Today's Chat with Sarah features Londyn Skye author of The Prodigy Slave, Book One: Journey to Winter Garden.
To view the official review, click here.
To view the book on Amazon, click here.
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1. What does your writing environment look like?
I am a truck driver and majority of my books have been written while sitting in the cab of my truck waiting to be loaded or unloaded, or sometimes while sitting on top of a pallet inside of a noisy warehouse or while broken down on the side of the road. In the times that I'm not working, I usually sit quietly at the kitchen table with a glass of wine, typing up scenes that have often come to me while driving, in the shower, or about to go to sleep! I have learned to keep a notebook with me at all times because I have gotten used to my odd little brain coming up with ideas at these inconvenient moments! I jot them down and type them up during downtime at work or, ideally, on the rare days when I have peace and quiet and a glass of wine at my kitchen table.
2. Who or what was your biggest inspiration?
As I mentioned, I am a truck driver and I actually only began reading books because I was too broke to afford any other form of entertainment while I
was on the road. So I resorted to reading for escape. I initially judged the genre of romance by its cover! I thought that they were sooo corny and cheesy! But I decided to stop being irrational and give the genre of romance a try. After reading just ONE romance novel, I immediately understood why romance was the #1 selling genre amongst women. I was blown away by the graphic material that I had been missing! I became utterly obsessed with reading romance! But after reading so many romance novels back to back, I started to notice a trend. It felt like I was reading the same book with different character names. The plots usually just centered around a character who had an insecurity that made them afraid to give their new love interest a chance. The side characters were easily forgettable. And sometimes, I didn't really understand why the characters were even attracted to each other. After a while, I found that I was only interested in reading the naughty stuff. I actually started referring to romance as "wham bam thank you ma'am" books! The books were great but they were the equivalent to porn. You don't watch porn for the deep storyline and the award winning acting. It serves a quick purpose. You get in, get what you need, and get on your way! Haha! Many romance novels were very similar. Don't get me wrong! I enjoyed it immensely, but I began craving more. I wanted to understand why a man felt the way he did about a woman. What was going on in his mind that made him conflicted? What were the main characters' life histories? I wanted to know more about the side characters, at least something that made me feel an emotional connection to them. I wanted a deeper storyline, perhaps a goal that the couple was fighting to achieve that ultimately helped bring them closer together. I wanted to go on a journey with the characters as they evolved in their lives, and see the mistakes they made as they attempted to better themselves. To put it simply, I wanted to read a very cerebral story, one that featured characters from very different backgrounds, who had very serious tangible obstacles to overcome to achieve their goals and their relationship.
In the 80's, I used to watch the soap opera "Days of Our Lives." It featured a couple named Steve and Kayla. Their love story journey is what had spoiled me to want more out of the couples I was reading about in romance novels. Steve and Kayla are STILL my all-time favorite television couple because of the way their love story was told. They definitely had all the elements that I felt I was missing in the romance novels I was reading. So I wanted that Steve and Kayla type story all over again. I tried and tried to find books that offered that sort of depth. I read stories from many wonderful authors, but the sort of niche story that I hoped for continued to elude me. So one day, I decided to just write my own story. I wanted the story to feature all of the things that I loved about the Steve and Kayla saga. I wanted two main characters that go on a grand journey, one in which they experience pleasure, pain, happiness, sorrow, success, and epic failure. I wanted the trials and tribulations in the characters' lives to cause them to evolve or even devolve. I had hoped to create a story that readers would be left wondering whether the characters would prevail over their turbulent life journey or would it completely break them.
So I can say that my inspiration to begin writing came from the struggle to find the sort of long, cerebral, turbulent love story that I enjoyed. But I owe my love of such love stories to Steve and Kayla from Days of Our Lives. 30 years later, I have not forgotten them. It was my goal to at least TRY to write The Prodigy Slave trilogy in a way that readers did not ever forget the main couple, James and Lily, in much the same way that I have not forgotten Steve and Kayla.
3. Let's discuss your book The Prodigy Slave, Book One: Journey to Winter Garden. Why romance?
The Prodigy Slave is the story of a young biracial slave girl, Lily, who is sold by her own father at the age of nine. Jesse, the man who purchases Lily, has a nine-year-old son, James. James is an extraordinarily timid and introverted child who has had a traumatic childhood. He is drawn to Lily when he sees how heartbroken she is about the fact that she has been taken from her mother. Having had a horrific childhood himself, James easily feels empathy for Lily and wishes to comfort her. This eventually leads to the pair developing a secret friendship. Through the years, they would sneak away from the farm on Sundays to play with each other and have some semblance of a normal childhood. They got away with it for seven years until James's white supremacist, abusive father, Jesse, finds out about it. Jesse severs the friendship and begins indoctrinating James about how master/slave relationships should be. For two years before going off to college, James is under the watchful eyes of his father. James, therefore, allows his relationship with Lily to deteriorate and goes away to college without any attempt at mending their friendship. Six years later, James returns home from school and finds Lily playing his mother's piano. James is stunned by the fact that she can play. During the years that they were friends, Lily never confided in him about the fact that she had been sneaking onto the piano and training herself to play. That fact angers James. And with all that James's father has taught him, James knows that he must punish Lily for breaking the house rules. So this entire series is about the turbulent journey that this punishment sends James and Lily on and how the punishment alters their lives and the lives of those they come into contact with.
And I chose to do romance in the slavery era between an interracial couple because I thought it would give me so many complex elements to work with. I
wanted to write about a couple that would have damn near insurmountable obstacles to overcome if ever they were going to be a couple. I felt it would be interesting to write James as a character that had to contend with this battle between his heart and his brain. He knows that he would face jail time or become a slave himself for engaging in any sort of intimate relationship with a slave. He knows that his father is a white supremacist with an extreme hatred for black people. He knows the societal consequences. James knows that technically he is Lily's master, which gives him a sort of power that he must be careful not to wield. All of these issues are screaming loudly in James's brain, but his heart is screaming even louder. So I felt it would be interesting to watch James struggle as he figures out how to navigate these serious obstacles while being careful to express his love to Lily in a way that she does not feel threatened, used, or violated.
4. What was your favorite scene in this story?
My god! There are too many to choose from! Haha! I guess I will talk about one that doesn't give the storyline away. I really love the moment when James and Lily first meet as children. They are only nine-years-old. They lived in this era when there was a deep divide between black and white people, but the moment James and Lily meet proves that the ugliness of the adult world sometimes does not matter to children. Their innocence supersedes everything and it allows them to only focus on the beautiful things in life. There are no thoughts of who has the power or of what societal rules should be followed. All these two children want to do is play together and have fun. That is the only thing that is important in their innocent world, not race, not status ... just fun! And I think it is such a beautiful moment in the story.
5. What was the biggest challenge in producing The Prodigy Slave?
Umm, ALL of it! Haha! As I stated before, I am a truck driver. I knew nothing about writing when I first started. Writing this series was ten years of trial and error (mostly error, ha!) trying to figure out how to take what I see in my head and paint in words so that readers see it exactly as I do and, most importantly, feel as emotionally impacted. Such a thing is soooooo difficult to do when all you have is words. A movie has the advantage of tapping into so much more of an audience's senses in order to trigger their emotions. Movies have the advantage of sound, using background music to enhance mood. They have special effects and the actors portraying things exactly as they want visually. All an author has is words to work with in order to make readers see and feel their story like a movie in their heads! Trust me when I tell you that that is no easy feat!! I almost gave up on writing this about halfway through the first book because I felt there was no way in hell I could adequately convey Lily playing the piano in a way that would make readers feel impacted by it. I was incredibly frustrated in figuring out how to do such a thing. I finally resorted to writing about how Lily felt while she played and also explaining how impacted others were as they watched her.
So I had all those writing challenges and then had to navigate through how to package and produce this in ebook and paperback. Learning about formatting, editing, and cover design, and all the other ins and outs of publishing is enough to cause a massive migraine! I have certainly learned a lot throughout the ten years that it took to complete this series. I wanted to quit many times but I'm glad that I powered through and completed this goal. This will definitely not be a story that everybody enjoys but I'm proud of myself for accomplishing such a major life goal!
6. What's the main theme you hope readers walk away with?
Not letting the pressures of oppressive societal norms dictate the path you will take in your life. On so many levels this book tackles that issue. Societal pressure can be overwhelming for so many people, to the point that it can cause some people to live an inauthentic life, one in which they are utterly miserable. In this story, it is not only societal pressure but even laws that have shackled the wishes and dreams of James and Lily. James and Lily have to decide if they will let inhumane oppressive laws dictate the path they take or whether they will fight back against it and forge their own path in a world that is telling them that all the beautiful things they dream of are absolutely forbidden.
7. Tell us something that was edited out of the book.
This is the revised version of this series. I actually edited out about 15 pages of various content from the first book and about 5 pages from book two. I had a bad habit of describing what was in the minds of these characters too much. And I also felt as though my sentences needed to be more short and concise. Even with all of the editing, this series is very long. Oddly, I'm a very shy, quiet, and introverted person but these characters seemed to have a lot to say in my head! Haha! I did my best to cut out a lot of their rhetoric but this series still ended up being 1700 pages long.
8. Where do you see this series in the future?
I used to imagine this story as a movie or a TV series. I actually get feedback from readers who would love to see it on a screen as well. But I think the current political climate might make that an impossibility. Despite the inspirational theme behind it, I believe this story would likely only add fuel to people's anger over the racial tension in this country. Ironically, the story is very much about how wrong it is to marginalize black people or to judge us by our race. But, I still think this series would be very triggering for many. So I see this series as just remaining in this niche category of the book world for open-minded people who wish to go on a turbulent journey or for those who seek fiction books that are very raw and real. I really only decided to publish this story to leave it behind as something to be remembered by. As a trucker, we are so forgettable. Collectively, we are vital to the economy, but nobody really gives a damn about us individually. I was tired of being forgettable in my career. When I leave a job nobody remembers my name. I often think of people like Mozart or Shakespeare who both lived centuries ago, but to this very day we know who they are simply because they left a piece of their creativity behind for us to enjoy. Had Shakespeare and Mozart only been delivery workers, nobody in this era would know who they were. I'm not remotely comparing myself to Mozart or Shakespeare's level of genius, but my only surviving hope for this series is that it will serve as a way to be remembered after I die. Billions of books have been written, but nobody else can say that they wrote The Prodigy Slave trilogy other than me, and I'm proud to have conquered the incredibly difficult challenge of leaving a piece of my creative mind behind.
How about a few fun questions?
9. How many bookshelves are in your house?
Only one! I use the shelf in my closet as a bookshelf and it is full of books that I keep promising I'll read! I'm so busy, though, that I'll likely never get to any of them.
10. What one superpower would I want and why?
I would say the ability to magically add money to my bank account with the snap of my finger!! My superhero name would be "Money makin' mama!" Haha! Money really is the main thing that holds people back from pursuing many life dreams or even vacations. So It would be nice to never have to worry about being able to afford the life or dream or vacation you want in life.
11. What's for dinner?
Ha! My daughter is currently on the way to pick up catfish, fries, and hush puppies from a hole in the wall seafood place. I love mom and pop restaurants! It's usually sooooo good!!
12. Cats or dogs?
Me and my boyfriend have this debate sometimes! He is totally a cat person! He has two cats that I love, but I soooooo want another dog! They seem to be more connected to their owners than cats. Dogs also force you to have to get out and get exercise. And I have so much fun training a dog to do fun tricks! Cats are a lot less maintenance, but I am so much more of a dog person for sure!!
