December 2023 - Quick Overview of Charlotte's story and My Thoughts on Writing
09 December 2023 -
I organised my story blog this past week, listing the names and sequence of chapters on the sidebar to make it easier to access. I'm thinking it might be helpful to give a quick overview of the story and share my thoughts on writing.
Charlotte Vaughn (c1809-1877) is the main character. Many of you have heard me say she's not the typical 3rd great-grandmother for that period of time, but I want to mention she has followed her heart and defied societal norms. That in itself was unusual. She was from the Welsh border town Presteigne, in Radnorshire and although from a working-class family, she managed to avoid servant life by being associated with a prominent doctor in town, Henry Pyefinch, who was much older than herself. Without giving the story away, she takes what appears to be a sudden twist and marries Henry Ince, a lieutenant in the Royal Berkshire militia and my 3x great-grandfather. He carried with him a family full of Londoners that did well for themselves, including his grandfather, a noted cabinetmaker, of Ince and Mayhew. John Mayhew of Ince and Mayhew was Henry's maternal grandmother's cousin. More recently, a consistent character in the story is Joseph Murray Ince, Henry's brother, a young landscape artist who goes on to paint many scenes of Wales and England. I believe Charlotte is the woman depicted in his paintings.
Although the story is not a conventional family history, I think it is safe to say it’s historical non-fiction. Rest assured, Charlotte is not run-of-the-mill, and although she's in a lull right now, having just married Henry Ince, I guarantee her life takes quite a few turns — ones I don't always know how to comprehend. As her story unravels, I question her motives less and less and begin to understand. I actually find myself knowing her
I also want to mention the surprise of me writing. It's a funny thing me writing a story. I have a terrible time reading books and probably haven't read more than a dozen my entire life (and that's a long one!), but I love looking through them and collect too many of them. Writing to me has always been a nightmare, even if just a Christmas card unless I memorise what I want to say beforehand, for by the time I put the words together, I have lost it. I failed classes in school, and I could never get past the "what I did over the summer" essay that flustered me so much that I could not remember what I did. Although I did my best to avoid school completely, I got through it with luck, poetry, and art. This is said by me, the mother of a former high school English teacher, now a university academic advisor who, back on her first day of kindergarten, decided she would be a teacher and has since then spent all but her first five years in schools, minus maybe one year lol. I find that humorous, yet I am so very proud of her.
Dyslexia is many crazy things, not always with words (the lexia part), but how you see and "think". I can look three times and still put my shoes on wrong. I use the mouse upside down. I count out of order. And some of my best songs are played backwards ha! I hold the map upside down but still know where I am. Dyslexia has advantages. Not quite trusting what you see helps you to look at things differently, creating outlets that bring you to what you want to see. That is a huge thing. It can be a blessing.
Spell check puts the letters back in order, and Word thankfully adds my commas in much better places, but I still prefer seeing what happens at the end of my pencil without them. For some reason, Charlotte helps me with this. When I work on my Charlotte story, she becomes alive. So much so that I trip less over my words and gain hers. To me, she writes the story, and I don't know how this happens - it's kind of like being transported in a song, one of those unexpected miracles ;-)
As it's been 1826 for quite a few chapters now, with Charlotte venturing from Presteigne to Swansea, Tring in Hertfordshire, to the family visits throughout the London area, soon she will be on her way again, but first, we finish our visit with eccentric Uncle Thomas Willson and all his South Africa and pyramid talk and stop and admire the library and Egyptian art of Uncle George Saunders. Right now, Charlotte is realising Henry's family carries their passions often to the limits.
xxx