Poetry, Using Poe

Some of our best writing comes when we allow the pen to flow without control, without a goal, just an image and a message. However, good writing can (and does) come from exact planning as well. Edgar Allan Poe published an extensive essay on this, called “The Philosophy of Composition,” wherein he describes the process of writing “The Raven.” He gives the reader much to consider, but essentially, he planned every detail of the poem before ever setting his pen to the draft. He claims he thought through the following in order:

1. Length
2. Topic
3. Tone
4. Artistic effect (he chose refrain)
5. Character, or sound
6. Words containing this sound
7. Pretext of refrain (Spoken? Who speaks?)
8. The defining embodiment of the topic and tone (to Poe, melancholy beauty was defined by death)
9. When is this embodiment most poetic?
10. Combine two images: speaker of refrain and the poetic embodiment
11. Compose final stanza and work backward
12. Seek setting, introduction of characters, and causes and effects leading to culmination of last stanza

A few years ago, in my college American Literature class, I decided to imitate this process for one of our weekly journal assignments. If you are in the middle of poetry-writer’s block, I highly recommend doing this – I had fun, and the pieces just fell into place. However, you do run the risk of becoming tedious with everything a perfect meter and rhyme, especially if you have a refrain. Poe’s application is best used with a long poem. The one I wrote was only 15 lines, so it’s almost childlike in its simplicity. Here is an excerpt from my journal, along with the finished poem.

The length will be fifteen lines, which is enough to address the list but short enough to compose and be read in a short amount of time. To contrast with Poe’s traditional melancholy, I will address hope. The tone will be bittersweet. I will mimic his choice of using refrain. Hope needs sighing, soft sounds with a singsong quality. Melodic vowels are a short ‘e’ or ‘i’ and long ‘o’ or ‘u.’ Mellow consonants are “s,” “p,” “f,” “w,” “l,” and “m.” Words that contain these sounds are “whisper,” “spirit,” “feather,” “pleasure,” “honey,” “forehead,” and “melodious.”

The pretext of the refrain will be a recurring image that the speaker sees: a floating feather. The embodiment of bittersweet hope is the birth of a child, which is both painful and marvelous. This experience is most poetic when the mother dies during delivery. To combine the refrain with this embodiment, the poem’s speaker will be the newborn baby. Now to compose the final stanza:

As we hold on, shushed are my sorrowful sighs.

To my forehead, his eyes trickle moisture down.

His mouth whispers melodious lullabies

And through the window, onto Father’s crown,

The feather floats.

Now that I have the bittersweet ending scene of a crying father holding his new baby, the symbolism of hope in a floating feather, and a double meaning with capitalization—a decision made during composition—I can go back and compose two more verses leading to this final one…

To enhance the revelation of the mother’s death, I will interrupt the soft sounds in the second stanza [at this point, I had almost finished writing the poem] with the harsh consonants “g” and “x” and the long vowel “i.” If I wanted to extend the length, I could stretch the metaphor of the bee into a conceit, perhaps elaborating how the baby is both honey and the mother’s “stinger” to the world. As it is, these fifteen lines serve my purpose.

Eyelashes, freshly opened, slowly flutter.

This new spirit already longs for pleasure.

The room is silent but a gust mutters;

The window is asunder more than a measure.

Outside, a feather floats.

The producer of honey expires;

She stung the flesh of the mortal world—

Losing life to enliven a young crier.

Solid hands embrace me: the infant girl.

Closer the feather floats.

As we hold on, shushed are my sorrowful sighs.

To my forehead, his eyes trickle moisture down.

His mouth whispers melodious lullabies

And through the window, onto Father’s crown,

The feather floats.

Today’s deviant ditty:

“Heart of Amsterdam” by The Gentle Storm

Addicted to Books? You Might Be…

One of the bibliobibuli. This is the neatest word I’ve learned this year, and it’s so much fun to say.

Bib-leo-bib-oolee. BIB LEO BIB OOLEE.

Sorry, where was I?

It’s a plural noun, and there doesn’t seem to be a singular form. If we apply Latin rules, then the singular could be bibliobibulus (masculine) or bibliobibula (feminine).

Despite this fun-to-say polysyllable word that describes many of us word nerds, librarians, writers, and recreational readers, you might want to stick with bibliophile, with its Greek roots meaning “lover of books.” The term bibliobibuli was invented by H. L. Mencken in 1957, who thought such high regard for the written word – to the point of obliviousness to reality – must be an externally influenced disorder like alcoholism. Part of his definition even says, “drunk on books,” and he claims we see nothing and hear nothing in our haze.

Quite unhealthy, your reading addiction. Such a habit must be extinguished at once!

What he doesn’t realize is that we see and hear more than the average person.

He was probably mad because his wife was becoming smarter. Or perhaps, like some of us, he enjoyed creating new words and saw a “reading epidemic” that required a name. Either way, the next time someone asks, “What’s wrong with you?” just say:

“I’m bibliobibulic. Bib-leo-bib-oolic. And yes, it’s very contagious.”

Source:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bibliobibuli

Today’s deviant ditty:

“Bow to the Ego” by Trillium (Amanda Somerville)

So, You Want to Write a Ghost Story

So do I. But how do you do what’s been done? The Others, The Awakening, The Conjuring, Insidious, et cetera, et cetera. With so many films covering the subject, why bother writing? Who would read it?

Yes, it’s cliché. But that doesn’t mean you’re doomed to fail. Every cliché was once a novel, profound thought. Professors will tell you to avoid clichés because overuse has caused them to lose their impact. This is very true. The key is not to avoid them, however, but to make them new again.

So, this is our cliché: a ghost, haunting, people screaming in fear.

WHY?

If you can answer that question, and it’s different from other stories, you have something.

WHY did the dead person die? WHY is he/she haunting the person/place? WHAT does he/she want? WHERE do they want/need to go to achieve peace or revenge? Handle your ghost the same way you’d handle your other characters, albeit with considerably less dialogue. Of course, the reader isn’t going to know these answers right away; pacing is part of the mystery.

Start with choosing your ghost type. Customary spirit unable to move on due to unfinished business? Fine, but don’t be afraid to complicate it more. Maybe she’s a banshee screaming at men in their sleep because her husband killed their child.

Make your own mythology. You don’t have to stick with the Christian Heaven and Greek Hades. Try combining supernatural creatures with ghosts. Perhaps your wraith is a dead elf from an alternate dimension who is greatly offended by what humans have done to this one. If you think about it, “The Mummy” is a ghost story using Egyptian mythology. And it is full of awesome.

Even better – give it an underlying message. What is your theme? What do you want to change in the world? For example, in the Middle East there exists a practice called honor killing. If a woman walks alone in the street, if she’s seen talking to an unrelated man, if she allows herself to be raped (I’m not kidding), if she is seen doing anything that might dishonor her family [read: father / husband / brother], her male relatives are permitted to stone her. There is little to no penalty for this act of violence.

Have the dead woman haunt the husband and brother than killed her. Is she angry? Does she want them to die, too? Or is she trying to send them a message to change their hearts?

There are plenty of ghost stories that haven’t been written yet, because there are plenty of human stories.

A list of ghosts from different cultures / mythologies to get you started:

Poltergeist – entwined to a location; moves / throws objects and attacks people

Spectre – supernatural representation of human or animal that has died (typical ghost)

Will o’ the wisp – faint blue light, often seen over water, mimics movement of observer

Apparition – faint outline of a human form, translucent, only appears for a fraction of a second

Doppelganger – ghost of a living person; an “evil twin,” seeing one’s double causes instant death

Duppy – wakens if a coin and glass of rum are thrown onto its grave; evil, causes illness by breathing on people; being touched by one will result in epileptic fits

Mumiai – Indian poltergeist; haunts the lazy and criminal

Bugaboo – Indian spirit, friendly; guards village against evil (not to be confused with the baby-oriented brand name)

Wendigo – Canadian spirit; half-human, half-animal; hides in forest and eats people

Umi Bozu – Japanese sea ghost; bald with enormous eyes; haunts sailors

Shojo – Japanese sea ghost, friendly; loves drinking and parties; has bright red hair and dances on the waves

Hantu Langsuir – small ghost with only a head and a tail; thirsts for blood (like a leech)

Toyol – a dead baby revived through a demonic ritual; green with red eyes; drinks blood; serves person who revived it

If you use “haunting” as a synonym for a demon’s activity on earth, there are even more classifications you can explore. Personally, I avoid that genre, since the answer to WHY is simply, “because it’s evil,” which is lazy and does not bode well for good writing. Try to create a story that contains the possibility of whichever spirit you choose being put to rest. Yes, there can be a failure to achieve this (after all, humans are flawed at communicating with each other, let alone the dead), but give your ghost a real reason to act ghostly.

Sources and further information:

http://ghosts.monstrous.com/ghosts_around_the_world/

http://ghosts.monstrous.com/classification_of_ghosts/

Today’s deviant ditty:

“Transfer” by Collide

Phobias in Characters

I’ve recognized for a while now that I have infinitely more talent inventing names and words than I have actually developing a character’s personality traits. I hope by teaching, I’ll learn myself.

Amateur writers will base the protagonist on themselves – “I’m scared of spiders, so Portiana is scared of spiders.” This can help in the beginning, as you acknowledge different facets of your personality and recognize the character needs these as well. Also, your reader does not know you, so “Portiana” is unique in their eyes. The problem comes when you have multiple stories and all your protagonists are the same. This was my disease.

Any professor of writing will tell you to “go out and observe people” to get ideas for characters’ personalities. Well, that can backfire. Unfortunately, many individuals behave similarly in public – keeping to themselves or their social group, making the same repeated jokes with the clerks, buying the same food. (Although it is interesting to see what the person in front of you is buying. Sure, s/he might have run out of all that stuff at the same time, but speculation is the writer’s game. Using someone’s purchases can be a good exercise for a character’s likes / habits.)

One trait you likely won’t get from observing others is fear. The likelihood of someone being in a situation that makes him afraid is low – people normally avoid their fears. However, knowing the things your characters fear can help you shape their behavior, even affect the places they tend to frequent and the people they associate with.

A list of phobias will get you started. There are hundreds of irrational fears out there, usually stemming from a traumatic childhood experience (ah, there’s backstory as well!). Well-known phobias include arachnophobia (fear of spiders), claustrophobia (fear of enclosed spaces), and agoraphobia (fear of being humiliated or helpless in public). A large number of people have a fear of heights, or rather, the fear of falling from heights (acrophobia).

It’s better not to go too mainstream with the fear, because you don’t want to rehash the same old clichés, but don’t go too off-kilter either unless your story centers on the fear. If your character wants to learn how to fly a plane, his/her lutraphobia (fear of otters) is irrelevant. If your character wants to work at the aquarium and one of her duties is to feed the mammals, then lutraphobia will affect her ability to do so.

My current short story centers on my character’s phobia. It’s gotten to the point that she requires counseling. I’ve set it up so that the story vacillates between her current mindset and flashbacks to the sessions and to her childhood. Her fear is osmophobia (fear of smell) of vanilla, an ordinarily comforting smell. I loved the irony, and the metaphors practically wrote themselves from there.

The phobia does not need to be the focus of your story like it is in mine, but if you’re going to include one, it must help explain your character in the necessary context. It will not work if it is just an extraneous, “by the way” detail.  

Short article on phobias:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-507472/Scared--You-lutraphobic.html

Today's deviant ditty:

"Gathering Storm" by Eleine

A Mind of Their Own

I talk a lot about my love of writing, but the only writing of mine you've read is this blog. Today I decided to write something a bit off the cuff, as it were, in the form of a script. My friends and I often wrote like this in middle school during lectures (so naughty). We'd pick characters and pass the paper back and forth - a sketch RPG, so to speak. I'd forgotten how much fun it is.

A Mind of Their Own

by

The Scarred Bluestocking

Author: I’ve had an extremely tough day at work. My customers are rude, my insubordinates are insubordinate, and I’m just in a FOUL MOOD. It’s puppeteer time….

Character 1: Uh-oh. Everybody hide!

Character 2: But I don’t even know my name! She’s supposed to give us names!

Character 1: Just hide!

Character 3: Pfft, I’m not scared. She needs us or she wouldn’t have a story.

Character 1: Are you crazy?

Character 3: I FEAR NO DEATH.

Character 2: Please would you give me a name? I don’t want to die without a name! Please, oh glorious one with the magic fingers pressing out our lives on that many-buttoned surface!

Author: Oh, fine, if it will shut you up. Character 2, your name is Bluebell.

Bluebell: And if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, what do I look like? Is my hair luxurious and blonde and flowing? Please say it is.

Author: You’re a horse. A dapple-gray talking horse.

Bluebell: Darn.

Character 1: Oh good, now I can hide behind your rump.

Character 3: You pansy.

Character 1: How do you know my name and SHE doesn’t?

Author: Your name is not Pansy, you idiot. You’re a wussy boy and your name is Wicker.

Wicker: Please don’t tell me I’m a talking piece of furniture.

Author: I just said you were a boy. You’re eight years old and scared of everything. Your mother named you after Bluebell’s neigh. Whinny plus nicker.

Character 3: So, what, am I his daddy?

Author sighs, exasperated.

Author: Who cares who you are? You so bravely stepped forward, and by the trope rules of martyrdom, you die first.

Character 3: Tell them who I am so they can mourn me.

Author: You really aren’t scared?

Character 3: I die easy. All you have to do is type, “He died,” and I’m dead, aren’t I? No pain. And I’m immortal besides. Every time someone reads this episode from the top, I am reborn.

Author: Ah, was that your inspirational monologue? Typical. You hero types are all the same.

Character 3: You’re the one writing.

Author: Wisecracker, are we? Well, you’re not his father. You think you’re a man, but you are a tall, thin woman. Wicker’s older sister, Winifred.

Winifred: Really? You’re making me a girl?

Author: But you always were.

Winifred: I protest!

Author: Well, you are going to die. Does that solve your problem?

Bluebell sticks her head between Author and Winifred.

Bluebell: I need more page time.

Author: Oh, go eat some hay.

Bluebell: Onto my back, Winifred! We shall escape yet!

Wicker: Wait! Wait for me!

Bluebell and Winifred make for the margins, Wicker barely holding on to Bluebell’s tail.

Author: Mutiny. Get back here!

Bluebell: I run and run and run and run and gallop and canter and gallop and run….

Winifred: Shut up and do it.

Author: No!

GREAT HAND SMASH

W   r       r h  o l w

 S    f                                   h  j o e                     w    f

                       V n       s                              d

G               d d   fbds         

                                                d                                                        ad   n

          O         p                            s d                                        

                                                  w o    n                   w    

Bluebell: Ow.

Author: No, no, no. Bluebell was supposed to live. 

Bluebell: My shoulder….

Winifred: No look at what you’ve done. You have no business writing if you can’t even kill the right character.

Wicker: Bluebell? Poor horsey.

Author: Screw this.

DEUS EX MACHINA: A friendly white ray breaks off from the sun and floats down, all magic-like, resting on Bluebell’s shoulder. When the ray disappears, Bluebell’s wound does as well.

Author: There.

Winifred: So, after that unnecessary detour, why haven’t you offed me yet?

Wicker: Don’t kill my sister!

Winifred: Shut up, pansy.

Author: I will kill you. Though I wonder why you want to die?

Winifred: I’m an obnoxious nincompoop who is rude to her brother, cares nothing for this horse, and is giving you lip. Obviously, I’m the death choice.

Author: And if I kill Wicker?

Wicker: I told you we needed to hide!

Winifred: I won’t let you.

Author: How can you stop me? You forget my hands are creating you as you speak.

Winifred: We’ll see about that.

Author: If you stop me, you’ll be a mute for the rest of your life.

Winifred: I’ll learn ASL.

Author: Good luck being seen.

Winifred: I’m done with this.

Winifred whispers to her brother and Bluebell. Author cannot hear and is infuriated.

Author: I’m supposed to know your thoughts, you Hell-bound witch!

A spark erupts from the keys as she types the exclamation point.

Author: OW!

Winifred: You were saying?

Author: Winifred, sadly, has left this wor—OW.

Winifred: Try again.

Author: Wicker will soon cry a torrential downpour when he sees the body of his sis—OW!

Winifred: Keep trying, please.

Author: Winifred is dea—MOTHERF….

Winifred: I told you, I am IMMORTAL. Placing me onto these pages has ensured that. What are you but my mortal creator? And you have created me. You can’t take it back.

Author: Aha, but you don’t know about the Backspace key.

Winifred: You don’t know what I know.

Author looks at keyboard – the Backspace key is missing. So is the Delete key.

Author: Uh-oh.

Lightening erupts from all the keys. Author screams in pain as she types the last sentences.

Winifred: I win.

Author: You…win. I need…some ice.

THE END

Today's deviant ditty:

"Center of the Sun" by Conjure One feat. Poe

Oddball Word of the Day

Truth be told, I haven’t been writing lately. My mind is discombobulated with my retail job, wedding plans, saving money to move out of my mom’s house, looking for a new career, and SNOW. While I love the pure crystal beauty of a white wonderland and the fresh crispness of icy air, the south is never prepared for winter weather this “severe.”

So yes, Monday went by without a topic. No writing means no research means no learning. Shame on me! Especially since being snowed in is ideal for catching up on said writing. I have no excuses, really.

Today’s word is…

Eleemosynary

I found this word in a thesaurus once. I had no use for it (can’t imagine who would), but it was so strange and had no identifiable root word in my vocabulary.

It means, “relating to charity, derived from charity, or dependent on charity.”

I think I’ll just use altruistic if I’m feeling daring.

According to the automatic result when I searched Google for “eleemosynary origin” –

“Late 16th century (as a noun denoting a place where alms were distributed): from medieval Latin eleemosynarius, from late Latin eleemosyna ‘alms,’ from Greek eleēmosunē ‘compassion’ (see alms).”

Its meaning makes a bit more sense now that I know of its relation to alms.

If anyone can utilize it naturally in a sentence, please share. I’d love to read it.

Source:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/eleemosynary

Today’s deviant ditty:

“Sacrimony (Angel of Afterlife)” by Kamelot

Creating Character Names

Many writers tell me the hardest part is coming up with a suitable name for their character. I envy those people. Their characters are already complex personalities that just need a birth certificate to be whole.

For me, it’s the opposite. I design names based on situation and environment. I know who my character is, where they live, what makes them “special,” but I have the hardest time inventing desires (the entire basis of a plot) or quirks. They live on a hamster wheel, doing the same run on a different day.

Names, I have no problem.

Every writer needs a name book – often these will have “Baby” in the title, since the majority of everyday people only need names for that purpose. Expect an odd look from your clerk if you are a young teenager in need of this supply for your writings. I remember my first time well. I was eleven, and you can imagine.

Name books are good if you have a general idea already – you know you want a girl’s name that is Spanish and starts with the letter A. Or you want a German name that means “flower.”

Where do you turn if you want to invent a name? Not too strange to turn away your readers, but something still meaningful to your story?

I have an easy fix, which is also fun.

If you just want a fancy name, pick a name you like but doesn’t fit your character.

For example:

Amber.

Write it backwards:

Rebma.

Now, play around with the letters, transposing and changing them, until you have a new name you like.

a)      Amber

b)      Rebma

c)      Remba

d)      Remia

e)      Rymia

Rymia could a war-protesting fairy in the far-away forest of Timbriana (creating fantasy locales is easy too – I just took the word Timber in re: forests and added the typical “ia” to the end, plus “na”), or a human in college studying music (is she a hippie, a hipster, a nerd, a cheerleader?).

Just because a name is different doesn’t compel the character to be in a fantasy. This is YOUR character. If the story is solid, the name will be accepted.

If you want an invented name with meaning, either assign it a meaning (how you work this into your story is up to you – is it a flower her mother loves, the name of a river where her father met his true love?) or start with a name that already has the meaning you want.

Let’s try “Natasha” which means “born on Christmas” – perhaps you have a messiah character, or someone who is going to sacrifice herself, or someone who is obsessed with holidays and gift-giving.

a)      Natasha

b)      Ahsatan (This is not cool.)

c)      Ashatan (Okay, fixed that.)

d)     Aislaytan (Hm, Aislinn is an Irish name [sounds like Ashlyn or Ashling] that means dream or vision [works well with Christmas], so let’s combine the two.)

e)      Ashlayton (I’d rather spell it out than have people mispronounce it. You may feel differently, and that’s okay! It’s your character, after all.)

f)       Asali (Personally, I like the A-S-L sound, but not the "ton" at the end.)

g)      Asaldi (Almost sounds neutral – could be a boy’s name as well. Reminds me of Vivaldi.)

I’m stopping there because I like Asaldi. But any of the variations after the original backward-spelling can be used if you like how it sounds. You can also keep going. But see how different Asaldi is from Natasha? And because it’s new, the meaning of the original name can be kept if you want it that way.

Also, don’t be bashful picking from mythology and history, just as parents do. Maybe the character’s mother is obsessed with orchestral music and likes Antonio Vivaldi in particular. Perhaps she thought Vivaldi would be a nice name for a daughter. You get backstory, too, when you do it this way.

Today’s deviant ditty:
“Lost” by Arion

Vintage Word of the Day

It’s not that I have no topic today, but I have very little time to write this morning. Shopping plans have piled themselves upon me.

I found this word in my page-a-day desk calendar of “forgotten words” – mostly from the 17^th to 19^th centuries. It’s the only one I’ve been able to remember because it’s the only one I’d use.

The word is elucubrate.

According to Sir James Murray’s New English Dictionary of 1901, it means, “to produce a literary work by expenditure of ‘midnight oil.’ Formed of Latin elucubrare, to compose by lamplight.”

In today's context: "to pull an all-nighter" as one would do studying for an exam.

I like Henry Cockeram’s definition better. In his Interpreter of Hard English Words (1623), it means simply, “to do a thing by candlelight.”

I yearn to do this often during the cold winter months, but I end up going straight to bed when I come home from work at night. And candles just aren’t as romantic when the sun is shining.

I did write by candlelight once, when I was 14 (it was a Pirates of the Caribbean fanfiction about Davy Jones’s lost daughter – I never finished it) during a thunderstorm at dusk. It was wonderful.

I don’t know why I don’t do it again. Probably because it only feels proper if I’m writing on paper. I write better and faster when I’m typing; not to mention computer light cancels out candle glow.

Still, I should do it again.

Today’s deviant ditty:

“To Kill a King” by Hungry Lucy

Who Put Bella in the Witch Elm?

Last month, I started wondering how Santa Claus got a hold of those reindeer and the willful indentured servants we call elves. Then I got to reflecting on the similarity of “Santa” to “Satan” (despite that I know Santa means Saint in Spanish – and perhaps other languages – a far cry from the devil). So I began outlining an idea than Santa stole the reindeer from the elves and eventually enslaved them as well. It’s a bit of a dark spin on a legend meant for children, but it wouldn’t leave me alone.

As I started the first few pages, I knew I wanted to describe the elves’ home in detail. I looked for what kind of trees grow in Norway, hoping to find a large variety for their “home tree.” I failed to find one suitable, but I did decide their forested home would consist of elms.

As I was looking at pictures, I found this.

What was this strange obelisk? Who was Bella? What was a ‘witch elm’? I clicked the link.

During World War II, there were obviously thousands of deaths, but not all were on the battlefront. Disturbed people at home still murdered. Because of the sheer number of dying and missing persons, not everyone could be identified.

In 1943, four boys trespassed in Hagley Woods (U.K.) to poach birds. They came across a large Wych elm (witch elm). One boy thought it would be a good place to find a bird’s nest and began to climb. But when he looked down in the hollow trunk…

They immediately left the forest and agreed not to tell anyone for fear they would get into huge trouble for their illegal presence on the land.

The youngest boy, Tommy, told his parents anyway. He probably felt the ghost would haunt him if he didn’t at least try to put its remains on the path to eternal rest.

Police found a complete skeleton, a shoe, hair, a gold ring, and a severed hand buried a few feet away. Forensic examination determined the body was female and had been dead for 18 months (placing the date of death around October of 1941). Asphyxiation was likely the cause, as the examiner found taffeta stuffed in her mouth.

The graffiti first appeared in 1944 in Birmingham on a wall in Upper Dean Street. The picture above was in 1999 on the Wychbury Obelisk in Hagley, graffiti that has been repeated through the years until as recently as 2013. The identity of the artist(s) is as much of a mystery as the woman. Did the original artist know who the corpse was? Was Bella just an epithet or her real name?

No one knows her identity for certain. If the artist knew, s/he wasn't saying. A prostitute came forward after the graffiti appeared, saying she knew a “Bella” that worked Hagley Road and had disappeared three years prior (in 1941). But there were no reported missing persons from the area that matched the description of "Bella's" corpse – petite, middle-aged, dark hair, irregular teeth. Police suspected she was foreign, perhaps German or Dutch.

Another explanation was produced in 1953 – questionable, as the witness did not come forward until ten years later, but it supported police suspicions. "Anna" wrote to the Midlands newspaper The Wolverhampton Express and Star that in 1941, a spy ring was operating in the West Midlands, involving a British officer who passed information on the locations of munitions factories to a Dutch contact, who passed it to a spy – a foreign trapeze artist – who passed it to the Germans. "Bella" was a Dutch woman who arrived in the U.K. illegally and became involved in the spy ring. She learned too much and was killed by the Dutchman and the trapeze artist in a car, then dumped in the tree. Although the British officer was revealed to be a relation to Anna, he had died insane in 1942. Some of Anna's claims were later verified, but the trapeze artist was never found.

And then there's the legend that a witch's soul can be imprisoned if she is placed in a hollow tree – the severed hand could have been part of a black magic ritual.

This mystery inspired composer Simon Holt to write a musical theatre piece. A play, Bella in the Wych-Elm, was developed in 2007 by Stourbridge Theatre Company.

Sources and Further Information:

http://brian-haughton.com/ancient-mysteries-articles/bella_in_the_wych-elm/

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/31-days-of-halloween-who-put-bella-down-the-wych-elm

Today’s deviant ditty:
“She and Her Darkness” by Diary of Dreams

Hail, dear cousin!

Today’s subject wasn’t something I happened upon during writing, but it’s been on my mind for years and I never bothered to look it up until recently.

My family is very small. If you read my last post, you know practically all of my grandparents died before I reached puberty. My mom has no siblings, and my father’s family don’t endear themselves to fellowship and conversation.

So I went back a few generations. My mother’s mother had one sister who never had children. Dead end there. My father’s family – see above. That’s as nice as I can be about it.

As a result, my only source for possible reconnection is my mother’s father. He had five siblings. 

Obviously their children would be my mother’s cousins (and generationally too old for me to really connect with), but what does that make them to me? And what would their children be to me?

Hence, the topic at hand.

I have made a chart to make things clearer, but from what I have found:

Sibling A (let’s call him John) and sibling B (let’s call her Anne) each have children. Those children are first cousins – what we normally think of when we say, “Oh, that’s my cousin.”

Now, if John’s children have children, and Anne’s children have children, that third generation will be second cousins to each other, and their children will be third cousins to each other. Easy enough to follow.

But I’m sure we’ve all heard about the removed.

It sounded to me like estranged family members, black sheep, pariahs.

“Oh Sally? She my first cousin twice removed. We don’t talk about her.”

What it actually refers to is the generation separation. My mother’s first cousin is my first cousin once removed. My mother’s first cousin’s children are my second cousins, but to my mother they are her first cousins once removed. My grandfather’s first cousin would be my first cousin twice removed, because I came two generations later. Likewise, I am the same title to that cousin – his first cousin twice removed.

The chart for the visual learner:

And, of course, Anne would be John III's great-aunt (why don’t they call it grandaunt?): his grandfather's sister and father's aunt. Likewise, John is Anne III's great-uncle.

If there were a John IV, he would be Anne’s great-great-nephew (“great grandnephew” would make more sense), Anne Jr’s first cousin twice removed, and Anne III’s second cousin once removed.

Sources and further information:

http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bridgett/cousins.htm

http://www.genealogy.com/16_cousn.html

Today’s deviant ditty:

“Massive Addictive” by Amaranthe

What exactly is a bluestocking?

Greetings and welcome to The Scarred Bluestocking, a blog of trivial factoids and writing advice.

You’re probably wondering how I came up with my title.

Bluestocking has been a slang term for an intellectual, bookish woman since the 18th century. The word originated as a reference to someone in informal dress – a man wearing blue worsted stockings instead of traditional black silk stockings. Today’s equivalent would be the individual who wears jeans instead of slacks or a skirt.

In the mid-1700s, certain women in London society grew bold enough to declare their boredom with being sent off to do embroidery while their husbands discussed poetry and the like. They believed such topics were not beyond their mental scope and demanded to be included.

The first “bluestocking club” was started by Elizabeth Montagu in 1750. She and her friends invited men to gather with them – informally – to discuss literature, art, and places of interest, among other things. The men came wearing…you guessed it, the blue worsted stockings. Informal gathering? Casual dress it is! The male fashion somehow fused with the female-initiated intellectual society. Bluestocking at that time designated both sexes. Now it exclusively refers to an intelligent female – if it is used at all.

If we know anything about the Victorian era, we know how stifled the women were, especially in regards to voicing their opinions. It’s not surprising that by the mid-1800s, a satirist named Honoré Daumier found the bluestockings laughable, and published “scathing caricatures” of them. Bluestocking became a negative slang, a mockery.

The term fit so well, I couldn’t help but adopt it as my moniker. And it’s so much quainter than bibliophile. Besides, I am so much more than a lover of books. I am a lover of words, of language, of knowledge. I hunger to learn like I hunger for food. Having finished my official schooling and earned a Bachelor’s degree in English, I now feel something missing from my life, which is why I started this blog. Not only am I continuing to learn as I write my fiction, I am able to teach as well.

Which leaves the question: why am I scarred?

It is my belief that everyone is, in one way or another. In my own life, I have been a witness to far too much death. I am in my early twenties and I have attended more funerals than I can rightly remember. Three grandparents I lost before I turned ten, the last grandparent before I turned fifteen. My father self-murdered before I was a teenager. I’ve had two dogs and two cats euthanized – only one due to old age (the others were injured or ill). I’ve lost count of the number of elderly neighbors and friends’ grandparents whose funerals I attended.

My rite of passage to the land of the dead came at the age of seven, when my great-grandmother passed. The service was held in her home state three hundred miles away, and a horrendous snowstorm made the return drive last eleven hours.

My initial knowledge of death happened even before that. I was five. A neighborhood boy my age who watched too many televised wrestling matches decided he wanted to hold my head under water in my wading pool. He was not playing. My friends tried to pull him off, but he was determined. My father had to yank him off me.

So although my body is perfectly healthy, my soul is more than a little damaged. But I press on, for despite my past, I am grateful for my present.

Sources and further information:

http://www.basbleu.com/info/bluestocking.hzml

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=bluestocking

Today’s deviant ditty:

“Enter the Highlands” by LEAH