Dear Readers,
You’re all such wonderful sports, coming back with me after I’ve not written here in a little while. I promise, I had good reasons. But now I’m back, and eager to once more delve into my blogs and discuss many things with all of you. Please feel free to comment on any posts! I will reply, so long as your comment isn’t spam (I’m not even sure why spammers bother anymore on WP because I just don’t approve their comments, but oh well).
So, what have I been up to, writing wise, since my blog went on summer vacation? I worked some more on the book my friend and I are co-authoring. All I will tell you here is that it’s historical fiction, and takes place about 200 years ago, across the pond. That’s all I’ll say though! You’ll have to wait until we’ve finished writing it, and have edited it, in order to read.
I’d put my Long Ridge Writers Group assignment on hold for a few months while life got hectic, but have my next assignment nearly completed. The fiction is written; I need only compose a letter to my instructor before I can send it on its way. I’m working on Out of the Sea for this course, and am in the stage of rewriting what I put together during NaNoWriMo 2011 (a detailed outline of 54,000 words at best).
That brings me to my next project: NaNoWriMo 2012. I’ll be ML-ing for the 3rd year running, and hoping to have my friend JD McKeown Co-ML with me for the CT Shoreline Region. In the past couple of years, the region has doubled in size; I’m looking forward to meeting even more wrimos this year. I’ve been starting to put together three workshops to run during the month of October. I’ve also started thinking about what I’ll write.
Originally, I was going to use NaNo 2012 as an opportunity to draft out the story I wish to write which takes place during the Crusades. However, this will require a lot of research on my part (I’m looking forward to it). I’m not sure though if I’ll have time with all that’s going on and coming up. I was talking to my friend today, R.A. Cubells, and she was telling me how she had a random phrase pop into her head and, even though it didn’t spark a story right away she wrote it down. When she told me the phrase, it reminded me of a story I’ve wanted to write since learning about my own ancestry.
I will share with you, briefly, the premise of my NaNo 2012 book:
James Babcock, brother to a British knight and a minister, is forced to leave England during the early-mid 17th century due to religious prosecution. Originally, he would have been executed as a heretic, but his brother banished him under a pseudonym to protect James’ children. The Babcocks sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and arrived safely in Westerly, RI. However, a member of the ship’s crew recognizes Babcock and so James’ past follows him to the New World.
There will, of course, be trials and tribulations galore as the Babcock family tries to build a life for themselves. About a year and a half ago, I learned I am descendant from James Babcock, who really lived, and who originated in England. There are records of the same man, with the same wife, in Rhode Island in the 1640′s but I have, thus far, been unable to find a record of him on any ship manifest. Unless he swam across the Ocean, he did arrive on some ship but the idea for this story sparked in my head then, and I was reminded of it by my friend. Of course, the story is complete fiction.
I’m making it up of course–but I think, with historical fiction, it’s fun to have the story sparked by some real person or place, just how my story Out of the Sea was sparked by Fishtown, CT, a place that really existed (even though my writer-friends tell me it sounds fake and made up).
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