Six Sentence Sunday #14
Aunt Rowena’s old eyes twinkled with glee. “I knew Jason couldn’t have married anything spineless. Culler men can’t help themselves, they’re attracted to women who don’t mind giving them a little hell when they need it.”
Cherry’s heart soared. Rowena believed she could win Jason back. And suddenly she did too.
- chapter 2, Cherry’s War
Trivia Thursday #13
In England, prior to 1823, a male or female under the age of 21 could not marry without parental consent. After 1823, a male could legally marry without parental consent at the age of 14 and a female could marry without parental consent at age 12.
- source: What Jane Austen Knew and Charles Dickens Ate by Daniel Pool
Six Sentence Sunday #13
“She can’t stay there,” Rob insisted. “Downright dangerous. Broken windows, loose floor boards, leaky roof. No lights, no heat, no water. Snakes, rats. Maybe worse.”
- chapter 2, Cherry’s War
Trivia Thursday #12
The type of lighting a family used in the 1800s was influenced by their financial situation. Rushlights (rushes dipped in drippings or grease) were used by the poor and the frugal because they could be made for free and avoided the tax on candles. Tallow candles were used by the better heeled. The truly rich used beeswax candles because they burned cleaner, were less odorous, and did not require frequent wick trimming.
- source: What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew by Daniel Pool
Six Sentence Sunday #12
His buddies would laugh themselves sick if they could see him now. Jason Culler the decorated warrior, tough Texas cowboy, and steely eyed combat lieutenant standing dripping wet with his fists wrapped victoriously around his latest foe – a pink nightie. Jason groaned, imagining how willingly he would have surrendered had his wife been in it. But Cherry was gone, the nightie left behind, probably forgotten when she fled Culler Ranch. It must have blown off the clothes line and been snagged in the bushes until he, highly trained combat soldier that he was, wrestled the dangerous garment to the ground and subdued it.
Jason lifted the bit of silk to his cheek and then hung it over his bare shoulder; the feel of it against his flesh both comforting and tormenting, he retrieved his duffel and let himself into the empty house.
- chapter 3, Cherry’s War
Trivia Thursday #11
Hero of Alexandria (fl. 2nd century B.C. ), student of Ctesibius, built clockwork into toys. The system he devised to produce toys such as a temple with doors that opened and an altar that lit up while drums and cymbals accompanied dancing figurines and wine and milk poured, is still used today in the design of automatic tea-makers.
- from The History of Clocks & Watches by Eric Bruton
Six Sentence Sunday #11
“Come on then,” she said less graciously than she should have.
Her Cinderella shoes clicked down the final few steps. No sound of footsteps followed her but she didn’t look back. By the time she reached the trees anger was replacing frustration. Why didn’t he just say what he had to say? Why go on tormenting her?
- chapter 1, Cherry’s War
Trivia Thursday # 10
In ancient Ireland bowls with holes in the bottom, which were floated on water until they sank, were used as timers. One such bronze bowl, found in a bog in Northern Ireland in County Antrim, took one hour to sink.
- from The History of Clocks & Watches by Eric Bruton
Six Sentence Sunday #10
Cherry frowned. She’d spent the entire morning at Loretta’s Salon. She’d been plucked and shaved, exfoliated and moisturized, painted and polished, cut and curled. She’d donned her flirtiest skirt, her girlie-est sweater, and her best perfume. She hadn’t tried for sexy; she was too much girl-next-door to pull off femme fatale. But she’d taken Aunt Rowena’s advice to heart: “A man coming home from war has seen enough of what’s hard and bitter. Remind him of what’s soft and sweet.”
- chapter 1, Cherry’s War
Trivia Thursday #9
In 1198 a water-clock saved St. Edmunds’ relics at the Bury St. Edmunds Abbey when the wooden platform on which the relics sat caught fire in the middle of the night. When the water-clock sounded matins it awoke the master of the vestry who saw the fire, summoned help, and then used the water from the clock itself to assist in putting out the fire.
- from The History of Clocks & Watches by Eric Bruton
Six Sentence Sunday #9
“Shall we walk a little?” She hated the pleading tone she heard in her voice. But though she’d passed desperate and was fast approaching hopeless, she refused to give up.
He’d barely glanced at her since they’d stepped out onto the raised wood deck, leaving the too-loud music and general ruckus of the party behind in favor of a cool spring night beneath a starry Texas sky. Boots planted wide, thumbs hooked in the back pockets of his Levis, Jason stood at the top of the stairs that led down into the yard.
Cherry’s heart did that same little skip it had the first time she’d seen him.
- chapter 1, Cherry’s War
Trivia Thursday #8
In the Mediterranean Basin the length of a man’s shadow can vary from as long as 24 feet in the morning to a mere 4 feet at noon. The Greeks and Romans, as early as 400 B.C. and as late as the fourth century A.D., commonly used the count of a man’s foot length within his shadow to determine the time of day and set mealtimes and other appointments.
- from The History of Clocks & Watches by Eric Bruton
Six Sentence Sunday #8
I didn’t try my hand at writing again for decades. When I did, I was met with immediate encouragement and started winning small prizes with ease. Oh how I regret the years I wasted because of that bully.
If you are young and out there trying to write, be careful who you associate with in the beginning. Grow your craft and your confidence from a delicate seedling to a tree with real roots before you invite the monkeys in for a swing.
That said, sooner or later you must face the monkeys.
- post draft for One Little Elephant
Trivia Thursday #7
The first mechanical clocks (as opposed to other types of timekeeping devices) probably did not show the hour of day as water clocks did. Rather they sounded an alarm at a predetermined point in the day or struck a bell at the hour. Originally called a mechanical horloge, a mechanical clock that struck a bell at the hour eventually came to be called a clocca, after the Latin word for bell. As early as 1371 the spelling had changed to clok in Latin or clocke in English.
- from The History of Clocks & Watches by Eric Bruton
Six Sentence Sunday #7
Artemis Wellborn cleared his throat and his voice took on a lecturing tone, “I would judge the length of that monster to be ten feet or more.”
Sebastian raised a brow at the animal. Miss LeBlue was closer to correct. The crocodile was about six and a half feet in length, giving it no more than a few inches on Sebastian. But the animal did have one great advantage over him, and it wasn’t its wicked teeth or massive jaws. No, the advantage the crocodile had over Doctor Sebastian Bergen at this moment was that it could swish its tail and swim away from the boat, back to the peace and quiet of a shadowy river bank. Sebastian, on the other hand, was stuck aboard for the two-day trip up the Nile to Cairo.
- chapter 5, book 2, Blood Trilogy
Trivia Thursday #6
In Cairo, Egypt in the early 1800s an unmarried man who did not own a female slave was not permitted to rent a house or apartment in most areas. If he could not reside with parents or near relations, a single man without a female slave was usually reduced to living in a wekaleh (a building designed to receive merchandise). French men were exempt from this rule.
Englishman and Egyptian Scholar Edward Lane once had his rental monies returned to him and was denied lodgings because he had no wife or female slave to reside with him.
- source: Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians by Edward W. Lane, first published in 1836
Six Sentence Sunday #6
Dark smoke rose from the wick as cheap blackfish oil fed the flame. She wrinkled her nose at the smell, so different from the fine beeswax candles and clean-burning sperm oil lamps she’d grown up with. Yet she turned up the wick, making the flame burn higher. She was being extravagant, burning oil they could not afford to replace. But tonight she needed the comfort of light, something to drive away the melancholy her father’s letter had stirred in her. And perhaps ease the bone-deep sense of dread that had been shadowing her for days.
From outside, a discreet cough sounded over the hiss of blowing sand.
- chapter 2, book 2, Blood Trilogy
Trivia Thursday #5
White male slaves in Egypt in the early 1800s were called memlooks. Few residents of Cairo, other than very rich Turks, owned memlooks. Eunuchs were even more rare and were generally owned by only the highest ranking Turks.
The large majority of slaves owned by Egyptians living in Cairo in the early 1800s were female.
- source: Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians by Edward W. Lane, first published in 1836
Six Sentence Sunday #5
Spurs jangled behind her. Before her a low communal grunt, heavy with hope and longing, rumbled through the crowd. The miners swayed forward as one. The padded end of a staff tapped Willow’s back, prodding with careful but firm insistence. Despite the chill in the morning air, a sudden sweat ran down her neck, trickling between her breasts, dampening the flowers she clutched there. Off to her right Acre choked back a sob.
- chapter 2, book 1, Willowsbrook series
Trivia Thursday #4
In Cairo, Egypt in the early 1800s households would allot a distinct set of apartments or rooms exclusively for the use of the females of the household, also known as the hareem. No males, other than the master of the family, children and certain close relatives, were allowed to enter. Persons who resided in the hareem included the master’s wives (though often a man with more than one wife would house them in separate residences if he could afford to do so), concubines, female slaves, free servants, and children.
Men without a wife sometimes kept a hareem that consisted of an Abyssinian slave-concubine and a female slave and/or free servant to wait upon her. By some this was considered a less expensive alternative to maintaining a wife.
- source: Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, by Edward W. Lane, first published in 1836
Six Sentence Sunday #4
His tongue passed over the sharp tip of one incisor as the siren scent of angry blood danced around him. The man tapped his fist twice against Nicholas’s lapel.
“There’s some that’s not to be trifled with, if a gentleman knows what’s good for him,” the man said and jerked his head at the window.
On the other side of the pane the shopgirl hummed contentedly as she worked, unaware of her gallant’s possessive defense of her on the cobblestones outside. The man’s fist punched Nicholas’s lapel harder, a final time. Nicholas inclined his head once and felt the rake of un-slaked hunger as the fellow stomped off down the street, taking the toothsome scent of overheated blood with him.
- chapter 3, book 1, Blood Trilogy
Trivia Thursday #3
In Cairo, Egypt in the early 1800s, a slave could be freed by her master verbally before two witnesses or by a written document of emancipation or by being given the certificate of sale from her previous owner. Emancipation might be conferred out of simple generosity or for the promise of future financial compensation.
A binding promise of emancipation upon the master’s death could be made verbally before two witnesses or via a written document. Once an owner promised emancipation upon death, he could no longer sell the slave. If, when the owner died, the value of the slave being emancipated by his death exceeded one-third of the total value of the master’s estate, the master’s heirs could require the slave to pay them the difference.
- source: Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians by Edward W. Lane, first published in 1836
Six Sentence Sunday #3
“Of what value is the word of a skulking animal?”
The creature crawled from the shadows, crouching low on human hands and knees. Keeping its pelt-covered body close to the ground, it used the meager height of her sleeping pallet to shield it from being silhouetted on the tent walls by her single candle. Beneath the animal mask generous lips stretched a shaggy beard revealing even white teeth. It extended its hand. A barrette carved of white bone rested on its calloused palm. The monster touched one end of the hair ornament, extracting a blade narrow enough to conceal behind a single finger, yet long enough to pierce a man’s heart.
“If I deceive,” it whispered, “you can be a widow as quickly as a bride.”
- chapter 2, book 1, Willowsbrook series
Trivia Thursday #2
In Cairo, Egypt in the early 1800s a male slave could not have more than two wives at the same time.
- source: Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians by Edward W. Lane, first published in 1836
