Introducing.....

The Winning of Mrs. Bly- It's the newest production from my Writing Fit! :) The storyline came to me while I was out doing lawns with Daniel and Leah, and wrestling the Big Green walk-behind mower. Not a romantic setting in the slightest, but hey, ideas come when they come! :)
I describe it below:
Mrs. Bly, a bitter, crabbed woman, has hated men for twenty years and has done her best to instill the same opinions in her three grown daughters. But despite living in a secluded cottage and seldom socializing, the three beautiful daughters soon fall in love.
The trouble begins with the dreamy, romantic Evangeline who meets a rough, unlearned woodsman with a good heart (Josiah Tarleton) while picking berries for Mrs. Bly's supper.
It continues when Evangeline returns to her home only to find a charming circuit-riding preacher (Cameron North) braving the glares of Mrs. Bly and falling in love with the frail, sweet Priscilla.
Mrs. Bly panics as she realizes that her daughters are not following in her footsteps of Men-hatred, so she allows the girls to attend a May Day dance, hoping that they will be disgusted with all of manhood and return to the cottage with hearts purposed on remaining single all their days.
But the plans backfire. The oldest, and last daughter to fall in love, Diana, meets a friendly carpenter with a slow smile (William Thrushwood) and finds his wisdom is more than a match for her quick wit.
The young men propose to their sweethearts soon after, but all the girls love and honor their mother too much to leave home without her blessing.
So it's up to the men to win over Mrs. Bly. Will her heart toward the young men change, or will the daughters live until the end of their lives alone in the little cottage in the forest?

That's as far as I've gotten. :) I've only written up to Evangeline coming home from meeting Josiah Tarleton, but I'm excited! It will be relatively short story, or a novelette. What do you think?I'm writing it as a comedy, highlighting the girls' absolute fear and horror of men at first as it changes into love. :) I would never undertake to write a romance, since I know I know nothing of the subject, but as this is a comedy, I thought the setting would have some funny moments :) ~The Inkpen Authoress

My Illusions of Allusions :)

Just like detectives love tracing clues in a crowded city to find a criminal, I love finding literary allusions in books! :) Over the years I have become sufficiently acquainted with Victorian literature to be able to detect and trace some of the many allusions the authors made to famous poetry, and other books.
So it thrilled me when my sister, Leah, showed me a sentence in "An Old-Fashioned Girl"by Louisa May Alcott that went something like this: "...and Polly sucked her orange in public with a composure that would have scandalized the good ladies of Cranford."
Now, unless you were familiar with the story of Cranford, the allusion would not be interesting at all. But to me, a literature-lover, it was super exciting! I feel at those times, that I have stepped into the author's word, on her footing! :)
During a unit-study I did with my sister, Sarah, on the Victorian era, we walked through "Anne of Green Gables" and were able to thoroughly trace all the allusions the author made in the book. From that study, I've come to be familiar with, and love so much Victorian-era literature from Sir Walter Scott to John Greenleaf Whittier, Charles Dickens, and many more!
Maybe it's an old-fashioned and outdated idea, but in my writing, I love to tuck allusions in the story! :) It will fly right over most people's heads, but I'd love to think that at some point, some girl like myself would take notice, and find amusement in tracing it all out. Not that I put so much thought into hiding little clues in the writing! :) Some quotations are easy to use, like Shakespeare's, while others might take a bit more thought. But try tucking something like that in your writing- it adds additional charm! :) ~Rachel

Pack-rat or Simply A Saver? ;)

Many of the fellow scribblers I talk to, have agreed that you should seldom completely throw something you've written away. Stuff it in a drawer, crumple it in your desk, but by all means, never throw it away! :D I'm not suggesting you be a packrat, but do save things! :) Just today, as we were going through all our homeschool materials, I found a note-book entitled: "Rachel's Notebook (of warious and sundry items of wery little interest to the rest of the world)" Okay. So you could tell I had just finished reading "Pickwick" and was imitating Samuel Weller, but that's beside the point! I opened the book, and found so many things I had written a year or so ago, and forgot about! There was one poem entitled "Going To The Store" which detailed what it is like for large families at the grocery store. (needs new title) Then there was the one about Gracie playing dolls. I remembered writing them, and thinking they were awful, but now, in retrospect, the poems themselves were not at all bad! One of my favorite things was finding the "plan" for a story: "The Tale of Fairfax and Cloves" that I wrote for a Christmas gift for Sarah last year. It had started out to be a full-length novel, with a quirky plot. It ended up being a reasonable story, perfect for reading in an evening, and alot of things had changed. For instance, originally, the shop the principle characters owned was "Weaver and Webbley", but it changed to "Fairfax and Cloves". It was so fun to see that forgotten plan, and compare it to the final result! That is why I say never throw worthwhile things away! One of the finds I treasure most is the first few pages of my first draft of the first pages of "A Mother for The Seasonings" I was writing it from third person, the characters were drastically different, and now, every time I read it, I laugh! :) Save things! You will be amazed at how your writing will improve! If ever you are in a dry time with your writing, and think you are awful at it, just read back on some of these old compositions! I have a notebook of poems I wrote as a ten year old. It is dumbfounding to read most of them! And not in a good way. Check this one out:

"I'm sick of being sick because

It's fun being healthy. There are 8 people

In my family and we get sick a couple at a time.

So always take you vitamins."

(Or something along those lines) Can you believe that?!?! It wasn't even good blank verse, not to mention the kind I write now! But it really does boost your spirits to look back over the years and laugh at your writing away back then! :) -Rachel