"I'll be getting my third reading from Jessica. Can't wait!" - Grace
"She is amazing! She's read me, my husband...is doing an in depth one for me and will eventually do ones for my little boys. I can't say enough good things about her!!" - Maggie
"I highly recommend Jessica. She read for me about a year and a half ago and she was so thorough! I live in California and she was amazing!" - Erin
>Some of my published work has been out there for several years and I have decided to discontinue sales on three of my oldest titles as I publish newer ones. I’m moving into a more advanced phase of my writing and I would like my publication titles to reflect my growth as a writer. That means my old self-published short stories must be retired. I’m giving you all plenty of notice, though, in case you want to snatch up these short stories before they are gone. The files are .pdf files. They were published before e-readers became en vogue.
Here are the titles to be discontinued on September 1, 2011.
For Thou Art with Me
$3.95. Paranormal fiction. PDF e-book.
For Thou Art with Me is a limited edition e-book short story available exclusively through Lulu.com. Olivia is a young ambitious filmmaker on the verge of huge commercial success with her latest film project, a biopic about an obscure Confederate general. When she secures the star actor for the film, she travels to Tennessee to research and scout locations. The moment she steps onto General Thomason’s property, she finds herself drawn into the world of the unseen. Apparitions seemed to lurk in the old plantation house around every corner and before Olivia knows it, the General himself has come for her. Will she make it out alive?
In Great Deeds is a short story based on the battle of Little Round Top during the Civil War. Told through the eyes of a fictional member of the infamous 20th Maine, In Great Deeds shows what it was like to feel the sweat, gunpowder and blood of the average soldier.
The Yellow Lady is an account of a haunting in Georgia. A young woman murdered in the late 19th century haunts a property in Georgia’s rural northwestern hills. It was originally meant for a paranormal magazine that asked for the article to be readable like a fictional story. Although it is almost completely based on true events, some names and events were altered for the readability of the story.
Late last week, I sent off the first act of my French Revolution novel to a group of people who volunteered to be my guinea pigs. They’re my corporate focus group, if you will. Some of them I know and some of them I don’t. Even though it’s just a draft and only a third of the prospective novel (there are typically three acts in a novel, just like a play), it still has me quite nervous to know my baby is out there being judged by relative strangers! Every book I write becomes my baby simply because I devote so much of my love, time and energy raising it from an idea to a finished book, the way a mother raises a child from infancy to adulthood. Of course nobody enjoys hearing criticism about their child but there are times when a third party looking at the way you’re bringing up your child is necessary in order to discard harmful habits and inspire growth into something greater. It’s terrifying but needed. Authors, like mothers, have to set aside their own egos for the greater benefit of the child. So, my child it out there being poked and prodded by people who may totally hate it in the end.
This novel feels different than the first one. I don’t mean in terms of being more of a traditional romance or taking place in a different century though. I mean it feels different because it’s so deeply personal. I’m exposing one of my rawest nerves by putting it out there. This novel is loosely based on the lifetime I lived before Fanny Chamberlain. By loosely, I mean I have about five or six distinct memories from that time and I built the story around those five or six distinct memories in a manner of speaking by filling in the blanks various ways. Much of it is fictionalized but the core story is true. And very painful.
Why would I publish this story in a fictional novel? That’s a complicated question. There are times when previous lifetimes, especially for intuitive people, can become overbearing and difficult to overcome the more you ignore them. It’s kind of like dealing with a toddler. If you ignore the toddler, it will keep yanking on your clothes, crying, etc., until you give it proper attention. I have a long and bad habit of ignoring things that I need to deal with because there are always more pressing things that need to be done for other people. In this particular case, I have had a very difficult time coping with the things that were left unfulfilled – the things I was prevented from doing, the people I was prevented from being with, the life that was stolen from me, etc. I died a very angry, despondent person. When you die in such emotional and mental agony, it leaves a scar on your soul that goes with you into the next life and the next life and the next life until you resolve it. The next life was Fanny, who never really overcame the issues from the last life, and now, here I am, still trying to overcome the feeling that my life was stolen from me in 1793. That’s a skewed way to look at it because nobody dies before their predetermined time. Not being able to accept a death is a sign of lingering issues. The anger, despondency and resentment need to go bye bye.
Several years ago, my intuitive mentor (every intuitive needs a mentor) told me that confronting the accumulated bad energy head-on by writing it out and changing the end of the story might help me release it and leave it in my past. Taking control of it and pouring energy into the ending that I wanted takes away the power from the way my life ended. It’s taking my life back, so to speak. I thought it wasn’t going to help. I thought it was just going to make me relive things that I would rather forget. I didn’t do anything about it. Instead, I wrote my nonfiction book about my reincarnation case of Fanny Chamberlain and published it a few years ago. There was an unexpected side affect with that, though. By confronting everything that left a negative impact on me, I realized that I had let go of those things. One day about a year after it was published, I suddenly realized, “Wow, such-and-such hasn’t bothered me in a long time.” Fine, fine, fine. My mentor was right after all. Some things simply need to be confronted and plowed over with a Mack truck labeled TAKING BACK MY LIFE!
That brings me to why this book is fiction. I’m changing the ending and redirecting my energy from anger, despondency and resentment about the way my life ended to forgiveness and love. As I learned in going through the process with Unveiled, peeling back the layers of the soul leads to one undeniable truth. Anger has to lead to forgiveness and forgiveness has to lead to love. That is the point of life. If you don’t believe that now, it’s okay. Your soul is just not at the stage of development that can see it that way yet. Everybody is at a different stage of development and nobody knows the whole truth of the universe but that is the one central lesson in every lifetime I’ve explored – mine or other people’s lives.
Writing this novel has forced me to peel back some unpleasant and unexpected layers. I didn’t realize that I still harbor a lot of anger toward Georges and Edouard (their souls are around inhabiting different bodies now) even though the surface emotions look like unconditional love. If you don’t force yourself to look honestly at the way you feel about people, it will do more harm to you in the end. Don’t ignore truth even if it’s going to cause a lot of pain for the moment because things will be better after you acknowledge it. The process of forgiving and letting go can’t begin until you walk through the anger, despondency and resentment, and recognize them as valid emotions. You have to really dig and find out what you’re really angry at, not what you’re expected to be angry at. In this case, Georges and Edouard both promised to promised to protect me and they both failed at it. Neither of them were there at the end. It wasn’t their fault and it couldn’t be helped, which is why anger at them is not expected and may not even be fair. What’s expected and fair doesn’t make emotions any less valid though. Confronting real causes of anger allow people to understand them better and leave them behind.
This is just one example – one peeled back layer – of the importance of confronting things that cause you pain, whether they are in the past or the present. While this novel must be edited, written and marketed to flow as a concurrent story, there are big nuggets of my truth in it. I think the fact that it is filled with pieces of my life at that time makes it easier to accept criticism and suggestions from readers. I know the truth of what happened, so if shifting things here or there makes it easier for people to read, that’s fine, because it’s not going to change what already happened. It’s not going to change my process of healing either. There are really two processes happening here – one is to publish a novel that my readers will enjoy and maybe learn from, and the other is to confront what happened in order to leave it in my past for a brighter future.
Be kind to Celine. She’s fragile but she’s going to become a warrior.
Writing is my therapeutic measure to understand why I feel the way I do about certain things and it helps me release negative energy. It may not be the right release method for you, though. For some, creating music is the release. For others, it’s painting. Some even choose aggressive outlets like boxing or martial arts. Others are able to release it through meditation and yoga. There is no right or wrong way to release negative energy as long as you’re not causing yourself or anyone else further harm. One of the biggest lessons there is to learn about life besides forgiveness and love is to learn to trust your instincts. The little voice inside of you knows what is best.
My French Revolution novel is second in line for publication. I promised my readers that I would release the sequel to From the Darkness Risen first. You can see a list of my books at http://www.jessicajewettonline.com/books.html
Last night I watched a documentary on PBS called Southern Belle that depicts girls between the ages of 14 and 18 attending a sort of reenacted girls’ school in Columbia, Tennessee, in the year 1861. There is a waiting list several years long to the point of a 6 month old baby already being scheduled for a future class when she becomes a teenager. Additionally, every April, there is a condensed weekend version for ladies over the age of 19.
A short history of the actual school written on their website:
The Columbia Athenaeum School for Young Ladies was founded by the Smiths in 1852 and for over fifty years it enjoyed a national reputation for its quality and breadth of curriculum, which offered courses in mathematics, science, and business…studies which were normally reserved only for young men. The school offered students well-equipped departments in art, music, history, science, and later on, a complete business and commercial department. The library contained over 16,000 volumes and the department of natural science held over 6,000 specimens, some of which remain and are on display.
It was actually a very progressive school for the mid-nineteenth century because it was thought at that time that ladies could not learn on the same level as men. This school was experimental and cutting edge in the way it showed Tennessee and the South that they were wrong about the strength of the female mind.
Today, the school is reenacted every summer for a week in July. In fact, the class of 2011 is in session right now. The week is described on their website in this manner:
Today, The Athenaeum Rectory is owned by The Association for the Preservation of Tennessee Antiquities and is maintained and operated by the Maury County Chapter of the APTA as a historic house museum. In an effort to continue the outstanding heritage of the original school, two important education events are still offered.
The 1861 Athenaeum Girls’ School will be conducted during the week of July 9 Young ladies leave St. John’s Episcopal Church after morning services through 15 in 2011. Young ladies age 14-18 come from all over the country, dressed in authentic 19th century costumes, and study the same courses in etiquette, penmanship, art, music, dance, and the social graces. In addition, they participate in side-saddle horsemanship, archery and other sports. The week is highlighted on Friday evening with graduation ceremonies followed by the formal ball to which they are escorted by members of the Jackson Cadets, a local group of young men dedicated to the study of mid-19th century history and customs.
On April 29 – April 30, 2011, a condensed version of the school is offered to women of ages 19 and above. Also attired in 19th century costume, for two days the ladies participate in the same kinds of activities taught by the same qualified faculty as do the young women.
Basically, a prestigious girls’ school at the highest level of education has been turned into an 1860s summer camp and PBS aired a documentary about it. Cameras followed these teenage girls as they went through their daily classes and activities, many of them having arrived with stars in their eyes about how they, “love to dress in costumes,” and, “always loved watching Gone with the Wind.” I cringed at first. If you are the slightest bit educated in mid-nineteenth century history, you know that Scarlett O’Hara is not an accurate representation of the average Southern woman. I felt a little better when the instructors repeated that Scarlett O’Hara is not to be emulated, but I noticed that even though they said that, they still taught the girls a lot of Scarlett qualities that really amount to an idealized version of the Southern lady not necessarily rooted in reality. Some of the things the girls were taught clearly came from etiquette books of the period but fail to match the women who left behind dairies of their real lives.
Immediately, I noticed a mixed bag of mid-nineteenth century attire on the girls. Some looked like they stepped right out of 1861, while others looked like they were wearing cheap Halloween costumes. The matter of attire might seem trivial but we are putting it in the context of giving the girls an “authentic” experience of living in July 1861. A woman in that time used clothing as a way to express herself. While she was severely restricted under seven layers of underclothes and hoops, she could make statements with her dresses and the way she trimmed them (supposing she had the money to do so). Clothing is a vital part of understanding the 1860s woman and I felt there wasn’t enough proper instruction in that area. In fact, I saw no instruction. There was a clip of two girls trying to figure out how to get dressed and one of the girls wore a corset without a chemise. A chemise was necessary in that time because corsets were not easily washed and a chemise protected the corset from sweat and dirt from the body. By not teaching the girls why things were done that way, they’re not offering a real “authentic attire” experience. Curious, I looked at the requirements on their website and they are very lax on what the girls should wear. They give a list but no explanation of why these items were used. The teachers were not accurately dressed either.
Another aspect of life in 1861 for these girls in Tennessee that went completely ignored was slavery. One of the teachers was asked why he doesn’t teach them about interaction with slaves and race relations and his response was, “We just don’t.” He couldn’t give a reason. You cannot possibly understand being a privileged girl in Tennessee without understanding slavery. They’re totally ignoring the race question at this school, which, in 21st century standards, is expected and necessary, but in 1861, it was in their faces every day. They’re also teaching these girls that slavery had nothing to do with the war. I have no desire to get into a debate about what started the war but my northern upbringing chafes at those statements. These historians articulate the other side of the issue better than I could.
My issue is I can’t tell if this guy is channeling 1861 or speaking as a modern man looking back on 1861. Another historian made that point too. What you don’t see in that clip is the teacher discussing how his great-grandmother was still around when he was a child and her father was a Confederate prisoner of war. He was not allowed to even bring money into her house with Lincoln’s face on it and admitted somewhat hesitantly being raised in a certain mentality. He is three generations removed from the war and still brought up in a certain way that he whitewashes when he teaches the girls every summer. I have certain scruples about that.
My biggest scruple with this girls’ school is that they’re completely ignoring the academic education that the real girls in the nineteenth century received. To me, it sort of undermines the memory of those girls and how hard they had to work for their education. Remember, those girls were not supposed to be educated and men were turned off by such women. They were going against the grain. They were pioneers. The girls attending the school in the summer now should have more exposure to the academic education their foremothers received in order to really see what they endured and how hard they worked to better themselves. They should be taught more than the idealistic image of a Southern woman. Real Southern women have a long history of being stronger than people expected, resourceful, loving, tough, ladylike, yet still highly clever and intelligent. Yes, there were rules in society and they strove to reach the perfect image of a Victorian woman but they also had their feet firmly planted on the ground and did whatever was necessary to survive. The docile, sweet, perfectly submissive Melanie Hamilton idea of Southern women seems as inaccurate to me as the overly opinionated, vivacious, conniving Scarlett O’Hara idea of Southern women. I don’t think you can categorize Southern women at all. They were and are all individuals.
Sweeping aside my criticisms of how the 1861 Athenaeum Girls’ School is operated today, I do see some positive things. I do think girls at that age in their teenage years should be taught things that are becoming lost in the development of technology and changing gender roles. I do agree that womens’ rights do not have to mean a woman no longer should be feminine if that’s what she wants for herself. To me, womens’ rights gave women the choice to be whatever their hearts desire, even if that is an old-fashioned housewife. The girls at this school are taught manners, etiquette, art of conversation, how to write letters, etc. All of these things, while being taught in 1861 context, are still very applicable in the 21st century context. I also think this is a good way for like-minded girls to meet each other and become friends since they would certainly not have met in other circumstances.
I will readily admit that I was not born and raised in the South, so I’m not likely to really understand the Lost Cause mentality that certain places like this school embrace. It’s all about perspective. If I was raised amongst those ideas, I would probably be lying about my age and bribing people to let me into that school. Things being as they are though, I’m not entirely sure that I would send my daughter there even if it is just a summer camp. I think I would actually have to go there and see it for myself. Southern girls who love history and their heritage will certainly jump at the chance to attend this summer camp.
The thought did cross my mind, though, how fun it would be to run a similar summer camp from the northern perspective. There should be an alternative for the other side.
