Why I Write Historical Fiction
I have always felt a strong connection to the past.
As a child, mythical stories like “Chylde Roland and the Goblin King” or “Jack the Giant Killer” sparked my imagination, and I spent hours leaping through the forests of our farm swinging a wooden sword. I lived and breathed Middle Earth, not because of the wizards and dragons and orcs that spawned thousands of pages of subsequent fantasy literature, but because of the realness of it all. I knew it was fantasy, and yet I also believed in the existence of Tolkien's creation.
Perhaps this is because, in a way, Tolkien’s world did exist. It is well known that the inception of Middle Earth began with the pipe-smoking professor’s interest in ancient languages and mythology. It is this connection to the Germanic and Celtic stories and cultures of the distant past that makes Tolkien’s fantasy world feel so real.
There is a romantic appeal in the ancient past, a world uncluttered by corporations, mass media, pollution, concrete and power lines, where Nature is still sacred and unsullied. And figures like Robin Hood, King Author, Merlin, and Cuchulainn bring the archetypes of our collective unconscious roaring to the surface. We imagine a world of champions and heroes, where gods talked directly to men, and we yearn to be a part of it.
At about eight years old, I became fascinated with the Native Americans. I read folktales, history books, literature, anything that could bring this romantic past to life, and when that wasn’t enough I started to recreate my own Iroquois nation in the woods and fields on our property. I made leather moccasins, warrior feathers, tomahawks and pipes, fishing spears, even my own Wigwam. When I eventually decided that running around with a sock between my legs was no longer “cool,” I turned to writing.
So that is what I do: I try to recreate the ancient path through words on a page.
My current obsession is with the Celtic World, specifically Gaul in the 1st century B.C. I am deeply involved in the process of writing my first historical fiction novel, and my goal is to tell a great story and recreate in splendid detail a world that we still hear speaking to us in our language, our myths and stories, and our collective unconscious.
It is a difficult task, because what we know is limited to a few surviving texts, interpretations of archeological remains, and conjecture based on later Irish Celtic rituals and writings. I intend to remain as accurate as possible, and will chronicle my journey through the mists of time as I wrestle with sources, struggle with interpretations, and agonize over creative choices.
