HISTORY: Preserved

H A P P Y   T H A N K S G I V I N G ! I love these Normal Rockwell paintings depicting two very different WWII Thanksgivings.  I hope your day is filled with family, good food, and many blessings!

Today I'm celebrating because I finished all the line edits of my book! It was a mountain of work, but thanks to my awesome family, I plowed through it in 1 week. Hooray! Now all that's left is proofing, last minute little edits, and then I can publish! So, to celebrate, I thought I'd share my dream casts for my main characters, Alex Moon and Lonnie Hamilton. Exciting! Picking out faces was something I did at the very beginning of writing my book, The War Between Us . It really helped to have a face I felt came the closest to what I imagined my character looking like. It helped me visualize them in a concrete, realistic way. Unfortunately, my main characters' looks tend to be very allusive to me for much of the writing process - side characters not as much, so having pictures helps as I write. If my book was to be made into a movie (seriously, that would be so awesome, but also very weird!), I've got just the right people picked out. Here they are: Alexander

A friend of mine posted this link from the fabulous website The Art of Manliness. It's a list of the 50 best books for men and boys - such a fabulous list. I'm happy I've read so many of them myself and have gotten my son off to a good start. Check out the list yourself. There are a lot of great ones! On the subject of fabric, I tried to get a start on some sewing during my writing break, but I just got my line edits back this week, so I didn't make much progress, but I did do some!  Here's the fabric I'm using for my son's 18th century boy's shirt. It's a blue checked linen. I'm so excited! I like to take my sewing in steps so it's not so overwhelming. Wash and iron the fabric. Cut out the pattern pieces, pin and cut out the fabric, mark the fabric, then finally sew. It may take me longer, but at least I get it done, step by step! My fabric pieces are cut out now, but until my book is published, that's the way they'll st

I was going back through my list of "Read" books on Goodreads and came across a WWII YA Historical Fiction that I had loved, but since forgotten the title of. Then I thought that I should do a list of little-known historical fiction books that I've loved to share with you. The first slot goes to the book that inspired this list. 1. Climbing the Stairs by Padma Venkatraman This book was entrancing to me. It's a book set at the beginning of WWII and takes place in India. It's the story of a girl whose father receives a brain injury and their family must move in with relatives, where things are done differently and are fraught with trials and frustrations. It's such a beautiful, moving book about a part of the world that is rarely talked about in conjunction with the second world war. 2. Death Comes as Epiphany  by Sharan Newman This book is the first in a long mystery series about Catherine LeVendeur, a girl living in 12th century France. She is about t

18th century fall-front boy breeches Yes, it's unbelievable, but I finally, finally  finished those darn breeches for my son! It's a good thing I made them too big. He keeps growing, but I don't sew any faster. What held me up all these long months, besides working feverishly on my book, was those darn buttons. All 14 of them. I had to cover each bone mold with fabric, then sew it on the breeches, then cut and finish the buttonholes. All 14 of them!!! It was tedious, but I'm sure you've gotten the clue already. :-) I'm pretty proud of them overall. I'm always a little astonished at the end of any pants/trouser/breeches making, because they seem like such a difficult piece of clothing to make, but somehow they turn out in the end. And they look like pants! My son is so thrilled. When I showed him the finished breeches, he smiled and said, "Good! Are you going to finish my shirt soon?" Ugh. Poor kid. He's had to wait ages. The shirt is

I had a couple links to share that I've come across recently. One is for a Studio C comedy sketch set in WWII. It's pretty funny! And second is this photographer, Marc Wilson's work capturing abandoned WWII military structures throughout Europe. Haunting, but beautiful too. Click  here to check out the amazing photos.