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| One of my writing corners |
A Word of Explanation:
During the almost 10 years that I have been writing posts for this blog, I have also been working on a novel about one family, my Rauls ancestors. Based on the genealogical and historical records I have found, and also German books on the cultural history of the farming class in the 1800s, I have let my imagination fill in the blank spaces and done my best to create living, breathing people who worked, celebrated, loved, and sorrowed in Kreis Saarburg Germany.
As I went along, I shared much of my research with you in blog post form on a monthly bias. I suspect that during the time I have been writing the posts for "Village Life in Kreis Saarburg," I have gathered enough information for a fair-sized cultural history. Sometimes I considered forgetting about the novel, especially when I was going through a period of that thing called "writer's block." However I kept going, using background from this blog for the novel which is now finished - at least in first draft form. That is a wonderful feeling of accomplishment.
However, published authors tell me that my work has just begun and I see that they are right. I am editing the draft now, approximately 400 pages, and also choosing a title. Then I will have some volunteer readers give me their opinions of what is good and what is not so good in the story I have written - and where it didn't make sense at all. (I hope there aren't too many of those parts). The novel will be published as an e-book and also in paperback - and I will be making decisions there too.
This means I will be changing my blog posts somewhat. My posts may become shorter and somewhat sporadic for the next few months as I struggle toward book publication (the lateness of this post shows it is already happening). But I will keep sharing any interesting information about Kreis Saarburg that all of us with German immigrant ancestry might want to know about, and I will try to keep the posts coming on a nearly monthly basis.
I thank all of you who have been regular readers of this blog and assure you there is still lots more to know about our part of Germany.