Blogging and The Charles Dickens Project

Posted on by dlmarriott

In a time when media is king, and using the internet as a tool to get the word out there is  necessity, I find myself overwhelmed. Authors no longer have the advantage of holing themselves up to write a book. In truth, I have to wonder if they ever did, or if that’s just Hollywood’s take on it. Anyway, as an author, not only am I writng, not one, but several things at once, but I am also trying to maintain an online presence. That means Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Youtube, GoodReads, etc. etc. Part of all of that is this blog. I feel terrible that this blog  is the thing that gets left in the dust, the most. For those of you who don’t know, I also work a full-time day job, and take a writng class on my day off, as well as being a member of a writing group. Throw in book signings, appearances at book clubs, etc. and it’s amazing I ever get time to make dinner for my family.

Now I’ve started my third facebook page titled “The Charles Dickens Project” and have been consistantly posting everyday. This is part of my research (oh yeah, I forgot to mention research in the list of things to do) in writing a historic fiction Christmas story in which Mr. Dickens himself will be one of the main characters.  I thought, since I made the page public, anyone could read it, but now I’m finding that’s not the case. So in an effort to kill two birds (excuse the cliche’) I am going to post what I write there, here. That way, those of you who don’t use facebook can keep up with my progress as well. Since I’ve been posting for a while, I’ll post one weeks worth once a day until I catch up. Afterwards, I’ll post here once a week. I’m reading all of Dicken’s books in order, and post summaries of where I am in each book. I also post biographical information, definition of Dickensian terms, and fun facts.  I hope you enjoy!

Week One –

Bio – Let’s start with a little background information. Charles John Huffam Dickens was born on Feb. 7th, 1812 and died on June 9th 1870. He was born to John and Elizabeth Dickens, he had three sisters and four brothers. During his life he and his wife, Catherine had ten children.

Book One – Dickens’ first published novel was “The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club” more commonly known as “The Pickwick Papers.” The main characters are Mr. Samuel Pickwick, and his traveling companions, Mr Nathaniel Winkle, Mr Augustus Snodgrass, and Mr Tracy Tupman, who went out across the country as reporters of a sort. This was published as a serial. I did not read an overview, so at first I was a little confused as to what connection there was between one character and another. I quickly realized that Dickens simply used his main characters as a vehicle to tell a collection of otherwise unrelated short stories. Quite a brilliant idea!

One thing I have to say, Dickens’ chapter titles are almost stories in themselves. Take, for instance, the title of Chapter Seven of “The Pickwick Papers” – HOW MR. WINKLE, INSTEAD OF SHOOTING AT THE PIGEON AND KILLING THE CROW, SHOT AT THE CROW AND WOUNDED THE PIGEON; HOW THE DINGLEY DELL CRICKET CLUB PLAYED ALL-MUGGLETON, AND HOW ALL- MUGGLETON DINED AT THE DINGLEY DELL EXPENSE; WITH OTHER INTERESTING AND INSTRUCTIVE MATTERS. Quite a mouthful, wouldn’t you say?

I’ll stop here so I don’t overwhelm you. Tomorrow, I will get more into the story itself.

Prince Harry and the Royal Jewels

Posted on by dlmarriott

We’ve all heard the news stories this week. Prince Harry, being a young person in Las Vegas, stupidly played a game of strip billiards, and the pictures are out there to prove it. So much for the motto, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”  I feel bad for Harry, really I do. I know what everyone is saying: he should know better, he has a public persona to live up to, it was an act of stupidity.

Of course it was stupid, that’s part of life. It’s how young people learn. It’s how we all learn. Face it, from the beginning, we learn, not just from rules, lectures, or even common sense. The lessons we learn the best, are learned the hard way. Every toddler can be told “Don’t touch – hot.” but it doesn’t truly become understood until the first time they experience “hot.”

Obviously we hope that in the process of learning, no one places themselves in harm’s way. There are some very dangerous activities that we can only hope the lessons we try to drive home, prevent. I don’t believe in protecting children from all things scary. It can expose them to things you’d rather they didn’t learn by experimentation. I used to let my kids watch Rescue 911. Was it scary? Could it give them nightmares? Was it sometimes gruesome? Yes, but watching a kid lean back on his chair and fall through a glass patio door, or seeing a kid impaled on the knife he was running with, drove a lesson home, a lesson that I didn’t want them to learn the hard way.

So no, we don’t want our children or anyone to learn some lessons by experience. Ever. But we do have to understand that it is okay for them to learn other lessons the hard way, and the behavior of many young people it just that, a learning experience. Every generation goes through it. I’m pretty sure every parent hopes their children don’t do half the things they did when they were young

Of course, when we were young, the threat of doing something stupid was that whatever we did went on our “permanent record.” Right, and just where were all these “permanent records” kept? I’ve thought about it. What stupid teenage act in my past could be dredged up if all the stars align and this writing thing takes off for me? Is there anything in my youthful past I’d need to worry about? Truth be told, if there is some picture of me out there somewhere, acting stupid at a party, the best it could be is a faded, grainy snapshot from a 110 camera. For today’s youth, unfortunately, the threat is real. With HD video and cameras on every cell phone, and the internet, what you do might just be out there for all to see, forever. Now a days, it really does go on your permanent record.

And if you are a prince, it also becomes an international news story.

The Charles Dickens Project

Posted on by dlmarriott

Over the past several months I’ve been joking around about how I’m “Channeling Chuck.”  I have been posting all kinds of fun facts on similarities between Charles Dickens and myself on my facebook page.  Click here: D.L. Marriott Facebook Page

As it turns out we have quite a few similarities.  Now if only success as a writer was one of them!

Okay, so even though I can’t hope to compare, I can share other facets of his life.  For one, we are both self-published authors. Yes, although he had a publisher, Mr. Dickens was unhappy with his pitiful share of the money, so he went out and self-published a book.  It turned out to be one of his most successful books.  I could give you many more interesting facts and parallels, and over time I will, but for now I am concentrating on writing a book in which Mr. Dickens, himself, is a major character.

In preparation for this, I am reading all of Charles Dickens works, in order.  Either that makes me extremely intellectual, extremely brave and adventurous, or extremely crazy. Whatever you want to call me, feel free to follow me on my quest to better understand a great classic author.  To share what I learn I’ve launched a new facebook page. Click here: The Charles Dickens Project

It’s a public page so you don’t need to be a facebook-er (is that even a word?) to check it out.

I hope you do.  I think it’s going to be fun!  Or as Mr. Dickens would say – It will be a jolly undertaking that will, no doubt. bring forth much spirited repartee.

Coming Soon!

Posted on by dlmarriott

Finding Life, the second novelette in the Finding Hope series.

An only child, Hope spent most of her life, if not pampered, certainly comfortable. When tragedy strikes not once, but twice, shaking the very foundation of her existence, she is rescued by a long lost family friend, Steve. During her ordeal, she learns that by finding any thin thread of life to hang onto, she can survive, but surviving is only the beginning. Sometimes the aftermath of the tragedy is just as terrifying as the tragedy itself. Steve is there to help Hope put her life back together. Instead of falling over the edge of despair, Hope falls in love. Now all she has to do is convince Steve that he is her life.

Flame

Posted on by dlmarriott

What better day than  Valentine’s Day to share a bit of poetry.  I don’t write a lot of poetry, and certainly don’t consider myself a poet, but every once in  a while, words come to me in a pattern.   I hope you enjoy!

 

Flame

tended well
it brings comfort
provides fortification
sustenance

it can hypnotize
mesmerize with brilliance
embrace with warmth
excite with heat

but it demands respect
must be treated with care


its tendrils can reach up
singe
bring pain
burn until one cannot draw breath

its intensity
searing
bringing unimaginable agony
complete destruction

but doused
its loss leaves us chilled
cold
hungry


dangerous yet necessary


love

Happy Birthday Chuck!

Posted on by dlmarriott

Today is a significant day in history. Today we celebrate a legend. An author who’s works have been read, heard, or seen in either play or movie, by nearly everyone. If you look at the Google logo for today, you might get a clue. Two hundred years ago today, on February 7th, 1812, Charles John Huffam Dickens was born. He was the second of eight children born to John and Elizabeth Dickens. As a small boy he was a voracious reader  (a common affliction of most, if not all writers).

If you have ever read David Copperfield, you know a bit about Dicken’s life. It is said to be the closest to an autobiography of all his works, although many of his characters in many of his stories were taken from his own experiences and the people he knew.

At the age of twelve his father was sent to debtor’s prison  and Charles was sent to live with a family friend, and later in the back attic of a court agent. He was forced to leave school and work ten hour days in a blacking factory to pay his room and board, and to help his family.

This harsh existence at such a young age had a lasting impression on Charles, and became the mainstay of his writing. He often wrote about the terrible conditions of the poor and orphaned.

Later he was quoted on  how he wondered how he could be cast away at such a young age. He also mentioned how no one was around to give him any help.  It is obvious by his stories, that these experiences left an indelible mark on the man.

Although a bequeath from the passing of his paternal grandmother released his father from prison, Charles was not immediately sent for by his mother, and was forced to continue to work in the boot-blacking factory. He was eventually able to go to school, although it too was anything but a good experience. The school was run down, and the headmaster brutal. At the age of fifteen he was again forced to leave school (his father was arrested, and his family in need, often throughout his life)  and went to work in a law office as a junior clerk, and a year later became a freelance reporter and reported legal proceedings for four years.

In 1833, at the age of 21, Dicken’s first story ‘A Dinner at Poplar Walk’ was published in a monthly periodical. He continued to write short serial sketches which became his first collection of work titled ‘Sketches by Boz’ published in 1836, and then led to his first novel ‘The Pickwick Papers’ in March of 1836. And so began the career of a legendary author.

So today we celebrate the life of a literary great, and next week I’ll tell you just why this little old author (meaning me) has an interest, and possibly a connection with this often downtrodden yet brilliant man!

Happy Birthday Charles!

 

Souljourner

Posted on by dlmarriott

Here is a passage from my new novel, Souljourner.

Jacob was eight years old. Eight. Too young to die, but old enough to know what death was, to possibly fear death. Even though her heart broke for the babies, they didn’t know. Jacob was old enough to know.

Kate was unnerved by the sound of her own voice in the silent graveyard, even though she whispered as if in a library or church. She told Jacob everything was okay, that he wasn’t alone anymore. She reached her hand toward the headstone and imagined a hand reaching back. Reaching out to her. Grasping. Holding on tight. Finding comfort in the feel of her hand around his. She could sense it, sense the warmth of his small fingers in hers. She tried to convey security, compassion, and love in her grip. She tried to convey the idea that everything would be alright. But they wouldn’t be. They couldn’t be alright. He was dead. She felt his hand pull on hers. Pull her to him, toward the grave. The pull was more than she could resist.

Now available for your Kindle, Nook, or other eReader and also in paperback!!!!

“All these forgotten souls. No one to tell their stories. No one to remember them. No one to care for their final resting place, as if their lives didn’t matter at all.”

But every life matters…

Katherine Cooper is a young independent art student with a long history of unusual dreams and nightmares. After visiting an old cemetery she begins having nightmares about the people buried there. But what if they aren’t just dreams? When Kate starts questioning their true meaning she gets a mixed reaction from her friends and family. The one person who believes her is the strange woman who lives downstairs. Just who is this woman and how is she connected to Kate’s dreams? And what does all of this mean for her future?

You can find it on Amazon (ebook and paperback) and Barnes and Noble (ebook)!

Check out the trailer video!
I hope you all had a fantastic holiday filled with the warmth of friends and family!

Breaking the Rules

Posted on by dlmarriott
I’m currently in the phase of writing my book, that I now understand, I hate the most. Revisions. How tough can that be? It’s not difficult, because my editor doesn’t get my characters and has demanded I practically rewrite the entire manuscript. It’s difficult because the English language is a mess, and most English speaking human beings, don’t follow the rules.
I didn’t have the money to hire a professional editor, but I’m no good at proof-reading and editing my own work. I was an “A” English student in high school, so I do know, or thought I did, most of the rules. When I’m writing, however (and this includes this blog), I’m too busy trying to get all the words and ideas down fast, to stop and think about those rules. When I try to self-edit, I may start off okay, but before I know it, I slide back into writer-mode and start tweaking the story, forgetting all about punctuation, fragments and dangling participles. Guess what? The human brain does not think in complete, grammatically correct, sentences. Really.
So my solution was to ask some very good friends to help me out. Not just random friends, I had two in mind. One had edited a book in the past, and the other had recently retired from professional editing. On top of that, I took portions of my novel to my writing class, where my instructor, as well as up to 15 other students, gave them the once over.
I’ve heard, many times, how self-published books are often considered poorer in quality, because they are riddled with grammatical errors. Yet, I have seen professionally edited, and published books with glaring errors as well. I really have my heart set on making sure my novel is perfect. Well, I know it won’t be perfect, but as error-free as possible.
In my mind, I thought more was better. With three plus editors, I figured it was the best I could do. What one person missed, hopefully the other would catch, and that’s exactly what happened. Now I have the edited copies in hand, and need to make the revisions. In some cases, an edit was incorrect because of intent of the character. The placement of a comma can change the whole meaning and tone of a sentence.
Here’s an example:
My version was an argument between two friends. One has had a nightmare, but doesn’t believe it was just a nightmare, and she’s trying to convince her friend.
“It wasn’t a nightmare.”
“What do you mean it wasn’t a nightmare?” demanded Janice.
“It was real.”
“What do you mean it was real?”
My characters are practically shouting at each other at this point, and Janice is not really asking if the nightmare was real, she’s being sarcastic, so I left out commas.
One editor put the comma in here: “What do you mean, it was real?”
The other put it here: “What, do you mean it was real?”
In both cases, the comma totally changed the tone of the sentence and conversation. When we’re arguing with each other, we rarely use pauses that would be indicated by commas. So sometimes I know I’m breaking rules, on purpose. Many times, each editor corrected the same sentence differently, which left me confused and looking up the rules myself, which often are confusing themselves.
There are rules we break all the time. As a writer, do I follow the rule? Or do I follow what most people would find more natural. Nothing challenges grammar rules more than the old lay/lie conundrum. The definition of lay, is to place. The definition of lie, is to rest or recline.
In everyday language we butcher this one regularly. A subject (John) lies down. You lay down an object (the book). You cannot lay down on the beach.  If you make yourself prone on a beach, you lie on the beach. I saw one quote that made me laugh. “You can’t lay on the beach, unless you’re a chicken.” When we ask our dog to lay down, we are also incorrect. The dog will lie down, not lay down, unless of course he is unconscious, and I lay him on his side.
You cannot take a book and lie it on the counter, but you can lay it on the counter. My biggest question is once you lay and item down, does it now lie there, or does it lay there? What about a body? On headstones we see “Here lies Sally.” Chances are, Sally didn’t walk over to that coffin and lie down. She was placed there by someone else, therefore she lays in the coffin, right? To make it more confusing, the past tense of lie, is lay. So if Joe talks about when he took a nap yesterday, then he lay down on the bed yesterday. So even if Sally did lie down in the coffin, wouldn’t she lay in the coffin now? Are you still following me?
This has been quite the issue for me as there are a plethora of dead bodies in my story, and suddenly I’m not sure if they lay beneath the earth, or lie beneath the earth. Maybe the confusion is simply because people fear death. We like to think of our loved ones as resting in their graves, rather than the reality that they were put there, so maybe we feel more comfortable with saying they lie in the grave. Or maybe the problem is whether the reference is to the object rather than the subject, and I’m still just confused.
I could go on and on about confusing rules, just look up punctuation within quotes, when quotes are within actions, and so forth. Or how about effect vs. affect. And then there’s the apostrophe; it can mean letters of a word are missing, or when followed by an “s” it means the word is possessive, except for “it’s” which is never possessive. What about hyphens, I never know when to use them and when not. I sometimes have to wonder how I even passed English, much less got top grades. Maybe it’s like “new math”, they changed the rules just to confuse the adults.
And guess what? Just to make it all the more confusing, the grammar/spell-check on my computer is often incorrect. The rule says to write 4:30 a.m., but my computer tells me to get rid of the periods. Well all I have to say is I’m very sleep deprived. It is really 4:30 a.m., and I have been revising and editing (and looking up rules) for the past two days from the wee-hours of the morning until late at night. So if there (notice I didn’t accidentally type their or they’re) are any glaring grammatical errors or typos, cut me a break okay?
Most non-writers think that the hardest part is in coming up with, and crafting the story. Ha! That part I’ve got. I’m starting to think life must have been so much easier when, to get our point across, we would just point and grunt. My daughter’s solution to my frustration? Learn a different language and write all my books in that language. It just might be easier than learning English, even though I already speak English!

Who came up with all these rules anyway?

Fiction of Fright…or not…fiction that is.

Posted on by dlmarriott

I’m thrilled to have my story “Spirits of the Corn” featured in the October Issue of eFiction Magazine. If you like a good fright, I highly recommend you read this issue, It’s chock-full of Halloween horror. I enjoy scary stories, and LOVE Halloween. I admit, I have a bit of a dark side.

As much as a fictional tale of terror can inspire nightmares, I have a ghost story to share that is absolutely non-fiction.
When my husband and I bought our first home, there was no history of horrible crime, death, or unexplained noises. Other than us being the tenth occupants in its forty years, there was nothing special about the house.
At the time Duffy, our border collie mix, was in his later years and quite sedate. Sometimes, our neighbors had to step over his sleeping body on the porch to get to the door; not much of a watch dog. So I was quite surprised one afternoon, when he refused to come in the house. Not as in, I’m-napping-in-the-warm-sun-bug-off, don’t want to come in; but tail-tucked-hackles-raised-feet-firmly-planted-not-a-chance-in-heck-I’m-coming-in-there, don’t want to come in.

When I finally dragged the struggling animal in the door, he took one look down the basement stairs, snarled, then turned tail and ran. I finally found the terrified pooch hiding under a table, and when I bent down to talk to him, my normally lethargic dog snapped at me. This was the worst episode, but there were others when our dog seemed nervous, and had a problem with the basement in particular.

A side note, purely for effect, but absolutely factual: our house was a Dutch colonial – the Amityville Horror house, was a Dutch colonial. And in our basement there was a funky little storage room tucked under the concrete front porch. To enter it, you had to climb through a small opening in the basement wall. The opening was covered with a thick wooden door complete with wrought iron latch. The room’s craggy walls and ceiling were covered in cobwebs, and floor was nothing more than dirt. Other than peeking in when we bought the house, we never went in there or used it for anything. It was just too creepy. Only in the movies would someone ACTUALLY go in there, despite the audience screaming not to.
There was also the sound of running footsteps, always late in the evening. It’s a two-story house and the footsteps were always heard from the living room on the first floor, so we knew it wasn’t just a squirrel on the roof. Our son was a year and a half old, so when we heard the foot steps racing above our heads, we naturally assumed that he had climbed out of his crib and was sprinting around his room. Every time we’d hear the thump, thump, thump, of running feet, we’d race upstairs to find our son sound asleep. We found this occurrence curious and intriguing, but not frightening.
The event that hammered home that something other-worldly might be going on happened many months later. I’d laid down next to our son, who was now in a big bed and had trouble settling for the night. My back was starting to ache from lying so still. He had been quiet for a while, but I wasn’t brave enough to move yet.
I was longing to go back down to the living room, so I turned my gaze from the darkened room out into the brightly lit hallway. There, in the doorway, stood the silhouette of a man. I assumed my husband had come up to check on us. I held a finger to my lips to warn him not to say anything, lest our son wake up. I turned my head, for just a moment, to check if our son was truly asleep. When I turned back, the man was gone.
Although my original assumption had been that the figure had been that of my husband, the way he seemed to appear and disappear without so much as a creak of the stairs bothered me. The whole episode was so brief, I questioned whether or not it had been real. Had I imagined it? Maybe, I had unknowingly dozed off and dreamt it. But it felt real.
When I was sure it was safe for me to leave, I went downstairs to find my husband sitting on the sofa reading the newspaper. I sat down next to him. “Did you come up to check on us?”
My husband lowered the paper, his eyebrows drawn together. “Why do you ask?”
“I thought I saw you outside the door,” I answered.
Dropping the paper into his lap, my husband shook his head. “Wow, that’s weird.”
“What’s weird?” I questioned.
He paused. “Have you ever had one of those times, when you see something moving out of the corner of your eye, but when you look, there’s nothing there, so you just write it off as your imagination?”
I nodded.
“Well,” he said, “I was sitting down here reading the paper while you were upstairs and I could have sworn someone went up the stairs.”
My flesh tightened into goosebumps so hard it was almost painful.
Now I can hear some of you screaming in your head, “Run away! Get out of the house!” It’s never that easy. Maybe we really just had a senile dog, funky thumping floorboards, and overactive imaginations. We also considered the fact that if there really was a ghost involved, he certainly didn’t seem mean-spirited, rather he seemed friendly, checking in on us, keeping an eye on our child.
Was it a ghost, or did my husband and I have some kind of simultaneous imaginary event, each of us on a different floor of the house? I leave that up to you. But I have to admit, I really like the ghost theory better.
Did I mention how much I love Halloween?