Where Should I Look for my Lost Motivation

My motivation done got up and left. Where I do not know. If I knew, I'd go out there and get it. But, alas, it is the last day of April and it is cold, grey, damp, gloomy, and I think I saw some snow flurries. So, if my motivation is outside, I think I will leave it out there. I am, at least, motivated to crochet.

I think if I could just find one little Holmes clue, I'd find some motivation. But I've been looking at shakey leaves and military records and Nathaniels and Samuels and Benjamins thick on the ground and who is who and some insist that although he is the son of Sam and Betty, he is also the son of Shivaree Holmes and died in Stockton, New York.

I found a Benjamin Holmes who died in Feb 1850 in Oswego. That's about sixty miles away from Brownville, This Benjamin was a millwright and died of consumption. I stuck that information in there with the notation "needs verification." The date is right, and the fact that I can't find any civil war records that seem to fit my Benjamin tells me that I may be on the right trail. However, I have to blaze it a little further in both directions to prove it. The other Benjamin married a Betsy Taylor and lived a lot longer. If Find a grave didn't say he was the son of Shivaree, I'd probably be on that trail, but I just can't justify it. Shivaree and Samuel are just too different names, and the mothers are different as well, although I can't find Shivaree's wife at the moment.

I can't just keep on writing freewrights. Perhaps they are a good exercise and lead me places, but so far, no, I just have words on paper that are rather meaningless at this time.

I have had no answer from the Brownville church. I don't know if that's good or bad. I consider it good manners to acknowledge receipt of an email, but not everybody else does. Perhaps they are busy digging in dusty tomes in a seldom used, smelly room, and will come back with oodles of information on my Runaway Sam. (I have my doubts.) There is nothing to do but wait.

I thought maybe I would make a cover and the start of a book. That's just putting off the inevitable nitty gritty of writing, isn't it? Or, would it be motivational to look at a cover and a Bibliography and think, "I have a book in the making." I wonder what will be in the middle of it by the time I'm done.

The Outline and Other Stuff about Sam and Betty

Freewrite - April 25, 2015

I must make an outline for Runaway Sam. I started one today on a piece of scrap paper. That is not the title of my proposed book, at least my public/family title. But in my mind, that's who he is - the main male character of the book. Betty, I don't know her well enough yet to give her a nickname. Sam's son, Daniel, Karl wrote, was called Old Dan, so that is what I called him. He was 68 when he died; 5 years older than me. Not so old, but then, age is a relative thing. I never gave Charlotte a nickname, so maybe I won't give Betty a nickname. If I do, it's because it just happens. I never went about searching the closets of my brain for a name for Sam. It just happened into my head and I thought it appropriate.

     "1920. Is it to be believed? I feel as old as Methuselah." Violet Crawley

I just finished watching Season 4 of Downton Abbey. At least it ended better than Season 3. That was dreadful. Matthew, lying there, pinned under his car, eyes open and staring at nothing, blood pouring out of his ear. I figured he was dead but I wasn't sure if they'd revive him Roadrunner like, so I googled Matthew Crawley. Yup. He's dead. And it gave him a pedigree, a family history, a biography; like he really lived.

What has that to do with Runaway Sam? Well, Lynne, who gives me these ideas for writing a great family history that generally leads me into Trouble, says that every chapter should end with a cliffhanger. It must leave the reader with a terrible need to read just one more chapter. Like when I went to lunches at Mom's whilst working at the bank. I'd eat her good, salted, food, and when I got back to the bank, I needed water. Badly. Cups and cups of it. What water she gave me with dinner didn't suffice. I don't know if that's a good analogy or not, but this is a freewrite so I can say what I want. Unlike Runaway Sam's tale.

Julian Fellow gives every epidsode of Downton Abbey a hook at the end. It sticks in my mind, and probably yours, and I want desperately to know what happens next. For Season 4, I forced myself to wait three days before touching Netflix on my tablet. I don't know how well I can do it with Sam's tale, as I know so little, and I can't write a main character like Matthew out of the book just because someone doesn't want to renew their contract, because it's history, not a fictional television show. But I need to work on it. Little hooks to keep my reader's interest in reading just one more chapter before they close the light.

     "I should hate to be predictable." Mary to Matthew at the wedding alter.

Thelma, president of NBGS, has told me twice that she never read a family history quite like mine. She said that is not a criticism. The look on my face when she first said it might have implied to her that I thought it was.

I tell you something. A book writing is like a living thing. It takes over sometimes. It tells me what it wants done. Sometimes my characters just do what they want to do. I have to keep a tight rein on the words. I have a sort of introduction started. It will change. My outline will change. Each and every page will change. It is not predictable. A book that I write myself, even a letter or a diary entry I write myself, is not predictable. And I'd hate for it to be predictable. I probably like the surprises more than any of my readers except maybe Paula.

Outline - Take One

I Introduction

     Thesis Statement

II In the beginning. Bedford, NY. Birth of Samuel

     Someplace,not sure where yet. Birth of Betty

     Their parents and grandparents: Samuel Sr Holmes and Elizabeth Fountain

                                                         Peter McElmon and Mary Margaret Fillmore

     

     Genealogy. Get the begats out of the way and somehow make them interesting.

III Places

     Bedford and other places Samuel lived before moving to Canada

     Nova Scotia

     Upstate New York

     Also Betty's places

IV Life in upstate New York

     Family

     Farm

     Faith

V Family in more detail: each person

     Samuel and Phoebe (1st wife)

          Daniel

          Other child, probably a son

     Samuel and Betty (2nd wife)

          James B

          Ann

          Betsy Marinda

          Benjamin McElmon

          Margaret Mariah

           Lyman White

VI Conclusion

     Refer back to thesis statement

Somewhere in there I need to put what I know that influences Samuel. It will require research. The Revolutionary War affected him indirectly. His parents and the Holsteads were Loyalists. Maybe the McElmons were also. The Civil War affected his children, although he did not live to know about it. I need to know the history, the geography, and the terrain of Cumberland County, Nova Scotia; Westmorland County, New Brunswick, near the Northumberland Strait; Jefferson County in New York, etcetra.

     "War has a way of distinguishing between the things that matter and the things that don't." 

     Matthew Crawley

As I've said before, I don't think highly of Sam, my great great great grandfather. How could he leave two young children behind with their grandparents, never pay child support, never even inquire about their well-being? I wonder what kind of man he really was. But, like Black Sheep Fenwick Holmes, I might grow to like him in a way. It will help if I understand him. All I have to go on is two letters that he and Betty wrote home, and some dry facts that need verification in transcribed tomes and records. I sure hope some other tidbits of his life show up.

     "Don't dislike him before you know him. That's the hallmark of our parents' generation, and I

     forbid it." Matthew to Mary

All quotations are from Downton Abbey, series one and two.        

A New Book and How It Helps Me With Sam and Betty's Journey

Freewrite: April 24, 2015

I have written something down. I have chosen six possible starting points and listed them. I have written two introductions out of six. If I don’t write something I won’t write anything. After all six are written, I shall put them away for a few days and then read them. I might send them to Paula. Maybe.

I have done a bit more research. I should keep a research journal; it might help. I found where granddaughter Betsy Holmes Adams wrote something other than Nova Scotia or New York for her father’s date of birth. I knew I read it, but where? When? It took me a good hour to find it again. I see it in one place only. I wonder if I can use it. I think, can I take some liberty with this book? Can I call it a story, based on solid research and two letters? Historical fiction, if you will, with much emphasis on the historical in fictional but realistic settings. Would my family settle for that? I won’t put words in anyone’s mouth other than what I read in the letter, or any other letters I might, but doubtfully, find.

“Facts are deceiving. We may know them, but never all of them. Only the bits and pieces that survive the voyage. In real life, the story is never finished. Discoveries may be made to shed light on it; for instance, in some attic, some cellar, the lost pages of the diary may be discovered . . . Fiction is another story. We can be sure of it, for we make it up, it is complete and finished. We can embrace it, because it is what we know.” p. 4

I sat down to supper by myself, me and a book. Erin bought me this book when she was home not last time but the time before, I do believe. It is called “Creation” and under the word Creation are the words, “a novel.” The author is Katherine Govier, and the book was published in 2002. It is the story of John James Audubon. Audubon, who drew the birds of North America. I have read the introduction. I do not know why I didn’t read it before. Audubon, the lover of birds, of the art of birds, and something about him the man, the husband, the father, and the journal writer.

“The older man slings his gun over the shoulder of his fringed jacket; he must be a frontiersman, a hunter. But he has a certain vibrancy, as if his whole body were a violin freshly strung . . .” p. 1

“He will leave, aside from his great book of pictures and the volumes of words that accompany it, his journals, and many letters.” p. 3

I’m intrigued. It started out with a bit of family history. It’s about a love of birds. It’s about the art of drawing birds. Why wouldn’t I love this book? The only think I enjoy that he probably didn’t is crochet. But I did find a knitting reference. I can knit as well as crochet.

            “They cavort in their outfits and flirt with the ladies who sell knitted goods.” p. 2

“A festive atmosphere has taken hold of the town. The tailor, the publican and the knitting women, in fact most of the population of Eastport, have downed tools and filtered to the docks to see off the schooner and its crew.” p. 5

That’s all well and good, but what does it have to do with Sam and Betty? Mr. Audubon and his son are starting a journey in Eastport, Maine. Around Nova Scotia, passing New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, nodding at distant Newfoundland, hugging the Gaspé Peninsula, sailing down the St. Lawrence. In 1833. 12 years and 11 months after Sam and Betty took their journey; I am making the logical assumption that they sailed the same route, from Halifax to Quebec City.

“The Ripley rounds the southeast coast of Nova Scotia in a fresh northeast wind . . . From here they sail east to the Strait of Canso ‘in a horrid sea” . . . the weather clears and they sail through the strait with twenty other vessels, all fishing boats bound for Labrador. They pass Indians in a bark canoe. “ p. 8, 9

I figure that thirteen years, from May 1820 to June 1833 – the journey would be much the same route and the same conditions; probably a bit colder. Audubon will not go to northern New York; I haven’t read that far yet but I believe his destination is Labrador. However, I am getting a feel for the journey that Sam and Betty took way back in 1820 – I’m shivering in the cool breeze that teases my ankle covering dress, I’m jumping off my seat as the cannon acknowledges farewell, I’m wondering when and if I’ll ever see my family again, but . . . unlike Audubon, I’m patting my belly, feeling for butterfly flutters.

“Earthbound, he walks the shore on a clean sand beach . . . The sand is sleek, the water falling over itself in clear, transparent folds at his feet. A piping plover runs and flies before him, chirping in mellow notes. The unfamiliar terns dip and soar overhead. There are dozens and dozens of them.

            He wants to possess one.” p. 13

Audubon didn’t own a Nikon. He shot them with his gun. How else could he draw them, after all? I’m so thankful for my Nikon, for you who know me well know I’d never shoot them with a gun. For more reasons than one.

I read a little further on. He did kill them, occasionally, to study them and to serve as models for his paintings. However, he met them where they lived, near their nests. He knew his models well.

Where to Start the Next Story

Freewrite:  April 20, 2015

I am having a difficult time settling down to write. I guess I need a plan a goal a theme and a bunch of obstacles to overcome.  I have the obstacles. It’s just that I don’t have any more answers than anybody else has and as this is NOT a work of fiction, I can’t make them up. Therefore, they are my obstacles just as much as they were Sam and Betty’s obstacles.

So where do I begin? I’d like to begin on the boat. Dare I? I only have a granddaughter’s word to a census taker for that little obstacle. In Nova Scotia? Why did they skedaddle out of there? In a land of strangers? Were they running from something? Someone? In 1840, looking back? On their wedding day? Was Betty pregnant? Was that their problem?

Where do you like a story to begin? Do you like it chronological: start from the beginning, go to the middle, end at the end? Sensible shoes.  Do you like it to go back and forth? Two points of view: the writers and the protagonists? Me in my slippers dancing with him in his steppin’ in manure boots. Looking back on life, leaving only the climax and conclusion for the ending? Angel wings and silver sandals. In the middle, then back to the beginning, then fast forward to the here and now? Running shoes to baby booties to comfy slippers.

Never thought too highly of Sam. But I need to keep my feelings out of it. Has to be his feelings. And Betty’s feelings. Never mind what I think. Hey, Sam, Runaway Sam, I still have to wear your genes whether I like it or not. So it is important what I think. ‘Cause the way I figure it, I’m about the only one who’s going to tell your story.

So you can run but you can’t hide ‘cause I’ve opened the door of your closet a wee crack. It is 2015. Nobody much cares if Betty was pregnant or not anymore, these days. But what matters is what kind of a father were you? What kind of a father would leave his babies behind and never send a dime of support money or inquire about their welfare? How did you treat the other six? I just have my wonders. I’ve met some of your grandchildren. I’ve visited them at census time and at their Findagrave. They haven’t whispered their secrets to me yet, but for one.

I don’t have the makings of a book yet. Perhaps I never will. Oh, I can make a list of genealogical bones. What fun is that? I like to make the bones stand up and dance. So I have to start the book. And wait. And watch. And listen. Will I ever find enough to tell a story? I don’t know the answer to that yet. But I do know this: I know more than I knew when I wrote my first book. I know more than I knew three months ago.

So that’s my first freewrite ‘bout Sam and Betty. My first warm-up exercise. My going public with a promise to do my very best to tell a truthful story, even if I don’t find all the answers. Where will my book take me? Close to home, in Amherst, Nova Scotia. Jolicure, New Brunswick. Bedford, NY. Northern New York. Echo, Michigan. Washington DC. Virginia. I’m sure I’ll find other stops along the way. I have a long journey ahead of me; I’d best board the train.