“She woke to a distant, unsettled, high-pitched wail far outside the warmth of her closely clutched quilt — a carefully constructed mosaic of muted fabric scraps cut from garments long forgotten, stitched together with patterns of delicate embroidery preserving a family history, unspoken. Layered together with a wool batting gathered from her small flock of badger-face sheep… it kept the cold of winter from stirring her, but couldn’t protect her dreams from the sharp injection of panic spilling across the night landscape.”
~ An Unpublished Excerpt from The Untold Stories of Juniper Leigh (working title)
November 2024 I started writing my first novel. 60K+ words later, I continue to edit and revise, mapping out plot lines, dates, and further developing characters as I go. Above is a short passage I especially like because it gave me a chance to research sheep breeds from the region where part of the story is set.
Badger-face sheep are an interesting Welsh breed, striped in black and white (or tan), with their left and right sides one color and the other running down their center. (You can read more about them and see their unusual coat at Badgerfacesheep.co.uk)
With a career as a visual artist, it’s a fascinating thing to inhabit this alternate universe I’ve built out of words on paper, to live with and embrace the people on the page, trying to understand all their flaws and curious connections to one another… and to me.
This started as an exercise to get to know my family history a little better (the art above is inspired by a photograph of my grandmother that I transferred onto printmaking paper) and to imagine my ancestors in the various villages and towns they lived in. What I’ve discovered along the way, though, is a curiosity that goes much deeper. In living with the characters I’ve created for the last 15 months, in their particular spaces and times, as their lives and histories intersect, I have become enamored with each of them. And I have unexpectedly found a joy in writing historical fiction as much as I enjoy reading it.
I have no formal training in writing, and especially not in this format, but I still find myself returning to this project week after week, even when it’s slow-going and far from where I want it to be. I’ve come this far. There’s no turning back now!
Thank you for indulging me as I occasionally share small bits here and there (probably not what a writer’s writer would do, but I’ll at least be wary of spoilers!). Know that it all may change by the time I’m done, and I only do so as one enamored with the fact that I’m doing something I’ve never done before and am enjoying the heck out of it. How fun is that?
Now to see if I can get my hands on some badger-faced skeins of wool!
To trying new things,
Jennifer
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