My Story
I'm a baby boomer, a psychiatric nurse with 50 years experience, and a former nurse officer in the Army Reserve Nurse Corps. I grew up in a small town in upstate NY as an only child with a funny, loving, and strict mother. My momma raised a very lively straight arrow.
It's relevant to my writing, so I need to tell you that my favorite book was Gone With the Wind. This isn't a book review, and I refuse to judge it by today's standards. I believe you have to judge by what was happening in the world at the time. Margaret Mitchell was incredibly brave in 1936 to produce that story. I aspire to even come close to her iconic character development (see inset below).
The ending ... ! It 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.
With that book as my 'ground zero', I work to engage the reader to love or hate my characters, to laugh unexpectedly, and to need a tissue once in awhile. Some characters I create are awful people and some are almost perfect. Most are a bit of both because that's how people are. If you turn pages and wish it wasn't over, I'll be thrilled.
My small-town, good girl background flies out the window when the keyboard is in front of me. Then I'm capable of anything. My husband jokes "I sleep next to the woman who wrote that."
Please find a book that appeals to you and give me a try.
.jpg)
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.
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, many slaves left, but she was one who stayed. She starved with, and protected the family she grew up with. Rhett, who cared little about the opinions of others, chose Melanie and Mammy as the people whose esteem he valued.