Past or Present -- Where do I want to be today?

      I love writing time travel because it combines the best of both worlds. I can have a modern, independent, free loving heroine and still have an alpha type hero who’s possessive, self-made, and believes women should be protected and revered. Even those of us growing up in the era of “women’s lib” really, if we’re truthful, don’t mind being taken care of at times.

      In the time travels I’ve written, the heroine always travels back in time. Whether she is stuck there, or can bounce back and forth, depends on the story. But the fact that she knows things the hero doesn’t can lead to some interesting conversations.

       For example, in SPINNING THROUGH TIME (Books We Love), Jaci makes Nicholas and his niece a pizza, which they eat with their hands. Nicholas comments that it’s not bad tasting, but it will never catch on as a dinner dish.

       In INDIGO BAY, dated 1850, (http://wwwimajinnbooks.com) Logan comments to Michaela, “And I suppose next you’ll tell me you should have the right to vote. That will never happen.”

      Things that haven’t been invented yet, or have particular significance in one century or the other, are always fun to incorporate into a story. Ellie, in PROSPECTING FOR LOVE (Books We Love) is discovered with nail polish on her toes, which only the “working girls” at the salon would do. She finds “real junk food” in the form of potato chips and Van Camp’s Pork and Beans in the general store in 1850, believing things like that had only been invented in her lifetime. The opposite side of the coin is that she doesn’t know how to cook without a microwave or start a fire in the stove.

      Some of the challenges inherent to writing time travel are: (1) the methods I use to get the heroine back in time, (2) what can or can’t be transported with her when she goes, and (3) how and when she has an opportunity to return to her own time. The “rules” have to be established before I start writing and then they cannot be broken. I can’t decide half way through the book that Brianna needs her car keys to convince Jake she’s from the future, so she miraculously finds them under a rock somewhere. (LOST KNIGHT OF ARABIA from Books We Love).

      Now that being said, I can have different rules for different books. For example, the methods of taking the heroine back in time are very different in each of my four books. Then, in three of my stories, whatever the heroines had on their person traveled through time with them. However, in INDIGO BAY, the only things that went through the portal were what already existed in 1850. Mica quickly discovered she couldn’t wear a polyester blend into the past. It simply disappeared!

       The real climax for a time travel isn’t finding the treasure or solving the mystery, but it’s whether the heroine and hero stay together. Since my heroine didn’t have a choice when she accidently went through time, I do give her a choice as to whether she stays. There has to be a point where either the opportunity or the threat of “transportation” exists, so my heroine has a free choice in her future. Whether she takes it, and whether the hero can stay with her, either in his time or hers, would be giving away the endings! I hope, instead, that you grab a time travel and stay up late reading to find out.

      Indigo Bay is available through ImaJinn Books, and the other three are instantly available as downloads at http://bookswelove.net/authors/baldwin-barbara/

 

           

I'm Confused

There's been a lot of controversy this week about Columbus Day. I confused because do you know how many of our holidays are celebrated BECAUSE of a conflict? The first one to come to mind is the 4th of July or Independence Day. We fought, we killed, to gain our independence from England.

We have President's Day in honor of Washington and Lincoln, two presidents definitely involved in wars.

Then there's D-Day, Memorial Day, Armistice Day (now Veteran's Day) -- days celebrating our time (and/or the people who died) in various conflicts.

Did you know that Valentine's Day, after St. Valentine of Rome, is named after a man imprisoned and executed -- violence at it's most personal. Shall we abolish that one too?

I'm not condoning violence. I'm just pointing out that it's a little late to abolish a holiday based on history and Columbus Day isn't the only one based on atrocities committed either to us or by us. We can't change our history. The pages have been written and for those of my age, it didn't harm me to include "under God" in my pledge, spend money that has "In God We Trust" stamped on it, (which could be a whole other blog!) or celebrate days that honor people or times that made our country what it is today.

Honor the Indigenous Peoples by giving them their own holiday, if they want it, which I somehow doubt. (Does England celebrate OUR Independence Day, I wonder.)

Happiness is a trip to a museum

Being retired means every day is the weekend. But after having worked all my life, I can easily become bored with all that time off. So I began volunteering at a local museum. There are amazing  side benefits to this, besides doing good in my community. I've met a lot of new people from the area, and many, many people from all over the world. While they come to the museum to explore and discover, I have the opportunity to "explore and discover" them. I love finding out what they're about!


Museums are also great places to get story ideas. I began visiting the Steamboat Arabia museum in Kansas City the moment it opened. I talked to the families responsible for discovering the sunken steamboat and recovering it, I looked at artifacts and read information placards. If I had lived closer, I would certainly have volunteered there. But instead, I decided to write about it, and what better way to write than by doing a time travel -- creating a story by taking the newly discovered and weaving it back into the past. "Lost Knight of Arabia" is my latest time travel romance available at http://bookswelove.net.

This is not my first time travel. "Indigo Bay" is based on visits to a B&B and Charleston, SC. "Spinning Through Time" was written after a visit to a restored carousel -- yes, at a museum. And then there's "Prospecting for Love" that takes place in a Nevada gold mining ghost town -- quite the natural museum and historical archive. You can read about all of these on my website at www.authorsden.com/barbarajbaldwin.


Exploring, whether at a museum or just on a walk in a park, can lead to some very creative ideas!