Happy Birthday Vinnie

Three Weeks to Go: Echoes of Elopements, Births, and a Battle for Historical Truth.

You are invited to come to a Live Instagram Event to celebrate Vincent’s birthday! On Thursday, March 27 at 12:00 noon Central. I call it “Gogh & Jo: Unveiled” Come hear their secrets!

What’s it like to be three weeks out from Book Launch when you’ve spent 2,640 days working on your novel?

A little like 14,006 mornings ago when I woke up knowing I’d be eloping that evening before a federal judge in downtown Manhattan. (Naturally, I spent the morning shopping. A girl’s gotta look good: Picked out a pink silk dress, shoes, bag and jewelry all from Macy’s. Still have the dress.)

Or the two days my bulging swollen ankles clued me in that I’d finally reached the day my children would be born. My daughter 13,441 days ago (Fifteen hours of labor. We didn’t know the gender in advance so the nurse softly sang “Happy Birthday,” filling in our daughter’s name, in the delivery room. Brought tears to my eyes.)

And my son who arrived 12,795 days ago. (Much more efficient with about seven hours of labor. I felt so confident once the contractions started I suggested to my husband that we go to a movie? Be distracted for a couple of hours? I really love movies. His look said, You gotta be kidding me.)

Those thousands of days makes writing the novel look like a speedy cake walk!

The “three-weeks-to-go” marker also sends my thoughts soaring back to why I began this little adventure to begin with.

And of all the different types of novels I could’ve written, why I chose a genre that’s So. Much. Work.

Besides being a jump-in-the-deep-end rookie, here’s why.

The Bonus of Biographical Historical Fiction Genre

Among all the fiction genre categories out there— romance, suspense, fantasy, thriller, sci fi, and more—I chose biographical historical fiction to write.

Biographical histfic is a historical story about a real person brought to life through imagined dialogue and other story components.

Like, in my book, I fictionalize a bad guy (a snooty Parisian named Georges Raulf) to personify the male-dominated art elite who oppose my main character, Jo van Gogh. Her goal is to prove that the hundreds of worthless Van Gogh paintings she inherited are world-class in order to ensure her young son will have an inheritance.

A lotta guys don’t want to listen to her.

Learn about the past.

When I chose that story to write, first of all, I had no idea of the amount of research involved. Writing about a real person carries the expectation and accountability to do your best at getting the facts straight. Because if you’re like me, you read historical fiction to learn something. Lots of people Google as they read to learn a little more.

Be inspired by real people.

Secondly, biographical histfic can carry a double impact because the stories are about a real person—oftentimes heroic and courageous, acting against all odds and as an underdog—persisting. My problems tend to pale when I know the obstacles Jo faced.

Acknowledge women’s untold stories.

And last, I write in the biographical histfic genre because I believe it’s important to acknowledge untold stories, especially about women and marginalized people who have been overlooked in history.

There is so much more beyond the official historical record. So often, it simply regurgitates the status quo for that time, leaving out and even erasing voices outside those in power.

So strange that when I started out I had no idea how timely this topic would be.

Just recently, the deletion of Indigenous, Black, Hispanic, and female veterans from our military history is an attempt to elevate white men as the sole actors in our history. What’s this policy’s point? It feels like it’s to get rid of evidence and the vision of a country in which Americans of all backgrounds come together to work—and fight—for the common good.

Such an arrogant, adolescent idea: That leadership and genius can only come from one segment of society—especially because evidence is all around us that it does not.

Jo’s forgotten story then, sits alongside other brave women’s historical actions, which is exactly what March’s Women’s History Month is all about.

I love these words from historian Pamela Toler: “Here's the deal: if you leave women warriors—or scientists, or mathematicians, or linguists, or authors—out of the historical records, it is easy to say that, with a few exceptions, women never fought, or made discoveries, or made a difference. If we don't show up in the history books, it's easy to forget that women calculated rocket trajectories for NASA. Or were instrumental in discovering DNA. Or trained to be astronauts alongside the men of Mercury 7. Or painted in the Renaissance. Looking at historical women warriors is important not just because we are involved in continuing debates about the role of women in the modern military, but because they are part of what journalist Rachel Swaby describes as ‘a hidden history of the world.’”

Elevating stories like these is why I chose the biographical historical fiction genre.

Happy 135th Birthday, Vince!

62,817 days ago Vincent wrote to Theo: “It must be truly good, when one dies, to be conscious of having done a thing or two in truth, knowing that as a result one will continue to live in the memory of at least a few, and having left a good example to those who follow.” [Letter 142, Amsterdam, March 3, 1878].

I like this. How Vincent had no clue that his work would become a worldwide phenomenon and that he simply aspired to do “a thing or two in truth.”

This feels doable.

Like my book, elopement and babies, whatever life event you’re earnestly anticipating or trailhead you’ve paused before, may you celebrate!

Warmly,