When the fields bleed with poppies she knows it's her birthday. It is early this year. Blossoms of mustard and crimson ignite the hills where an old woman picks poppies, one by one. It takes twice as long with one hand. But she does not struggle. She's learned to do many things with one hand and has made the stub of her right wrist useful. Two hands made her famous. But one hand is enough.
She fills her basket and ambles slowly toward a lonely rock that points to the mountains above the sea of the Golden Horn. A blue parrot sits perched on her shoulder like a sentry guarding her, making sure she finds her way. She has been lost before. It is only dawn. The air is already heavy with heat. An oily haze coats the horizon but the Blue Mosque is still visible. Its steely minarets pierce the sky and project the distant cry of prayer.
She touches her fingers to her forehead. They are stained red from the dye of prayer rugs. She points them straight in the air like minarets. They, too, beckon worship.Silence.
A hot wind lifts a familiar scent. Lemon and oil, morning. She has named it prophecy. She inhales then bows her head and turns from the cold mosque to face the mountains. Allah will not mind. She unzips her dress and slowly peels it off her body. The dress falls in a heap upon the rock and she gracefully steps over it. She unwinds a colorful scarf from her head. Locks of silver hair fall freely past her breasts, below her waist.
page one from the first draft of The Virgin’s Knot by Holly Lynn Payne
Today, I am flying back to the land that inspired my novels and launched my writing career. It has been 25 years since I’ve been back to Turkey—where my debut novel, The Virgin’s Knot, takes place. This time, I am taking my teenage daughter.
We were scheduled to fly yesterday but I was turned away at SFO—because my passport expires August 27. Seriously. They refused to let me on the flight so we hightailed it to the passport office in San Francisco—praying for a miracle: same day passport renewal and rebooking of the same flight. And, it all happened.
I am holding my new passport. We have our new flight. We are ready to make this journey back to Turkey and I have chills as I write. Two days ago, I heard from a woman who read The Virgin’s Knot many years ago. I found the timing of her message wild and the message itself a potent reminder of why I have dedicated my life, my love and my life force energy to the pursuit of storytelling.
Annie Seyad wrote, “There are some books that leave a permanent imprint on our DNA. They alter our perception of how we view the world, and perhaps even ourselves. After years go by, we call these books our favorite books. We seldom re-read these books. They aren’t a favorite like a movie or a recipe. It’s almost as if their spell is cast upon the first reading only. That is not to say we may not enjoy re-reading them. Sometimes in life, through taking a course or going back to school or a teaching opportunity, we get to interact with them again through happenstance. And we find more to admire even. But it’s not the conscious-altering impact of the first read. The Virgin’s Knot was such a book for me.”
I don’t often hear from readers. It’s a rare and precious experience and I never take it for granted. Annie’s message was such a gift to me and potent reminder of why
I keep writing, especially when it’s easy to lose sight of this. Maybe you can relate. What compels us to return to the blank page, day after day? I think it has a lot to do with the energy we actually get when we write—and perhaps even more so, to offer something to another person, a way for them to feel more connected to life.
Annie is in the midst of submitting her book to an agent and expressed her frustration with the process. I want to tell Annie, and all of you, to keep writing no matter what anyone says. This business is highly subjective. Remember your why.
Annie helped me remember mine.
If you don’t love the process, find something that makes you come alive. But if writing makes you come alive, if it sustains you, feeds you and even frustrates you on most days, that’s okay. Just keep doing it. You are feeding your soul, and these days, there’s a lot of return on that specific investment.
I shared the first page of the original draft, which did not make it into the book. There’s a whole story but here’s the high level: I wrote the first 450 pages of The Virgin’s Knot, grinding me way through every page. I woke up at 5 a.m. because I thought’s what was serious writers did. I spent all day, sometimes 8-10 hours writing. I lived and breathed the process, and then one day I had an epiphany. The book was so wrong. I had to start over. Like totally over. Like not a single page was going to work because my character, the old lady, was not going to become an old lady. And so I kept those 450 pages of The Virgin’s Knot, which began with those words you see above (discovered just two weeks ago in my piles in my office).
But those first pages were not a waste. I submitted them to the Jackson Hole Writers Conference where Wally Lamb was celebrating his NYT bestselling novel. I was in awe of him and everyone else and when they told me to keep going, to go back to Turkey and do whatever research I needed to do to write this book, I did.
I am leaving out a lot of details because I have to get the airport—thanks to the Herculean effort of the supervisor I spoke with at the airline, who after learning I was a writer and that was one of the reasons I was returning to Turkey, told me she, too was a writer. When I asked her full name so that I could write a letter to the airline and thank her for all her help—getting us on the exact flight just one day later, she said, “Just keep writing. Keep inspiring the world with your words.”
Her name is Vera. So thank you, Vera. Thank you, Annie. Thank you to all the readers who keep encouraging me and all of us writers to keep writing. I will always wonder if this delay was purposeful. If my passport’s expiration was divinely planned (my oversight in failing to realize I needed to have five months at least on my passport even for a 2-week trip). These are the things in life we cannot predict. These are the obstacles we overcome that become the stories that remind us of our humanity. We are all in this life together and our words leave a trace.
I cannot wait to return to Turkey. I wrote this in my journal many years ago doing research for my first novel and it became the epigraph. I just shared it with my daughter to orient her to my why. Maybe it will inspire you to do the same for yourself. Remember why you write. It is more than my practice. It is my prayer.
Sometimes there are places in the world we have never been but the minute we step into them we are forever changed. We have native towns, houses where we grew up and return to now and then, but somehow, something overtakes us when we set foot in our homeland. Some call it the karmic debt land and we know it better than the places with which we are most familiar. A crooked tree, a bend in the road, the way a mountain whispers. We need no road signs here because we already know the way, and everything at once becomes home. I have felt such things in Turkey. -Holly Lynn Payne
How might this spark your own first page?
Were YOU hooked? I’m curious to know!
About Me:
I’ve been a private writing coach since 2005 and have taught in the MFA writing programs at the Academy of Art University, California College of the Arts, San Francisco State and Stanford Online Writers Studio. Please visit my website for all my books: hollylynnpayne.com including my recent work of historical fiction, Rose Girl: A Tale of Resilience and Rumi, a medieval, mystical thriller about a mysterious orphaned girl who posses the power to turn roses into rose oil and is mistaken for a saint for performing miracles.
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My latest work:
ROSE GIRL: A TALE OF RESILIENCE & RUMI A medieval, mystical thriller about Damascena, a mysterious orphaned girl who possesses the power to turn roses into rose oil and is mistaken as a saint for using it to heal people in 13th century Bulgaria—but she wants nothing to do with this power; she only wants to find her mother. Raised by a tyrannical monk who is deeply conflicted about his past, Damascena eventually escapes his captivity, finding refuge with a woodland hermit who teaches her how to grow roses to survive, a practice that makes her the target of admiration, exploitation and instigates a terrifying witch hunt. This is a haunting, hypnotic adventure about a girl who undergoes a profound personal transformation when she finally meets Rumi—who recognizes her as a spiritual master and initiates her into a secret dance that holds the key to her power.
Winner of a Kirkus starred Review
“Disarmingly powerful—a nuance story of female resilience that reaches across the ages.”
Editor’s Choice for The Historic Novel Society
“Riveting, gorgeous, engrossing! I raced to the end.”
Alka Joshi, NYT bestselling author of The Henna Artist
“A world of magic, mystery, poetry and above all, genuine love.”
Lee Kravetz, bestselling author of The Last Confessions of Sylvia P.