by Roseanna White | Feb 23, 2015 | Word of the Week
Last time I blogged at Colonial Quills, I was talking about George Washington took advantage of the new rifled barrels to scare the wits out of the English, who thought every American to be an expert marksman. And indeed, we changed the rules of warfare by “sniping” British officers.
But of course, that wasn’t a word yet.
|
| Photo by JJ Harrison |
Sniper dates from 1824, and it comes from snipe hunting. These birds were considered a quite challenging target for even expert shooters, and so snipe hunting was a sport that was a way to prove your skill. The hunter would hide himself and rarely employed dogs, which was the norm in other bird-shooting. So the hunter himself became known as a sniper.
Before this, sharpshooter was used…but not for long before. It dates only from 1800 and is a translation of the German Scharfschütze.
Before that…well, it wasn’t really needed all that much, because there just weren’t any until rifling came on the scene. 😉 So in the 30ish years when guns were suddenly more accurate but before these words were created for it, they just called them “expert marksmen.” =)
by Roseanna White | Feb 18, 2015 | Uncategorized
A while back WhiteFire acquired a spunky, urbane contemporary called I Always Cry at Weddings. Set in Manhattan and featuring a modern woman who makes the crazy decision to follow her heart instead of what society says she ought to pursue, this is a novel unlike any we’ve published before, more geared to cross over to mainstream readers than our other titles.
I’d been stewing over the cover ever since we signed the contract, wondering what direction we’d go for it. When the author got her questionnaire back to me and pointed me toward popular trends in mainstream contemporaries, I knew we’d be treading new–fun!–ground.
See, almost all my other fiction covers had called for a model photo. This one didn’t. For this one, we deliberately wanted to avoid an actual photograph of a person. Something that featured either an object or an illustrations…or maybe a combination thereof. We wanted something more like The Help.
Or Me Before You.
Or Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing.
Feeling the Joy of flowing creativity, I started brainstorming. We toyed with the idea of an NYC stoop, which is important to the story…but that just didn’t mesh with these ideas. So instead I thought, “Let’s focus on the wedding part.”
My first thought was cake toppers…
I liked the irony of this one, which tied in with the fact that the heroine, Ava, breaks off an engagement. Of course, I didn’t want a line of grooms. And I thought it would be fun to put the bride in a red dress (which features later in the book) rather than a bridal gown. So I came up with this.
Of course, they needed to be on a cake.
And in casting around for a background, I decided an illustrated NYC skyline would be fun.
Putting it all together, I came up with this as our Option #1
A solid enough first try…but not quite it. I kept working, going at it from a different angle. This time, I starting thinking Statue of Liberty. Does anything scream NYC more than the Statue of Liberty? I found an actual photo, isolated, of Lady Lib.
I plopped her down in front of the same illustrated skyline.
You’ll notice she’s not holding a torch. That’s because I had an idea. Again, I wanted to draw on that rather crucial red dress. So what if, I thought, Lady Liberty was holding it up? In the book, the dress becomes a symbol of Ava chasing a dream through all its convoluted paths. The dress, in some ways, represents her liberty from expectations. I thought it was fitting. So I created an illustrated dress, a hanger, and had it flapping from the statue.
I thought this was great fun, so I slapped a title on there, and the author’s name. I chose the font Broadway for “I Always,” “at” and “Sara Goff,” and used You’re Invited for “Cry” and “Weddings.”
We very, very nearly went with this one. But early feedback got us some interesting perceptions. Like the one who said, “It’s too patriotic, having the Statue of Liberty.” And then the other who said, “It’s too un-patriotic, having the Statue of Liberty holding a dress.”
At the very least, it got a reaction, LOL. So we still very nearly went that way. But I thought, “Okay, let me try one more thing.” I went back to searching for illustrations and fond one of a bride on www.all-free-download.com. I hit on this one.
I liked the silhouette, though the colors were all wrong, and I knew all the swirlies and flowers would interfere with my simplistic design. But thanks to the wonders of Adobe Illustrator, I could open the file in there and select just the elements I wanted–the dress, the torso, the hair, and the veil. Copying those back into Photoshop, I then adjusted the color of the dress, again, to be a brilliant splash of red. Not a wedding dress any more, but I kept the veil because, well…it’s part of the story, LOL.
In this, I also changed the font of “cry” and “weddings” to Corinthia. And Sara and I both agreed that this was great. “But,” she said, “I’m concerned that it comes off at first glance as too sweet.”
I saw what she meant…and I thought it was the bouquet doing it. So I took it out of her hands…and then had to put those hands somewhere. “Attitude,” I thought. “Ava needs to have some attitude.” So I erased her current arms and drew her some new ones. And this was it!
See how that subtle change in stance changes everything??!! We both loved it! (As a note, I did have to fool with the title a bit more. With the bouquet deleted, “weddings” wasn’t centered anymore, so I nudged it over…and then figured I’d add one more cute touch and looped the D through the Y.)
And voila! Something totally new for me, but the reaction has been fabulous. Everyone loves the feel, the look, the colors, and the pop of red. And I know the book’s going to be a hit too. Written with a very modern voice, about a very modern woman, this is a story that tackles the realities of life for most women today…and then puts a unique spin on it all. Like so:
Ava Larson is going to bring all the other brides to tears.
Engaged
to a wealthy NYC socialite’s son, Ava is ready to set the city abuzz
with her glamorous wedding. At least until she realizes her relationship
isn’t what it should be. Then, in a move as daring as a red satin
dress, she does the unthinkable–she calls it all off and makes a
promise to God that from now on, she’ll save sex for marriage.
She’s
convinced the future is hers for the taking, especially when an
undercover cop promises a new romance…and an unexpected friendship
with the homeless guy under her stoop brightens her days.
But
when her carefully balanced life teeters out of control, weddings aren’t
the only thing to make her cry. Ava has to figure out what life she
really wants to live…and what in the world love really means
So what did you think? Do you like where we settled?
by Roseanna White | Feb 17, 2015 | Uncategorized
For a decade, people have been telling me I need to read The Red Tent. Like, pretty much ever since they heard I wrote biblical fiction. I’ve heard it from multiple sources, but I just never had…until my sister asked if we could read it for our book club. Seemed like a fine opportunity, so we set it as our January book (which we ended up discussing last week when we got iced out of our January date).
And boy, did I come away with some opinions, LOL.
I’ll begin with what I loved.
The culture–oh, the culture! SO RICH! Ms. Diamant paints such a vivid picture of life in the days of the patriarchs. You could taste the dust. You could smell the camp fires. You could feel the sun scorching the road.
I loved how she brought to life the women’s world. How she painted the relationship between Rachel, Leah, and their two handmaidens. Certainly I loved getting a perspective on the little-mentioned Dinah, and what it must have been like to be the sole daughter among 12 brothers.
I love that in their culture, womanhood (and the coming into it) was something to be celebrated. I loved seeing how midwifery was a sacred calling and earned characters such respect.
There was a lot to love. And had it been a story about any other family at that time, I would have just deemed it awesome and left it at that. But…
But this isn’t just a story about any family at that time. This is a story about THE family. About Jacob and his parents and his sons. This is a story about Israel. This is a story about these men who dared to believe in one God (whom the author calls El) when surrounded by a world that believed in the pantheon. This is a story about people who became more than a family. They became a nation. A culture. A faith.
But it wasn’t.
Oh, it captured perfectly how a family becomes a nation and a culture. But a faith?
Nope. It wasn’t there. We get a few glimpses of the power of El. Jacob does wrestle with him. Joseph is forever changed after visiting the place where that happened.
But the other gods and goddesses have just as much power, if not more. Dinah herself has the power to curse and bless. The women never worship El, they continue to worship their own goddesses, and Jacob’s totally cool with that.
I’m not.
I wanted to see the idol worship, yes. It was not just part of the culture of the day, it was the culture of the day, and when the author painted that so vividly, I fully approved. But knowing the author is Jewish, I was assuming she believed her God to be more powerful than these stone figures, so I thought we’d get a glimpse of why a whole nation abandoned their other gods to follow Him. I wanted to see God triumphing over the other gods.
I didn’t.
Instead, the opposite. I saw a god called El who demanded but never repaid. I saw a god of men but not of women. I saw followers of this “strange and mysterious” god who were awful, dirty, mean, cruel, distant, abusive, murderous, cowardly, whining, greedy, selfish…
There were no good men from the line of Jacob. None. Not a single one. At first we like Joseph okay, but by the end, even he is painted as lucky, not blessed. Self-centered. Cruel. And with an eye for the handsome young men in his employ. He comes to Dinah to whine to her, but their childhood sibling love is pretty much forgotten.
See, I’m totally cool with painting the patriarchs as real men. Men who made mistakes. Men who sinned. Men who stumbled. But in my opinion, Diamant went way too far and painted them as men who did nothing else. Oh, we see some affection between Jacob and his wives (which was awesome) and we see him through their eyes to know why they loved him. But the older he gets, the more we lose sight of any of those good qualities.
It’s like she had to systematically dash our respect of EVERY biblical figure we grew up respecting. Abraham. Isaac. Rebekkah. Jacob. Joseph. I left the book despising all of them (as she painted them). I left the book wondering why anyone in the world would have followed their way instead of the more-powerful Egyptian river god. I left the book hugely disappointed.
I admit it’s largely because I have expectations. These are personal expectations. Not everyone (or even most) share them, and I don’t try to make them. But to the me, the beauty of a novel set in biblical times is painting the culture and then showing the power of God shining through it. Emerging victorious. Showing us why He became a God whose name is to be feared.
Personally, I left The Red Tent feeling like a great opportunity was lost. This was a beautifully written, amazing book that could have shown a generation the God of Israel. Instead, it showed a generation how savage and cruel the patriarchs could have been, and how their savagery and cruelty forced even their own daughters into idol worship.
I always thought one of the coolest things about God in the Old Testament was that He, unlike every other god, wasn’t just a god of one thing, one people. He is Lord of sun and rain. Of harvest and childbirth. Of the river and the sky. Of the earth and the heavens. He is Lord of all. Of men AND women.
Dinah didn’t agree. She wanted nothing to do with the God of her father, and given the evidence presented, the reader doesn’t blame her in the least. That makes me so, so sad.
So my final pronouncement–it’s a good book. It’s well written and easy to read and has some really great qualities. As pure fiction, it does a fabulous job of telling a story. But I left the book feeling as though it missed the point. I left the book quite disappointed…and more than a little disturbed.
My final judgement–if you want a look at the Dinah story that doesn’t exalt idols (but includes their prevalence in the culture), take a look at Mesu Andrews’s Love Amid the Ashes instead!
by Roseanna White | Feb 16, 2015 | Word of the Week
I was critiquing a few chapters for a friend of mine last week, and it led me to do some quick research–in which I learned something new, yay! =) Namely, about Sunday school.
The phrase Sunday school dates from 1783. However, it wasn’t religious instruction. On the contrary, it was regular school, offered on the one day a week poor children who worked in factories were free–Sunday. It began as a philanthropic movement, meant to educate England’s poorest to give them a hope at a better life.
So this school on Sunday would be teaching them reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic. Though granted, the Bible was their primer, so there was still some spiritual lessons involved. =) The idea of Sunday School traveled across the pond during the Industrial Revolution and took up work in America too. But it wasn’t until the 1870s that it became a school time attached to church, whose sole objective was to teach Biblical principles. That was a change that happened first in America and then worked its way back to England.
Interesting, eh?
Hope everyone has a great week! On my blog this week you have the following to look forward to:
Tuesday – Book Review of The Red Tent
Wednesday – Cover Design post on I Always Cry at Weddings
Hope to see you all back here over the next few days! Stay warm!!
by Roseanna White | Feb 11, 2015 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
Today is one of those milestones (so forgive me for posting my “thoughtful” post a day early, LOL). My baby turned 7. My youngest, my little guy. Proving yet again that time marches ever onward.
So as is my tradition, I figure I’ll take time out of my normal scheduled blogging today to talk a bit about my awesome little guy.
For starters, I have a hard time finding a picture these days, because he’s so much like his papa–he likes being behind a camera, but has developed an aversion to being in front of one, LOL. This is from his party. You won’t find him in the shot. 😉
Rowyn is an inquisitive little guy, and he loves learning. His favorite books are his Lego Build book and his Dino Encyclopedia. (Yes, non-fiction. Can you hear me weeping? Sniff, sniff.) He loves science, is awesome at math, and likes to pretend he can’t read very well…until he wants to, then lo and behold, he can read most anything he sees.
 |
| Candy bridge (why, what do you do with yours?) |
Though he often still says he wants to be an artist when he grows up, he also thinks it would be fun to be a digger. And a race car driver. And a rock star (though he doesn’t like being on stage any more than he likes having his picture taken). And…he just admitted last week…a builder.
 |
| Lego Dragon: “Fully articulated!” says Rowyn |
This is where he really shines right now. This kid will build in absolutely any medium. String and toothpicks become bridges for his toys. Halloween candy isn’t just for eating, it’s for building a Candy Kingdom with. Blocks, Legos, boxes…all fodder for his rich engineering imagination. I love seeing what he comes up with…and after Christmas or a birthday, you may just hear me saying, “Please, Rowyn, can we take a break from building things for just a few minutes? Please??” LOL
 |
| Rowyn, age 4, building with wood scraps |
Of my two, he’s the busier–always playing, building, drawing. But he’s also the cuddler. I joke that I must have a magnet in my lap, because I can’t sit down near him without him climbing up and plopping down. I can always count on that 6 a.m. “Mama!” to be followed by hugs and cuddles. He loves to laugh, hates to be apart from his sister, and doesn’t need to be reprimanded for hitting nearly as much as he used to be. 😉 Though in some ways he refuses to be independent, in other ways, he takes pride in being self-sufficient…usually in the ways I wish he wouldn’t, LOL. (“No, Rowyn, don’t try to cut that yourself! Rowyn, don’t climb up on that, just ask me to get it off the shelf for you! Buddy, you can’t operate that equipment on your own…”) He’s my helper in the kitchen, though if ever I suggest he learn how to be a chef someday, he gives me a look that says, “No way, crazy woman.”
This kid’s dimples always get me, and his laugh is one of the bright spots in my days–it’s straight from the belly, unrestrained. Though he often goes silent around other folks, he spends his days with rarely a quiet moment at home. When he isn’t talking or making appropriate sound effects for his toys, he’s singing–and rarely a song that isn’t an original Rowyn. (So who knows, maybe he will overcome the stage-aversion thing and be a rock star, LOL.)
 |
| Ro “stealing kisses” in Dec. 2013 |
I’m so incredibly blessed to have these two amazing little people in my life. So incredibly blessed to get to spend my days teaching them and learning with them, watching their every discovery and seeing how they grow. I love seeing them come into the gifts and talents God has given them.
And so glad to get to wish my little guy a happy 7th birthday. May this year be filled with discovery, love, and laughter, Ro-boat!
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, she’s 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 books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.