I’ve been quiet online, other than scheduled social media posts of an authorly nature. The past few weeks have been difficult, for reasons that some of you know well. I’ll let the pictures tell the story.

We are blessed in our family and friends. Truly blessed.

Yet these past weeks have been challenging for others besides ourselves. Several friends have lost loved ones. One friend lost her grandmother last week, and now her mother is actively dying from cancer. Other friends are in the midst of difficult family situations, walking by faith as they search for the best path forward. And so on.

I’m reminded of a scene from In Pieces (you knew I was going to mention my writing, but my writing is deeply personal, so bear with me) in which Molly challenges the idea, articulated by St. Thomas Aquinas, that:

We pray not to change divine disposition, but to gain what God has decided will be fulfilled through the prayers of the saints. By asking, men deserve to receive what Almighty God from eternity wants to give them, as Gregory (the Great) says.

To this, Molly replies, “I asked God to help Papa, not condemn him to an unholy death. He chose not to answer my prayer. Would Thomas Aquinas say that God willed my father’s suicide from all eternity?”

Josiah’s answer (“No, but he would say God allowed it because He would bring something greater out of it”) is the right and faithful answer. Yet Molly tells Josiah his answer is not comforting. Sarah Robb picks this up later on, when, during a sermon on the deaths of Saul and Jonathan, her pastor argues that their deaths proved God's providence, as David became king after Saul, and the Messiah came through David's kingly line. A valid point, Sarah thinks, except that

“...the argument did not address grief. David mourned the deaths of Saul and Jonathan. Trumpeting Divine Providence would not have lessened his pain.” (Ch. 21)

The ‘right’ answer isn't always the right answer.

When I drafted these scenes, I was working from intuition and conversations with friends who knew grief intimately. Now I'm standing alongside Molly. Changes my view on what I wrote, even if I wouldn’t change a word of it.

You are in my prayers.

Several friends and family joined me August 12th for my Adrift release party/meet up at the Michigan Maritime Museum for a short cruise aboard Friends Good Will. We had a great day for a sail. I was in heaven. Big stupid grin on my face.

Family and friends, post-sail. Friends Good Will and downtown South Haven, Michigan behind us.

As I said, we had a lovely day for sailing—perfect, actually, except for the swell. (We’d had some weather come through the day before.) Everyone handled it, though. Even me. Thank you, Blisslets.

My sister, my books, and me. And a cannon.

One of the hands holding me steady so my brother-in-law could get that perfect shot. Plenty of wisecracks flying at this point—I enjoy sailor humor, as you all know full well. (Actually, this man reminded me of my character, Mark Findley—”impudent man,” as Molly would say.)

Then that hand went and proposed marriage with a ten cent ring—apparently a running gag on Friends Good Will. I was highly offended. Clearly. Then he asked if my husband owned a shotgun. (Sadly, my husband wasn’t able to come. The day’s one low point.)

The Michigan Maritime Museum offers visitors plenty to see, including a collection of small craft and Coast Guard vessels:

Petite, 1953. The mainsail is gaff rigged—the sail is attached to a yard, which is raised by the halyard, creating the trapezoidal shape. This was a common fore-and-aft rig in the 18th century.

This is a daggerboard*, for those of you who read Adrift and are wondering what one is. A daggerboard is used with shallow keeled sailboats, allowing them to sail further into the wind. It goes up and down through this casing.

*99% sure it’s a daggerboard and not a centerboard.

Here’s something cool: Merryman, a 26 foot Revenue Marine (Coast Guard) lifeboat designed and built in the 1870s. Notice the short masts and sprit sails—the sails held up by a diagonal sprit, or yard: these masts could be stepped up or down quickly, depending on the needs of the rescue and the weather. When Mr. Findley bequeaths Grandfather Robb’s Penelope to Josiah, he mentions its sprit sail.

You had better believe I will be back. Also: I’ve begun petitioning my husband for sailing lessons:

A girl can dream, right?

Aboard Friends Good Will, August 12, 2023. Video by Nick Renken.

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This is the single most low-key book release party ever—a meet up. To celebrate the release of Adrift, I’m going for a short sail aboard the Friends Good Will, a replica 1810 top sail merchant sloop and flagship of the Michigan Maritime Museum. And if you want join me, then I would love to have your company!

Saturday, August 12, 2023
Departure time: 3:15 p.m.

Michigan Maritime Museum
South Haven, MI

Purchase Day Sail tickets here: michiganmaritimemuseum.org/explore/our-fleet/friends-good-will/

My plan is to visit the museum first, then sail, then go out for dinner. (Somewhere. Not sure where yet. I’ll pick something mid-range, since we’ll be paying for our own meals.) If you can’t get a reservation for 3:15, then try for a 1:15 departure. We can still meet up later.

If you’re planning to join me:

Step One: Reserve your ticket. Cost is $40 per adult.

Step Two: Fill out the form below so that I know to expect you. I’ll figure out dinner reservations once I have a head count.

Looking forward to seeing you!

p.s. If you’re prone to motion sickness like I am, might I suggest Blisslets? Friends of mine own the company; their stylish and affordably priced acupuncture bracelets have been featured on Good Morning America, CNBC, Forbes, Cruising World, etc. Definitely worth checking out! blisslets.com

UPDATE: I finally hit upon a final floor plan:

ORIGINAL POST:

This week’s adventure in writing: playing eighteenth century architect. As I sat down to work on Molly Chase Book Three, I realized I never mapped out the floor plan for the Chases’ house.

The easiest solution would have been to research colonial homes and pick a floor plan, way back when I began this project (2017? 2018?). Alas. I was not so forward-thinking as that.

With two books under my belt, I needed to match the floor plan to what I’ve already written. And I need it to meet the needs of Book Three’s plot. And it needed to be rectangular-ish, like a true colonial. Plus, the house has no HVAC and no artificial light, of course, so rooms need fireplaces and passages need windows. Figuring this out for a large home—not McMansion sized, because colonial homes weren't that big, but certainly big enough—was not the easiest task, y’all.

Thankfully, while googling colonial homes, I saw some with wings built onto the original rectangular floor plan and had an “ah-ha!” moment. Maybe Mr. Chase built onto his house after he and Mrs. Chase married? I could see him doing that. And now I have a floor plan!*†

Ground Floor

Main Floor

Third Floor

*Historical accuracy and structural soundness not guaranteed. Build at your own risk.

†I still need a fireplace for the workroom. Not entirely sure where to put it...

I could have sworn that I’ve blogged about this before, but apparently I haven’t.

Historical fiction writers are often told to eliminate contraction usage so that the prose sounds “historic.” In truth, contractions— “I’m”, “don’t”, “can’t”, etc.—have been used in spoken English forever. The briefest glance at any Shakespeare play proves that point.

The confusion arises when one looks at novels and other prose from the past. In the opening chapter of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, for example, you will not find a single contraction. Austen uses contractions sparingly in her writing, reserving them mainly for uneducated and/or silly characters. Same with her personal correspondence. She used abbreviations to save space, but few contractions.

This may be an Austen thing, or an English thing, or a “this is a book so I need to write more formally” thing. But prose like Austen’s—and probably Austen’s in particular, given her popularity and the sheer number of contemporary Regency romances out there—is what people expect of Georgian- and Regency-set fiction.

But is formality historical? How did English speakers actually talk in the Georgian and Regency eras? For myself, the question is even more specific: how did Americans talk? The United States’ wealthiest class—merchants, lawyers, plantation owners—were steps removed from England’s aristocratic and gentry classes. We were their country bumpkins.

These questions arose for me while revising In Pieces ahead of acquisition by WhiteFire/Chrism. And I wanted an answer—a good, historically accurate answer!

The closest record we have of informal speech is correspondence. My friend and editor Roseanna pointed me to her own research on contractions and American usage. I took her work and went a step further, searching the Founders’ correspondence at the National Archives for not only usage, but frequency of usage.

I also compared and contrasted the Founders’ writing styles. As you can see above, most used contractions consistently. The outliers were Benjamin Franklin, whose letters are practically littered with contractions, and James Madison, who rarely used them, if at all. And if we consider the age, history, and personalities of these two men, we see that this makes sense. Franklin was the son of a candlemaker, he attended school for a few years but never graduated, and he was of an older generation. Madison was younger, he was a Virginian plantation owner, and he was a stick in the mud. Of course his letters were formal to the point of being stilted!

As for American dialects, we don’t have nearly as much evidence. But writing dialect is difficult and fraught with dangers, no matter the time period. So I avoid it.

Armed with this knowledge, I set out not to eradicate contractions, but to employ them for the sake of characterization, as Austen did:

This said, I can’t “write old.” Some authors can write in a historical style and succeed—Eleanor Bourg Nicholson comes to mind. And I wish I could! My writing would be better for it! But my ear isn’t good enough.

So, like Sigrid Undset, I use contemporary prose to depict a historical setting, leaning on description to depict the period: objects, activities, events, etc. My stylistic goals are modest: write cleanly, avoid anachronisms (with a few exceptions), avoid contemporary sentence cadence as best I can, and sprinkle in Georgian idioms for color. That’s it.

Some think this is a flaw in my writing. They’re not wrong! I love the late Georgian period and “get” it, culturally and otherwise. Yet I have to write around my limitations.

Update 8/15/22:

Another point worth noting, at least with regards the Molly Chase series: Boston is a port town and Josiah Robb is a sailor. As one person in the Patrick O’Brian Appreciation Society pointed out to me, elisions and contractions are natural to nautical speech. Setting and characterization matters!

Thoughts? Contact me here.