Another moment of awareness after sending off a complete manuscript and considering how to describe my work in a way that gives it the unique appeal I believe it has. The ‘eureka’ moment came whilst walking with Moose, our Fox Red Labrador, in local rain sodden woods. It is the contrast between the world I have imagined and our world today. I described the story as ‘values driven’. It is not a ‘moral story’ just one that by the descriptions, behaviour and decisions of the character reflects a very different set of values and culture to that we live in and sadly accept.
My hope is that this will hook the agent and provide a unique appeal to market the book with, in a way that is relevant today although it is an historical work. Given the time it is set in there is little evidence to contradict my view of then although there is increasing evidence that people did more than survive and thrived in the erroneously termed ‘dark ages’. Romanisation was not complete and culture survived changed and evolved but was not eradicated. Trade continued, contacts and internationalism continued. The western empire did not survive except as the Roman Catholic Church, the holy ghost of the empire.
It is this complexity I am working my way through to tell the story, a sort of cultural archaeology. An intuitive process to find the sense of a time long forgotten and picture the whole from the available fragments.
Sardonnick's View 