Letters from Laura


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Dear Reader,

There is peace in the waiting, available to all who yearn for the better days ahead.

Waiting.

Haven't we all been waiting for life to get back to normal?

This last month marked my return to the physical location of my work. Reemerging from the little cocoon I had made at home would take courage, I knew. And waiting. Waiting to adjust to the new reality we're all in, and all the feelings we're feeling.

For my health during this time, writing had to wait too.

I took an intentional break from actively working on my novel's draft during June, letting my body and mind adjust to being back in the wide world.

It turned out to be a wise decision as June flew by, and I simply held on as change after change came.

Changes also flew into my novel over these past months,

on the coattails of a new character named "Birdie"

Birdie is a spirited but genuine character who makes many mistakes. Birdie is always losing and forgetting things because she flies around the house and yard. She can be eccentric, but is lovable. Birdie doesn't quite fit the mold of the village women. But maybe that's a good thing.

I dabbled in historical research this past month, and found excellent places to search first hand historical documents. Here's some of my gleanings.

Click the links to have a look at them yourself!

Autobiography (with pictures) of a local minister Rev. Nathaniel Gunnison and his wife Ann Gunnison

Belcher's Farmer's Almanack for 1850

Dictionary of the Language of the Micmac Indians, 1888

Annual Report of the Women's Baptist Missionary Society, 1874

Letters from Nova Scotia, Comprising Sketches of a Young Country, 1830.

Story Spotlight:

The Elysian Fields

Amos Seaman, husband of my main character Jane, owned 3,000 acres of rich marshlands, called the Elysian Fields, made usable by the Acadian dykes.

SNEAK PEAK at a poem from Jane:

Dried Wheat Kernels

Pressed Between Diary Pages

The bending wheat
Soldiered over the banks of the dykes,
Stalk upon stalk
Stooping under the weight of a heavy head

Feeling deep sky
Slide down its slim back
To the clods
Of humble earth.

My horse waded through
Its beige sea

The swaying waves
Brushed my leg

Their burnished heads
Nodded,
Tipped their cap
To me--

A stranger

To such solid devotion
To such bending

As theirs:
Easily,
Happily

Surrendered

To a heavy harvest.

Til next time, may God bless you as you wait and as you wander in the fields of this world, awaiting harvest.

In word and in life,

Laura Aliese Miedema

20 Willow Street, Truro
Nova Scotia B2N 4Z4 Canada

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