Sharon Kay Penman
When I moved to Wales more than twenty years ago and began to research 'Here Be Dragons,' I was fascinated from the first by the Welsh medieval laws, by the discovery that women enjoyed a greater status in Wales than elsewhere in Europe.
My novels about medieval Wales were set in unexplored terrain; my readers did not know what lay around every bend in the road.
I feel that historical novelists owe it to our readers to try to be as historically accurate as we can with the known facts. Obviously, we have to fill in the blanks. And then in the final analysis, we're drawing upon our own imaginations. But I think that readers need to be able to trust an author.
I do not set specific work hours as some writers do. I generally stay with a chapter until I am satisfied, do very little rewriting, and if a scene is going well, I've been known to keep night owl hours.
I do my best to build a strong factual foundation for each of my novels and rely upon my author's notes to keep my conscience clear.
It usually takes me about three years to research and write one of my historical sagas; this is one reason why I take medieval mystery breaks, for they can be completed in only a year.
Respect can be as elusive as the unicorn. I know something of this because I write books that are set in the Middle Ages, and the historical novel is often seen as the unwanted stepchild in the fictional family. I know even more about respect - or the lack thereof - because I live in New Jersey.
I was actually born in New York City, but my family moved to Atlantic City when I was five, this being my dad's home town, so I think that qualifies me as a Jersey resident if not a bona fide native.
I certainly know all about the Jersey jokes that amuse the rest of the country. You've probably heard them. Our state bird is the mosquito. Our state tree is dead. It doesn't help that we are represented on television by Tony Soprano and 'Jersey Shore.'
Many people don't know that New Jersey is a fertile breeding ground for writers, some of them quite renowned. And I would wager that most would be truly startled to learn that the star in the Jersey firmament is - drum roll here - Newark.
Women did not have as many options as men, and I need to reflect that reality in my mysteries.
In writing my historical novels, I have to rely upon my imagination to a great extent. I think of it as 'filling in the blanks.' Medieval chroniclers could be callously indifferent to the needs of future novelists. But I think there is a great difference between filling in the blanks and distorting known facts.
Whenever I've had to tamper with history for plot purposes, I make sure to mention that in my author's note, and I try to keep such tampering to a bare minimum. I also attempt to keep my characters true to their historical counterparts. This is not always possible, of course.
I’ll admit that my garden now grows hope in lavish profusion, leaving little room for anything else. I suppose it has squeezed out more practical plants like caution and common sense. Still, though, hope does not flourish in every garden, and I feel thankful it has taken root in mine.Collection: Taken
Men are born to sin…What does matter most, is not that we err, it is that we do benefit from our mistakes, that we are capable of sincere repentance, of genuine contrition.Collection: Mistake
I inhale hope with every breath I take.Collection: Breaths
We tend to forget at times that it is the little ones, the children, who do suffer the greatest hurt. If we cannot comprehend why certain sorrows are visited upon us, how on earth can they?Collection: Hurt
For every wound, the ointment of time.Collection: Wounds
…she remembered watching a summer sunset from this very spot. Not so long ago; just a lifetime.Collection: Summer
There is nothing worse than an enemy with imagination.Collection: Imagination
During the day, memories could be held at bay, but at night, dreams became the devil's own accomplices.Collection: Dream
Why is it honesty when a man speaks his mind and madness when a woman does?Collection: Honesty
In time of war, the Devil makes more room in Hell.Collection: War
How fragile life was, how fleeting their days on earth, and how fickle was Death, claiming the young as often as the old, the healthy as often as the ailing, cruelly stealing away a baby's first breath, a mother's fading heartbeat.Collection: Mother
Autumn that year painted the countryside in vivid shades of scarlet, saffron and russet, and the days were clear and crisp under harvest skies.Collection: Fall
Abigail Adams could become my favorite historical sleuth.Collection: Historical
A cynic who was still saddened whenever his jaundiced view of mankind was confirmed.Collection: Views
It was just like him, she thought; with him, a happy ending was always a foregone conclusion. But such was the power of his faith that when she was with him; she found herself believing in happy endings, too.Collection: Believe
...A scar signifies past pain, a wound that did not heal as it ought. But it testifies, too, to survival...(Here be Dragons)Collection: Pain
When does he ever think?" Richard straddled a chair and accepted a wind cup from Raoul. "If he were to sell his brain, he could claim it had never been used.", Chapter 7Collection: Thinking
I'd not want to answer for the lives of other men; not at seventeen, by God's Grace.Collection: Men
I'd just rather not reap a crop every year.Collection: Years
Forget the threat of Hell's infernal flames. The true torture would condemn a man to wait and wait and wait - for an eternityCollection: Men
Men kill for many reasons, they steal but for one-greed.Collection: Men
Richard, might I ask you something? We've talked tonight of what you must do, of what you can do, of what you ought to do.But we've said nothing of what you want to do.Richard, do you want to be King?" At first, she thought he wasn't going to answer her. But as she studied his face, she saw he was turning her question over in his mind, seeking to answer it as honestly as he could. "Yes," he said at last. "Yes...I do.Collection: Kings
I should like to freeze in time all those I do love, keep them somehow safe from the ravages of the passing years..."Rather like flowers pressed between the pages of a book!Collection: Flower
Poor Wales. So far from Heaven, so close to England.Collection: Heaven