I’m Bad About Talking About My Books, Part 1: War and Chess
No, seriously. I’m bad at this. I just kind of forget to mention it in conversation. I’ve ticked off a lot of friends by, them knowing me for months, maybe even years, and them having no idea I wrote and published three books! (Wrote five, but who’s counting? *COUGH*) When I do it online it feels like “U buy buk? [Link to Amazon]“. So here I go. In other words, here’s everything you never wanted to know about War and Chess.
I wrote War and Chess when I was 14. I wrote it outside of school, and never told people I was working on it. (I love that for baby me! I was hardcore swerving on gifted kid burnout!) The inspiration came from this really weird dream I had, where, ehem, I filled Amethyst’s role. I think there were even wild hogs running around! Which is weird, because that’s not a problem I have, in the region of America, I inhabit.
Anyway, I loved all things princess. Still do! Although I wasn’t a frilly kind of girl, I was obsessed with the concept of being born with responsibility. It sounded taxing! Anyway, I loved Disney (still do) but at the time, Merida didn’t even exist yet. I was fed up! So when I had this dream about a princess who didn’t need a man (or a boy) to save her I latched on to it.
I made Princess Amethyst take the driver’s seat in her life, and for her country. I put her on the front lines of a war, and I gave her a clever brain and a quick wit to solve the awful mystery, and to sass everyone within earshot. She talks like a real fourteen year old, because I was really a fourteen year old. I tried hard to keep that through the years. Both in the 2016 first edition, and the 2021 reprint.
But I think I’m getting a little ahead of myself, as I haven’t even laid out the plot yet. Fourteen year old Princess Amethyst lives in her own little world as a spoiled princess, until one day the neighboring country attacks unprovoked. Even though she’s just a young teenager, she takes it upon herself to figure out why and put a stop to it. She even learns to use a sword, and like a total Mary Sue she gets good at it! Hehe.
Spoiler alert: I’m going to relegate spoilers to this paragraph. I assume most of the people who are reading this post have read the book. But just in case! Princess Amethyst finds that the king of the neighboring country, attacks her country because he’s afraid to die without a legacy. Which is creepy the 2021 reprint came out in December in time for me to go on tour in March of 2022. It was eerie selling a book that mirrored world events. I didn’t think people like King Haylend honestly existed, but there Putin is proving me right, unfortunately. My heart breaks for Ukraine. Spoiler end.
War and Chess does have a strong “war is ugly” message underneath. Military recruiters tend to hit impoverished communities harder. Impoverished communities like the one I grew up in. If you’re a poor white kid with seven brothers and sisters living on a ranch, your options are kind of limited. Many of my friends and neighbors have joined various branches of the military to pay for college so they can escape poverty. Going forward, please keep in mind I do not have a problem with the soldiers serving our country, I have a problem with the system that makes it impossible to escape poverty, unless you agree to participate in harming another and put yourself in harm’s way, or you take on massive amounts of debt instead. My father used to watch war documentaries in front of me as a kid, and I think that had a profound effect on me. I’d come home from school and learn about WWI. I learned lessons from the lips of little old men that still ring in the back of my head. Lessons about how hatred will destroy you, and the real value of art. Three potatoes. You can eat, and still be hungry, or you can have a piece of art and still be hungry. When we turned 18, my best friend and I both got calls from our parents’ home phones from recruiters. I had the sheer audacity to tell them “I’m sorry, I’m a pacifist.” although, I had been in countless school yard fights– My mother who had been eavesdropping laughed for hours… I personally think my best friend’s response was funnier. She told them “You’d have to send me to fat camp.”
“W-what?”
“Yeah, no. I’m way too chubby. You’d have to send me to fat camp. I don’t mind enlisting, it’s just going to take me longer to do the job.”
The recruiter got out of that conversation pretty quickly.
Anyway, I wrote War and Chess, in part, because I was already sick of war.
It took me five years to get the thing published. I bought sparkling grape juice, and danced around my first apartment. I was so poor I freaked out about the five cent discrepancy between the listed price, and the actual sale price of my juice. I couldn’t believe it was really happening finally!
It took another five years to find a home for Tales from the Gishlan Wood and it’s out of print predecessor War and Chess. The story of tales is for another time, but I wanted things like matching cover art, and to find a better line editor than the first edition had (*cough* probably only me.), and to be able to say “Here is a budding series.” to my new readers, and “Thank you so much for waiting” to the ones who stuck with me. I was grateful Drakarium Publishing did that thing I’ve been telling you all for years will never happen, and found me. Grant, the owner of the publisher, and his children had read War and Chess and loved it. I hecking love Grant! Match made in business heaven!
So after living by myself in Gishlan for eleven years, I am proud to finally invite you all inside my imaginary world where farmers become knights, princes become wondering vagabonds, mermaids have green hair and dark skin, centaurs go to bars with fairies, and we’re all obsessed with cute kitties, and choose violence.
All joking aside, I do try to content warning these books well. I started writing this series as a teenager, because it was something, I, as a teenager, wanted to read. I did not intend these to be books for children under 13. There is graphic violence, mentions of sex (because a loving and consensual relationship is where I draw the line!), death, pregnancy, child loss, suicide, murder, violence, violence, organized crime, and everyone swears in Gishlaner. So if I haven’t frightened you off, check out my book from your local library, or buy it on Amazon.
Helen M. Pugsley 