Category Archives: Author type stuff

Wednesday Writer’s Corner – May 15, 20something

Posted on by Lori Crane

Wednesday Writer’s Corner

Disclaimer:

I’m a little bitchy today, so I’m standing on my soapbox with a noose around my neck.

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Here are my favorite questions from self-published authors on an ebook forum:

How do I get reviews? Why isn’t my book selling? How do I get paid? What should I charge for my book? How can I get a bad review removed? How long will it take to get an agent to notice me?

Are you kidding?

I’ll just be blunt. You have not done your homework. You should stop writing immediately, sell your computer, and take up needlepoint. How many books have you bought on self-publishing? Have you had anyone proofread your blurb? How many articles have you read on marketing? Formatting? Cover Design? Let me guess. Zero.

All right…I’ll give you the short soapbox answers:

How do I get reviews? Sell books.

Why isn’t my book selling? You have no reviews.

How do I get paid? Get a real job.

What should I charge for my book? Doesn’t matter, no one’s buying it anyway.

How can I get a bad review removed? I thought you wanted reviews.

How long will it take to get an agent to notice me? Forever. Like I said, get a real job.

Julia Ward Howe – shaping words

Posted on by Lori Crane

“Arise all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be of water or of tears! Say firmly: Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of carnage for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience…
“We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.
From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: “Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.” Blood does not wipe out dishonor, Nor violence indicate possession…”
— Julia Ward Howe, “Mother’s Day for Peace Proclamation,” 1870

945653_10200301091023750_151209309_nPictured here in 1908.

Howe also wrote “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” in 1861, which seems to me a lot less pro-peace than the above piece. Perhaps the carnage of the Civil War softened her a bit.

“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword. His truth is marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah, his truth is marching on.”

November 18, 1861, of the writing of the lyrics, Howe remembered:

“I went to bed that night as usual, and slept, according to my wont, quite soundly. I awoke in the gray of the morning twilight; and as I lay waiting for the dawn, the long lines of the desired poem began to twine themselves in my mind. Having thought out all the stanzas, I said to myself, ‘I must get up and write these verses down, lest I fall asleep again and forget them.’ So, with a sudden effort, I sprang out of bed, and found in the dimness an old stump of a pen which I remembered to have used the day before. I scrawled the verses almost without looking at the paper.”

Saturday Snippet – May 11, 2013

Posted on by Lori Crane

The following is a snippet from my book “An Orphan’s Heart.” It is the second in the Okatibbee Creek Series and is the true story of Ellen Rodgers, an orphan who grows up in search of the only thing that matters to her…love.

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Set up: 1884 Texas. While Ellen visits her brother Willie in Texas, she meets and falls in love with his brother-in-law, Sam Meek. They have been staying at Sam’s house for weeks following the death of his mother, but now it’s time to go back to Willie’s, which is nine days away by wagon, and she is sadly forced to leave Sam behind.

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While the sun rises, I help Mollie pack the rest of the girls’ belongings into the wagon. When I return to the house for my bag, I stand in the middle of the parlor, looking around for the last time. This is a beautiful home, and strangely, I will miss this place more than any other I have known.

When Sam enters the back door, everything stops. I stare down at the floor and will myself not to cry. This is not my first loss. I am a big girl. I will get over it. I will get over him.

I look up and see in his face the same pain I feel in my heart. I can’t bear it. I want to pull him to me and take away his sorrow, but that will only cause us both more pain, so I simply say, “Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Meek. I hope to see you again.” I nod and turn to walk out the front door. I climb up onto the wagon and tell Willie I’m ready to go. The girls start chatting excitedly, and the horses pull away.

With every mile, my resolve is crumbling into little pieces. I reach up and hold the golden heart around my neck. I have finally found the love I was looking for, and with every moment, I’m getting farther away from it. My chest is aching. I take a deep breath and vow that I will never care about anyone ever again—not that I could. When you love someone as much as I love that man, no other love can ever fill your heart.

After an hour of staring at the horizon, I swear my body is going to fall apart from the pain. I don’t know how I’ll get through the rest of the day, much less the rest of my life. I think I hear someone call my name, but over the horses’ clomping, the wagon’s creaking, and the chattering of the girls, I know I’m just hearing things.

A few moments later, however, a black stallion gallops past us and cuts off our horses. Willie yells, “Whoa!” and yanks back on the reins as we narrowly avoid a collision with the stallion and its rider.

It’s Sam!

He jumps down from the steed, apologizes for stopping us, and runs around to my side of the wagon.

“Ellen! I can’t let you go. Please don’t leave.”

I burst into tears.

Willie stands up in his driver’s seat. “Sam, you know it’s not acceptable for her to stay with you. She is a proper woman and you are a single man.”

“Then I shall fix that.” He backs up a couple steps and kneels down on one knee. He removes his hat and places it over his heart. “Ellen, will you please do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

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“An Orphan’s Heart” is available in Kindle, Nook, and paperback.

Wednesday Writer’s Corner – Concept to Self-Published

Posted on by Lori Crane

Wednesday Writer’s Corner

Want to self-publish? Here’s how to write a novel and publish it.

Concept – You need a story—a beginning, a middle, an end. By beginning I don’t mean, “She was born on a stormy night in a small hamlet in Germany.” Yeah, we were all born. I hope you have something better than that. By beginning I mean, set up your story/problem/drama in the first fifty pages. Get my interest.

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Outline – Amateur writers LOVE to skip this step. They like to give the story the freedom to wander where it wants. Their finished product always ends up reading exactly like that—a jumbled mess of confusion. Draw a definitive line in the sand. Write an outline. Who are your characters? Full names. Ages. Physical features. Personality. Vocation. What town do they live in? In what year? How does the story start? What are the key elements you need to include to make the ending make sense? Even if you never mention the heroine’s middle name in the book, at least you have a solid concept of who she is before you even start writing. Write a mock Table of Contents and a sentence or two describing what will happen in each chapter. Of course you can and will change it as your story develops. I always end up adding chapters when I realize I can’t get there from here, but at least I’m not starting with a jumbled mess and ending with worse.

Rough Draft – Some writers like to add the five senses and character development as they go. That makes for a long time to finish the rough draft. Whatever works for you is fine. Personally, I don’t have that kind of patience. I like to get the story down on paper—beginning to end. I go back later and add all the details.

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Rewrite – No matter how complete your rough draft is, your story will change as you write, so you have to go back to the beginning and adjust the details. Did attitudes change? Did ages change? Does it make more sense to have her hair blowing in the tornado-like wind during the dramatic climax, or does the happy, sunny day still work? 

Revisions – Use this time to make sure the scenes and characters match the movie playing in your head. Little things like ‘he yelled,’ ‘he bellowed,’ or ‘he barked,’ make all the difference. Did spittle fly from his mouth? Was his forehead wrinkled? Revise, revise, and revise some more.

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Beta readers – Find a couple friends/writers/teachers to read your story. You don’t want to know about grammar and typos, only about the story line. If they have questions about why or how something happened, then your story is wrong. Period. Anything that pulls the reader out of the moment is wrong. Ask them to write down any place they got lost or anything they did not understand. Give them a time frame for completion. Tell them you need their feedback within two weeks.  (I know it’s hard to allow people to read unfinished work, but this is a necessary step.)

More Revisions – If your reader got lost at any point, fix it. You did not relate the story well enough at that point. If your reader gives you advice on anything, look at it with a critical eye. They may be right or wrong. If they thought something specific about the story, so will hundreds of other people. You don’t necessarily have to jump on every suggestion. You may like the way the main character got lost in Chapter 6. At least you can make a conscious decision about it, so when someone gives you 1-star review because your character got lost in Chapter 6, you can hold your head up high, knowing you made the decision for a specific reason. You wanted to leave her lost in Chapter 6–on purpose. It’s a lot easier to shrug off a bad review over a decision you made than to cry over a bad review about your storytelling abilities.

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Editor – DON’T SKIP THIS STEP. Get a professional editor, and know in your heart she is going to make you change Chapter 6. Her red pen is your friend. It’s hard to see her comments, but it’s harder to face 1-star reviews. And, yes, you can afford her. Financial example: If you make a profit of $2 per book and your editor charges you $800, you will need to sell 400 books to break even. If your book is good (and you have a strong author platform – discussed below), you will achieve that within a short amount of time. Then for the rest of your life, you have the potential to sell a good book to a lot of people. If you don’t get a professional editor, you will NEVER sell 400 books to anyone. The first and only review will be a 1-star complaining that you should have hired an editor. Now, you’re dead in the water. Editors are worth their weight in gold. Pay them. Listen to them. They know what they are doing. Stephen King has an editor. You should too!

Proofread – Now you have a finished manuscript with a good story line and solid grammar and sentence structure. Proof it!! If your editor is a fabulous professional, you will not find many typos in your edited manuscript. It’s tough to proof yourself, because you will be tired of working on the story at this point, but even if you have someone else do it, you still have to go through it one more time—for your own sanity. It’s your name on the finished product.

Self-Publishing – There are a few things you need to do to self-publish:

1) Build an author platform – What is an author platform? Basically, it’s a number. It’s the number of people you can reach today to tell them about your new book. Goodreads, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, blog, LinkedIn, website, etc. Find the ones you’re comfortable with and use them. Don’t say, “Hey, buy my book.” Nobody cares about your book, they only care about you. If you only try to sell something, your audience will turn you off instantly. Talk about your genre, your characters, your expertise, your love of dogs. Write about your writing/researching/publishing experience/anything else to connect. If you were on Stephen King’s webpage and everyday he posted a link to his book on Amazon, you wouldn’t go to his page anymore. You want to TALK to him. People want to TALK to you.

2) Learn how to format—KDP, Smashwords, paperback, and others have different formats. It’s not hard to learn. If you can work Microsoft Word even a little bit, you can go to the above sites and find step-by-step tutorials. It will take you a few hours, a pot of coffee, and a lot of patience to learn it, but once you’ve mastered it, you can format a book for all of the above in less than an hour.

3) Create a great cover and title—A majority of your work will be sold through online outlets, and some pretty covers don’t necessarily transfer to those little thumbnail-sized pictures. If you are not graphic design/Photoshop savvy, hire someone. Choose a title with five words or less. Google your title ideas before you choose one. “Gone with the Wind” is probably not a good title. Run ideas through the search box on Amazon. Make sure there aren’t ten other books with the same name. If people can’t find your book, they can’t buy your book. Look through other covers in your genre. What do they all have in common? Look through the best sellers. Anything sticking out to you? Do that! Make your cover tell the story–with a clear font. A pretty font is not your friend. If you have not been professionally trained to create designs, hire someone. Your cover is your first impression. An amateur cover means an amateur book to buyers.

4) Read everything possible about self-publishing. There are books and blogs out there on formatting, marketing, covers, blurbs. (Blurb hint: Write two or three paragraphs in past tense on what your book is about. Now delete all the adjectives. There! Good blurb. Don’t bore me with flowery bullshit, just tell me what the book is about.) Read everything you can about how to market yourself and your book. You can have the best book in the whole world, but if no one knows it’s out there, no one will buy it. Nobody cares about your book more than you do, so YOU have to do the marketing. If you’re not willing to do the work, then take up painting or something.

Now, go finish writing your book.

Lori Crane is the self-published, bestselling, award-winning author of the Okatibbee Creek Series, the Stuckey’s Bridge Trilogy, and the Culpepper Saga. 

Saturday Snippet – May 4, 2013

Posted on by Lori Crane

Here’s a snippet from my AWARD-WINNING book “Okatibbee Creek.” Haha. Yes, award winning! It was recently named the bronze medal winner in the 2013 eLit Book Awards in Literary Fiction. That’s funny, because I’m sure it was entered as Historical Fiction, but whatev. An award is an award. We take ’em any way we can get ’em! 😛

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Set up – January 1863 Mississippi. The Civil War is in full swing. Mary Ann Carpenter owns an old general store in town where the war’s casualty lists are periodically posted. Four of her brothers and her husband, Rice, are off fighting in the war, and she has not heard from any of them in a while and is understandably worried.

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Martha Jane yells up the stairs, “Mary, there’s a gentleman here. He says he has to see you.”

I return to my room to get my day cap. I smooth down my wrinkled dress and head downstairs.

When I reach the bottom of the stairs, I see him. I do not recognize his face, but I recognize his clothing. He is a Confederate soldier. He is standing in the open doorway of the store with the gray, cloudy sky at his back. He is dressed in a wrinkled gray uniform with a dirty yellow cummerbund. His trousers have holes in them, with mud caked around the bottoms of his pant legs. His jacket is missing some buttons, and he looks quite thin and weary. He is wearing shoes that are covered in red Mississippi mud and probably have no soles on the bottom. He is holding his tattered hat and a piece of paper in his dirty hands.

“Hello, sir, what can I do for you?” I ask as I approach.

“Hello, ma’am.” He nods. “Are you Mrs. Carpenter?”

“Yes, I am. And who are you, may I ask?”

“Private Joseph Brown, ma’am. Captain asked me to deliver the latest casualty list to you in person.” He holds the folded piece of paper toward me and looks down at the floor, like a child in trouble for doing something wrong.

“Why are you delivering this? It usually comes by a mail carrier,” I ask as I reach for the paper. I look at the boy’s face. He nervously avoids my eyes and keeps staring at the floor.

“Why are you delivering this to me?” I repeat.

“I promised I would. I’m sorry, ma’am. Goodbye, ma’am,” he murmurs, and backs out the open door.

I look at the piece of paper in my hand for a long time, wondering if I can open it. I don’t know whose names are on this paper, but I suspect the worst, and I don’t want to read it. My eyes sting with tears as I dread a simple piece of paper. I try to unfold it, but my hands are shaking, so I stop and hold it to my chest. I take a deep breath.

Martha Jane stands behind me, not saying a word or making a sound.

“Martha Jane, will you please go upstairs and mind the children for a few minutes?” I ask her.

She nods and quietly heads up the stairs.

I walk outside across the wooden porch and down the two stone steps onto the ground. I walk across the dirt road that is now filled with puddles of red mud from the rain. I keep walking straight ahead. I walk into the overgrown field across the road. I walk with purpose, with determination, like I have somewhere important to go. I want to run. I want to run away and never come back. I keep walking.

In the middle of the field, the thunder sounds above my head. I stop and look up at the ominous clouds that are almost as threatening as the piece of paper I hold in my hand. My hands are shaking as I slowly unfold it and smooth it open. My stomach feels like it has a hole in it. My eyes fill with tears. My hands are now trembling so violently, I almost can’t read it. The name at the top is the only name I see.

“Carpenter, Rice Benjamin: killed in battle 31 December, 41st Mississippi Infantry, Co C.”

Drops of water fall onto the page, but I can’t tell if they are raindrops or teardrops. Even God Himself is crying.

All I’ve wanted the last seven months is for my husband to come home and hold me and tell me everything will be all right. All I’ve done for the last seven months is managed the store and the family, and I’ve waited—waited for Rice to come home. I’ve waited and I’ve prayed and I’ve done everything possible in preparation for him to come home to me.

I’ve dreamed of his homecoming. I’ve dreamed of taking up our lives where we left off. I’ve imagined us having more children. I’ve wished for his arms around me. I’ve seen his blue eyes in my dreams so often and heard his laughter ringing in my head over and over. I’ve pictured his beautiful Carpenter smile as he runs up the road and takes me in his arms. My heart always feels like bursting at the thought of seeing him again. I’ve imagined our happy reunion hundreds of times.

Now what?

There will be no homecoming. There will be no funeral. There will be no body. There will be no goodbye. It’s just over. My heart is ripping out of my chest in a pain I can’t even try to describe. My future is gone. My past is gone. My present is gone. Everything is gone. It all died with Rice.

I stand in the middle of the field in a blinding thunderstorm, holding a wet piece of paper that is all that is left of my husband, and I scream at the top of my lungs.

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“Okatibbee Creek” is available in Kindle and paperback at Amazon, and Nook and paperback at Barnes & Noble.  Also in ebook at Sony and Kobo.

Lunch and Literature in 1812

Posted on by Lori Crane

Tomorrow I’m having lunch at the Sawyer House.

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The property is located in Monroe, Michigan. There have been two homes built on the property. The original house was built by Francois Navarre on land given to him by the Potawatomi Tribe. The house is named after one of its residents, Dr. Alfred Sawyer, who lived there from 1859-1870. The original house was demolished and a new one built in 1873. Dr. Sawyer never lived in the current house, but it remained in his family until his daughter donated it to the city of Monroe in 1973.

Following lunch, my ladies from the United States Daughters of 1812 are having a bench dedication at the River Raisin National Battlefield, commemorating the bicentennial of the War of 1812.

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My 1812 soldier is Hays Rodgers.

While I was writing this little blurb, my phone rang and a lady told me my book “Okatibbee Creek” won the bronze medal in Literary Fiction at the 2012 eLit Book Awards. Check the book out on Amazon. The book is about Hays Rodgers’s daughter. “Wow, that’s a weird coincidence,” said the award-winning author. 🙂

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A to Z Challenge – V is for Versatile Blogger Award

Posted on by Lori Crane

V is for Versatile Blogger Award

This couldn’t have come on a better day. Yay for V!

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Yay!!! I love these things. Thank you so much for nominating me, Will!  Check out his blog HERE! He is a university student and an up and coming young author.

All right, seven things about me you don’t already know…

1) I hate the sound of an ironing board opening and the blinding sideways sun in the morning. Ugh.

2) Chocolate is the best part of the day.

3) I am an only child.

4) My bucket list consists of 3 things: going to Aruba, buying a grand piano, and seeing the pyramids. I’ve yet to see the pyramids.

5) I’m convinced I’m going to die in my 50s…better get to Egypt pretty soon.

6) I’ve visited 35 states.

7) I went on a snow-train trip through a canyon in Canada one winter. It was white.

In the spirit of the award, my diverse and versatile nominees are…

Mama Bear – I’m just amazed she signed up for “A Post a Day 2013” and is actually doing it. Go over and give her some encouragement.

Denise – Her blog is like going on vacation without leaving the comfort of your couch.

P.C. Zick – Fabulous author currently on a virtual book tour. Hurry over there and catch up with her. And don’t forget to pick up her new book Trails In The Sand. I’m reading it now. LOVE it!

That’s all I have time for at the moment. I may come back and add a few more folks later.

A to Z Challenge – N is for Narration

Posted on by Lori Crane

Blogging from A to Z April 2013 Challenge

N is for Narration

Do you have a book out? Have you thought about turning it into an audio book?

If you hire someone to narrate it, you will pay between $200 and $400 per finished hour. Ouch. Or you can cut a deal with a narrator at ACX (Audiobook Creation Exchange) for 50% of your profits for 10 years. Double Ouch. However, most will not cut a deal with you unless you have at least three books out and they are all selling well. If you bypass the professionals and ask your brother-in-law who knows a guy in a band who has a musician friend who owns a studio AND sweet talk the cute neighbor with the really great voice do it, it could be an ouch to your pocketbook and a big Oh No to your listeners.

So, that leaves you with very limited options, the most obvious being, do it yourself!

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You CAN do it yourself with a very limited budget and a great deal of patience. You can buy recording software, a USB converter box, headphones, a microphone, a mic stand, mic cord, and windscreen….and action! Before you hit the record button, there are a few things to keep in mind. I have been a recording profession my whole life, so I know a thing or two about studio production. Besides the obvious task of checking with the site you will upload it to for their specifications, do/don’t do the following:

1. Don’t wear jewelry. Jingle-jangles wreck your story.

2. Don’t wear clothing that rubs. Leather, corduroy, nylon are all no-nos. Tshirts and sweats are good studio clothes.

3. Don’t eat or drink anything that makes your mouth sticky, but do eat something light before you record, so your stomach doesn’t growl in the middle of the best scene.

4. Get a nice level (volume) on your screen, somewhere close to the loudest without going into the red. Red is bad.

5. Sit as close to the microphone as possible and read the script from something silent – try your ipad.

6. Get rid of all animals, ticking clocks (including watches, covered in #1), cell phones, and don’t record while your furnace or air conditioner is running. Florescent light also make a humming noise. Turn them off.

7. Sit up straight so you are breathing well. Posture is everything. In life, too.

8. Read the story as if you’re reading it to a child, with lots of inflection. Monotone is monotonous.

9. THE. MOST. IMPORTANT. ITEM. Read  s  l  o  w  l  y. Even when the climax is coming, read higher and louder, but DO NOT speed up…E V E R.

10. Record each chapter beginning with “Chapter 1, The Beginning.” Add a two second pause then start the chapter. Save the chapters in separate files named ‘chapter1’ ‘chapter2’ etc.

11. Include three additional files: A) The Opening: Title, written by, narrated by. B) The Closing: This has been title, written by, narrated by, copyright year and publisher, production copyright year and publisher. C) The Sample: A sample file consisting of 1-5 minutes of the story. You can choose any part you want, but it should not contain The Opening, Closing, or Chapter Name, just the story. This will be used by Audible, Amazon, or wherever you upload it to to give potential customers a sample of your story and your voice.

12. Pack your patience. You will not be able to read a whole book in one day. Don’t even try. Even professionals will only do a chapter or two per day. Your voice can’t take it, neither can your brain. It’s a lot of work. Take frequent breaks – every 10-15 minutes. Rest your vocal chords for a few minutes, sip water, stand up and stretch. Vocal chords are a muscle. Work them, then let them rest.

13. Be brave and give it a try. No one knows your story like you do. You may not like the sound of your own voice, but everyone else loves it. What are you waiting for? Maybe you will be the BEST narrator ever, and I will see you next year as one of the ‘talents’ on ACX.

Good Luck!!

A to Z Challenge – I is for ISBN

Posted on by Lori Crane

Blogging from A to Z April 2013 Challenge

I is for ISBN

Or

Everything You Never Wanted To Know About The Dreaded Card Catalogue

The nine-digit Standard Book Number (SBN) was created by Gordon Fosters in 1965. In 1970, the International Organization for Standardization created the ten-digit ISBN. The nine-digit can become a ten-digit by adding the digit 0 to the front. In 2007, the book world began using a thirteen-digit number. Every medium needs its own individual ISBN number: paperback, hardcover, 2nd edition, ebook, etc.

The digits are divided by dashes, as in 978-0-9883545-0-0. (That’s my ISBN for my paperback “Okatibbee Creek.”)

The first group of numbers indicated the language, with 978 and 979 being English.

The second group is one to five digits and indicates the country; 0 or 1 for English speaking, 2 for French, 3 for German, and so on. The more obscure the country, the longer the number.

The third group is the publisher code. Here’s the rub on that one. No agency offers a listing of those numbers, so you couldn’t look up the catalogue of a publisher’s works if you tried.

The final digit is the check digit. It’s a whole crazy modular mathematical calculation that goes something like: Take the first twelve numbers and multiply them by 1 and 3 alternately. Then add those numbers up and divide by 10. Subtract the leftover. Whatever remains is the “check digit” or more simply “the last number.”  All right, here, I’ll show you using my number.

978-0-9883545-0-0

(9×1) + (7×3) + (8×1) + (0x3) + (9×1) + (8×3) + (8×1) + (3×3) + (5×1) + (4×3) + (5×1) + (0x3) =

9 + 21+ 8 + 0 + 9 + 24 + 8 + 9 + 5 + 12 + 5 + 0 =

110 / 10 = 11

1-1 = 0

Or something like that…

When you publish a book, you must obtain an ISBN number from your country, and then you can sell your book around the world. Note that ebooks are not required to have an ISBN. Here in the States, ISBN numbers run $125 each, but in Canada, they are managed by the government and are free. Go figure.

If you have a block of ten-digit ISBNs sitting around, you can turn them into thirteen digits by adding the language code (978) up front and the check digit at the end. Good luck with that.

Don’t even get me started on barcodes.

Here ends our class for today.

A to Z Challenge – H is for Hays

Posted on by Lori Crane

Blogging from A to Z April 2013 Challenge

H is for Hays

I write a lot about my Rodgers ancestors, but playing just as an important role in the fact that I am sitting here are my Hays ancestors.

My fifth great grandma was Elizabeth “Elly” Hays. She was born just before the start of the Revolutionary War either in Tennessee or North Carolina to Samuel Hays and Elizabeth Pricilla Brawford. Records say North Carolina, but her father was born and died in Davison County, Tennessee, so NC seems strange. Her little brother, Charles, was also born in NC, so it is possible the family lived there for a while. And her paternal grandfather died in NC, so the family definitely had a connection there. I haven’t researched her thoroughly (yet), but it looks like she was the only girl with at least four brothers.

Elly was sixteen when she married James Rodgers in Tennessee on 20 Dec 1790. She birthed twelve children. In 1811, the family packed up and moved to the eastern Mississippi Territory – a place called Alabama, which wouldn’t become a state for a few more years. You know how difficult it is going on a road trip with little kids in the car? Imagine being on a wagon for days with a dozen of the little rug rats and not a McDonalds in sight.

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This was a time in history when the U. S. was flexing its political muscle and tensions were escalating, leading up to the War of 1812. And little did the Rodgers family know, they were moving into Creek territory. Not only were the Creek Indians fighting the U.S. Government, they had also broken into two sanctions and were fighting amongst themselves. The Rodgers family moved into the middle of a rat’s nest. They were harassed for years by the marauding Indians, taunting them and stealing their livestock, and the final straw, burning down their home.

In 1815, her two eldest sons, Hays (named after momma’s family) and Absolom, joined the Mississippi Militia to help fight off the hostile Creek Indians, and following the boy’s discharges in 1818, the family moved west to Lauderdale County, Mississippi.

Her husband died in Mississippi eight years later, and she moved back to Clarke County, Alabama and probably lived with her daughter Elizabeth. She died in Alabama in 1839 at the age of 65.

Elizabeth Hays Rodgers is the heroine of my coming book “Elly Hays” which is the third book in the Okatibbee Creek Series. It will be released Winter 2013.