Friday, December 9, 2011

Historical Writing

From the time I was in the third grade, I knew I loved history. The town I grew up in was full of history. It is the second oldest town in the state of Tennessee and has the oldest courthouse in the state still being used as a courthouse. The name of the town is Rogersville. It's nestled in the hills and mountains of eastern Tennessee.Aside from being the second oldest town, it also had another famous event. Davy Crockett's grandparents were massacred and buried there. I grew up with a lot of history around me.

Also, my father and grandmother were storytellers. My grandmother was raised in the coal mining towns in Southwest Virginia and Southeast Kentucky. Her father was a sheriff and had many interesting stories to hand down. Before I was in high school, I knew about the people from different countries and their customs. I had a fascinating childhood.

Do you have stories from your family that you put in your writing? I found a picture of my grandparents and one of their children. In the picture was a bunch of turkeys. I asked my aunt about it before she died. She said they raised turkeys to buy their shoes for the winter. With six children, that was a lot of shoes.

Things like this is what makes stories interesting. The little tidbits can change a story and make it more interesting. Since I am writing historical books, I look for these things. There is a turn of the century museum close to us. So far I have not been in it, but I'm dying to go. Mostly because I'm writing a book set in the early 1900's. The house is decorated for Christmas now. I would love to see it. I need to pry my husband away and go before the end of the year. It is famous because a president visited it. I want to see the furnishings and the decorations. Maybe I can go one day next week. I'll let you know if I do.

3 comments:

  1. Hi Katt,
    Just a heads up. You may already know about this, but I think a spammer has gotten hold of your email. I got an email this morning (supposedly from you) saying your trip to London has been ruined, you were mugged and all money taken, and you're in need of funds, and to please send a Western Union to the following address. It even has your blog addy and web site in the signature line. I can forward it if you need me to. I didn't want to respond to in, but you may need to take steps to take care of this and send out an email letting everyone in your address book know that it wasn't from you. Unless you ARE in London right now, and your blog doesn't reflect that.

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  2. Sorry to post this here, but you're email has been hacked. I'm getting messages from your email saying you are in London needing money. It's a common scam and thought you would want to know. Change your email password.

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  3. I'm so sorry you both got this. Thanks Eddie and Meralee for this. I knew about it and it has been fixed. Not a good day. They stole all my email addresses. Beware of that. I hope they don't do the same to you.

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