Feeling smart?

Too many inducements. I now have an i-phone, one of those smart phones that's smarter than me. At least I figured out how to make phone calls, though the darn thing buzzes and rings at the same time. Probably it knows I need both. The speaker feature is kind of neat. I can put the darn thing down and just wander away.

Here's my Sunday night update for ROW80, A Round of Words in 80 Days, a truly lovely writing community.

WRITING: I'm reminded of the first paint-by-number picture I tried at about age 8. Very quickly, I began  to paint the colors I wanted, not those itemized on that careful list of numbered colors. And then I began to paint outside the lines. The result was impressionistic and not as pretty as my sister's tidy painting. Now I begin writing each morning and nearly straight away begin to deviate from my ROW80 goals. Does anyone else do that?

ROW80 goals are supposed to be measurable, but I can't measure the words I'm editing or the new pages I'm writing. My goal is simply to finish editing Years of Stone by the end of this round.

Since Wednesday, I've been doing a bit more research on several supporting historical characters who appear in my story. What I've found is that letters, newspaper articles, speeches, and portraits help me to visualize these folks more fully. I begin to know their internal worries and hopes, sometimes the formidable obstacles they faced. What spins out next is a mystery but reads true.

Naming characters is always a challenge. So much goes into a name. But to be historically accurate meant one of my major characters had to have a name change this late in the story! Mary was a very common name in the 1840s. But Mary Hutchinson, matron of the Cascades Female Factory, cannot be confused with Mary Dallow, that mouthy, blue-collar lady who has fallen in with a bushranger and most likely slept her way to Van Diemen's Land.

Mary Hutchinson, on the other hand, grew up at Parramatta, a women's prison in New South Wales where her parents worked. She married young to a handsome Wesleyan pastor with poor health. When he left the ministry to become a superintendent at Cascades, Mary became the matron. Beset with overcrowding at the prison and the threat of riots, constant criticism from the local press, and the continued ill health of her husband, how would this mother who had lost several of her own babies react to the rising infant deaths at Cascades? Petulantly says one report. But there's more to the story.

READING/CRAFT: Finally caught up with reading. My office has returned to a semblance of order, and I'm currently reading Jeri Westerson's Veil of Lies (A Medieval Noir). So far I'm admiring her crisp storytelling, evocative settings, and neat plot twists.

MARKETING. Reading some articles, working on Book Club reading/questions. The "event" at a local bookstore has been postponed to April (travel intervenes). Some progress on quilting. OMG, the smart phone beeps me when I get new e-mail. Obviously I need training on how to change the settings! Even my computer doesn't do this.

Karen Huber's latest post , "A Matter of Practice," talks about facing into the "now" by accepting both light and dark sides of your self. We are all in different stages in our lives, but her words always resonate for me. Here, I'm thinking of my characters. Do I allow myself to understand their dark as well as light sides? Something to ponder. I appreciate Karen's vision of practice, her willingness to face fear, and her writing that builds from meditation. That inner stillness, so difficult to find, perhaps comes with practice.

My smart phone now feels like an intrusion. I shall turn it off!

A is for Ambivalence . . .

I'm still struggling to understand these women who came as prisoners to Van Diemen's Land in mid-19th Century. The latest book I've read, Convict Lives: Women at Cascades Female Factory (Female Factory Research Group, 2009) came to me via interlibrary loan from the Library of Congress. This small paperback (only one copy in the entire United States) summarized the lives of 33 women out of 25,000 women transported to Australia between 1788 and 1853. About half were brought to Van Dieman's Land. As I settled to read in the library (can't check this book out or take this book home), I wondered again who these women were.

These women were caught up in pretty harsh English justice. Seven year sentence for stealing a silk handkerchief, something pretty and easy to sell. But I'm beginning to understand the handkerchief was perhaps a code for prostitution. So prostitutes were sent to VDL. Not necessarily working class women, but scrappy survivors. Quick to set up a flash mob and subvert the system. On their backs. There was no birth control. What happened to the children? Journals and letters describe the homeless of this time, gangs of children on the streets who found their own ways to survive.

But many of the women who were transported to Australia were not of the underclass. If the father, husband, or brother were unable to pay the rent or provide bread, what work could the women do? Dressmaker, laundress, cook, nanny?  Of course, some found such work in the houses of the aristocratic wealthy.

Imagine the work day in 1842 for such a servant. Sharing a bed with another house maid, perhaps in the attic. Up at dawn to answer a bell's ring. The day spent scrubbing, cleaning, washing. Able to see a life of comfort and elegance, as if the ladies were different creatures, but always observers, always a line separating "them" from "us" that was marked by language and aspiration. And if this servant were caught out pregnant or took something, a necklace or silk handkerchief perhaps, she would be out on the streets or the constable would be called. And perhaps she would be transported to Van Dieman's Land, sentenced to seven years, on the same four-month voyage with prostitutes and other thieves, sailing to an unknown land and an uncertain future.

Mama told me I would be a bad 'un but none of us were. Not Sarah or Paul or William or Baby or me, the oldest. I was to watch them all while she went away with Mrs. Rivers. "Mary," said Mama, "keep the door locked until I return." We had no bread from yester 'en, and the younger ones made a fearful racket. Bobby tapped, tapped, tapped at the door and we let him in. He brought hot beef pasties from the Lion's Head at the corner. The smell made us crazy and we all clustered close. His eyes burned on me and Sarah. We ate, our hands sticky with gravy. He gave Paul a coin and sent the little ones out to the close. Sarah was scared, but I wasn't. Bobby had been to sea. He knew stories and could tie fancy knots with rope.  Mama came home early, her face all twisty, and screamed at Bobby. I remember that was the beginning of the end. How I came here on this stinking ship that never stops rocking. We get gruel twice a day. We're locked below most days. Twice a week we go aboveboard to wash clothes or pick oakum. On Sundays we get a bit of boiled beef after a sermon, usually somethin' about sin. Half the words are blown away by the wind. Sometimes I see Bobby in the faces of the sailors who clamber down into the belly of this ship at night. I am twelve.