Monthly Archives: May 2011

05/31/11

Blue Valley–Paranormal Historical Fiction

Welcome to Christine Rice, this week’s inspiration award winner.  She’s writing about her paranormal, historical fiction book, Blue Valley.  Welcome Christine!

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Everyone has a story they have to get off their chest, and for me, Blue Valley was that story.

It began in (gack) 1988, when I was a directionless artist, and decided to apply for an Archaeology fellowship with a distant university. I didn’t care where it was, I was just yearning for an adventure, some productive reason to leave my house and my city and do something no one else was doing.  I hoped to get sent to the Middle East, but I got sent to California to dig up the least known, least visited, California mission. Soledad.
 
I was an emotionally immature, culturally sophisticated girl from Brooklyn, plopped in the middle of America’s salad bowl for six weeks of historical investigation.
Well, I can’t tell you much about the California missions, even though I live in Los Angeles now, but I can tell you about farming. I was enchanted by the place. The weather, the water, the earth, the people. Nothing had prepared me for the way farm country looked, felt or smelled, and I learned not just the practicalities of the business from the people that lived there, but who they were and what was important to them. I saw a place that looked desolate to my over-stimulated mind, but was actually rich in history and culture.
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Then I went home and forgot everything for, I don’t know, five or six years. 
When I decided to start writing, one of the first things I wanted to write about was Soledad, but I didn’t know how. I tried drama, I tried a thriller. I tried horror. I tried to let the place tell me the story it wanted me to tell. But there was nothing, and I went on to write other things. 
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On a visit to Northern California, I was describing to my soon-to-be husband my trouble in writing about such a rich, storied place, and it came to me. My trouble was that I was treating Soledad like a location. 
It’s not a location. It’s a character.   And it’s been that way ever since.
 
 
 
 
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Blue Valley:  The Elementals
At the outset of World War 2, with the government terrified of Japanese sabotage, Will Leary is sent to California to investigate a spreading, deadly blue soil. When he falls in love with the magical woman who is unwittingly causing the destruction, he must decide between science and his soul.
05/29/11

King Offa of Mercia

Offa of Mercia ruled much of England from 757 AD to 29 July 796.  http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11215c.htm 

This date is very exact for that time period and was buried in Bedford.  ”He was succeeded by his son, Ecgfrith, but according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Ecgfrith died after a reign of only 141 days. A letter written by Alcuin in 797 to a Mercian ealdorman named Osbert makes it apparent that Offa had gone to great lengths to ensure that his son Ecgfrith would succeed him. Alcuin’s opinion is that Ecgfrith “has not died for his own sins; but the vengeance for the blood his father shed to secure the kingdom has reached the son. For you know very well how much blood his father shed to secure the kingdom on his son.”

It is apparent that in addition to Ecgfrith’s consecration in 787, Offa had eliminated dynastic rivals. This seems to have backfired, from the dynastic point of view, as no close male relatives of Offa or Ecgfrith are recorded, and Coenwulf, Ecgfrith’s successor, was only distantly related to Offa’s line.”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offa_of_Mercia

Offa’s rule began as a result of violence:  “Æthelbald, who had ruled Mercia since 716, was assassinated in 757. According to a later continuation of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica (written anonymously after Bede’s death) the king was “treacherously murdered at night by his own bodyguards”, though the reason why is unrecorded. Æthelbald was initially succeeded by Beornred, about whom little is known. The continuation of Bede comments that Beornred “ruled for a little while, and unhappily”, and adds that “the same year, Offa, having put Beornred to flight, sought to gain the kingdom of the Mercians by bloodshed.” It is possible that Offa did not gain the throne until 758, however, since a charter of 789 describes Offa as being in the thirty-first year of his reign.”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offa_of_Mercia

“After he gained power, he consolidated bordering the kingdoms Hwicce and Magonsæte into Mercia. Offa was opportunistic, as when the neighboring kingdom of Kent began to experience some political instability, he enforced himself as overlord of Kent and soon ruled the kingdom of Sussex as well. Offa’s kingdom began to threaten the Welsh kingdoms nearby and Offa soon went to war.

Offa built a series of earthen barriers, or dykes, as fortifications for his units in their war against Wales. It was built in such a way that the Welsh kingdoms would have to charge through a ditch, and then up a hill to gain access to the Mercian soldiers. This put the Welsh soldiers at a severe disadvantage and the Mercians at a tactical advantage. Today, Offa’s Wall makes up some of the border between Wales and England.”  http://yourdailyhistorylesson.tumblr.com/post/685845808/offa-of-mercia

We have no contemporary Mercian source that chronicles his reign.  The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has been accused of being biased towards the West Saxons, who wrote it, and in light of the future reign of Alfred the Great.   Nennius, although he died during the reign of Offa’s son, only mentions him in the geneologies.  This could be because of Offa’s conflicts with the Church, either over the split in Archbishoprics between Canterbury and Lichfield (at Offa’s request) or the new date of Easter.  http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Nennius_(DNB00)

05/24/11

The Goblin Market–Jennifer Hudock guest post

Today’s Inspirational Award goes to Jennifer Hudock!  Welcome to her and her story of memory, magic, and mystery . . .

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I grew up reading and living faerie tales. When I wasn’t firmly planted in the pages of a book, I was out rolling down the mountain behind the house or ducking in and out of tree forts and tunnels playing tag with pixies and the Green Man.

In college, I study Christina Rossetti’s poem, “The Goblin Market” in depth and fell in love with the idea. Two young women alone in the world with nothing but each other… When the course I was taking finished, I couldn’t stop thinking about the “Goblin Market.” Where did it come from? Why was it there? Did it have a purpose? Who created it?

I wanted to explore the market itself more deeply, as well as the relationship between the two sisters the market affected in the original poem. The more I brainstormed, the more excited I became, creating an entire world riddled with a darkness no twisted it haunted my own dreams.

The result in the end was The Goblin Market…

Beyond the Goblin Market lies the remains of a lost and broken kingdom divided by war. The war has been over for centuries, but the kingdoms still stand apart, overrun by a creeping goblin darkness known as the Darknjan Wald. It has been written that only one holds the power to destroy that darkness and reunite the kingdoms, but she has no memory of her former life.

Meredith Drexler must save her sister, Christina, from the wicked goblin king, Kothar, who has kidnapped the girl in order to convince Meredith to uphold an ancient commitment Meredith doesn’t remember making. Sent Upland disguised as a human child, she has no recollection of her former faerie life, or her uncle’s promised marriage betrothal to Kothar.

When she ventures back Underground in search of Christina, every step Meredith takes brings memories of her forgotten past back to the surface. As the pressures of her former life entangle with her quest to save her kidnapped sister, Meredith’s predetermined fate is revealed. Will she embrace it, or walk away forever from a life she barely remembers as her own?

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Goblin-Market-ebook/dp/B004L2LL1A

Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Goblin-Market/dp/B004L2LL1A/

Nook: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Goblin-Market/Jennifer-Hudock/e/2940012674029/

Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/39402

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And thanks to Suzanne Tyrpak for my own Inspiration Award.  You can find her at:  http://ghostplanestory.blogspot.com/2011/04/big-thank-to-my-fellow-author-and.html

05/22/11

Ewloe Castle

Very little is known about Ewloe Castle, other than it appears to have been built by Llywelyn ap Gruffydd to counter the English fortresses in eastern Gwynedd of Hawarden and Flint.  It was built in a hollow beneath a field, that actually set on a small hill overlooking two creeks:  the Wepre and the New Inn Brook. 

“Ewloe castle rises at northwest of the town of Hawarden and is one of the symbols of the brief triumph of the Welsh prince Llywelyn the Last that began its construction in 1257 after the reconquest of this part of Wales. Of all the native castles in North Wales Ewloe is the only with a non spectacular setting. It stands on a promontory overlooking the junction of two streams but is overwhelmed by higher ground at south. Its position, near the English border, was very strategic at control of the road to Chester. It stood within the forest of Ewloe, surrounded by woods and in a great position for hunting.” 
http://www.greatcastlesofwales.co.uk/ewloe.htm

“Essentially, the plan of Ewloe Castle is semi-circular, formed with two separate sections, the Upper Ward with the great Welsh Tower and the Lower Ward where the daily activity was centered. Around the perimeter are two critical defensive features: the lengthy rock-cut ditch and steeply sloping embankments, and the extensive curtain wall which encompasses both wards.

From above, the most noticeable structure is the great Welsh Tower. For several years controversy has cloaked this tower. Citing its similarities to other Welsh towers, such as at Castell- y-Bere where there is concrete evidence that Llywelyn the Great built the stronghold, many scholars have theorized that the Welsh Tower was also built in the early 1200′s by the great Llywelyn ab Iorwerth. However, CADW: Welsh Historic Monuments now supports the theory that the latter Llywelyn ap Gruffydd was the founder of the great tower. They base their decision on evidence from documents dating to 1311 which state that Llywelyn ap Gruffydd erected a “castle in the corner of the wood” in 1257 (Renn and Avent, 1995).”  http://www.castlewales.com/ewloe2.html

Also on the Castles of Wales site is a ‘reflection’ of visiting Ewloe Castle in the 1800s:  http://www.castlewales.com/ewloe1.html

There is no mention of Ewloe playing a role in either the war of 1277, which Llywelyn ap Gruffydd lost, or in 1282.

05/19/11

The Weather in Wales

When my son took his American History class, he read to me from the diaries of Lewis and Clark when they wintered on the Oregon coast after coming all the way across the country.  Mostly what they did was complain about the rain:
“Rained again today.”

“Rained all night long and into the morning.”

“Rained all day for the third day in a row.”

Having grown up in western Washington State, I know all about this problem.  Having lived through the last two years in Eastern Oregon, I am intimately familiar with this problem.  We had frozen rain and hail on May 17th.  Wales, climate-wise, is nearly identical to the Pacific Northwest coast. 

This is the forecast for Bangor, Wales for the rest of the week: 

Five-day forecast (Details)  
Tomorrow
19 MayFairFair
Friday
20 MayShowersShowers
Saturday
21 MayRainRain
Sunday
22 MayShowers / ClearShowers / Clear
Monday
23 MayFairFair
High: 12°
Low: 8°
High: 13°
Low: 9°
High: 13°
Low: 8°
High: 13°
Low: 9°
High: 14°
Low: 8°

This is the weather for Cardiff for four days last December:  Light rain; light rain; heavy rain on Saturday; and finally on Sunday, sunny intervals.

Aberystwyth was even better, with: light rain; heavy rain; heavy rain; heavy rain.  It is situated on the west coast of Wales, while Cardiff is in the south.  Conwy has the same forecast as Aberystwyth.

It means that if you are writing a book where the characters are spending any season at all in Wales, it needs to rain.  A  lot.

This is a Mt. Snowdon web cam, with links to other web cams in Gwynedd.  Delightfully, during the summer, it is light in Wales 14-16 hours a day, so the eight hours it is off from my time zone makes little difference:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/northwest/sites/webcams//pages/snowdon.shtml

05/17/11

Time Travel in the UK: Blue Bells of Scotland

Welcome to Laura Vosika, this week’s Inspiration Award winner and guest poster.   She is the author of a time travel fantasy set in Scotland.  I’ll let her tell you the rest. . . .

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I am usually asked if I’m Scottish, or if I was inspired by Diana Gabaldon, when I tell people about Blue Bells of Scotland, a story of time travel set in—you guessed it—Scotland. I am Dutch, Czech, and German—no Scottish at all that I know of—and although I like the Outlander series, especially Jamie, I only heard of the books when people started asking me the question. Strangely enough, my Scottish time travel trilogy springs from a children’s novel and a trombone solo. Not two things often associated with philandering time travelers!

By luck perhaps, Scotland happens to be central to both the novel I read in the 70’s and the song I met in the 80’s. In the Keep of Time is the story of four siblings who go into a Scottish keep and come out in a different century. Blue Bells of Scotland is a theme and variations arranged around an old Scottish folk song, singing of streaming banners and noble deeds. The time-switching castle and the noble deeds swirled together like a Scottish mist, with a dash of an image of a man gambling away his livelihood and conning his girlfriend out of her heirloom ring to save the situation, and from that came The Blue Bells Trilogy.

Of course, ideas are a far cry from an actual, finished book. In my early 20’s, I completed a novel, but with a growing family (I have 9 children!), I set writing aside to focus on music. Fifteen years later, it was time to get back to writing. I joined National Novel Writing Month and in 24 days wrote the story of Shawn Kleiner, an arrogant, selfish, womanizing musician who disappears into a world he can’t control. I could have just stayed with Shawn’s experiences. Or I could have written the other half of the story around Shawn’s disappearance from the twenty-first century. But in researching castles from which Shawn might make his leap through time, I had such a strong image of Niall waking up in ruins, that he was born in that instant and walked right into the story on his own. At his insistence, I instead took the route of What if…? What if no one noticed Shawn was missing because someone was there in his place? Niall, although he is nothing like Shawn, has a strong personality in his own right, and bit by bit, he claimed more pages, until the trilogy became his story as much as Shawn’s.

Apart from inspirations and flashes of the muse, a novel typically includes plenty of research. Thanks to that children’s novel and trombone solo, a whole new world opened to me, as I searched Scottish history for a time that might involve streaming banners and noble deeds. I soon discovered Edward I’s attempt to usurp the Scottish crown, the Battle of Bannockburn, and the great lives of Robert the Bruce, James Douglas, and their loyal and courageous companions who defied the might of England. I’ve collected links to hundreds of web sources and forums, and several shelves full of books and DVD’s on Scotland, medieval history, Bruce, Douglas, even the Gaelic language.

In addition, I was lucky enough to be able to visit Scotland. Before going, I laid out a careful itinerary of all the locations in the book. In two weeks, I traveled to Inverness, where Shawn’s orchestra plays, and Stirling and Bannockburn, where the battle takes place. I drove as far into the Monadhliath Mountains as the roads go to photograph the area that Shawn hikes with Allene, and, not having four days to actually follow that path, found a hill in Killin which I climbed in something very like the boots Shawn would have worn in 1314. It was a thrill to meet people. Judith very kindly took me backstage at Eden Court Theatre, where Shawn’s orchestra plays. Joe spent an hour with me at the Bannockburn Heritage Centre showing me the grounds, telling me about the annual re-enactment and answering my questions. An older man at a hostel told me at length about his rescue work in the mountains, which became fodder for a character in The Minstrel Boy, book 2 of the Trilogy.

I’m not Scottish, and when I started writing, I had read very little Scottish fiction. But life likes to take us along the scenic route if we let it, and somehow, a children’s novel and a trombone solo led me to this place.
LINKS

www.bluebellstrilogy.com
http://bluebellstrilogy.blogspot.com

http://tinyurl.com/bluebellstrilogy (link to e-book at amazon)

https://www.facebook.com/laura.vosika.author

05/15/11

Medieval Siege Weapons

Within the world of medieval warfare, there were multiple kinds of siege weapons:  ballistas, battering rams, trebuchets, and catapults.  ‘Catapult’ can be used as a more general term for all throwing siege weapons:  “Catapults are siege engines using an arm to hurl a projectile a great distance. Any machine that hurls an object can be considered a catapult, but the term is generally understood to mean medieval siege weapons.

The name is derived from the Greek ‘to hurl a missle’.  Originally, “catapult” referred to a stone-thrower, while “ballista” referred to a dart-thrower, but the two terms swapped meaning sometime in the fourth century AD.

Catapults were usually assembled at the site of a siege, and an army carried few or no pieces of it with them because wood was easily available on site. Catapults can be classified according to the physical concept used to store and release the energy required to propel the projectile.”  http://www.claymoreslinger.com/medieval_catapult.asp

My son has built a trebuchet for his senior project.   He’s the tall one in the picture, with assorted brothers and cousins.

Ballista:  “One of the siege weapons used during the Middle Ages include the Ballista. The Ballista was an invaluable Medieval siege attack weapon. The Ballista design was similar to a giant crossbow and worked by using tension. The Ballista was designed to aim huge wooden, iron clad, darts or arrows which were powered by twisted skeins of rope, hair, or sinew – the ballista design was based on a huge dart-throwing machine. The Ballista loosed heavy bolts, darts and spears along a flat trajectory. The force of the missiles launched from the Ballista was designed to have great penetration and were capable of skewering several of the enemy at one time!”  http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/ballista.htm

Battering Ram:  “The concept behind the battering ram is simple – momentum coupled with mass. In other words, take a heavy object and hurl it repeatedly at a stationary object, such as a door or gate, to break through the object. Typically a large tree would be felled and the branches removed to allow those that remained to be used as grips. A group of soldiers would lift the tree trunk and, after a running start to build momentum, ram the trunk into whatever they wanted to break through, generally a castle gate. If this was done enough times, the door would break open.

Sometimes the tree trunk was affixed to a support system that was then positioned in front of the door or gate and swung like a pendulum. This allowed larger rams to be used, operated by fewer men. The support system could also be covered to shield and protect those operating the ram from attack.”  http://www.medieval-period.com/medievalbatteringram.html

Trebuchet:  “Trebuchets were used to throw stones–or dead animals–with great accuracy. A trebuchet was capable of launching 200lb. projectiles towards virtually anything. We can define a trebuchet as “the atom bomb of its time.” Earlier trebuchets could only fire small stones or even cows. As time passed and as trebuchets were improved (Leonardo Da Vinci dramatically improved them) they were able to launch huge projectiles towards a castle’s walls.

Many persons were needed to operate a trebuchet. Trial-and-error was the method used to destroy a wall. When a certain point of a castle was targeted, the trebuchet was so accurate that it could remain firing almost invariantly at that same spot; making them very effective.

With trebuchets, invading armies could fire cows and other dead animals from a relatively large distance. The only downside of trebuchets was their enormous size. In earlier medieval times, it was very hard to transport such gigantic machinery. As they were improved, new methods to arm them were discovered.”  http://www.medieval-castles.org/index.php/medieval_trebuchet  The picture shows Carew firing a water balloon.  The video below shows the trial and error involved in getting it right.  As it turned out, it wasn’t launching the water balloons far at first because the rope on the sling was too long and the angle of the ‘finger’ at the end (onto which the rope was hooked) was angled too sharply.

05/12/11

If you were David, a time-traveling Prince of Wales . . .

My After Cilmeri series follows a family (two teenagers and a mom) who travel in time back to the Middle Ages.  One passage in Prince of Time prompted me think about all those products we buy here.  How many–were we to take them back with us to the Middle Ages–would truly prove useful?   

Like David in the book, imagine walking into a pharmacy with a backpack and trying to decide with which items to fill it, if that was all you could take back in time.   David focuses primarily on medicines like antibiotics, antibiotic cream, and antihistimines.  Somewhere I read that we’ve lost more knowledge in the last 2000 years than we’ve gained, and while I don’t think that’s necessarily true, medieval people did have pharmaceuticals.  Many herbal remedies can be very effective.  Some of what they used even resemble what we have today.  Things like toothbrushes, soap, shampoo, hair dye, makeup, etc.  We use all of these now, but we have them in infinite variety and made with artificial ingredients.  That doesn’t make many of them ‘better’ than what people used 700 years ago.

What else might be useful?  tweezers, for example, fingernail clippers, or a good pair of scissors.  A gun surely would make a difference, until you ran out of bullets.  Binoculars.  Arthur Dent would encourage us to bring a towel.  My Kindle would only last a week :)

What would you bring?

05/10/11

J. R. Tomlin . . . A Kingdom’s Cost: A Novel of Scotland

Welcome to today’s Inspiration Award winner, J. R. Tomlin, who writes historical fiction set in fourteenth century Scotland.  Thanks so much for stopping by!

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Someone recently asked me what I would write if I were to write the book of my heart. I said I had written it.  It was A Kingdom’s Cost.

Why?  There is a very old story in Scotland about a man named Sir James, Lord of Douglas. When the great king, Robert the Bruce, lay dying, he called his faithful friend and lieutenant Sir James Douglas to him. ‘Good Sir James’ the Scots called him. The English called him ‘the Black Douglas’. The king bade him to remove his heart from his body and to carry it on crusade, in penance for the king’s sins.

In Spain, the Douglas and his men, fighting the Moors on their way to the Holy Lands, were cut off from the main Spanish force. Sir James started to lead his men back, fighting their way through, but one of his men fell behind, so Sir James turned back. There, still bearing the heart of his king, Sir James was cut down.

But you see, the story started thirty years before that in France, where a young boy, his home seized by the English, his father dead in the Tower of London, swore that he would regain what was rightfully his.  What was rightfully Scotland’s.  Against incalculable odds.  Against one of the greatest armies and greatest kings in English history.

The Black Douglas and a kingdom’s cost. A story that had to be told.

The blurb:  Eighteen-year-old James Douglas can only watch, helpless, as the Scottish freedom fighter, William Wallace, is hanged, drawn, and quartered. Even under the heel of a brutal English conqueror, James’s blood-drenched homeland may still have one hope for freedom, the rightful king of the Scots, Robert the Bruce. James swears fealty to the man he believes can lead the fight against English tyranny.

The Bruce is soon a fugitive, king in name and nothing more. Scotland is occupied, the Scottish resistance crushed. Only James believes their cause is not lost. With driving determination, he blazes a path in blood and violence, in cunning and ruthlessness as he wages a guerrilla war to restore Scotland’s freedom. James knows he risks sharing Wallace’s fate, but what he truly fears is that he has become as merciless as the conqueror he fights.

Available at Smashwords:  http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/56538   

Amazon UK:  http://tinyurl.com/3ek5n7z    Amazon:  http://tinyurl.com/3tokntq 

05/8/11

The Kingdom of Mercia

After 500 AD, the Kingdom of Mercia became one of largest and strongest Saxon kingdoms in England, and only faded with the transcendency of the Kingdom of Wessex under Alfred the Great (ruled 871-899).

The first Mercian king to truly dominate England was Penda, ruling from 626-655 AD.  Both Bede and Nennius describe the swath he cut across Britain, sometimes in alliance with others (Cadwallon and Cadfael of Gwynedd to name two) and sometime on his own reconnaissance.

His paganism was a particular sore point:  “In his Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, written in the early eighth century, Bede of Jarrow describes him as ‘a barbarian more savage than any pagan’ with ‘no respect for the newly established religion of Christ’” and “In the ninth-century Historia Brittonum, Nennius describes Penda as ‘victorious through the arts of the Devil, for he was not baptised, and never believed in God’”  http://www.indigogroup.co.uk/edge/penda.htm

According to Nennius, Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon (the hero of my book, The Last Pendragon) regained the throne of Gwynedd from Cadfael, Penda’s ally, and “slew Penda in the field of Gai, and now took place the slaughter of Gai Campi, and the kings of the Britons, who went out with Penda on the expedition as far as the city of Judeu, were slain.”  It isn’t clear where this battle took place.  http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/nennius-full.html

Penda had a large family and two of his sons became King of Mercia after him.  The infighting among the rulers of Mercia rivaled that of Wales.  The number of untimely deaths between Penda’s death and Offa’s rule defies belief.  After Penda, who died in battle, his successors were:  killed in battle, murdered, died, abdicated, poisoned, murdered by his bodyguards, and burnt to death.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchs_of_Mercia

Then came Offa, to whom the building of Offa’s Dyke is attributed.  “Forming the traditional boundary between England and Wales, this impressive earthwork runs, although not continuously, from the Dee estuary in the north to the river Wye in the south. Constructed by King Offa of Mercia (757-96), late in the eighth century, it is a tribute to the authority he commanded from the Humber to the Channel. Offa was the most powerful and successful of all the Mercian kings. He dominated England, and his power was acknowledged on the Continent by the great Charlemagne himself. Offa had led many expeditions into Wales, but in his later years he decided upon a policy of stabilizing or at least permanently marking the frontier.”  http://www.castlewales.com/offa.html