The Stuff I Was Too Scared To Write About

I was sixteen when I wrote my very first medieval fantasy novel. In it, I wanted one of my female characters to be a prostitute. It wasn't because I was a red-blooded teenage boy, but because I've always had this fascination with really broken, morally ambiguous, lowly, fallen characters rising up against all odds to do... whatever they're going to do.

Ultimately, however, fear won out. I was too afraid that my mother would freak out over me writing about a prostitute. I was too afraid that I wasn't mature enough to handle the subject matter with the dignity it deserved, (and, actually, that last part is probably true.)

But times have changed. I've changed. And as a life-long student of the middle ages I've learned a lot about that time period. (My first novel included characters who gave their assents with "Okay!" even though that word didn't come around until the 1940s and had no meaning in the medieval lexicon. Oh, Craig *palms face*) The middle ages were brutal. Prostitution was everywhere, even embraced by the medieval church. You could die from a broken leg. People were tortured in the most heinous ways. Unless you were a noble or part of the royal family or the church, your life pretty much sucked.

When it came to starting Children of the Falls, I decided I wasn't going to pull any punches. I wasn't interested in being grotesque or overtly sexual for the sake of shock value, but I wanted to craft a story steeped in that moral gray area where evil can triumph and good can come from the most unexpected places. 

You see, the things in life that have been the most difficult for me to bear are often the things that shape who I am the most. The movies that rattle me, the books that disturb me, those are the ones that stick with me, that challenge my notions of justice and morality. This book is going to challenge me as a writer, and hopefully stretch the endurance of readers who love to be thrilled, but that's the point.

Sorry, mom.