It took me ten years to write this novel, my second…
image sharingI dunno how good or bad it was, and took back the rights certain that nobody is likely to turn it into a movie and make me wealthy.
When we left Pittsburgh in 2005, I had five feet of stacked sources to dispose of; A page here and there of a letter, a few twenty page or so journals, Moneypenny’s Journal, Lyman’s General Orders, Jabez Fitch, Lucas Gridley, Rufus Putnam, a couple of reprints of Rogers’ and Bouganville’s Journals and so on. In sorting through it all, and keeping the prized pieces, it occurred to me that midway through the endeavor I backed into a transition from trying to incorporate good history into trying to incorporate accurate culture.
I guess that’s the soul of what many of us are trying to achieve in building a Persona, and would like to invite you to reply with yours and some pics here.
Mine, of course, is a Cordwainer. Not overly wealthy but quite a ways from being poor. Not overly fond of working a farm and and willing to be an entrepreneur from the Newbury Parish ( current day Brookfield, Ct), comfortable enough in the woods to engage in Ranging without being the Over-Ooh-Rah nutsies belonging to Rogers. Willing to conspire with the merchants in the town and leverage the Iron Works and Cotton Mills in the Parish. Probably an officer or company clerk because to the literacy Apprentices got over the seven years. A part-timer at the Lake George Front where, due to trafficking in Penns Colony, maybe he picked up a Jaeger or Transitional and maybe he did some of the hunting around Fort Edward that is periodically cited in reports and journals…..Maybe. Conjectural.
Therein lies the rub. When is conjecture reasonable or valid and when is it a little off the wall?
I tried to back date my first Little Feller from the original kit by changing some of the furniture and shaping the wood after going through my Shumways. Couldn't do anything about the lock, and I asked folks in the forum about slings.
Not getting any good direction, and having too much money in my pockets at Dixon’s Fair, I picked up a woven piece that was made from dyed and waxed Linen Thread. Possible because it might have been easy to try but not wide spread because linen thread was expensive in the colonies. So, now I gotta think like an eighteenth century shoemaker…cheap and miserly. I cut some scrap leather, tapered and Hog-bristled some thread, and stitched it together, avoiding both tools and shortcuts that are modern day. There’s some of that conjecture stuff again. Maybe SOMEBODY had a rig like this, but there does not seem to be a Shumway or Madison Grant out there that has a definitive definition of what a sling was or wasn’t. I doubt anybody backdates their stuff.
Somebody must have had something like this banging around in the Century, and I intend to try to find him if lucky enough to walk the streets of glory when my time is due.
Anyway, tell us a little about your persona or Conjecture.
Thanks
Capgun
