Writing as Praying

 Since the second grade, I have been inspired (not to say compelled) to write novels. I have never been able to explain why, nor how I ‘select’ the topics of my novels. The ideas for novels occur to me spontaneously, sometimes as very vague and ephemeral ideas, which I then refine and redefine at a rational level, sometimes very specifically as in the case of Kit Moran. No matter how much research and work I later put into a novel, the irrational and inexplicable manner in which the initial spark of inspiration occurs has always suggested to me that my novels were genuinely “inspired” not conceived. 

With time, I came to realize that the process of creative writing is my way of communicating with God. Creative writing is not about asking God for something. It is not about me articulating my thoughts and feelings to Him.  Rather, it is about receiving ideas, guidance and understanding. When I sit down to write, I open both my mind and my subconscious to inspiration. As I write, I am almost always surprised and excited by the unexpected reactions of my characters. They then become my teachers, giving me new insight into human nature. Again and again, I have felt a wonderful sense of awe at the end of writing a scene, a chapter or a book, when suddenly I start to understand things that I had not rationally grasped when I started writing.

Because I am an imperfect human being, I do not always understand what I “hear,” nor do I always have the skill to describe and convey to readers the insights I have gained during the process of writing. Nor do I claim that my insights are relevant to everyone. We all have an individual relationship with the Divine, and we must all communicate with Him in our own way.  Nevertheless, I firmly believe that like a good meal or a beautiful building, a divinely inspired work of fiction is something that can comfort, sustain and inspire more than just the creator. For that reason, I share the products of my “prayers” – my books – with others.

 

Riding the icy, moonlit sky,

they took the war to Hitler. 

Their chances of survival were less than fifty percent. 

Their average age was 21.

This is the story of just one bomber pilot, his crew and the woman he loved. 

It is intended as a tribute to them all.  

Buy now on amazon

or Barnes and Noble. 

 

Disfiguring injuries, class prejudice and PTSD are the focus of three heart-wrenching tales set in WWII by award-winning novelist Helena P. Schrader. Find out more at: https://crossseaspress.com/grounded-eagles

 

  

 

 

 

 

"Where Eagles Never Flew" was the the winner of a Hemingway Award for 20th Century Wartime Fiction and a Maincrest Media Award for Military Fiction. Find out more at: https://crossseaspress.com/where-eagles-never-flew

For more information about all my books visit: https://www.helenapschrader.com

 

 

Places for the Imagination

My novels are very character-centric with the main focus on character development and interaction. It is not surprising, therefore, that most of my novels are inspired by people.  My historical biographies and biographical fiction, obviously, were inspired by real people, whose stories fascinate me ― General Friedrich Olbricht, Leonidas of Sparta, Balian d’Ibelin. Other stories, were inspired more by the “footnotes” to history ― a passing reference to an individual act of courage or compassion, a short description of a donor or a grave in a half-forgotten church, a local legend of dubious veracity that nevertheless captures the imagination….

Yet almost as important as people, places too inspire the imagination.  I firmly believe that my interest in history and historical fiction started at the age of four when my father took me to the Coliseum in Rome. While my mother and older sisters took the guided tour, my father (wisely) decided a four year old would be bored by so much information. So he led me through the Coliseum alone and confined himself to the essentials. “This,” he told me, “is where the Romans fed the Christians to the Lions.” Now that was fascinating to a four year old.

I spent the rest of the afternoon (or however long the official tour took) trying to imagine where they had kept the lions? where the Christians? Was there no way to escape? What if a lion got loose among the spectators? You see how rapidly this can become a novel?

Of course, at four, no novel evolved, but the process of thinking about the places I visited as the site of historical events and the stage for personal drama had started. It was helpful that Rome was only the start of a tour that took us to Florence and Venice, then up the Rhine and finally to Denmark and England, where we had family. Two years later we were in Brazil, and my imagination was ignited by a visit to the decaying city of Manaus on the Amazon. I wrote a tale about an Indian boy following the Amazon to the sea. (Any resemblance to childhood books about traveling down the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Mississippi are pure coincidence, of course….) I was in second grade.

At fifteen, the family returned to England. By now I loved to read as much as I loved to eat and breathe. I had not stopped writing since that book about the Amazon, but now I was living in the midst of history. We lived in Portsmouth, and Nelson’s flagship the Victory was within walking distance of our Victorian townhouse. The view out our front bay window was of the Solent, the Isle of Wight, the Royal Navy patrolling the grey, white-capped waves…. 

Although I never wrote that novel about the Royal Navy in the age of sail, I soon became fascinated with Britain in WWII. I visited the Imperial War Museum and touched the wings of Spitfires. I went to Tangmere, so close to Portsmouth, and gazed out across the peaceful, grass field, and imagined the gentle peace shattered by the telephone, the call to “scramble,” the roar of Merlin engines and the distant thud of the falling bombs. It took almost two decades and various false starts, but when Chasing the Wind was published in 2007 it was praised by one of the few surviving RAF fighter aces of that war, Wing Commander Bob Doe, as “the best book” he had ever read about the Battle of Britain. Doe wrote to me in a hand-written letter I treasure to this day. He said I “got it smack on the way it was for us fighter pilots.” 

No amount of sales is a higher accolade for a historical novelist than for someone who lived through the time and events described in the book saying you got the it right. That is why, to this day, I consider Chasing the Wind (Kindle title: Where Eagles Never Flew) my best novel.

In coming weeks, I will be selecting some of venues relevant to the Jerusalem Trilogy and my current work-in-progress, The Last Crusader Kingdom. I hope my descriptions will inspire you to visit these unique places – either in my books or in person.

Writing as Praying

Since the second grade, I have been inspired (not to say compelled) to write novels. I have never been able to explain why, nor how I ‘select’ the topics of my novels. The ideas for novels occur to me spontaneously, initially as very vague and ephemeral ideas, which I then refine and redefine at a rational level. But the irrational and inexplicable manner in which the initial spark of inspiration occurs has always suggested to me that my novels were genuinely “inspired” not conceived.

My personal beliefs are that all acts of creation -- from giving birth, cooking and sewing to great works of art and architecture – are an imitation of the divine. Creation is for me a positive force; destruction a negative one – although I’ve had some very intriguing discussions about whether there can be “creative destruction!” On the whole, people who are creative are, I believe, doing God’s work.

Writing fiction is a means by which I confront and try to understand emotions, behavior and concepts that I have not personally experienced. When writing, I try to put myself in someone else’s shoes (my characters’), and in so doing I try to see things from a different perspective. The reason for doing this is to try to understand the human condition and my fellow humans better.

With time, I came to realize that the process of creative writing is my way of communicating with God. Creative writing is not about asking God for something. It is not about me articulating my thoughts and feelings to Him.  Rather, it is about receiving ideas, guidance and understanding. When I sit down to write, I open both my mind and my subconscious to inspiration. As I write, I am almost always surprised and excited by the unexpected reactions of my characters. They then become my teachers, giving me new insight into human nature. Again and again, I have felt a wonderful sense of awe at the end of writing a scene, a chapter or a book, when suddenly I start to understand things that I had not rationally grasped when I started writing.

Because I am an imperfect human being, I do not always understand what I “hear,” nor do I always have the skill to describe and convey to readers the insights I have gained during the process of writing. Nor do I claim that my insights are relevant to everyone. We all have an individual relationship with God, and we must all communicate with Him in our own way.  Nevertheless, I firmly believe that like a good meal or a beautiful building, a divinely inspired work of fiction is something that can comfort, sustain and inspire more than just the creator. For that reason, I share the products of my “prayers” – my books – with others.

Finding the Languedoc

Finding the Languedoc of the troubadours is not really difficult, but it is easy to be misled by modern labels. The Languedoc of the Middle Ages was much broader than the modern French Department, Languedoc-Roussillon. The cradle of chivalry was essentially the territories held by the largely autonomous lords in the South of France. The borders of such lands changed with the tides of war and marriages, but essentially was composed of the Duchy of Aquitaine, the Counties of Toulouse, Provence and Foix, and the Visounties of Montpellier, Beziers, Carcassonne and Albi.

A visit to this region shatters misconceptions about the Middle Ages being dark, cold, colorless, primitive and brutal. This is a sun-soaked corner of the earth, enriched by sufficient rain to be perpetually fertile. The scents of the Languedoc are lavender and rosemary, and the colors are the yellow of sunflowers, the green of plane and cypress trees, the blue-turquoise of the Mediterranean and the off-white of limestone -- all things that were no less abundant in the age of chivalry than now.

Because that limestone was used to build both the churches and the castles of the age, the buildings of the region are not grey or even red, but off-white and correspondingly cheerful. The medieval monuments, furthermore, demonstrate just how developed the artistic traditions of the region already were  a thousand years ago. The quality of the sculpture and painting, not to mention the symmetry, harmony and lightness of the architecture testify to the very high culture that reigned. One should never forget that here the Romans had built great cities with fountains fed by magnificent aqueducts and connected by broad, straight roads; they built coliseums, temples, bridges, barracks and luxury villas. The transition from Roman grandeur to Christian splendor was seamless. Ideology, religion, forms of government and the symbols changed, but the fundamental ability to live well remained.

To find the cradle of chivalry, therefore, one needs only go Southeastern France -- to Provence and what is now called "Languedoc-Roussillon" and look for the remnants of the Age of Chivalry. Leave the Cote d' Azure to the hoards of "wannabe" tourists gawking at the nouveau riche, and head inland instead to the great Romanesque Abbey of Senanque - set like a jewel among the fields of blooming lavender.  It is unquestionably one of the most beautiful and harmonious places on earth. Visit the stunningly elaborate palace of the Popes in Avignon -- and you will never again think life in the Middle Ages was drab, primitive and without luxury. Go to St. Gilles, the seat of the Counts of Toulouse, and to the symmetrical and efficient medieval harbor of Aigues Mortes, from which St. Louis sailed with 2,000 knights to re-capture Jerusalem for Christianity.

My secret tip, however, is Moustiers-Ste.-Marie. Here in a gorge in the Haute Provence a monastery was founded in the 5th century. At the mouth of the gorge, nestled in front of the sheer cliffs behind, is a small village with a crooked church (it bends in the middle), and over the gorge stretches a heavy, iron chain with a star hanging from it. According to legend, the star has hung from this chain in the 13th century by a knight called Blacas.  Blacas, so the legend says, had gone on crusade to the Holy Land and been taken captive by the Saracen.  When he was eventually freed, he came to Moustiers-Ste-Marie and hung the star on the chain -- a remarkable feat of engineering for the time! -- as a symbol of his gratitude.

But no one knows anymore which crusade it was or how long "Blacas" spent in captivity. No one knows why he chose a star rather than a cross or some other symbol. Did it represent the "Star of Bethlehem"? Had he been taken captive in Bethlehem or been held prisoner there? Had he rotted in a dark dungeon with only a single window from which he had seen, night after night, a star that came to represent freedom or salvation to him? And why hang his star at Moustiers-Ste-Marie? Had he made a vow to the Virgin Mary here? Did he come from the region? No one knows anymore, any more than we know who paid his ransom, and who was praying for him to come home.

Moustiers-Ste-Marie is just one of many places in the Languedoc that contains the seeds of a novel waiting to be written.

Places for the Imagination

My novels are character-centric with the main focus on character development and interaction. It is not surprising, therefore, that most of my novels are inspired by people.  My historical biographies and biographical fiction, obviously, were inspired by real historical personalities, whose stories fascinate me -- Leonidas of Sparta, Edward the Black Prince, General Friedrich Olbricht. Other stories were inspired more by the “footnotes” to history – an passing reference to an individual act of courage or compassion in the description of mainstream historical events, a short description of a donor or grave in a half-forgotten church, a local legend of dubious veracity that nevertheless captures the imagination….

Yet almost as important as people are places.  I firmly believe that my interest in history and historical fiction started at the age of four when my father took me to the Coliseum in Rome. While my mother and older sisters took the guided tour, my father (wisely) decided a four year old would be bored by so much information. So he took through the Coliseum alone and confined himself to the essentials. “This,” he told me, “is where the Romans fed the Christians to the Lions.” Now that was fascinating to a four year old.

I spent the rest of the afternoon (or however long the official tour lasted) looking at the Coliseum and trying to imagine where they had kept the lions? where the Christians? Was there no way to escape? What if a lion got loose among the spectators? You see how rapidly this can become a novel?

Of course, at four, no novel evolved, but the process of thinking about the places I visited as the site of historical events and the stage set for personal drama had started. It was helpful that Rome was only the start of a tour that took us to Florence and Venice, then up the Rhine and finally to Denmark and England, where we had family. Two years later we were in Brazil, and my imagination was ignited by a visit to the decaying city of Manaus on the Amazon. That indeed inspired me to my first novel, a tale of an Indian boy following the Amazon to the sea. (Any resemblance to childhood books about travelling down the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Mississippi is pure coincidence, of course….) I was in second grade.

At fifteen, the family returned to England. By now I loved to read as much as I loved to eat and breathe. I had not stopped writing since that book about the Amazon. Now, however, I was living in the midst of history. We lived in Portsmouth. Nelson’s flagship the Victory was within walking distance of our Victorian townhouse. The view out our front bay window was of the Solent, the Isle of Wight, the Royal Navy patrolling the grey, white-capped waves….

Although I never wrote a novel about the Royal Navy in the age of sail, I soon became fascinated with Britain in WWII. I visited the Imperial War Museum and touched the wings of Spitfires. I went to Tangmere, so close to Portsmouth, and gazed out across the peaceful, grass airfield, while hearing the gentle peace shattered by the jingle of a telephone, the call to “scramble,” the roar of Merlin engines and the distant thud of the falling bombs. It took almost two decades and various false starts, but when Chasing the Wind was published in 2007 it was praised by one of the few surviving RAF fighter aces of that war, Wing Commander Bob Doe, as “the best book” he had ever read about the Battle of Britain. Doe wrote in his shaky handwriting a letter I treasure to this day, in which he says I “got it smack on the way it was for us fighter pilots.”

No amount of sales is a higher accolade for a historical novelist than for someone who lived through the time and events described in a piece of fiction to say the novel got it right. That is why, to this day, I consider Chasing the Wind (Kindle title: Where Eagles Never Flew) my best novel.

 

 

 

But England is a treasure chest for inspiration, and my biographical novel of Edward Plantagenet (more commonly known as The Black Prince) has also taken shape and flight from visits to Berkhamsted (his childhood home), Restmorel, Kenilworth etc. etc. Edward, however, was not only heir to the crown of England and Prince of Wales, he was the most brilliant English commander in the Hundred Years War and Prince of Aquitaine. Through Edward I therefore came to know the South of France – or was it the other way around?

In any case, there are few places in the world more inspiring to a historical novelist than Carcassonne, Narbonne, Albi, Moissac, Fontfroid, Najac….. And then there was Cyprus.

In the weeks and months ahead, I will be selecting some of my favorite places, places with connections to my individual novels, and introducing them to you. I hope my descriptions will inspire you to visit these unique places – either in my books or in person.

Birth of A Book, Part 1: The Idea

This is the first of a ten part series on the process of producing a novel.

In my experience, the origin of a novel distinguishes itself from the origin of a work of non-fiction by the role of inspiration. I have written and published four non-fiction works, and each of these came into being as the result of a rational process. In each case, I considered a variety of topics that might meet my objectives for the book, did market research on what books were already available on these and similar topics, adjusted the focus as appropriate and then got to work.

Selecting the topic for a novel, in contrast, is not a rational process. Ultimately, people don’t read or like novels for rational reasons either. Novels by their nature must appeal to the heart more than the head. Novels are like human beings. Each is unique – even if they tell a familiar story – and each needs a spark of inspiration if they are to succeed.

I have been told that some novelists can write novels based on a formula. Perhaps this is even a useful way of writing crime fiction or dime-store romance. I have no experience with this kind of writing, however, and question whether something that is uninspired can ever read as if it were. I have also listened to aspiring novelists agonize about not knowing what to write. There is a very simple answer to this common dilemma: If you don’t know what to write, don’t.

To create is to imitate the Creator of us all, and creation always has a spark of divinity in it. That spark manifests itself as inspiration.

The origin of each of my works of fiction has been a spark of inspiration.

Next week: Part II will look at the importance of research for a novel. 

Meanwhile, the first reviews of Where Eagles Never Flew our out:

Great story with superb flying accounts, October 15, 2011
5.0 out of 5 stars
By Hawgheater
This review is from: Where Eagles Never Flew: A Battle of Britain Novel (Kindle Edition)

As a retired US Air Force fighter pilot, I just finished reading "Where Eagles Never Flew"...for the 2nd time! As my bread and butter, I found the flying scenes to be most accurate, but I also really enjoyed how the four main characters were all interconnected as the book continued on. I found the book to be very readable...hard to put down...and perfect for a follow-on Hollywood cinema production.

A wonderful complement to non fiction Battle of Britain books, October 17, 2011
5.0 out of 5 stars
By Roy Crawford (Whitesburg, KY)
This review is from: Where Eagles Never Flew: A Battle of Britain Novel (Kindle Edition)

I must begin with a disclosure: I reviewed the manuscript of this book for technical and historical accuracy. I am a forensic engineer and serious amateur historian of the Battle of Britain. Among other things, I have read dozens of books about it and sat in the chairs Rex Harrison and Winston Churchill sat in at RAF Uxbridge on Eagle Day.

Since one of my favorite ways to take in history is to read fictional stories woven into historical events, I loved Where Eagles Never Flew and very highly recommend it for everyone. The major differences between it and straight history books is that it allows the reader to get inside the everyday lives of airmen, both inside the cockpit and out, including their romances, on both sides of the Channel. Battle of Britain Wing Commander Bob Doe wrote that Eagles is the best book he's ever read on that piece of history, adding that authoress Schrader got it "smack on the way it was for us fighter pilots." High praise indeed. You'll get details you wouldn't elsewhere, and you'll feel as if you're right there in the thick of wartime life rather than just observing from the future and the outside.

One of my first thoughts upon finishing this book was that it should be a movie. The ending is particularly stunning.