Peter Carroll is the author of Queen of Misfortune – A Lady Jane Grey Novel. For more information, see his website.
A friend asked me recently what inspires me to write, he was particularly referring to my novel about Lady Jane Grey called ‘Queen of Misfortune’.
He caught me unawares and for a moment I was hesitant. I find in my later life so many reasons to write and often awaken with my mind spinning with all sorts of notions, causes and effects – the Karma of my being beckoning me to translate thoughts into the written word.
It would be so easily become confused and when I have had breakfast and settled to my beloved computer (just where would modern day writers be without new technology when information abounds at the flick if a key?) I do need to discipline myself and decide just which of my three novels in progress to continue on a particular day, according to my mood.
On goes some music to help me along with atmosphere – derived again from the music channels of the computer and I most times find myself back in the Tudor realm deep into the doing of Queen Elizabeth’s chief lady in waiting, Mary Sidney. It is like meeting old friends again because it was Mary who knew Jane Grey and also having researched how it was then, research comes easier and I am having a wonderful time, with due patience from my wife, delving into new angles based on the most minute piece of information chronicled of those times.
But the next writing day (I do take days off between) I am engrossed into the vain attempts of Robert Kett’s uprising in Tudor Norfolk and his battle to champion the peasants against the gentry who are taking over their lands. There really is so much to write about and visiting Norfolk castle was a ‘must do’ ‘to take in the atmosphere of the period .
But occasionally, and rarely I need to return to the future and find myself writing a ghost story with romantic undertones in the 1980’s which is always a breath of fresh air after becoming entwined in the cobwebs of the Tudor era.
It is all so very wonderful and I feel I am a very lucky guy who has been given the opportunity to do what I have always wanted to do all my life, but in bringing up family never quite had serious time for.
But back to the question my friend asked me and looking at my first novel and those to follow – I realise that the nucleus of the seed that drives me, the seed that grows and grows from the injustice given of one to another often with so many others involved who have succumbed to brain washing and incorrect evidence of what really are the facts. Or – as often the case in those wicked days of the past the masses were reluctant to rebel for fear of being unjustly accused of treason and executed themselves.
In gathering evidence I often wonder just why intelligent men like John Dudley veered to submit the poor Jane Grey to the throne when it was plain that Henry’s firsts daughter Mary would be next in line, it would not have taken rocket science to realize Mary was the popular choice, backed by the people and he would not have one iota of a chance to capture her enabling Queen Jane to retain her position and make his son King, a notion that never paid off because Jane resisted anyway.
But in the words of modern idiom he dropped a clanger and the rightful Queen Mary had him beheaded despite his attempts for a pardon, offering to change his religion to Catholicism.
But perhaps that is what the pangs of power and riches did for him, blinding him to what really was happening all around him.
I do find it so easy to write. Mozart said his music came from above and he was merely the translator. I believe him and others who have said the same.
I look back at stuff I wrote a decade ago and just cannot fathom how I wrote it. Much of it seemed absolutely foreign to my way of thinking; the style and the essence – I vouch then it was not all me, that certain something in the Karma of things that we can never properly explain, and perhaps that is how it should be.
And it is not just writers and composers who know about these things, there are all sorts of people out there following their gifted pursuits who know they have that certain something that drives them on.
For myself I am much more busy in retirement and just looking around and seeing some others (not all) my age I know I have discovered the secret of a healthy and constructive lifestyle, devoid of the search for material things which for me and my wife, really mean nothing, I am humbly thankful to simply be able to exercise both the mind and the body. Foremost the writing serves the mind and being next to my God in the garden and all those wonderful visits to the superb Devon countryside takes due care of the body.
So many I have remembered have passed on and I feel the need to have a few more years to do things before I die. Like writing and writing and more writing.
And I must not end this piece without praising my publisher Wilfried Voss who has given me all the encouragement and backing I need and the achievement in at last having my first two books published namely Queen of Misfortune and Doodlebugs & Spitfires.
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QUEEN OF MISFORTUNE
A Lady Jane Grey Novel by Peter Carroll
A Love Story of Shakespearean Dimension!
Queen Of Misfortune is the fictional story of Lady Jane Grey as told by her beloved tutor, John Aylmer. At the time of her execution a stranger is recorded to have assisted her when, blind folded, she lost her way upon the scaffold. Was it the same strange who was also recorded to have visited her when she was imprisoned in the Tower? Little is known of this unfortunate girl who was beheaded for treason in the 16th Century. She was only 16. She is omitted from the list of monarchs but was actually queen for nine days. Author Peter Carroll, in his novel, follows John Aylmer’s close relationship with Jane as her tutor and later, as she grows up, her lover. [More...]
Available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and any other good bookstore.
