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?)

... a house!

Many of you know that I plan to rewrite my Meggie of Green Gables series, take away all the LMM references, and publish them as original novels. I have a fresh setting ... the Canadian side of the Thousand Islands (my dad's family is from Clayton, along the St Lawrence on the American side, so I have family roots in that area, and it's also a whole lot closer and more accessible for me to visit than PEI, to get a feel for the setting). I have fresh names for the Blythes (and also eliminated some of the periphery characters ... weep, weep!). I've even already planned to split Weeping May Tarry into two books, since it stands right now at over 100,000 words and still feels rushed in parts. The plots of all the books will stay mostly the same, since they are not reliant on Anne at all, and I've already made notes on where they will need adapting.

What I don't have? A name for the new "Green Gables"!

It needs to be something a little old-fashioned, definitely comfortable and homey feeling, but not cheesy or trite or eye-rolling-inducing. That's not too much to ask, right?

Unfortunately, I'm almost as bad at coming up with house names as I am with book titles - which is to say, really bad. So any suggestions from my fellow LMM fans would be so helpful!

Need added incentive? If I pick your suggestion, I'll name a character in the first book for you!

And ... go!

I have so many things I want to discuss about Season of Song, which was finished a few weeks ago. I really feel, Louise, this was your best work yet, though I have loved all of your stories. Gwen and Co, though, seemed so real to me, and so complex. The gray areas in this story reminded me so much of the Anne books. You wanted things to be perfect, but they weren't always, and that was so much more satisfying than if they were.

Some things especially I enjoyed:

• The strained relationship between Di and Rilla, stemming from Walter's death. People in families don't always have to get along and I know that we all (me in particular) tend to make the relationships in the Blythe, Ford, Meredith clans a real love-fest. This way was bittersweet, but ultimately more realistic, IMO.
  
• The relationship between Gwen and Oliver. Again, it's easy in fanfiction to telegraph who will end up with whom, romantically, from the beginning, or to set things up very early on. I really have no idea whether or not Gwen and Oliver Grant will take things forward that way, or if Tryg will feature or not, and I like not knowing.
  
• The fact that Gwen didn't stay. Oh, I wanted her to! Just like I wanted Anne to be able to go to Queens at the end of AoGG. But Anne never would have left Marilla in the lurch, and Gwen never would have left her family. Neither of them would be half so loveable if they did.
  

What I'm looking forward to in the next installment:

• Seeing Gwen and the Blake kids interacting with their parents, and seeing what life in Kingsport is like for them.
  
• Seeing the relationship between Gwen and Chloe grow and change
  
• Romance! :)
  

Louise, can you give us a preview of where the next installment will pick up, and what it will cover? Pretty please?

• The
  

I am so enjoying Elouise's latest Meg story, The Sound of the Sea, and I hope she won't mind me creating this thread to discuss it, like we used to at the old forum.

So, status report for my stories:

The Sound of the Sea is on Ch 10 and progressing nicely. I work on it every time I'm supposed to be studying. Isn't that the way of it? If I was supposed to be writing I'd want to study.

Cup of Joy is stalled. It's all plotted out, but quite frankly I'm sick of Jane. PLus I have a tendency to get sick of my stories near the end and rush them to a conclusion, and I'd just as soon not do that here, so I'm waiting until I feel a little friendlier toward Superior Jane.

I'm tentatively planning a final story in my Anne series, a collection of vignettes mostly about the great-grandchildren, mostly to give people an idea of what direction each of the families takes. That won't be tackled until after tSotS (gosh that looks weird) is done, so who knows when I'll get to it!

And just in case anyone is curious about my Jane Austen story (Her Own Manner of Devotion) I am planning on finishing it, but it actually takes a somewhat exhausting amount of research for mere fanfiction, so I can only tackle it when I've plenty of time for searching out obscure details. I do intend to write epistletory sequels for at least Northanger Abbey, Emma, and Persuasion once I've finished with this, and I'd like to do all of them provided I can think of good enough plots.