I know this is a “Wordless” Wednesday post, but I can’t help adding a few words. The artist that is featured this week, Pamela Edevold, is the sister of my very good friend from high school. Her work is amazing! And I was thrilled when she gave me permission to use one of her pictures for this week’s post.
You can see more of it in her portfolio at the link below.
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I have made a few additions to my Music to Write By Playlist over the last few weeks. One of those songs is the one below. Not only is it a new song on my playlist and beautifully performed, but the idea of the song’s lyrics kind of goes with the story I have been working on this week.
But first, one writing news note — Tomorrow, June 4, 2017, is my day to post at Austen Authors. I will be talking about a favourite movie I watched last week and sharing a bit of history about Canada while I explain what I admire about the antagonist of the film. I hope you get a chance to stop by.
Now, back to why I chose the video above.
If you have been following along with the Monday posts, you know I have been focusing on Mansfield Park related stories and that the subject my current work in progress is Henry Crawford. I am attempting to help him find happiness. His disastrous affair with Maria Bertram and the subsequent loss of any hope of ever gaining Fanny Price’s love left him somewhat miserable according to Jane Austen.
…we may fairly consider a man of sense, like Henry Crawford, to be providing for himself no small portion of vexation and regret: vexation that must rise sometimes to self-reproach, self-reproach, and regret to wretchedness, in having so requited hospitality, so injured family peace, so forfeited his best, most estimable, and endeared acquaintance, and so lost the woman whom he had rationally as well as passionately loved.
Austen, Jane. Mansfield Park (p. 334). . Kindle Edition.
Now, in Mansfied Park, Henry was not supposed to fall in love with Fanny. He was supposed to make her fall in love with him — I’m not sure what he planned to do after she fell in love with him. Break her heart, perhaps? It seemed rather important for Henry to be loved by women and looked at with fondness. I mean, it is the coldness of his reception from Mrs. Rushworth that makes him wish to make her Miss Bertram, the girl who loved him, once more.
My story is based on the premise that Henry’s wretchedness was his turning point, and after some soul-searching, he has begun his transformation into a respectable fellow before page one of my story. From there, he must prove that he is worthy of a respectable lady. He has enlisted the help of a friend’s sister to help him learn the sort of gentlemen a respectable lady prefers.
He and she are both warned that such arrangements can be dangerous. Hearts can become engaged where you least expect them to. Henry should know this from his time with Fanny, but…sigh…Henry seems a bit of a slow learner on that count. He finds himself once again falling in love with a lady he never intended to love.
EXCERPT from Henry: To Prove Himself Worthy: Continue reading Music Monday: Can’t Help Falling in Love, The Piano Guys
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This week, I spent a lot of time with “relaxation” music playing in my office. Why? One word. Edits. 🙂
I have decided to give my story His Beautiful Bea one more going over before I send it off to be checked for commas, spelling, word usage, and the like.
I’m attempting to add a bit more emotional depth to the story. This story does not contain an enormous, spectacular conflict. There is conflict, but it’s internal to the main characters.
I would describe the story as a gentle realization of love. Nothing horrible happens. No one faces death or disowning. There are no refused proposals. The setting and the action of the story is all rather pleasant and agreeable. The battle lies in the hero recognizing those odd feelings for what they are while the heroine grows to understand that what she thought was love, was nothing more than infatuation.
In my opinion, this is the sort of story that needs extra attention paid to the emotional details, and that is what I am trying to do on this last pass through my manuscript — give those details the attention they are due. Will I be successful? I don’t know because each reader will have to decide that for him or herself. I can only make certain the story is to my liking before I send it out into the big, scary world. 🙂
All the attention to minute details and being self-critical required when editing tends to leave my brain in desperate need of soothing. However, when you add the fact that both the story I am editing and the one I am writing are “new forms” of stories (one being Austenesque, which I have never done, and both based on Mansfield Park instead of the more comfortable Pride and Prejudice), and you get one very stressed out Leenie! 🙂 Therefore, relaxation music was NECESSARY.
The above composition was what was playing during my last writing session on Friday when I was writing the excerpt below.
EXCERPT from Henry: To Prove Himself Worthy: Continue reading Music Monday: Starlit Dream, Peder B Helland
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