by Roseanna White | Nov 6, 2013 | Remember When Wednesdays, Uncategorized
Hear ye, hear ye! All ye who have been awaiting news of the next free novella in the Culper Ring Series! The proclamation has gone forth!
Which is to say…I’ve got the cover for A Hero’s Promise, my next free novella, and was told to tell all my readers it’ll be up for pre-order soon! Releasing January 1, this one is about Jack Arnaud, the little boy in Whispers from the Shadows, and Julienne “Lenna” Lane, the daughter of our main characters in the same. They’re the parents of the heroine in Circle of Spies, so it was fun to delve into their story before plunging into the Civil War.
Now, this one is set in 1835. And I don’t know if you’ve ever searched for fashion from 1835, but it is t-o-u-g-h TOUGH to find any! So rather than give everyone involved a royal headache, this cover bypasses the heroine on the cover and goes straight for the images of import–I’m really loving it! They took an old black and white image of the Capitol from the correct time and somehow turned it into this beauty:
Isn’t it lovely? =)
I don’t have official back cover copy for it yet, but to give you an idea, anyway, I’ll make something up. đ
Navy Lieutenant Jack Arnaud and Julienne âLennaâ Lane have already postponed their
wedding three times. Will their secretsâincendiary satires, runaway slaves, and
assassination attemptsâfoil their plans again? Or can they cling still
to the promise they made as mere children, to be together forever?
Yeah, that’s really rough, LOL. But you get the idea, I hope. And as soon as those links appear on Amazon, you can bet I’ll pass them along!
by Roseanna White | Nov 4, 2013 | Word of the Week
I called Xoe chum last week, and she gave me such a look! LOL–she only knew the word as “fish food,” apparently. (Thanks, Spongebob. Really.) I had to tell her that it meant “friend” too. And then, of course, had to look it up to see where these two very-different meanings came from.
Chum has meant “friend” since the 1680s, by far the first of these two meanings. It originated among university students, used with their roommates–an alternate spelling of cham, which was short for “chamber-mate.” (Who knew?) Apparently in the late 17th century, clipping words like that was a big fad. (Again, who knew??)
The “fish bait” meaning didn’t come along until the 1850s, and the best guess is that it’s from the Scottish chum that just means “food.” So no correlation at all between these two, which are from different languages entirely.
The things we learn when our kids look at us funny… đ
Happy Monday, all! I get to start on edits for
Circle of Spies today with my editor, so I’m pretty excited. =) After, of course, taking my kids to science club this morning. And then this evening, hubby and I are going to see
Ender’s Game, which is also exciting! It’s been his favorite book since he was 12, so this is a Big Deal in our house, LOL. Hope everyone has a great one!
by Roseanna White | Oct 31, 2013 | Remember When Wednesdays, Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
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| An approaching storm front we captured in the Outer Banks this summer |
When you get bad news…or sad news…what do you do? It’s inevitable that we run into these times–they’re part of life, much as we wish they weren’t.
We’re going to have those days when we cry.
We’re going to have those days when we yell.
We’re going to have those days when we feel like the best course is to hide from the world.
Ever since I was a middle-schooler, I’ve pondered my own reactions to these times. I remember when we got the news that my grandfather had cancer. My parents cried. My sister cried. There was much hugging. There was much talk.
I closed myself into my room with a pencil and a notebook, and I wrote poem called, “Why Do I Smile?” I happen to have it on my computer, surprisingly, LOL, so I’ll copy it:
The days melt together in a turmoil of ache.
Their only distinction is a separate pain.
I feel that my futureâs not mine to make.
So why do my dreams suspendâunslain?
Each person has their own losses;
Each deals with them in their own way.
Most cry as they carry their crosses.
Why do I smile and laugh it away?
My world has diminished to shatters,
But my eyes are as dry as the breeze.
As hope lies around me in tatters,
I sing as I fall to my knees.
Why canât I mourn as my mother,
Or weep it away as my friend?
Why must I resort to anotherâ
Stronger?âmore miserable end?
I canât see into tomorrow
So I donât know that Iâll make it that mile.
Even I canât see past my own sorrow.
So tell me, why do I smile?
Thirteen-year-old me didn’t really have the answer. Thirty-one-year-old me doesn’t either, but it hasn’t changed. I still, upon getting upsetting news, am more likely to smile and assure everyone I’m okay than cry and let them assure me it will be okay. And it’s not a facade–that’s my genuine, gut reaction. The eternal optimist. The faith, perhaps, holding me up.
But it always hits a month or two later. Every single time I’ve gotten a rejection on a project I thought was sold, for instance (which has happened way too many times, LOL), I’ve experienced this. I can smile and assure my critique partners it’s no big thing. I know that God’s got something better for me. That it was no surprise to Him. I know it, and so I can smile.
Until I can’t anymore. When it hits, it hits like a waterfall, tumbling over me without relent. Those are the days when I mourn for what was lost, or for what I know will be lost soon. I grieve for what cannot be. I look at the projects or dreams or loved ones snatched from me, and I ache. I whimper. I want to cry, but by then I can’t seem to find any tears. (This is why Roseanna cries maybe twice a year. Usually over something stupid like forgetting to pay a bill, LOL.)
It’s so hard not to be discouraged in those times. And in the throes of discouragement, what you know doesn’t often help, because you’re too overwhelmed by what you feel. If only the two could line up!
As you might guess, I’m having a delayed reaction this week, LOL. Nothing as terrible as the impending loss of my grandfather, just a bunch of disappointments adding up, and the old ones that I thought settled coming to add their voices to the mix. One of those days, one of those weeks.
And so I ponder. Again. I wonder why I deal with things the way I do. Is it the right way? The wrong way? The strong way, the weak way? I don’t know. But it’s my way. It’s my way to smile until it hits, to smile again as soon as I can. It’s my way to mourn quietly.
This time, I’m sharing the feeling if not all the reasons, not in a bid for sympathy, but in a laying-bare, to see if it helps in the healing. In a question of how you manage these days, these weeks, so I can listen for the whisper of the great Healer in the voices of my friends.
So please, share. What do you do when the tempest strikes?
by Roseanna White | Oct 30, 2013 | Ancient World, Remember When Wednesdays
Yes, this is posting way late. Because I kinda forgot it was Wednesday. Because I was kinda caught up in writing A Soft Breath of Wind. Which I kinda can’t apologize for. đ But here, belated, are some random historical thoughts, LOL.
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| Fresco of a Roman merchant boat |
We historical writers always run into some of the same problems, no matter what era we’re writing in. One of mine is “How long did it take to get from point A to point B?” By boat. Or horse. Or on foot. Or, eventually, by train. Where were the roads? The ports? Did they have docks? How did they get from boat to shore? How far would they have been from town?
These are the kinds of logistical questions that can drive me absolutely batty, because the answers can be hard to find.
Sometimes though, they come from the strangest places–like my daughter’s school books, for instance.
A couple weeks ago, we were reading through the assigned pages of The Awesome Book of Bible Facts, the pages about Roman travel. Xoe was not so interested–I, however, found it fascinating. Diagrams of their roads–details about their sea travel–time it took to sail from Jerusalem to Rome–BE STILL, MY HEART!
LOL.
Yes, we must take our information where we can find it, check it where we can, and run with it.
I’m running right now. Because, finally, Samuel and Benjamin and company are aboard one of Titus’s vessels, on their way from the port at Joppa to Ostia, the port near Rome. One month, give or take, it shall take them, and then they’re home.
I’ll get to write my reunion scene. Which also happens to be a pretty big explosion, my mid-point pivot. Of course, in the meantime I have a couple hearts to crush and character hopes to dash to set them up for this, so do excuse me. Much to do. đ
by Roseanna White | Oct 28, 2013 | Word of the Week
This classifies as another word that I knew was new, but didn’t know was that new.
Jitters entered English round about 1925–and it’s not entirely clear where it came from. The best guess is that it’s a variation of chitter, which had been a dialectical word for “tremble, shiver,” since Middle English.
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| The jitterbug, 1947 |
It took it another 6 years for the ‘s’ to get dropped and the noun to become a verb–to jitter. And another 7 for the jitterbug dance to join the scene. Still, that’s a lot of evolution for just over a decade!
And as cold as it is here this morning, there could easily be some jittering going on. đ
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, sheâs homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her booksâŚto offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.