Theme Reveal 2020

This is the fifth year of being a part of the “A to Z Challenge”. In 2016 I wrote about my memories of the 1950s and early 1960s, beginning with “A is for Argonaut”. The theme for 2017 was “Fact or Fiction – Family Stories”, where I fact checked the anecdotes handed down by my parents and grandparents. Little did I know what was to unfold before my next topic, “A for Ancestry”. A simple little DNA test opened a Pandora’s Box and gave me a heap of new relatives. I felt that story had to be told in 2018 but by 2019 needed a change from family history, so wrote about “Travels in Our Caravan around Australia”.

This year, 2020, as we all hunker down to stop the spread of the Corona Virus, I’m escaping to the past. My story begins in 1915, fleshing out those snippets of information my family dropped into my receptive mind. This is my first foray into fiction since childhood, when I happily scribbled stories in my free time. I’m starting with my maternal grandmother, whose life always seemed so different to all other grandmothers I knew. She was a free spirit who rebelled against the constraints of being female in the early 1900s. As this is fiction I have filled in the gaps and made some assumptions but on the whole it stays close to the facts I have at my disposal. Considerable research has been undertaken to make sure the story suits its time frame. I am open to questions about events and settings in the story, the things that really happened and the use of creative imagining or even if you think there are glaring historical errors.

My one regret is I am unable to finish this story in one A to Z. It will end at a point where you will hopefully be wanting to read Part 2. The alternative would be long chapters for each letter. Instead they will be relatively short so that you will be tempted to take a minute to read them before moving on to other A to Zs.

I just realised I haven’t given this story a name so will choose a tentative title “Taking the Hard Road”. That may change. Who knows, the story might change too as it progresses, based on your comments. Happy reading.