A brand of magic that never fails... 🧞♂️
Hello story-lovers!
How's your month of October been? Has anything exciting happened to you this season?
Between the end of lockdown (meeting friends and family I haven't seen in three months!), starting a new job (hello, I'm Debbie, and I'll be serving you this evening ;)) and suddenly realising that an assignment I haven't started is due on Monday and I'll be busy all weekend so need to get it done on Friday, I honestly wasn't sure if I'd even remember to write to you this week! Hence why I'm writing on Wednesday night, at 10:10pm, while it's in my mind and I have a spare moment :). (I feel like there's an extra e in this weeek.)
Do you know the story of Scheherazade? Maybe you've heard of the tale that made her famous: A Thousand and One Nights.
If you're scratching your head over how to pronounce it, her story is mentioned in the first few lines of the Aladdin song 'Friend Like Me', pronounced as Sheh-HEH-rah-zah-dee. She's from Persia, and while I will warn you that it involves violence against women, it's also a story of a very clever woman, and it's one of my favourite stories.
*grabs big book of legends and fables to make sure I get all the names right 😅*
The Sultan Schahriar fell in love with and married a wonderful woman. He loved her deeply, trusted her intrinsically, and spoiled her recklessly. But after a few years, he accidentally discovered that she'd deceived him about her character. Her betrayal caused him not only to have her put to death for her crime, but to completely lose faith in all women. He decided that women were evil at heart, and the world was better off without them. From then on, every day he found a new bride, and the next morning, he had her executed.
His people lived in terror that they or their daughter would be called up as the next fatal bride. The town was filled with mourning for those that had been killed, and trembling for those who had not... yet.
But one woman decided to take a risk for the sake of her sisters.
She was the eldest daughter of the Sultan's Grand Vizir, the man who's unfortunate job it was to choose the next bride of the Sultan. She was beautiful, intelligent, and determined to save her country, even at the risk of death.
She was Scheherazade.
Scheherazade asked her father to make her the Sultan's next wife. At first her father was horrified, and refused, but she wouldn't back down. Finally sensing she had a plan, he announced to the Sultan that she would be his next bride. The Sultan made it clear that he wouldn't treat her any differently to the others, even though she was his Vizir's daughter. The Vizir nodded, his head and heart heavy, and the two were married.
After the wedding, Scheherazade begged the Sultan to allow her one request. 'Please let me spend my last night here with my sister,' she said. 'She can sleep here quietly, to be a friend before my execution.' The Sultan granted her request, and her younger sister, Dinarzade, came and slept in their room. The two had already discussed their plan, and as morning came, they put it into action.
'Scheherazade, are you awake?' her sister asked, an hour before dawn. 'Would you tell me one of your stories before you go? One last time, before I have to give up your voice forever?'
Scheherazade agreed, and as she recounted a story for Dinarzade, Schahriar awoke too. He listened attentively, right to the end. But as she finished, Scheherazade was suddenly reminded of another story, and started to tell that one. Just as she came to the climax, a guard came and called her for her execution.
The Sultan hesitated, stopping the guard. 'Don't execute her yet,' he said. 'Let her finish the story.'
Scheherazade shook her head. 'I'll finish it tomorrow morning,' she replied, and could not be persuaded otherwise.
Schahriar was desperate to hear the conclusion of her story, so he allowed Scheherazade to live one more night, and demanded the rest of the story the next morning. Scheherazade gladly finished it, but as soon as she had, she started another story. Once more, she was interrupted, and refused to finish the story until the next day.
This cycle happened one thousand and one times, with as many stories as their were nights. During that time, the Sultan had fallen in love with her again, and they'd had three children together.
I love Scheherazade's quiet courage, and the gentle and clever way she prevents the Sultan's murders. I don't know how she could have felt seeing the Sultan who had killed so many women, but she also knew that fighting back was fruitless, and she won him back with only stories as her weapon.
What do you think? Do you know of any stories of similar clever, quiet bravery? Do you prefer stories of quiet courage or battle-cry courage?
Last week I started editing my novel, An Experiment in Time and Memory (AEITAM) again. It's something I've been putting off for months and, honestly, it wasn't until I'd written an open letter to myself that I was convinced to begin working on it again... just a little bit. To commemorate, here are four (more) tips on editing I've learnt from my own novel!
I'm sure you noticed last time, but I'll be talking a little bit about AEITAM l in the post scripts of each email. These are exclusive cast-interviews, behind-the-scenes, and hopefully just fun info you won't find anywhere else. I hope that you'll find them fun, so that when the book comes out, the characters feel more like old friends to you all :).
What have you been working on? I can't wait to hear about it!
<3 Debbie
P.S. Say hello to Amber Elkhoury, another time traveller. She's about 24, born in England to Lebanese parents, and inherited their olive skin and her mother's long black curls. She's just as new to ARCHIVE and ready-to-roll as Lucky is; in fact, they're partners in time-travel, set to complete all their missions together.
Except... their first mission doesn't go to plan. As she gets to the airport in 1998, ready to get on a doomed-for-emergency-landing plane, she meets another ARCHIVE agent who tells her quite bluntly that he's her replacement--according to his records, she completely missed the plane!
Amber is crushed at this news, but she doesn't let being stranded at the airport stop her from finding some important information...
Anyway, back to Amber. She loves travelling and helping people, with has a fondness for classic novels, and, as she has many younger siblings and cousins, she often steals their books and reads those too. She doesn't share Lucky's aversion to exercise, in fact, she's trying to convince him that it's not so bad (unsuccessfully, so far).
Amber seems to have the worst lot out of all my characters. She spends most of the book feeling alone and confused, stripped of everything--her home, her purpose, and her identity. Her sensitivity to the pain of others and sense of responsibility only make it worse for her. But still, somehow she still finds things to laugh about at the end of the book. <3
A notable quote from Amber: "Sometimes things happen that we can’t expect, and then, even though the consequences are painful, it’s not our fault. Still, it takes a lot of courage to follow through with it, knowing the danger."
And also,
"If he was going to die, he would have done so by now."
(Good ol' out-of-context quotes XD)