The last two weeks in October were filled with reading, reassessing and writing my own book, working through my publishing list and writing challenges as they came up. I gave myself a gift – two days, creating my own twenty-four hour or so writing retreat. A cheap (clean and comfortable FTW) hotel with a free mini-breakfast (waffles!), two lectures at the St. Kateri Shrine over Indigenous Peoples’ Weekend, and time to simply sit in quiet with my pen and my notebook, with time to plan and think and reset and when it was over, the time to take what I received in all that time, and use that inspiration to move forward into the fall and to plan my writing intentions for the winter.

I did also finish reading seven books in October; multiple genres; fiction, non-fiction; books with groups, books as research for my own book; I even went to a book talk and signing that I thought had nothing to do with my own writing, and still there were some nuggets that have stayed with  me and continue to germinate and take root.

And then Halloween snuck up on us! Out of the blue, and before we knew it , it was here! I didn’t have a costume or any idea of what costume to wear. It was a real struggle; I always dress up for Halloween. This year was the longest I went without knowing what I’d dress as. It wasn’t until I woke up on Halloween morning that it finally came to me, almost fully formed. I could have kicked myself realizing how simple it would be to put together, even on such very short notice.

I’ve been reading The Pirate Queen by Ariel Lawhon and I finished it rather quickly on Halloween. I will come back to that.

As I woke up with the late morning sun shining through the window, no alarm ringing in my ears, my eyes still closed, I thought and decided all in the same moment that I could dress as Grace O’Malley. She’s the pirate queen of the aforementioned novel and a historical figure. I went through my drawers and found a shawl I had cut and hemmed a lifetime ago although I was looking for a belt or a hair snood to give my very short hair the appearance of long hair pulled up. None of those were found. Nor was the dagger I wanted for the belt I couldn’t find. In the end I pulled out my green dress from the back of the closet, where it had been resting in a garment bag alongside my wedding dress.

It is a 14th century cothardie that I made another lifetime ago, not sure if it would even fit, but it didn’t matter – I had my costume. I dug out some silver hangy earrings and a metal etched necklace on a leather thong. I wore the shawl like a good noblewoman for  most of the day, but then seeing it in the mirror, I changed it into an over-the-shoulder blanket that all the Celts wore in that period, and pinned it at my waist with an authentic Celtic pin my friend gave me decades ago. My husband found a curved sword in the basement (who doesn’t have a curved sword in their basement for just such a pirate emergency?!) and my costume was complete.

A word about my dress. I made it in the 90s during my time in the SCA, and in addition to wearing it for medieval re-enactment events and school programs, I’ve worn it for Halloween:  as a medieval lady, to match my daughter when we were both the Princess and the Frog, and now it has taken a turn as Grace O’Malley, pirate queen. It is a very versatile dress, and the irony of it’s 14th century style is that the original pattern I used was a cheerleader’s costume with the pattern enlarged two sizes and lengthened to the floor. If I had been thinking better, I would have worn my black leather boots – they would have been a better look with the skirts than my Keds tennis shoes. Another costume for another Halloween.

Now, as promised, back to the book. It is entrancing, a wonderful deep dive into the period with a unique way to tell the story. It’s a triune story told of Grace’s life through the three points of the triquetra. Lawhon uses it to symbolize and recall the Celtic belief in the ever-flowing, never-ending circle knotwork and the representation of a woman’s life: maiden, mother, crone. Lawhon uses Matriarch rather than crone, although I believe her choice is to do with the alliteration rather than any negative connotations of ‘crone.’ Certainly, Celts don’t find the crone a negative word – it isn’t merely aged or old, it is more in line with wizened.

I read each trilogy of chapters together, and was impressed and sometimes open-mouthed astonished with Lawhon’s storytelling – the weaving of the three chapter in sequence. We meet Grace in the first chapter as Maiden at five years old, the second as Mother at twenty, and the third as Matriarch at fifty-six. The fourth chapter begins with returning us to Maiden about three years after the first chapter. It was a fascinating way to tell the story, brilliantly written, engaging, enthralling, and beautiful.

Two things stood out to me as I read it, and I hope to be able to describe this without spoilers. I think I’ve succeeded.

First, one of my favorite things about the historical fiction genre is reading incredible events that seem impossible to have happened, and then discovering in the author’s note that the remarkable impossibility actually happened. I won’t give an example from this book, but I will from another favorite author of mine, Sharon Kay Penman in her Welsh trilogy. The bride of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd in her third book, The Reckoning was kidnapped by pirates (along with her brother) to keep her from meeting and living with her new husband in Wales as Princess. I was certain that this sequence of events was fictional. I still loved it, but it’s fiction. I was wrong – it absolutely happened to Elen de Montfort. There are several things like this in Lawhon’s The Pirate Queen. Do not read the author’s note before you finish the book.

The second thing is a scene late in the book that I found profound, and at different points throughout the day, I find myself returning to it. It’s poignant and sad, heartbreakingly so, on so many levels for more than one character. I’m not going to describe it so I can avoid spoilers, and in the big picture the scene itself isn’t really that important. There is a level of character development that I appreciated, showing inner thoughts of the characters, subtlety weaving the past into the present. It’s more than the depth of the writing; it’s the humanness, kindness, secure-ness of the characters. I keep going back to this scene and reading it again and again, and it continues to speak to me. It is so emotionally powerful to me. There are several of these instances in the stories from beginning to end; I can’t explain what it is about this one little piece, not even a full page of writing, less than five hundred words, that pulls me back into it.

It is one of the truly magical things about this story that such a simple, short piece of one part of a story in a plethora of beautifully written pages could touch me so deeply.

There were so many happenings in the last few weeks in actions, in the things I’ve written, in the books I’ve read, and they have inspired to gently encourage and push me into some new focus and tangible goals.

As I get ready for my day, I’ll return again to that snippet and read a chapter in another book, and play a game, ensconced in what I hope is a creative bubble.

[If you’d like to see me in my costume, find the link on the sidebar to my Instagram.]