by Roseanna White | Sep 5, 2012 | Remember When Wednesdays, Uncategorized
Last week my editor emailed me to say, “Don’t scream, but we need a description for Book 3 of your Culper Ring series. Nothing that will be set in stone, just for planning purposes. I know it’s really early, but can you get that to us in the next month?”
Well, as it happens, I had Book 3 tentatively planned out before I had Book 2. 😉 And now that I’ve nailed it down a little more, I’ve turned to giving some thought to names. As always, I need help! LOL.
So here’s my hero. My original thought was Shade, which is, believe it or not, a perfectly normal name for a guy during the Civil War era (when the book takes place). But I got a lot of comments on Facebook about how people would question that, sooo… I’m considering other possibilities, and I would love more input.
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| Colin Farrell is pretty close to how I’m envisioning this guy |
First, a little about this guy. He’s a tough dude. Where my first hero in the Culper Series is socially awkward and best known for his intelligence, where the second hero is a people person in the extreme with an innate ability to know what people most need, this third hero is going to be my brooder. He’ll be able to put on an affable face–which he’ll have to do a lot–in company, but he’s a man haunted by all that went wrong in life. A twin, he was always the bad brother. The one in trouble, the mean one. The one that superstitious folk would have dubbed “the evil twin” in previous generations. But right around the time the South starts succeeding, he comes to the Lord and turns his life around. Joins the Pinkertons as a tribute to the man who mentored him (yeah, just totally pulled that part out of my hat this very moment), and makes his family proud. His brother, however, infuriates them by claiming the South had every reason to do what they had done. Always at odds, these two are now outright hostile…which eventually, toward the end of the war, culminates in the “good” brother trying to assume our hero’s personality and join a secret Southern society, the Knights of the Golden Circle. (Brother thinks that the bad boy persona of his twin will better suit his purposes…and he hopes that if there’s any fallout, it lands squarely on hero’s shoulder.)
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| What he’d be wearing |
Long story short, the brother ends up dead somehow or another before the book starts, and the hero, as part of a Pinkerton investigation, picks up where bro left off with the KGC. Which means he’s assuming his brother’s assumed identity–his own name. (Confusing enough? LOL. And that’s all the backstory, the stuff we’ll learn in chapter 1!) Now to figure out what that name should be. I want something a little hard, with a bit of a bite to it. Hence why I liked that long “a” and hard “d” in Shade. But other options:
Helmsey
Simeon
Slade
Slader
Matthias
Derius
Solomon
Josiah
Marsellus
(All those are pulled from 1860 Maryland Census records, so no fears of accuracy) From that list, I think my favorite is Slade, which obviously has a similar sound to my original name, but is an old old English surname that could logically be given to a son whose mother had been a Slade.
Preferences? Other suggestions?
by Roseanna White | Sep 3, 2012 | Word of the Week
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| Idle Hours by Henry Siddons Mowbray |
Today I’m going to examine the origin of a particular phrase rather than a particular word. 😉 Friday, as I was working on
Whispers from the Shadows, my hero was exclaiming something about how it was time to take action himself, since those who ought to be continued to…
Sit on their hands?
Twiddle their thumbs?
Do nothing, but that was far too boring an option for his current state of mind. So Roseanna headed to
www.etymonline.com. =)
I was somewhat surprised to find sit on one’s hands in the listing, because, well, I figured “sit” would have about a thousand idioms associated with it and didn’t know if that would make the cut. But in fact, it was one of the few they included.
And certainly not around in 1814, when Whispers takes place. No, to sit on one’s hands comes from the notion of doing so to withhold applause and originated in 1926. Not until the ’50s did it get extended to “do nothing; be idle.”
So Thad certainly couldn’t be accusing the politicians of sitting on their hands. What, then?
The next phrase to leap into mind was twiddling their thumbs. Here I got closer. Twiddle is from the 1540s, when it meant “to trifle.” But the notion of twiddling one’s thumbs, i.e., having nothing to do, didn’t emerge until the 1840s. Closer, closer. But not quite there.
But in the entry for twiddle was the earlier phrase that twiddle one’s thumbs replaced–to twirl one’s thumbs. Ah! Fun. Enough of a variation to sound old-fashioned to us, but still recognizable. And from . . . 1816.
At first sight, argh. Because that’s two years past my date. But then I remembered that etymonline uses the first written appearance (because what else could they possibly go on?) and in those days, a phrase usually appeared in writing several years after it had entered the common spoken vernacular. So I decided that was close enough, and my up-to-the-minute hero could well be using a newfangled, popular phrase that his father would be less likely to try out. 😉
And so a few key politicians in Washington City are twirling their thumbs. And Thad has decided it’s time to do himself what they refuse to…
Happy Labor Day, all! Enjoy some idle time today. Sit on your hands for a while, guilt free. Or better still, pick up a good book. 😉
by Roseanna White | Aug 30, 2012 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), 10 finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. 11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. 13 But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. 14 Therefore He says:
“Awake, you who sleep,
Arise from the dead,
And Christ will give you light.”
15 See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, 16 redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
I read this section of Ephesians 5 over a week ago, for the umpteenth time. Before, it was those first verses I quote that always struck me. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light…
Walk as children of light. What a command! I love the constant imagery in the New Testament of light versus darkness, of being the light, reflecting the light, living the light. (Y’all might remember my post on how we should shine…). It’s something I’ve thought about and talked about a lot because, well, it’s just so powerful. So deep. So thought-provoking. It’s always struck a chord.
But this last time when I read this chapter, it was verses 15 and 16 that slammed me. See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
Did you catch that? That bit about redeeming the time? I never had. When I pondered redemption before, it was always as something we received, that beautiful gift of Christ. He redeemed us. That means he saved us from death. Literally purchased our life with his own. According to dictionary.com, this is the technical definition of “redeem”:
1. to buy or pay off; clear by payment: to redeem a mortgage.
2. to buy back, as after a tax sale or a mortgage foreclosure.
3. to recover (something pledged or mortgaged) by payment or other satisfaction: to redeem a pawned watch.
4. to exchange (bonds, trading stamps, etc.) for money or goods.
5. to convert (paper money) into specie.
Understanding how that applies to our souls is big. Huge. But it’s used differently here. Here we are not the redeemed…we are the redeemer.
Yikes. I don’t think I ever paused to realize before the sheer responsibility Paul is showing us here. That we are the redemption of our time, of our age. Though surrounded by evil, we are to buy our neighbors more time to learn the Good News. We’re to be those ten righteous men in Sodom that would have stayed judgment. We’re to be the David for the sake of whom the nation isn’t forsaken.
We’re to be the light that staves off the darkness.
Of course it comes back to that. 😉 That is, after all, the instruction on how to redeem the times. On what it looks like when we walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise. But I’ll no longer read that as a simple command to do–now I also see the inherent why.
Because we don’t shine into the darkness to light our own way. We shine in the darkness to draw others to Him. We shine to show the Truth to those trapped in the dim, dim cave (thank you, Plato). We shine because without us the days would be night, and there would be no reason for God to withhold His judgment from the world.
But the world isn’t ready to be destroyed. And it’s up to us to buy it a little more time. To pay with ourselves, just as Jesus did for us. To give our lives to this walk, this Way, this fight, so that just one more souls can see the path. Can be bought and forgiven. Can be redeemed.
Can then join the ranks of those redeeming. It’s a call to action, that charge. A purpose. One that changes the way I see that dark, evil world around me. Not just as something deserving destruction–but as something that needs to be saved from it.
by Roseanna White | Aug 29, 2012 | Remember When Wednesdays, Uncategorized
Yesterday I had the joy of chatting with my editor at Harvest House. I’d asked her a few questions about my plans for Whispers from the Shadows, to make sure my intent of throwing the romance formula out the window would go over okay. 😉 And while we were talking, she shared a bit of fun that I have to pass on.
Anybody watch USA’s show White Collar? It’s one of those I’ve always thought looked really good, but we just didn’t have time for another show to get addicted to, LOL. Well, apparently a couple Harvest House folks watch it, my editor included, and they got very excited when last week’s episode (from August 21, 2012) dealt with nothing other than the Culper Ring!
I’ve yet to track down the episode online so I can watch it (though that is on my to-do list this week for sure! Finally, an excuse to watch the show!! LOL), but I’m told the premise was that a professor lost his tenure at a college when he was laughed out of academia for stating outright that the Culper Ring is still operating today.
Squeeee!!!!!
Anyone want to take a guess on the premise of my entire series? That (that’s right) the Culper Ring didn’t end with the Revolution like history books say it did. That the members took up the mantle again when the need again arose.
Ring of Secrets is based on the documented escapades of this most-trusted spy ring of George Washington, but its sequels will delve into the what-ifs. What if the War of 1812 came to an end because of intelligence the Culpers gathered? What if they found themselves pitted against the Knights of the Golden Circle during the Civil War?
What if these untrained intelligencers perfected their craft over the years, perfected their codes and their inks and their methods until they could operate indefinitely without detection?
Ooo, fun, fun, fun. Especially when it shows up in other popular outlets, like White Collar and Brad Meltzer’s Decoded. Or ever when the places I wrote about suddenly appear on the news, like several recent stories about Oyster Bay on the Long Island Sound.
White Collar viewers got a sneak peek at my world last week as the characters talked about my characters–Robert Townsend, known as Samuel Culper Jr., and George Washington, a.k.a. 711. They got to see the places the Culpers operated and speculate on whether they’re still around.
And I get to sit back and grin and thank the fine folks at USA for priming the audience for me. Coming soon, folks! Coming soon!!
by Roseanna White | Aug 27, 2012 | Word of the Week
This is a short one, but surprising. I always thought of wow as a modern word. So when I looked it up, I was shocked to see that it’s from 1510!
Wow is a Scottish interjection, one of those that arise from a natural sound we make when surprised by something. Much like whoa, ow, ouch, huh, and the like.
It became a verb in more modern days, though–we only started wowing people in the 1920s, originating in America. 😉
But in my defense, it’s a word that waxed and waned in popularity. It apparently took on new life in the early 1900s after being not so in use prior, and then had another surge in the 1960s. Which has carried through to now.
And of course, had led to one of my four-year-old’s favorite sayings: Wowwy-zowwy-coppa-bowwy! (Or however one would spell that…)
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.