by Roseanna White | Jan 30, 2013 | 17th-19th Centuries, Remember When Wednesdays
This past week, I’ve been reading everything I can get my hands on about the Knights of the Golden Circle and Baltimore during the Civil War. It is, you see, time to dive into the third book in the Culper Ring Series. Yay! I’d read some overviews before, so I knew some of the far-flung basics about this group and their agenda.
The KGC is one of several groups called collectively “The Copperheads”–all Southern-sympathizing societies that, at the time of the Civil War, were bent on expanding slavery, putting a halt to what they termed the tyrannies of the North, and preserving the agriculture-based way of life that they felt was crucial to America. Most of them didn’t seem to want war or succession per se–but they saw the election of Abraham Lincoln as a final straw, a slap in the face, an injury that couldn’t go unanswered.
One of the best books I’ve found on the subject is the diary of John Surratt, called a co-conspirator of John Wilkes Booth. He tells a tale of plot upon plot, most of them foiled by incompetence (much to his frustration), but also because of spies everywhere they turn.
Roseanna is rubbing her hands together in delight. =)
As history goes, this is the stuff I just love to discover for the type of book I’m writing! No matter which side you’re looking at, North or South, they’re both telling the same story–one of spies among them, hindering plans and stealing goods, plotting destruction and betrayal.
And yet, it’s such a sad story in reality, and that’s something I also have to try to capture. My story will be set in Baltimore, which was a true house divided at the time. Maryland had always been considered a Southern state, but because of its proximity to Washington D.C., the Union held much of it in a state of Martial Law for most of the war, determined not to relinquish it. But so many of the politicians, police chiefs, judges, newspaper men were Confederate at heart. Surratt tells a tale of most of them belonging to the K.G.C. And every history book expounds on how violence regularly erupted in the city. So regularly, it was called “Mobtown.”
I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be a part of all that turmoil at the time . . . but it’s the perfect backdrop for my story of espionage and betrayal, of broken bonds of blood and the sacrifice of love. Because this is me, you can be sure there’ll be a happy ending. But before they get there, my poor characters sure are going to have to run the gauntlet! (Mwa ha ha ha!)
by Roseanna White | Jan 28, 2013 | Word of the Week
Just for the record, I really hated to post something new today and push
my lovely book trailer down the page. 😉 But alas, it is Monday, so time to educate! Today we’re delving into the world of science.
|
| Lavoisier, considered the father of modern chemistry |
Though I don’t recall when, I semi-recently tried to use the word
catalyst in my 1814-set
Whispers from the Shadows, in the way we today often use it–figuratively, meaning something to cause a change. But my wordy-sense (sorry, watching
Ultimate Spider-Man even now, and he keep gets a tingle, LOL) had me looking it up, and sure enough…
Catalyst is of course a chemistry word, which I knew. But I hadn’t recalled that it wasn’t used to mean a “substance which speeds a chemical reaction but itself remains unchanged” until 1902. So I certainly didn’t realize that the figurative sense didn’t come about until 1943.
What I really didn’t know was that it came from another, similar word, catalysis. This formation had the same meaning as catalyst since 1836, and before that meant “dissolution.”
Either way, not working in my book, LOL.
Hope everyone has a good week! My plans are to wrap up my main research for the third Culper book this week, and start writing next week–yay! =)
And in case you haven’t swung by lately, you may have missed my announcement that
Ring of Secrets is available from ChristianBook.com!
Click Here
And of course, don’t miss the aforementioned, totally giddyifing (sure, that’s a word) book trailer I got on Thursday!
by Roseanna White | Jan 25, 2013 | Uncategorized
I’ve never been a total book-trailer fan, but I gotta say–when I got an email from Harvest House last night with this link, I was 100% giddy. =)
I would so appreciate it if you’d take a minute and a half to stop by YouTube and view this! Breathes some excitement into the words I know so well.
Yep–giddy! =)
by Roseanna White | Jan 24, 2013 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
For some reason that I can’t quite explain, 4-year-old Rowyn has decided that Heaven = Outer Space. There is no hesitation in his mind. When he talks about going to Outer Space, it’s to drop in on God and say, “Hello.” Preferably in a rocket. That, he says, is where he will go when he dies to live again forever.
Who am I, mere mortal that I am, to try to straighten it all out for him? LOL. The book of Daniel tells us about angels on a physical journey from Heaven to Earth, waylaid by demons so that they arrived seemingly “late” to answer the prayers of the faithful. For all I know, those demons were hiding behind an asteroid orbiting Jupiter. *shrugs*
 |
The Milky Way over the
West Virginia hills |
But it came up in my little brain in response to some wonderful conversations and books I was reading yesterday. The conversations joked about how the particular group involved is made of black sheep, it seems. Or at least, would be dubbed so by a prominent few. We like reality in our fiction. We believe that redemption is greatest when the sin was staggering–after all, who will love the forgiver more, he who is forgiven much or little? We believe in thinking, in living our life in this world even if we’re not of it, in refusing the neatly bottled answers that are often tossed around in Christian circles.
And yes, that leads some of us to rant and rail on occasion. Why, we ask, do our brothers and sisters in the Church judge us for following Him into the wilderness? Isn’t that where He went? Where He ordered us to go??
Then, in something I was reading by my good friend and WhiteFire author
Christine Lindsay, she quotes C. S. Lewis, and it resonated:
“
It
would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too
weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex
and ambition when infinite Joy is offered us, like an ignorant child
who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot
imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are
far too easily pleased.”
You know what that hammered home to me? That we’re so very small. Sometimes, that makes us petty. Sometimes, that makes us close ourselves into a cozy little box. Sometimes it makes us judge–and I’m not talking just about the ones in the box judging those outside, I’m talking about the opposite too. We all want to be accepted for who we are–and when someone else is different, we feel that as judgment. Don’t we?
But what Lewis pinpointed so beautifully there is that God is bigger than that. God is a God of the biggest dreams, the grandest ideas. He’s a thinking man’s God and an infantile-minded man’s God. The God of the broken and of the fixer. He’s a God who says, “You want the world? Foolish mortal–I’m offering you heaven.”
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The Dirty Devil River
photo by Seth G. Cowdery |
Or as Rowyn would say, Outer Space. 😉 And that’s true too, isn’t it? He’s the God of the universe, of the infinite.
But how often do we forget that, as Pascal expounded on in a Pensee, the infinite goes both directions? The infinitely great, and the infinitely small. So often, we pick one direction and focus on that, because that’s where our interests lie.
I love–absolutely love–that I serve a God with no limits. A God who can touch hearts through the sweetest stories as well as through the grittiest. A God who doesn’t say we must change before we can enter His house, but who invites us in as we are and says, “I’ve been waiting for you. I have a job for you to do, and those quirks of yours will make you a perfect fit.”
I don’t know about you, but I serve one amazing, all-out, no-holds-barred God. He meets me in the grime, and He promises me the galaxies. He tells me that there’s nothing I can dream that’s too big…but that sometimes He wants to give me something even bigger than the corporeal, than the physical. He’s a God who says, “Go ahead. Reason. Ask questions. Explore the what-ifs. I’ll be there too.”
So for today, in all gratefulness, I say, “My God, who art in Outer Space, I set your name aside as holy. Establish your kingdom, and do your will, O Lord. Not just up in the stars…but right down here in the muck.”
by Roseanna White | Jan 23, 2013 | Book News, Books, Remember When Wednesdays
Ring of Secrets is thiiiiiiis close to releasing, y’all! Okay, so maybe thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis close. 😉 I know some stores will stock it beginning February 18, though other places are listing March 1 as the official T-0 day. Either way, I just realized last night that my author copies will be arriving within a couple weeks. Squeeeeee!!!!
Which means I have to get my promotion machine in order! =) Some things you have to look forward to once it’s up and running…
~ Pick your own spy name
~ Scavenger Hunt
~ Secret messages to decode
- A kick-butt giveaway featuring:
~ Ring of Secrets (obviously)
~ This one-of-a-kind, hand-crafted Winter Reeves doll
~ A one-of-a-kind, hand-crafted cameo necklace inspired by the book
~ A leather journal
~ A quill pen
~ Other stuff yet to be selected
~ Seekerville – “The Intuitive Writer”
~ Novel Rocket – “The Writer’s Race”
~ Go Teen Writers (with a fun contest where the winner gets to help me name a character from Book 3!)
~ tea party at Colonial Quills
~ Several blogs (want me on yours? Just let me know! I’m happy to interviews or guest posts!)
- A free novella! (Details are being worked out now with the team at Harvest–this will probably release midway between Ring of Secrets and Whispers from the Shadows, and the “how” will be solidified in the next couple weeks.)
I’m getting really excited, in case you can’t tell. =) And since I spent January thus far editing WhiteFire novels and critiquing and doing cover designs and all that other stuff that isn’t writing, I didn’t have any new, fun historical tidbits to share, so you get to hear about it, LOL.
I’m also considering putting together a Revolutionary Spy Master’s Toolkit. With quills, vials of invisible ink, a code book…but this would be pure novelty. Anyone actually interested in this??
And yet, it’s such a sad story in reality, and that’s something I also have to try to capture. My story will be set in Baltimore, which was a true house divided at the time. Maryland had always been considered a Southern state, but because of its proximity to Washington D.C., the Union held much of it in a state of Martial Law for most of the war, determined not to relinquish it. But so many of the politicians, police chiefs, judges, newspaper men were Confederate at heart. Surratt tells a tale of most of them belonging to the K.G.C. And every history book expounds on how violence regularly erupted in the city. So regularly, it was called “Mobtown.”
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. Having successfully launched two homeschool grads, she now spends her time writing fiction, 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, as well as a fantasy series and contemporary mysteries and romances. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.