Passing: A Third Excerpt Cut From My Rough Draft, on Day 23 of The Omer

    This paragraph is  one that I cut from my former and maybe still current WiP, working title Passing:

Those saddlebags I had packed, which she was carrying along with me when shot, contained my still bloody sewing scissors, as no one had had the time to think of cleaning them. Smith had been overheard boasting that he could now use them to give his wretched hunting dogs a fresher sample of my scent, the better to hunt me and my friends down with as soon as he was authorized to do so, and this by his master, the Senator, not by the laws of any northern state. Had I thought to get rid of them, or at least to clean them, this, at least, would not be one more weapon that I had given to our enemies. What made it even worse was the fact that it might have been true even earlier. I wondered if it were possible for Smith to have hidden one of his special bloodhounds that the Senator had told me about, after that first time. He’d boasted of having paid for some special kind of surgery on the poor animal that rendered it incapable of barking, so that it could be used to search in utter silence, tracing its prey without giving away its presence, as dogs normally did. If that were so, then I realized with growing horror that Smith could be using that animal even now, to track us, or me, and with me, Anna, for the reward that Charles Price must have on her, far more effectively if it had smelled my blood on those scissors.

Now, at least, I knew of one thing that I could do. I could dispose of those bloody scissors. I would have to consult with others who knew more than I as to whether the blood could effectively be cleaned off of them, or in what place and manner they could best be disposed of so as not to lead a trail directly back to myself, and with me, everyone else.

     This paragraph was from page 234 to 235, out of a total of 311.  There will more dead darlings assuredly.

    It is based, obviously to those who were following my writing last year or so, on my earlier popular series here that was called Ann & Anna, which I used as the Act I for the rough draft and quick pass of a horrible First Draft of my new novel Passing, with some modification, of course.  You can find out what the Rough First Draft looks like, if you wish, be requesting it in the comments.  I still hope to finish shaping it into a proper novel, one day, but today is not that day, and it looks like this year is also not that year.  As for the Omer, this year, today, Thursday May 16th, is Day 23rd Day of the Omer, and my non-traditional counting grid emphasizes public transportation, which Willow could not use in her escape, at least not up from the Federal City and through Maryland, but we shall see if that changes later, up North, and housing of course is crucial for everyone at all times, back in 1855, and in our time, today.

Shira

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Click on the ShiraDest website main menu to find other pages, including:

Learning via Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or

 Learning from Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing (including explanation of Who By Fire…)

     Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

This project of ShiraDest Publishing, and Shira Destinie Jones’ reviewing of Turkish shows and films, is non-commercial share-alike, but otherwise All Rights Reserved to the author, (Copyright 2023). 

Writing Process Wednesdays: Reviewing My Novel Journal A Year Later For WordCounts

        I also see that I tried to use too many different backup methods, and too much detail in word count planning for scenes.

     Starting off by setting a book level word count goal of about 90k words for a historical fiction novel, which this clearly was, at least as the main sub-genre, makes sense, still.  And breaking that up into 60k words for the main plot and about 30k words to divide among the subplots also makes sense, just to ensure that they stay balanced.  From there, planning out the number of scenes, with rough numbers of words for each of the main Acts, keeps things balanced in terms of what readers, agents, editors, and publishers would expect.  But getting down to the scene level, now, I understand that setting scene level word count goals was a bit of a bridge too far.   And using four different planning methods was way too far.

    Ugh.

    This planning chart helped tremendously, even though it is in fact the same as what is in my spreadsheet:

   It gave me a graphical way to see what my Acts I-III spreadsheet showed in detail, all at one glance.  I still had to refer once in a while to the original set of ideas I jotted down far too quickly and chaotically, as I used each scene card index card to coordinate my scene outlines with my overall Act outlines, as I figured out where to place all of the various notes I’d scribbled initially, into the story sections. 

      Too bad I don’t have access to those wonderful holographic displays we see in films where you simply glide your fingers in the air, as if it were a giant touch screen, and your documents all appear in front of you as large or small as you need them to be, panoramically.  How much paper could we save, then!!

     So, this novel in progress, Who By Fire, has certainly continued to be a learning experience: 

Still working on my craft…

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click on the ShiraDest menu to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews,

or,

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing (including Ann & Anna…).

and

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This novel is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Writing Process Wednesdays: Journal thinking vs craft learning

        I also see that I tried to pay too much information to writing advice rather than relying on or trusting my own writing resources.

      Like this idea of HIP:  Hook, Intensity building, and Prompt or payoff leading into the next scene.  Yes, it is true that this is what every scene needs to do, but for me, trying to plan out my scenes with all of this in mind before I knew my characters turned out to be a waste of time.

     I also see that writing experience tells you how to judge both the pacing and the intensity of each individual scene.  That can only happen by writing scenes and stories that continue to connect to each other, like chapters in a book.  This is what happened to me with my accidental easy serial,  Ann & Anna (linked below…),  when I started writing just off the cuff, with no intention to build a longer story.  The problem with that is that that serial novella, based on the roughly 25k words it turned into, is a one plot work.  A novel, on the other hand, must be around 70k words, and have at least two or three subplots, in addition to the main plot.  That makes planning a full novel, especially when I want it to be a portal fantasy, much more complex, before writing is thus necessary.  At least, for me it is.  My previous attempt to write novels, even with one that was enjoyed by some (Hubris and Hemlock),  was still only 55k words, with basically one plot, maybe a single extra subplot if you count Marie Blazer’s friendship with N.as a separate subplot.  (anyone interested in reading H & H, pls let me know, and I will link to it here…)

     So, this novel in progress, Who By Fire, has certainly continued to be a learning experience: 

Still working on my craft…

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing (including Ann & Anna…)

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This novel is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Writing Process Wednesdays, Novel Journals, and Project Do Better

  So my novel journaling has been very topsy turvy.  That turned out to become a serious problem for me, once I began writing the scenes for the rough draft, and  remembered that I had left notes in a spreadsheet, and on paper, in different locations at random.  All of the writing advice insists on keeping a novel journal as you go through the writing process, but personally, at this point (and it has now been 2019-2022, three years, since I began jotting down ideas, excerpts, timelines, and research notes), for me, the novel journal is getting to be more of a hassle than a help, it seems.

Maybe I will find out, later on in the process of writing this novel, that it is helpful.  I hope, at any rate.       

Also, having already tried to put too many subplot and scene notes in too many spreadsheets and online reminders, as well as on paper, I am drowning in paper and in online notes, and even in bookmarks stuck in my research books for this novel project that I paused to write a nonfiction book, and restarted!  I found that a short series that I wrote completely off-the-cuff actually helped me thinking about this novel, more so but perhaps also with the help of the novel journaling process, in a different way than I had expected.  The series: (Ann and Anna, linked below…) was so easy to write that I found myself wondering what was so difficult about this project, and then I realized that I already knew everything about the series, because I was using a historical personage with a known itinerary, and adding a second protagonist with a history that I already knew intimately, since she was drawn from my own family history.  Not as a person that I found, but a person that I have been trying to find for many years.  But looking at the known history and tracking backward, it is clear that such a person, or persons, certainly existed in my family, sadly.

     Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This novel is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools, through story, which is one of humanity’s most powerful tools,  that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing (including Ann and Anna)

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Review: The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, by Annette Gordon-Reed

     I was certain that I had reviewed this book around 2010, but that may have been on some other platform from before I was on Goodreads. I remember losing quite a few book reviews on some reading platform that predated it,  almost 20 years ago I think back around then. In any case this is an excellent book. Worth buying if you have any interest in the families of Virginia even free families of color from Virginia because so many of Sally’s children apparently passed into the white community and disappeared, like some of my own family members. The abuse from the press that poor Sally was subjected to at the time by Jefferson’s enemies is terrible to read about, but the empathy and the sympathy the author uses in reconstructing Thomas Jefferson’s life, and his inevitable dilemma around this relationship, really moved me. Coming from a family that revered the possible connection with Sally Hemings, I’ve always been skeptical about the relationship between Sally and Jefferson, because she was a slave and I would always have to tell my mother that ‘Mom this was no romance: Sally was a slave, remember?’  But after reading  Gordon Reed’s book, I have to wonder whether Sally indeed felt more than an obligation in this relationship. Because she had a choice, as the author shows, while she lived in France, even if it did mean leaving her family at the mercy of people across the ocean, she still had an impossible, gut-wrenching choice.  The Hemings family was treated very well at Monticello, but that could have changed, had Sally decided to stay in France, no?

     This image from 1804, apparently the only surviving image from her lifetime, does not show her remarkable beauty.  It also seems not to reflect her son’s description of her as an “Octoroon,” nearly able to pass for white.   My mother has always insisted that we are descended from  Sally Hemings, although with no actual proof, that I have been able to find.  She has also always found the old story of Sally to be a romantic one, while I have always contested her point of view, reminding her that Sally was a slave, and therefore had no choice in the matter of whether to submit to such a relationship.  What I did not realize was that Sally was also both a young and impressionable girl who may indeed have fallen in love with the sensitive and kindly Jefferson, and also a vulnerable girl whose family was at the mercy not only of the master, her master, but also of every overseer and White person, man or woman, at Monticello.  So, yes, it could have been a romance, as mom insisted, but also, still, it would have been one that was born of coercion and backed by the threat of violence to her loved ones, as I reminded her (in not so many words).  This is the tragedy of The Old Dominion’s ‘Peculiar Institution’ which led, in no small part, to my writing both Ann & Anna, and my ongoing historical fantasy WiP Who By Fire, as well as my nonfiction works.

    The story demands to be told not only of the families who were forced to make choices, but also of the Fancies who had no choice.  And of the fathers who lived in anguish because of it, not to mention the mothers, sisters, aunts and grandmothers, both of blood and of adoption, who tried to care for children wounded by an inhuman system.

Shira

Action Items:

1.) Share your thoughts, please.

2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem,  Lupin, or La Casa de Papel/Money Heist Reviews

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This work is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world.  Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world.  And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Some Dreams are Crucial to Remember, for Black History… Ann & Anna: Part 1

I may hate being a canary, whose lungs fail from smoke before others even smell it, but being a free canary is better than being an enslaved canary, no matter how gilded the cage, as Willow shows the Senator…

Context, Thought, and Learning: ShiraDest Offers Project Do Better

This morning’s dream did not turn out well, but at least in story, we can give a different, more hopeful ending, right?

—

“There’s that fancy!  We got all three!”

           I froze.  Not again.

           Tremors and nausea struggled for dominance, as I wrapped my arms around my belly.  The stench from the canal didn’t help.  The familiar pain again, as I clamped all of my muscles tight.  I could hear feet running toward me in the gathering darkness, even as I stood stock still, knowing all was lost.

           My friends had already fled.   Dropped their baskets and foolishly run along the canal, passing right in front of the President’s House.  I could hear their short strides crossing the road, heavy booted feet pounding after them.  That’d be Mary screaming.  They told us to wait here, to stay together, just present our papers if we were stopped.  But…

View original post 762 more words

Do Better Wednesdays, Writing Process, & How looking at My Nonfiction Through Fiction Writing Eyes Improved Draft #Six

    The later drafts, 4th, 5th, and later, of a book can be exhausting (and now I’ve done Draft 7...), and it is tempting to want to just publish and be done.  I found, personally, that looking at my book, at that point, as if if were one of my fictional works, even a short serial story/novella, like Ann & Anna, helped:  I suddenly saw just how much could be cut away to make even the Table of Contents more interesting, and the entire book more readable, despite being in an entirely different category of writing.

I hope that this helps in your writing process, Thoughtful Readers.

Shira

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Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, or Casa de Papel/Money Heist  Lupin Reviews

Holistic High School Lessons,

           or Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction

Thoughtful Readers, if you remain on Twitter, please consider following   #Project Do Better  on Twitter.

Shira

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Ann and Anna, (serial short story): Prequel Concluded

        Ann & Anna, Part  21 (River), the last short part in this women’s escape series, posted last Sunday.   I have reluctantly decided that this will be the last part of our publicly published story.  I’ve been urged to finish this story as a novel, which cannot be queried if it has been published on a blog, so I must apologize, dear Readers.  I never imagined that the dream (nightmare) that started this story would lead to all of this, but now I would like to take it and develop it into a book.  I hope, once completed and published, that you will all read the remainder of this story.  While these past twenty one parts will make up the prequel to the story, I doubt that a publisher will allow them to be part of a novel, so I am closing this now, upon strong advice from several friends, to start working on the novel.  I plan to post an excerpt, each Sunday, to keep in touch with our dear Willow and Anna.

  And then…

Then, finally, I will get back to Who By Fire!

—

       This is the continuation scene in my historical fiction series  Ann&Anna.  I  hope that this series will move you to learn more ways to help use our history to build new tools.

  Parts 1 through to the end, Part 21, can all be found  listed  on my Historical Fiction Writing page.

I look forward to your thoughts.

Shira

Action Prompts:

1.) Share your thoughts on how this series, and all historical fiction, may encourage empathy-building cooperation, and might help, or hinder, inclusive thinking.  It is my personal contribution to Project Do Better.

2.) Write a story, post or comment here, that uses those thoughts.

***************** 

Shira

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Ann and Anna, (serial short story, Part 21): River

        Part  20 (Into The Night), was last Sunday…

—

       Our ride in the carriage, that night, seated back to back as Anna and I were, was at least sure against the winter chill.  I’d laid an extra blanket over little Tilly, then snuggled back up against Anna.  At some point during our ride, she had turned to cradle me in her arms as we slept.  I awoke nuzzling the inside of her neck, and rose with a start, as I saw our Tilly observing me.  My cheeks began to burn as I wondered how long she might have been awake.

“It’s ok, Miss Willow.  Your servant Joe Wright is here to keep us safe, Missus.”

I was so relieved, I hardly knew what to say.  “Oh, Tilly, you don’t need to play our game here.  We are alone.”

She shook her head most insistently:  “Joe told me that we are never to end this game, Miss Willow, until we are free up North.  All the way north.”  She looked at the window, covered against the cold, and against prying eyes, and inched closer, whispering, “we never know what ears may be up against this door.”

“That is right.”  How long had Anna been awake?  I’d not felt her move a muscle, but she was surely listening.  How did she do that?  Just then, I recalled the question which had been burning within me as we went to sleep.

“Miss, sorry, Joe, you said something last night about seeing Old Mary soon.  What on this Good Lord’s earth were you talking about, pray tell?”

Anna flashed her most devilish grin.  It was the one that promised shocking things to come.

“What say both of you,” she had managed to lower her voice another octave, to sound like a young boy, if not a man, “to a spot of breakfast, before I answer that question?”

“I am starving!”

I was amazed at how quietly this child could shout.

“Tilly,” I teased in my finest soprano whisper, which is not an easy thing to do, “you are always starving, HoneyChild!”

We all fell to giggling as quietly as we had whispered, as we shared out the cornbread Mrs. H. had given us to breakfast upon.  Even cold, that aroma was enticing.  It had been all she’d had to hand, so we knew we must make do on that one meal for most of this day.

When we had each had three chews and a swallow of our meal, I looked up again at Anna, my head tilted insistently at her, as I waited for my reply.

She finally rewarded me:  “Do you remember the white men who met us where we stopped with the wagon?”

I nodded.

“They were expecting to see four of us, of course.”

Of course.  I still recalled the despair of that parting.

“Old Mary was meant to carry you and Little Sally, while Captain here,” she lifted her head up toward the front of the carriage, “is sturdy enough for both Miss Mary and myself.  Since it was just you, they almost took Old Mary back with them, but I told them that two horses were better than one.  That is why she is here again, tied up back as the spare.“

Old Mary was here!  It was a pity that I had no apples or carrots for her.  That thought brought to mind the memory of my Miss Mary, for some odd reason, singing one of our favorite songs.  I wished I could go now, down to some peaceful river, thinking about a good way, a better way than this world’s way, to pray.

There came a knock at the carriage door, and I realized that we had not been moving for some moments.  I wondered how I had managed not to notice.  All was silent.  Another knock came, this time in three sharp raps, followed by two light knocks.  Anna nodded, and Little Tilly cracked the door open just enough to see the pair of blue eyes looking back at us, and opened it wide enough for the doctor see in.

“Joe, it is here that I must leave you all.  I bid you god speed.”

I saw the barest lift of his hat just as the doctor stepped back out of view, allowing our Joe to exit the carriage.  The door had clicked shut, and we’d started up again with nary a sound.  Now, we were on our own, and our safety depended upon me.

I decided that this was a good time to pray.

—

       This is the continuation scene in my historical fiction series  Ann&Anna.  I  hope that this series will move you to learn more ways to help use our history to build new tools.

  Part 22 Concludes this series.

I look forward to your thoughts.

Shira

Action Prompts:

1.) Share your thoughts on how this story may encourage empathy-building cooperation, and might help, or hinder, inclusive thinking.  It is my personal contribution to Project Do Better.

2.) Write a story, post or tweet that uses those thoughts.

***************** 

Shira

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

   Comment: You can see how her C-PTSD is healing, in the love of this chosen/found family…

Ann and Anna, (serial short story, Part 20): Into The Night

        Part  19 (Peculiar Gifts), was last Sunday…

—

     We had tiptoed down the back stairs as quickly as we dared.  While Mrs. H. was pinning me inside of her best dress, still smelling of lavender, Anna and Tilly had packed our precious documents.  That I had passed Anna’s test seemed nothing short of a miracle, now that we must speed away so suddenly.  I cursed my capricious memory, as capable of holding me in an iron grip while the smell of blood washed over me as it was of delivering those words which would safeguard our freedom.

The carriage stood waiting in the courtyard, the door open and barely visible in the darkness.  The doctor himself held the reins of the two horses while little Tilly hid nearly under my skirts as our Joe ushered us in and closed the door behind us.  She handed me the sheaf of documents, neatly bound in a leather pouch.  My heart raced as I began to taste bile.  Now I became grateful for that lavender, perfuming our cramped space.  All had passed so quickly and in such silence that I’d not had time to consider the consequences, should I fail.  I felt my gloved fingers begin to sweat where they made contact with the leather.  Wonderful little Tilly came to my rescue yet again, holding up my satchel to store away our papers.

Still lost in my thoughts, Anna leaned into my shoulder, whispering in my ear.

“We have saddle bags, if you wish to keep your old sewing basket.”

I nearly dropped the satchel.  I clutched it to my bosom after catching it just as my hands let it slip.

“I thought that might bring you back to us.  I saved it, after you left it in the wagon, in case you should need anything, except those scissors, of course.”

Her smile, even in the darkness of that carriage, carried to me.  I could barely see her, but I could hear that devilish grin in her voice, and the lifted brow.  I began to relax, breathing as deeply as my bodice would allow while the lavender worked its soothing balm upon me.  I was glad that Mrs. H.’s dress was too large for me, as it gave me more room to breathe.  How fortunate we were to have sheltered in the home of gentry, accustomed to changing various times even on a normal day.  No working family, colored or white, would have had the means to accomplish this ruse.  Then a problem occurred to me.  I turned to whisper:

“But Anna, I’m sorry, Joe.  How is it that you found my basket?  I thought I had dropped it along the way when I fell from Old Mary.”

“Oh, no.  I put it in my saddle bag when you first mounted her.”

“But then…”

“The bulge in your saddle bag?  Only an extra blanket.”

Her voice had risen an octave at those last words.  What a marvelous singing voice she must have, if I ever got a chance to hear it.  We were not allowed to sing whilst in the doctor’s home, lest the neighbors hear.  Thinking of Doctor H., I wondered how he would explain this outing.  He must have invented a patient to see as a pretext.  I could only suppose, as we were not to know any more than strictly essential for our flight.  Which reminded me:

“I hope Old Mary is happy, where ever she is.  I was truly sorry to have put her, and all of you, in danger.”

“Hush, now.  We have spoken about this.  Besides, you’ll see her again, soon.”

I turned to look at her, but she had turned her back to mine, as if to go to sleep.  Little Tilly took that moment to stretch out on the opposite seat, and all was silence.  The rest of my questions would just have to wait.

—

       This is the continuation scene in my historical fiction series  Ann&Anna.  I  hope that this series will move you to learn more ways to help use our history to build new tools.

  Parts  19 (Peculiar Gifts), linked above, and earlier parts of this series have posted on previous Sundays, 

and Part 21 will post next Sunday.

I look forward to your thoughts.

Shira

Action Prompts:

1.) Share your thoughts on how this story may encourage empathy-building cooperation, and might help, or hinder, inclusive thinking.  It is my personal contribution to Project Do Better.

2.) Write a story, post or tweet that uses those thoughts.

Shira

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.