The Romancing of Evangeline Ipswich (18 page)

Okay, what’s the phrase that people use when they ask a person to do something they know they really don’t want to do, but figure they’ll enjoy or accept in the end? Oh yeah! “Humor me, if you will.”

I’ll begin this author’s note with that very phrase and beg you to
humor me, if you will
. I’ve included a couple of excerpts from two authors that I revere as my favorites, whose writing I believe can also be life-changing. I’m asking you to take just a minute or two and read (slowly and with the purpose of enjoyment) these excerpts before you read the rest of this author’s note—please. Okay, here we go:

Description of Ichabod Crane, taken from
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
by Washington Irving, now public domain, first published 1819–1820:

He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weathercock, perched upon his spindle neck, to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield.

An excerpt from my favorite poem, “The Southwind and the Sun,” by James Whitcomb Riley, now public domain, first published 1890:

O The South Wind and the Sun!

How each loved the other one—

Full of fancy—full folly—

Full of jollity and fun!

How they romped and ran about,

Like two boys when school is out,

With glowing face, and lisping lip,

Low laugh, and lifted shout!

And the South Wind—he was dressed

With a ribbon round his breast

That floated, flapped and fluttered

In a riotous unrest,

And a drapery of mist

From the shoulder and the wrist

Flowing backward with the motion

Of the waving hand he kissed.

And the Sun had on a crown

Wrought of gilded thistle-down,

And a scarf of velvet vapor,

And a raveled-rainbow gown;

And his tinsel-tangled hair,

Tossed and lost upon the air,

Was glossier and flossier

Than any anywhere.

These are examples of the kinds of things
I
like to read, my young bonnie lasses and my dashing handsome lads! Considered far too wordy (Irving) or far too fluffy (Riley) for most readers today, this type of writing I hail to be downright soul-soothing! I so miss this kind of beauty being in our world. I even miss the writing styles of authors such as Victoria Holt and Georgette Heyer!

I mean, how can anyone not love that description of Ichabod? Doesn’t it just perfectly set his appearance in your mind? Even if you’d never seen Disney’s animated version of
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
or the movie starring Jeff Goldblum as Ichabod Crane, you’d know exactly what Ichabod looked like. Not only would you know what he looked like, but you’d also be left with the feeling of the time period, just as if you had been whisked back to 1820, you know?

And the poem! How can anyone keep from sighing with respite or smiling with joy after reading words woven together in such wonderment: “And the Sun had on a crown, wrought of gilded thistle-down, and a scarf of velvet vapor, and a raveled-rainbow gown.” Okay, well admittedly maybe guys don’t smile and feel respite at reading that. I’m thinking my husband would quirk an eyebrow and look at me like I’d lost my mind if I suggested he would be thrilled with this poem. Still, you know what I mean, right? These kinds of beauties are lost today!

But the world (as a whole) is what it is—has dumbed-down its vocabulary and ability to simply sink into a descriptive passage and bathe in truly savoring it, you know? That being said, however, I do not feel that you and I have given up on beauty and fluff in our reading. And in truth, that is what my goal is (and always has been) when writing my stories—to attempt to give my reader just a whiff of what I feel when I read Irving and Riley. I want a reader to feel happier when they’re finished with one of my stories. I want words like
resplendent
,
caressively
,
ambrosia
,
autumn
, and
delight
to bounce around in someone’s mind once they finished a book I’ve written. I just want
you
to feel happier and as if you’ve had a moment of escape from everything tugging at your mind.

To be honest, sometimes my goal for my readers does backfire on me. I can’t remember where I saw this, but somewhere out there is a review of
A Crimson Frost
where the person simply wrote, “I’m not a fan of poetry.”

Naturally, I was crushed! I don’t know if the average person who doesn’t write for a living knows how time-consuming and difficult the kind of poetry included in
A Crimson Frost
is to write! Believe me, I love to write poetry (as is evident in
Shackles of Honor
and the
Time of Aspen Falls
as well, right?), but it does take some time and concentration of thought. And to have the only comment in that review be, “I’m not a fan of poetry,” was kind of crushing. I mean, what? Didn’t she like the Crimson Knight when his shirt was off? And I was brave enough to make reference to his “navel.
”


Of course, not everybody is a fan of poetry, and I totally get that. But long ago, most things a body had access to read were poems, sonnets, or derivatives, you know?

And yet there was to be a much greater purpose intended for those poems in
A Crimson Frost
, and my crushed ego was instantly healed when I received an e-mail from a reader and friend, informing me that her son (I believe he was in eighth grade at the time) had received a school assignment to memorize a poem and recite it in front of the class. Needless to say, he was less than thrilled about the whole project. Therefore, his mother (wise woman that she obviously was) suggested he memorize one of the poems from
A Crimson Frost
—you know, since a couple of them are epic where masculinity and battle are concerned. The boy actually liked the poem, memorized it, and pulled off a fabulous recitation. And that was worth more to me than any other review (good or bad)
A Crimson Frost
had ever received! Somewhere out there is a young man who at least
read
a poem in this day and age, right? And maybe it actually entertained him. I can’t think of a better compliment than having an adolescent boy memorize one of my poems! (It’s right up there with the college professor’s wife who once told me that her literary professor husband really enjoyed my poetry! Fabulous!)

When I was in high school, I was given a similar assignment: to memorize a poem and recite it in front of the class. Well, remember as a kid when you’d get an assignment like that and realized you were already accidentally prepared? Loved that, didn’t you? Anyway, thanks to my own mother, I had, years before, memorized a poem that she would often recite when doing this and that around the house. Some of you may be familiar with it. It was an epic tale—not quite politically correct by today’s standards, but epic all the same. I will say that my recitation of it bordered on Anne Shirley quality and was well received by my classmates. It goes like this:

Ladies and gentlemen!

Hobos and tramps!

Cross-eyed mosquitoes

And bow-legged ants!

I come before you, to stand behind you,

to tell you a tale I’ve never heard before!

One dark day on a sunny night,

Two dead boys got up to fight!

Back to back they faced each other,

Drew their swords and shot each other!

A deaf policeman heard the noise

And came and killed the two dead boys.

If you don’t believe this lie—it’s true!

Ask the blind man…

He saw it, too!

Yes, an epically ridiculous moment in my high school career! How embarrassing! But at least I pulled an A+ out of it
!


By now you’re wondering why I’m going on and on about poetry, my high school career, and reiterating my purpose in writing stories for you. Well, as you know the past few years have been so wrought with stress for Kevin and me—wrought with health problems, business drama, one of my sons being away from home for two whole years (I know you’ve heard all this whining before, blah blah, poor me). Even though I’d pop up for air here and there and think,
Oh, I’m feeling better now! I’m even thinking better now!
—it wasn’t true!

To be honest, I think a ton of the reasons I struggled was pressures where my writing was concerned. Some readers want less detail, some want books to be shorter, some want books to be longer, some don’t like a few cuss words, some want more sizzle, some want less sizzle, and some don’t even like poetry! And let me tell you, it gets in your head, you know?

However, as I was finishing up
The Romancing of Evangeline Ipswich
, a lot of things began to fall into place. My editor/friend, for one thing, has helped me, guided me into writing what I want to write for my readers, but in a manner that better fits with what readers demand these days. I’ve also found a balance in my life where reading for my own entertainment is a possibility for me again. I had missed that! I hadn’t read a book (other than comics or children’s books) for literally years! And I’m finding that I do enjoy reading again. Another thing is that my son who has been away for two years is coming home, and that means that the hole that was punched in my heart when he left will be healed and not so distracting to me. Kevin has found a new balance in our business side of things too. 2014 was a precarious year. We almost bought the farm! Oh, wait, that’s a death reference. I think I mean we almost lost our shirts! (Which, in Kevin’s handsome muscular state of body wouldn’t be so bad—but in mine, yikes!)

Another thing I learned was that I’m what’s known as empathic or an empath—not in the supernatural sense, of course, just the personality characteristic sense that many of us have. I think you probably know what empathic or empath means, but just in case, here are a couple of little definitions:

Empathic:
The psychological recognition of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of others.

Empath:
One who is capable of actually feeling the emotions of others in spite of the fact that they themselves are not experiencing the same condition.

So imagine that you’re empathic and you have a friend who calls you and tells you her mother is passing away. That’s right—the tears flow, the heart aches, just like your friend’s! That’s what happens to me! I mean, I always knew that that sort of thing happened to me, but I never understood how it can drain a person of energy—distract a mind and heart from doing tasks that need doing.

Take for instance the time about fifteen years ago. Having had multiple phone calls one day, I began to feel pretty stressed out. I attributed my stress to three phone calls in particular: (1) A casual friend called to ask me to write a character reference for her to be used in her defense at a trial for embezzlement. Keep in mind I knew the lady had some challenges (i.e., a son with some physical aliments that had found him addicted to prescription drugs and in and out of rehab), but I had no idea she had embezzled money from her place of employment to help pay for his rehab! (2) A casual friend called me to tell me that her son was being charged with raping his girlfriend. (3) A good friend called to tell me that her eldest daughter had come to her and her husband and informed them of some decisions she’d made that were devastating to the family. And that was just three of the phone calls that day. Well, I went about my day, taking care of the kids, fixing supper, even going to a friend’s house and visiting a while. But later than night—long after I’d gone to bed—I suddenly woke up with the feeling that I was going to throw up! And not just throw up—have, you know, Montezuma’s revenge, as well—simultaneously! I raced to the bathroom, sat down on the potty, and as the pain in my body and nausea grew and grew, I began to pray that I wouldn’t die! I couldn’t breathe, I was perspiring like crazy, and all of a sudden, I woke up facedown on my bathroom rug, thinking,
I’m sure glad I washed these rugs today!

It took several more incidents of that gravity and a few years for me to figure out that I wasn’t battling some crazy five-minute flu. I was being overpowered by anxiety caused by the way I absorbed everyone else’s stress and feelings.