Maps R Us by Caroline (& Richard) Lawrence

Map of the Washoe (Nevada, USA)

Reading a couple of recent History Girls blogs about maps – one by Teresa Flavin and one by Katherine Langrish – I got very excited. I LOVE maps! Who doesn’t?

Maps tell us where we are… and when. But they don’t just set the scene, sometimes they are crucial to the plot. A map can serve as a talisman or a plan. They can tell us how to reach the World of Adventure or where to dig for Buried Treasure. A map at the front of a book shows a certain commitment to accuracy. (Even in Fantasy novels, where the world is invented.) Recently a map even gave me the idea for a character. 

My motivation in writing historical fiction is to travel back in time. What better way to step into the past than via a map?

On my first date with my husband-to-be Richard, an English graphic designer and historian, we knew we were ‘meant to be together’ because we were both reading and loving Patrick O’Brian’s sea-stories. There are no maps in the Aubrey-Maturin books, so I suggested that Richard write a Companion, and he did. He ended up drawing about a dozen for The Illustrated Companion to Nelson’s Navy.

Map of Ostia by Richard Russell Lawrence

For my Roman Mysteries series, I spent many happy hours wandering the ruins of Rome's ancient seaport and poring through the guide books. Then Richard and I put our heads together and came up with our own version of a map of Ostia Antica in the first century AD. I put Flavia’s house in an unexcavated part of the site and filled in blank places with my imagination. 

Richard and I then worked on a map of first century Rome, (being careful NOT to put in the Aurelian Wall of two centuries later.) Nobody knows what Pliny’s Laurentum Villa looked like but architects over the years have had a go. So did we, for the fifth book in my Roman Mysteries series, The Dolphins of Laurentum. Richard also made me a map of the Bay of Naples, the two ports of Corinth in Greece, Ephesus in Turkey, the Acropolis in Athens, Domitian's villa on Lake Albano near Rome. Just to name a few.

Upside Down Egypt

I think my favourite collaborative map with Richard is our Upside Down Egypt map (right) for The Scribes from Alexandria. I’ve never seen anything like this done anywhere else. It shows how the Romans perceived Egypt. A map oriented like this explains why the delta is so called. Upside down, it really looks like the capital letter Delta: △. And it explains why you didn’t sail down the Nile from the Delta, you sailed UP it. 

Moving on to the Wild West, Richard and I had a somewhat easier job of making maps. My new period of research is only 150 years ago, rather than 2000, and there are many great resources.

Our map of the Washoe in 1862 (top of this blog) was easy. Richard just consolidated a couple of existing maps and then traced them with a dip pen, making sure to add a few realistic smudges. However, for our map of Virginia City, he put in several months work. I had a very specific vision of what I wanted it to look like. Richard would bring me a map, I would mark it up and hand it back. Sometimes he felt like a dog playing ‘fetch’ and would patiently bring the latest version in his mouth and drop it on my desk. The result of more than fifty drafts is below. 

Virginia City in 1862 by Richard Russell Lawrence

At the moment Richard and I have been researching Carson City, Nevada. It was founded in 1858 when four friends tramped over the Sierra Nevada, the mountain range dividing California and Nevada. Curry, Musser, Proctor and Green chose a random plot of flat land in the high desert, surveyed it and divided it into a hundred plots. They named the streets after themselves (you can do that when you found a city) and they ambitiously called the hamlet "Carson City" after the famous explorer Kit Carson. They chose wisely. A year later silver was discovered a few miles north on Mount Davidson. Carson City city grew and grew, and today it is the capital of Nevada. 

Blue Supper District in 1863

Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I can now zoom in on high resolution maps in various archives and libraries and get a really good look. One of my favourite maps is Bancroft’s Map of the Washoe of 1862, the year my Western books are set. 

On another more crowded and less accurate map by DeGroot (above right) I spotted a district called Blue Supper near Carson City. This curiously-named region is not marked on any of the other maps I have seen. I've tried to find out more about it but failed, so I decided to make something up. Towns as well as streets in the West were often named after real people. So why not Blue Supper? In my third Western Mystery, Blue Supper is not just a place but a flea-infested hermit in a rabbit-skin robe who rescues my hero from quicksand and a blizzard.

Ormsby County Building in the 1860s

Recently I came across a wonderfully detailed map of the part of Carson City where The Case of the Pistol-packing Widow will be set, with a plan of the now-vanished County Building. Built by Old Abe Curry, one of the four founders of Carson City, this sturdy sandstone structure was used for the Second Territorial Legislature in November and December of 1862. Thanks to this superb map, I can locate the outhouse, the stairs and the alley behind the building. I can also match the map to a crystal clear period photo (above) to confirm that the saloon was the Magnolia Saloon, the barbershop had the classic candy-cane striping and the sidewalk was sandstone not boards. 

Zooming in on other areas of this fabulous map, I can see stables, saloons, banks, the carriage house next to the stables, a Chinese wash house, a cracker bakery, several gunsmiths, a fire engine house, a smoke house and even an old skating rink, not the first thing you think of in a Western town. The key to the map (right) shows that buildings were made of stone, brick, wood and 'specials' like tin or cloth. It tells us how many shutters on the windows, whether a roof is slate or tin. You can even see where cisterns lay for the use of the fire companies. 

Maps are a wonderful way of getting to grips with the geography of your period and helping your reader understand it, too. 

Caroline & Richard in Nevada

And it's always useful to have a graphic designer around the house. 

Thank you, Richard, my husband of nearly twenty years!

Caroline Lawrence's second P.K. Pinkerton Mystery, The Case of the Good-looking Corpse, for Western-loving kids aged 8 - 80, is out this week. The maps and chapter header drawings are visible in the Kindle format. .  

Day in the Life of a Kidslit Author

Caroline with spittoon at Hay on Wye

by Caroline Lawrence

This month I am hectic with school visits. I try to cram these into the months of March and October to leave the rest of my year free for research and writing. This month I literally have an event every single weekday. It's going to be a marathon.

Friday 2 March was the fifth day out of twenty. Here's how it went:

5.30am - I wake up before the alarm. This is good. Go to computer and do a few quick checks. My American publishers have given me some last-minute changes to the MS of my second Western Mystery which is about to go into production, but I can't faff about with those now. Must get ready.

6.00am - Make myself my special breakfast: scrambled eggs with jalapenos, oregano, sunflower seeds and grated cheddar. Plop in a bowl. This can be eaten in about 5 minutes and it keeps me going for many hours.

6.30am - brush teeth, put on makeup, get dressed in black jeans, buckskin fringed jacket from the Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival, cowboy boots from R. Soles on the Kings Road, cowgirl hat from White Stallion Ranch, Arizona.

6.45am - In a suitcase: pack up posters, props (including my antique spittoon), a few extra books to give away on impulse. In my backpack: make sure I have food for the journey back, my iBook, gizmo to connect it to projector, power lead, train tickets, info about school on printed out sheet in case my iPhone dies.

7.05am - I bid my still-sleeping-husband goodbye and walk to Clapham Junction.

7.28am - Board the train to Reading. I was on the same train yesterday when I went to Prince William's old school, Ludgrove Prep, but I today I go to the very front. For an extra £9 I got a first class supplement to Bristol and back. Yay. It's nice and quiet in there.

7.45am - Listening to Pacha Ibiza Chillout Classics on my iPhone, tweeting and flipping through the Metro newspaper when the guard helps a blind man into the first class half-carriage. He sits at the table across the aisle from me. Pats his things to make sure everything is there. After about ten minutes he makes a phone call to wish his 10-year-old grandson Happy Birthday. I can't help listening and gather that the boy is dressing up for World Book Day. I have a brainwave: to offer the man one of my books for his grandson! But is that presumptuous?

one of my books

8.30am - We are only a few stops from the end of the line: Reading. I know the man is getting off there. I take the plunge, tell him I couldn't help overhearing. I am a kidslit author on the way to a school... would his grandson like a signed book for his birthday? Roman or Western? The man is thrilled. It's his nephew and he'd like the Western. It's only after I've signed the copy of The Case of the Deadly Desperados that he tells me his nephew is slightly Aspergers. I get a shiver. "So is the main character of this book," I say.

8.40am - Bid blind man farewell and good luck. Get off train.

8.57am - Get on train to Bristol Temple Meads, bang on time. First class is LOVELY. Nice leather chairs, complimentary copy of the Times newspaper on tables, empty and quiet. Free coffee, fizzy water and oranges, too! I take out my laptop, plug it in and review my talk, tweaking it slightly for a girls' school, though they have invited in kids from at least two other schools.

10.15am - Arrive at Bristol bang on time. Get taxi to school. My iPhone says it should take 12 minutes to get there. I use the timer function because I have to catch a specific train back and I want to know how long it will really take me. My iPhone is almost right. It takes just under 14 minutes to reach the school. I should allow at least 20 minutes for the return journey.

10.30am - Librarian meets me outside reception of the independent girls' school I'm speaking at. She signs me in. Tells me some visiting schools have already arrived. We go to the auditorium. Big screen: yay. A stage to stand on: yay. Working lapel mike: yay. My iBook hooks up with their projector: yay! I get out my sponge-stick, spittoon and a few books and go up on stage. It's now almost 11.00. I'll be talking till 12.00. I have to get a one o'clock train back. I tell the librarian this and say I'll have to leave at 20 minutes to one. She nods.

11.00 Standing on stage in front of 320 kids waiting for the Deputy Head to come an introduce me. I'm never nervous because it's fun and I am the world expert on my books. Everybody is looking at me in silent expectancy. No deputy head. The night before an old friend posted a message on my Facebook page. Apparently her daughter is with one of the visiting schools. "Is Chloe here?" I ask. Girl five rows back shyly raises hand. "I know your mum and promised to give you a free book. Come on up and get it!" "No!" cries Chloe, horrified. So I get someone to pass a free book back to her. Humiliation averted!

Yoda - classic example of the mentor

11.05 Deputy head comes gives brief welcome and I'm away! I talk about how I learned to write and I share my best tips, including images of archetypal characters from films kids would know. It's going well when about two thirds of the way through the talk my Yoda slide won't come up. In fact the whole powerpoint show has frozen! Aha! From up on stage I can see the problem: the power cable to my computer was never plugged in. Poor little critter is almost out of battery. Still talking, I go across the stage, down a few steps and plug it in. Success! Yoda appears to great acclaim to illustrate the "mentor" archetype.

12.00 I finish with my now-famous sponge-stick routine (the spongia was Roman toilet paper) because it is good to go out with a bang. Nice applause and a thank you from the librarian, then I go down to sign books. We sell about 40 which is very good. I give quite a few Western Mysteries posters away.

12.30 I've finished signing, which is just as well. I need to catch that 1.00 o'clock train. "Have you booked me a taxi to the train station?" I ask. "I'll do that now," she says, but eek! She doesn't. She's still fooling around with books and a box. "I've really got to catch that train," I say. "I hate having to run for trains. My train goes from platform 15," I add. "That will add a few minutes." At last she goes to the office to call a taxi.

12.45 The taxi arrives in the long drive of the girls' school. It's going to be cutting it terribly close. The British Rail live departures app on my iPhone says the train is exactly on time. Curse British Rail! How dare the train be on time! Long story short: despite all his efforts, the taxi gets me to Bristol Temple Meads THREE MINUTES TOO LATE. Argh! The three minutes the librarian was faffing about with books in boxes and not ringing my taxi.

Bristol Temple Meads Rail Station

1.03 At Bristol Temple Meads, I know I've missed the train so I don't rush. The driver commiserates. I pay him, get receipt, go to barrier. "Has my train gone?" I show the ticket. "Fraid so. And your ticket was only valid on the one o'clock. You'll have to catch the half past." "Can I buy a ticket on the train?" "No, love, you'll have to buy a new ticket there." He points to the ticket queue. I queue up. Go to the window. Ask the woman if I can at least get part payment for the next train. "Your train hasn't left yet," she says. "WHAT?" "The one o'clock train is slightly delayed. It's still on platform 15." Argggh!

1.07 I rush to the barrier again. "Oh, hey," says the barrier guy, "your train hasn't gone after all." ARGH! No time to throttle him now. I have to run all the way to platform 15. Apparently Bristol Temple Meads is Britain's oldest and LARGEST train station.

1.09 Charge through the ticket barrier, down the ramp, along the underpass, WHERE IS PLATFORM 15? There! Right at the end... up the stairs in my stupid Western outfit, fringe swinging, hat bobbing, boots clonking, struggling with suitcase full of sponge-sticks and spittoons. Argh!

1.12 There's the train on the platform. All the doors firmly closed. The way they do for a taunting 30 seconds before the train departs. "Is it going?" I gasp to nobody in particular. "Not quite yet," replies nobody. I go to the door. Open it. And I get on. Stand there gasping. Can't believe I made it. Heart thudding, feel sick, going to have HEART ATTACK in cowgirl costume.

1.15 Ah! First class. Leather seat. Trolley with black coffee, water, orange. Bliss. Over tannoy the guard gives an explanation. "Because of fatality at Bath, this train is leaving 15 minutes late... but we hope to make up time." Feel bad about fatality, but glad I made the train. Feel happier when driver tells us the person wasn't killed, just hurt and is now in hospital. Have a late lunch on train (I always carry food with me). Some pre-grilled chicken breasts, an orange, almonds and black coffee. Chill out.

Caroline & Hella

2.15 Arrive at Reading on time. I have an appointment to meet Dr Hella Eckardt, ancient bone expert and senior lecturer in Roman Archaeology at the University there. She greets me as I come out of the barrier and takes me to a little ice cream/coffee shop called Tutti Frutti. They make their own ice cream. Famous for miles around. I'm going to treat myself to an ice cream after the near fiasco with the train. And a double espresso. I choose lemon meringue (after sampling a couple of others) and Dr. Hella opts for mango.

2.30 Hella is a forensic archaeologist, her specialty multi-ethnicity in 4th century Roman Britain. She's a detective who uses grave goods, decaying bones, skull measurements and isotopes to build up a CV for the dead person. (Apparently you can tell what a person ate between the ages of 7 -10 by isotopes in enamel of the 3rd molar!) A while ago, I wrote fictionalised accounts of some of Hella's bodies, like the Ivory Bangle Lady, as part of her aim to make the topic to the attention of the public and especially kids. She wants to do a whole website, and we have a good time bouncing ideas back and forth about ways to make the site fun and accessible for kids.

Ivory Bangle Lady by Aaron Watson of the Diaspora Project

3.15 Hella is walking me to the barrier when our way is blocked by a woman with a charity bucket. We bristle until she says the magic word: Rome. She plans to ride a bicycle from Rome to Reading! The three of us stand chatting for a while and I give her a copy of one of my Roman Mysteries actually set in Rome, The Assassins of Rome. She is thrilled. Promises to read it in Rome!

3.42 Catch the train back to Clapham Junction. First class is empty and I doze a little.

4.45 At Richmond a bunch of sullen, testosterone-laden hoodies get in. The guard obviously has on ongoing feud with them. They come into my first class compartment he turfs them out. They snarl at him and give him the we're-only-going-because-WE-want-to look. The guard then LOCKS ME IN. "I'll be right next door," he says. "Just give a thump when you want me to let you out." And thus the last leg of my train journey is spent locked in first class with angry teens glaring in at me, the "stupid woman in a cowboy hat."

5.00pm ish Home to field all the emails waiting in my in-basket, then to have a wonderful dinner of chili con carne and burritos prepared by my husband Richard, who is the cook in our household. Yay!

a selection of my Roman books

Just another Day in the Life of a Kidslit Author.

Books sold: 40+
Books given away: 3
Posters given away: 30+
Trains missed: 0
Heart attacks: 0
Assaults by surly youths: 0
Ice creams consumed: 1
Smiling faces: lots
= a Good Day!

Pioneer Cross-Dressers by Caroline Lawrence

Cross-dressing Caroline Lawrence

We've been having some fun discussions about cross-dressing here at the History Girls blog over the past four weeks. We have talked about cross-dressing in historical fiction, cross-dressing in TV tropes (including manga), cross-dressing in real life, sometimes even cross-dressing in our own lives, (usually as tomboys mistaken for real boys or dressing up for "research" purposes.)

My current passion is America in the second half of the 19th century.

It was an age of pioneers, visionaries & non-conformists. My own maternal ancestors headed west in the 1860s and spent subsequent decades in Utah, then Nevada, then Washington and finally California.

It was a period when pioneer women often travelled thousands of miles under unimaginably harsh conditions, wearing whalebone corsets, narrow bonnets and hoop skirts that could easily catch fire. It was a period when pregnancy was considered something almost shameful and never an excuse to rest from chores.

It was a period when thousands of men went off to war, leaving the women to run their stores, farms and businesses while continuing their normal female duties.

It was a challenging time to be a woman. The stories of female fortitude never fail to humble me.

hoping the men are making the right life-or-death choices...

The 2011 film Meek's Cutoff shows us female fortitude under unusually constrained conditions. The story follows three pioneer families and their guide on the Oregon Trail. Stephen Meek is an arrogant "guide" full of bluster and bravado. He has suggested the eponymous shortcut and now the pioneers seem to be hopelessly lost. The women have to work hard at cleaning, cooking, mending and knitting while Meek and their husbands ride ahead and gaze off towards the horizon, making life or death decisions.

They movie is a clever piece of storytelling. When the lights in the cinema first go down, the curtains part all the way, but the film occupies only the middle of the wide screen. Why would the filmmaker do that? Kelly Reichardt is showing us the world from the women's point of view: blinkered by their bonnets.

Later, the audience has to strain to hear what the men up ahead are saying. Why did the filmmaker do that? Why didn't she make the sound quality better? Once again we realise that Kelly Reichardt is showing us how bonnets could muffle your hearing as well as restrict your vision. And how the men aren't concerned with what the women think anyway.

Miss Frances Clayton

Is it any wonder that some women rebelled against constricting clothes and restricting social mores? Is it any wonder that some women craved the freedom that men enjoyed?

In my research, I have come across several types of real-life cross-dressers from this period. They are invariably women who chose to dress as men, not vice versa.

First are the women who dressed as men for a few hours at a time at the melodeon or music hall. (For more on British Music Hall cross-dressers, check out Essie Fox's recent History Girls blog.)

Then there are the women who pretended to be boys or young men in order to enlist in the Civil War. Unwilling to "stay at home and weep", many of them wanted to actively take part. Some kept up the ruse for months or even years. Some were only discovered after being wounded or killed. Others were never found out. Many of them, like Frances Clayton (above) could spit, swear and drink as well as any other soldier. You can read more about these women soldiers of the Civil War HERE.

Something strange about that driver...

But the most astonishing breed of pioneer cross-dressers were the women who passed most of their lives as men.

Some of these women will never be known, for they kept their secret to the grave.

But one of them is quite famous.

Charlie Parkhurst came to California during the Gold Rush of 1849 and found his calling as a stagecoach driver. Charlie wore an eye-patch, smoked cigars and packed a pistol. He once fought off an outlaw called Sugarfoot and his gang while driving the passenger-filled stagecoach at breakneck speed. He performed other acts of bravery and skill and boasted that no passenger was ever injured on his watch. But "One-Eyed" Charlie was an eccentric. He slept in the barn with the horses, liked to bathe alone in streams, never drank on the job and never visited the "girls upstairs". Finally, after thirty years on the job, rheumatism forced Charlie to retire to Watsonville, California. Later he got cancer but refused all medical treatment.

Charlie died in 1879 and when a routine autopsy was performed, imagine everyone's surprise when it was discovered that he was a she! Charlie's real name was Charlotte. She had been a horse-loving orphan who came west to start a new life. And boy, did she have a new life; I haven't told you the half of it!

As always, history often comes up with stories more amazing than anything we could invent.

The hero of Caroline Lawrence's first Western Mystery is P.K. Pinkerton, a 12-year-old private eye and master of disguise (i.e. cross-dresser par excellence). The Case of the Deadly Desperados is available in hardback, kindle or audiobook format. 

The Naked Historical Novelist

by Caroline Lawrence

In the History Girls post below, H.M. Castor enthusiastically blogged about dressing up in Tudor costume – from smock to partlet – for the benefit of schoolchildren.

I say: "Don't do it, Harriet! Run, History Girl. Run!"

Many misadventures can occur when you are an historical author who dresses up in period costume for school events. This is a rod I have self-applied to my own back in order to better promote my Roman Mysteries series of historical adventures for kids. (Don't even ask about my demonstration of the Roman bottom-wiper. Talk about a self-applied rod!)

I remember one time at a posh independent school in Worcester. I had to change into my costume in almost pitch darkness on stage before assembly. There was nothing shielding me and my modesty from 400 kids except that heavy curtain. You can bet I was praying hard that the head teacher would not open it too soon.

And then there was that other time, at a Famous Literary Festival. For some reason they didn't have a room for me to change in, or a more important author was using it. And the ladies' room was miles away.

"Just change in here", they said. "The school won't arrive for at least half an hour." The school (a group of gum-chomping inner-city year 9s, forty years too old for my books) arrived three minutes later and caught me in medias res behind a pillar, frantically trying to get into my stola. Thankfully they were so busy chatting and texting that none of them even noticed the half-naked author crouching a few feet away. I felt like the famous statue of Venus from the British Museum (above). When I emerged, fully attired in my Roman regalia, they almost looked impressed.

And then there was the time I completely forgot my costume.  

photo by Claire Craig

I was doing an event in Newcastle in November, a thing I now try to avoid. (November, that is). Disaster struck when I realised that not only had I forgotten my costume, but I'd forgotten my back-up costume, too. Everything except my sandals and belt. And I couldn't very well go on wearing just those. D'oh! (As they never said in ancient Rome.)

Thankfully, one of the volunteers – a resourceful librarian named Ann Key – came to my rescue. As the driver, she had the option of taking a slight detour past her house on the way to the venue. Channelling Dirty Harry, she sped through the streets of a Newcastle suburb, screeched to halt in a very un-librarian-like manner, ran up the driveway, yanked a single topsheet out of her airing cupboard and rushed back to resume her position as driver.

As we drove on through the pouring rain, I rummaged around in my backpack and found one of those little sewing kits you get in hotels and – right then and there in the back of the car – I whipped up a stola. (You can see the recipe HERE). Thanks to a greasy Newcastle rain and four separate accidents (none serious) I actual finished before we arrived. Granted, creating a stola only entails sewing the two side edges together to make a long tube, but hey! I'm an author, not a seamstress. 

The next challenge was how to make my white-sheet-sewn-into-a-tube look like a Roman stola. Luckily I had brought an ethnic-looking necklace to wear with my normal clothes. And remember: I had my Roman belt and sandals. My then-publicity-manager, Rowan, generously loaned me her sparkly blue scarf. I put them all together and grasping my sponge-on-a-stick bottom-wiper (I told you not to ask) I was ready for anything. Even inner-city year 9s.

Still, the ever-present threat of potential costume malfunction is one of the reasons I am now writing The Western Mysteries. To promote those, all I really need to remember is my fringed buckskin jacket and cowboy hat, and if I forget those, it's not a huge tragedy. After all, I still have my plaid shirt, jeans and boots on underneath.

Now, if they would only let me carry a replica six-shooter instead of making me use my naked forefinger and thumb...

Caroline Lawrence's new Western Mysteries series launched in June 2011 with The Case of the Deadly Desperados. Check it out on her website: www.carolinelawrence.com She also blogs at Roman Mysteries & Western Mysteries and tweets promiscuously: @CarolineLawrenc (no E)
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