I was very excited about this task, and quickly put together a crack team of hot girrls with big writing plans:
Myself (R-C4ndy), Ink-Tea, and Ms. Beverly Penn (she's such a lady that I can't help saying Ms before her name at all times).
I chose to do two blogs.
The first Amber, is based upon what I know of my conception and the time that followed. My mother is mentally ill, and not a reliable witness much of what she says is later found to be not so true. Many of the stories are a conglomeration of what I've heard from various family members over the years, but all have their basis in my mom's stories. I haven't spoken with my mother in over 2 years, and I was hoping that doing this would help me follow and explore what some of her emotions and thoughts would have been. I actually found it pretty hard to do. 1977 is so recent that exploring the politics of the time just made me sad because the exact same debates are raging every day. And trying to figure out the 'truth' behind a family scandal that is actually your life is harder than you might think. Plus it brought my mother a little closer than I have been comfortable with. Nonetheless, I mostly like it and I am certainly not sorry that I explored the idea.
Amber (my mom)

My second Blog is Delilah a 'lady' of the old west, 1881. I've always been sort of interested in the west and I am certainly obsessive. Oliver loaned me an awesome book that was a fictionalized look at Tombstone and that got me started. Then while I was in LA I spent some time reading through magazines about the gold rush, and the old time ladies. Did some on-line research, started watching Deadwood (which i am not totally into) to keep the fascination fresh. Delilah is not based upon any 1 specific person, but she definately has aspects of real women and the choices they were making at that time. I like reading this Blog better, but perhaps that's because it's not actually my life! I intend to keep writing this one, I don't know for how long, but I am really enjoying it. Feel free to friend, or comment, or ignore it!
Delilah, Old West

Ink: I've got a thing for artists, musicians, and writers; certain ones in particular, and many of them were alive and creating in the early 1920's. I find the entire Dada movement intriguing, am left heart-pounding by the Lost Generation, and a severe admiration for some of the Irish writers who were coming back and forth between Ireland and Paris. I wish I could have been in Paris during that amazing time in history, but until my I get my time machine working, decided that I'd make do by writing from the perspective of an entirely unappreciative young woman living in Paris in 1923.
I did a lot of research, most of which only colored my writing and did not affect what has taken place in Elizabeth Schurr's life in Paris. She's an almost timelessly typical self-absorbed young woman, worried mainly about finding a man to marry, and of living a rational life. I've found out more about that time period than I intended to, but it's been well worth it. I studied the fashion (and on this, I'm rather with Lizzie- the nearly waistless dresses are unbecoming in my opinion), I researched France and Paris in the 1920s to find out about things like Paul Deschanel's train incident, and even snuck in little aspects of the time period from America. Artaud, Hemmingway, Satie, Stein, and Cocteau never even crossed her path... I let Lizzie work for James Joyce for a day, and show what a complete fool she was, without her even realizing it.
Lizzie is much unlike me, but I found it connected me with her to have similar things happen to her, to bring out similar emotions in her life, even if they were from completely different events. I'm not sure I'm going to continue writing her. I've got a play that I was supposed to have finished three days ago, and though she's pleasant and absentmindedly lives some of my dreams of that period and place, I don't think she's got enough depth to keep writing. Who knows, though. Maybe she'll still stumble across some parts of herself she does not yet know. Goodness knows I do it all the time.
Elizabeth Schurr

Ms. Beverly Penn: Paris loves me and I love Paris. I also love nearly any cultural happening between 1915 and 1940. I fell in love with the book Nadja by Andre Breton when I was 22. It made me want to change my name (which perhaps someday I still will). It made me want to talk about things that no one else cared about (I do this all the time). It made me want to be Nadja. So, this was my chance.
If you've never read the book, Nadja is or is not a woman that Andre Breton does or does not meet. She is elusive, passionate, beautiful. But she could also simply be a character, a voice, he creates through whom he discusses his surrealist ideals. Who knows. I made her real, and this is her blog. I started it off at the same time as Ink and r0ckc4ndy, building up to about four entries, but I did not like them. I erased those and started over. There will be more entries over the next weeks. And, yes, it's all in French. How ambitious are you?