Hilda X: Introductions

This week has once again not been productive for writing. I have put a bit of thought into my other WIP, Veil of Iron, I think I am coming a little closer to a solution to my plot problem. But it is going to take more thought and I guess I am just going to have to jump in and write some of the changes to see if they work.

 

So all in all I have not done much with Hilda, it seems a weekly refrain!

How about the rest of you, have you had time for writing or reading this week?

So once again this scene follows straight on from the last. Hilda is introduced to some of the people “at the Park”.

1911

‘Good morning Mrs Smither, this is my Hilda.’

‘Good morning Mister Attewell, Hilda.’

Hilda’s dad smiled at her, she read in that smile an attempt at reassurance, it will be alright said his eyes, as they stood just inside the kitchen door. ‘Mrs Smither is the housekeeper and in charge here.’

Hilda stood in the doorway clutching her case tightly and said nothing.

Mrs Smither drew herself up, ‘Actually, Mr Young the butler is in charge of the house. Can we get you a cup of tea Mr Attewell?’

‘See Duck, Mrs Smither takes good care of me. She’ll see you right.’ He paused considering for just an instant, ‘Thank you Mrs Smither I had better keep on this morning. Well Duck, give your dad a kiss.’

Hilda’s resolve to not cry almost broke as she watched Charles Attewell disappear, she nervously looked around the kitchen. A big space, a range of stoves along the far side, benches along the near side and a long table through the middle surrounded by a dozen kitchen chairs.

In addition to Mrs Smither three other faces looked curiously back at her. How she wished she could find a corner to hide by herself. Mrs Smither stood very straight, ‘Well Hilda, first things first some introductions. This is Mrs Garraway the cook, she has charge of our kitchen when Monsieur Glanville is not here. You will answer to Mrs Garraway most days.’

Red faced Mrs Garraway beamed at her, ‘Mornin’, You work hard and do as you’s told and you will not ‘ave any trouble from me.’

Hilda thought she didn’t look the sort to give anyone trouble, Hilda whispered a ‘Morning.’ Back at her.

‘Then this is Lindsay Tiley, our kitchen maid.’

A big raw-boned girl nodded at her, ‘Morning.’

Hilda nodded back at her. ‘And finally, last and least is Kat Lutton our scullery maid.’

A pretty dark-haired girl, maybe just a year or two older than Hilda smiled warmly at her, ‘Good morning Duck!’

Hilda tried to smile back, Mrs Smither went on, ‘We will introduce you to the other staff as you meet them. Now first things first, have you an apron in that case of yours?’

‘Yes Mrs Smither.’

‘Good, you’ll be taking over from Kat as scullery maid. The scullery maid has no uniform, you are expected to wear neat clean clothes, you will be given more and aprons too, but this morning you can wear your own. Now Kat will show you to your room, you can leave your case hat and coat there and put on your apron. Kat will take charge of you over the next few days and show you most of what you need to know. The rest, well I will give you instruction as we go. Kat, show Hilda where to start.’

Kat smiled again, ‘Come on then.’

Thanks, and my WIP

First of all, thank you all for your kind words about my Mum.

She says she has improved again today, and will go in to town to see her doctor tomorrow.

To say I am relieved is an understatement!

Changing subject I have managed to get to the end of another draft of my WIP.

As I said a while ago I have split my MS into two books which has meant developing some of my character’s stories more.

In celebration of another milestone here is another section from Petenka’s viewpoint. This is set a year after the scene I shared last time after my characters have been at war for almost a year.

Resignation: Russia - May 1942

Petenka Bykova

‘I hate to say it, but I don’t see how we can survive until the end.’

My words dropped into the well of light around a single precious candle that flickered on rough timber walls. The dugout was one we shared with Lena Kominskaya our regimental surgeon. Maybe five years older than us she had been a surgeon at the Moscow orthopaedic hospital before the war.

Svetlana froze, her spoon halfway between her mess-tin and her mouth. Incredulously she asked, ‘Have you really taken that long to think about it?’

‘No, of course not. We did get interrupted earlier.’

‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.’ A click on the rim of the tin as she put down the spoon, ‘It’s an uncomfortable subject to discuss.’

I kept my voice light, ‘Why is it so difficult?’

Her brows knotted, ‘I don’t find it pleasant to contemplate my death.’

‘I don’t worry too much, but I do not believe death is the end.’

‘Because of faith?’

‘Exactly.’

I peered at her through the flickering light. Even with all we had faced she looked as relaxed and as sure of herself as the day we met. I shifted uncomfortably.

Svetlana smiled gently, a knowing smile.

I threw a crust of bread at her, ‘I know, you’re a Communist, you think I’m deluding myself. We don’t need to have that argument again.’

Retrieving the scrap of bread from her shoulder, she flicked it at my head. ‘It doesn’t serve any purpose does it?’

‘Children,’ interjected Lena from the shadow of her bunk, ‘play nicely!’

As Lena went back to the letter she was writing, I felt for the crust and tugged it from where it had caught in my hair. I thought about throwing it again but dropped it on the floor, someone had to feed the poor rats. ‘That argument is tired.’

Sveta frowned, serious again, ‘I asked the question, because I realised how much I was afraid. I thought you must be too.’

‘You’ve been afraid?’

‘How could I not be?’

‘You always seem so calm.’

She looked at me impassively, ‘That’s not how I feel.’

‘How do you feel?’

‘I am terrified of dying. More afraid of being wounded. But…’

‘But?’

‘I am frightened of losing you. Frightened of how I would be if something happened to my Petenka.’

‘Nothing will happen to me.’

‘You don’t really believe that.’

‘I’, suddenly unsure I paused to consider ‘no, I don’t see how we can survive. Yet, somehow I can’t really imagine…’

‘I can, but I don’t want to.’

Strange Dreams

Last night I had a dream that was different to any I have ever had before.
In my waking hours I spend not insignificant amounts of time imagining and building scenes in my WIP.
But last night for the first time ever (at least that I recall) I dreamt I was one of my characters.
Occasionally I have a kind of third person dream where I see myself from outside.

But usually when I dream I am me, Al.

Last night it was different I dreamed from the perspective of one of my characters called Petenka.
To add to the novelty of the experience Petenka is a woman.

I don’t remember dreaming from the perspective of a woman before.
To be sure Petenka is not exactly a “girly” girl having grown up as the eldest of six daughters of a Russian peasant/poacher. But she is most definitely a woman.

I have no problem with putting myself in Petenka’s headspace in the day time, she is one of my POV characters.

But as a dream it was strange. 
I guess it means I have been getting very wrapped up in my writing.

Now, to give a taste of Petenka, a scene just after the German invasion of Russia in 1941.


Shaving: Russia - July 1941

Petenka Bykova
How they wept.

Most young pretty women take great pride in their hair. To suddenly understand they were going to the army barber and their heads would be shaved came as a shock to most of them.
The Communists spent a great deal of effort making people the same, making them conform. To be told new recruits in the Red army were shaved and it made no difference if they were male or female was something I would have expected had I thought about it.
It was no surprise to me and that is the truth of it.

It was a great long hall, maybe a drill hall, with chairs set in two rows of six. No mirrors, but they had arranged the chairs so the two rows faced each other. This made it more difficult for the more sensitive girls because they could envisage what was happening to them through the experience of another.

And in any case we had to stand and watch the others until it was our turn.
I was not over concerned about loosing my hair. My childhood and youth had never left much space for preening.

There were no tears from me.

One other girl was different to most of them, there were no tears from her either as the barber attacked her hair. 
I sat opposite her, she smiled a half smile and cocked her eyebrow at me as if she were sharing a joke. She was enduring the hands of the barbers as well, but what was different was how she approached it. The first strip of her scalp stood out starkly white against her remaining glossy black hair. She shrugged and smiled as her hair fell down her shoulders and on to the floor.

As the barber was finishing she wiggled her eyebrows, 'What about these? If it's to be a clean sweep shouldn't these go too?'
So of course the barber ran his clippers over her brows.
As she left her chair she rubbed her head feeling the strangeness. She raised her voice. 'Come on girls, cheer up! We are going to be soldiers! This is the least we can do for the Russia!'

I made sure I stood next her on the first parade, I wanted to know this girl, wanted to see if she was as singular as she appeared. We stood in a ragged line. The sergeant bellowing at us to stand straight. ‘You are going to be paired up, you will stay in those pairs while you are here and more than likely you will go to your regiments in those pairs. We go along the line. You call out number one and number two. Number ones pair with the two on their left. Is it simple enough? Do you halfwits understand?’
The call went along the line, ‘One’, ‘Two’, ‘One…’
It came to my turn, I called ‘One!’
‘Two!’ she called, we were paired.

I turned to face her, how odd she looked with no hair. Unlike most of the girls she was still pretty with a bald pate, but strange nonetheless. I wondered how I looked to her? I thought I must be even squarer jawed than usual with no hair to soften my cheeks. I spoke first, 'I’m Petenka.'
She smiled warmly, 'Svetlana.'
I gave her a half smile back and we were friends.
It was that easy. 

Running fast to stand still

Just over a year ago I posted about my WIP. At that point I was saying my word count had crept past 100,000.

A year on and I have shared my WIP with a couple of readers.

I cut it from one book into two (which left me with two incomplete books)

Now the first half has grown until it is just over 100,000 words again.

I am enjoying the writing but boy does it seem to inch along sometimes (my day job seems all consuming much of the time).
I feel like the end is in sight but I have been here before.

With the change to two separate books, I suspect I will dump the title. Or rather I will swap it.
My working title has been Veiled in Storms, which followed on from my first book Veiled in Shadows.
The third book in the series was to be Veil of Iron. But the second half of the WIP fits better with Storms.
So I suspect I will have to borrow the third title for number two. So my WIP is now wearing the working title of Veil of Iron.

Which kind of fits because of the subject matter and 1946 (when Churchill made his Iron Curtain speech) falls squarely in the book’s chronology.

Now because I don’t want to disappoint, a piccie of the day

Abandoned Railway Trestle Bridge, Gippsland, Victoria

Potography Hiatus, Writing Bonanza

Well this one was too hard for people.
I guessed when I posted this that people would think "railroad sign".
Like a railroad sign it is a warning sign, but in a very different place.

This is a channel marker in Port Phillip Bay. I took this at the Bellarine Peninsula on the far south-west side of the bay. The Bellarine is near the mouth of the bay close to the city of Geelong.
Melbourne is about 100 km (62 miles) to the north where the Yarra River flows into the bay.
The mountain in the distance is on the far side near Dromana and has the lovely name (I think) Arthur's Seat.

I have taken very few photographs over the past few weeks (the ones of Lilli being the few exceptions)
I have kept my eye out for waterfalls and took this at the Murrindindi river in the central highlands.The semi-hiatus in photography is probably due largely to my putting a lot of creative effort into my writing.

I have finished the next draft of Veiled in Storms. I mentioned a while ago I had read the previous draft to Deb (she liked it).

This week I have been jumping forwards and plotting out books 3 and 4 in the series. Till now they have been very rough ideas, now 3 (working title Veil of Iron) is starting to look like a proper outline.

Well I have given a copy of the current draft Of Veiled in Storms to a friend to read (Cheryl did some copy edits on the first book Veiled in Shadows).

Once I get feedback from her I will put a bit of effort into tidying errors up and then in a month or two probably look for a couple more readers for opinions.

Anyone interested?