My Story
I'm a baby boomer. I grew up as a only child in a small town in upstate NY with a funny, loving, and strict mother. Reading was my joy. My imagination seemed to be something I was born with, and I wrote stories and plays even in grade school. I
At age 13, Gone With the Wind blew me away. I don't mean to turn this into a book review, but how it affected me helped determine how I write. I do want to say that I don't judge it by today's standards. I wasn't around then, but I think Margaret Mitchell was incredibly brave in 1936 to produce that story. Even then, it must have been controversial. At 13, I didn't care about any of that. Her iconic character development became my 'gold standard'. (See inset below).
The ending left me, and every other girl/woman who read it, with a tissue in one hand, yelling 'no'. After over a thousand pages of investment in the story, Mitchell wrote a perfectly reasonable, 'hard left' ending, to show that actions have consequences, and everyone has their breaking point. What a masterful way to close the story and establish one of the greatest love stories ever written. Naturally, I absorbed the idea that an ending needed to be memorable if not always what the reader might want.
Because I'm a practical woman, I went to college and became a nurse. I worked in psychiatry and healthcare operations for 50 years. And I was an officer in the Army Reserve Nurse Corps. My upbrining, imagination, and life experiences all combine as the foundation for how I write and why it brings me joy. Choose a book and give me a try!
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Mitchel's Memorable Characters I Loved
THE MEN ~~~ Ashley and Rhett are perfectly balanced on the opposite sides of masculinity. Ashley seems weak until you remember he endured years of brutal war and was held prisoner in conditions that would kill me. Rhett's bravado is balanced by his underlying sensitivity. A classic bad-boy with a heart that we all want to find!
THE WOMEN ~~~ Likewise, the women display a full spectrum of strength, feminity, and endurance.
~~~ Ellen, who never raised her voice or publicly disagreed with her husband, was the heart and soul of the plantation, and ran it and the lives of her family in quiet elegance.
~~~ Scarlet's strength comes from a bull-headed assumption she can't be wrong. Her beauty is a weapon she uses well, but she's trapped by her own insane desire for a man not right for her, and her inability to understand anything or anyone unlike her.
~~~ Sweet little Melanie was a fine thread of steel cable who was always there when she was needed, and provided the security and resolve that kept most of the community balanced.
~~~ Mammy, though a slave, ran the lives of her 'white folks'. When freed, she stayed, starved with, and protected the family she grew up with. Rhett, who cared little about the opinions of others, chose Mammy (and Melanie) as the only people whose esteem he sought.