Musings of a Chocoholic Romance Author: Christmas Tree, USA

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Christmas Tree, USA

Ah, the Lewis family. John and Mary Grace Lewis started their married life in this house, it having been built by Mary Grace's father, the Reverend Thomas Jefferson Keller, as a wedding gift when the couple married in 1889. This scene is very reminiscent of their view during their first Christmas together. John's grandfather, George, had brought his family to Christmas Tree, USA back in the 1850's, and they were one of the very first families to settle there. The Kellers came not long afterwards and various family members had danced around each other for a couple generations, with nothing coming of the passing fancies until John and Mary Grace clapped eyes on each other in the one room school house when they were both seven and were inseparable from then on. Mary Grace Keller Lewis knew her mind and she often spoke what was on it, regardless of the consequences. She was both loved and feared for that very reason, but a finer seamstress, cook, wife, mother and friend you couldn't find. When she died during the flu epidemic in 1917, at the tender age of 46, John was never the same again. And when he got word in early 1918 that his youngest son had been killed in Europe, at the even more tender age of 21, it nearly killed him. His surviving children - 2 sons and a daughter - buoyed him, with daughter Gracie devoting most of her adult life to caring for him, until he finally gave into the sorrow, and quietly passed in his sleep at the age of 66. Gracie married Andrew Winters the year after his death, which surprised and astounded the entire town, as at the age of 39, she was considered a spinster. A widower, Andrew was raising a son and daughter, and the year following their marriage, Gracie gave birth to her only biological child, Peter. The current mayor of Christmas Tree, USA, is Gracie's daughter-in-law. She and Peter married in 1963 and added three children to existing brood of Gracie's grandchildren, bringing the grand total up to 11. Peter and Cecelia now live in this house that had been built for his grandparents.

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Quotes About Writing

For your born writer, nothing is so healing as the realization that he has come upon the right word. ~Catherine Drinker Bowen

Forget all the rules. Forget about being published. Write for yourself and celebrate writing. ~Melinda Haynes

My purpose is to entertain myself first and other people secondly. ~John D. MacDonald

Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else. ~Gloria Steinem

A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. ~Thomas Mann

Easy reading is damned hard writing. ~Anonymous

We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to. ~Somerset Maugham

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. ~E. L. Doctorow

The secret of becoming a writer is to write, write and keep on writing. ~Ken MacLeod\

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards. ~Robert A. Heinlein

Never throw up on an editor. ~Ellen Datlow

If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write. ~Stephen King

There are no rules in writing. There are useful principles. Throw them away when they're not useful. But always know what you're throwing away. ~Will Shetterly

Books are never finished, They are merely abandoned. ~Oscar Wilde

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. ~Jack London

If you wait for inspiration, you're not a writer, but a waiter. ~Anonymous

We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master. ~Ernest Hemingway

You never learn how to write a novel. You just learn how to write the novel that you're writing. ~Gene Wolfe