I have been writing now for 20 years and am still amazed at the way my story ideas tap me on the shoulder when I least expect it. This wouldn’t be a problem if the story tapped me on the shoulder and walked away when I first ignored it. However being a writer, it’s never been that simple. The potential tale keeps tapping me until I finally give in and start writing. My lifelong fascination with local historical societies increases these odds even more, a place where hundreds of stories are waiting to be told.
Take my first step into novel writing, Across Lots. It started out simply enough. I was a journalist looking for a late October story possibility. So of course, I found myself in the Gardner Museum, the local history spot in town. There I spotted it, a reward poster hanging over a little table. Apparently remnants of the town’s first murder which took place in 1855. Two elderly sisters who were bludgeoned with a chair post. The reward poster was one issued by selectmen in the hopes of catching the perpetrator. It did not work, the murder is still unsolved to this day. The small table underneath the poster was supposed to have been in the room the night the ladies were murdered. It is said the small stains on the table are blood stains from that night. I’m not even getting involved in that debate. Needless to say I had my story,which I wrote and it ran. Which should have been the end of it.
Being a writer of course, it wasn’t. The tale kept nibbling away at my imagination. I firmly ignored it, being busy enough with work and family. Yet the story idea persisted until several years later, when I found myself at home with my three young children doing freelance journalism.
Having a few quiet moments, I decided to resolve once and for all as to whether this story would make a good historical fiction read. I was pretty sure if it did, I wouldn’t be the one to write it. I had never written a historical fiction novel or any novel for that matter before. I was a journalist not a novelist. At least not until that day when I opened a new notebook and picked up a pen. Almost before I knew it the characters were pouring out on the page. I once heard an author say there were days when she felt like she was channeling more than writing. Yeah it was like that. The more I wrote, the more I wanted to write, to see how this story was going to end. Hours turned into days, days turned into weeks and weeks into months. Then one day, after all the research and writing and rewriting it was done. Not only done but published on the then newenglandwow.com. A wonderful site, no longer in existence, with a wonderfully patient editor, Peter Roberts, who offered to take a chance on this story and this new novelist.
You see at this point I realized Across Lots was not the end, it was only the beginning. Having enjoyed this novel writing experience, I now had what felt like a hundred more stories bubbling in my mind. I was ready to move on to the next story. For a writer though things are never that simple.
Little did I know I had only begun on my journey with the Kneelands The local paper decided to write an article about my new e-novel, due to the local history angle of it. This too soon ran. Then I received a call, that added a whole new twist to the sister’s story. You see there was one person charged in the Kneeland murders in 1855. He was found not guilty and that was the end of it. Until that phone call. It seems there was a letter entailing a family story, implicating an unnamed nephew in the sister’s deaths. I indeed had a mystery on my hands, one which still leaves me trying to authenticate the claims in this letter, I have yet to do it, although I haven’t given up.
There was something else bothering me too. Several newspaper articles of the time referred to the Kneeland’s as “sisters of infidel preacher Abner Kneeland.” Being a journalist I new I couldn’t leave this tantalizing tidbit alone. On a whim I typed his name into a search engine only to discover he had his own story to tell, being the last man in the country jailed for blasphemy.
With Across Lots completed in the late 1990’s even today it continues to unfold. While at a local fair recently, I stopped at the town historical society and was alerted to the fact the local jail cell Stacy was locked up in, still exists. Within the week I had visited the site and taken pictures My first novel has taken me on an unforgettable journey whose memories I will always cherish.