The Outline of My Story

Hello! I have decided what my story for the club shall be about- I kind of took several of your ideas and mixed them up: So the story shall center around a young lady in Colonial Williamsburg who is a waiting-maid for a family or Loyalists. She herself is a Patriot. Only a poor girl, she cannot leave her position, and so she must stay with the family against her wishes. Her brother back home, joins up with the army. Things are coming to a nasty bit of a crises when the family decides they are returning to England, and they wish for the girl to join them. She decides that she simply cannot go with them, so she leaves the position, and looks for more work. At some point she is employed at Mount Vernon, and so is in close quarters with the Washington family....the war goes on. When Mrs. Washington travels with her husband, there is much less need for servants in the house, so the girl is relieved of her position. She goes to Phil., PA to visit family, where she is in town during the signing of the Declaration of Independence, etc.
What do you think? I think I can handle the story with a good bit of historical accuracy, since I have lived my whole life an hour from the setting of the story! Does it sound feasible? I shall update ya'll with more details as I decide them! -Rachel

A Little-Remembered Form of Writing

When most people nowadays think of a "journal" they either think of a "diary" with all the oodalolly "feelings" that are such an irritation and embarassment to look back on in later years, or else they think of a dry chronicle of everyday things. I used to write in my journal something like this: "I woke up, I ate breakfast, I did chores, I did school, we took a walk, we made and ate lunch.....blah blah blah." Very boring indeed! :) But over the years I have read more journals from older times, wherein the entries were so interesting. Take this one for example:
"Remember the bright happy days of last winter; the guests at home, the visits abroad; the buggy rides, the walks, the dances every night; the merry, kind, voices that came from laughing lips, the bright eyes that then sparkled with pleasure? Is there nothing to remember with gratitude in all that?......" (speaking of her brother Harry) "...Was it years ago or only a week past that very night when he was laughing at me while I dragged Mother around in a dance, that he joined his violin to my guitar and called on Miriam and Lydia to sing with us? That last supper where we were so happy, where I drew from him stories of London and Paris, and complained that he did not tell me enough, and promised myself that one day, when I should be his little housekeepe, he would tell me all-- was that real?" -Sarah Morgan

That was not dull was it? So I revamped my vision for my journal writing. I purposed to write interesting accounts of all I did, describe the people I met, and in short, make a writing project of it! I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be fun to find a well-written journal in some attic?" and so I decided to keep one worth finding someday! It has been so much fun to read back on a well-written journal entry, and actually be able to relive the scene simply from what I had taken a bit of trouble to put down that day! Miss Abigail knows how interesting my journal entries can be, don't you? :) I used to make the excuse that "people back then had servants to do all their work, so they just had ample free-time!) That may have been true, but I know as a fact that, if I make it a priority, I find some sort of time to describe something. Try it! You can use the detailed memories in a story if you do something worthwhile! :) Believe me, it is so worth it, and is a good exercise in learning to write fluently and easily! :) -Rachel

Describing This Evening

Hey guys! I don't know about where you live, but here, this evening has been perfectly gorgeous. I promised to write on this blog about anything that had to do with writing, so I thought I'd put on here an excerpt from a letter I was writing to a friend on the porch. (Describing the evening) I figured that it would put into practice what I talked about last post. (sort of! :)
So here it goes!
"I am now sitting, pretty near perfectly content. The sun is sinking slowly behind the trees and the cool of evening comes softly forward. Many little birds are twittering their goodbyes, save the swallows who are still sweeping the air with their scissor-like wings. The light, now unburdened from the boldest rays of sun has softened the shapes of distant things, and hangs quietly in the sky like an airy wine. All the land is tinged to a pale rose color from its harsher new-plowed tones of brown. From where I sit upon our porch, our garden looks lush and productive, and I forget, temporarily, the potato bugs and bean beetles we must so carefully combat. I am lothe to leave this tranquil, holy, beauty. I imagine evenings in Eden when the Lord walked with Adam and Eve must have looked and felt like this. I am sure these tall pines, pencilled black as they are against the pearlescent mild blue are the finest sort of cathedral one could ask for. ....I am ever more convinced that this country air is the purest I have ever breathed! The purple shadows creep across the fields, and the air moves so sweet and fragrant and pure. There is no breeze at all, and yet I feel the fresh and cool air moving against my skin, and bringing to me all the wholesome smells of grass and flowers and abundant growing things. But I cannot do the Lord's handiwork justice. Oh I would that you could see and hear and smell and feel this evening with me! Perhaps you enjoy this very moment at your own home. But if not, you must be content with as descriptive an account as I can easily muster. I am as one drinking deep draughts of beauty, who cannot bear to tear myself away from the spectacle for one moment. The sun has not set this evening. There was no pomp, no showy colors to the finale of this lovely day. Only a beauty that was more felt and lived then seen. What a gift my God has bestowed upon me, who has tried His grace so many times today. But somehow, my heart is light, and each care has slipped away unperceived as I have sat here worshipping my Creator. I feel I can echo back with the poet: "...The hillside's dew-pearled,
God's in his Heaven,
All's right with the world."
If this letter is rambling, it is only because I have little patience for trivial, daily things after experiencing the close of this day. Which makes it hard to go inside and vacuum prosaicly as I am now called to do. The whippoorwills are beginning! But I now leave."

Okay. So I think I wore out adjectives, and the vacuuming line at the end was not in good taste, but I wrote this without editing, so there you have it! I like writing letters full of description, even if it may be a tad bit dull to read! (I hope not though! :) Whaddya' think? -Rachel

"A Fireside Song"

"A Fireside Song"

By Me!

"Give me a log upon the hearth

Give me a kindred soul

And the hours will pass like sand through a glass

For my pleasure shall be made whole."

When the dusk is purpling the meadow,

And the garden's an amethyst hue,

Then is the time I'll sing you this rhyme-

Just me and nearby just you.

We'll speak of the ferns in the hollow,

We'll speak of dramas and art,

Of books and a friend, and the fire will lend

A warmth as you share your heart.

The words we speak in the firelight

The dreams we dare to say

Area echoed back by the flames that crack

In a noble and golden way.

"Give me a log upon the hearth

Give me a kindred soul,

And the hours shall pass like sand through a glass

For my pleasure shall be made whole."

I wrote this for The King's Daughter. There you go lassie! :) -Rachie

A Post of Variety

Hello! I hope all of you guys are having a great day! I have had a very busy but a good one! Thanks Nana and Charity for joining this blog! I hope to get a nice group of people over here! Dear Jo (What ho! :) did a little blurb for me over at her blog: Scraps From My Workbasket. Thanks Jo!
Okay. So here is the deal. I need help deciding the story line for my latest story. If you want to vote on that, then just scroll down two posts! (I am not going to go into the trouble right now to link it. Sorry! :D) Anyway, I thought I'd write about something that is a bit of an unconventional idea, but one that I love to do! Have you ever been in a setting that you thought, "Wow! This would be great to describe in a book?" I mean, like the way the wind is howling, or the rain is falling, or an especially lovely sunset or something of that sort? What I have taken to doing, is writing out a description of whatever it was, and then filing it away for later use! Then, if I am writing a book and need a sunset scene or something else, I will have one, written in the moment that will be much more realistic that one fabricated for necessity. Do you get my drift? My one problem: I had written a description of a house that was rattling round my head about a year ago, and now when I have use for it in a story, I can't find it or any of the other ones! Humph! :) Anyway! That is just a writing tip that I've used now and then, and that has been quite satisfactory! :) -Rachel

Where Art Thou Cooperation?

I am in a spot where I am feeling just like Leanna when she quotes, "My compositions are like your paintings: Mediocre copies of another writer's genius!" I am really understanding today that I am NOT a Dickens, Austen, Twain, Alcott, etc. I am an aspiring author and nothing more. I made the grand and glorious mistake of reading Northanger Abbey right before taking out my little endeavor. Bad idea. Northanger Abbey drips with wit and vivacity, and my poor little story looked like milk-toast beside it! :( It may sound funny, but my characters and story are missbehaving. They won't be written the way I want them to. I know exactly how I want my story to come out, but it won't obey!!! It is most irritating, because I know for a fact that I have control over my pen! (of course!!!) Nevertheless, if my story was a child, I need Supernanny! :) The characters won't do as they should, the story won't be smoothly laid down on paper, and I have a most terrible crop of "subject, verb, subject, verb....blah, blah, blah". I have half a mind to stuff my poor manuscript under my bed to dry-rot. But I won't really. This is a temporary problem, and one that shall disappear if I proceed and make it behave! :) I always like to write through one of these fits, and sometimes by the end I have actually written something worth reading, that may have been missed otherwise. One of my worst writing moments came when I was writing the most emotional chapter in my whole book: Someone erased it accidently on the computer!!! Terrible! So I rewrote it, and something happened to that! And I rewrote it again and something happened to that! I ended up reliving and rewriting that scene 3 or 4 times! I was emotionally drained by the end! ;) That was hard work. Each time I wondered if I had really captured the emotion of the first time, but I think I did okay! Thanks everyone for your ideas for my writing-club story! I haven't decided what I am finally going to write about, but I'll let you all know! Keep the ideas coming! -Rachel (Who is not feeling like Josie Ava Inkpen today! :)

Help Inspire Me! :)

Hello! Alright. I need help from everyone one of you guys. (all 7!!!) I have joined a story-writing club that one of our friends is starting, and I need help deciding what my story should be about. I have chosen historical fiction as my genre, and now I need you guys to vote on the details. Please do this, because it will help inspire me! If you have siblings, ask them what they think...okay?

So choose which letter you want from each question:

Which time period should I write from?
a. Civil War
b. Great Depression
c. Colonial
d. Victorian
e. The French Revolution

Who should the story center around?
a. a boy
b. a young lady
c. a family
d. a married woman
e. a man

Where should this story take place?
a. a rural area
b. the city
c. in another person's house (i.e. a servant working for a rich family, etc.)
d. on the high seas
e. in a foreign country

What sort of circumstances should this person come from?
a. rich
b. poor
c. middle-class (i.e. merchants, blacksmith, carpenter, tradespeople)
d. serving class
e. slavery

What sort of storyline should this be?
a. a journal of a person
b. the person telling this as a story
c. an adventure story
d. a mystery (PLEASE NO!!!! :)
e. just a simple story

Should this storyline center closely around a certain historical figure?
a. yes
b. no
c. yes, but not too closely
d. no, but mention historical people
e. Absolutely (if so, who?)

Okay guys! Hope you can help me decide! I wish I could get more followers on here to help me out! :) -Rachel (Or Josie)

"Honeysuckle"

"Honeysuckle"

By Me!

The starlike blossoms sweetly shine

And fragrant bloom upon the vine

That wanders through the groves of pine

And lights the dusky glen.

The phantom sweetness on the air

Perfumes the azure stillness there

And wafts ethereal and fair

To ease the hearts of men.

An angel's breath could hardly loom

As pure and sweet as yonder bloom,

That blesses me with rich perfume

And haunts each hill and fen.

My New Story

So, in the melee of a writing fit, I have begun a new story. It is not very far along, but just enough that I feel I am beginning to like and understand the characters as I should. The principle characters are the great Dunmore Family of Merrywood Hall, and the Piper family who have served them for as long as can be remembered. The way I came up with the idea of the story is crazy. Cuckoo. Nuts. I was taking a shower and just making up some little skit with myself, and I pictured two very silly but earnest looking girls speaking to a sensible, modest, young lady about a great aunt who had died.
"Isn't it just awful though?" one of the young ladies asked. The modest girl looks a bit confused.
"But...I don't mean to be unfeeling but...haven't you always wished for her to die so that she could leave you an inheritance?"
"It only gave us something to talk about. But now that she really has died it has spoiled all the fun! We never really wanted it to be true you know!"

And somehow that silly little scene will become a part of this story, and the two silly girls (Estelle and Elisabeth or "Essie and Ella") will be great friends with their seamstress the honorable Miss Helen Piper. The Pipers, though of quite a different class, are intimate comrades with the generous and kindly Dunmore family. There are five Piper children: Dickon (20), Helen (18), Lily (16), Phoebe (13) and Fanny (11). I haven't quite made up my mind, but I am thinking that Helen Piper shall somehow "come into some money" or else the Dunmore family's fortunes will disappear, or something so that she can marry Mr. Walter Dunmore. (The son) It is a crazy scheme, and one I probably will regret, but I had to take the plunge while the writing fit was upon me. I have determined to write this book solely on paper. There is something that keeps my brain working in the feel of my pen scratching the paper. My mind goes dim when I simply type words and words onto a computer. Like now. ;) I think this is quickly becoming a dull sort of post, so I will leave off now! -Josie
p.s. I found that I am like Charles Dickens in one way: I have the extreme hardest time naming my books. That happens only when I am desperately in need of a name NOW! and even then, it is difficult for me to find one that fits. I remember reading that Dickens thought of over 40 names before hitting on "A Tale of Two Cities"! :)

Welcome to The Inkpen Authoress!

Hey everybody! I have created this blog as a place where I can share about one of my biggest passions: Writing! The Lord, of course, is the best Author of all time, and I rejoice in the life-story that He has already written for me! The name of this blog mostly came from two things: First, my "nom de plume" or "pen name" which is Josephine Ava Inkpen (combined with the fact that I detest writing with a pencil!!!) and secondly, because "authoress" is a word that I love! This blog is designed as an offshoot of the other blog I do with my sister Sarah. You can get to that here. In addition, this blog is about all things to do with writing! I hope you all enjoy reading about my adventures in authoring, my thoughts on writing in general, and about anything that makes me think of pens, ink, paper, and the lovely feel of a writing-fit! :)
-Josie Inkpen