A Story is Born - WIP
Cats: Book: Montana|
I’ve heard authors talk about having a story spill from them as if it really happened. I’ve never had it happen that way. For me, stories are usually grow like my orchids. I carefully nurture for months, adding and carefully tending to the roots. Then one day ‘boom’ there is an amazing show of color and the book comes to life.
This story is different. It is about a mail order bride in 1850. I am not sure why, because if the setting was 10 - 15 years later then it would have been easier to write the story. But, when I tried - the story wouldn’t write itself. The characters wouldn’t come to life.
This isn’t a romance. It is a story about a wagon train of brides that end up in Montana after traveling the Oregon trail. Most of the story is easy to write. I know so much about the foods and medicines of the time. Living in Mennonite county, Ontario also makes it easy to write.
They say ‘write what you know’ - well, this is something fun that I know about. I laughed when I started researching with Mirella from Alberta. Only writers would know how to make soap from ashes, and what medicines a woman would need on a wagon train.
I remember once as a child watching a wagon train. The Canadian government promised 30 - 50 families 1000 acres if they travelled to northern Manitoba. I was only about 10 at the time and we watched the wagon train several times.
Those images burned into my mind. The horses struggling up the hills, families forced to walk to spare the animals. I think the hardest day was when it was raining. The families struggled in the rain to cook. If they didn’t, they would not eat.
