beatrice-otter replied to your photoset “Welcome to NaNoWriMo. (I’m writing a story about the Texas Panhandle...”
I'm a Lutheran pastor, so if you need specifically Lutheran stuff I may be able to help.
Oh, thank you! I’m hoping not TOO much actual religion will come into it but I will bear that in mind!
white-throated-packrat replied to your photoset “Welcome to NaNoWriMo. (I’m writing a story about the Texas Panhandle...”
Do they still speak Texican German, or did they stop after WW1?
According to Wikipedia, it stopped right around WWI, so probably the older folks in town speak it, but Sam’s generation doesn’t. It probably won’t play in much, but it’s super interesting to read about!
Also, they were pretty early immigrants, in the 1840s, so this is fifth or sixth generation Americans in a town that was founded by English-speakers, the Germans came later. So most everyone speaks English fluently and with a Texan accent. Which is a kick.
miss-ingno replied to your post “dignitywhatdignity replied to your photoset “Welcome to NaNoWriMo. ...”
if you're interested in change mayer's name, common variations are meier, meyer and maier in German, but the name Myer and Myers actually has this same origin too
Oh, I was thinking more of the Sam part, because writing a protagonist with one’s own name seems....incorrect :D
notahotlibrarian replied to your photoset “Welcome to NaNoWriMo. (I’m writing a story about the Texas Panhandle...”
hey I live in that area of the country! If you've got questions, feel free to ask!
guinea-goon replied to your photoset “Welcome to NaNoWriMo. (I’m writing a story about the Texas Panhandle...”
As someone who lives in the Texas Panhandle, I was very excited to hear this!
Hooray! I have never been to the panhandle, but having been through swathes of North Texas I’m hoping I’ve got a pretty good, hah, handle on it. Hopefully I won’t mess it up too badly. It’s not super site-specific, it’s more general-area, but we’ll see.
It’s crazy to me, a lot of what I’m writing, because like...in the era I’m writing in, 2% of Texas farms had electricity. But a lot more had phones, because phones didn’t require direct electric service. But like...that means nobody had a fridge. All the trappings of the 30s I’m used to are from the city, but in the rural areas of the country, life really hadn’t changed much since the 1850s. And yet probably a lot of these people had trucks, because of the rapid mechanization of farms during WWI. But most also still owned and rode horses. And almost none of the rural areas of the midwest down into Texas had paved roads.
It’s such a strange middle ground in history. It’s like a weird variant on steampunk, where you have some really modern technologies and some really ancient practices happening side by side.
