Melissa tells us about the inspiration for her story in the latest HWF anthology
As soon as I saw Nicolaes Maes’ painting The Lacemaker (1656), I was drawn into the depicted child’s world. As a reenactor and lacemaker I could feel the fabrics, I could hear the sound of the bobbins and I could imagine the smells of a seventeenth-century house, so the world around the child was easy to imagine, but Maes had painted the child with such a strong gaze that I knew I’d found my main character.
I imagined the child as a grown man who is sure they are missing something, looking back through his memories in the hope of finding whatever that is, starting with his earliest memories of being sat in his highchair as his mother made lace. The child in the painting looks so confident and happy at his mother’s side, which led to my questioning what impact the loss of his mother might have on him, so I explore this throughout my story. I also wanted to consider the other people in his life, the ones who aren’t visible in Maes’ work. We, the viewers, did not get to see them and creates a feeling that they were not important parts of the child’s world at that moment, perhaps they were even absent. I took both these ideas and used them to drive parts of the narrative. Respecting the engagement Maes had created between his viewer and the child, I decided to tell the story in the first person. I named him Henry.
I already knew enough about the seventeenth century from my own research, visits to historic sites, and volunteer work, to create a timeline for Henry’s life and story. I wrote out the timeline with fictional events on top and real events on the bottom, to help me keep track as I wrote. I then set to fact-checking and researching some additional aspects (such as language, health, etc.) to ensure I created an authentic world for my readers, as Maes had done for his viewers. I also made use of an etymological dictionary to retain an authenticity in his vocabulary, avoiding modern words such as petal. Researching health in the 17th century is very illuminating and it can lead to new directions within the narrative. In my story, it led to the addition of characters I had not thought of when I began writing, and those characters help the reader to better understand the people in Henry’s life.
From his earliest memories during the English Civil War, through the Cromwell years and the Restoration period to the departure of James II, memories of his mother are woven through his story like the threads in the lace she made. A Shropshire boy whose father fought for Parliament yet saw his mother visited by Cavaliers, it is only by unpicking these threads after his mother’s death that he discovers the truth of his life story.
Author’s Bio
Melissa Speed writes fiction and poetry in addition to her creative non-fiction, personal essays and travel blogging. Much of her work is published on Medium in a variety of publications, including the popular Scribe. Her personal essay I Was Ashamed of My Post-Surgery Body Hair was published in Issue 1 of Aghh! Zine (2022, Brighton, UK). Her historical poem Queen of the Iceni (published in Medium’s Share the Love, June 2020) was adapted into a choral work by the American choir Pantera, and she is the winner of a Kids Poetry Club poetry for children competition. She writes a history-themed disabled travel blog at http://www.accessinghistory.com.
In addition to her writing, Melissa has previously been a beta reader for several historical fiction authors. A volunteer for two heritage trusts, she is also an artist and an avid reader in her spare time.
She lives in Buxton, Derbyshire in the UK.
You can find Melissa at
BLOGGER: https://www.accessinghistory.com/
ARTIST : https://www.melissaspeed.com/
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