The Perseid Meteor Shower!
You don’t want to miss it this weekend!!
If you’ve read up through Glimmers of Change, you know I have a thing for meteor showers. It all began one cold winter morning when I was sitting in my hot tub at 4:00 AM and watched 4 blazing meteors streak across the sky. It left me with questions I wanted answers for so I started researching. What I discovered astounded me – especially because of what happened in the very same year I was covering in my book! It left me with a love for meteor showers!
Here in the Pacific Northwest, it is always a crap shoot whether the skies will be clear (with very low odds for any but the Perseids). It’s raining right this minute, but I have reservations for Sunday night at a place perched on the northern shore of the Olympic Peninsula – perfect for watching the Perseid Meteor Shower! I’m going with wonderful lounge chairs, a smorgasbord of meat and cheeses, and the person I love more than anyone in the world. It should be a magnificent night.
I had to share it with you because I’d hate for you to miss it! Here are the details you’ll need:
https://www.npr.org/2018/08/10/637554769/perseid-meteor-shower-peaks-this-weekend-just-look-up
Happy Viewing!!
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I sent this out a few days ago…
It’s the prerogative of any woman to change her mind. But I’m not just any woman – and I’m known to change my mind A LOT. When presented with new information, or a new situation, I adapt and change very easily.
This “change of mind” did NOT, however, come easily.
Quite frankly, I didn’t want to write the book I mentioned writing this spring. It seemed like a good idea while I was sick in bed, but the more I thought about it the more I resisted it. Until, I simply decided to not do it.
I was happy with my decision. I would play and research all summer for Misty Shadows of Hope. I would NOT write another book – especially the one I had mentioned.
Until… it started to become obvious that I should write the book I was resisting.
Until… a conversation with the person I trust most in the world convinced me I should do it.
So here I am, writing the book I’d decided to not write.
Introducing... The Twisted Road of One Author (The Birth of The Bregdan Chronicles).
I started with the description:
Some days stand out in your mind so clearly that you can remember every moment. You can remember every smell. Every thought you had. Every word that someone says. You remember that the sky was cloudless, and the day was hot and thick with humidity.
You remember it was a day that totally changed what you believed your life would be.
I had one of those days…
My story of being a writer begins the day I vowed I would never write.
I’m going to warn you now that this book is not going to be a “straight line journey”.
I don’t believe anyone’s life is a straight journey. I believe we all travel many twisted roads to get to where we are right now. We experience things we don’t believe are significant – only appreciating their significance years later when we are able to look back and see how each event fits into the grand puzzle of our complicated lives.
It could be that my journey is more twisted than most, but if that is true it’s what was necessary to prepare me to write. I savor and appreciate every moment now; even the ones I thought would destroy me.
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I truly never thought I would never write this book because I am a very private person. A conversation with the person I trust most in the world convinced me to change my mind. She convinced me my readers deserved to hear the story of just how The Bregdan Chronicles came to be.
You’ll learn about the day I decided to never write again. And, the bedridden period of my life that finally made me write my first book.
You’ll learn about my years of living with a prejudiced family, enduring the bigotry and rioting of the Charlotte school system in the 60’s & 70’s, and my defiance that taught me the truth.
You’ll learn the family secret that almost devastated me when I discovered it.
You’ll learn just why I decided to write about the Civil War & Reconstruction.
You’ll learn how long The Bregdan Chronicles will last. Maybe. I’m not sure I know!
You’ll journey the twisted roads of my life that have led me to now.
And, you’ll learn the most important reason I’ve decided to make my life an open book to my readers…
My readers are part of my family. I look forward to sharing the adventure of this book with you!
Blessings,
Ginny Dye
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It’s an interesting experience, actually. Almost every day I go back to my original decision to not do it. Why?? Because I’m a very private person so writing this book is very uncomfortable. But also because I’m not sure the world needs a book just about me.
Yet the writing pulls me forward… the writing convinces me that this journey needs to be heard… the writing convinces me I can change lives with what is within the pages.
So, I continue to write.
But… just in case I get another case of cold feet I decided to do the ONE thing that will guarantee you will read this book.
I’m putting it up for PRE-RELEASE on Amazon. I’m giving it a deadline, and I’m letting all of you pre-order it. I would never disappoint my beloved readers!
And, YES, I’ve set up a PRE-RELEASE CELEBRATION – complete with Kindle GiveAways!
Pre-Release PRIZES!
It goes against my belief system to announce a release without having some prizes! I’ll give away 100+ books for the official release date of September 15th, but for all those who want to Pre-Order, I want you to have Prizes too! Read this carefully so you can join in the fun…
I apologize in advance that Amazon is only set up to Pre-Order on Kindle. All of you who buy the Print version, you will be able to register for the book Giveaway as soon as The Twisted Road of One Writer (The Birth of The Bregdan Chronicles) is live!
PRE-RELEASE PRIZES!
I’m GIVING AWAY 4 KINDLE FIRES over the next 4 weeks – 1 each week. (August 13, 20, 27 and September 4))
It’s very simple… If you Pre-order The Twisted Road of One Writer (The Birth of The Bregdan Chronicles) when I first release it (before August 13) you will be part of all four drawings, and also the drawing for the 100 signed copies!
If you order it after the 12th, you’ll be entered into the 2nd, 3rd & 4th drawing.
And so forth… to the end of the four weeks. Any Pre-Release orders after that will be entered into the drawing for the 100 free signed copies of The Twisted Road of One Writer (The Birth of The Bregdan Chronicles)
Bottom line… the sooner you order it, the more chances you will have to WIN one of the Kindle Fires!
AND… you will automatically be entered into the drawing that will happen on September 18th for all the books I will be signing and giving away!
Here’s how it works… You’re going to have to click to 2 different places, but it is VERY EASY!
You can go ahead and purchase the book now. CLICK HERE. It will be delivered to your Kindle, or other reading device, at 12:01 on September 15, 2018.
Once you have purchased, you will CLICK HERE to go to the page to register for the Prize!
The winners will be announced each Tuesday!
Right now, it is only available as an E-book on Pre-Order because Create Space (the company I use for my print books) does not offer a Pre-Release order program. Sorry, but there is nothing I can do about it! 😦
My print readers will be able to order it on the 15th as soon as you wake up. 🙂
Click Here to Pre-order NOW!
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I can hear the question screaming through some of your minds…
DOES THIS MEAN WE WON’T GET MISTY SHADOWS OF HOPE IN DECEMBER???!!!
Of course not!
Relax… Breathe… All is well… 🙂 The only difference is that it will now be #14 in the series – instead of # 13!
It’s coming alive in my mind, and the research is beyond fascinating. I can guarantee you’re going to love this next book!
I’ll let you know as soon as it’s available for Pre-Release Purchase!
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EGG & I Road
Okay, I can’t resist telling you about this. Tuesday, on a drive back from hiking a wonderful beach trail in the Olympic National Park, we passed a road called Egg and I Road. Huh??
Surely there had to be a story… Google on our cell phone to the rescue! I was astonished at what we discovered:
In 1981, the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners officially established the name “Egg and I Road,” in memory of local history in the form of a book with its own checkered past.
“The Egg and I” is about chicken farming, plus a lot more. Author Betty MacDonald’s bright voice, endless complaints and cutting characterizations made the memoir, published in 1945, a bestseller, and brought thousands of tourists to the area, as well as a lawsuit and some hurt feelings.
One of the book’s dominant tones is self-deprecating whining.
“On a chicken ranch,” she writes, “there never dawns a beautiful day that isn’t immediately spoiled by some great big backbreaking task.”
“The Egg and I” contains many more such complaints, some of which still ring true: the rainy weather and hard work, the balky wood stove and insensitive husband. It also praises the lovely views and amazing local food.
“The Dungeness hardshelled crabs are the largest, sweetest, most delicately flavored crabs obtainable,” she writes. “The oysters were as thick as barnacles,” she says. “Our soil … was a natural sandy loam and, with chicken manure and compost added, it was so fertile it was almost indecent.”
POPULAR PROPERTY
About five years ago, Katie McCoy and Phil Vogelzang bought the property that MacDonald describes having lived on, about seven miles from Chimacum.
McCoy said her life has some eerie parallels with MacDonald’s “The Egg and I.” They went to the same high school in Laurelhurst, a Seattle neighborhood. McCoy now owns the Chimacum Corner Farmstand and said she talks to people sometimes abut MacDonald and has heard a lot of tales and fielded a lot of questions.
“She’s kind of taking over my life!” McCoy said; both she and MacDonald wound up on farms without setting out to do so.
The book is about MacDonald’s experiences as a farm wife, raising chickens on a 40-acre homestead near Center with her husband, Bob Heskett, from 1927 until 1931.
None of “The Egg and I” farm’s original buildings remain, McCoy said. The original farmhouse, she said, became planking at the bottom of a greenhouse.
“The only thing I recognize about the book is the pond and the orchard above it, and an overgrown pear tree.” (In the book, MacDonald describes a large overgrown cherry tree.)
“One of the interesting things to me is the levels of the story,” McCoy said. “You can tell the book is highly fictionalized.” For example, the Olympic Mountains are not visible from the property, McCoy said, though MacDonald frequently mentions being able to see them from the farm in the book.
McCoy mentioned the book’s overt racism against Native Americans, calling it “one of the things that’s tough for people about this book.”
However, “She wrote well and she did have a sense of humor that was appreciated at that time,” McCoy said.
One of the rumors McCoy said she heard was that “the chicken farm was just a cover-up for buying grain, and basically it was just a big still,” and that MacDonald’s husband was “violent, a real drinker” who suffered cirrhosis of the liver before he died in a knife fight 10 years after he and MacDonald divorced in the 1930s.
FARM TOURISM
After its publication in 1945, the book was an immediate bestseller, drawing thousands of visitors anxious to see the place described in the book.
“Little old ladies from Europe make pilgrimages” to see the place to this day, McCoy said, adding that there is an annual festival celebrating the book in Heidelberg, Germany.
Alfred and Anita Larson owned the property when the hordes of visitors began arriving in 1946.
McCoy described the situation for the Larson family at time that interest in the book peaked, in the 1940s: “The Larson family was sort of a poor family, lived off the land,” McCoy said. She said she had spoken to one of their daughters, who said at one point there were more than 1,000 cars a day going down the road to see the farmhouse.
“They quickly got overwhelmed,” McCoy said. A Washington Historical Society article says the Larsons began charging $1 per car.
The book was made into a movie in 1947, then a TV show called “Ma and Pa Kettle” after characters loosely based on MacDonalds’ nearest neighbors, Albert and Susanna Bishop. Their grandson, Gerald Bishop, still lives on and works the Bishop farm on Egg and I Road, producing milk for the Organic Valley company.
“That woman would’ve starved to death if it weren’t for my grandparents,” Bishop recently observed. “She didn’t belong out here; she was a city girl.”
He is matter-of-fact about the reasons why his grandparents didn’t like her. “She wrote stuff about them that wasn’t true,” he said. “They didn’t have chickens in their house.”
In 1951, libel actions were brought in King County Superior Court against MacDonald and her publishers. Albert Bishop, then 87, and eight of his adult children argued that they were the basis for the Kettle family. The 10th plaintiff, Raymond Johnson, claimed that he was portrayed as “Crowbar,” a Native American character. They said MacDonald had damaged their reputations through her unflattering portraits of them (albeit with fictional names) and sought $975,000 in compensation. They lost the jury trial.
“They should have got in with it, accepted it, and got rich from it, rather than fight it,” Gerald Bishop said of his relatives.
TIMES CHANGE
“The Egg and I” enjoys an enduring readership, perhaps because some things about farming never change. It’s fun to compare life back then with things now….
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It goes on, but that’s enough. You can go research more if you want to know! People ask me all the time if I truly enjoy the research I do for my books. I LOVE IT! It’s like going on a treasure hunt every time I delve into a new book. I never know what I’m going to discover, and it’s always a surprise. 🙂
You never know what new thing you’ll discover when you’re traveling down a back road. Keep your mind open, and take every opportunity you have to learn something new!
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Have you made me cry?? Or laugh?? Or made me so very glad I have the best readers in the world??
If you’ve written a review of one of my books, you probably did. 🙂 Every time I get a little overwhelmed by the pressures of research or writing, I go to Amazon and read my Reviews. They never fail to give me the motivation and energy to continue forward.
As I bring # 13 (The Twisted Road Of One Writer) and # 14 (Misty Shadows of Hope) to life, it would mean the world to me if you would go and leave a review for one (or more) of The Bregdan Chronicles. I will consider it a personal message from you to me…
I’m even going to make it easy for you. 🙂
Write a Review for Storm Clouds Rolling In
Write a Review for On To Richmond
Write a Review for Spring Will Come
Write a Review for Dark Chaos
Write a Review for The Last, Long Night
Write a Review for Carried Forward By Hope
Write a Review for Glimmers of Change
Write a Review for Shifted By The Winds
Write a Review for Always Forward
Write a Review for Walking Into The Unknown
Write a Review for Looking To The Future
Write a Review for Horizons Unfolding
Some of the reviews I received this week (they brought such joy to my heart!):
| Looking to the future of more of these wonderful books! As I finished each one, I look forward to the next. I don’t like to think I now may be getting close to the end of what Ginny Dye has written so far. You see, I am very impatient. I want them to continue for a very long time, and at least until I get bored. As you can tell, I’ve been through 11, and want More!!!
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The history is so fascinating. The characters are wonderful. The lessons of tolerance and the fight for freedom and equality for women and people of color is so important for the times we live in. I love these books.
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I love the Bregdan Chronicles series so much. I find myself fact-checking constantly. While a lot is fiction, there’s an awful lot that’s true about the years of the Civil War. As a student in high school in the 70’s I never liked history and couldn’t absorb it the way it was presented, now I’m excited to learn all I can due to this series. It’s just crazy how the politics and drug problems today actually existed back then. I really had no idea.
Though this is a fictional series and characters have been created, I have been in mourning all day for a character I grew to love so much. I feel so much loss. I can’t be on a spoiler list for those who have yet to read the chronicles. But I have spent a good part of my day crying. Always forward…omgosh, how? I’m broken hearted…
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The emotions that this book brought out make it a favorite so far. Daily decisions and the slightest impact on others will be taken more seriously after reading these books. I am eagerly waiting opening the next book. |
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Thank you for making it possible for me to write The Bregdan Chronicles!
Blessings,
Ginny Dye
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I Am A Voice In The World 