Meredith Allard's Blog, page 7

10 Places To Visit In Salem, MA

Visiting Salem, Massachusetts?

The latest book in the Loving Husband Series, And Shadows Will Fall, is a final visit for James and Sarah Wentworth to the time that shaped so much of their lives–the Salem Witch Trials. Once again, I’m digging into my research from that era to bring the Wentworths’ story to life. 

As we’re headed into the Halloween season, I thought I’d share a bit about my trip to Salem, Massachusetts. One of my favorite parts of researching historical fiction is traveling to the places I’m writing about. 

I had a great time when I visited Salem, and here are the places I enjoyed the most.

The House of the Seven Gables

Yes, this is the house that inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne to write his novel. The house where Hawthorne was born was moved onto the land. I loved both houses. I loved the grounds and the gardens. I loved that it was so close to the seashore. I loved the black and white cat I saw roaming the grounds. I can see how the mystery of the house inspired a literary classic.

The Salem Witch Museum

The Salem Witch Museum in Salem, MA.

This is probably one of the most visited places in Salem, and the museum plays an important role in Her Dear and Loving Husband as James and Sarah get to know each other. The building itself is a church-style structure, and it was right across the street from Salem Common. The museum provides a good overview of the witch hunt hysteria that overtook Salem in 1692.

The Red Trolley Car

There’s a red trolley car for tourists that takes you all over Salem, showing the points of interest and explaining them. It’s a relaxing way to get to see the town and learn some tidbits of Salem information. When I was there the guide said that the name Salem likely comes from Jerusalem, Salem meaning peaceful. Salem in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1692 was anything but peaceful.

Salem State University

Readers of The Loving Husband Trilogy know that James and Sarah both work at the university, James as a professor of English (teaching night classes, of course) and Sarah is a librarian. I loved visiting the campus and seeing the students on their way to classes.

Pickering Wharf

The Friendship, which is docked near Pickering Wharf, where Olivia’s shop The Witches Lair is located.

Pickering Wharf really does exist! It’s a seaside village of shops and restaurants and I enjoyed my afternoon there eating lunch at Capn’s. There were several shops there owned by psychics, so I knew I had picked just the place for Olivia to have her own psychic shop, The Witches Lair.

The Burying Point

I’m not usually a fan of graveyards, but the Burying Point was interesting because it’s the burying place of some of the judges of the Salem Witch Trials, including Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ancestor John Hathorne (author Hawthorne added the w to his name because he didn’t want to be too closely connected to his witch-hanging ancestor Hathorne).

The John Ward House and the Jonathan Corwin House

The John Ward House is part of the Peabody Essex Museum. It’s a replica of a house from the 1600s, and what do you know—it looks just like James’s house! It was an incredible feeling to be walking around Salem and see a house from my imagination standing there plain as day. I felt like Sarah did when she saw the house for the first time. If there are ever movies made of the Loving Husband Trilogy, I know where they can find James’s house!

A similar house is the Jonathan Corwin House, also known as Witch House. Corwin was one of the magistrates presiding over the Salem Witch Trials. His house is the only remaining structure with direct ties to the witch hunts.

Forest River Park/Pioneer Village

Pioneer Village is the closest you can come to time travel in Salem. The docents dress in costumes from the 1600s, and there are replicas of the types of homes you would have seen in the area in the days of the earliest European settlements. Pioneer Village is located within Forest River Park, which is a beach with rocky shores and a grassy area for picnics. It was a wonderful place to pass the afternoon.

Rebecca Nurse Homestead

For readers familiar with the events of the Salem Witch Trials in 1692, you know that Rebecca Nurse was a key player. Though known to be a good person, she was hanged for witchcraft. It was remarkable standing on the land her family owned. It’s located in what is now Danvers, Massachusetts, though during the hysteria it was known as Salem Village, which was the center of the witch hunts. I stumbled onto Nurse’s homestead by accident. I had gone to Danvers to a coin operated laundry facility to do my laundry (no joke) and I noticed it across the street.

Boston

Okay, I know Boston is not Salem, but Boston is only about twenty minutes from Salem by train, and I couldn’t be so close and not visit. If you’re a fan of American history then Boston is a must visit. I absolutely loved Boston and wished I had more than a day to spend there. I will definitely go back.

Salem, Massachusetts is a popular tourist destination during the Halloween season. If you’re interested in visiting, check out Destination Salem, the city’s website featuring local events and other fun things to do in one of America’s oldest towns. 

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Letting Go When Something No Longer Serves You

A Faint Hint of Autumn

In Southern Nevada it takes a little longer to feel the cooler weather. Though we’re into September and school started more than a month ago, the temperature is still well above the 90 degrees Fahrenheit mark, certainly cooler than the 100 plus degrees Fahrenheit we experience in July and August, but not quite cool enough to make it feel as though the season is changing.

Still, I’ve noticed that the trees along my street are starting to show the barest hints of the autumnal colors I love so much. I haven’t decorated my home for autumn yet, though I have a feeling the pumpkins, scarecrows, and apples for Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year, will be appearing on my shelves soon enough, provided that Lillie, my rescue kitten, doesn’t eat them.

Accepting When It’s Time To Make Changes

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we know when it’s time to let go. I’ve been letting go of a lot these days, whether it’s old hopes or dreams that no longer serve me, or whether it’s a project that has been part of my life for more than 20 years.

For 23 years, I was the executive editor of an award-winning literary journal for readers and writers of historical fiction, The Copperfield Review. In July, I made the difficult decision to close Copperfield down. It was not an easy decision, I can assure you.

The Little Journal That Could

Copperfield never had the world’s largest audience. The journal published only short historical fiction and history-based poetry, and while there are many devotees to historical fiction, my steadfastness to my chosen genre meant that Copperfield had a more limited audience than journals that showcase more genres or appeal to wider audiences.

Although Copperfield never had the largest audience, for more than two decades Copperfield could boast of a devoted audience. I have always believed that quality is more important than quantity.

But everything evolves. Since COVID, people have found different ways to spend their time and money, and that’s okay. Times move on and so should we. Over the past three years, many of Copperfield‘s revenue streams disappeared. Former reliable sources of funding all but vanished. CR’s monthly readership went down, like other magazines and literary journals. In April 2020, I created quarterly print and digital editions of the journal, but the time and expense of producing such editions didn’t work out in my favor.

We Have To Admit When We Need A Change

I have to acknowledge my own part in all of this. For the past 23 years, I’ve been juggling running Copperfield, writing my own fiction and nonfiction, finishing a Ph.D. in four years, and working full-time as an English teacher, along with all the other life stuff everyone has to deal with on a day-to-day basis.

I’m not sure people realize how much time goes into running a literary journal. I was thrilled that Copperfield was a popular, respected journal that writers wanted to be published in. In fact, it’s one of the things I’m most proud of when it comes to CR. But that meant countless hours of reading submissions, choosing which stories to publish, corresponding with contributors, answering emails, formatting the journal, proofreading the stories, and publicizing it, among many other tasks. I can’t begin to estimate how many hours I spent working on CR since 2000.

That is not a complaint. Until early this year, I loved every minute of it.

But I have other goals now. I have other books I want to write that I didn’t have time for while spending so many hours working on CR. I’ve written a lot about how I’m a slow writer. I am a slow writer; that’s just the reality of my process. But part of that slowness can be attributed to the fact that most of my free time was taken up with Copperfield.

I have so many books I want to write I can hardly keep track of my ideas. I want to write more nonfiction, and I want to write more scholarly works that have been on my mind since finishing my Ph.D. Scholarly works require research, like historical fiction, and I haven’t had time to devote to such projects.

A Gentle Reminder For Those Of You Who Love Literary Journals

If you have a favorite little independent literary journal, be sure to show your support. Email the editor if there’s a story or a poem you love and let them know. Tell your friends about the journal. If a journal has a Patreon page, a Kickstarter, or a tip jar, support them. Buy a copy of their print or digital editions. It doesn’t cost a lot of money to show a journal that you appreciate what they do, and even the smallest donation goes a long way in helping journals stay afloat. There is no wand-waving fairy who supports independent literary journals.

I’m not saying that literary journals are dying, never to be seen or heard from again. I heard that literary journals were dying when I began Copperfield in 2000. But I do think the literary landscape has changed in the past 23 years, and I think it’s harder to keep journals afloat these days. Never fear, though, since new literary journals spring up every day. When you find one you love, support it. Journals rely on the support of their fans.

If You Were A Reader Or Contributor To Copperfield…

I cannot say thank you enough to those of you who read or wrote for Copperfield. When I began CR in 2000, I had no idea that a literary journal of historical fiction would catch on quite the way it did. The fact that CR became a respected journal that developed a reputation for literary excellence, the fact that CR became a journal that writers wanted to be published in, was far beyond my imaginings. I didn’t expect CR to survive even five years. The fact that it lasted for 23 years is something extraordinary in the short-lived lives of literary journals. It was a great thrill for me that CR was one of the first published credits for many new writers.

Where Do I Go From Here?

I’m still coming to terms with what all of this means for me. Mainly, I intend to use this fresh-new time to write more of those stories I’ve been waiting years to share.

And Shadows Will Fall has turned the corner. The story on the page finally matches the story I see in my head. I’m in the preliminary stages of a new novel about three generations of women. I’m even sketching out a crazy tale that is science fiction of all things!

This will be the first autumn in 23 years that I don’t have an edition of CR to edit. Instead of feeling sad or nostalgic, I’m thankful. I’m thankful for everything CR gave me over more than two decades. I’m thankful for the thousands of writers who allowed me the privilege of reading their historical stories and poems whether I published their work or not. I’m thankful that CR helped me find my identity as an editor and a writer. I’m thankful for the wonderful writing and editing friends I’ve met, and I’m thankful for everything I’ve learned.

Sometimes, in order to see the future clearly, we need to let go of things that no longer serve us, no matter how important those things were to us in the past. 

Guest Post: Historical Novelist Mary Anna Evans

Mary Anna Evans’ Life As a Writer

A few years ago, I was speaking to the Institute for Learning in Retirement in my hometown, Hattiesburg, Mississippi. It was a large crowd of people who thought that retirement was great because it gave them more time to learn things. In other words, these were my kind of people.

I was asked the question, “How long have you been a writer?”

I paused a second to formulate an answer and two hands shot into the air. This was an interesting turn of events. Who were these people who wanted to answer my question for me?

As it turns out, they were my mother and my fourth-grade teacher, two people I might have expected to be attendees of the Institute for Learning in Retirement. They wanted to tell people that I’d always been a writer.

Had I? I’d certainly done other things with my life besides writing. I studied physics and engineering in college. I worked a good deal in those fields before I changed my focus to writing—spending a summer working offshore for an oil company, teaching math and physics for a couple of years right after graduate school and working as an environmental consultant at work that took me all over the country—but I do think my mother and Mrs. Kochtitzky were right.

I’ve always enjoyed writing, even when it was a fourth-grade history assignment. My affinity for writing has come in handy, even when I was working in the sciences because there is no substitute for an ability to communicate. My environmental firm’s only product was its reports. We didn’t make widgets. We gave our clients expert advice on difficult problems, and we did this in writing. A good engineer who can write well will likely have a successful career. I’ve spoken to math teachers about how to bring reading material into the classroom. I’ve even co-written articles and a book with a professor who specialized in such things.

No matter what turns my life takes, my livelihood always comes back to the written word. These days, I write novels. I work as a professor who teaches students how to write fiction and nonfiction. And I write books and articles about one of the most fascinating and successful novelists of all time, Agatha Christie. I love doing every single one of those things.

And apparently, my mother and Mrs. Kochtitzky knew I’d love it way back when I was in the fourth grade.

Justine Byrne can’t trust the people working beside her. Arlington Hall, a former women’s college in Virginia has been taken over by the United States Army where hundreds of men and women work to decode countless pieces of communication coming from the Axis powers. Justine works among them, handling the most sensitive secrets of World War II—but she isn’t there to decipher German codes—she’s there to find a traitor. Justine keeps her guard up and her ears open, confiding only in her best friend, Georgette, an affluent speaker of Choctaw who is training to work as a code talker. Justine tries to befriend each suspect, believing that the key to finding the spy lies not in cryptography but in understanding how code breakers tick. When young women begin to go missing at Arlington Hall, her deadline for unraveling the web of secrets becomes urgent and one thing remains clear: a single secret in enemy hands could end thousands of lives.

Universal Link: https://books2read.com/u/4XwxG1Amazon UK:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Traitor-Beside-Her-Novel/dp/1464215588Amazon

US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BGYPLMTH

Amazon CA: https://www.amazon.ca/Traitor-Beside-Her-Novel/dp/1464215588

Amazon AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/Traitor-Beside-Her-Novel-ebook/dp/B0BGYPLMTH

Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-traitor-beside-her-mary-anna-evans/1143344440

Waterstones: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-traitor-beside-her/mary-anna-evans/9781464215582Kobo:https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-traitor-beside-her

Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-traitor-beside-her-mary-anna-evans/18743820

Audiobooks.com: https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/672506/Audible:https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Traitor-Beside-Her-Audiobook/B0BVDLCL7J

Book News: An Update For And Shadows Will Fall

Another great cover from Jenny Q!

While I’m on vacation this month, I thought I’d add some updates about And Shadows Will Fall. Originally, I included this in another post, but since I’m still getting questions I thought I’d repost it here.

Keep your questions coming. I love hearing from readers.

What About And Shadows Will Fall?

In addition to reading as many books as I can and taking some time for myself this summer, I’ll also finish the next draft of And Shadows Will Fall. For those of you who have asked about a publication date, thank you.

As always, I’m terrible at guessing when books will be done. I’m cautiously optimistic that an Autumn 2023 publication date is in the cards. At the moment, it looks like ASWF will be a novella at about 30,000 words, but I won’t have a definite word count until the final edits are complete.

And Shadows Will Fall is Book Six in the Loving Husband Series, but as far as placement it belongs between Her Loving Husband’s Return and The Duchess of Idaho. I’d love to write my books in order, but I’ll take my inspiration where I can find it.

The story focuses on how James and Sarah deal with the changes James experienced in Her Loving Husband’s Return. True or false: the story was inspired by something a fan of the series said to me. If you guessed true, you are correct!

More than that would be spoilers!

What Is A Commonplace Book And Why Should You Keep One?

What Is A Commonplace Book?

Lately, I’ve been seeing many posts about commonplace books. Once I discovered what commonplace books were, I was surprised I hadn’t kept one before. Then I realized that I have kept commonplace books, only I called them quote journals. Maybe you have too.

The simplest way to understand a commonplace book is to think of it as a receptacle of knowledge. A commonplace book is a handy-dandy place to keep your favorite quotes and passages from books, memes, movies, TV shows, and research. Perhaps a friend said something wise that you want to remember. You would write that into your commonplace book. A commonplace book is a place to record anything you find important.

Commonplace books have been kept for centuries. Some noteworthy people who kept commonplace books are Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Mark Twain, and Virginia Woolf, among many others.

Using A Commonplace Book To Help With Writing Projects

As I’ve been reading about commonplace books, I thought the process of keeping such a journal might help me with my new book about writing. I’ve been working on this project for several months now, and I kept hitting a wall since there are a few moving parts that need to move in tandem in order for this book to work. On the one hand, the book is about how I learned to embrace the writing life. There are also aspects of spirituality, including mindfulness, as well as elements of slow living. While I had a general idea of what I was trying to accomplish, figuring out how the pieces fit together has been an interesting process, to say the least.

Commonplace books are not necessarily intended to help with certain projects. They are intended to be a place to explore ideas and keep information. Leonardo da Vinci’s commonplace book is a thing of wonder. But I decided that I could use the commonplace book as a way to help me gather my ideas for my book in one place. I had quotes, ideas, and information that I wanted to use scattered without rhyme or reason, so I decided to dedicate a commonplace book specifically as a receptacle for information for this particular book I’m writing.

My Process Of Keeping a Commonplace Book

This is the book I’m using for my commonplace book. It’s a 5.7 x 8-inch dotted journal from Paperage that I purchased from Amazon. It came in a package of three. I bought it for bullet journaling, and I created two bullet journals that I used for research for The Duchess of Idaho. I’ll share the process of bullet journaling as a way to research historical fiction in a future post. At first, I wasn’t sure about the dots instead of lines, but I’ve come to like the dots since the dots give me more flexibility with how I use the page.

This is the title page of my book. When I originally decided to create a commonplace book, I thought I would make it a little crafty since there are many examples of crafty commonplace books. However, as I thought about it, I realized that I have my art journal and my junk journal for artistic expression, and if my intention for this commonplace book is to help me gather my thoughts for the book I’m writing, then getting crafty wasn’t necessary.

My one concession to creating a crafty commonplace book was using washi tape to create a left-side margin where I write the name of the person who said the quote or gave the information. You can see that the person’s name is to the left and their quote is to the right.

I haven’t organized the book in any way. I’ve been going through the notes I have scattered around my workspace and I’ve been adding them to the commonplace book as I find them. It seems like I find something new I want to add every day.

I have quotes from writers, spiritual teachers, rabbis, Brene Brown, artists, creatives, Julia Cameron, Tasha Tudor; really, a wide variety of sources. Now I have everything I want to consider for this odd little book I’m writing together in one journal. When I’m writing, I have my handy-dandy little green commonplace book at my side, and when I’m looking for a quote from Anne Lamott, for example, I know where to find it.

While the book itself isn’t organized in any certain way, having the names to the left of the page makes it easier for me to find that Anne Lamott quote. I have to skim the left-hand side of the pages to find the quote I’m looking for, but I think it’s easier than if I had written the names after the quotes inside the text.

If I’m writing a number of passages from the same book, then I’ll write the author and the name of the book in the left-side margin, and then after that, I’ll add the page numbers where I found the quotes.

You don’t need to use a commonplace book specifically for a project as I am. You can keep a commonplace book with inspirational quotes that will help get you going when your motivation tank is running low. You can use it to doodle and work through ideas. You can keep a commonplace book as a place to keep interesting pieces of knowledge that you want to remember.

Why Keep A Commonplace Book?

I watched an interesting video about commonplace books on YouTube by Robin Waldun where he discusses how commonplace books can boost our creativity. Waldun argues that since there aren’t many brand-new ideas, creativity happens when we look at what others have done before us. By studying what others have done, we can take what we learn from them and then make it our own. Creating a commonplace book gives us space where we can take information from others, study it, synthesize it, and learn from it. Afterward, we might have the knowledge to create something that is uniquely our own.

That’s so true in writing, isn’t it? There really aren’t any new stories to be told. But we learn from our influences and create a style all our own. Then we tell the stories the way only we can.

I’m so happy that I discovered the joys of keeping a commonplace book. Having all my research for my odd little book in one place makes writing that book much easier.

What I’m Reading Summer 2023 (So Far)

As always, summer is a wonderful time for reading. While I haven’t had a chance to visit the beach, summer days are perfect for lazing around with a good book and a glass of iced tea.

Here’s a bit of what I’ve read this summer so far.

The Practical Magic Series by Alice Hoffman

So far, I’ve read the first three books in the series: Practical Magic, The Rules of Magic, and Magic Lessons. Normally, I save my witchy reading for autumn, but since I’m well into writing And Shadows Will Fall, Book Six of the Loving Husband Series, I thought it would be nice to read about another family of witches.

Practical Magic is the first book in the series, and The Rules of Magic and Magic Lessons are both prequels. In fact, Magic Lessons takes place during the Salem Witch Trials, just like the Loving Husband Series, and I love reading other novels set during the same era I’m writing about. There’s a fourth book, The Book of Magic, that I haven’t read yet, but I will definitely get to it since I enjoyed the other three in the series.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Probably exactly zero people are surprised that I’ve read Demon Copperhead, the award-winning novel by Barbara Kingsolver based on my all-time favorite novel, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. In fact, it was reading David Copperfield in a Victorian literature class that inspired me to become a novelist. Kingsolver does a wonderful job creating a story about poverty set in Appalachia with its basis set firmly in Dickens’ original work.

I came to Demon Copperhead with mixed emotions. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I would like it since I love David Copperfield so much. I’m pleased to say I was proven wrong. I loved Demon Copperhead from the first paragraph.

You don’t need to have read David Copperfield to enjoy Demon Copperhead. Demon Copperhead is an example of a modern American classic that stands perfectly well on its own.

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

This is the second time I’ve read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. I enjoyed the book the first time I read it and I recommended it to several writer friends. I appreciate that Gilbert has a woo-woo relationship with creativity, as I do, what she calls the “Big Magic” of living a creative life, and I like how honest she is about the day-to-day reality of being a writer.

During this second reading, Gilbert’s observations about writing caught me on a gut level because she addresses some issues that I’ve been giving a lot of thought to lately. I love how reading does that. When you read a book once, you see it in a certain light. When you read a book a second time, you may find something new, or you may interpret it in a different way depending on your circumstances at that moment.

Gilbert addresses the paradoxes of being a writer in a conversational, humorous way, and she prompts readers to reconsider some “truths” (read: fallacies) commonly believed about writing. There is no need to be a tortured artist. Writing is challenging, but it’s also fun and a great way to spend your time. Gilbert notes that it isn’t fair to our writing to expect it to make our living for us. In many ways, putting that kind of pressure on our writing takes away the joy, and writing should be, above all, joyous. As Gilbert says, if you’re writing for the money, there are easier ways to make money.

I connected to Gilbert’s message much more profoundly this go-around. Gilbert reminds me why I still write after so many years.

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell

I’ve only just started reading The Marriage Portrait, but I can already tell that this is a five-star book for me. I adored O’Farrell’s Hamnet, an imagined look at Shakespeare’s family’s life. The Marriage Portrait has already pulled me into 1550s Florence, a fascinating time in history.

What About And Shadows Will Fall?

In addition to reading as many books as I can squeeze into the summer months, I’ll also be finishing And Shadows Will Fall. For those of you who have asked about a publication date, thank you.

As always, I’m terrible at guessing when books will be done. I’m cautiously optimistic that an Autumn 2023 publication date is in the cards. At the moment, it looks like ASWF will be a novella at about 30,000 words, but I won’t have a definite word count until the final edits are complete.

And Shadows Will Fall is Book Six in the Loving Husband Series, but as far as placement it belongs between Her Loving Husband’s Return and The Duchess of Idaho. I’d love to write my books in order, but I’ll take my inspiration where I can find it. Alice Hoffman didn’t write her Practical Magic series in order, either, so I’m in good company.

Happy summer reading!

Embracing The Writing Life: The Courage To Let Our Light Shine

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of G-d that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

                        ~Marianne Williamson

An Important Realization For Writers

I’ve come across the above quote from Marianne Williamson many times over the years. I’ve read A Return to Love, the book from which the quote is taken, and recently I’ve realized that the quote is speaking to me in a deeper way than it has in the past.

One thing that most writers, or most creatives really, have to come to terms with is the fact that others are not always happy for you when good things happen. The quote from Williamson speaks to something I’ve struggled with—the part that feels like I should dim my light. Williamson says, “Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.”

Whatever success I’ve found in my life, I’ve worked hard for. I’ve been writing and editing for more than 20 years. I worked hard to write a dissertation that added something new to the scholarly discussion on storytelling, creativity, and identity. I worked my tail off to complete every aspect of my Ph.D.

Who Does She Think She Is?

My guess, based on my own experience, is that some people feel like other people’s accomplishments are a reflection of them somehow. I’ve had the “Who does she think she is?” response more times than I can count.

Once, a friend at work was happy for me when a local magazine featured an article about my writing. She posted a link to the article on our work message board. As soon as I saw her post, I thought, “Oh no. This isn’t going to be good.” I knew from previous experience that other people’s reactions would not be positive.

After my friend posted the link, a few people went to her with the old “Who does she think she is?” line. When some of them started the “Who do you think you are?” with me, I said that whatever I’ve achieved it’s because I’ve worked hard. Was that the right response? I certainly don’t know. Writing and editing are how I choose to spend my free time. I felt like I had to explain away the fact that I received attention for my writing so others would know that I don’t think I’m “all that.”

The same friend who seemed happy for me when the article was published apparently decided that the Ph.D. was one achievement too many. The last time I saw her, I was at her house with another friend and we were talking about my conflicting opinions about the direction my career was taking. She said, mimicking as if she were speaking as me, “I know I’m better than everyone else.”

I’m generally quiet and keep to myself. I’m a highly sensitive introvert, and I also have a hearing loss that makes it hard to speak to others sometimes. I don’t think I’m better than anyone else. I think I work hard at certain pursuits, and as a result, sometimes good things happen. My accomplishments don’t negate anyone else’s accomplishments. There isn’t a limited amount of success in this world. My accomplishments don’t mean that there are fewer successes available for others.

There have been times when I’ve slunk around, my head hung low, avoiding eye contact with anyone. Then, in moments of clarity, I ask myself why I’m hiding away.

Why do I feel the need to explain away my successes when I don’t expect anyone else to explain away their successes? There have been times when I’ve allowed others to make me feel small, but that’s my fault, not theirs. People can have whatever reactions they want. It’s up to me to remember, as Williamson says, to “make manifest the glory of G-d that is within us.”

Seeking External Validation

The “Who does she think she is?” issue becomes a problem when we seek external acknowledgment or validation. Once we realize that we don’t need anyone else’s approval, we are free from the labels others want to thrust upon us. If others disapprove, they are allowed to have their opinions. But we don’t have to accept their opinions as our own.

According to Rabbi Alan Lew, “Quite often people’s negative responses to us are rooted in their own twisted psychologies and not in anything we have done or said to provoke them.”

There’s an episode of Jay Shetty’s podcast On Purpose With Jay Shetty called “4 Reasons We Crave External Validation.” That episode spoke to me on a gut level. Shetty says that when we have a more grounded and supported sense of who we are, we are more likely to have an accurate understanding of ourselves. We have a stronger sense of self, and therefore we are less likely to be swayed by the opinions of others.

Shetty uses the example of Bruce Lee, who came to a similar conclusion while he was filming The Green Hornet. Lee realized that he was acting like a robot, trying to gain external validation by moving and speaking the way he thought he was expected to instead of the way he normally would. At that moment, Lee learned the importance of being yourself and not imitating others.

According to Shetty’s blog, “You don’t have to defend who you are in this world. You are not responsible for what others think of you. Your responsibility is to live in a way that adheres to your values and priorities. You can use input from others to help calibrate your thoughts and actions, but do not rely on them for your sense of self. Live your truth. It will defend itself.”

I have learned this lesson again and again. When I work hard, I’m manifesting the glory of G-d that is within me. According to Williamson, “And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Amen.

Advice For Young Writers: How To Get Published

I Was a Guest Speaker at Writers’ Block

I was invited to speak at Writers’ Block, a group of young people studying the craft of writing. When I asked what the group wanted to learn about, the answer came back overwhelmingly that they wanted to learn more about the publishing side of writing.

As I put my presentation together, I realized that it was hard to condense what I’ve learned about publishing into a one-hour workshop. Fortunately, I managed to come up with a few ideas.

Here are some of the thoughts I shared about writing for publication. There’s nothing earth-shattering here, but I think the young writers found it useful because it opened their eyes, perhaps for the first time, to the fact that writing for publication is hard work.

How to Get PublishedTo Begin:Write something wonderful that someone will want to publish. This sounds obvious, but oddly it’s the step some writers skip over in their rush to be published. Yes, wonderful is subjective, but if you have a strong grasp of the art and craft of writing, then you’re more likely to win over editors with your work. It helps to become the best judge of your own writing. What is strong about your work? What needs revision? Is your writing clear and can the reader follow your story? It’s important to be honest with yourself about what works and what doesn’t. Find your own voice and your own perspective. What do you have to offer that no one else does? How are you different or unique? That’s your strength. Use it. Don’t send in a story that could have been written by anyone. Read a lot. If you don’t like to read, then writing is not for you. Read stories similar to the ones you want to write. Read about writing. Read about writers. Read the classics. Read your favorite genre. Read the cereal box. Read everything.Be sure to proofread your work, and be sure to check for spelling errors and grammatical mistakes. Don’t rely on spell check. I can’t stress this enough—sloppy writing will get your work rejected as fast as editors can hit the delete button. Yes, I speak from experience (as both the editor, and, I’m sure, as the writer whose work evaporated into cyberspace).Have someone else (or many someone elses) read your writing and listen to what they have to say. Often, as writers, we get stuck in our own heads and we forget that the point of writing is to communicate with others. But also remember that just because someone offers criticism, that doesn’t mean you have to revise your story; however, if more than one person has the same suggestion, it might be worth seeing if there’s something that they have noticed that you have not.Read your writing out loud and listen for the music of your language. We write for the ear, not for the eye. You could have the most perfect-looking story or poem—sharp margins, professional-looking layout, lovely font—but if the words don’t sound right then they are not right. It takes time, sometimes a lot of time, to create something publishable. Give yourself time to grow into the writer you want to be.First drafts are never publishable (or usually even second drafts or third drafts or fourth drafts…).If you’re not willing to take the time to make sure your writing is the very best it can be before you send it off for consideration for publication, then writing is not for you.Then:

When you’re convinced that your writing is the absolute best it can be, you’re ready to start submitting to journals, magazines, and blogs.

Figure out what genre your piece belongs in (Is it action adventure? Science fiction? Historical?) and search for journals, magazines, and blogs that publish the type of story you’ve written. Bless the internet. When I first started writing, we had to do things the old-timey way—we had to look through books! Now a list of literary journals is an internet search away.When you have your list of journals, read their submission guidelines carefully and follow those guidelines exactly as written. I can’t stress this enough. You want to give your writing the best chance of being published. Editors receive many, many submissions, and often those editors are looking for easy reasons to reject a piece. In order to make your work stand out from the crowd, show the editors that you take your submission seriously.Be prepared for rejections. Sorry, but it’s part of the process. If you don’t have the stomach to deal with rejections, then writing is not for you. If it makes you feel better, you can find many examples of famous authors who received hundreds, sometimes thousands of rejection letters before they were finally published. Jack London was rejected many times, as was J.K. Rowling, as were countless others.No matter what, keep submitting. It took me four years to get my first piece published, a short story in a small literary magazine. If I had given up three and a half years into it I never would have become a published writer.However:

If you’ve written a novel, then the process is a little different. If you want to pursue traditional publishing options, you’ll need to find an agent who will represent your novel to publishing houses.

You can find agents the same way you find literary journals and magazines—by searching for them online. Be sure to find agents that represent the genre of the novel you have written. You need to finish your novel before you start contacting agents because if agents are interested then they may ask to see the whole manuscript. You need to be sure that your manuscript is complete and ready to send if they ask for it. As with submitting to journals or blogs, you need to be prepared for rejections. If the rejections will deter you, then, once again, writing is not for you.To catch the attention of an agent, you’ll need to write a great query letter. Here’s an article from Writer’s Digest about how to write the perfect query letter.

If you have more of a go-getter’s heart, you may want to look into indie publishing.

Indie publishing is a great option for writers these days. Many best-selling novels are independently published.You can create your own ebooks on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. You can also publish your books on BN, iTunes, Kobo, and other online retailers. You can also create your own paperbacks using Amazon’s KDP or IngramSpark. You can find directions for independent publishing online. If you choose to publish independently, then everything that would normally fall on the publisher (cover design, interior layout, editing, marketing, etc.) becomes the author’s responsibility. You want to make sure you’re putting out a quality product so that readers will take you seriously as a publisher.The Creative Penn (www.thecreativepenn.com) is a great resource for writers who want to publish their work independently.Being a Published Writer Is Not Easy

Once you’ve been published you have to learn how to handle the naysayers, and there will be many. You need a strong constitution to be a writer. It takes courage to put your work out there.

The young people were surprised at how hard it is to become a published writer. They thought, as I did when I first started, that being a writer meant sitting at your desk typing out your stories and somehow everything else (finding a publisher, getting publicity, and hitting the bestseller lists) magically happened. I wanted the young people to understand that becoming a writer takes time.

One of the students asked me if it was worth all of the trouble.

All those rejection letters, all those worries that no one would ever read my stories, all those times I nearly gave up writing for good? Yes, it was worth it. If someone had said to me that it was going to take 20 years for me to find success as a writer, I probably would have said, “No thanks. It’s going to take too long.”

But the 20 years passed anyway, as time will, and because I didn’t give in I ended up in a strong place with several bestselling novels and fans around the world who love my stories. That’s really the lesson I wanted the young writers to take away.

Don’t quit. Not ever. If you have a vision, a calling, whatever it is that prompts you to write, keep going. It will be worth it in the end, no matter how long it takes to get there.

Why Writers Need to Tune Out Distractions and Get Writing

Falling Into The Trap of Distraction

With every type of social media, gaming, news, television streaming, film streaming, and YouTube or TikTok videos at our fingertips, it’s no wonder so many people who would love to write say they don’t have time.

Many people would like to start a new hobby, whether it’s writing, painting, hiking, exercising, or baking, but they find themselves drawn to social media instead. We live vicariously through others who present a perfect life to the world. Someone I know said that we are spending our time watching videos of other people living their lives. I agree, and I would add that we are watching other people live their lives so that we don’t have to take responsibility for living our own lives.

When we look at social media we’re presented with visions of perfect-looking people with their perfect-looking lives, and we think, my cake won’t look like hers so why should I try? My painting won’t look like his, so why should I try? We become so caught up in the flawlessness presented by others that we feel less talented and less worthy.

Most people know, I hope, that content creators share curated versions of their lives. Content creators choose only the most beautiful scenes when the sun is setting just so behind the vista of forests or the cascade of mountains. Creators spend hours editing their videos to make the moment look like a work of art by fiddling with the color palette, choosing the right music, and fixing the right lighting over the bakery-ready sweets.

I watched a few videos from a nice family with two small children under seven who were always smiling, laughing, and playing nicely. They were lovely-looking videos. However…

Anyone with children knows that is not reality. The family doesn’t share when the children have tantrums or refuse to pick up their toys. Their house isn’t always tidy. The burned cakes somehow don’t make an appearance in the finished videos. Still, we’re mesmerized, leaving comments like “So jealous!” When our lives don’t look like that we feel as if somehow we’ve failed at life.

Sharing these curated lives can be harmful to both the content creators and the consumers. According to The JED Foundation’s Understanding Social Comparison on Social Media:

“…creating a false life on social media for the sake of likes/followers can make our shortcomings or struggles in real life seem all the more difficult and we lose sight of what’s real. Even brief exposure to social media can trigger social comparison, and self-evaluations were lower when people viewed profiles of healthy or successful people.”

The JED Foundation notes that the Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO)—the worry that someone else is more successful than you—can negatively impact our mental health in a variety of ways:

1. increased depression

2. decreased overall well-being; according to the JED Foundation, “People who are heavy users of social media (upwards of 5 hours a day) have been shown to have a lower sense of self, suffer from depression and even have thoughts of suicide.”

3. poor body image

4. eating disorders

Of course, such issues have been around longer than the internet. When I was a teenager in the 1980s we saw beautiful movie stars and models in entertainment or fashion magazines, and if we didn’t look like them then we felt as if we weren’t enough. In the 1990s, women were expected to be so thin that their inner thighs weren’t supposed to touch. Seriously.

The idea of physical or lifestyle perfection isn’t new; however, since the internet is so darn handy, and since it’s wired in a way to make us addicted, it’s harder to escape the idea that we and our lives should be flawless.

Too Much Social Media Can Be Bad For You

The good news is that there’s nothing inherently bad about the internet. There are even studies that show how the internet can have some beneficial effects. The internet has opened a world of opportunities for many creatives, including myself. I couldn’t have created my own publishing company or started Copperfield Review without the internet. You wouldn’t be subjected to reading this without the internet. There is nothing wrong with watching a few videos or reading some blog posts (I’m pleased to say).

The problem comes in the form of addiction to social media where we become obsessed with the images presented to us. Suddenly, we develop the Grass is Always Greener syndrome. If I lived in the country, my life would be perfect. If I lived in the city, my life would be perfect. If I had that juicer, my life would be perfect. If I had that candle that smells like Gwyneth Paltrow’s vagina, my life would be perfect.

Students and younger adults are particularly prone to mental health issues as a result of too much social media usage. According to Cai et al (2023) in Associations Between Problematic Internet Use and Mental Health Outcomes of Students: A Meta-analytic Review:

“The findings from this synthesis showed that problematic internet use was positively related to depressive symptoms, anxiety, loneliness, and other mental health outcomes, while negatively related to subjective well-being. In addition, the association between problematic internet use and depressive symptoms appeared to be relatively robust.”

In “Is Too Much Internet Use Making Us Sick?” Kris Kresser, M.S. states that we have become more isolated as a result of too much internet usage: “The internet was designed to connect us with others. It has certainly done this, but it’s also true that the internet can be a cause of disconnection in our lives. For example, a common scene in the modern household is for all family members to be present, with each person staring into their own screen, co-existing without sharing the experience of life.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been at a restaurant with friends, our phones tucked away in our bags, while we’ve watched people at other tables on their phones, ignoring the friends or family beside them, who were also on their phones.

The other day I was at an outdoor mall with my mother. We ordered our coffees and sat at a table near the kiddie fountains where some small children splashed in the water. To be fair, most of the parents were fully present with their children, playing and splashing too. A few pulled out their phones, snapped a few pictures, and put their phones away.

As my mom and I enjoyed drinking our coffees and watching the children play, I noticed one mother as her small son ran through the fountains by himself while she texted away. She didn’t look up to see where he was. She didn’t seem to notice that he ran clear across the courtyard to the restaurants at the other end. Fortunately, he came back on his own, and, of course, his mom was still texting.

A while ago I went bowling, and there was a small boy, maybe about four, bowling by himself while his mother was engrossed in her phone. The mother was so distracted she didn’t realize that her boy grabbed a bowling ball and walked across three lanes toward the pins. He was very nearly hit when a bowler didn’t see him. The bowler fell over to stop himself from releasing the ball so he wouldn’t hurt the child. The mother, who finally looked up, grabbed her son’s hand and dragged him away, as if it were the child’s fault.

As a teacher, I know that our young people have addictions to their phones like you cannot believe. They are addicted to watching nonsense videos of girls dancing and talking to the camera and video games (Checkers seems to be the most popular at the moment). It’s hard to extol the merits of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein when students would rather be watching dancing videos. But if adults cannot do a better job controlling their phone usage, I have a hard time blaming the children.

Ideas To Pull Ourselves Away From the Noise

One of my favorite websites, Tiny Buddha, has a wonderful article, “Why We Compare Ourselves To Others On Social Media and How To Stop.”

The article shares this quote from Steve Furtick: “The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.”

According to Emily Holland of Tiny Buddha, “We all know the gut-wrenching feeling that arises when we see or hear something that immediately has us second-guessing our appearance, personality, or skill set. Unfortunately, social media provides us with numerous platforms that help to quickly trigger that unpleasant self-disdain. I found myself comparing all aspects of my life, both internal and external, to a person I had never met. She was a stranger in every sense of the word, and yet somehow, her profile page caused me to question my accomplishments, appearance, and even personality traits.”

Holland goes on to make the same point I made earlier in this post, that people are “constantly showcasing the best aspects of their life onto social media.”

So, then, how can we help ourselves tune out from all the distractions?

1. Reduce your time on social media.

Emily Holland shares this as one of her tips, and I agree with her. For years, social media was considered the end-all-be-all of our lives. Everything we ate, did, and visited was posted on social media.

It was the same for creatives. Writers were told by agents and publishers that they had to be on social media. Agents and publishers wouldn’t even consider writers who didn’t have a large social media presence.

Finally, it dawned on someone that the person with the most followers didn’t win. It doesn’t matter if one million people follow you if only 500 of them actually pay attention to your posts. Plus, so many followers are fake bots that the number itself is irrelevant.  

Chuck Wendig, who is fabulous, has an even more fabulous website called terribleminds.com. Wendig has this to say about social media:

“Social media is more or less collapsing. The internet in general is getting less reliable overall, in part due to misinformation, disinformation, and the waves of garbage and glurge barfed forth by various bots and algorithms. Once upon a time, Googling something was a reliable way to learn about it, but now you’ll likely find yourself on a raft floating on a sea of bad information. Social media has become the staging ground for all this shit (and also how, in part, it leeches into the groundwater of the rest of the internet), and as such, social media has started to fall apart like everything else.”

Social media isn’t the holy ground it once was, if it ever truly was, which I doubt.

I’ve never had alerts on my phone for any reason. I’ve deleted my Instagram and Twitter accounts. I log into Facebook once a week. A couple of weeks ago, Meta (the owner of Facebook) spammed me with five messages in an hour saying that it was going to delete my account—for impersonating myself, apparently. I realized, who cares? I don’t even like Facebook. Hardly anyone sees my posts since I refuse to pay to have my posts promoted to people who have already chosen to follow me.

Who knows? Maybe the spam messages were from a bot trying to steal my information. I deleted the messages, so we’ll see if my account is still there.

I check my email once a day. Other than that, they can wait. If Steven Spielberg emails me wanting to make movies of my books, he’ll have to wait too.

If you’re more involved in social media than I am, give yourself a limited amount of time each day in which to scroll through your feeds and add content. If you’re mindlessly scrolling just to see if there’s something new that wasn’t there ten minutes ago, find something more constructive to do with your time.

You could be extreme and turn off your Wi-Fi connection on your device, which is what I do. Granted, it only takes five seconds to turn it back on, but at least I’m forced to think about whether or not I actually need the internet to complete my task.

Sometimes I do need the internet. When I’m researching historical fiction or scholarly writing, I need access to libraries, databases, and other research sites. But I discovered that I was mindlessly clicking on my Amazon KDP author page several times a day as if my book sales changed dramatically in 10 minutes. Keeping the Wi-Fi turned off stops that mindless scrolling.

2. Redirect your focus on the things that really matter. For writers, that is writing.

Redirecting your focus on the things that really matter is another one of Emily Holland’s tips, and again, I agree 100%.

Since I’m not worried about social media, I have time to art journal, bake, cook, color, do yoga, and create a little patio garden oasis for myself. It’s small, but it’s mine, and I have a nice place to sit and listen to the birds and admire the trees. I’ve also started a meditation practice, which is long overdue.

Decreasing the amount of time spent on social media means that you have more time to create. If you’re a writer, that means you have time to write.

As an editor, it amazes me how many people say they want to write but claim they don’t have time. When I ask them what they do with their free hours, they realize how much time they watch YouTube, play video games, and scroll through social media. Slowing down those activities could give them some time to write every day. A little bit every day adds up.

I Have Suffered From Comparisonitis Too

I feel so strongly about this topic because I have suffered from comparisonitis, like so many others.

Primarily, my comparisonitis grew out of my concerns for my writing career. I checked my book sales several times a day. When I was active on social media, I constantly checked my followers, likes, and shares.

I checked other authors’ book sales and fretted about why I didn’t sell as many books. I have sold more than my fair share of books. When the Loving Husband Trilogy was at the height of its popularity, I was doing well. Still, no matter how many copies I sold it was never enough. Instead of being proud of my accomplishments, I continued to compare myself to others and felt like a failure. I constantly searched for the magic formula that would allow me to sell even more books (let me save you time—there is no magic formula).

It’s precisely because I have suffered from this comparisonitis that I was determined to wean myself from it. I didn’t like the idea of my brain being rewired by phone designers. I was tired of constant scrolling that only wasted time. Once I became more mindful of how I was using social media, I stopped comparing myself to anyone else. Suddenly, overnight it seemed, my life became more peaceful. I’m more content with where I am, here and now.

Being Mindful Of Our Social Media Usage

We don’t need to stay away from the internet. However, we should be mindful of how we use it. Content that challenges us to consider the world differently, content that improves our lives (I’ve found many wonderful Buddhist teachers who share lessons in mindfulness that have helped me), and content that assists us with our hobbies (I love learning about art journaling, crocheting, cooking, and baking) can be wonderful.

But then, and here’s the important part, we have to take what we learn and put it into practice. As I learn about mindfulness, I set aside time every day to meditate. When I learn a new crochet stitch, I use it in my next project. When I see a cool art journal page, I create something similar in my own art journal. I’ve discovered a number of recipes that I’ve used many times.

Watching someone bake just for the sake of watching someone bake doesn’t improve my life. Okay, with the exception of The Great British Bake Off. I watch Bake Off just for the sake of watching Bake Off.

It’s important to remember that content creators tell beautiful stories, but that’s all they are—stories. We can admire the beautiful photography and videography, and we can admire the nature scenes and the perfect-looking scones. But we cannot forget to live our own lives, as imperfect and vulnerable as we are in our messy humanness.

Looking outside of ourselves for answers will never work. Besides, the answers are already inside us if we’re brave enough to look. We need to be the best we can be in this moment and ask no more of ourselves.

We need to be mindful of how we spend our time. And if we’re writers then we need to make time for writing.

Guest Post: How Lucretia Grindle Writes Historical Fiction

The Importance of Character, Setting, and Situation

A friend whose opinion I respect a great deal once told me that all a great historical novel is, is a great novel in a historical setting. I agree. Although that sounds deceptively simple and deserves a little unpacking.

Character, setting, and situation are the central components, the minimal “holy trinity” of all good novels. Of those three crucial ingredients, my personal feeling has always been that character is the most important, followed by the situation, the problem to be overcome, navigated, or sunk by, and the setting, where and when it all happens. So, when I find myself contemplating yet another historical novel, it is almost always the character who appears first.

Where they actually come from, which corner of my brain, I don’t quite know, and I tend to feel them more than see them. They may be angry, distressed, quiet, or shouting, but usually, they are in the middle of doing something when they first appear. Very occasionally, there will be two of them, but almost always it is only one.

Who Is the Character?

Usually, but not always, she is a woman. I don’t often have a lot of choice about her. She may be old, as in The Villa Triste, my novel about the Italian partisans in World War II, middle-aged, like Angela in The Lost Daughter which is about The Red Brigades, or, very rarely a child, like Isabelle in The Burning. Resolve in The Devil’s Glove is one of the very few teen-aged women who has wandered into my head, although like many others, she first appeared older, looking back on a younger self.

The situation and the setting are where it all becomes “historical.” I find that certain eras feel more accessible to my imagination than others. For instance, while I find the first quarter of the nineteenth century fascinating, and particularly admire and enjoy C.S. Harris’s St Cyr novels, I could no more write that era than fly. Any more than I could write the Victorian era. The roaring twenties and World War I aren’t me, either.

I found myself drawn to the complex situation Italians found themselves thrown into in 1942, and again in the 1970s, during the “years of lead.” I think what particularly interested me was the idea that perfectly ordinary people, people you pass any day on the street, might have been and done something extraordinary in a former life. Snared by circumstance, we might all become something we never, in our wildest dreams, imagine. And then, once it’s all over, if we survived, who are we?

Writing About the Salem Witch Trials

Historical novels, or at least novels that revolve around extraordinary historical events are particularly good frameworks for examining those questions. So, of course, Salem was a natural. Thinking about the witchcraft trials of 1692, I was particularly nagged by the question: who were all these people, especially these women?

Salem was largely a case of women pointing fingers at women. An awful lot of them. Over two hundred people, the vast majority of them female, from all walks of life ranging from the typically destitute to the very untypically wealthy, including shipbuilders’ and traders’ wives, and even the Governor’s sister, were accused.

True, twenty-five died as a result; nineteen hanged, one pressed to death, and five in jail. But what of the other approximately one hundred and seventy-five? And what of the accusers, most of whom were young, a few very young, women. What became of them, and who did they become? I was mulling all this when Resolve Hammond wandered into my head.

As tantalizing as Salem was, it also posed one of the unique problems with writing historical fiction: how to do it. I am not talking about finding out what people wore and ate and what they smelled like, important though that may be. I am talking about the bigger structural problem of telling a story set in and around major events in the past when we all already know the ending. Anne Boleyn never did have that son, Napoleon had a very bad day at Waterloo, Pompei was a lousy holiday home choice in August 79, and maybe Dallas wasn’t the best place for an open-topped motorcade.

So, where is the tension? What is fresh and new? Why should anyone turn the page?

Of course, part of the answer to those questions is character. A strong enough, compelling enough, likable enough central character, or characters – someone who reaches out and grabs us, connects with us on an elemental level, does an awful lot of work.

Writing a Compelling Character

Hilary Mantel pulled that trick off with Thomas Cromwell, and with Danton, and even the pretty unlovable Robespierre, and it’s not as if we don’t know the ending to Henry VIII’s marital saga or the French Revolution. But then again, she was a genius. Her novels truly are great. But they can still teach us mere mortals.

Mantel used another trick; not only did she take characters we thought we knew and show them to us in an entirely new way – strip them right down to their common human hearts – she used the power of knowing the ending. She could end Wolf Hall by merely saying we were going there precisely because everybody knows all about mousy little Jane Seymour. It’s similar to watching a TV horror movie and screaming ‘Don’t go down in the cellar!’

Deploying readers, using what they know without spelling it out to both suggest and build tension and empathy is part of the crucial bond of trust that is the other element of all great novels, and even good ones – authors and readers feeling that we’re all in this together. This is especially true, and useful, in writing historical fiction.

If the central characters are compelling and the events familiar, not only do we care, but we know – and that knowing only makes us care more. The couple at the end of the love story finally overcome all the odds, get married, and buy honeymoon tickets on the Titanic. The Jewish family decides, after all, that it’s probably safe to stay in Vienna in March 1938.

History On the Diagonal

One of our greatest historians, Mary Beth Norton, coined the phrase ‘history on the diagonal,’ which I find enormously helpful when thinking about the “hows” of historical fiction, particularly historical fiction set around momentous or notorious events – all those pasts we think we know all about.

She means that we should ask the questions that aren’t being asked. Look at what people are not talking about concerning any historical event or era. Where were all the women? All the people of color? What were they doing? What did they think? What happened to the children? The servants? The poor?  New perspectives and unexpected answers nest in those spaces.

The point of view of those who are not mentioned, or who appear only on the periphery, but were there nonetheless is a rich hunting ground for historical novelists. In Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell focused not on Shakespeare himself, but on his wife and dead son. Robert Harris used the point of view of the slave and scribe in his brilliant Cicero trilogy. Before she died, tragically taking all her unfinished and unwritten stories with her, Hilary Mantel was re-interpreting Pride and Prejudice from the point of view of the distinctly peripheral Mary Bennet.

I wouldn’t dare compare myself to any of them, but I did decide to focus on Abigail Hobbs and Mercy Lewis, both of whom appear, flickering in the Salem story, then vanish, and on Judah White, who is barely a name on a list.

Getting the Facts Right

But, as my friend said, historical fiction is great fiction in historical settings. It is not treatises, or textbooks, or manuals of everyday life in Ancient Rome. Of course, research is essential to the building of a convincing fictional world. Getting the facts right about people’s lives, as far as is humanly possible, is equally essential.

Apart from being the right thing to do, it’s the foundation of trust between authors and readers. Someone being dead a few hundred years does not mean I have the right to change facts about them that I know to be true. So I do the research. Not only on what happened, and how old everyone was and who was who, but on the sounds and the smells and the food and if the fork was widely used and anyone had china plates or if they were all wooden.

It takes everything to build a world, from the timeline to the weather. Then I forget it. All of it. I push that iceberg so far under the surface that even the tip isn’t showing, so I am standing on it but no one could tell while I go to work writing the best novel I possibly can.

Northern New England, Summer, 1688.
Salem started here.

A suspicious death. A rumor of war. Whispers of witchcraft.

Perched on the brink of disaster, Resolve Hammond and her mother, Deliverance, struggle to survive in their isolated coastal village. They’re known as healers taught by the local tribes – and suspected of witchcraft by the local villagers.

Their precarious existence becomes even more chaotic when summoned to tend to a poisoned woman. As they uncover a web of dark secrets, rumors of war engulf the village, forcing the Hammonds to choose between loyalty to their native friends or the increasingly terrified settler community.

As Resolve is plagued by strange dreams, she questions everything she thought she knew – about her family, her closest friend, and even herself. If the truth comes to light, the repercussions will be felt far beyond the confines of this small settlement.

Based on meticulous research and inspired by the true story of the fear and suspicion that led to the Salem Witchcraft Trials, THE DEVIL’S GLOVE is a tale of betrayal, loyalty, and the power of secrets. Will Resolve be able to uncover the truth before the town tears itself apart, or will she become the next victim of the village’s dark and mysterious past?

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