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Reading and Writing… at Primary Level

Reading and writing… and instilling a love for both was the reason I just spent a large chunk of my day at our local Waikino School, the primary for our area. It holds a special place in my heart, as both of my boys attended it from Years 1-6. Their lovely secretary invited me to be their Visiting Author for Book Week, so this morning I fronted up with my laptop and a pile of books. I was warned that there were a lot of horse crazy kids. Perfect for me, as I write horsey historical and contemporary fiction!

So much more than reading and writing

Imagine my pleasure to see the growth in the school, up to 65 pupils from the 40-odd when my boys were there. Their passionate teachers and principal provide an engaging education, strong in the New Zealand Enviro-School program.

Their unique school environment contains everything from bush areas where kids can build natural materials huts and learn bushcraft skills they’d normally never see at school, through a flock of chickens, all the way to an amazing garden, complete with homemade corners of wattle and daub walls.

The teachers combine all this with the NZ Curriculum to give learning pertinent meaning and encourage engagement, letting students use their reading and writing and other traditional school subjects with these very real, tactile, activities. Creating caring lovers of learning.

Makes me almost wish I could go back to primary school.  All this provides a real meaning to l

earning. A bit more than the old reading and writing, and ‘rithmetic.

Reading and Writing: NaNo

Speaking of learning, their principal teaches the Ohinemuri Class of Year 4-6

students, and she kindly let me speak with them for a precious hour. They were a joy to work with–well-engaged and each clearly seemed to believe his or her ideas were valued, yet none of them were attempting to talk over the others. It spoke worlds about the wonderful teaching they’ve had. Thanks so much, ‘Kino teachers!

The kids and I discussed the process of writing, how I became a veterinarian, and then a writer. They wanted to see my books, which, of course, I’d brought, and they wanted a reading. I saved that for last. 🙂

I wanted the time before that to talk about NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program (NaNoWriMoYWP). The acronym stands for National Novel Writing Month for November and it happens online every November.

I told the students I’d used NaNoWriMo (the grownup version) to write A Sea of Green Unfolding, the book which was to have been Book 2 in The Long Trails series… but became Book 3. A story for another time…

Their teacher, by this time in my talk, had already registered their classroom on the NaNo-YWP website and was hooked in!  The kids were ecstatic!

What’s the most important thing to writing?

Pony Express
My horse-boys Maya and Toya

(Other than writing about horses???)

One student asked me what I thought was most important when writing a book. This tied in nicely with what, for me, is the main function of NaNoWriMo… to learn to just write.

My answer? Get the words down on the page, however you want to do it, longhand (as I do, with a mechanical pencil), on a computer, or with voice to text.

I told them about the phenomenal numbers of people who’ve told me they’ve been working on a novel for years. And they are still on the first chapter… because they keep going back to “make it perfect”.

This (surprise, surprise) holds you back from achieving… much of anything. If you’re willing to make mistakes, you’ll truly get somewhere!

As several successful authors say, including Nora Roberts and Jodi Picoult, You can’t edit a blank page. Nothing could be more truthful. I even wrote the quote on the board in my abysmal handwriting. So much for being a trained teacher. They simply couldn’t fix my handwriting.

But there’s more to life but nice handwriting… and now I use my abysmal handwriting to write novels. Long ones.

But I digress.

So, who’s doing NaNoWriMo?

For you kids out there, it’s the NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program. Your teacher or group leader can make you a private classroom and help you keep on track to the goals you set for yourself.

They have some great graphics, and as you add your “word count”, or the number of words you write on YOUR OWN story each day, NaNo plots it on graph for you AND for your whole class. It offers great visual images of how closely you’re matching the goals you and your combined classroom members have set. It’s a lot of fun and I think you’ll love it.

NaNo adultFor you grownups, there’s NaNoWriMo. You can set your own goals, but it has a minimum of 50,000 words for the month of November. It, too, has fun graphs charting your proximity to your goals, though not in so many enticing colours as those found in the NaNo Young Writers Program.

50K sounds like a lot. When life gets in the way of writing, it can get hard. But what of value is not hard? It sure teaches you to just write and not go back and edit until you’re through!  An invaluable lesson for anyone who thinks they might “want to write”.

How many words is that per day? It’s 1666.66 words/day, about five of my handwritten pages, which is also about five double-spaced typed pages.

So, What are You Waiting For?

Looking for a challenge? Love reading and writing? Always wanted to write a book?  Go to your appropriate NaNo page (NaNoWriMo or NaNoWriMoYWP) and get started! You have five days to plan that story.

Ready, set, GO!!!!!!

Back to my students…

A Long Trail Rolling

They wanted a reading from one of my stories, so I read from an exciting part of A Long Trail Rolling, in which Aleksandra is flying down the side of a hill on a Palouse Pony Express stallion she’s never ridden before… while trying to evade arrows…

Now every student in the room understands what a “hook” is at the end of a chapter. They all want to read it now. 🙂

 

The Story:

She didn’t expect to become a target…but she is one now….

Disguised as a Pony Express rider, Aleksandra is alone and fleeing through 1860s Utah, hoping to keep her father’s killer from discovering their family secret.

Xavier’s kept the world at arms-length since he ran from his troubles as heir of his Californio rancho family. It doesn’t take him long to discover his new rider-recruit is a girl—one he might like to let get close.

They finally start to let each other in, but the cards are stacking against them in an ever-worsening situation. Can they learn to trust each other in time to escape the Indians on the warpath, evade the killer, and win through to safety?

Have a great week, all.

xx

Lizzi Tremayne

Waikino School images on this page credit to http://www.waikino.school.nz/

NaNo images courtesy of National Novel Writing Month.)

A Bit of Horse Sense

Horse Sense: Learned the Hard Way

My qualifications for writing about horses are ten years as a Riding for the Disabled mum, five as a Pony Club mum, and seven as the reluctant care-taker of one or more obstreperous ponies.

horse sense

Yet I write Regencies, and in Regency times, gentlemen were as obsessed with their horses as today’s men are with their cars or motorbikes.

In fact, in two of my books, including the latest release, the hero breeds horses for sale.

Which meant I had a lot to learn. I knew the smell of wet pony, and the tricks it can get up to when it doesn’t want the bridle and saddle. That was a start.

Many blog posts, library books, video clips, websites, and questions to friends later, I still think that one end bites and the other kicks.

But I’m slightly more confident about sending my horse-mad heroes out into the wide world.

Horse Sense: from the Middle East to England

In The Bluestocking and the Barbarian, Lord Sutton breeds Turkmen horses he and his family have brought from their home in the Kopet Dag mountains (northeast of Iran). Lord Sutton’s Turkmens, a predecessor of today’s Ahkal Teke, arrived in England well after the heyday of what they then called the orientals, or hot bloods.

Finer boned, thinner skinned, faster, and more spirited than the European horses (known then as cold bloods), the imports from Turkey, Persia, and middle Asia fascinated the English of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

horse sense

From the two lines came the warm bloods, direct ancestors of today’s thoroughbreds. Indeed, the thoroughbred stud book was founded in the late eighteenth century (for horses intended for racing) and records all English Thoroughbred breeding even today.

A thoroughbred was a horse whose birth and lineage was recorded in the book. Other horses with the same breeding not intended for racing were known simply as ‘bloods’.

horse sense

If you wanted to sell, or to buy, a horse, you might go to a local horse fair. Or, if you lived in London, you’d drop down to Tattersall’s on Hyde Park Corner.

It had been founded in 1766 by a former groom of the Duke of Kingston, and held auctions every Monday and on Thursdays during the Season. Tattersall’s charged a small commission on each sale, but also charged both buyers and sellers for stabling.

horse sense

You could buy horses, carriages, hounds, harnesses — whatever a gentleman (or his lady, but ladies did NOT go to Tattersall’s) needed.

And in Regency times, gentlemen visited on other days to place a bet on an upcoming race, or just to meet and chat.

The Jockey Club met there, and moved with it to a later London location and then to Newmarket. Tattersall’s is still a leading bloodstock auctioneer, and still in Newmarket.

Horse Sense: England’s Cavalry

horse sense

My hero in A Raging Madness had been a cavalry officer. Britain had no formal studs for breeding war horses. Instead, they bought their horses from civilian breeders.

This meant the British cavalry rode horses bred to be hunters, race horses, and carriage horses—usually thoroughbreds or thoroughbred crosses. Each colonel bought the horses for his own regiment.

In 1795, the regulations established a budget of thirty pounds for a light mount and forty for a heavy mount. This budget didn’t change for the rest of the war with France, despite wartime shortages.

Here Alex is telling his brother his plan:

“Father says you are planning to breed horses. For the army, Alex? Racing? What’s your plan?”

“Carriage and riding horses, we thought. I know more about training war horses, of course, but to breed them to be torn apart for the sins of men? I don’t have the heart for it. And there’s always a market for a good horse.”

Alex buys his first stallion from another cavalry office, Gil Rutledge, who is hero of The Realm of Silence (the third novel in The Golden Redepenning series).

Horse Sense for Authors and Seekers

Geri Walton tells us about work horses, especially the heavy breeds. https://www.geriwalton.com/work-horses-in-the-regency-era/

Regency Redingote explains the origins of the term ‘blood horse’, and the pedigree of the General Stud Book. https://regencyredingote.wordpress.com/2010/11/05/the-english-blood-horse/

Regency Writing has a useful article on housing horses, and the work of a stable. http://regencywriter-hking.blogspot.co.nz/2013/07/eighteenth-and-nineteenth-century-horse.html

Shannon Donnelly’s Fresh Ink explains the many different uses of the horse in Regency England. https://shannondonnelly.com/2011/07/28/the-regency-horse-world/ This article also describes common carriage types, side saddles and riding habits.

A Raging Madness

horse senseExtract

Fear pierced the fog, and drove Ella across the carriage way and into the shrubbery beyond. The soft rain of the past few days had left branches laden with moisture, and puddles and mud underfoot. Every part of her not covered by the woollen blanket was soon drenched, but the chill kept her awake, kept her from falling back into the false happiness of the dream.

Every stone and twig bruised her feet. Her soft slippers were not made for outside walking, and would be in shreds before she reached the village. At least it was not still raining.

The carriage way turned onto the village road. She kept to the side, ready to hide in the ditch if anyone came. Alone, in her shift, and still dazed from the drug? Being returned to the Braxtons would be the best she could expect from a casual passer-by, and the worst… She shuddered. She had travelled with the army, worked as her father’s assistant, been Gervase Melville’s wife. She knew the worst that could happen to a woman at the mercy of the merciless.

A soft whicker caught her attention. Falcon’s Storm. He was a lighter shape above the hedgerow, stretching his neck to reach his mistress.

“Storm, my sweet, my champion.” She stopped to fuss over him for a minute that stretched into a timeless pause, crooning nonsense about having no treats in her pocket for she lacked a pocket. He lipped at her shoulder and her hair, but showed no offence at being denied the expected lump of carrot or apple.

“I missed you, too,” she assured him. “If only you were old enough, dearest, you would carry me away, would you not?”

He was solidly built for a two-year old, but so was she, for a woman. She walked away with a deep sigh. He was the one thing in the world that was solidly, legally, beyond a doubt hers; her only legacy from the swine she had married, born of her mare, Hawk of May, and Gervase’s charger.

But if she took him, how would she feed him? And if they were hunting for a woman and a colt… No, she could not take him with her, and opening the gate to set him loose was also out of consideration. He would follow her, for sure.

She continued on her way, praying that the Braxtons would leave him to the care of old Jake, the groom, or sell him to someone who appreciated him for the future champion he was.

Storm followed her to the corner of his field, and called after her until she was out of sight. She was hobbling by then. Even though the cold numbed them, her feet shot pain at her from a thousand bruises and cuts.

Then the rain began again. She pulled an edge of the blanket over her head, which kept off the worst of it, but it still sluiced down her cheeks and brow, gathered on her eyebrows, dripped over her eyes, and streamed down either side of her nose.

 

Blurb

Their marriage is a fiction. Their enemies are all too real.

Ella survived an abusive and philandering husband, in-laws who hate her, and public scorn. But she’s not sure she will survive love. It is too late to guard her heart from the man forced to pretend he has married such a disreputable widow, but at least she will not burden him with feelings he can never return.

Alex understands his supposed wife never wishes to remarry. And if she had chosen to wed, it would not have been to him. He should have wooed her when he was whole, when he could have had her love, not her pity. But it is too late now. She looks at him and sees a broken man. Perhaps she will learn to bear him.

In their masquerade of a marriage, Ella and Alex soon discover they are more well-matched than they expected. But then the couple’s blossoming trust is ripped apart by a malicious enemy. Two lost souls must together face the demons of their past to save their lives and give their love a future.

 

Meet Jude Knight

horse senseJude Knight’s writing goal is to transport readers to another time, another place, where they can enjoy adventure and romance, thrill to trials and challenges, uncover secrets and solve mysteries, delight in a happy ending, and return from their virtual holiday refreshed and ready for anything.

She writes historical novels, novellas, and short stories, mostly set in the early 19th Century. She writes strong determined heroines, heroes who can appreciate a clever capable woman, villains you’ll love to loathe, and all with a leavening of humour.

Website and blog: http://judeknightauthor.com/

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Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/Jude-Knight/e/B00RG3SG7I

 

Thank you, Jude and readers!

Thank you for joining us here at horseandvetbooks.com!  Find Jude’s books on this page via the Search button in the header!

Please feel free to share this post and this website with anyone you think might be interested!

Until next week, take care and enjoy those horses!

xx

Lizzi Tremayne

Horseandvetbooks.com

 

First posted 26 August 2017

Welcome to Horse and Vet Books’ First Horsey Blog Post!

I write horsey historical fiction and horsey veterinary fiction and nonfiction. Problem is, Amazon doesn’t think such genres exist. I want to prove them wrong.

I play with horses–and have done for a long time.

three little girls riding
Yes, like this long. We were heading off for an overnight. Alone. 🙂

I love to read and write books with horses in them.

I know there are plenty more of us who want to read and write these sorts of stories.

Maya NI Champs
With Blue Mist Shemaya at North Island Combined Drive Championships

I also know there are gutsy horsey chicks and guys out there who don’t think a heroine who races into danger on a half-broken Mustang is TSTL. (“Too stupid to live…”, a common complaint about heroes and heroines by readers who never leave their armchairs.) I’d never heard the term… probably because I was out there doing what most horsey people do–living my life like that… all the time.

Maybe you’re one of us. And for you, I made this website.

You’ll find the sort of books you understand–with horses, vets, kids and grownups, real lives, real injuries, real tragedies, and real triumphs.OAVS 7

Have a look through the site. I hope you see something you like. Leave a comment if you will, and let me know if this is a bit of you.

This is a living page. If there are books you need to see up here, let me know. I can’t possibly have all of them up yet!

If you want to write a blog post on a related subject, let me know on the  Contact Us page.

Scream it out!

We are here!

xx

Lizzi