4 March: Julia Cameron Quotes

Born on this date in 1948 was Julia Cameron, US writer, film maker, composer, and journalist most famous for her book The Artist's Way. 10 quotes:

1. In creativity, as in running, you have to start where you are.

2. We tend to think being hard on ourselves will make us strong. But it is cherishing ourselves that gives us strength.

3. As you move toward a dream, the dream moves toward you.

4. What we really want to do is what we are really meant to do.

5. Leap, and the net appears.

6. The next time you are restless, remind yourself it is the universe asking 'Shall we dance?

7. Procrastination is not Laziness. It is fear. Call it by its right name, and forgive yourself.

8. Possibility is far more frightening than impossibility.

9. Answered prayers are scary. They imply responsibility. You asked for it. Now that you've got it, what are you going to do?

10. Creativity is God's gift to us. Using our creativity is our gift back to God.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

3 March: George Pullman

George Pullman, inventor and industrialist, inventor of the railway sleeping car was born on this date in 1831.

1. Pullman was born in Brocton, New York, the son of Emily Caroline and Lewis Pullman, who was a carpenter and inventor. He was one of nine children.

2. His father had invented a machine that could move buildings onto new foundations. George took over the family business at the age of 22 when his father died.

3. Three years later, he won a contract with the State of New York to use his father’s invention to move buildings to make way for a canal.

4. His wife’s name was Harriet Sanger. She was the daughter of a construction company owner. They had four children. There was also a man named Gustave Behring who claimed he was Pullman’s illegitimate son.

5. He spent some time in Colorado during the gold rush. He saw a business opportunity catering to the needs of miners there. He opened a ranch, providing food, accommodation and supplies for the miners and a place to exchange tired teams of animals for fresh ones before ascending the mountain passes, earning the ranch the name Pullman’s Switch.

6. Pullman is most famous for inventing the railway sleeping car, which he modelled on packet boats and marketed as a luxury way to travel. After Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, his body was carried in one of Pullman’s carriages from Washington DC, to Springfield, which with thousands of people lining the route, helped raise awareness of the sleeping cars.

7. He hired freed slaves to provide services to his passengers. These men served as porters, valets, entertainers and waiters. Whether this was a good job or not isn’t clear as at least one of my sources contradicted itself, saying at one point that these men had to live on the tips they got, but later saying they were well paid and got to travel and were hence well respected in their communities. They became known as Pullman porters.

8. He founded a company town in Chicago for the workers in his factory, which sounds like a good thing to do, but he turned out to be as big an asshole as many of the super rich people today. In 1894, when the demand died down, Pullman cut jobs and wages but still charged the same rent and didn’t cut utility costs in his town, which led to violent strike action by the residents for which federal troops were called in.

9. On October 19, 1897, Pullman died of a heart attack in Chicago, Illinois. He was 66 years old.

10. He was buried in a mahogany coffin lined with lead, which was then encased in a block of concrete. This was because his family feared that his disgruntled employees might try to dig him up and desecrate the body.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

2 March: Helena Name Day

In Poland, today is the name day for people called Helena. 10 famous Helenas:

1. St Helena: mother of Emperor Constantine the Great.

2. Helena Bonham Carter: English actress known for her portrayals of eccentric women in films, particularly period dramas.

3. Helena Rubinstein: businesswoman, art collector, and philanthropist. A cosmetics entrepreneur, she was the founder and eponym of Helena Rubinstein Incorporated cosmetics company.

4. Helena Russell: character in the television series Space: 1999.

5. Helena Christensen: Danish fashion model.

6. Princess Helena: third daughter and fifth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

7. Helena Kennedy: Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws, Scottish barrister, broadcaster, and Labour member of the House of Lords.

8. Helena Blavatsky: mystic and writer who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875.

9. Helena Ravenclaw: also known as the Grey Lady, character in the Harry Potter series.

10. Lady Helena Gleichen: British painter of landscapes, flowers, and animals, with a particular passion for horses. During World War I, she served as an ambulance driver and radiographer in France and Italy, where she was given the rank of major in the army.

Helena is also the name of the female protagonist in my novel Killing Me Softly.

Killing Me Softly

Sebastian Garrett is an assassin. It wasn’t his first choice of vocation, but nonetheless, he’s good at it, and can be relied upon to get the job done. He’s on top of his game.

Until he is contracted to kill Princess Helena of Galorvia. She is not just any princess. Sebastian doesn’t bargain on his intended victim being a super-heroine who gives as good as she gets. Only his own genetic variant power saves him from becoming the victim, instead of Helena. 

Fate has another surprise in store. Sebastian was not expecting to fall in love with her.

Available on Amazon:

Paperback

E-book

1 March: 60

1 March is the 60^th day of any non-leap year. Here are 10 fun facts about the number 60.

1. The ancient Babylonian number system had a base of 60 inherited from the Sumerian and Akkadian civilizations. It’s speculated that part of the reason for that is 60 has a lot of divisors.

2. This is the reason why there are 60 minutes in an hour and 60 seconds in a minute.

3. The same is true of angles: there are 60 seconds in a minute, and 60 minutes in a degree.

4. In older literature, 60 may be called threescore, meaning three times 20 (a score).

5. It’s the atomic number of Neodymium, a chemical element with the symbol Nd. It is the fourth member of the lanthanide series and is considered to be one of the rare-earth metals.

6. A Hindu man who turns 60 celebrates a ceremony called Sashti (60) Abda (years) Poorthi (completed) in Sanskrit.

7. In the west, a couple who have been married for 60 years celebrate their Diamond wedding anniversary.

8. Gone in 60 Seconds is a 2000 film starring Nicolas Cage and Angelina Jolie, in which a reformed car thief has to steal 50 supercars in less than three days in order to save his brother’s life.

9. Talking of cars, the number of miles per hour a car can accelerate to from rest (0-60) is one of the standard measurements of performance.

10. London bus 60 runs from Oasis Academy to Streatham Station.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

28 February: Spades

In the French Revolutionary calendar, today is Bêche (Day of the Spade). Given the nature of the French Revolutionary calendar, celebrating plants, animals and tools, we must be talking here about the garden implements rather than the Playing card suit. So here are 10 facts about spades.

1. The word comes from the Old English "spadu", which, like similar words in other languages, meant a digging implement.

2. Before the advent of metalworking, people used spades made from riven wood or the shoulder blades of animals.

3. Parts of a spade are the metal blade, which is sometimes referred to as the spit, the shaft shaft, which is usually made of wood, and a handle.

4. Is it a spade or a shovel? The words are often used interchangeably but a spade and a shovel are actually two different things, with different uses. Spades are usually straight and push force directly down, making them good for digging, while a shovel often has a curved or scooped blade, because its function is to move stuff around, like Snow or sand or loose dirt.

5. Hence, when you’re at the seaside and buy a bucket and spade, you are actually buying a bucket and shovel. In North America, these are called shovels with pails.

6. Spade blades were used as currency in ancient China.

7. Some Ice cream scoops are also called spades, because of their shape.

8. The English expression, to call a spade a spade means saying something “as it is”, speaking directly and often to the point of rudeness. The expression ultimately comes from a line in a work in ancient Greece by Plutarch. Who actually said "calling a Fig a fig, and a trough a trough". It’s thought this expression in itself was made up of double entendres and therefore quite rude. Later, Erasmus translated Plutarch’s text and it was he who altered it to be about spades. It’s thought it was a deliberate choice for dramatic effect rather than a mistake in translation. Nicholas Udall translated Erasmus in 1542 and the phrase entered the English language, and was used by many famous writers including Charles Dickens, W Somerset Maugham, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Browning, Jonathan Swift, and Oscar Wilde.

9. The phrase has also been seen as borderline racist, as in the late 1920s “spade” became an insulting term for a black person.

10. Spades today usually have footrests on both sides of the blade so both left and right footed people can use the same tool. This wasn’t always the case, however. Traditionally, a spade only had a footrest on one side. This was notably the case in rural Ireland. In due course, the English introduced spades with two footrests to the north of Ireland while farmers in the south retained the old type. This is the origin of a slur which you may have heard on Downton Abbey: the Protestants in the North would say that a person “dug with the wrong foot” or was “left-footer” meaning a Catholic person who still used the old style of spade.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

27 February: John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck, US novelist and author of Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men Was born on this date in 1902. 10 facts about him.

1. He was born in Salinas, California, which became a setting for many of his books. Not that the people of the town appreciated it much, at least not while he was alive. At least twice, residents staged public burnings of his books.

2. Unlike most writers, he wasn’t much of a reader as a child. In fact, he hated reading and called books “printed demons”. The book that changed his mind was a simple version of Le Morte d’Arthur which his aunt gave him when he was nine. His fascination with the knights of the round table became the gateway to the world of reading. Arthurian legend was an influence on his writing, too, as he used some of the plots and themes. He even started writing a modern version called The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights, but never finished it.

3. He went to Stanford University, most likely to please his parents. He took as many writing classes as he could but his other choices were somewhat random. He tried to take a course in human dissection, because he “wanted to learn about people” but was turned down. He didn’t see the point of exams and dropped out without taking his finals.

4. He then took a job as a caretaker at the luxe Cascade Estates on the California side of Lake Tahoe near Mount Tallac. It was here that he wrote his first book, Cup of Gold.

5. He married three times. His first wife was Carol Henning, of whom he said, “The girl isn’t wonderful at all or awfully beautiful at all, or anything, but I’m in love with her. And she is clever.” She stayed with him while he struggled as a writer, although it was rumoured she had affairs. Steinbeck certainly did – he took up with a nightclub singer called Gwyn Conger and married her when his first marriage ended. They were married for five years and had two sons before getting divorced. His third wife was Elaine Anderson, to whom he remained married until his death.

6. He wrote a story specifically for Alfred Hitchcock to make into a film, at Hitchcock’s request. The film was called The Lifeboat. Steinbeck, however, had issues with the way Hitchcock portrayed one of his characters. He claimed they had turned his black character, who Steinbeck has written as having “dignity, purpose, and personality” into a stereotype. He asked 20th Century Fox to remove his name from the credits. They refused.

7. He had a pet Rat called Burgess. While married to Gwyn Conger, he bought home the baby rat, much to her delight. They took Burgess everywhere and he’d often sit on Steinbeck’s shoulder when he was driving. It’s said Steinbeck had a bit of a mean streak and he’d sometimes let Burgess loose when they had guests because he’d make the women scream. He loved that rat, though. When it got sick and the vet refused to treat it, he had to put the rat to sleep himself in the gas oven. In her memoirs, his wife wrote that this was the only time she saw him cry.

8. He had a Dog, too, an Irish setter called Toby who famously once ate the first half of the manuscript for Of Mice and Men, so Steinbeck had to spend two months re-writing it. He wrote, “I was pretty mad but the poor little fellow may have been acting critically.”

9. During the second world war he was hired by the New York Herald Tribune to go to Europe and report on the war. Rather than write about battles and tactics, Steinbeck focused on the human stories, such as a soldier who feared his wife would no longer love him because of his injuries.

10. Steinbeck’s favoured method of writing was to use a Pencil. Every day he’d sharpen 24 pencils before he started writing and could use as many as 100 during the course of a day’s work. He was fussy about his pencils, too. They had to be long, round and Black – he hated the Yellow ones.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/

26 February: Cinderella

Today is Tell a Fairy Tale Day, so here are ten facts about the fairytale Cinderella.

1. The story of Cinderella is a rags to riches tale that originates in folklore. Variations of it appear in folklore from all over the world.

2. The earliest example is from Ancient Greece, which could date back to as early as 7BC. In this version the protagonist is called Rhodopis, which means "Rosy-Cheeks". She is a slave girl who ends up marrying the king of Egypt.

3. The story we are most familiar with comes from a retelling of an Italian version of the story, by the Brothers Grimm in their folk tale collection Grimms' Fairy Tales from 1812, and the 1950 Disney film which was an adaptation of that.

4. In the Brothers Grimm version, the protagonist is called "Aschenputtel" which means "The Little Ash Girl".

5. Cinderella doesn’t wear glass slippers in all versions. Some say it was a fur slipper and the Glass one came about as a mistranslation as the French words for fur and glass sound similar. In some versions, it’s not a Shoe at all, but an anklet, ring or bracelet. Whatever it may be, the point is that Cinderella is the only woman it will fit. In some versions, the ugly sisters actually mutilate their Feet in order to make the slipper fit. In the original Disney movie, the wicked stepmother smashes the glass slipper in a bid to ruin Cinderella’s chances of winning her prince. However, she hadn’t bargained for the fact that Cinderella still had the matching shoe.

6. In some versions, there isn’t even a ball. Instead, Cinderella goes to church. Nor is there always a midnight deadline, but she leaves the ball, or church, simply because she is tired and wants to go home.

7. There’s not always a fairy godmother, either. Sometimes the help comes from a wishing tree, or Cinderella’s mother who has been turned into a Cow, or been reincarnated as one.

8. Disney’s 1950 Cinderella may actually have saved Disney from going bust. The studio was in financial trouble back then, and took a gamble on this film. Luckily for them it paid off.

9. Cinderella’s voice in this film was provided by Ilene Woods, who beat 300 other hopefuls when Walt Disney fell in love with her voice.

10. Cinderella’s name has become an analogy for a person or a sports team that achieves recognition or success after being plucked out of obscurity.

For a short story called The Cinderella Syndrome:

Sweet Karma

More murder and mayhem along with moving statues, Ancient Egyptian magic pebbles, a World War II evacuee's diary and a bathtub full of marshmallows.

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