A is for ADAPTATIONS

Welcome to Yes, This Will Be On the Test.

Waving to visitors, new followers, and fellow A to Z participants. I’m sending virtual hugs to you all for taking a moment to stop by.

I’ll be sharing my “take-aways.” All those snigglets, golden nuggets, and lessons learned from other creative sources.

Since I’m from southern stock on my mother’s side, and Irish on my father’s just like Scarlett O’Hara, it was a requirement to for me to read 

the summer after fifth grade.

I time traveled with Scarlett while my kin (yes, the southern ones) took me to Civil War battlefields and even treated me to a ride down the river on an authentic paddle wheeler.

The story seeped into every cell of my body.

And then I saw the movie.

 Oh, my God. They vaporized two of Scarlett’s children among other horrifying discrepancies affronting my eleven-year-old mind.

But I LOVED the movie every bit as much as the book.

Was I a Yankee traitor?

Thankfully no.

After getting over my pre-adolescent righteous indignation, I gave myself permission to love them both.

Hey, Red Riding Hood wears a different cloak each time her story is retold in print, song, tv, theatre, or the movies, but her adventure is still a great ride.

TAKE AWAY:

I have learned to appreciate and celebrate adaptations of stories I love. I’m a student of the choices made by each new storyteller when a tale jumps mediums. "Why" questions fill my brain and I analyze like crazy. Do I always agree? Heck no, but I wonder and learn from the new spin.

Is there an adaptation you’ve loved?

Is there one that has made your blood boil?

FUN FACT: I’m named after Leslie Howard 

who played Ashley Wilkes in

GONE WITH THE WIND.

O is for Scarlett O'Hara

Twenty-Six Days of Creative Inspiration

photo credit

When we create characters, we must give them flaws. Scarlett O'Hara from Gone With the Wind hits the jackpot in the flaws department.

She is self-serving, ruthless, conniving, petulant, manipulative, inflexible, conceited, arrogant, and a downright mean man-stealing witch. Scarlett makes false promises to men so they idolize her. She even marries her sister's beau on a whim and spends the better part of the book chasing Ashley Wilkes, a married man.

 photo credit

So why are readers so drawn to her? 

The girl's got gumption. Gone With the Wind is the official handbook of gumption. She faces her challenges head on. I'd love to be that brave. 

Scarlett also had a profound sense of family. She may torture the people she loves, but you know she would die for them if she had to. As much as she wanted to flee in the face of the Yankees marching on Atlanta, she didn't leave Melanie and her newborn. When everyone was starving at Tara in the waning days of the Civil War she did everything she could to put food on the table. Scarlett was willing to sacrifice her virtue to Rhett Butler to get tax money to save her family home.

photo credit

We spend the book torn between slapping Scarlett and rooting her on. She transforms as the story progresses and the Scarlett at the end of the book is not the same one flirting with the Tarleton twins on page one. Her character journey is a great ride and somewhere along the way we all get behind her.

How do you feel about Scarlett O'Hara? 

Click on the Blogging From A to Z Challenge logo in the sidebar to access the links to all the superheroes participating in this blog hop.

Summer Has Frozen

Peter Pan has Neverland. Frodo has the Shire. Scarlett has Tara. All places that inspire, anchor, and refuel the core of one's being.


As artists we need a magical space where we can tap into our creative potential and feel renewed. Some find it intrinsically through means of self-talk or music. Others, myself included, are replenished by externals such as special places.


The number one locale that guarantees a rush of writing energy for my soul is the beach, especially the wintertime seaside.

Give me hair-straightening fog, a wind that bites my cheek, air charged with saltiness, and the silky, cold sand. I could sit for hours filling notebooks as seagulls pick at forgotten lunches, and waves tease the shoreline.

Summer has frozen, but my mind bubbles with the fire of a thousand ideas. 

Where is your inspiration fueling station?