Sadie’s Storylines

After working on it the past couple of weeks, I have completed the back stories of most of the characters from the novel Lisabeth.

The page listing them can be found at the top of the page, the sidebar, or you can click HERE.

On the page you’ll find the book’s blurb/short description.  A link to the first chapter.  Links to most of the characters that have major (and some minor) play in the novel.

I have a couple of deleted scenes that will appear later.

Also coming soon are renderings of the town, its location in Utah, the layout of the town itself.  I’m also sketching out buildings that are important.  Eventually there will also be drawings of some of the wardrobe - she is a milliner, so wardrobe is important ;).

*Actor Hugh Jackman

Description
Height: 6′3″
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Brown

Bio
Birthday: July 18, 1842
Born: New York City, NY
Relations: Helsa (Cousin), Rolf (Cousin’s son)

Unfortunately, not much is known about Wil before he came to Silver Ridge in 1858 trying to homestead. The only thing that is known, now, is that he lied about his age to get the homestead and is three years older than everyone thought.

(In truth, I know his past - but I cannot reveal it right now. It’s much too big a secret to let you know too soon.)

When he proved to be terrible at farming, Wil started working in the local saloon. He became invaluable to the owner, personable and well-liked by most of the patrons of the bar.

The next year the saloon owner was killed and Wil stepped in to take over. His skills at managing books and bringing in more girls to work helped the business boom. Soon there was only one other saloon and one brothel left in town.

But in 1860 a large fight broke out in the bar. Brian Jenkins (Thomas’ father) was drunk and gambling, and after losing everything in a hand of poker went berserk. He attacked the man he was playing with, managing to injure him.

Wil didn’t notice the reverend enter, he was too busy getting his girls to safety; and returned just in time to see Matthew’s attempt to calm Jenkins fail. Matthew took a blow to the head just as another patron shot Jenkin’s dead.

From there Wil’s relationship to both Matthew and Jenkin’s son Thomas became purely adverserial, and grew worse as Matthew’s blindness worsened.

Around 1867 the brothel down the street was burned to the ground and Wil cut a secret deal with the owner, Marjorie. Very few are sure of the details of the deal - but her brothel was rebuilt.

A few years later when Marjorie struck up a close friendship with Thomas, it caused another battle between Wil and Thomas. Within a few months the brothel was closed and torn down - and Marjorie disappeared to parts unknown.

Since then Wil has been content to stick to himself, with just a few friends and the occassional taunting of Thomas or Matthew.

I have been working on the character pages.  I have a few done - and will post them one at a time.  I’ve also started fishing out deleted scenes from my previous versions - but I’ll wait a little longer to post those. So, I start with the main character, Lisabeth, Lissie, Lis, LissieB.

*Actress Allison Miller was used -she is just how I imagined Lisabeth.

Description
Height: 5′2″
Hair: Black
Eyes: Blue-gray

Bio
Birthday: April 24, 1851
Born: Richmond, VA
Relations: Dr. Andrew Cross (twin Brother), Laura Cross (Mother), Dr. Jonathan Cross (Father-deceased), James Cross (Uncle)
Nicknames: Lissie, LissieB, Lis, Beth

Born twenty minutes after her twin brother Andrew, Lisabeth was tiny - and blue. Working tirelessly for almost ten minutes her father managed to breath life into her. From that point on, she was her father’s girl.

While he doted on her, he also taught her invaluable lessons. She became capable and strong-willed; learning skills necessary to live life outside of their privileged upbringing in Richmond.

At the young age of 4 she received her first lesson in riding and proved herself a natural. She dropped the pretense of the side-saddle early, preferring to ride straight. Ignoring her mother’s concerns she coaxed the stable-hands into teaching her to break horses and grew to the point that she could handle most any horse that came her way.

Breaking horses was only one of the barriers between her and her mother. Their relationship was tumultuous, made worse by Lisabeth’s tomboyish nature. Climbing trees, playing ball, beating up those that crossed her only served to embarrass Lisabeth’s mother further.

Once in a while Lisabeth managed to have a calm, accepting relationship with her mother; most notably when her father left for a medical conference and took Andrew with him. During that week there was little contention, and Lisabeth convinced her mother to let her try to sew a dress similar to one they saw in a store window.

The dress came out near perfect and Lisabeth stuck to the ‘hobby’, despite the fact that her mother argued to let the servants do it and to save her stitching for proper things like embroidery. She refused, and continued the ‘hobby’ for years.

When she approached the age for a proper betrothal, Lisabeth fought her parents tooth and nail to not be married off for money or status. She was grateful that her father’s sympathies to the North during the war kept the proposals to a minimum for some time. She didn’t care for any of the society men, wishing to make her own choice and to find a way to marry for love.

After Andrew graduated from medical school and took a job with her father’s best friend, Robert Coleman, in Utah the situation at home grew worse. Her mother’s demands that she marry grew stronger, and her father’s resolve to let her live as she wish weakened.

After a horrible fight with both of her parents, Lisabeth took her horse and ran away. She did it often and knew her father would follow as he always had. When he didn’t join her for hours after, she rode home with a broken heart, believing he’d given up on her.

She returned home to something far worse - in his search for her he’d had a heart attack and died. She was destroyed, and mourned for months after.

In her mourning she barely noticed as one by one the servants left; the funds that had been used to pay for them drying up. She didn’t notice until the man she’d staunchly rejected for years came calling on her - with her mother’s full blessing.

She fought the courtship, but was unable to stop her mother’s forward motion as several months later her engagement to Joseph McDonnell was announced. Very wealthy and charming on the surface, she’d always seen a dark side to him.

Within a month of their engagement Joseph forced her to perform her wifely duties before they were married. Terrified and confused she ran to her mother - who only told her that it was her duty.

Despite her ability to hide from everyone in the house well enough to not be found, Joseph learned to surprise her, and the attacks didn’t stop. With her last vestige of strength she started to plan her escape - knowing already that his attacks had left her pregnant.

Conspiring with the few remaining staff she finally managed her escape - planning to head to San Francisco and give up the child for adoption. She pays only with cash - thanks to the private inheritance her father had left her in secret - and travels around the country, not wanting to take a direct route.

Not able to disappear completely before seeing her brother, Lisabeth makes one temporary stop in Silver Ridge to say goodbye to Andrew.

And 500,000 to go. 

Okay, not 500,000; but quite a few.  Subscribing to the popular theory, I’m querying wide and far.  Two days ago I sent out my first query.  It was my first ever snail mail query (The first time around I only did email) - and the wait will kill me, but I did it.  I have a few more things to get ready before I sent out the rest of my queries - like write a synopsis or two (1&2 page since I’ve seen requests for both).   Then it’s the waiting game.

More pages coming here soon.  I’ve been working on the Lisabeth pages slowly.  I really hope to add one or two up in the next week.

And that’s my update for now.  More coming soon!

I have been pretty busy the past few weeks.  Had a trip to the ER and surgery, working on getting my girls out of diapers (unsuccessfully).  I’ve found a few pre-readers of my the novel and I am getting great feedback!  In the meantime I’ve been working on creating the pages for the characters in the novel.  Each page will have a header image using an actors I’ve found matched what I imagined the characters to look like.

First is this banner for the novel itself and the men in Lisabeth’s life (click to see full image):

 That is Wil Karlson, Lisabeth Cross, Thomas Coleman, and the Reverend Matthew Wilder.

Then the next three are for the characters themselves..

So I’ve been having fun prepping to tell you more about these characters!  Lisabeth’s page should be up soon!!

It’s been well over a month since my last post.  I’ve had good reason for being asent.  Instead of writing words here, I’ve been writing them in Word.  I’ve been editing in Word. I’ve accomplished something I didn’ t think possible.

My novel, Lisabeth, has been (almost) completely rewritten.  I kept some passages that were perfect has they were, but 95% of the story has been rewritten. 

I wrote 48 Chapters in an eight day spurt that got so intense my husband got annoyed with my laptop being permanently attached to my lap! 

I’m very proud of the work I did.  I’ve edited and managed to get the work down to a reasonable word count.  I am still in debates on whether to send out queries or go the self-pub route - and it will all depend on whether or not I can get the hook written to my satisfaction.

Either way I have decided that one way or t’other this novel will be published or in the process by the end of the year.  In the coming weeks I will be updating this site with some introduction notes for you to learn about the town of Silver Ridge and its residents. 

So, the bulk of the work is complete - and now comes the ‘fun’ of it all!!

We’re all egoists.  We all think our work is infallible.  That it’s beyond reproach and any agent would be lucky to have us!  That if they would just READ the novel we’ve written that they’d know it was the next big thing.

I certainly felt that way last year.  My novel was perfect, it was beautiful, and how dare the agents turn me down based on a query!  Okay, I wasn’t that extreme, but I was hurt by some of the rejections - especially those from agents that were my “dream” agents.

I’d spend years of my life on this novel.  I’d had it critiqued by a fellow writer, but scoffed in wounded indignation at some of her suggestions.  It was perfect as is.  I had heard all of the advice to step away from your work for a while before you edit, and had.  I stepped away for a whole 2 months!  Then I edited it, cut down the word count and deemed it perfect.  

I queried and queried.  I got one request for a partial, and one for a full. I got rejected by all in the end.  I never knew I was so capable of handling rejection with just a bit of hurt.

Then the words started trickling into agent blogs about how much tougher the publishing world was becoming.  That decrease in sales was causing decrease in purchases.  In short - it was/is becoming even more difficult to get published.

So, in June of last year I sent off my last query to my last ‘dream’ agent (one I hadn’t queried yet out of fear of rejection).  When the query was rejected very kindly within a day I threw in the towel.  I did not give up on writing completely, but I knew it was time to step back for a while.  I wasn’t feeling inspired to write, maybe I wasn’t as good as I thought I was.

Step back I did.  From my last edit on the novel over a year ago I didn’t touch it.  I only did some queries and left the novel untouched.  For a long time I didn’t think about it, I just let it sit in my files.

Then back in November of last year it crept back into my consciousness.  Specific scenes came first, ideas to better them.  Then, characters were adjusted or removed.  Then a whole new beginning, turning into a nearly complete rewrite.

Some scenes won’t ever change, the storyline stays the same, but major changes are happening.  My writing is different - it’s IMPROVED.  I went back and looked at the old critiques and a few items that I’d ignored now stuck out to me and nagged at me, adding to my changes and improvements.

This will be the last time I rewrite the novel (of course, I said that last year too).  I’m already ten chapters in and it’s still changing and growing - although the word count seems to be shrinking.  The pace and tone have changed…it’s a whole new novel.

I’m excited to write again…and that is a GOOD thing.  I hope that transates into the story itself, improving it even more.

Re-opening soon!  I’m working on the layout now!