!

 My deepest and most sorrowful apologies go out to any and all men whose name is James Fraser MacFarlane, as today he has been driven to Hell by the swift actions of our hero Ewan Williams Hastings of Glenmore.  Dead! The man is in fact completely dead, without a doubt, he will not be returning in the form of the living in the book. He will be spoken of, he will be cursed, but he will not walk among the moors, and more importantly, he will not continue to beat and harm innocent people as was his tendency to do when they were not acting within the bounds of his required tyranny. Gone! Thank you, Ewan. I know it was a most difficult thing to bring yourself to do considering the harmful way you were treated in the past, but let it be said that courage is found when it is needed.  I think there are a few country and western songs about this type of courage, one of them being "The Coward of the County"; for the love of Becky, his girl, Tommy made things right.  They won't be calling Ewan a coward at this point.

    A few things need to take place in the glen and in surrounding areas before we can see the two love birds take flight in union. At this point, Ewan is but a lad, a full 10 or 11 years younger than Aria. There will be much life taking place between the next few chapters as we see Keely and Antoin come together in marriage, and we see Alina striking out and making some great strides in her art.  We'll no doubt mourn a little, laugh a little, wish a little, and think about the ramifications of ending a man's life on the glen just outside your home; unless of course, the fae finds him first! Oh...could that be foreshadowing folks? Oh!!

    I'll leave you be with the wonders and the thoughts about what could happen next. I, on the other hand, will be drawing up the next couple or three chapters in my mind and on paper so that I can strike the keyboard and bring them to life. I have scores of suggestions for words to use, phrases I found in the 200+-year-old books I'm reading that have been such an inspiration not only for their meanings and for what they can offer, but just the fact that I am loving the style of these men who wrote in the 19th century about things that happened in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries in and about the Borders of Scotland. You may see a phrase that I found interesting, but if I use it in its entirety I will give credit. Actually, now that I think about it, I can't do that as the book I'm writing takes place before the books I'm reading were written, but I can take the words, rewrite them, add more or take away from, and give them new wind by which to carry themselves through the pages of my novel.  Whether I say "the hues of the moon ebbed in mooted tenure", or if I say "the moon gave the stars permission to gaze upon her silvery complexion", I've said the same thing.  I love writing.

    Chapters 10 and 11 are around 2500 words each. I could end up putting them together as they do sort of go together, one does follow the other in terms of chronological order; it could happen. We'll see. Tomorrow's chapters will take us from Glasgow to Edinburgh, from Edinburgh back to Glasgow, with a stop off in Bathgate to buy a few bars of soap, and yes, I'll explain the making of the bars so that you can have an idea of what it was like in the 18th century to make soap products. I make them now, and believe me, it's so much easier I'm sure.  When I think about the stamina and moxy of our ancestors, no matter where we all came from, we have a great debt of gratitude to give to each of them. They were TOUGH people in so many ways. Here we are complaining about things that would cause many of our great-greats to slap us right across the face, and they would have the right to do so. I may even thank them if I saw that.

Photo Credit: Photoeverywhere.co.uk

Hint: James Fraser MacFarlane was killed next to the ruins.

Know Who You Are.

 This is one of those blogs where I show off my own confidence but in doing so I am taking a real risk that others who may not be as confident as I am, may think I am being conceited or arrogant simply because I already know who I am.  I remember being a kid and literally walking the top of the six-foot fence that Daddy had put up around our suburbanized home's backyard. The fence was of steady eddy 1" x 4" x 6' stock style, wooden, unfinished, and in pallets of about 10 feet I think. I remember climbing to the top using the rungs or slats he had stationed the panels together with, or maybe he created the pallets, I don't know. I just used the inside board to climb to the top, and once up on top of the fence, I began walking along the 1" wide surface the entire length of the fence line. If I were to have fallen, and I don't believe I did, I would have ended up in the neighbor's yard either to the north of us or the east of us, as the south fence was put up by the other neighbors and it was a chain link fence. I couldn't walk that one. 

    It was on one occasion that I was trekking across the top of the thin but sturdy fence that my mother came out of the house screaming at the top of her lungs to get down immediately, she claimed I was going to break my neck. It may seem impossible to some to imagine, but I had a pang in my heart at that very moment; I knew right then that my mother didn't have the knowledge of a blue jay if she thought I was going to fall! I knew I could walk the fence, and if the wind stayed calm I was perfectly fine to do it any dang day I wanted to. Most people would have just jumped down I guess, but I'm a bit harder-headed than most, I suppose. I laughed and told her I would get down, but I needed to get to a place I could use the boards as a ladder as I didn't want to just jump to the ground from that high up in the air! Nervously she stood under me and tried to get me to come to her shaking arms, but let me tell you, I didn't have much confidence that she could catch me if I did jump down. Nope. I trusted myself. I was four years old folks, that was who I was at the age of four! 

    So, today, some hundred and sixty-nine years later, I'm still rather stubborn about doing things my own way. When I say I'm somewhat stubborn I mean there's no reason whatsoever for you or anyone else to tell me to do something, not to do something, how I should do something, or why I should do something. I'm absolutely OK with screwing up on my own and finding out the hard way. I've been so good at it for so long that the number of times I actually fudge up has dwindled to the point of being controlled. I'm good.  Leave me be. I may smile at you and even nod in agreement, but you can bet your last fat dollar that I'm always going to do what I think I should do. It's not going to change.  The ONLY one, and I mean ONLY one I have more confidence in other than myself is Jesus, and that's ONLY because He has proven to me over and over again that He really is the answer to every situation possible. 

      Why am I telling you this? Because it's important that you know who you are before you put on that paper mask and go out into the world to try and get back into the swing of things. It's not the same swingset you played on before, folks. We live in a very different and scary world that has become so accustomed to being selfish and independent that with most partnerships now, not marriages, they're calling them partnerships even if there is a license to be wed, with most partnerships now there is an expectation of living "Dutch" or I'll pay mine, and you pay yours. Gone (almost) are the days when a couple will have one bank account because one or the other of them becomes dominant or possessive with the money THEY earned. Can you imagine if you're a housewife or a househusband in the union and the breadwinner is not allowing you to make decisions simply because you didn't EARN the money in the account? It's a real thing. It causes so much destruction in a relationship, but I see both sides because "partners" talk and communicate, they know what the other is about, that is NOT what we have in 2023; we haven't had that in so many years really.

    When I say I am 100% confident and sure that I will remain single unless and until God Himself drops a man into my lap and makes the statement "This one is for you, Jude", I'm serious. It's been 24 years and I could easily go another 24 if I needed or had to. I do feel so very very sorry for those holding their paper masks and putting on the good front because the one you may end up with is not always the one you should have ended up with; the one who doesn't want to see the paper mask, but the man (or woman) who is behind the forced smile and fake confidence in themselves. If you can't show the one you want to spend the rest of your life with the truth about who you really are, and they accept that person, you, completely, you're in for ride after ride after turbulent ride; destined to crash, burn, collide and destruct over and over again. Don't do it. Best to stay in one piece by yourself than to be shredded of your heart, mind, soul, and psyche like that. Not to mention STDs, AIDS, warts, and more...yeah, it's out there. Some paper masks are paper diapers and what's behind that door is not pretty.  

    Just this: confidence is not arrogance. Confidence is not conceited. Confidence is just knowing who you are and what you can or can't do. It's knowing that if you screw up you are the one to pick yourself up. You believe in yourself and no one else needs to do that for you to carry on with being you. If you don't have that, then that's the thing to focus on first; no one out there in the big bad ugly world is going to let you have the time, money, and healing you need to make it unless God Himself drops you into the lap of the person He knows can and will do that for you. WAIT ON GOD is what I'm saying. Don't chase a rainbow when the Creator's hands are the ones in which to be held. I know, it sounds really churchy and overly religious, doesn't it? Well, it's time folks realize that normal ain't coming back, decent people aren't coming back, but Jesus is. That is something we can put our FULL confidence in without worry.

    

Photo Credit: fenceworkssnw.com

Chapter Nine was a Surprise, but a Good one.

 Earlier today I was questioning myself on how I was going to handle this chapter because I knew it would require me to think like a man, and have the restraint and maturity of a philosopher to describe what takes place within the body of a young lad when he comes across his first naked or semi-naked woman whom he has been crushing on secretly.  That is what happens in Chapter 9 and to say I had been putting it off for a while for fear that I may not be as sensitive as perhaps I needed to be, would be more or less accurate.  Today was the day!  I managed.  I just reread the chapter and to be honest I did a great job. (She laughs because that sounded really arrogant for about a second until I realized that I'm the only one who can decide if I did or didn't give it my utmost! I'm the writer)

    Chapter 9 is done.  The characters of Aria Cambell MacFarlane and Ewan Williams Hastings are now formally acquainted. They will soon become fast and vast friends; this will lead to the completely obsessive behavior of one of the characters; this behavior involving what we would clearly observe today as being stalking behavior. We will see that the two are inseparable when the world, time, space, and society have only their separation in mind. We will find in time, in future chapters, that the two bodies will find reasons to unite. We will learn that the word "love" means more to some than it does to others.

    The writing for Chapter 9 was a bit interesting on its own. I read through the 200+-year-old books written about the Borders of Scotland, and the people of course, and I came across a tale, a story, about a man finding his son after many years of being apart from one another. The son had raced off from his homestead with a few shillings in his pocket and had not been seen for several years. No one was able to comfort his family as to what may have become of the man until some years later and quite without ceremony, the father runs into a doctor who thinks out loud that the man before him resembles the man he has just attended upon his deathbed. This was the case, and the father saw his son only minutes before he expired and on his way to eternal bliss. The moments that they shared were good ones, and the father was so blessed to have refrained himself from bringing up the past and the questions he may have had in order to use the sparse time between the two for a better cause.  I loved that story. I used a piece of it on my own. 

    They say there are only about 110 story plots out there, and we all (writers) mix and match until we come up with what we think is original. It's probably true for the most part. This is a good thing, and we are challenged to at least (as writers) mix and match to the point that the 110 become millions of possibilities. The words we choose, the way we use the words we have chosen, and the purpose we choose to use those particular words should matter. I hope I've done that for each of my chapters and in this one in particular as the boy in my story has a special meaning to me. I will raise him from a beaten boy to a strong and mighty protector. He will be the man he was told he could never be. He will overcome and he will project what others said was impossible; this is Ewan William Hastings, and he will not soon be forgotten. He will be loved, and relatable, and he will be engraved on the hearts of millions forever. 

Photo Credit: fineartamerica.com  Portrait: Scottish Boy With Wolfhounds in the Highlands by James Hardy

Chapter 8 is Ready to be Stationed.

 I'm stationing the chapters as they are written. They are not completed yet, and they will not be completed until they are canonized and I have the opportunity to go through each page one by one, each paragraph one by one, and each and every line, one by...OK, I may skip a few of those because if I was that bad I wouldn't finish the book at all. I would be in constant rewriting mode. I have to give it up at some point.

Here is Chapter 8 for your reading pleasure. It is a FILLER chapter, as will be a few of the chapters. They are shorter, about 1800-2000 words and they are usually there to give you a bit of history and fun rather than a really in-depth understanding of the book itself. This chapter has our fine warrior-type man of the hour Antoin Broonfood, aka Tony Broonford, as he is introduced to Keely Marie Elizabet Buchanan, aka Kiersten Broonford in real life.  There will be more said about Keely in other chapters regarding her queenliness and her ability to wrap the man around her fingers without any trouble whatsoever. From the minute she saw him she knew, but she wasn't sure he did. From the minute he saw her he knew, but he wasn't quite sure how to let her know. We find out later in the book. For now, here is the 8th Chapter of a book that will probably not be called "Of Kilted Pleasure" but for now it is. OF COURSE, if you find something incorrect with the history please let me know by emailing me at: jude.stringfellow@gmail.com the comments for the blogs have been disabled. I will check with experts on any and all historical points before publication. 

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Of Kilted Pleasure

Chapter Eight

 

            Antoin Broonford’s way of living left very little to the imagination of anyone who could be blessed to say they had cast their eyes upon the man. His was a stronger and sturdier composure than the average mythological tale of the Nordic Vikings who chose to ravage their way through these islands.  Tall, robust in stature; bravery merely oozed from his ever pore, and yet there was something quite relatable in terms of reducing the man to that of a human man by way of realizing that he was fallible to the act of falling in love; the fate of many men just like him.  Where it could be said that Broonford was a man among men, the leader and the scout of a pack of soldiers who may find themselves searching for rivals among their numbers, Broonford was equally apt to be seen roaming openly through the streets of Old Town Edinburgh, pointing to the tops of the highest stacked tenement, directing the gaze of his companions to see through the nooks and crannies of every close that lined the incredibly winding roads of the city. His was the amusement and pleasure to be not only an escort to visitors who may never have stepped foot into his fair city before, but to those who walked its cobbled streets on a daily basis not taking the time or the energy to see what was directly in front of their faces, under their own noses for centuries before they were born.

            Lifting his hand from the hilt of his sward to point upward gesturing his suggestion for others to take notice; the citizen soldier emphasized the importance of remembering that history has a way of creeping back into our existence if we choose to forget it. “This very spot”, he injected with authority, “tis the spot where old man George Henderson of Fordell once owned the passage, the close, but seeing how he didn’t find it to be to his liking he sold it off to Henry Paisley in the year of our Lord, 1711; just not for what he wanted to get for it, mind you. Look at it, mind you again that this type of stacked clay won’t hold forever. It may only be my opinion, but one day the whole building could collapse and fall right on top of us!”  This Broonford said as he reached up to grasp hold of a stone he knew to be loosened in the close so that for dramatic effect he could pretend to shudder and shake, his face curling in pretend agony as he continued to convulse and shake until he was fully collapsed before his small audience of four.  The ladies screamed with genuine fright, thinking perhaps there was a shake in the ground beneath them. Startled and dismayed each of them removed their gaze from their conductor and up toward the western side of the small and narrow close; were the bricks so loose to give way this very day, they imagined, could this be the end?  With glee in his heart for having delivered his intended emotion to them all, Antoin leaped to his feet in such a jovial manner that no one could continue a grudge for having been played the fool.

            Though he was in the company of four immaculately dressed and prim ladies from and about the city area of Glasgow, their accents much stronger than the ladies Antoin was likely to come across in the more northern regions; he was only fair interested in the opinions and favor of one such lass, that person being the daughter of Evelyn Buchanan Baye; Keely Mhairi Elizabet Buchanan. Keely being born after the death of her warrior and hero father in the years 1715 at the Battle of Preston, not so very far from the place she and her mother and cousins now stood, had conveyed upon the ear of her potential suitor Antoin that she would very much like to visit the area if not the very spot if they could be inclined to find where it was that her gritty and undaunting father would have stood his last before expiring into what would become only memories and tales of who the man was. Her request was immediately taken up as a command to the heart of one who had been captivated by her grace the instance he saw her. To hear Antoin speak of his new interest would keen bring a blush to any face.

            Blond and petite, Keely Buchanan could have the world if she requested it. Nothing was beyond question if she were only to ask for it. To the love-stricken man before her now, Keely’s lips, he would say, carry upon them the ability to command without one feeling the need to surrender, but only to fulfill her every wish. Her height though much less than his own was taller than anyone else her same size as she carried herself with immense refinement and poise as to lend the impression or flatly give it, that she was a woman of wealth and education. Hers was not the mind of an idiot or common woman in a lowly hamlet without the fortitude to challenge herself to read, study, or make herself aware of her surroundings as well as events both current and past. She found the prearranged tour which was certainly given privately for herself and her family to be entertaining and full of interest due mostly to the man presenting himself as their guide. Could this one, a man seeming a bit older and wiser than her playmates or close kin be around the age of his mid-thirties and yet unmarried? She questioned, was his a wink cast in her direction, or was there something about him that could cause him to flirt with everyone for whom he would walk the streets? Keely hoped that she was not mistaken as she believed the man was thinking of speaking to her directly soon. She cleared her throat in case this turn took place sooner than later.

            The tour from one point of the main street they traversed, locally known as High Street, stretched from one end of a long trek to another with the western end showcasing the vast and immovable Castle itself. To the east, and certainly not to be mistaken for anything less royal as the Castle, stood the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the very former home of Mary Queen of Scots and to all other monarchs of Great Britain who would live inside its grand interior upon making their way through Scotland for business or for pleasure. Between the two points on the south side of the streets perhaps about one-third of the way down from the Castle toward the end of the cobbled way stood the old Parliament House which houses both the various courts of law given and the Parliament of Scotland before the Act of Union of 1707 ended the need for such a place.  Used mainly for other government needs Antoin found it unnecessary to traverse into the buildings themselves or to disturb any official business of administration lest he is possibly questioned as to why he was then roaming the streets as a seemingly overly zealous bodyguard to one and a companion friend to three finely dressed women of good posture and conversation. Next then, as they made their way further down the hilly street, their conductor pointed out the steeples of no less than three glorious kirks which themselves had been the very subject of controversy, trouble, and mayhem. St. Giles being the oldest, having been built in sections ranging from the 12thto the 16th century, the building itself had been both a Catholic place of worship and a Protestant one; having its main charge of duty with the outspoken renown minister of John Knox and of course others. St. Giles a Parish Church of Scotland is located near the eastern edge of the city of Edinburgh. Antoin pointed out that by the time of the formation of what is called the King's Wall in the mid-15th century, the area was now a fully funded and decreed burgh that had been allowed to expand with the Kirk as its central point of interest. Literally situated across the street from a tall brownstone building with turrets and small ascending windows, Broonford pointed out that until just a few decades before there were many public executions within the view of anyone standing where they were standing now.  The Tolbooth building he commented, was also a building of higher administration and governmental practices and was not one to be visited but one to be given notice of.

            Fitful and shadowy storms began to encase the small party as they made haste to find shelter within a close near to them. For the three who were not otherwise engaged in making eye contact with each other, and who were less interested in hanging on every word which was uttered by their host, they soon gave their excuses verbally as well as intimating that with the coming of the storm, they felt it best to return to their inn as quickly as possible. Evelyn Baye, whose motherly instincts could not have misinterpreted the cooing and obvious courting taking place between her only daughter and a man she felt was more than capable of keeping good watch, felt the most comfortable of the three who would soon be racing through the wet streets to find more permanent shelter. As they parted, leaving Keely in the secure care of Antoin Broonford, a mother’s warning was given to be understood that she would see her daughter at the Pleasance Inn no later than upon the stroke of another hour of that Tolbooth clock. The time was currently a bit after two o’clock in the afternoon. The smile etching across the jubilant and whiskered face of her docent could not have been more broad as he was given a full nod from Mrs. Baye to be the caregiver and escorted safeguard to her most precious possession.

            With his arm extended in gratitude, a rather forward hug rather than a mere clasping of the hands ensued. Taken only a bit off her heel, Evelyn Baye commented as the ladies made their way back through the winding herringbone streets of Edinburgh that she hadn’t been held that closely to a man other than her own husband since the day she had last seen and held her first husband, Brandon Buchanan only weeks before he was to give the final sacrifice to his country, his lord, and his God.  Her confidence in Broonford could only be compared with her own; she knew within seconds of his embrace that he would one day be considered a member of their family. Her departing glance only solidified the feeling in her breast, as her own daughter’s arms were now clasped through those of this gentle giant with the soul of a seraphim.

Photo Credit: traveldigg.com