3 November 2003
<a href="http://www.mosselabyrinth.co.uk/inspirations/molay.asp">Molay</a>
Many years ago I wrote a book on pregnancy and childbirth called Becoming a mother. It's still in print. I wrote it based on interviews with about 40 women. It was inspired by my own experiences but became something bigger and better because of all the other voices it contains.
Writing Becoming a mother, I became interested in the characters of the women I interviewed. I was engrossed in how to make sure their personalities came across to my readers. After all, if the only voice in the book was mine, surely that would become tiresome ...
A couple of years later I had an idea for a story - Eskimo Kissing - of two adopted children in their teens who find they have to confront the fact that the birth story they have grown up with isn't the truth. As I was writing Eskimo Kissing, I found that the characters of the two girls - and one in particular of them - drove the story. Things happened because of what she was like.
Inspiration in Labyrinth has come from a particular place and time. In order to share that inspiration, I've written in depth about how people from the past and places whose remains can still be seen have become enmeshed with my creative imagination. You can find these pages on this website. You can see how it is I first came to see Montségur in the snow, the tenuous connection of my family to the Crusades, the history of the Ark of the Covenant ...
... and an anomaly.
There should be – I mean, I planned it! - a chapter on The Execution of Jacques de <a href="http://www.mosselabyrinth.co.uk/inspirations/molay.asp">Molay</a>, the Templar. But since I've been writing, not one of my characters has wanted to drive the story in that direction.
Who is leading you through the Labyrinth?
