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 23, 2012 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
I had a nice, insightful post planned for today. Filled with brilliance (ahem) and thought and pondering a scripture that jumped out at me. I was just beginning to delve into the contemplation required for it when an adorable little face appeared beside mine. Grinning. And chanting, “School, school, school.”
Yeah, see, we decided we’d start the same day my niece did–today. But I kinda forgot to take into account that on the first day of school, I don’t have to lasso my darling girl to her chair at 9 like I do later in the year–she’s begging to begin at 6:30.
So . . . yeah. That’s what my morning has been. =) Getting Xoe back into math and handwriting, introducing her new spelling book. And going over letters and numbers with Rowyn. Pulling out her reader and trying to figure out what in the world this diamond-diagram thing is they have in the copywork section of my curriculum. Convincing Rowyn that his reading lesson can wait just a minute while I read Xoe her spelling words. Needless to say, blogging has slipped just a bit this morning, LOL.
I promise you that wonderfully insightful post on next Thursday. And tell you it has to do with redemption, but an application of it I’d never considered until I read it earlier this week. And for now, back to school I go!
by Roseanna White | Aug 16, 2012 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
And I’ve had a pretty fun week. My birthday on Tuesday was a lot of fun, filled with discounted food. 😉 My mom took me out to lunch and my hubby/kids to dinner, and both times, part of the meal was discounted (or free) because of a delay. Which suited me just fine and made it more fun. For dinner, we drove down to Hagerstown, MD, about an hour away, to go to Outback and use my free birthday coffee coupon at Starbucks. (Yes, the nearest Starbucks is an hour away. Gotta love Western Maryland…)
On the drive down, we were going through rain, with the sun behind us, and it resulted in a perpetual rainbow, low-slung and sparkling, right in front of us on the road. It traveled with us about five miles, to the delight of us all. I claimed it was my personal birthday rainbow. 😉 On the way home, the clouds were starting to lift from the mountains and valleys back into the sky, resulting in these gorgeous pillars of mist . . . quite a sight. God spared no imagination painting the landscape for me that evening. =) (Thanks, Lord!)
And also making this week fun is that I’ve bitten the bullet and stopped
talking about starting a local book club and actually
done it. Yay! The Inspired Book Club will meet at my church Library the last Thursday of every month, beginning in September. AND folks were so excited when I started talking about it, that we’ll be chatting on Facebook the last week of each month too. So if you’re too far away to come snack and chat with us, feel free to
join the Facebook group. And if you’re near Cumberland, MD and want to join, just shoot me an email at roseanna [at] roseannawhite [dot] com and I’ll give you directions! Our book for September is Tamera Alexander’s
A Lasting Impression. And to make it even more fun, Tammy has agreed to call in during out meeting so we can ask her questions and get the insider scoop on the book.
And even if you can’t squeeze one more thing into your schedule, let’s just admire my fun little logo. Isn’t it cute? LOL. I made that after organizing the
Christian Review of Books‘s shelves in its new location at my church. (Yay, all those books out of my sitting room!) Oh, and the CRoB is also in desperate need of a local-to-Cumberland-area volunteer to donate an hour or two a week to helping me keep the list updated and get books mailed out to reviewers. If you’re interested, email me at the address above.
Not exactly a life-altering blog post, I know, but it’s been that kind of week more full of news and chocolate cake than epiphanies. 😉 Thanks again, all, for your wonderful birthday wishes!
by Roseanna White | Aug 15, 2012 | Remember When Wednesdays, Uncategorized
I was researching for my Civil War era book when I first read about pilots. I’d heard the term in this context, of course, but I still had to pause. Frown. And think, “They obviously don’t mean airplane pilots, so…”
Okay, it didn’t even require that much of a pause, given that I was reading about boats and ships trying to maneuver through complicated riverways. Pretty obvious that when they say they need to find an able pilot, they’re not looking for someone to wing them through the clouds. 😉
Still, it’s come up again, and I’ve been struck by how important a job these people had. During the War of 1812, for instance, the action in the Chesapeake depended heavily upon how one could navigate the web of estuaries. Those native to the region could find ways around the blockade by following smaller streams and branches around and about until they were past the British ships in the bay. But the British…when they were trying to launch raids with their fleet, they couldn’t do a whole lot on their own.
In both the War of 1812 and the Civil War, the visitors to the territories they were trying to invade relied on a particular group of pilots to aid them–the slaves. Both with the same promise–freedom. Though Maryland was technically a Union state in the Civil War, it was one of the two highest traders of slaves in the early 19th century, sending them south and west. Needless to say, there were plenty kept there too. And much as they had done during the Revolution, the British put out the word that any slave to run away from his master and join the British would be granted their freedom.
This is how they got their pilots. They lured local slaves away and then used their intimate knowledge of the land and rivers to lead the invading force away from the coast.
In
Whispers from the Shadows, my hero is a a New Englander who moved to Maryland as a teen. Having been raised with the sensibilities of one from a state that had outlawed slavery before he was even born, he sees this practice and shakes his head–knowing that this same weakness that is bringing the British too close for comfort now will continue to divide his nation. Which, naturally, will lead right into the third book in the trilogy, when his granddaughter finds herself caught in a rather precarious position between the southern sympathizers meeting secretly in Baltimore and her Union-sympathizing family…
But I’m getting ahead of myself. 😉
Oh, and many, many thanks to everyone who took the time to wish me a happy birthday yesterday! I had a lovely day with my family, and it was brightened still more by all the online greetings. =)
by Roseanna White | Aug 14, 2012 | Uncategorized
It’s August 14. That means that at 12:10 p.m., I will officially be a thirty-something instead of a twenty-something. Two years ago I was a bit shocked to realize I was “late twenties” instead of “mid-twenties.” So you can imagine my surprise at this one, LOL.
But after considerable consideration, I have decided that I’m not going to stay at 29. Nope. I’m 30, and I’m going to own it. I’m going to make it awesome.
I mean, 29 was pretty great.
LFY Annapolis came out, I got to see
Jewel of Persia and
A Stray Drop of Blood appear and hold steady on the Amazon genre best-seller list. I sold my first trilogy, the Culper Ring Series, to Harvest House.
So how much better might 30 be?
Ring of Secrets will be out this coming year, and
Whispers from the Shadows too! My daughter will be going into second grade, and my little guy will be dipping his toes in the home school pool too. And to top it all off, 30 marks the year when I’ll have spent half my life loving my honey, who I started dating at 15.
So naturally, we must celebrate this tumbling into a new decade with chocolate.
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| Chocolate Orange Cream Cake – one of my favorite recipes =) |
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And with these guys…
And with food that I’m not cooking. 😉 Oh! And we’re also celebrating a milestone of Facebook followers for WhiteFire, so there’ll be a giveaway today! If you haven’t entered yet for the winner’s choice of WhiteFire e-book, you better hop over there before I do the drawing!
So grab a slice of that delicious cake, a tall glass of iced coffee, and enjoy the day with me! Let’s live it up!
by Roseanna White | Aug 9, 2012 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
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| A Favor by Edmund Blair Leighton |
I’ve always liked August. It holds my birthday, after all, and has traditionally had lots of other fun things going on. But on the other hand, it’s the end of summer. The start of school. For any household with kids, August signals a change in seasons, even though the heat of summer’s still upon us.
This year, when the page in the calendar flipped, it kinda got to me. I looked down at the project that had been my primary goal, and I see that it’s not all that far along. And that feeling of failure swamped me. That feeling of What have I been doing? How have I wasted my time?
Then I remember that I haven’t been twiddling my thumbs. I’ve been editing a lot, which is great and necessary. I wrote a novella that I’m excited to get to use for promotion between the first two books of the Culper Ring Series. And I got a good chunk done on another project.
A project that got stalled, perhaps even nixed for good. Which thought still brings me a pang.
I’m a writer–I know rejection well. I’ve had to put aside countless projects over the years. But for some reason, this one still gets me down now and then. Primarily, I think, because it’s intertwined with a couple other projects in my mind, which have also been stalled. Put on hold. Which they’ve been on so long that they’ve gone from “paused” to “stop.”
I’m not sure I can really explain this echoey sigh that fills me when I think about these things lately. I can see where the way things have fallen out is without doubt for the best. I can see that the Lord has His plan in it and have to nod at the wisdom.
But still there’s just this sense of loss. Lost dreams. Lost time spent on them when I could have been working on the project that’s a sure thing.
I have to trust there, though, too, don’t I? Trust that that time spent was for a purpose too. That it wasn’t wasted.
The funny thing is that I have no problem looking at the years spent on that pile of books in my computer that are unpublished and give them a thumb’s up. Because I learned from them, because they made me who I am, because I still hope that some of them will have their day. So why can’t I look at the month and a half spent on these projects the same way?
I’m really not sure, but it’s something I’ve been giving to the Lord again and again. And again, and again, I have to remind myself that I haven’t failed. That I’m doing just fine, thank you very much, on my primary project.
With mere weeks left in my “free” time this summer–or at least before the home school year starts–I can’t help but number my days and try to figure out how to catch up with where I wanted to be. But the real task here isn’t to write a chapter a day and edit two books for WhiteFire. The real task is to lay these stalled dreams on the alter and trust. Trust that lost dreams and lost time and lost motivation are all part of God’s plan for me to find something better. To find His path for me. To find Him in new ways.
It’s hard, when those echoey sighs billow through me. But then . . . trust always is.
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.