By Ada Brownell
I think it was January 2009 when I joined the American Christian Fiction Writers online Novel Track. Novel Track is designed to motivate writers to set a word count goal, sit down and write a book only looking ahead, not stopping to edit or change anything, but keep writing.
I decided to finally write a historical novel inspired by my maternal grandparents. I set a goal of 10,000 words. In five weeks I had 80,000 words.
I never met my grandfather who passed away before I was born, and being the eighth child of my family I didn’t know Grandma well. But I picked up interesting tidbits about their lives. Grandma had been orphaned in her teens, and not everything went smoothly. Grandpa traveled about the country in a wagon with a Passion of the Christ moving picture show.
I used a number of things from my grandparents’ lives, but in no way does it mirror who they were. For one thing, not everyone agrees about what happened and I’m too far down the line to know. A fact that has been verified, though, is that Grandpa’s father, my mother’s grandfather, was murdered. Great grandfather’s second wife was young enough to be his daughter, and the wife’s lover beat and kicked my great-grandfather until he died of the injuries about a month later.
The young wife was pregnant when she married from what I can gather. Although I don’t know for sure it was the case, in my story the old man needed a cook and the young woman needed a husband because of her situation, and the marriage appeared the Christian thing to do. But in my book, my main character, William, who travels with the Passion of the Christ show, struggles with anger and the desire to kill the young man who murdered his father.
The main part of the story, however, revolves around Jenny, who is trying to escape from her uncle, a judge, who attempts to take a razor strap to her for speaking to young men, and makes Jenny uncomfortable with the way he looks at her.
In order to escape, Jenny dresses as a man but the judge and his hired gunslingers post a reward for her return and chase her everywhere she goes. William saves her from a rattlesnake, and the two often meet during their travels.
Jenny finds she has little faith God is going to help her after everything that happened in the past. Her father died of consumption and her mother was killed in a buggy accident. Then the judge drove off Jenny’s brother by abusing horses and when Jenny’s brother intervenes, the judge takes the horse whip to him.
Although Jenny and William make a connection that hints at romance, when he goes back to Iowa his old girlfriend latches onto him and his heart still finds he’s attracted to her. But why did she put up such a fuss when William brings in the man who killed his father?
He heads back to Colorado with not everything in Iowa resolved. Jenny can’t wait to see him again, but her life takes many new twists, too.
Will the judge make her return to the horse ranch? Will William conquer his anger and come out spiritually victorious? Will Jenny regain her faith and accomplish her dreams and teach school?
As in real life, complications arise unexpectedly.
The questions for myself? Will I show and not tell? Will I use deep point of view?
Amazing how we can study and know how we should write, but it’s something else to follow through and do it. Hopefully, Jenny’s story as The Lady Fugitive, will be ready to go to market soon.
JOE THE DREAMER: THE CASTLE AND THE CATAPULT http://buff.ly/XeqTvH
SWALLOWED BY LIFE http://amzn.to/Jnc1rW
CONFESSIONS OF A PENTECOSTAL http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0088OP460
Blog/website: http://www.inkfromanearthenvessel.blogspot.com
Stick-to-Your-Soul Encouragement