Blogs - A Learning Experience

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

To blog or not to blog, is that the question? We have so many sites to choose from and so little time. Where do we start? Should be have our own blog, or post on other authors' blogs? Now days our time is limited and we want to spend our promotion time in the best places. One fact I've learned is readers like to get to know the authors of the books they love to read. Blogging is a good way to let them know who you are.

I write historicals and the series is set in a town I live near. I have a great, great grandfather who kept a journal while traveling across the plains in 1849. It is kept under glass at the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. I was able to use my great, great grandfather's birds-eye view of the wagon train life in my recent release titled Paradise Pines Series: Marriage Bargain. He had a great way of giving us a picture of what the day-by-day life on the wagon train was like.

My great, great grandmother is supposedly the first woman to have articles in magazines. These are of great assistance to me when I write my stories. They are also a point of interest when I speak about my writing and where I get my ideas.

Another good point at writing stories from the area where you live is photographs. Readers enjoy seeing the places you base your stories on as it gives them a visual when they read your story.

This hotel was my inspiration for Chaumers Hotel in Night Angel. The hotel manager was kind enough to let me photo both the outside and inside.

These 'gifts' from my ancestors give me a lot of different ideas to share about in blogs. They also give me a chance to tell about my family and our customs. The uniqueness of my life might be interesting to a reader who enjoys my stories. It also gives the stories authenticity and is proof I've done research and write stories about subjects that I have some knowledge about.

Ghosts of Placerville

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

The end of October brings out the goblins and ghosts. Lots of tales of ghostly deeds and the unexplained are everywhere. I live close to the California Gold Rush community now named Placerville. I've personally encountered several of the ghostly remains of people who still hang around, sometimes making life a bit complicated when disturbed.

I worked in an art gallery that was a corner saloon during 1849. The two story building stands over a creek and ghost hunters have said it is a perfect way for those spirits to enter the building. Really, I am not stretching the truth here. The gallery filled the bottom floor. Several business offices were upstairs. One problem we had occurred every Christmastime. The people upstairs closed their offices for the holiday week, yet I could hear heavy footsteps overhead and an occasional door slamming. I would notify my boss and she'd go upstairs and check for an intruder. She never found anyone.

One morning I entered the gallery and found paintings turned askew on the walls and the tags that I'd taped under the paintings were all over the floor. We had four wastebaskets -- until one morning we found the pink one missing. The three gray ones were in the middle of the room. I missed the one time the ghost became violent. My boss and another employee were behind the counter when the large vase (about four foot tall) slammed against the wall on the other side of the room. It hit so hard it shattered into many pieces and the leg on the mahogany table was scratched.

The Cary House Hotel, standing across the street from the gallery, has two ghosts that we know of. One is Stan who worked as the check-in clerk. He'd been drinking heavily one evening and made a pass at one of the female guests. Her man friend was jealous and shot Stan. He died on the lobby floor. To this day he rides the elevators up and down at night and checks each door by jiggling the door handle to each room. When I toured the hotel to take photos for my newly released story Night Angel, Stan wouldn't let me open the door to the old elevator. I walked up several flights of stairs during the tour. When it was time to leave, I had no problem opening the door and riding down to the lobby. The other ghost is George. He mistook a poker player as the one who'd cheated him the night before and shot and killed him before he realized it was the wrong man. There is a dummy named George hanging on the front of the Hangman's Tree Saloon across the street from the hotel.

The television show that went around the country taping haunted houses and hotels presented a twenty minute portion of their show from the Cary House Hotel. There are a lot more stories in our community, but not enough time to share them all.

Why I Chose the 1849 Gold Rush Time Period

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

Digging for gold from early dawn until dusk was definitely a backbreaking job, but those men who traveled across country and from around the world had the fever. They wanted their chance at that BIG gold strike. My great, great grandfather was one of them. Luckily for us, he kept a journal during his journey. It was so well written that it rests under glass in the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley.

Can you imagine a miner had to find an ounce of gold a day to just break even? Most miners barely found enough for daily expenses. The peak production of placer gold occurred in 1853. Every year after that, more and more men arrived in California, but less gold was found. Thousands of disillusioned gold seekers returned home with little to show for their endeavors, glad to escape with their health. A fair share remained, searching for a job. They became the backbone to the settling of California. My grandfather ended up not going for the gold, but setting up his medical practice instead. A lot of fortunes were made not in the gold fields, but in supplying goods, meals, and comfort.

I found this rebuilding of the lives and communities an exciting time in history. My story Paradise Pines Series: Night Angel is set after the boom, when many miners, broke and looking for wages, stayed in Paradise Pines, a town developed during the gold rush. Some let disappointment send them into lives of drink and gambling. Others pulled together to rebuild their town and setup businesses, some of which still stand today in Placerville, the town I fashioned this community after. My hero anonymously gives aid to these downtrodden townsfolk by traveling through abandoned tunnels under the town. When the heroine comes to town with hopes of rebuilding her life, he wants to keep her in town and promises he'll make her dream of having her own music hall a reality.

Settings For Spice

My stories are set in the Gold Rush era of 1849. Because we live where this interesting part of history happened, I look for something new every time we go out on drive. I've always been one to watch people and try to figure out who they might be and what kind of life's experiences they've had. Now I watch scenery, search out old buildings, travel through gold mines, see which trees are blooming and when. It's quite interesting to pay attention to your surroundings, especially when you see or find things you weren't aware of in your community. My husband says it's like taking a three year old out because I get excited with each new discovery.

We have a herd of buffalo alongside the highway near Sacramento. When we first noticed them, there were only two animals. Now there are several that we watch for every time we travel through that area. We live in the Sierra Mountains

and in the past week we had two silver foxes run across the backyard. I noticed when they ran, they had a arrogant tilt to their head. We have six deer who are around the yard. I love to watch the graceful way they walk and wonder how their heads can hold up those antlers. As I was driving down our road the other day, a vulture flew slow and low over my car. I got a close look at his red head. Not such a pleasant type, if you know what I mean. We also have characters who've lived here all of their lives. I notice their dress, listen to them talking about events they remember happening in our community and stories they'd been told by their grandparents. These are the spices I use for my stories. It's so much better for me to allow my surroundings to help me write my stories rather than grabbing them off the internet. I realize how lucky I am to have the spices at my fingertips and I use them.