Once upon a time there was a poet. She was a poet because she had no time to
write. When you have a husband, five
kids, a full-time job and you like to raise horses, you have NO time. That was my drill for years, and since
penning a sonnet took considerably less time than knocking out 90,000 words, I
wrote poetry. I did well at it. Still, there was always a little voice in the
back of my mind whispering, “But I wanna
write a book!” That voice was so
persistent that I finally realized it was a muse and named her The Wench
because she was totally annoying.
Then my fairly happy if somewhat madcap life began to fall
apart. The kids grew up, my husband died
after a 4 ½ year battle with leukemia and my job was history because I had left
it to care for him. I could no longer
afford horses. My muse was peeking at me
around corners, trying to get in, but I was so annoyed I renamed her Persephone. You know…the Queen of Hell. Eventually I decided I was going to blow my entire
small fortune on a plane ticket to Ireland, with no plan to return any time
soon. Despite the pleas of family and
friends who thought I was out of my mind, I did. What I didn’t realize was that Persephone was
in the cargo hold.
She finally announced herself in a sheep pasture on the west
coast of Ireland where I was sitting sort of like J.K. Rowling with one of
those ubiquitous yellow legal pads, since I couldn’t afford a laptop. I had a fantastic view of the Atlantic Ocean
pounding green surf against 300-foot cliffs, but even above the noise of the
waters I heard Persephone whining at me like some sort of literary
mosquito. “What if you were a princess, sitting at your castle window, watching
that surf?” Seph whispered. “What if your father was a king? What if you had the power to foretell events
with a scrying bowl, had telepathy with animals, could summon holy fire for
your defense and worshipped a triumvirate goddess with all your heart but still
couldn’t stop your father from using you as a pawn? In a time of war, what would you surrender in
the name of love?”
“STOP!” I screamed.
“I’m writing a poem!”
But Seph just smiled.
“Not any more.”
* * *
I
was the King’s daughter once, so many years ago that sometimes now it is hard
to remember. Before the tide of time
carried away so many things, so many people, it was worth something to be the
daughter of a King.
Our little island nation of Alcinia
was not rich, except for tin mines honeycombing the south. It wasn’t even hospitable. Summer was a brief affair and fall was only a
short time of muted colors on the northernmost coast where my father sat his
throne at the ancient Keep of Landsfel.
Winter was the killing time and spring was hardly better, with frosts
that could last into Fifth-Month. But
from the south, where men cut thatch in a pattern like the bones of fish, to
the north where rock roses spilled down cliffs to the sea, it was my own.
One thinks such things will never
change, yet all things do.
* *
*
That was “The King’s Daughter,” Book I of The Chronicles of
Alcinia. Book II, “Heart of the Earth,”
I wrote a little later--in a pub in Killarney.
But that’s a story for another day.
One lucky reader who
comments on my blog will be randomly selected to win a print or eARC copy of
The King’s Daughter. Good luck!
