In Which There Is An Explosion…

…of ideas. I blame a conversation with Kellyn Roth (IN A GOOD WAY KEL) and the windstorm that knocked the Internet out on Monday night. But first, the reading update, or more accurately, the research update for A Time For Everything.

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READING

I finished Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln (that is, the only volume I have since it’s a set) on his birthday and then started re-reading it. And, because they too were born in February, I also started reading The Portable Frederick Douglass (which is comprised of Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass, parts of My Bondage and My Freedom and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, The Heroic Slave, and his speeches) along with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Longfellow’s Complete Poetical Works.

One thing that particularly struck me in reading The Portable Frederick Douglass was this:

I have been utterly astonished, since I came to the North, to find persons wbho could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to concieve of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears, At least, such is my experience. I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness. Crying for joy, and singing for joy, were alike uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery. The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropraitely considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion.

Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

I’m also still reading The Civil War As A Theological Crisis by Mark A. Noll, Forged In Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers & White Officers by Joseph T. Glatthaar, and The Sections and The Civil War by Clarence B. Carson, and…people, there is so much research. so. much. research.

ANYWAY. Moving on to the writing update.

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WRITING

I got Harvest Moon to move a little bit! Just need to keep going and maybe, just maybe, I can have it done by May! Preferably before my birthday…

Dunno about The Woodsman; I think I’ll hold off on this one until Harvest Moon has a roughly completed draft.

As for A Time For Everything, it…uh…it kind of…exploded. As in, it’s now part of a massive saga…with standalone prequels about each family and it goes through the 40 year prior to the Civil War. The rough plan right now is:

• Matthews – 1820s, with an epilogue in 1847
• Lanes – 1830s, with an epilogue in 1846
• Rosses – 1847 and 1849, with an epilogue in 1852
• Heckes – 1848-9 with an epilogue in 1853
• Adams – 1853
• Taylors – 1855
• Lafayettes – 1857

There’s a reason for the epilogues. Also, I might group the last three families and the Rosses together because of how intertwined they become; in that case, they would get an epilogue in 1860. In that case, the Matthews and Lanes would probably get grouped together too (again, because of how intertwined they become) and then the Heckes would get their book all to themselves, ha. Or maybe I’ll just group them all together in one big book?? Idk. That’d be a big book but I don’t think these prequels need to be that long anyway; some might turn out shorter than others…

Also…it might’ve also gotten a sequel series taking place during Reconstruction and would take place from 1870-1881. Or maybe I’ll just pick up where ATFE leaves off in the last book.

It’s still in the outlining stage, and I might’ve gone crazy with outlining the Ross storyline in the Reconstruction series…lots of emotion is all I’m gonna say.

(IMSOSORRYCHARLIE)

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ALSO. This was supposed to be the last writing update here because I created an author site BUT NOW I’m thinking I won’t have two different sites…I’m thinking I’ll just get a new domain name and redo this blog to have a static home page and a separate area for the blog posts. But The Writerly Worm part would still remain as the name for the blog post area, if that makes any sense…

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Anyway, that’s all for today. What’re you currently reading/writing?