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Women in the Civil War: North and South by Jina Bacarr

March 11, 2015 by in category Archives tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

My favorite things are anything vintage.

Stuffed away in my closet I have a blue parasol trimmed with white lace, a pair of old lace-up, pointy boots.

And a hoop skirt.

As flighty and unpredictable as any belle from the Civil War.

But the reality of the role of women during the War Between the States is more than flirty belles twirling a pretty parasol. Women worked as nurses, volunteered as soldiers, risked their lives as spies. They were The Women of the Civil War: North and South.

This is the 150th Anniversary of the end of the Civil War. I’ve always loved this era since I first saw Scarlett sitting on the front porch at Tara with the Tarleton Twins and pooh-poohing the idea of war coming. So I’ve just finished my own Civil War novel–a time travel…more about that coming up. I’ll update as things progress.

One thing the women of the North and South had in common was their love for the men fighting. They became nurses, took wounded into their homes, sewed blankets and uniforms, baked breads and jellies, and fought beside them. They did everything they could to help their cause.

Can you imagine living in a time when wearing a corset day and night was required? Women found themselves not only hampered by stays, but petticoats and those hoop skirts.  I got my hoop skirt from the costume department in a theater where I worked years ago…they were throwing it away!! No, I couldn’t have that. I was thrilled to take it off their hands. Since then, I’ve worn it under a Civil War era gown to commemorative events, book signings, and costume parties.

When I was writing my CW time travel, I put it on again. Just to get the feel of what it was like.

Floating…is how I would describe it.

It’s so important to walk the walk, talk the talk of the time. I’m fascinated with the women who fought as soldiers. Imagine trying to keep your identity secret among a bunch of rowdy troops. Not easy. According to reports, many women signed up to get a regular paycheck. How about being a nurse? You had to be over thirty and plain.

And what about being a spy? Sounds glamorous…but dangerous. Imagine hiding a letter written in cipher in your pantaloons.

Thanks for stopping by…and as I mentioned, more about my Civil War time travel when I have news!

Best,
Jina

http://jinabacarr.com
@JinaBacarr

UPDATED:

I’m very excited to announce that my Civil War Time Travel “LOVE ME FOREVER” is up on Kindle Scout website for a month long campaign beginning Sunday, March 29, 2015.

For more info on the Kindle Scout Program CLICK HERE. This is where you, the reader, can choose which books are published. A super idea and fun for both readers and writers.

 LOVE ME FOREVER on Kindle Scout — you can read the first 5,000 words HERE. You’ll meet both my heroines and both my heroes in the excerpt. If you nominate my story and it’s published by Kindle Scout, then you’ll receive a free copy! It’s a saga of love and romance and war of more than 500 pages. Believe me, I walked every road, fought every battle with my characters, even walked around in a hoop skirt to “get it right.” This is a book of the heart…any questions? Please ask!!

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Rhetorical Devices Are a Writer’s Friends

February 26, 2015 by in category Archives tagged as ,

Guest-blogging today is MM Pollard of Workshops with MM, an editor with Black Velvet Seductions. MM will be teaching OCCRWA’s March Online Class, “Writing Fiction with Impact”

 

When you hear the phrase “rhetorical devices,” do you break out in a rash? Do you think they are only for lawyers and other people who argue for a living? Do you think including them in your fiction will make your writing sound artificial and too scholarly for your readers?

If you have a rash now, sorry. May I suggest Sarna Lotion? It’s great to ease itching. If you answered yes to the other two questions, we need to talk, seriously.

Good writers use rhetorical devices and don’t even know it. Why? Because writers have been using them since they first wrote stories. You do, too.

If that is so, then why should you take my workshop, Fiction with Impact? Because we will cover twenty of these devices, devices that are suited to all fiction writing. I’ll give you several examples of each device from fiction and a chance to practice. You will learn to use these devices to impact your writing and your reader intentionally, not in a haphazard way.

I promise you won’t sound like a lawyer or Socrates if you use the information you’ll gain from the workshop’s six lessons. Promise.  
 
“Writing Fiction with Impact” begins March 16th and runs through April 12th. For more information and to register, visit the OCCRWA website.

 

 

 
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Bully Pulpit

February 24, 2015 by in category Archives

Did you know that Emerson’s saying is “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” not, as I had heard for many years (and found very confusing), ‘Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.’

I understand that rigid adherence to consistency can be problematic—following the letter Vs the spirit of a law or requirement can be absurd.

But in general some level of consistency seems like a good thing. Inconsistency can be unfair.  It’s untrustworthy, can be arbitrary and impossible to work with or depend on.

So when someone is strongly endorsing some belief and presenting the profound rightness of their opinion and the unbelievable wrongness of alternative positions—when they demand that others change their minds and believe whatever the speaker believes, it begs the question whether that declared “truth” is adhered to consistently across the board by its passionate advocate.

That only seems fair, right?

Some people are convinced that their belief trumps all others.  And that everyone that believes differently is wrong, bad, indeed evil.  They believe that any action to convert or convince others of the error of their ways is justified, and if unconvinced, exterminating the unbelievers is a justifiable solution (figuratively or literally).

Unfortunately, that applies to many early versions of present religions—I’m thinking the Crusades and the Inquisition, for example—and for some, this attitude remains true to this day.

Bullies and bullying are not just in playgrounds or schools, they are all around us.  And like those bullied children, we rarely have the courage to stand up to them or call them out.  In fact, we can be complicit.  For even as we cheer at watching a triumph-of-the-underdog story, we delightedly click on some over-the-top hate-filled rant, or pillory someone for a politically incorrect faux pas.

Indeed bullies seeking the public eye often gravitate towards a position that is on the moral high ground, so they are given a pass on their bullying behavior.  They are “saving” some unarguably sympathetic element that cannot speak for itself—and thus cannot reject its self-appointed “savior” as a self-serving, manipulative bully (e.g. animals, children, environment, etc.).  Their statements of caring are specious and inconsistent—they talk and talk, but do not walk the walk.

If they truly cared about what they so passionately claim, what other behaviors might we reasonably expect them to exhibit?  What are they actually doing to meaningfully help those they are the alleged advocates and supporters of?

For the most part they just like to dictate to others how to live their lives.  But no matter how many flags they wrap themselves in, or selfie halos they snap on, they are bullies, and there is no practice to their preaching.

Just how consistent are they?  Really, that’s not a foolish question.

Isabel Swift

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The Orange Rose Contest for Unpublished Writers is OPEN

February 13, 2015 by in category Archives tagged as ,

Welcome to the Orange County Chapter/RWA’s 32nd annual Orange Rose Contest for Unpublished Writers! This year’s contest will be bigger and better than ever, with a revamped score sheet and final round judging by acquiring editors and agents. Have a look at this fantastic roster:

  • Bess Cozby, Editorial Assistant, Tor/Forge Books
  • Cat Clyne, Editor, Sourcebooks
  • Katherine Pelz, Assistant Editor, The Berkley Publishing Group, div. of Penguin Random House
  •  Brenda Chin, Editorial Director, ImaJinn (an imprint of BelleBooks)
  • Jill Limber, Editor, Boroughs Publishing group
  • Priyanka Krishnan, Associate Editor, Ballantine Bantam Dell of Random House
  • Tera Cuskaden, Editor, Samhain
  • Alycia Tornetta, Editorial Director, Entangled
  • Raela Schoenherr, Editor, Bethany House
  •  David Long, Executive Editor, Bethany House
  • Flo Nicoll, Editor, Harlequin UK/Mills and Boon
  •  Karen Reid, Associate Editor, Harlequin
  • Nicole Fisher, Editorial Assistant, Avon Books and Avon Impulse
  • Courtney Miller-Callihan, Agent, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates
  • Nalini Akolekar, Literary Agent, Spencerhill Associates

Also new this year: Finalists are chosen by their overall score in each category, so we’ll have a first, second and third-place winner in each category. The contest deadline is April 15, 2015, so polish up those opening pages (maximum 35 pages including a synopsis, electronic submission) and check out all the contest rules and other details at www.occrwa.org/orangerosecontest . While you’re there, read the story of the Charlotte Award (our top prize) and don’t miss the informative editor/agent Q & A blogs and stories from past contest winners and finalists. Make the Orange Rose Contest for Unpublished Writers your goal for 2015. You won’t want to miss out on this one!

Contest Chairs:
Maria Powers
Jann Ryan
Barb DeLong
OCC/RWA

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Be Your Character’s Life Coach, with Terrel Hoffman

January 26, 2015 by in category Archives

Having trouble with your characters? Our OCCRWA February Online Class can help!

Terrel Hoffman is here today to talk about the online class she’ll be teaching starting February 16, 2015:

WHO YOUR CHARACTER THINKS SHE IS MIGHT NOT BE WHO YOU THINK SHE IS

Who are you?

Who do you think you are?

Is who you think you are who you really are?

Are you sure?

Read the questions above again. Slowly. Now, apply those questions to your characters.

Who you are is an amalgam of every experience you’ve ever had. Everything you’ve thought others think about you. The same is true of your characters, if you’ll let them experience their lives.

Who you are (as in who you really are) is deep inside you. And that authentic person cannot be revealed unless you give her (or him) space.

That’s the idea behind life coaching. It’s a process of discovering the person you were always meant to be, discovering the path you were always meant to take, living the life you were always meant to live.

That’s what you try to do for your characters, right? You want your characters to be three dimensional. You want them to be memorable, believable, realistic. And yet, what if that realism is something you can’t reveal without understanding everything that ever went into creating your character as she is today?

You don’t need to go deep into your character’s Freudian psychology, or know who her 3rd– grade teacher was, if that stellar individual didn’t contribute to your character’s persona, nor do you need to be your character’s armchair therapist. Coaching is a process of asking a series of powerful questions and listening carefully to the answers. Each question’s response leads to further questions.

With Be Your Character’s Life Coach you construct your characters from the inside out.

You probably know what your character’s wound is, where it all started. But what if your character’s behavior and choices led her to the event? Now I’m not talking about rape or war or other catastrophic events as being your character’s fault. But even with those, the events in your character’s life that precede catastrophe can reveal how your character might deal with it afterward.

So, if you aren’t who you think you are, how do you discover who the real you is? And how do you dig out from underneath all the false “you”s to reveal the bright and shining authentic you?

When you write your characters, that’s what you’re doing, right?

Why not make it realistic? Internally consistent? Organic? Why not also make it fun, thought provoking and surprising too?

With this class, and the exercises in it, you’ll discover how persistent and sneaky your character can be to make sure she gets in her own way. You’ll expose the stories your character has told herself that cause her to believe being stuck is okay. And you’ll discover how your character can grow over the course of her book to attain the balance needed to allow her authentic self to come forth to achieve her happily ever after. You’ll also discover how your character can fail to grow, can reinforce her stories, energize her sneaky side, and so continue to live an inauthentic life. Which is what villains do, right?

I hope you’ll join me for Be Your Character’s Life Coach. But I need you to know, this is a demanding class. As with any life coach, I ask the questions, but you, and your character, do the hard work after the session is over.
 
Be Your Character’s Life Coach, with Terrel Hoffman, starts February 16, 2015 and runs through March 15, 2015.
 
For more information and to enroll go to the OCCRWA website.  

 
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