Author's Inspiration – Stephanie Churchill #historicalfantasy @WriterChurchill

The Scribe’s Daughter

Kassia is a thief and a soon-to-be oath breaker. Armed with only a reckless wit and sheer bravado, seventeen-year-old Kassia barely scrapes out a life with her older sister in a back-alley of the market district of the Imperial city of Corium. When a stranger shows up at her market stall, offering her work for which she is utterly unqualified, Kassia cautiously takes him on. Very soon however, she finds herself embroiled in a mystery involving a usurped foreign throne and a vengeful nobleman. Most intriguing of all, she discovers clues to the disappearance of her father three years prior. When Kassia is forced to flee her home, suffering extreme hardship, danger and personal trauma along the way, she feels powerless to control what happens around her. Rewarding revelations concerning the mysteries of her family's past are tempered by the reality of a future she doesn't want. In the end, Kassia discovers an unyielding inner strength, and that contrary to her prior beliefs, she is not defined by external things -- she discovers that she is worthy to be loved.

Author’s Inspiration

Inspiration is a funny thing.  It’s often at its best when we aren’t looking for it, and when it comes calling, we’d better be prepared for the earth-shattering results when it’s taken seriously.

Unlike so many other authors, I never dreamed of being one; though in all honesty, the signs were always there if only I’d been paying attention.  As a child, I was a consummate daydreamer.  My happy place was most often found wandering my grandparents’ farm in rural Nebraska, dreaming up intricate stories in my head.  Writing in school came easily to me.  When I was in college, the professor of my required creative writing class continually called attention to my work as an example of what to do.  Despite all of this, it never occurred to me to actually write anything.  I thought knowing how to write well was no big deal.  Couldn’t everyone do it?  Didn’t everyone have movies running in their heads, with the only requirement for writing that you snatch those images and commit them to paper?

Fast forward into adulthood… While working as a paralegal in downtown Minneapolis, I rode the bus to and from work, an hour each way, every day, all week.  Needless to say, I inhaled books.  It was during these years that I discovered author Sharon Kay Penman.  After several years of loving her books, social media became a “thing”, and I began to actively engage in her Facebook fan club -- and through that, with Ms. Penman herself.

In 2011, Ms. Penman published her book, Lionheart.  As the result of a Facebook conversation in which she mentioned that authors rarely get detailed comments from readers about the specifics of why they love the books they read, I decided to do just that.  Consequently, I wrote her an embarrassingly long review (12 pages) of Lionheart.  After she recovered from her shock, we began to communicate regularly.  It was Ms. Penman herself who asked me the fated question, “Have you ever thought about writing?”

And thus The Scribe’s Daughter was born, but it was actually born out of an experiment.  When I set about writing my first book, I initially used a story that had been in my head for a decade (during the years it never occurred to me to be a writer)

 I wrote the first draft fairly quickly, but there was just something about the voice I didn’t love.  So I started thinking about what it would be like to write in first person.  As someone who loves to daydream, and who has an inner monologue continually running in her head at any given moment in time, it seemed a natural method of writing a story.

Right away I imagined that scene from the Disney movie Aladdin where Aladdin has just stolen an apple and is running away from the city guards, singing the song “One Jump”:

Gotta keep

One jump ahead of the breadline

One swing ahead of the sword

I steal only what I can't afford

I loved the idea of a feisty female heroine, so I re-imagined that scene from Aladdin, but this time with a character who would become Kassia.  She intrigued me so much that I kept writing, adding one more scene, and then another.  Her sarcasm and caustic wit grew on me, and I couldn’t stop writing.  I felt pretty confident engaging with this reckless teen-aged girl, and I enjoyed her immensely.  Until....

    ...happened.

And this is where sneaky inspiration (the kind you aren’t looking for) rears its earth-shattering head.

I nearly stopped writing at this point, because I was too shocked by what had just happened to Kassia.  Who was I to write about such a thing?  Severe self-doubt slipped into my already-fragile-new- author-façade, and I second- and third- ad nauseam guessed myself.  After consulting with my writing mentor, who encouraged me to keep going, I decided that this single event would actually serve as the most vital key to developing the theme of the entire book.  My thoughts turned more philosophical.  Rather than simply tell a good story, I needed to do more -- I asked myself why.  My focus changed, and I’d never seen it coming.

Anyone who is honest will admit that they know at least one person in their life who has experienced some form of trauma.  For many of these individuals, that trauma involves some sort of abuse – be it physical, emotional, or sexual.  While I certainly hoped my book would be enjoyed by a wide variety of people from all walks of life and a wide age range, victims of abuse were primarily the ones I tried to speak to in the narrative.

And because abuse touches young and old alike, I needed the book to be accessible to younger readers as well as adults.  So how was one to go about handling such a hard topic while writing it so that it would go over the heads of the innocent while making it meaningful to the rest?  I wanted it to be authentic, but I also knew that authenticity would be ugly and uncomfortable, and that there would be a certain percentage of readers who would be turned off by the descent into authenticity, seeing no need for what happened to poor Kassia.  Still, I tried to keep in mind the warring sensibilities of the various audiences while remaining true to my purpose.  This was a challenge I faced until the very last page of the book.  If the book communicated a message of hope to those who needed it while simply coming off as a very well written piece of literature for everyone else, all my work was worth it.

So the next time you think about inspiration, realize it is a funny thing.  It most often comes when you aren’t looking for it, and when it comes calling, you’d better be prepared for the earth-shattering results if you take it seriously.

Twitter: @WriterChurchill

Facebook: facebook.com/StephanieChurchillAuthor

Website: www.stephaniechurchillauthor.com

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About the author

 I used to live my life as an unsuspecting part of the reading public.  I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, and then after attending college in Iowa, moved to Washington, D.C.  Spending my days in a Georgetown law firm, by all outward appearances I was a paralegal working in international trade and then antitrust law.  I liked books, and I read them often, but that’s all I was: a reader of books.

When my husband and I got married, I moved to the Minneapolis metro area and found work as a corporate paralegal, specializing in corporate formation, mergers & acquisitions, and corporate finance.  Again, by all outward appearances, I was a paralegal and a reader of books.

And then one day, while on my lunch break, I visited the neighboring Barnes & Noble and happened upon a book by author Sharon Kay Penman, and while I’d never heard of her before, I took a chance and bought the book.  That day I became a reader of historical fiction.

Fast forward a dozen years or so, and I had become a rabid fan of Sharon Kay Penman’s books as well as historical fiction in general.  Because of a casual comment she’d made on social media, I wrote Ms. Penman a ridiculously long review of her latest book, Lionheart.  As a result of that review, she asked me what would become the most life-changing question: “Have you ever thought about writing?”  And The Scribe’s Daughter was born.

When I’m not writing or taxiing my two children to school or other activities, I’m likely walking our dog Cozmo or reading another book.  The rest of my time is spent trying to survive the murderous intentions of Minnesota’s weather.

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Author’s Inspiration ~ Corinda Pitts Marsh #histfic @CorindaMarsh

Please give a warm welcome to historical fiction author, Corinda Pitts Marsh. Corinda is going to share with us her inspiration behind her book…

Behind the Tupelo Tree

Two strong Southern women, one a slave and the other a slave owner, forge a family dynasty with the men they love. These women must brave turbulent times and decide right and wrong in a hostile world too often based on color and gender. They from an alliance that lasts for generations. Pivotal in the lives of these women, big Earl loves and protects them, risking his own life. Coming to them from the block in New Orleans with heavy iron chains on his ankles, Earl changes their lives forever. Later he does the same for a third woman from another world. His legacy carries him into the next century as his son stands behind the Tupelo tree watching helplessly as an innocent man is lynched. The intertwining of these lives tells the story Behind the Tupelo Tree. This edition includes the stories of  A Civil War and The Ghost of Blackwater Creek as well as the story of Yemaya, the mother of the Ghost. The stories take the reader from the Antebellum South through the Civil War and the troubled times of the early 20^th century.

***

Selma, Alabama, is the site of one of the most publicized Civil Rights demonstrations of the 1960’s. For some white Southerners, it represents a memory they wish to forget. For many black Southerners, it represents a time of horror that led to freedom, freedom to use restrooms formerly reserved for whites, freedom to drink from a water fountain in a city park, freedom to sit in any vacant seat on a bus or at a lunch counter when they are hungry. Selma, however, is rooted much deeper in history than many Americans realize. It was the first capital of Alabama, and it was the site of a critical and final battle in the American Civil War. Selma’s foundries made most of the Confederacy’s munitions and built some of the ships used in naval battles.

Selma was also the site of Castle Morgan, a prison housing captured Union soldiers between 1863 and 1865. Prisoners who survived its horrors of overcrowding and flooding were released at the end of the war and loaded onto the steamboat Sultana to return to their homes. Unfortunately, one of the boilers on the Sultana exploded, killing 1800 of the 2400 men aboard shortly before they reached Memphis, Tennessee.

I knew nothing about the Sultana or the Civil War battle at Selma, nor was I familiar with the horrors of Castle Morgan. These and so many other facts are Secrets of the South. They became my novel, Behind the Tupelo Tree, but they didn’t come to me on their own. The ideas came from Olafur Gunnarsson, my friend and mentor for the past twenty years. He is an Icelandic author, who reveres history. When I was struggling for inspiration, he said, “Look for a historical event that interests you and put yourself into a character totally different from yourself, preferably a male character of a different heritage, then write, write, and write.” Hands down, the best advice I ever received. From those words, the Secrets of the South stories were born. Inspiration is often as close as a good friend.

After that conversation, I researched Civil War battles. The closest one to my home occurred in Selma. When I began to dig, secrets crawled out of their crevices. The first capital of Alabama was eight miles outside Selma in a settlement called Cahawba. Fortunately, Cahawba is only a four-hour drive from my home, so my husband and I visited the Old Cahawba Archaeological Park (www.cahawba.com). We walked among the ruins and stood beside the fireplace in the prison enclosure.

Although the prison was known as Castle Morgan, it was anything but a castle. It was a 15,000 square foot cotton warehouse hastily converted in 1863 into a prison with 432 bed spaces. By March 1865, one month before the war ended, more than 3,000 men were incarcerated within its walls. That is five square feet for each man—less space than it takes for one man to lie down. In February 1865, the town experienced a devastating flood. It was bitterly cold, and the men were standing waist deep in muddy contaminated water, so prison officials allowed some of the men to leave the compound to search for logs or other objects they could stand on to get them out of the water. Miraculously, the death rate at Castle Morgan was only two percent, the lowest of any Civil War prison. This was mainly due to the kindness of one of the two men in charge of the prison, H. A. M. Henderson, a Methodist minister. Of course, one of the good guys in my novel winds up in this prison.

Research uncovered bits and pieces of history that kept me busy for the three years it took to write the novel. No Civil War novel would be complete without comments about Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy, and Robert E. Lee, its most famous general. Davis and some of his friends got into a bit of mischief at West Point Military Academy. During Christmas break, Davis and his buddies left campus to reconnoiter a stash of eggnog, a Southern Christmas drink containing varying amounts of alcohol. The young men proceeded to get thoroughly inebriated. Jefferson Davis was one of the revelers who got caught, and the self-righteous Robert E. Lee ratted on his comrades.

Davis was never one to shrink from a challenge. While serving in the U.S. Cavalry under the future president of the United States, Zachery Taylor, he fell in love with Taylor’s daughter. However, Taylor refused to allow Davis to marry his daughter, so Davis resigned from the Cavalry and married her anyway. The couple went to Louisiana on their honeymoon where both of them contracted malaria. Davis survived but the love of his life did not. They had been married only three months when she died. Davis went back to his farm in Mississippi where he remained in seclusion for several years. When he returned to the Cavalry, he served admirably causing Taylor to comment that apparently his daughter was a better judge of character than he.

Tupelo Tree carries two families, one of slaves and the other their owners, through the war and into post-war conflicts and adjustments. After the war, the story moves from Castle Morgan and Cahawba to Campbelton, Florida. The inspiration for this part of the story came from a random comment my husband made about a lynching that occurred sixty miles from our home in 1934. My husband’s employer had seen the lynching when he was a child. What I found out about that lynching was the most horrific thing I had ever read.

Claude Neal was lynched in Marianna, Florida, in 1934. He was accused of rape, but no significant evidence was ever found: he was dead before evidence could be investigated. The details of this lynching became a chapter in my story. These facts disgust some readers, but others see the reason for their inclusion. Only when we know our history do we have any chance to make our world better.

When I realized the impact my story was having on readers, I understood why I write. I used to tell my students I  had only two goals for each literature class: 1) The class should teach you how to live your life better, and 2) it should make you want to read more good literature. Now I try to do that through my books. Olafur Gunnarsson and my husband gave me the inspiration for my writing, but it is my readers who keep me writing. Inspiration is all around us. We only have to open our eyes and ears to see and hear inspiration for our stories.

 

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About the author

I am first a grandmother then a Southern writer, raised and steeped in the traditions of the deep South. I returned to college at the age of 44, a challenge which certainly changed my life. I fell in love with words and will never recover from that addiction. My favorite authors are Thomas Wolfe, Ernest Hemingway, Albert Camus, and Friedrich Nietzsche. I enjoy study of the paranormal and deep human emotions. Writing for me is a way of knowing. My doctorate is in 20^th Century American Literature, but my interests range far and wide. Taking the lead from T.S. Eliot, I steal from those who have come before. Plato and Milton as well as many others are often my literary playmates. I had an imaginary friend when I was four years old, so perhaps I never recovered. I once heard a professor say that for every book one writes, he or she must read 1000 others. This holds true for me. The writers we study become a part of who we are if we are paying attention, and I hope my antennas are tuned to the proper channels. When I’m not reading or writing, I enjoy growing orchids, watching birds, and cooking for my family.

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