Jessica Ferguson

Author, Writing Coach, Speaker

IWSG Day: Researching Stories

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If it’s Wednesday, then it’s IWSG Day! I’ve missed a month or two, but I’m back. IWSG stands for Insecure Writers Support Group and was founded by Alex J. Cavanaugh.  You can follow other IWSG members here or on twitter using the hashtag #IWSG. We also have a Facebook page.  The purpose of IWSG is to share and encourage, and answer any questions new writers might have. Remember, there’s no such thing as a dumb question.

 Our awesome co-hosts for this posting of the IWSG are Sadira Stone,Patricia Josephine,Lisa Buie-Collard,Erika Beebe,and C. Lee McKenzie!

 Our interesting optional question this month is: What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever googled in researching a story?

A few years back, I was offered an opportunity to write a novella for Tales of the Scrimshaw Doll series published by The Wild Rose Press. My characters popped into my mind immediately. One character was so incredibly evil he surprised me. I had to research his kind of evil. I needed to find some way he would mark his family and I did. He branded them. To my surprise, people really brand each other and themselves. I’m not talking about tattoos. I mean like cowboys brand their cattle. I tip-toed in to communities where they discussed it and told what they used: keys, cookie cutters, wire, anything decorative that they could heat, sear and mark the skin. When I say I “tip-toed” in to these sites, I mean I peeked with one eye closed because I’m pretty queasy when it comes to any kind of pain and torture.

My book was called The Last Daughter and it’s a story very close to my heart. It’s about love and evil, and sincere, heartbreaking forgiveness. It’s out of print now and “waiting” for revision so I can republish under my own imprint. I hope in early 2020.IMG_9314.PNG

Today, I’m excited to announce my latest release called Christmas In Love. No evil here. Just love sweet love. I’ve coupled two of my previously published short stories with a brand new story that I’m pretty proud of. Take a look at my cover. Isn’t that hero yummy? I thank the multi-talented Heather K. Duff for finding him, designing the cover and formatting the book.

If you give Christmas In Love a try, I hope you’ll leave a review—good or bad. But, hey … if you leave a bad review, at least tell me why or what you didn’t like about Christmas in Love. It might be something I can fix.

I hope you’re all doing well, writing up a storm on NaNoWrMo, and that you have a very blessed Thanksgiving. See you in December!

A is for Action and It’s IWSG Day

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Happy IWSG day—the first Wednesday of each month. IWSG has never missed a posting day (even though I have!) so I’m combining my A to Z Challenge and my IWSG post. I hope it doesn’t seem too discombobulated. Anyway, many thanks to Alex Cavanaugh for creating IWSG. It’s a much-loved, very special organization.

It’s hard to believe April is here all ready. For almost a year, I’ve been looking forward and thinking about my A to Z theme. If I was smart, I would have prepared each post ahead of time, but not me. When it comes to the A to Z Challenge, I like to live dangerously. Off the top of my head the night before posting–or morning of. Okay, here we go, we’ll see what happens!

Like the TV ad said…we were ready to make our dreams a reality. I’d wanted to yank up carpet and knock down walls for a long time. The 30+ year old home hubby and I purchased in 1996 definitely needed a face lift. But, the time was never right. Hubby worked out of town, we had a daughter in private school, then college … we just didn’t have the money to invest in home renovation.

So last year, one year after hubby retired, we decided to take ACTION. I could hardly believe it! I began my list of desired improvements and started my research. Exciting times—or so I thought.

Here’s my ACTION List:
Living Room: New ceiling fan with great reading lights,new baseboards,  and new flooring all the way down the hall & into master bedroom, paint, removal of wet bar to build floor to ceiling book shelves.
Dining Area:  New flooring, paint

Kitchen: Combine kitchen & dining area, new flooring, new countertops – granite or …? Backsplash, New stove top, new dishwasher, microwave and oven. New garbage disposal, doors on bookcase under bar, remove built-in desk and build shelves with doors, new cabinets? We’ll see.
Master Bedroom: paint, new floor
Master bathroom: new shower, shelves over built-in chest, shelves over bathtub, paint. And new floor.
Guest Bathroom: new countertops and sinks. New toilet, new floor. New tub?     
Son’s room: paint? New floor?
Daughter’s room? New floor?

This is the list we discussed with the contractor—more about him later—and of course, it was all negotiable. At this point, what we wanted and what we could afford were still two different things–sort of like wanting to be published by one of the Big 5 publishers but settling for an unknown small press.
Listen to me: Research is imperative. It doesn’t matter if we’re going to a new doctor or a new literary agent, moving to a new city or a new publisher—research is crucial to keep us from making unnecessary mistakes.
I learned the hard way that no matter whether we’re taking action on our writing dreams or renovating a house, we need to always ask the right questions. What are the right questions? Well, sometimes we don’t know them until after the fact. 
Do you know any good questions to ask a contractor before he starts knocking down walls? I’d love to hear them. What would you ask your agent if you learned he was e-bombing your book proposal to publishers–even though some of them didn’t publish your genre?
Research + Asking the right questions = a happy writer and a happy renovator!

Join me tomorrow for B-day.

MEET ANNA CASTLE

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I first met Anna Castle in my Sisters In Crime/Guppy writing group and couldn’t resist asking her to prepare a guest blog for me. She’s an interesting person, as you’ll find out when you read this post. Anna recently retired from managing a digital archive at the University of Texas at Austin. Writing is now her full time job. Isn’t Anna Castle a great name? We’ll be seeing on it her book covers soon! Visit her website to learn more about her books.

The Joy of Research
by Anna Castle

The Internet is great for overviews, generating ideas and picking out clothes or cars for contemporary characters, but it can only get you so far. The library is indispensable for a writer of historical fiction like me. But the most fun can be had by getting out there and looking at the world in which your story is set.

My to-be-published-someday-soon Francis Bacon mystery series is set in Elizabethan England. I can’t travel back in time and London has changed a tad since 1585, but many wonderful old buildings have been preserved. Museums are full of intriguing furniture, tools and other things my characters might have used. Places like Kentwell Hall (http://www.kentwell.co.uk/) host Tudor-themed events where costumed re-enactors engage in traditional tasks. I found a character at Kentwell.
I do a lot of walking, a major pastime in the UK. The cities may have changed, but parts of the landscape would still be familiar to my characters. I love the English countryside and trust me, it is all kinds of different from Texas, where I live. They have rain: lots of it. They have these soft, cool breezes drifting out from under dark thickets. In Texas, thickets are full of snakes and rarely cool or soft. Descriptions from my favorite British authors make more sense now that I’ve walked where they walked when they were writing. Christopher Marlowe might have walked up this very road on his way from Canterbury to Cambridge. How cool is that?

One of the characters in my current WIP, set in Victorian London, finds herself obliged to burglarize some Mayfair houses and country estates. (Her intentions are honorable, I assure you!) My problem was getting her and her crew in and out with the goods undetected. Crime fiction lends a whole new perspective to touring the stately home!

I study these houses like a villain, not an architect. If it weren’t for those burglar bars (surely modern), could my gal get in these windows? Then how far is it to the library? Which rooms will she pass on the way? Do they have gas lamps on the landings?

To make the most of my trips, I do a lot of planning; online, of course. I look for houses in my period of interest on sites like the invaluable National Trust (http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/). Wikipedia has lists of museums in most major cities with links to their websites, where you can get hours of operation and directions via many forms of transport. The Brits have lots of online resources for ramblers: favorite walks, long and short, all over the country. Everybody everywhere has lots of travel info these days. I know where my characters are from and how they spend their days, so I try to go where they would go and see whatever I can see. I hope these experiences enrich my books. And hey: nice work if you can get it!

 
Anna Castle is writing two mystery series. The Francis Bacon series is set in Elizabethan England. The first book, Murder by Misrule, will be published one way or another in 2014. The Lost Hat, Texas series is set in the present, in the hill country west of Austin, where Anna lives. Black and White and Dead All Overis under revision. Find out more at www.annacastle.com.
 

O is for Oklahoma

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A year ago we moved to Oklahoma. Sure doesn’t feel like we’ve been here that long—until we make the 10-hour trek to Louisiana… or have to huddle in a closet because the tornado alert is squealing. Today, we’re expecting horrific storms. Yeah, I’m scared!

Other than that, Oklahoma is an interesting place to live. Lots of history and writers are plentiful. Sometimes I regret not being a better history student so I can enjoy (and retain) everything I see and read in the museums.  I tend to get overwhelmed. To me, history is a lot like math. The dots have to be connected. There are so many pieces … how can one ever have the whole story?

I have a great-great grandmother buried in Guthrie, Oklahoma. Here’s the only picture I have of her. She’s the older woman. I figure the younger is a granddaughter but I’m just guessing. Would you say gr-gr-grandma is Native American from this picture? According to records, she was born in Tennessee in 1842.
Supposedly, Hannah Minerva Guinn married my gr-gr grandfather John McGinty in 1872 in Conway, Arkansas. Their son, Robert Jefferson McGinty, my gr-grandfather, lived in North Louisiana until his murder. My grandfather (at left) was five-years-old when his dad was killed by a man named Joe Mathews. My grandfather told me he could remember seeing his dad’s body stretched out on Mathews’ porch. That’s something for a child to remember all his life.
There were two stories about the death of R.J.  One was that he was playing around with the man’s wife. That seems unlikely because two of R.J.’s sons were with him and witnessed his death. I have the court transcript with their statements. The second story is that he was stealing chickens. Actually, Mr. Mathews owed my gr-grandfather money and since the guy couldn’t or wouldn’t pay, he told R.J. to take the chickens as payment. R.J. and his boys were there to collect.

During all this, Hannah Minerva Guinn lived in Arkansas and was married to a man named Watkins by then.  She was 63 and he was 59. Two grandsons lived with them. Mr. Watkins died at age 70 and Hannah ended up in Guthrie, Oklahoma where she is buried.

I suspect Hannah Minerva Guinn McGinty Watkins moved to Oklahoma to live with a daughter or granddaughter, but see what I mean about the many pieces that make her story whole. Oh, how I wish I could know the details! What kind of life did Hannah have? Why can’t I find her grave or any record of her in Oklahoma? Do I have other family members roaming around this state? Of course, I do! Even on my dad’s side of the family. Above is a diagram of Native American migration. You can click on it to make it larger. Fascinating, isn’t it? And sad.

Do you write history? How do you approach it? Any desire to set a novel in Oklahoma or research the state? I encourage you to spend time here if you have the opportunity. It’s a wonderful place to explore.

Oh yeah… if you’re looking for a great writer’s conference we have one going on next month. Check it out at Oklahoma Writers Federation Inc.