A Tangled Blog

I've started a Pinterest "inspiration" board for the new Meggie story (working title, hopefully the final title: Wings of Song). Right now it's just filling up with actors, but I do have a few other links in there as well. I've never done this for any other story (at least not this specifically, because most of my other writing boards are geared more toward research), and it is FUN. Definitely doing its job to inspire me!

In other news, it is HARD finding information about life along the St Lawrence River any time after Jacques Cartier. Especially during the Depression. For the US side, most info is centered more toward either NYC or the Midwest, and for Canada, it seems more focused out west.

Thankfully, I have my grandfather's memoir of growing up in the Thousand Islands region in that era - he was born in 1925, the same year I have Meggie and Matty being born. It's not thick with details, but it does give a vivid image of what everyday life was like for farmers then and there. And I'll keep looking for other resources as well.

Cathy, have you thought any more about adapting some of your fanfic? It would be so fun to think someone else was going along this journey with me! And anyone else getting their creative juices flowing from this enterprise? We could make it a whole Tangled Web project!

(Oh, also - I have Helen Mirren picked as the inspiration for Grandmother Linwood, the Anne alter-ego. But I'm stuck for Gilbert's doppelganger. Any suggestions?)

I just finished drafting an outline for a Gwen-WWII story, which deals with men working on the home front, and women as Wrens, and military scientists, and I was starting to get bogged down with all the research it was going to take to adequately portray all these different aspects of the war. I got to cheat a bit with Meg by having her removed from much of the immediacy of the war, but I find that Gwen is a bit more insistent about being involved.

Don't get me wrong, I adore research, but the amount of work it takes to even find the right books, or the right websites, sometimes gets to be too much.  By the time I've weeded through all the lousy information out there, I'm exhausted, and usually have a child or two (or a husband) clamoring for attention.

So, I thought, Why not pool our resources? Do you ladies have any websites or books in particular that have really helped you in your WWII-era research? If so, I'd love to hear what they are!