It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of Pinterest. I use it to visualize my characters, the story, the setting and the mood. Today I am sharing some of my favorite Pins from the Harris House board. To see more about my upcoming YA Gothic Thriller you can check out my Pinterest Board here or the Harris House page here. I hope you're intrigued by the images!
bye for now Wendy xx
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Chateau de Trecesson, FranceThis beautiful castle in France is thought to have stood on this site since the 8th century, although the castle that stands there now is believed to have been built in about the fifteenth century by the Trecesson family. I've never visited this castle but the pictures, as you will see below, are breathtaking and in researching up about the castle I came across haunting tales. Which I just love! The first is of a la Dame Blanche - or 'White Lady'. This is believed to be a new bride who on the night of her wedding was kidnapped by her two brothers who did not approve of the match and buried within the grounds of the castle. One story suggested she was entombed within the walls, but there is another that said a poacher saw her brothers bury her alive and she was in fact rescued by Seignour de Trecesson although she died before dawn broke. Her veil and headress become relics on the alter at the chapel and young girls would travel for miles to touch them in the hopes that it would bring them a husband. There are also tales of a Headless Curate, for which I could find little information about. I guess I will just have to visit! bye for now
Wendy xx Scots led by William Wallace defeat the English at Stirling BridgeSeptember 11, 1297 John F Kennedy married Jacqueline Bouvier in front of 750 guests at St Marys Church in Newport Rhode Island.September 12, 1953 Ballet Dancer Isadora Duncan killedOn September 14, 1930 the famous ballet dancer was travelling in a car through Nice France when the long scarf she was wearing got caught in the car wheel and strangled her. What a horrific way to die! Princess Grace of Monaco DiesThe beautiful, elegant and graceful American actress who became a princess fulfilling every little girls dream died on September 14, 1982 when the car she was driving in veered off the in Monte Carlo. Nuremburg Laws enacted in GermanyI would love to write a novel set in Germany during the pre WWII phase but to be honest I am not sure I would be able to do such a time period justice. If I could be sensitive enough to the horrible facts of history. The Nuremberg Race Laws institutionalised racism in Nazi Germany, excluding German Jews from Reich citizenship, prohibited marriage and sexual relations with person of 'German or related blood". Intererstingly the laws defined someone as a Jew not by whether they practised Judaism or belonged in the religious community but whether they had three or four Jewish grandparents, so even those people who'd converted to Christianity were classified (and the Nazi ideology classified everyone) as Jewish. Around the time of the Berlin Games the Nazi's moderated it's anti Jewish sentiments for a time but once they were over they were once again implemented, this time with more vigour. Jewish businesses were taken over by non Jewish Germans, Jewish doctors were forbidden to treat non Jews and Jewish lawyers were no longer able to practice law. All Jewish people were required to carry identity cards (like all Germans) but theirs were marked with a red J stamped on the them and new middle names of Israel and Sara so they were readily identifable as Jewish. Of course this was just the beginning of the Nazi reign of terror that would see millions of Jews throughout not just Germany but the rest of Europe tortured, imprisoned and murdered. Interesting time for history this week. So much to think about when we consider what is happening in Syria right now. bye for now, Wendy xx Highgate Cemetary...Vampire Okay, so it may be a little morbid but I find cemetery's fascinating. Places of sacred ground where the bodies of loved ones are laid to rest and where their bones and flesh slowly turn to ash and dust, absorbed into the earth.....fascinating and just a little bit spooky too! All those people, all those tombstones with just a few names, dates and words are stories in and of themselves. I came across the image of Highgate Cemetery, England (above), and was immediately intrigued by the Gothic style architecture, the age of the cemetery (opened in the early 1800's but is said to have been used as a mass grave site for victims of the plague in the 16th century) and the fact that Karl Marx is buried there. Then I did a little research that began with a Google search and the Highgate Cemetery Vampire popped up. Now things are getting really interesting..... In the late 1960's rumors began circulating around the London occult and psychic society about a tall, dark man lingering around the graves in Highgate cemetery. They went unreported and weren't really taken too seriously from it seems until a man identified only as 'Thornton' had an encounter with the tall, dark man who hypnotized him into some kind of evil trance for several minutes. Another woman out walking her dog by the gates saw the tall, dark man floating towards her and her dog went crazy. David Farrant, who has written extensively about the 'Vampire' also visited the cemetery to investigate the rumors. The notion of their being a vampire in Highgate dates back to the mid 1800's. Bram Stoker is said to have drawn inspiration for Dracula from the incidents at the cemetery and even has one of Dracula's disciples buried there. Then there is the very fascinating and disturbing case of a young girl, Elizabeth Siddell, who died in 1855 and whose remains were exhumed in 1862 by a relative who wanted to retrieve some poems from her coffin. It is said that even after seven years in the ground she was unchanged with flowing red hair and untarnished flesh as if she was 'undead'. (In researching Elizabeth Siddell I have discovered a fascinating story which I will share in the future). The 1970's saw several more sightings of the tall, dark man who floated through the graves. This is similar to what was rumored in the 1800's, more than a hundred years between sightings. Why? Where did he go during those hundred years? Why was he back? And where has he gone now?
Intriguing, don't you think? bye for now, (sleep well) Wendy xx References: http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/greater-london/hauntings/the-highgate-vampire-how-it-all-began-by-david-farrant.html http://theunredacted.com/the-highgate-vampire-horror-of-the-dead/ Since I find lots of inspiration different historical time periods I thought I would start a regular blog about some of the interesting pieces of history that occurred this week, but in the past. Hope you enjoy and find them as interesting as I do! 1. The Great Fire of LondonThe Great Fire of London burned through London from the 2nd September 1666 until the 5th September and although it managed to destroy most of Medieval London including 13,200 homes it is actually only believed to have killed six people. It started in the bakery of Thomas Farriner in Pudding Lane. 2. Treaty of ParisThe Treaty of Paris between the United States, Britain and Paris was signed on 3rd September, 1783 and put an official end to the Revolutionary War between the United States and Britain. 3. Wild West Legend Jesse James bornJesse James was born in Centerville Missouri in 1847. Jesse and his brother Frank formed a group of outlaws who spent their time robbing banks, trains, stagecoaches and stores. Jesse was eventually shot dead at the age of 34 by a member of his own gang who was after the $10,000 award. Leningrad renamed St PetersburgI love Russian history. The whole country just inspires magic, mystery, elegance, tragedy and romanticism. I have so many ideas for a romance story set in Russia but am worried that since I have never visited (its on my bucket list!) I won't do it justice. In the meantime I will put my story on hold.
Leningrad became St Petersburg once more on September 6 1991 after spending the previous 67 years as Lengingrad in honor Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union. Hope you enjoyed the trip through history as much as I did, and I hope any budding writers out there found some inspiration. Maybe a Russian princess or duchess in hiding.... or a female protagonist who joins a group of outlaws in the wild west....or perhaps a tragic heroine who lost everything in the great fire of London.... Let history be your muse! bye for now, Wendy xx I first saw this movie when I was thirteen years old and I cried and cried and cried. I had no idea who Jane Grey was, I knew nothing about her history, very little about the Tudor Dynasty or England in the middle ages. This was my first foray into the world of the Tudors and one I have remained in ever since! This movie is everything the story of Lady Jane Grey, the eldest daughter of King Henry VIII's sister, is. It is poignant, frustrating, frightening, romantic and tragic. It shows the cold, hostile, manipulative court of the Tudors and within that world it shows a love that is pure, sweet, innocent and eternal. A very young Helena Bonham Carter plays the pious, devout, serious, studious Lady Jane Grey. Guildford Dudley, the youngest son of the Duke of Northumberland whom Jane marries is played by Cary Elwes (of Princess Bride fame). The essence of the movie is Guildford and Jane's love story against the backdrop of manipulation, greed, and the battle for power after King Henry VIII's son dies at just fifteen. With Princess Mary as the rightful queen the powers that be are terrified of a Catholic once more sitting on the English throne and thus we see Jane thrust into the role of Queen for just nine days before Mary's army arrives in London and Jane and Guildford are both charged with treason and sent to the Tower of London which never ended well for most people exiled there. There is so much to love about this movie - the costumes, the set, the music, the acting. In the years that passed since I first watched Lady Jane I have learned enough to know that the love between Jane and Guildford as portrayed in the movie might not have been as poignant and real as I would like to imagine. In fact, there is evidence to suggest they couldn't stand one another but it doesn't change the fact that this movie is one of my all time favorites. As much as the movie has altered some historical facts for creative license there is one scene that I understand they haven't altered and that is the scene of Jane on the scaffold before her beheading.....the fright, the words she spoke are exactly as eye witness accounts reported and oh so chilling. If you love romance, if you love history, if you love tales of first love I urge you to watch this movie! And please let me know what you think.
bye for now Wendy xx Four day long weekend seems so hopeful at the start. There were so many things I wanted to get done over the Easter Break whilst the rest of my family were off scouting including paint the house, writer quite a few words, do some craft research and learn how to convert word dox to html (there's online conversions for this - yay!)
Another thing was to find something really indulgent to watch and I did that with Flipped. I'd seen the movie come on Netflix recommendations quite a bit and it had a near five star rating so Friday afternoon, feeling a bit weary and exhausted already (just from watching my kids pack their bags for their camping weekend) so I snuggled up on the sofa to watch. OMG IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN FLIPPED YOU NEED TO WATCH THIS! I wrote that in capitals because if you were here in front of me I would have shouted it. Flipped is delightful, funny, heart warming and heart wrenching at the same time. It tells the story of Bryce and Juli who meet when they are about seven years old and Bryce moves into the house across the road. From the moment she lays on him Juli has decided that Bryce and his 'dazzling eyes' have her first kiss. But Bryce has immediately decided that Juli is annoying and pushy and spends the next few years avoiding her best as he can. Until of course they are teenagers, when things flip. This moving captures first love, first heartbreak, the angst of being a teenager and the role families and friends play in forming the people we become. It has lots of coming of age moments, including cringe worthy moments like a boys lunch auction (yes, auctioning off boys to have lunch with girls for a fundraiser) and the humiliating feeling of being caught in a lie. Flipped is a great movie for everyone and is cast beautifully. It's actually based on a novel which I am about to search Amazon for now. Thanks for stopping by, Wendy xx
Time Trip
A young adult novella chronically one of the many former lives of Abbie Harper available now on Smashwords for preorder
Green eyes bored into her and she stared into them, into the glittering orbs that had once dazzled her so but now terrified her more than anything . He was mad, she realized, crazy mad, and he was about to kill her.
This another life of Abbie Harper's before she was able to set things in motion that freed her from the cycle over love and death over and over again. This time Abbie is happy, free loving Sarah living in 1969 and on her way to Woodstock with her best friend Casey and brothers Logan and Jake. But even as Sarah starts the journey having no idea of the inescapable fate that awaits her, strange dreams start to haunt her and she begins to question exactly who the Martin brothers really are. I love this cover! It captures the freedom and hopefulness that Sarah had for a bright future. That was of course, before she met brothers Logan and Jake Martin.... Your can pre order Time Trip on Amazon or at Smashwords from Friday 25th March, available from 1st April. bye for now Wendy xx My current obsession. I vaguely remember watching the very long movie War and Peace staring Audrey Hepburn when I was a little girl and loving it (even if it was a bit much for an eight year old to take in). So when i came across the new BBC version of War and Peace I was excited - this show ticked all my boxes.
As well as romance there is scandal, there are those less desirable characters who seek to undermine the good in others - affairs, duels, gambling, seduction. Tolstoy wrote a wonderful novel that definitely had it all and so far it looks like BBC is bringing it all to the screens. So War and Peace - my must see watching tip for this week - if you are into all of the above! bye for now, Wendy xx Here's five (very random) things about me that you may not know.
Not very exciting but a little more insight into me. Thanks for stopping by. Wendy xx |
Wendy GoddingWriter of young adult romance with a historical bent. Archives
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