From the Sketchbook: Scene 1

These sketches illustrate the first scene of Courting Trouble. After a tour of her abbey with a very tiresome bishop, the elderly Abbess Cynethrith reminisces about her youth. She tells us about the day she pumped a monk for information, got a glimpse of a naked monarch, and ran into a very angry queen.

The (Almost) Lost Manucript

A friend asked me how long it took to write Courting Trouble. I told him that I started it in England in 1990 or there about. I worked on it a couple of years, doing all sorts of research--to the point of taking archeology courses at Southampton University, drawing the local flora to learn it, and embroidering in the style of the times. I wrote during the couple of hours a day that my youngest child attended preschool. I remember sitting at my desk, chortling. Then we returned to America and I let it go. I might have dragged the book out once or twice in Raleigh, but the rewrites I remember were not in the text that Rob found on the old computer.

I had written off the whole project long ago, even though my husband nudged me yearly to finish it. I had no interest. Then he wanted to get rid of the antique (at this point) computer the book lived in, but he wouldn't do it until he found a way to free the imprisoned text. It was a very big job. It had been written in a version of WordPerfect that is so outdated that even later editions of the same software cannot read it.

After he had gone to so much trouble to rescue the book from oblivion I thought I should at least read the damn thing. After all this time I read it as a reader rather than the writer, and at times I had no idea what would happen next. I remember from time to time saying to myself, "I wonder where I am going with this?" I was entertained. It made me laugh, and I thought it would take a month or two to whip it into shape. It took another 10 or 11 months. So, to answer my friend's question, it took probably 3 years of actual work and 30 years of gestation.

A Visit to the Abbey

The novel's heroine, Cynethrith (pronounced KIN uh trith) visits an abbey to see her best friend, Athelflad (Ath el flad), a nun. An excerpt from the novel Courting Trouble.

I closed my eyes and inhaled the incense. One of the nuns was playing a lyre. She led the sisters in singing psalms. I opened my eyes and watched them. In the choir two groups of nuns faced each other, novices in front, the others on a step behind them. There were about thirty members of the order then, and all but one were at Nones that day. Their white faces gleamed in the candlelight. They seemed transported. They radiated a purity I found both admirable and totally alien.

I spotted Athelflad. She was second in from the altar. I found her voice reedy, but she loved to sing and was completely enthralled by the music. I shut my eyes again and prayed that an atheling would fall in love with me, preferably one who wouldn’t have any connection to King Beorhtric. When the service was over I waited for Athelflad outside the church. Her dark hazel eyes sparkled when she saw me.