Twisting American History… for art’s sake.

Writers are always asked this, (okay, in my case, people are usually telling me “you know, I have this great idea. You should write about it, it’ll make us famous) but anyway…ideas. They come from everywhere, right?

Abigail Smith Adams by Gilbert Stuart, 1815

I’ve had this character bopping around my head for awhile named Abby.  Abigail, actually. I noted the name down after I caught a docu-drama on American Experience about John and Abigail Adams once (this one, I think). I don’t remember what it was that struck me about them, but good ole Abby stuck in my head.

Never could figure out where to fit her. Then I started working on what became my new novel, The Artist’s Inheritance, and Abigail peeked over my shoulder. “Damn,” she said when saw Caitlin in the starring role. “I missed the casting call again? Aren’t there any spots for me?”

So, it was either the missing mom, (and really she didn’t fit the crazy Welsh mom role) or the gallery owner-mentor role, or the who-knows-if-she-can-be-trusted accountant role. She could‘ve pulled off Accountant I think, but…there was all that math involved. *gah* So she opted for the mentor role. And now she’s  recurring character. So ha! Abigail finally found a home. I hope you’ll like what I did to her. (It was the closest I’d come to the dreaded mash-up. I don’t mash much. I’ve got enough ideas on my own thanks).

Of course now all we need to know is what Abigail would think if she knew the real reason behind what’s keeping Trevor away from work so much. I wonder how she’d deal with an onslaught of the paranormal, were Caitlin to tell her everything (one day she might). On the other hand,  I’m not sure I want to know what the real Abigail would say. I hope she doesn’t mind me using her name for my favorite gallery owner!

Interested in what this is all about? Here’s the trailer:

If you’d like to see how my Abby came out, The Artist’s Inheritance is available at Amazon and Smashwords.
Also, author Beth Trissel‘s recent post on the subject made me think to post this. She covers the Adams’ much better than I do, so go check it out, here.

Washout weekend

Hi, all. I hope you had a good weekend. It looked like rain all weekend so we just stayed inside and did a marathon of Firefly.

Oh, dear. Have you seen that show? Why in the world did Fox kill it? It was…ahead of its time, I’ll say that much! It’s very…”Weird West”. I wonder if it wouldn’t've done better if Whedon waited until, you know, now to release it. (and if they played it in and order might’ve helped too).

Anywho, I loved it. Check it out, if you haven’t.

Oh, while I’m here I just wanted to let you know, I have one more guest slot today. I’m visiting Mistress of the Macabre, Andrea Dean Van Scoyoc. If you’d like to see, the post is up here.

Once Upon A Time

So, I started watching this new show on ABC, Once Upon a Time. Have you seen this? It’s a twisted-fairy tale series. This cop, Emma Swan (played by Jennifer Morrison, the gal that was a doctor on House) comes to Storybrooke and (somehow–yes, I need to catch up ) gets stuck there. The mayor takes an immediate dislike to her, but then she seems to hate everyone, especially a young woman named Mary Margaret–AKA Snow White– (played by Ginnifer Goodwin). Emma’s son has this book he carries around full of all sorts of Fairy Tales that help Emma figure out each week’s episode (erm, more or less).

Back to Mary Margaret, poor girl, supposedly, killed someone and the evil queen–erm, mayor–wants her dead.  Emma moves in and takes over the position as town sherriff and has to incarcerate Mary Margaret….

Fast forward to two weeks ago, which was the first one I saw, Mary Margaret is, apparently, Snow White, and out to kill the Regina (played by Lana Parrilla), who is her evil queen stepmother/Regina the mayor of Storybrooke, who “banished all storybook characters to our world”–and Rumplestilskin(AKA Mr. Gold–played by Played by Robert Carlyle)  is her lawyer. Oh, yes. I can already see where this trial’s going to go, can’t you? Anyway….

I won’t give you a spoiler for last week, but let’s just say what happened at the end, had  Emma out searching Storybrooke after dark, when she runs into…the Mad Hatter.

(Yeah, they’re really playing with the “fairytale” definition. Never mind). I’m a huge fan of the book Alice in Wonderland, so I’ll forgive them. Anyway, Emma runs into the Mad Hatter, he kidnaps Emma and insists she make him a magic hat that’ll work to get him back to Wonderland and his daughter. So! Poor Emma, who has no idea how to work any kind of magic is forced to try to make this hat, meanwhile learning a little bit more about the wacko who’s kidnapped her (he had a daughter, whom Regina tricked him into leaving behind in order to take her to Wonderland–and left him there) and now, somehow he got to Storybrooke.

There’s a lot lacking in network television these days, but this show’s pretty darned good, enough for me to say I’m getting hooked, even after only two episodes (which of course I hope this doesn’t mean it’s about to be canceled–like Terra Nova was last year *sigh*).

Anyway, it’s a pretty darned cool show. If you’d like to see the Mad Hatter episode, “Hat Trick” it’s still up on the ABC site , if you’d like to see it, it’s here. In fact, the whole series is up on the Once Upon a Time website. The next episode is on tonight (Sunday at 8PM).

Terra Nova

A couple things before we let the Night Mistress take over again….

 

Update on Terra Nova? Our local Fox affiliate *glares* has been pre-empting the line-up for baseball, which makes it kinda frustrating, but  If I remember correctly last week was the dementia episode. There was some virus floating around that caused the residents to lose their memory. It got a bit harry when the colonel Nathaniel Taylor didn’t recognize his own men (Lt. Washington had to ..do something to snap him out of it. Not spoiling it for you, go watch the episode on Tivo or the Terra Nova site. ). However,  Jim seemed to be immune from the virus and cured his wife Elisabeth (awww….. all the romance writers and readers can join me) with a kiss. Very sweet. Sad if you’ve every loved anyone who died of Alzheimer’s disease or the like, but sweet anyway.

This week, the corps found a little girl outside the gates who claimed to have gotten lost coming through the portal and hoped Jim and Co. could help her get back. But she may have just been a spy for the Sixers. (The girl was very Newt-like–the little waif from Aliens played by Carrie Henn back in, what 1986? Love that movie. ) Just saying….

Newt played by Carrie Henn; copyright 20th Century Fox

 

Further proof that there’s a lot of *sneeze*copycating*sneeze going on in this plot). Oh well, in the end the Sixers leader Mira, took Jim prisoner and claimed she knew something about Terra Nova he didn’t. Gee… wonder what the secret is…. anyway, it was kinda interesting. (Cue dramatic music here)

Anyway, it was all very interesting. The next episode is  (WHAT??????NO!!!) *sigh* two *grumbles* weeks away on the 31st. And….now back to the Halloween bash. Next up, author Gabriella Hewitt. Enjoy.

 

Terra Nova premiere

So, did you catch the new Steven Spielberg show Terra Nova? Its teasers and commercials have been running the last few weeks. Looks like, a group of scientists in our future, dystopia, completely ruined Earth, find and  begin sending settler back to prehistoric Earth, to begin a colony aimed at trying again, saving the population, whatever. The trailers look something like this:

(trailer copyright to and owned by Fox Broadcasting)

Looks kinda cool, huh? Did you see it?

I hate to give a review before anyone’s seen it but, I think it’s nice to have a show on television that has an actual plot and storyline and not just a scripted reality show. That said, I have to say, in my opinion, the episode didn’t live up to its promise.

***Be aware, there are spoilers here below****