I just realized how long it's been since i dropped in here to chat about life and stuff. My only excuse and explanation is that I've had a series of decisions to handle lately. I've come to realize that one of the things I hate most about living alone is the sheer responsibility of it. There's no one to discuss a problem with-- no one to offer a solution I haven't thought of -- no one to force me to make up my mind -- and no one to blame if it all goes wrong.

     What all's been going on? Well, I guess it all started with an unexplained leak -- just a wet bathroom floor. Our housing complex has a history of problems with underground pipes leaking and seeping upward, so that was one possibility. But we had also had previous problems with the roof  over the bathroom, so . . .  Finally narrowed  it down to a leaking toilet, but couldn't find the real source because I'm no longer agile enough to squeeze into a small space and stand on my head to look at the underside of things.  And then, there was the decision of who to call. All was resolved eventually and handled by my homeowner's insurance, but not before my schedule faced major disruptions. 

Then came an aging cat whose problems I could no longer ignore. Nutmeg was going on 16, so it was not really a surprise, but you  never expect wonderful creatures to fall ill. Suddenly she was not eating, losing huge amounts of weight, and looking odd. She was still lively and interested in what was going on -- the other cats could lure her into play and chase time --and she could still jump from the floor to table and countertop. But she grew weaker and unsteadier. Eventually she started to tell me that it was "time" in a soft and plaintive voice, but I didn't want to hear it until a Sunday morning when she tried to come to greet me and fell over, unable to walk any further. With a breaking heart, I had to be the one to decide to take her to the emergency animal clinic where they do compassionate euthenasia. Talk about a hard decision!  

Then there are the books! Through some idiocy on my part, I ended up with two different books in the final stages of preparation--one fiction, one non-fiction. And both had set dates for pre-orders and launch activities. I had also decided to publish both of them using new editing and formatting software, and now had no time to change those plans. So I've been juggling files for day.s  Just yesterday morning, I thought I had finished the final submission for my first Kindle pre-order, scheduled to ship on September 19th.  Then an e-mail from the Kindle folks informed me that they had discovered  three spelling errors (two of which were French terms they didn't recognize.). The only correction required was the insertion of a single space between two words. But was there an easy way to do that? Nope! I had to remove the file, create an entirely new one with the new software program, and then go through the whole submission process again. Sigh.

And now the latest. I've been planning a trip to a writers' conference in San Antonio for months -- have all my flight and hotel reservations, and a couple of jobs to do once I get there. But my perfect flight schedule took me through a landing at Houston's Hobby Airport.  With just 10 days to go before my departure, i had to read the future and try to decide if that currently-closed -and-flooded airport could possibly be high and dry in time for my flight to go as scheduled. Maybe! But what if it's not! The consequences of the wrong decision multiplied every day I delayed. So yesterday, I had to bite another bullet  and make the decision. I'm now scheduled to fly through Dallas (Love Field), which will certainly be drier. It's a tighter connection, however, so the outcome of that decision is still to be determined.

As for today's decisions -- I could either do a grammar edit on another chapter or write a blog post.  Here it is!

Last week I wrote about one of the astronomic phenomena that occurred in my new book, Henrietta's Journal, and now is coming again in 2017. The meteor shower that happened in November 1833 was not all that unusual an occurrence, except for the fact that it was unusually bright. Our own shower, scheduled for tomorrow night, is looking a little "iffy" at the moment. We'll need a clear sky to see it in all its glory--and the weather fellow on today's noon news sounded pretty pessimistic about that happening. I'm still keeping fingers crossed, however, in hopes that you will witness a wonderful display tomorrow night and then be moved to read the book about the earlier one., 

I'm more hopeful about the second event, both because it is rarer and because it will be harder to miss, especially in this part of the country and in Charleston. On Monday, Aug. 21, as nearly everyone knows by now, we are scheduled to witness an eclipse of the sun. Its path will take it over much of Tennessee and then straight into Charleston, South Carolina for a spectacular finish. 

The earlier eclipse occurred in Charleston on May 15, 1836. It was somewhat different than the one we will experience, in that it was what the experts call an "annular" eclipse. That happens when the moon is at its furthest distance from the earth when it begins to cast its shadow over the sun. But because of its distant position, the shadow is noticeably smaller than the disk of the sun. So even when the eclipse is entirely over the sun, it will leave a "ring of fire" to border the shadow. The world may not have turned quite as dark as our own will, but it was certainly dark enough to grab the attention of everyone and to frighten more than a few observers.

No matter how wise we may be about the causes of the phenomena (debris from the tail of a comet, a shadow)--there is still something both majestic and frightening about unnatural changes. in the sky. All early cultures developed myths about gods who fought each other abd destroyed the sun in the process. And even today, there are folks warning about bad omens that are a part of the eclipse experience. So it will come as no surprise to readers of Henrietta's Journal to find a slave muttering under her breath, "Um-um-um. Dat be bad."

When I’m getting ready to start writing a new book, I take the time to find out what was going on during the historical period in question.  Normally I’m looking for wars, major battles, presidential elections, economic crises, inventions, new laws—any event that might change the lives of my characters. When my story is set in Charleston, South Carolina or the Low Country between Charleston and Savannah, I check the weather conditions, too. That’s a region prone to hurricanes, major temperature fluctuations, insect infestations, earthquakes, and lethal epidemics.

 

This time, however, I was in for a surprise. I was getting reading to write Henrietta’s Journal, set in Charleston in the 1830s, and I wanted to know if there had been any hurricanes. The period turned out to be relatively quiet on the weather front. Only a couple of tropical storms threatened, and those barely brushed the city. I was not expecting to find two major astronomical events. They were both so spectacular that I had to write them into my story. What caught me most off guard was the realization that just as I would be getting ready to announce the upcoming publication of this new book, two similar events would be happening  in South Carolina in 2017.

 

The first event was a massive storm of meteorities witnessed all across the South on November 13, 1833. No mere meteor shower, this! People were terrified, many declaring that the world was coming to an end as the sparks seemed to be falling all around them. The occasion was the Leonid Shower, which occurs in mid-November every thirty-three years. In 1833, the earth’s orbit took it very close to the orbit of the comet Tempel-Tuttle and was said to have caused some 100,000 shooting stars per minute. Another legend says that the song “Stars Fell on Alabama” was written to commemorate the event .  And witnesses declared that this famous woodcut was an accurate depiction of what happened.

 

Now, in 2017, we are told that an even greater meteor storm will fill the skies on Saturday, August 12. This one comes from the Swift-Tuttle comet and is called a Perseid shower. Although articles on the internet are claiming that it will be the brightest shower in human history, its expected 300 shooting stars per hour cannot hope to rival what Henrietta Ainesworth witnessed in 1833. Still if you want to get a feel for what Henrietta’s experience was like, it wouldn’t hurt to look up at the sky on Saturday night.

Stay tuned to hear about the second event.