Seeking Loose Spirits
Hello, ducklings. If my note on Quarrelsome Women wasn't enough of a giveaway, I have been buried up to my bountiful bosom in research on the Salem witch trials. Why have I been cartwheeling down this well worn path? Because I hate myself, apparently. I'm joking (kind of). I decided to write a novel and I chose one of the lesser known but terribly interesting victims of the trials as my central protagonist. Why would I say I hate myself? To start, I am not a historian. I'm a hobbyist. I don't have the patience or education to decipher seventeenth century handwriting or make sense of the non-standard spellings used. Praise Danu for the advent of standardized spelling and the Palmer method of penmanship. I will say that, particularly in the case of Salem, trying to recreate the dialect based how certain words are spelled in the transcripts has been a fun challenge for someo...