by Roseanna White | Mar 21, 2018 | 17th-19th Centuries, Remember When Wednesdays
This is actually a re-post of a fun blog I did in 2011, near when
Love Finds You in Annapolis, Maryland released. Given that I’m still celebrating the re-release of the story as
A Heart’s Revolution, I thought it would be fun to share this again!
Back in 2011, a friend of mine from Colonial Quills made mention of “brick tea.” Now, I had no idea what in the world she was talking about. Until this arrived in the mail:
The moment I withdrew this brick from its bag, the scent of tea wafted up to me. My daughter, who runs to the kitchen the moment she senses a package being opened, rushed out just then, saw the brown-paper-wrapped block, and said, “What’s that?” My answer was to hold it out and say, “Smell.”
You should have seen her eyes light up with delight and disbelief as she squealed, “Tea?!”
Tea has been a staple of many societies for centuries. But loose leaf tea is hard to transport, so back in the days of the silk road in Asia, the Chinese discovered that if they use forms to press the tea into standard sized bricks, they can transport them with ease, and the tea lasts through the journey.
This became such a standard that tea bricks could be used as currency, and this was the way most tea was transported for hundreds of years, all the way into the 19th century. So the tea tossed into Boston Harbor during the Boston
tea party? That was bricks.
Naturally, when something is used so long, for so many purposes, there comes to be a rhyme and reason to each part of it.
I don’t know if you can read the label on this, but if you do, you’ll find its “translation”–what each part of it means.
The front of this particular brick has details that let buyers know that this tea comes from a company managed by more than one person, and is manufactured by Enterprise Company Tea and the Chinese Lee family.
The back of the brick is separated into squares that can be used as currency. One square, for instance, might equal the price of a chicken
In addition to being brewed, the tea traditionally pressed into bricks can also be eaten. I don’t intend to try that, gotta say. 😉
I thought at the time that I’d be eager to try some of this tea . . . but in actuality, I couldn’t bring myself to break it apart! Instead, it still sits wrapped up, on display on my hutch. Perhaps if I ever buy another, I’ll actually use one of them. But for now, this lovely brick of tea remains a pretty, fragrant reminder of my friend, of history, and of when my first Colonial story first released.
by Roseanna White | Mar 19, 2018 | Word of the Week
Today’s Word of the Week is actually just inspired by
www.etymonline.com‘s trending word list, LOL. Which is funny, because those who know me well know that my church has actually opted to keep Saturday as the Sabbath rather than Sunday, so you might think I have an agenda with this word…but in fact, it just has an interesting history!
Our word for
sabbath does come directly from the Hebrew
shabbath (that ‘th’ is pronounced like a ‘t’), which is from the verb
shabath, literally meaning “he rested.” In English it was spelled
sabbat until the 16th century. Interesting to note that it didn’t just mean “a day of rest” but specifically “Saturday as a day of rest” until the 15th century. Up until then, though the Christian Church had adopted Sunday as their official day of worship long before, they never called it the Sabbath, only the Lord’s Day.
But the part that I actually found interesting here is that the very word for Saturday in many languages comes from sabbath–pretty much all Latin or Greek derived languages, including Spanish, Italian, French, German, Romanian, Hungarian, and many more.
English’s Saturday is of course from Saturn–and was preserved in English and other Norse languages largely because they had no god that would compete with the Roman Saturn, so they felt no objection to it when the Romans brought that name for the day of the week to their regions, LOL. But as Christianity spread in other regions, it was changed in the languages mentioned above away from the name of a Roman god and to something in keeping with biblical principles.
by Roseanna White | Mar 14, 2018 | Book News, Cover Designs
Tomorrow is a special day. Tomorrow is the day when I do my very first re-release of one of my novels, with a brand new cover and title.
Tomorrow is the day when Love Finds You in Annapolis, Maryland officially goes back into the world as A Heart’s Revolution.
When Guideposts returned the rights to me, they only had two stipulations–I had to change the title, and I had to change the cover. Well, for a cover designer, that’s kinda like saying, “You have to have fun and play around with cool images.”
Shucks. 😄
Of course, I wanted the title nailed down before I started playing with a design, so I came up with a handful of options and ran them by my best friend/critique partner, Stephanie, and my assistant, Rachel. The one we all loved was
A Heart’s Revolution. This title perfectly captured the theme of the book–my heroine, Lark, taking a stand for her own destiny–and also hits a sweet spot in the romance genre, what with “heart.” (I used to avoid
Love and
Heart in my titles like the plague, but I’ve given up, LOL. Here we have
A Heart’s Revolution, and the first book in my next series will be
The Number of Love.)
So, that established, I turned to the design.
In Shutterstock, I keep a collection called “Historical,” in which I’ll save every single photo I come across in all my searches that have solid historical costuming. In it are possible biblical or Roman styles, medieval, colonial, Victorian, Edwardian, 1920s, 1940s…you name it. If I think it might come in handy someday, I add it to the collection. So I already had several options saved, and I did a few new searches too.
Honestly, I had a hard time choosing between some of these! I tried out several before I decided to start from this one.
I like the movement we can see in this–the fact that she’s holding her dress up a bit and not just standing straight, and the dress itself looked accurate and not costume-y.
So I selected the model from her background and made her fill part of my canvas.
In this version, I just deleted the head, which I knew wouldn’t be the one I used. Lark wouldn’t have worn a boat in her hair like Marie Antoinette, LOL, and this lady, though lovely, doesn’t look like my heroine. But I also wasn’t sure I wanted to keep the dress exactly how it was. I wanted a little more color. So decided to make it blue.
I thought that would add some richness to the cover. So next I turned to the head. After searching for a while, I came across this model…
She fit my idea of Lark, so I searched through all the images of her and just fell in love with the sweet expression on her face in this one.
I put this head on my previous body and was relieved to find that worked well together, LOL. It’s still just roughed in here, but you get the idea.
But the hair wasn’t right. I needed more accurate to the times hair, so I decided to work from this one.
Of course, this model is blond, and I needed dark hair, but after some adjusting, I ended up with this.
Content with that much of Lark for the moment, I turned my attention to backgrounds. And oh my gracious, this was giving me a hard time! I couldn’t decide what I wanted behind her. I kinda liked the idea of keeping the
Annapolis State House there, but the photos I was finding just didn’t seem right. For starters, the story takes place during the worst winter in the history of the east coast (up to that point, anyway), and I couldn’t find anything snowy.
So first I tried some regular ol’ snowy scenes.
But none of these were “it.” What that lowest one (actually a street in Paris) showed me, though, was that I loved a street behind her. It provided a good perspective. So after fiddling with a few more street options, I eventually decided to go with an actual
Annapolis street, and worry with the snow aspect later.
I loved this perspective! I knew I was on the right track at this point, so then it was just a matter of getting the lighting right, and the snow.
I knew I could fuss with this forever, but I really didn’t want to. So instead I looked up Snow Photoshop Actions, and I found this awesome one from
Pretty Photoshop Actions for $39. I can’t tell you how often I’ve needed something like this, so I decided to make the investment, and I am SO glad I did! Playing with all the amazing options included in that action set, I could adjust lighting, make it look frosty, “kill the grass,” change the sky, and add snow!
I then ran a couple different actions, Nashville and Hefe, to alter the lighting a bit more. Nashville is over everything, Hefe just over the background to add some depth.
At this point, I was beginning to shiver in empathy for poor Lark, out in the snow without any kind of wrap! Terrible! LOL. So I went in search of cloaks she could wear and found this one that fit her body position well.
(Though I didn’t remember at the time, Lark’s cloak is even blue in the story! Perfect!) So putting that on her…
Ah, that’s better. And I was done the image! Now it was just a matter of adding the text. I chose the font Monstera, with a pretty ligature for the H, and thought it would be fun to place “A” in the curl of that H.
Of course, it would be nice to actually be able to read that title, so I added some haze behind it to make it stand out.
Much better. And of course, my name (in Requiem font).
And one final touch–a flourish in the title–and we were finished!
So what do you think of the old and new versions? Do you have a preference? (I loved the original cover, but I do love how this new version turned out too!)
If you haven’t read this early book of mine yet, here’s a bit about it, and the pre-order link. It’ll be live tomorrow!
In 1783 peace has been declared, but war still rages in the
heart of Lark Benton.
Never did Lark think she’d want to escape Emerson Fielding,
the man she’s loved all her life. But when he betrays her, she flees
Williamsburg for
Annapolis, taking refuge in the nation’s temporary capital.
There lark throws herself into a new circle of friends who force her to examine
all she believes.
Emerson follows, determined to reclaim his betrothed.
Surprised when she refuses to return with him, he realizes that in this new
nation he has come to call his own, duty is no longer enough. He must learn to
open his heart and soul to something greater—before he loses all he should have
been fighting to hold.
And be sure to stop by tomorrow, when in celebration of the official re-launch, we’ll be having a super fun contest (18th-century hair!!!) and a giveaway!
NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIBERS WILL GET AN EXCLUSIVE SNEAK PEEK!
Sign up HERE to make sure you don’t miss out!
by Roseanna White | Mar 12, 2018 | Word of the Week
This week, something fun is happening, and I’m celebrating by making all the week’s blog posts go to the theme. This week, the book previously known as Love Finds You in Annapolis, Maryland will re-release from WhiteFire as A Heart’s Revolution. On Wednesday, I’ll be going behind the cover design process, and on Thursday–official re-release day–a cool contest will be launching!
Today, we’re taking a look at the word I chose for my new title…a word that’s very much a theme in the book.
Revolution
We’re all familiar with the word, of course. But when it first entered the English language in the 1300s, it had nothing to do with political unrest or change. Rather, it was a word used to describe the revolving of celestial bodies. It’s from Old French revolucion, literally “a course, a revolving.” Which in turn came from the Latin revolvere, “to turn, to roll back.”
This sense of turning and rolling let the word by the mid-1400s to take on a generalized meaning of “an instance of great change in affairs.” But around 1600, it had been applied specifically to great changes in political circles and the new meaning of “an overthrow of an established political system” came about–specifically, it was used for the expulsion of the Stuart dynasty under James II in 1688, when the power in England was transferred to William and Mary.
And of course, eventually we had the American Revolution. Which is the backdrop into which I put Lark Benton and Emerson Fielding, in A Heart’s Revolution. If you haven’t read this early novel of mine yet, I hope you seize the chance!
by Roseanna White | Mar 8, 2018 | Thoughtful Thursdays
But as my husband and I were talking a few weeks ago about how to really change the culture, he hit on this again. And I realized that the thoughts I’d applied to our churches can–should–be extended to a whole lot more. Bear with me as I try to reason through my thoughts on this.
As an author, my thoughts often start with books (go figure, LOL). “What,” people ask over and again, “is Christian fiction?” And some definitions will be all about the negative–what they don’t have. Christian fiction doesn’t have sex scenes. Doesn’t have bad language. Doesn’t have…
True. But it’s a whole lot more than that. Christian fiction has a
faith thread. Christian fiction is about how ultimately our stories are incomplete until they include God. Christian fiction is about seeing His love for us play out in a fictional world.
It’s not enough to write a book that lacks bad things. We need to write books that have good things. Good writing. Solid characterizations. Intriguing plots–what all good books need. Plus. Plus faith, plus Truth. Plus the Lord. Christian fiction needs to be more, not less, to be successful.
Why?
Because we’re never going to reach a hurting world just with messages of No. People don’t ever want to subscribe to the negative–they want something to believe in, not something to be against.
Let’s look at the culture for a minute, and where secularism seems to be winning. First example–the abortion question. I noticed when I was just a kid that both sides phrased their stance as a Pro. Pro-Choice, Pro-Life. No one is ever going to call themselves Anti-Life or Anti-Choice. Right? Because that’s by definition negative.
But what about the actions both sides take? Protests–protests are all too often negative. They’re protesting against something, not for it. And I honestly think this is when they fail. Because though we call ourselves Pro-Life, let’s face it–far too often we’re just anti-abortion. Which means we don’t have in place the things that affect a positive change–the clinics and support groups and counseling and open arms–so much as a willingness to speak against abortion and call it criminal, to denounce anyone who would consider it, to name the evil. This is what leads to abortion clinic bombings…and gee, I don’t think that gets us a whole lot of points with people of different opinions, does it? It doesn’t convince anyone to change their mind. All it does is convince people that we’re irrational and against free will.
Where Pro-Life really shines is when we share the heartache of the girls and women, when we offer love instead of judgement. But all too often, they don’t get that from our side. They get it from the Pro-Choice side. How topsy-turvy is that?
That is, though, just one example. There are so, so many more. So many times when Christians just take a reactionary stance. Where we take a stand…
against. Against homosexual marriage. Against abortion. Against the removal of the Ten Commandments from public places. Against the removal of prayer from schools.
And each and every one of those stances have failed. Why? Because we’re not standing for anything.
Why aren’t we more often, publicly, taking a stand for? For forgiving sinners. For offering second chances. For teaching our children right from wrong. For proving that the hard thing is often the best thing. For demonstrating that we’re stronger, better with God than on our own. For covenants. For bonds. For families. For community.
That’s a whole lot harder. It means giving of ourselves. It means offering help to people. It means sacrifice. It means danger. It means persecution.
It means changing the culture.
But that’s something we will never achieve by reacting. It’s something we can only do by acting.
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. 