For months I’ve been traveling back to medieval times—as in a bit of time travel—in drafting the first scenes of my eighth Other Worldly novel featuring Rowan Layne, Alien Origins. Who knew that immersing myself in the world of highly misogynist medieval Scotland would be cathartic relief from current US atrocities?
But here’s the ultimate kicker. Two weeks ago on this blog, I mentioned that I began reading the All Souls fantasy series by Deborah Harkness, therein discussing uncanny similarities in the first, A Discovery of Witches, with several of my novels. However, one huge thing I neglected to mention was the topic of medieval knights. Because, as my readers know, Rowan Layne kind of has a thing for their armor.
And now a new uncanny tidbit, especially given how, in my blog post two weeks ago, I said it would be fun to see where the All Souls book series takes me.
This past week I started book two, Shadow of Night, and what do you know, the entire premise involves time travel, though it’s called timewalking when performed by witches like Diana Bishop in the All Souls novels, where Bishop is a professor of history.
And where does Diana Bishop first timewalk? To late sixteenth century Scotland. Go figure. And let’s just say that knights, including exceedingly famous groups of them like the Knights Templar, are discussed at length and in historic detail. Author Deborah Harkness is, after all, a professor of history herself.
I am fascinated and learning a lot, but in no way will that kind of historical detail find its way into my Other Worldly series! Nor will I ever likely take the time to write novels that are twice the length of what I’m used to drafting. It’s already a challenge to stay focused just reading them, despite the intriguing subject matter.
I’m traveling back in time as it is by reading this series, because Shadow of Night was published in 2012, one year after A Discovery of Witches. That’s a full five years before I even began a rough draft of my first Other Worldly novel, Alienable Rights, published in February 2020. So you could say I’m now traveling back in time to revise it for an attempt at republication, because it sort of feels like that as I revisit, and rewrite.
In my previous blog post, I mentioned how A Discovery of Witches was inspiring me to work on attempting that dreaded synopsis needed to eventually submit a revamped Alienable Rights to United Kingdom publisher One More Chapter. But what’s actually happened this past week is Shadow of Night has derailed me into wanting to continue drafting more chapters set in medieval Scotland for Alien Origins.
I’ve kind of had a foot in both worlds over the weekend, traveling from revising Alienable Rights, to drafting new chapters of Alien Origins, as I continue to read chapters set in medieval (France, now) in Shadow of Night, though I haven’t worked more on that darned Alienable Rights synopsis. One More Chapter’s website still says it’s temporarily closed to submissions anyway, and one can only hope that will change as of September first, but who knows? It’s kind of maddening. Like trying to write a synopsis itself.
Also, I was supposed to write this post yesterday, so please just pretend to travel back in time and read it a day ago. And I’m thinking I should see if there’s a Highland Games or Renaissance Festival occurring anywhere near me in my new corner of the modern world in coming months. If I can’t get away to the otherworld (at least in my novels) known as Scotland, perhaps I can find a way absorb Highland magic and inspire my writing here at home.