Among the Pages by Janie DeVos

                                                        

   Around the table at the Inn.  From left to right: Margie Senechal, Nan Reinhardt, and Liz Flaherty    

     I just wrapped up a wonderful weekend with some of the fabulous women who are fellow WordWrangler bloggers.  Three of them—specifically, Liz, Nan and Margie—arrived Thursday afternoon, and from that point on until Monday morning, we laughed, ate, shared, and we grew.  Maybe we didn’t grow so dramatically that it was noticeable, or to the point that the clouds parted and a choir of angels sang, but we grew, nonetheless.  

These ladies enjoy sitting together to write.  Many times, when I walked into the house where they were staying, they were banging away on their laptops at the dining room table, with half-empty coffee cups pushed aside.  “Grab your laptop, and join us,” Nan invited on that first day, but the only trouble was my ancient laptop was still sitting at home in the box it came in.  It was one I bought when I had the house in Beaufort, SC, but had never taken the time to set up since we would go down for such short bursts.  Instead, I have continued to use my trustee old PC, with gigantic screen, and use my cell phone’s internet when I must connect to cyber space while out and about.  

“We’ll help you set it up!” Nan volunteered, but once we got the contraption going, I never got any writing done, for every time I walked into the house, we started to talk, and talk and talk and talk.  And, really, that's what I wanted to do in the first place.  These were ladies I've blogged with for a couple of years now, but to see them, to know them in person, was a completely different thing, and I was interested in getting to know them as friends, and individuals, rather than writing partners.  So, we put the laptops aside and piled into my Jeep, then headed out to see what adventures might await us within the Blue Ridge Mountains.  

One of our stops was at an eerily empty historical inn that’s over 250 years old and tucked unassumingly within one of our town’s sweet neighborhoods.  As we took dozens of pictures, we spoke in hushed tones, almost reverently, about what things might have left their impressions within its walls and wishing greatly that those walls could talk.  Another of our stops was at the Altapass Apple Orchard, which I’ve written about in a couple of my novels.  There, we ate Hersey’s ice cream on the deck overlooking the beautiful orchard, and enjoyed watching the swallows nesting upon a beam of the deck’s ceiling—the same swallows I’d blogged about several weeks ago. I was also able to show the ladies the area’s old emerald mines that used to be thick with gemstones, but are now only thick with tourists, though still fascinating, nonetheless.  

On Saturday, we drove into Asheville to break bread with a couple of author friends at a century-old tavern, where we (unsurprisingly), talked for over three hours, until we were finally chased away by approaching storms and empty parking meters. The ladies came over to my house for steaks on the grill one evening, too, and I was able to introduce them to my sweet hubby and Basset hounds, as well as show them my home that I love so dearly.  On the last night of their visit, we ate at the Little Switzerland Inn, which offers up a majestic view of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  As we sat there finishing up, a subdued atmosphere settled over the table as we realized our days together had quickly slipped away, even though it felt like we hadn't scratched the surface of what we wanted to do together.  "Next time", we repeated often, though sadly knowing that "next time" was farther out than next week, or next month.

The following morning, I watched the ladies drive away from the house, waving at me through the back window as they did, and I thought about the fact that I never did put pen to paper with them, though a lot of creativity had actually taken place.  As we’d wandered about, a myriad of potential scenes and storylines had floated through my head like fat cumulus clouds on a soft summer breeze, casting seeds for the birth of some interesting new characters in books to come.  And, without question, some of those characters would be built upon the essences of the three ladies I was blessed enough to explore the hills and hollers with on these quickly waning Blue Ridge summer days. 

Perhaps, in one of my novels, the likeness of Nan will be found in a genteel lady of fine standing in the South, but whose convictions are far stronger than family loyalty, and who courageously smuggles runaway slaves in the false bottom of her opulent carriage to a place of safety on the Underground Railroad. Or perhaps you’ll see Margie as a lovely serving wench pouring steins of beer in an old tavern along a stagecoach route, while covertly working as a quick-witted, quick-thinking spy helping the Patriots turn the tide against the Tories during the Revolutionary War.  And you just might find that Liz has been my muse for a well-loved, virtuous nurse in New York, who is also an activist working with the Women’s Suffrage Movement, but is suddenly confronted and conflicted with the heavy burden of caring for a gravely ill man who has aggressively attempted to stop the Movement, and whose return to good health may ultimately thwart all that Liz has worked so hard to achieve. 

There’s no doubt that the time spent with these women left an imprint on me that will be found among the pages of my works to come.  And though the reader may never know what character was inspired by which of these women, I will know, and they’ll be heroines I hold especially dear, and always close to my heart.