Author site for Wendy MacGown
Mechanized Series Book 1
In a world where procreation is a chore and addiction is killing the population, Franny Murphy is exiled upon her youngest child’s 18th birthday. Betrayed by her uncle, the High Council President, she becomes the voice of the resistance.
In a world where procreation is a chore and addiction is killing the population, Franny Murphy is forced from the only home she’s ever known upon her youngest daughter’s eighteenth birthday. The Separation, whereby those bearing and raising children are sequestered from the rest of the population, is the Law.
She becomes addicted to quench, a deadly and readily available depression medication, and then fights to recover. It takes years to build a life for herself and her lover, Matt. Rooted on Earth Satellite One, she struggles with a jilted lover and her estranged older offspring, who’d chosen child-free lives.
The High Council President grooms her as his successor, yet seeks another successor among her children and her jilted lover. She takes a one-way trip to the Moon Colony hospice, to care for Matt, who’d only pretended addiction recovery. Granted all-access as a resident, she broadcasts her plea for change as Athena, the voice of the Resistance.
I planned the trip for months—not in any detail—to immerse myself in a book setting for a historical novel. My book is about my fifth great-grandmother, Rhoda Mott, born in 1783 to a Quaker family in Dartmouth, Massachusetts—less than a two hour drive from my home.
I dithered, of course, between the beginning and the end of March. As the clock ticked toward Rhoda’s birthday, March 20th, I found the time to list the meeting houses, cemeteries, and beaches I wanted to visit, the closest MacDonald’s for bathroom breaks, and where to dine that night. List in hand, I booked a New Bedford hotel with a waterfront view for March 20, 2023—Rhoda’s 240th birthday—and the day after mine.
I expected to find her gravestone. I expected to stand beside the Apponegansett Meeting House in Dartmouth, where she’d worshipped as a child, and feel her presence, to see evidence of her and her family.
I saw a grid of roads with modern chain stores, restaurants, and gas stations north of the peninsula that comprises Dartmouth and Westport, on the border of Rhode Island, where Quakers settled after fleeing the Puritans in the 1600s. Both towns are important to my story.
While Rhoda was born and raised in Dartmouth, her husband, Moses Baker, was born in Westport. The young couple lived in Westport during their early married life. Starting at sixteen years old, Rhoda gave birth to Abigail, Charles, Asa, and Jeremy. After Charlie died at three, they moved to Dartmouth where their daughter, Mehitable was born.
The two towns are long strips, with roads running south from the commerce area, curving past rivers, streams, and through salt marshes to the sea. Along those roads lay working hay farms, evidenced by mounds of white-shrouded round bales and cropped fields sectioned off by fieldstone walls. A small village, rife with tourist shops, retains a Yankee charm. The Padanaram bridge, built in 1936, spans where Rhoda crossed by ferry.
I drove down long and winding roads, trees waving above like a whistling cathedral.
Seeing the signs for Hathaway Road, a main road off the highway, brought tears to my eyes. Lemuel Hathaway, just seventeen, married Abigail Mott, Rhoda’s twenty-year-old sister in haste—outside of the meeting system. Abby needed to go to Maine with Lem—no time for long discourse between parents about the rightness of their union; she was two months pregnant. In leisure, about to deliver in the depths of a frigid Maine winter, she repented, begging the Dartmouth Meeting’s mercy for her disobedience. Lemuel was the second recorded man and first Quaker to purchase land in Temple.
I searched each Quaker cemetery, seeing few markers from the 1700s. Most were later, with rows of children buried beside parents, and several veterans, flags waving. Quakers don’t believe in war. Many become conscientious objectors. During the Revolutionary War, men refusing to fight were often driven from their homes. It takes a strong conviction to make a Quaker fight.
I read family names passed down from the original Quakers, such as Slocumb, Gifford, and Smith—no Motts or Bakers among them.
When I visited the Westport Meeting House and walked its cemetery, I met John Wojtowicz, a local Quaker with a key. He let me into the building, and reminded me that Quakers don’t believe in monuments. It’s likely that Rhoda and her family were buried in unmarked graves. John also provided documents on how Rhoda might have been educated—key research details.
The wind whipped off the ocean, chilling my fingers and ears as I did my research, and yet I persisted—reading each grave stone, taking pictures of beaches. This is Anthony Beach, where Rhoda might have played.
The peninsula is a beautiful place where farms meet the sea. With easy access to New Bedford’s whaling and merchant industries, it’s a prosperous community. Yet as families grew and sons craved land for farming, it became too small—the opportunities for younger sons, nonexistent.
In 1794, Lemuel answered the Massachusetts Governor’s call to settle in Maine, which was part of Massachusetts. A year later, his brother followed, as did his wife’s brother and parents, who left their youngest child, twelve-year-old Rhoda, to fend for herself in Dartmouth. In 1811, Rhoda, along with her husband and children, joined them in Temple. Her daughter, Martha, was born in Maine. I’ve read that Moses returned to Dartmouth with his family, yet at 61, Rhoda died in Temple.
Some families who came in the 1600s are still in Dartmouth and Westport, their names on grave stones, marking their choice. They are the ones who stayed. Rhoda’s descendants, however, left Dartmouth and Westport long ago. They are scattered across the country in search of freedom, land, a better life—the peninsula of their origins, a faint memory.
John, my Quaker friend, said that most of the Quakers he knows are Quaker by “convincement,” and not “birthright.” People typically choose to be Quakers in middle age.
The 1800s saw a diminishing Quaker population, coupled with harsher enforcement of behavioral rules. Two of Rhoda’s daughters—Ruth and Sarah—were disowned for marrying non-Quakers. Each generation diluted the calling.
Being there, where Rhoda was born and lived for her formative years, was a gentle reminder of the places I’ve lived. Who would ever track and understand my life from each stop along the way? I’ve moved on from Concord, New Hampshire, where Rhoda’s daughter, Sarah settled, making my home in several places in Massachusetts, closer to where Rhoda began.
I count my trip as a success. Though I saw little evidence of Rhoda and her family, I gained an understanding of her experience: the loss of her son, Charlie, the mix of land and sea, the smell of salty air, the comfort she left behind to build a rude farmstead in the middle of Maine. She gave up everything to follow a dream, to make a home for her family—no turning back.
Like me, she was one of those who leave.
Today’s the Super Bowl—with no New England team, yet with Patrick Mahomes to watch, along with the brilliant commercials and halftime show. It’s a national event!
I remember Super Bowl days with my first husband, driving up the Mass to Maine coast, no one on the road, for lunch in Kittery. He didn’t watch football. Today, I’ve already planned the food, and wouldn’t miss it.
Meanwhile, here are some edits that might help. Remember, it’s your writing and you can write anything you want, any way you want—if you don’t care about your audience.
Here’s your prize: a word picture, aka poem.
Children, grown and gone, seek their own way.
Driven to build lives better than mine.
They breeze in, just visiting, their childhood home the past.
A new friend—an angel—begs me to heed.
“They need no rehash of rules, of what you’ve done to live.”
He says, “listen, and don’t speak,” with that angel smile of his.
He’s been there and is on the next parenting stage.
“Only when they ask, must you speak.
They are rulers of their lives, not beneath your thumb.”
“They make their own mistakes in a world so far from yours.
Let them go. Let them choose. Let them be.”
I wait, like he said, for them to come to me.
Here are eight tips for your writing/editing pleasure.
Here’s your bonus poem.
Even from the start, she turned her pert little nose up at me, asking what the hell are you doing?
She asked with her eyes.
I had no idea.
I learned that she watched and listened, looking for my flaws, studying how I worked.
She made him hurt me.
I didn’t care.
I am strong and brave to her, yet talk too much and not about the right things.
Triggering old wounds.
Easy to forgive.
She is beautify, sunny, and bold, and yet can be spiteful and mean, her opinions harsh.
And, yet I love her.
She is part of me.
Yay! This glorious fall day—with rain about to commence—deserves a few editing tips; and here they are. Let’s crunch five crispy leaves.
Here’s your prize: a word picture, aka poem.
Autumn Song, by Wendy MacGown
Autumn leaves cling to rain soaked branches,
Tender spring and torrid summer past.
The sun peeks out over the trees,
Embossing brush-stoke-perfect pallets of crimson and gold
That drop in soft patters on the emerald grass below.
Happy Leaf Peeping!
What’s the nature of the crone, the wise woman? She’s still alive and that becomes her crowning glory. Whether black, brown, or white, she has survived.
Female, she—raised to bow to men, to serve, to act demure, and represent herself as one of these: daughter, wife, or mother. Truth is, being a “good girl” or “good woman” means nothing to those who don’t really care. They use these names to make her comply.
She aimed high, getting an education, paying the bills, keeping her home clean and secure; while he led his own life, his every tiny contribution celebrated as if a gift from above. Why did she allow it?
She craved the couple’s promise of earthly completion and female success. She bent herself pleasing a mate, losing self-respect, his respect, and her hard-earned money.
She stayed upright, seeking and speaking her truth, causing fights. Why have you changed? he asked, refusing to listen, trampling her heart. She lost her mind in the confusion. What was the use?
“Forgiveness is the secret to a long marriage,” her grandmother once said. And so she did.
She had three men in turn, two dead now from cancer and the last one, ailing and estranged. At each blowup, she forgave, giving them yet another chance. Without exception, they saw what they wanted to see, grabbed what they could get away with, and placed her on a pedestal until she took a fall.
She wanted kids or had kids; it was all the same. They blamed her lack of devotion to them on her fierce need for motherhood. It was an easy button to push, considering how hard she’d worked to get her two. What had they expected?
They were narcissists to her co-dependence, her deep lack of self-esteem stemming from a patriarchal raising. She would never be enough; she would never be male. Bright ambition bubbled just beneath the surface of a woman too tall, too smart, too steadfast to speak in her own her defense. Too terrified to look around the room and recognize a good man’s attention.
Maybe it’s too late now. And that’s okay. Men in her age group seek women a decade younger, a nurse with a purse in high demand. Many can’t live without the catering they’ve come to expect. Older and wiser now, and fully a crone, she wants no part of sharing her home with a smiling taker who asks, “Do you cook?”
She likes having time to think and write, without someone telling her she needs to rest, she has no time for that now and can write later. When is she going to be done? Doesn’t she want to take a walk or start dinner? Doesn’t she want a man?
Well, maybe she doesn’t—at least not in her home. Maybe as her last decades roll past she gets to think and do what she wants, without censure, without having to compromise with someone who doesn’t know the meaning of the word. With compromise, no one is fully satisfied. Maybe it’s time she takes care of her own needs first. And yes, she knows how to cook, but she doesn’t have to.
A few days ago, my mother was telling me what good came out of Covid-19. She’s forever my ray of sunshine, a woman who, despite her share of tragedy and loss, sees her glass half-full.
So, here’s my list.
It’s been a tumultuous year, starting with nonstop college visits in February with my youngest daughter, Covid-19 nipping at our heels. My oldest and I, both writers, kept our jobs. She moved out, needing a more fluid bubble. Then came my then-boyfriend’s med flights and recovery, as our little home grew too small. We held our collective breath as the numbers climbed for both Covid-19 and the election results. Now, it’s just one daughter and me spread out comfortably: warm, well-fed, and safe, cheering each college acceptance letter.
We had an extended family Zoom call for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Hopeful for the future, we plan to be together for the holidays next year.
2021 will bring change: downsizing my house, youngest off to college, and the other moving into her first home. I picture travel, dancing, writing, coffee shops and restaurants, publishing my books, and having some fun.
That’s my glass half-full.
A lot has happened since 9/27, when I last posted. Covid-19 numbers are changing the state’s city and town map colors like the foliage around us. Too many are turning yellow and red. Dr. Fauci’s “hunker down,” has become my mantra.
As of last weekend, no more restaurant meals outside. My daughter, boyfriend, and I stay inside our property boundaries except for quick forays for medical needs or essentials.
I’m the official camp procurement officer and cook, like in some logging camp deep in Maine’s woods, but with modern conveniences. I’m ok with that. I get to spend time tutoring my youngest on time management as she looks toward college. I get to watch Patriots games with my sweetie. As they fall to Covid, I hope the season continues.
I keep my job, writing gamized learning from home, and dream of retirement. Two years, a year and nine month–I’ll know when I get there. 2022 portents to be an exciting year.
Meanwhile, I’ve sent queries to 19 agents. They all want a letter, a few pages, 10, 20, or 30 pages. They want outlines, synopsis, and other marketing material. They want to know comp titles and who is my market. I have it ready. All of it. With each press of the Submit button, I feel a sparkle of hope.
I’ve read author stories about how they “made it.” Truth is, few people make a living writing books. A lot of them know someone in the business. Others say they just kept writing and sending queries. They say that If you stop at 50, it might be the 51st that counts. If you sent 200, what about the 201st?
Might be there’s no market for my stuff. Then why is it that some of the published material I see is terrible–even when written by famous writers and people who win contests?
Another (and the most important) truth is that I love the sci-fi world I’ve built. Every moment I spend in that world with my characters, Franny, Jane, Leah, and others, is a pure pleasure that I want share with the world.
And so I persist.