The Love of Writing by Victoria Chatham

AVAILABLE HERE

I can’t actually remember a time when I didn’t write. I was always scribbling something first with crayons, then with pencils and finally, the joy of joys, my very own fountain pen. My first typewriter was an Olivetti and my first computer, circa 1997, a Compaq. I thought I had finally arrived with that equipment sitting on my desk but, back then, what I wrote seemed to be far less important than what I wrote with.  

I told stories to my children when they came along, and we had tremendous fun with what we now call brainstorming. Each child had their chance to pick a topic, or start a story and off we would go, following the thread wherever it led us. I suppose I had always had a good imagination partly, I think, from being an early reader myself. Like so many teenage girls my daughter became obsessed with ponies and that prompted me to write a story about them for her thirteenth birthday.

I had no idea what I was doing, of course. I mistakenly thought writing chapters would be like writing lots of short stories and putting them together. Instead, I found that creating a narrative and keeping all the threads comprehensible was much harder work than I ever imagined it to be. However, I quickly learned that writing is a craft and can be built on. I joined writing groups and learned from other authors. I read craft books and attended writing workshops and found greater satisfaction in writing than I ever imagined I would. I started writing romance because I love a happy ending and, because my favorite romance genre is Regency romance, I started writing Regencies.

This, in turn, has led to my writing other historical fiction, The Buxton Trilogy set in the Edwardian era, and Brides of Banff Springs set in 1935 AVAILABLE HERE. I also had a hand in Anita Davison’s Envy the Wind, set in Prince Edward Island in 1905. I like discovering quirky facts that may or may not make their way into my pages and always plan the happy-ever-after ending. Of course, how that ending is arrived at depends entirely on my characters and on that note, I must return to my current couple in His Unexpected Muse.

Victoria Chatham

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What I do for love, for my granddaughters

February is slated as the true-love month, due to Valentine's Day, where you give flowers and chocolates to your special partner. I posted last February about how I met my husband. But I want to talk of another kind of love, the love I have for my two lively granddaughters. The crazy things I do for love, to entertain them.



Now eight and five years old, my husband and I started babysitting the girls when Jocelyn was a baby and Jorja only four. Jorja was so smart (I know all grandparents say that) but this is true, that she challenged me on every level. Did you know that artificial flowers are "flowers pretending to be flowers"? We got a good laugh out of that one.

Jorja and me with make-up

We colored and painted, played hair dresser (where she looked at my post-menopause curly locks with disgust and proclaimed "you have crazy hair") and played games. She was a ball of energy I had to rush to keep up with. I learned all the cartoon programs: Paw Patrol; Bubble Guppies; Sponge-Bob Square-Pants--I know all the characters in Bikini Bottom.
Jocelyn grew older and wanted to join in the fun. At first, her sister objected but now they have a friendly sisterly competitive spirit (most of the time).

The girls enjoy doing make-up, and making me up. I've been a Cat Vampire, and other characters I have no idea what they were supposed to be. Both girls painted my face with lipstick, eye-shadow, and Jocelyn loves to slather nail polish on my hands and feet.

Jorja, me and Jocelyn Mother's Day

You love your children, but grandchildren are special, that second chance to cuddle a baby, play hide and seek, be painted like a clown, and sweetly send them home when you're tired!




Jocie in blue

 

 

For different sort of love, my novel On a Stormy Primeval Shore, explores the love that develops between a well-bred Englishwoman and a wild, frontier Acadian trader in remote New Brunswick, Canada.

 

 

In 1784, Amelia sails to New Brunswick, a land overrun by Loyalists escaping the American Revolution, to marry a soldier whom she rejects. Acadian Gilbert fights to preserve his heritage and property—will they find love when events seek to destroy them?

 

Purchase ebook or paperback in Amazon and All Markets.

 

 Or visit my website: dianescottlewis.org

 

 

 

Diane Scott Lewis grew up in California, traveled the world with the navy, edited for magazines and an on-line publisher. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband.

A Crazy Thing for Love by Victoria Chatham

  

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Our topic for February, Valentine’s month and all things romantic, is: what is the craziest, weirdest, funniest, most oddball thing you have heard of being done in the name of love?

The first thing that jumped into my mind was Peter and Juliet’s wedding scene in the movie Love Actually, when the flash choir and band organized by Peter’s best man, Mark, plays The Beatles’ classic All You Need is Love. If you haven’t seen the movie or would like a reminder of the scene, here’s a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h89BbqoPAcM.

I have so many memories of expressions of love through gifts or cards, – once even a screwdriver. No, not the alcoholic version but the tool which came at just the right time for me to install drapery fixtures. I’ve had flowers, chocolates, or wine when it hasn’t been my birthday or Christmas. I’ve been presented with a hand-carved whale, the first piece of work my youngest son produced in his workshop class when he was seven or eight years old. I have a brass paperweight that my eldest son gave me. I still have notes from my daughter.

And, after more than forty years I still have a pin depicting a Spanish bull that their father bought for me during a family holiday. I’d seen it in a store window, admired it, and walked on, knowing that its one shilling and nine-pence pricetag was still too high a cost for our tight budget. That's about thirty-seven cents in today's Canadian currency. In a gesture that I still treasure, my then husband went back to the store and bought the pin for me. It had nothing to do with the cost, and everything to do with giving me a gift that came from love. 

But the craziest, sweetest story I think I’ve ever come across is my son-in-law’s gift to my daughter on the occasion of her fiftieth birthday. It was a masterful scheme which he spent nearly all year working on without my daughter getting any idea of it. He began by contacting her bosses and asked for vacation time for her over Christmas and New Year, something she had never had in all her years working for them. Her birthday, by the way, is December 23^rd (she was almost a Christmas baby.) They were delighted to be involved and helped him arrange an alternative staff schedule so she wouldn’t panic about that at the last minute.

Family and friends were asked in secret if they would like to contribute to one of her surprises, all things she had expressed a desire to see or do. These encompassed spending Christmas Day at a hotel doing nothing but chilling in cozy pj’s and watching TV; a trip to Choccywoccydoodah, a store for everything chocolate with outlets in Brighton and London in the UK and run by two marvelous ladies. Check them out at https://www.choccywoccydoodah.com/. 

Madame Tussaud’s was on her list, as was a play in the West End. She also wanted to visit The Shard, at ninety-five stories the fifth tallest building in Europe. It is located in Southwark, London and was designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano. Another of her wishes was to take a trip on a sleeper train, which they did from London to Edinburgh in time to celebrate New Year’s Eve, or Hogmanay if you prefer, on the Royal Mile. A sweetener for this part of the birthday surprise was that her brother and sister-in-law were there to help celebrate, too.

My son-in-law works for a printing company and was able to put together and print up a special Fiftieth Birthday Tour brochure for her, highlighting the places they would visit and who had sponsored it. The whole event was a celebration of love and togetherness which, as my eldest son pointed out, ruined life as they knew it for other men in the family. There was no way of beating that! Even without the brochure, I know my daughter will always have wonderful memories of that trip and I’m so proud of my son-in-law for showing his love in the way he did.

In the words of Ed Sheeran’s love song, it was Perfect. And you can watch that on YouTube, too at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xA4w2bxVo.

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