Whispers in Purple: Some What-ifs for The Sea Prayers ~ Normandie Fisher

Please welcome guest blogger/author Normandie Fisher with a timely article given today's social condition.

Normandie Fischer is a sailor who writes and a writer who sails. After studying sculpture in Italy, she returned to the States, graduated suma cum laude, and went to work in the publishing field, moving from proofreader up the ladder to senior editor, honing technical tomes, creative non-fiction, and, later, fiction.

She and her husband spent a number of years on board their 50-foot ketch, Sea Venture, sailing from San Francisco to the Sea of Cortez, Mexico, and on through the Panama Canal. They now live in coastal North Carolina, where she takes care of her aging mother and, whenever possible, enjoys her two grown children and two grandchildren. She is the author of six novels.

Some What-ifs for The Sea Prayers

by Normandie Fisher

Rape has always been a hot-button topic, but in today’s me-too world, it’s front-page stuff. Brutal rape by a stranger would haunt a person forever, but what about a roofie* rape? Would the manner make a difference if a child were conceived?

How would you react? How would I? Pregnant with a child we hadn’t chosen to conceive? Pregnant as a result of an act we hadn’t wanted?

As one who is adamantly pro-life, I’ve been asked to consider various arguments for abortion from the pro-choice folk, including the idea that a woman would never want to carry a rapist’s baby to term.

But what if she did, in spite of the pressure to abort from family? What if keeping the child would change her life forever, forcing her to leave college and take on single-parenthood without support from anyone? What if she were determined never to tell the now-famous singer/rapist that he’d become a father?

What would her emotions be? How would she cope as her daughter grew?

And what if she inherits a house in small-town South, a house she can barely afford, and all her eleven-year-old, bi-racial daughter talks about is wanting to know her daddy? And what if that daddy discovers his child’s existence? What if he wants her to live with him?

What will our heroine do? What will our antagonist do? And what about the child?

Oh, and then there’s the hero, a recovering addict who lives on his sailboat and cooks at the restaurant where our heroine’s a waitress. I’ve worked with addicts and seen the hold a drug can have, so I was interested in discovering the hows and whys of my hero’s life and struggle. What would it take for him to remain sober? What might give him the strength to overcome his past and his choices?

A recurring theme in my stories has to do with choices. We take one fork in the road and it leads to the next. What if we’d chosen any other of those roads? What if Agnes, our heroine, hadn’t accepted that drink from the handsome singer? What if she hadn’t even gone to the club as an underage student? What if she’d stayed in her dorm room that night instead of going out with girls she barely knew?

What would you have done in her place? What would I have done?

And what about the antagonist’s choices? Will he continue to make wrong ones? Is there any power that can change him? I love to write in the head of bad guys, to figure out their motivations and set them in places where their actions have consequences. What makes a person become someone who hurts others? Can he break out of that pattern or will his choices continue to propel him toward destruction?

Grab a copy of The Sea Prayers and take this journey of discovery with me.

Normandie Fischer’s Links:

Website: www.normandiefischer.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/WritingOnBoard

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NormandieFischer/

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Normandie-Fischer/e/B00BSIF2NI/

The Sea Prayers Purchase Links: