That might be the question on my friends’ lips, as I’ve well nigh disappeared from polite society for the last several weeks. I didn’t realize how long I’d been “under the radar” until last night, when I glanced at an entry in my personal journal and saw that I went silent the second week of January.
That was three months ago.
After years of researching and writing about Penniman, I realized that this book would never be completed unless I made it my raison d’être and singularly devoted myself to that task. For the last 90 days, I’ve spent 10-12 hours a day, seven days a week, finishing up this manuscript with a few days off from time to time. There were days that I worked for 16 hours straight. Not a fun time.
It’s been intense, and now the first draft is done. From here, it gets much easier.
We’ve been researching this topic since 2010, but it turned the corner and became a “manuscript” about three years ago. For more than 18 months, an entire room of my beautiful old house has been in a state of great disarray and extreme messiness. Wednesday night, I stayed up until 2:00 in the morning (that’d be Thursday morning) pulling notes down from the walls and tidying up. My entire collection of research now sits in five large plastic bins, ready to be stowed.
Before I dismantled The War Room™ I snapped a few photos.
I seriously thought about titling this blog, “So you want to be a writer?” but decided against it. When my children were young, my daily prayer for them was, “May these three sweet girls realize their full potential in this life.” I think some of those prayers rebounded into my own life, because researching and writing this book has required 100% of all my emotional, mental, physical, spiritual and intellectual abilities.
But I must add, now that it’s done, I’m a very happy girl. My feelings of joy and satisfaction and accomplishment are unmatched in my life experience, and those are some very good feelings. Enjoy the photos, and you can expect to hear more about “the book” very soon.
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If there was a single phrase that could be used to describe this research effort, it might be "post-it notes." There were many of these involved and in many places.
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There were a few notes on the fireplace mantel. This was late in the process. The notes on the left were the "completed" tasks. The ones on the right were the "need to be done." That's my dear sweet Mama are on the far right, smiling at me as I toil away. She passed 14 years ago.
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These were the books that I used most often, a collection of newspaper articles from the "Virginia Gazette" and the "Daily Press." There are a few post-it notes here, too.
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Early on, Teddy figured out that post-it notes were the best way to get my attention.
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The 1950s lamp was not spared the indignity of note placement.
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Not counting the material adorning the walls, the notebooks were an impressive lot. There were seven additional notebooks that didn't make it into the pile. The rolled documents are maps.
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There were a few post-it notes within the pages, too.
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When Wayne came home, I insisted he pose here too. He was instructed to "look professorial and erudite." I think he nailed it.
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Perhaps I should have asked him to "look patient." He never said a word when I started covering the walls with 100-year-old newspaper stories - you know - the walls he'd just painted the year before...
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Even the varnished door was not spared.
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And nothing accents a 1950s Mid-Century Modern house like cheap plastic banquet tables.
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All in the name of history!
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And it all started with those pretty little bungalows in Riverview, moved to Norfolk from Penniman...(Photo is courtesy Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware).
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To learn more about Penniman’s little houses, click here.
To contact Rose, please leave a comment below.
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I am very excited to see the finished product — I know that you’ll share with people here how to order it. Congratulations on surviving the ordeal to finish telling Penniman’s story.
BTW many years ago (about 42 to be exact) I lived in an apartment in an old wooden house on Capitol Landing Road in Williamsburg, almost across from where Rt. 143 merges into Capitol Landing Road.
The house is gone now but it may have been one of those that was moved.
God Bless You Rose! You did it! I cannot wait to read it! Congratulations!
Thank you!!!!!!!
Well, I never realized how much work research and writing is.
I admire all your work and look forward to the new book.
Thank you for all you do.
Congratulations Rose!
We have the same decorator!
I knew I was headed for mass confusion when I cracked open the second case of copy paper and ordered another dozen generic ink cartridges from Amazon.
I was beginning to think I had unsubscribed! Glad to know that was not the case.
If you were so organized, I could get you booked on that reality tv show for people that don’t throw anything away, and fill their houses with boxes of useless junk.
Please add my daughter, Rachel, to your list of kit homeowners. They are purchasing what is a Gordon-Van Tine house in Catonsville, MD.
Rose,
I live in a Brentwood in Greensboro NC. Would you like additional images of Brentwood examples?
I have fully restored my home which was built in 1920. I would also like to converse with other Brentwood owners.
Thanks,
Todd McCain
I have a friend in Nova Scotia who owns a Sears kit house. It has been lived in since built. They are thinking of dismantling it. Are there people around that would be interested in the timbers etc? I said I would try and research it for them. Thank you Ann Hokanson