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
Links for Purchase
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.
Useful Links
Twitter: @WriterChurchill
Facebook: facebook.com/StephanieChurchillAuthor
Website: www.stephaniechurchillauthor.com
