Kathleen Bittner Roth

Living in Post-Communist Budapest

For however long I am meant to reside here in Budapest, Hungary, a post-Communist city with an incredible history, I feel compelled to explore both its past and present. I’d like to share some of my experiences with you, if you care to follow along. But first, I’ll start with a trip outside the city—my journey to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp near Krakow, Poland:

A few days after my friend Bette arrived from Texas for a three week visit, we boarded a train to Krakow from the Keleti Train Station in Budapest. The station, built in 1881, and considered the most lavish station in Europe at the time, is still beautiful today. How novel, I thought—a slumber party aboard a sleeper train, and we’ll arrive first thing in the morning, fresh and ready to explore the city and its ... [+]

BACK AT LAST

I’ve been absent from blogging for awhile, so this is going to be a bit lengthy while I explain my whereabouts this past year. Some of you know why I have been missing in action, and some don’t. For those who are aware, please bear with me, and then we’ll get on with life.

Last summer (2010), I had been living along the beautiful Adriatic Sea and enjoying the heck out of my life. In June, I returned to the U.S. to visit friends and relatives, and to conduct seminars. Topping off my trip was attending the RWA National Conference in Orlando, Florida.

I flew back home via Frankfurt, where my German husband was to meet me, driving up from Croatia. A long trip, but we planned to stay overnight in Stuttgart where his family lived.

When I landed in ... [+]

I COLORED OUTSIDE THE LINES

Oprah occasionally features child prodigies on her show. One of these special children was a sixteen-year-old girl who oil paints—in three entirely different styles. She has been called a modern day Monet and her paintings sell for $15,000+ apiece (probably a whole lot more after Oprah’s show).

The girl was discovered at age thirteen by her junior high school teacher when he gave the students easels and oil paints, put some music on, and told them to let go and see what came of it. When he came around to this prodigy’s easel and looked at her magnificent painting, one of a mother and daughter in quiet repose, he gulped and said, “Oh, my, have you worked with oils before?”

“No,” she answered.

“I…I think we need to speak with your parents.”

Oprah queried the young woman, asking her if she had shown any prior signs of this mystical gift. Had she always had ... [+]

1880′S RECIPE FOR WASHING CLOTHES

Years ago an Alabama grandmother gave the new bride the following recipe. This is an exact copy as written and found in an old scrapbook, complete with spelling errors (For you non-southerners, wrench means, rinse)

RESIPE FOR WARSHING CLOTHES

Build fire in backyard to heat kettle of rain water. Set tubs so smoke wont blow in eyes if wind is pert. Shave one hole cake of lie soap in boilin water.

Sort things, make 3 piles

1 pile white,

1 pile colored,

1 pile work britches and rags.

To make starch, stir flour in cool water to smooth, then thin down with boiling water.

Take white things, rub dirty spots on board, scrub hard, and boil, then rub colored don’t boil just wrench and starch.

Take things out of kettle with broom stick handle, then wrench, and starch.

Hang old rags on fence.

Spread tea towels on grass.

Pore wrench water in flower bed. ... [+]

A SURPRISING DIALOGUE WITH MY HEROINE

Some of you may make a habit of dialoguing with your characters before you begin to write a novel. Others may not have heard of the idea. I have done a form of this for years, but never applied it to characters in my novel until I began reading a few blogs where the actual hero or heroine were interviewed. What I great idea, I thought, so I applied it to two characters I thought I knew from the inside out. Turns out I didn’t know the heroine as well as the hero. After I had a chat with her, I went back and fleshed her out with the ease of writing about someone I had known a lifetime (but then, perhaps she has been a seed inside my soul my entire life, waiting to sprout).

Recently, I had to have a particular medical procedure that made me feel threatened. What ... [+]

ROMAN SOLDIERS

When we think of the Roman soldiers, unless we are particularly fond of that period of history, most likely our images and impressions come more from Hollywood than from anywhere else. However, what the film industry does not show is the background of the common Roman soldier. Did you know that the soldiers were stationed far from home to dissuade desertion and that they took their living quarters with them when they traveled? The average warrior was trained for war, but rarely fought. Instead, they were expert in multiple trades and used them to build roads, aqueducts, coliseums, forts, etc. Their tools were as important to them as were their weapons and their precious tools of the trade traveled with them. The average soldier was constantly on the move and was trained to march as quickly as four miles an hour for five hours a day – wearing sandals.

It wasn’t ... [+]

CREATIVITY CRASH?

An artist friend who is about to give birth to a huge one woman art exhibit emailed me with the following:

I am having a freaky couple of days. I am working on my large piece for the exhibition. Although it is going pretty well, I am having a stream of mini panic attacks, anxious moments and a strange restlessness. My confidence is seesawing beyond belief…is this what ‘suffering’ for your art means!!!! I am completely out of my comfort zone with it and it is driving me bonkers. I am totally aware of the causes, but cannot stop the effects!!! Hear a large scream.

Here is what I wrote back to her:

OK, all artists/authors experience this from time to time. Here’s my prescription for what you are going through.

Everything has its opposite. For day there is night, for black there is white. Did you know that insecurity is the opposite of ... [+]

THOUGHTS ON MEN READING ROMANCE

With regard to men reading the Romance genre, let me share this: Among other things, my husband holds a double Ph.D. in political science and economics, speaks five languages, is a member of the (exceedingly boring to me) International Heraldry Society (he can interpret most any coat of arms at a glance), daily scans several international newspapers (in their language) and I consider him to be one of the most intelligent men I have ever met. The first time I went to his house he invited me to pick something off his (vast and varied) library shelf to read while he responded to a few phone calls. Hmmm. Seems I was on the wrong set of shelves or something because much to my horror (call me intimidated) there was nothing there in English! I looked around and finally spotted a single tome written in the only language I could understand. The title? How to Understand ... [+]

KEEP A STIFF UPPER LIP

Do you ever wonder where some terms come from? Recently, I read a novel where the hero was raised by his father to always “keep a stiff upper lip.” Consequently, he was out of touch with his feelings and nothing much moved him. So I decided to look into the background of this odd saying and here’s what I came up with:

In the early 1800′s a strange fashion arose among officers with regard to facial hair—they tarred their moustaches! These thick pelts over the upper lip became works of art. After an officer carefully groomed his moustache, he would then comb hot pitch through it and mold it into the desired shape. This had to be done quickly before the tar cooled and the moustache grew stiff. Then came their dress uniform complete with ribbons, gold braid, epaulettes and voila! they were the height of fashion.

“Keep a stiff upper lip” ... [+]

WRITING WHAT YOU LOVE

Quick, who wrote the novel Typee?

Oh, please leave a comment if you knew this right off.

Quickly, who wrote Omoo? Leave a comment if you knew this as well.

Now quickly, who wrote Moby Dick? Ah, sigh, Herman Melville.

Did you know he wrote the other two as well? Before he wrote Moby Dick, Melville was well known at the time for writing pop fiction (adventure stories to be exact). Moby Dick was completely different from anything he’d ever written before. When the book hit the public’s eye, there was outrage. Critics trashed it. One newspaper went so far as to print a headline that he’d gone mad. Family members urged him to have a doctor check him out for possible insanity!

Instead of caving in and writing what the public demanded, Melville refused. He wrote to his father-in-law during the creation of Moby Dick, telling him that everything else he had written in ... [+]