to kill a mockingbird | Rachel Carrera, Novelist

Last month, my blogging sister and good friend Merril Smith tagged me for the Three Quotes in Three Days challenge. (By the way, I love being tagged for these things, so if you ever need a guinea pig, I’m your victim.) I’d been reading these on several other people’s blogs, and I was actually hoping someone would invite me to play. The only thing that was difficult for me was to narrow my favorite quotes down to only three!

So today’s quote happens to be my favorite epigraph. (If you don’t know what an epigraph is, I wrote about it here.) The quote is by British author, Charles Lamb, and it is featured as the epigraph in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. The odd thing is that even though this is my favorite epigraph quote, I actually have no idea who Charles Lamb is, and while I have enjoyed reading To Kill a Mockingbird more than once (as well as seeing the movie), it’s not exactly my favorite book of all times. I guess I just like the quote because of its implied innocence versus corruption, and probably also the fact that I’ve worked for or with attorneys for most of my adult life has something to do with it as well.

Anyway, here’s my featured quote for today:

“Lawyers, I suppose, were children once.”
-Charles Lamb

So, tomorrow I’ll be back with a second quote, and today, I nominate Rhonda Blackhurst. Rhonda is a lovely author, and if you don’t already follow her blog, you’re in for a treat if you’ll visit her at http://rhondablackhurst.com/.

Let’s chat: Did you already know what an epigraph was? Do you read epigraphs at the beginning of books, or skip to the first chapter?

Remember back when I told you how I was writing, directing and producing some TV commercials for an attorney friend? Well, today and tomorrow, we’re filming six more commercials. All these commercials have a similar theme, and they start when he’s a child in the early 60s, and end in current times.

They’re part of a series, and we’re trying to make people look forward to the next one. The best example of this I can think of is the Stove Top Stuffing commercials where the man dresses as a Pilgrim. (Sadly, I can’t find any of them on YouTube anymore, so you’ll just have to see them next Thanksgiving if they show them again.) Those always crack me up!

Today, we’re filming the actor who plays the attorney as a small child, and tomorrow, we’ll be filming the attorney in court. Though due to the Florida Bar regulations, we’re not actually allowed to film him in a real courtroom. As such, we had to rent out the old courthouse museum, and stage a courtroom there.

The courtroom we’ll be using was built in 1908, and it looks very much like the one in the movie version of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” In fact, the last couple of times we were there to inspect just how we’d have to set things up to film, I could swear I heard Gregory Peck whispering to me in the distance. I’ll be sure to take photos so I can show you the real thing soon.

Time to talk: Do certain TV commercials grab your attention more than others? When you realize some commercials are part of a series, do you look forward to the next installment?