My Confession

It's a bit late in my life to confess this, but writing is hard for me.
It doesn't come easily. Stories don't fly off the ends of my fingers onto the computer — or in my case, out the end of my pen; computers are for later drafts.

When I was a kid my head was full of story ideas. Now, not so much. I wonder if it is because I've since learned about all the elements a good story is supposed to have — conflict, inciting incident, a story arc. Am I worrying to much about this and blocking my creative flow, being forced into deliberate thinking?

But even before all the how-to books, I was never one of those brilliant writers who could hardly wait to finish one story to start the next, because they already knew what the next one, or the next half-dozen, was going to be about. I am envious of writers with such skill, and honestly, I don't want to hear about it.
It used to take me agonizing months of Morning Pages before I'd finally discover a character taking shape on the paper, someone I could feel empathy for and work with.

Maybe that is why I've lately preferred writing non-fiction and have published two biographies, with the third to be released in a few weeks. It's the research into the subject that has opened the doors and let me start a new project. I love the research. And maybe that's not such a bad thing.

Write on!

Is Anyone Home at Molly's House?

This was Molly Brant's house, her home during her happiest years. I like to think her spirit is still there.

It was here in 1763 that she and her partner, Sir William Johnson, moved their young family, even though construction on the manor house was not fully finished.

Molly and William had two young children at the time — Peter, who was four, and Elizabeth, just two years old. Baby Magdalene would be born that same year; perhaps Molly was pregnant during the move. 

Over the next eleven years more babies would arrive — Margaret, George, Mary, Susanna, and Anne. 

Johnson Hall, closed for the season.

 The family had moved from their former home, Fort Johnson (pictured below), on the Mohawk River, three miles west of Amsterdam, New York.

Fort Johnson

The new house, north and west of Fort Johnson, was nine miles back from the Mohawk. It was bigger and more elegant than Fort Johnson. 

Johnson Hall is a New York State Historic Site, open to the public. Currently, it is having some of its rooms refurbished. I recently saw pictures on the Facebook page of Johnson Hall State Historic Site that showed painting and other restorations being done in the children's room. 

The first children ever to use that room were those of Molly Brant. I love to imagine the halls of the stately home echoing with the sounds of Molly's children.

It was at Johnson Hall that Molly Brant proved her mettle as Mistress of the Manor. She and William hosted elaborate dinner parties and entertained visiting dignitaries, both white and Native. Sir William was Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Northern District and frequently held meetings with the Six Nations, right there on the grounds of Johnson Hall.

View of the back of Johnson Hall, showing one of the two stone blockhouses.

Approaching Johnson Hall from the side, showing first of two stone blockhouses. 

 Molly lived at Johnson Hall until Sir William's death in 1774. After that, she took the children and returned to her Mohawk town of Canajoharie. 

Sir John Johnson, William's principal heir and the son of Catherine Weissenburg, moved his family into the manor house. In 1776, during the American Revolution, Sir John fled to Canada, and Johnson Hall fell into the hands of the Patriots.

For more on this story, Molly Brant, Mohawk Loyalist & Diplomat, available in April, 2015

Molly Brant, Founding Member

St. George's Anglican Cathedral, Kingston.
(tourism.kingstoncanada.com)

Did you know that Molly Brant, the subject of my upcoming biography, was the only female founding member of St. George's Anglican Church in Kingston. Ontario?

The idea of such a thing would've have been beyond the wildest imaginings of the Native girl, born in 1736 in poverty, in the Mohawk Valley of New York State. But here's how it came about:

The Rev. John Stuart, a Loyalist refugee from New York and a missionary to the Mohawk community there and later, in Montreal, petitioned for land at Cataraqui in December 1783. He applied to become chaplain of the troops stationed at old Fort Frontenac.

Stuart arrived in the spring of 1784, around the same time as Molly Brant, then about forty-seven years of age, and her family. The Canadian government, in recognition and appreciation of the service Molly had given this country during and after the American Revolution, was building Molly a comfortable house in the town, and saw to her relocation from her former home on nearby Carleton Island.

There was no church building in Cataraqui (Kingston) when Stuart and Molly arrived, and the commanding officer allowed Stuart to use a large room in the garrison as a place of worship. Soon the local inhabitants, including Molly, began turning out for Sunday services.

Shortly, Stuart was writing his bishop that his congregation had grown so large that the room they were using above the barracks could scarcely hold them all. The Reverend began to raise funds for a new church, starting by donating the first ten pounds himself.

Among the names of those who contributed to the building fund was that of Molly Brant. She was the only woman in the 1792 founding charter of the first St. George's Anglican Church. A memorial plaque inside today's magnificent Cathedral Church of St. George tells the story.

You can read more about this remarkable woman in Molly Brant, Mohawk Loyalist & Diplomat, to be released in April of this year.

"Molly Brant, Mohawk Loyalist & Diplomat" Lives!

Coming soon!

Available April, 2015.

Exciting News!! Last week I learned the production schedule for the publication of my latest book, Molly Brant, Mohawk Loyalist & Diplomat. 

It's been nine long months since I met the deadline for submitting the finished manuscript to Dundurn Press, my publisher. The contract between us had been signed early in January, 2014. I am really looking forward to getting back to work on it. I'm confident that Molly's story will come alive for me once more. She was a totally fascinating woman.

My editor tells me that the copy edit begins January 5, 2015, and that I will have the week of January 16–23 to review and approve of any changes. The book goes into design January 30th, and I will be able to review the typeset manuscript between February 6–13. This is the stage where it really starts to look like a finished book.

Late last summer, when I re-read the manuscript, fearing after all that time I might have forgotten what I'd written, I did a bit of fine tuning and began a list of subjects for the index of the book. The editors will complete the index, matching subjects to page numbers, February 20–27.

Then, it's off to the printers on March 9th. Further updates as I receive them. Stay tuned!

Finding Robert Louis Stevenson

Town of Saranac Lake

On a recent trip to Saranac Lake, NY, our favourite vacation spot in the Adirondack Mountains, I toured the Robert Louis Stevenson Cottage & Museum. Its four small rooms contain the world's finest collection of Stevenson memorabilia.

When I think of Robert Louis Stevenson I hear my dad reading Treasure Island to us as children, but I also remember some of Stevenson's poetry, particularly My Shadow, the first verse of which I still know by heart.

"I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head,
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed."

The Baker farmhouse. The Stevensons rented the section on the east side.

Robert Louis Stevenson rented part of this house, then owned by the Baker family, in 1887 when he came to Saranac Lake seeking a cure for what his doctors thought was tuberculosis.

In 1884 Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau had founded the first successful sanatorium in the US for the treatment of TB at Saranac Lake, and the town became the Pioneering Health Resort in the 1870s. Thousands of TB sufferers flocked to Saranac Lake for the tuberculosis cure, which featured lots of fresh air, a nutritious diet, a positive outlook, and long hours spent resting outdoors, even during the winter when they bundled up and slept outside on the porches.

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1850, Robert Louis Stevenson was the acclaimed author of Treasure Island (1883), Kidnapped (1886), The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1886). He was already famous when he sailed into New York Harbour from Bournemouth, England, bound for the clean mountain air of Saranac Lake.

Stevenson's writing desk in the cottage.

While he was living in Saranac Lake, Stevenson wrote twelve essays as the Scribner's series The Master of Ballantrae and The Wrong Box. 

RLS's smoking jacket, a sprig of heather in the pocket. 

Fireplace in the Stevenson cottage. Although RLS spent many hours writing in bed,
propped up on pillows, the mantle on the fireplace is scarred
  where Stevenson left cigarettes burning.  

Stevenson's wife Fanny found the mountain air very cold, and she writes of going to Montreal "to buy extraordinary garments made by the Canadian Indians."  She returned with buffalo skins, snow shoes, and fur caps.

"Louis wants to have his photograph taken in his, hoping to pass for a mighty hunter or sly trapper. He is now more like the hardy mountaineers, taking long walks on the hill tops in all seasons and weather." He also enjoyed skating on the ice of nearby Moody Pond.

A seasoned world traveller, it is said of Stevenson that always fancied himself a hunter, although he also dreamed of living in the South Seas. He prospered financially from his writing, and when he died in 1894 at the age of forty-four, he was living in the Samoan Islands.

Under a wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie,
Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be,
Home is the sailor, home from the sea.

And the hunter home from the hill.

Requiem, by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)

Haileybury, ON and The Hardy Boys' Connection

Haileybury Marina on Lake Tamiskaming.

Earlier this month we took a road trip through Ontario's "Near North," stopping one night at Haileybury. We knew nothing about this small town whose main street runs steeply downhill to Lake Tamiskaming.

I'd been intrigued by the sign on the way in, informing us that Haileybury was the home of Leslie McFarlane (1902–1977), the author of the first books in The Hardy Boys mystery series.

At breakfast the next morning our friendly host at the motel was able to tell us more about his town.

McFarlane grew up in Haileybury, the son of a school principal. The youth went on to become a respected journalist, author, playwright, screen writer, and film director. But  he is best known as the man who wrote The Hardy Boys. 

In all, there were fifty-eight volumes in the popular series, beginning in 1927. The books were written by various authors, all using the pseudonym "Franklin W. Dixon". McFarlane wrote volumes 1–16 and 22–24.

As a kid I loved the Hardy Boys books. They, and the Nancy Drew series, got me hooked on reading.
My father read us the classics, but I loved Frank and Joe Hardy. These were the books I read by flashlight under the covers.

Others might consider such books formulaic junk, but at least I was a kid who was reading. And that's a habit that's lasted all my life.

Pioneers' Monument, Haileybury ON

Before we left Haileybury we strolled its picturesque waterfront on Lake Tamiskaming in early morning sunshine. In the park at the marina a sculpture called "Pioneers' Monument" caught our attention. Sculpted by Ernie Fauvelle, it depicts a man on the shore handing a child to a woman who is waist-deep in the water.

The story behind it is that in 1922 the town stood in the path of a raging wildfire that went on to consume 650 square miles. Fanned by strong winds, the fire destroyed 90% of the town of Haileybury on October 4, 1922, all within 3–6 hours.

Only Lake Tamiskaming saved the inhabitants who fled their homes and ran for the lake, getting as far out into it as they could. After it was over, 3500 had been left homeless and eleven people died. It was one of the worst natural disasters in Canadian history.

A writer's curse

An evening view of Lake Ontario off Shoal Point

It appears the rain is over. This morning pale sunlight filters through the clouds on the last day of August. I sit on the deck of the cottage and watch the waves roll in and crash on the shore, pushing weeds and sand off the lake bottom. Already the youths who look after the grounds are raking the beach. The raft off shore dips and bobs.

I am trying to read but I'm watching and listening. I think this is the curse of being a writer. Why must I always find words for what I am feeling? Always the urge to record my experiences — the sound of the breeze rustling the willows, the gentle clink of the shells in the wind chimes we've hung off the end of the deck, the thunder of the waves. Why can't I just relax and let things happen around me?

If you are a writer, can you relate? Can you put your pen down and just breath? Perhaps this doesn't happen in this age of technology, when people no longer carry notebooks and pens with them for recording what's around them. A curse? Or a blessing?