Nicola Matthews – My Writing Inspiration
Nicola Matthews – My Writing Inspiration
I live on a peninsular which has a very distinctive feel with its ragged inlets, silken mudflats and wide open skies. My protagonist, Kitty, walked this same landscape three hundred years earlier. Although it would have changed somewhat, it is the same ground, the same rhythm of tides that have marked our days. We share a visceral experience of the backwaters and it is this which first inspired me to write her extraordinary story.
I didn’t map out the novel before I started to write as I believe many do. I simply saw the first scene in a filmic way. I could see Kitty striding out in the late summer landscape with which I am so familiar. So, I began to write and before I knew it, three chapters had been written. It was during this time that I started the process of mapping out the novel, albeit in a sketch way. Thankfully, I had the end point in mind because it is set in historical fact.
Kitty was born to yeoman farmers in 1720 in my neighbouring village. At twenty five she married a local rector, but after a short marriage she disappeared from the family home. She was brought home two years later, having travelled far from home. I began to write by posing a question. I asked myself why she didn’t marry until she was twenty five. Legend has it that she was beautiful, so it would not have been that. As I wrote I began to consider and soon characters were making themselves known.
My characters aren’t based on particular people. Though I would sometimes find it helpful to use the character of a person I know, especially when a difficult situation faced my character. This would enable me to imagine how someone, other than me, would react. It is fascinating how, as you go on in your writing, characters begin to write themselves and often surprise you.
I found it true that a person writes from their own experience. Although the journey of our lives are very different and separated by so many years, I know that Kitty’s struggles echo my own. I understand her anger when she feels trapped by the culture and circumstances in which she finds herself, and her sense of desperation when life presents as a grey inevitability. Some of her faults run through my own veins, but some are entirely her own. She is certainly stronger than me. The story is written through Kitty’s eyes. Although not written in the first person, she is the one that inhabits almost every scene.
My rather organic way of writing did produce problems as time went on. I found the web of relationships that developed almost overwhelming. In the end I created a spider graph on a large piece of paper and pinned it to my wall, which helped enormously. It is amazing how one can lose track of characters and names. I aim to be more organised when I write my next novel!
Kitty lived out her life just before the industrial revolution and all the technical changes to farming. I am not technically minded so I was glad that Kitty and her family would have farmed much as they had for generations. She would have been well acquainted with the soil and the seasons. It would have been in her blood. I used my own experience in the landscape to express something of Kitty’s experience.
It was fascinating to research the development of the West End of London and the excesses that abounded among the city dwellers. London must have been overwhelming for a woman such as Kitty. But I am not an historian, I am a storyteller and the experience of the characters within their place and time is what fascinates me most.
My writing tends to be linear in nature. Readers have often said that they are quickly absorbed by the story and characters, which pleases me because my aim was to take my readers on a journey with Kitty. I want them to find themselves walking with her as she makes her own life’s journey through all the loves, and pain that living entails. I have never had a problem with writing pain. It seems that the western world is not so good at processing pain and loss, perhaps reading about it is helpful. Writing about it certainly was. It is, after all, common to humankind and the era in which my novel is set would have included much loss.
Giving myself a problem to solve became very much a part of the writing process. I had the marriage question to start with, thereafter, characters seemed to throw up their own problems. Each problem or question became a catalyst, which energised the creative process. The only problem I am left with now, is where to start again. Although Kitty Canham is an historical novel. It is not my aim to write history, It is my aim to write of the human condition. So my next project will be to write a series of short stories inspired by random words sent to me by my followers. My hope is that in the midst of writing, my next problem will show itself and my second novel will begin.
Nicola Matthews is the author of Kitty Canham (Hall House Press, £8.99, eBook: £2.99), available now from Amazon:
KITTY CANHAM
This is a fictional story woven around real life events that took place on the North Essex coast.
It is 1739. A woman had to be strong to make her way amid the conventions of the age. When the withheld truths that uphold those conventions begin to unravel around Kitty, she finds herself alienated from all she knows and loves.
Through an unexpected invitation she visits London society. There she becomes the keeper of a secret, which leads her into a deception of her own.
With few options Kitty determines to live a conventional life, but when tragedy strikes, misunderstandings follow and her life unravels once more. All the while she keeps her secret close, but the time will come when she can keep it no longer.
—
Nicola Matthews was inspired by the ragged North Essex coastline, where she lives with her husband, to write Kitty Canham’s story. She was an undiagnosed dyslexic until her mid-forties and has worked as a sculptor and in the theatre, writing and producing community productions. She is also the author of Anxt and Other Poems, a poetry anthology. It was the unexpected gift of lockdown that gave Nicola the time and inclination to finally write her debut novel, Kitty Canham. Find out more: www.nicolamwrites.com/novel
Category: Contemporary Women Writers
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
