I Was Anastasia

by Ariel Lawhon

If I tell you what happened that night in Ekaterinburg I will have to unwind my memory—all the twisted coils—and lay it in your palm. It will be the gift and the curse I bestow upon you. A confession for which you may never forgive me. Are you ready for that? Can you hold this truth in your hand and not crush it like the rest of them? Because I do not think you can. I do not think you are brave enough.

I am fascinated when I hear fellow authors describe the ways in which their characters speak to them. One friend in particular swears that she can hear entire conversations in her mind and that her job is to transcribe them. This has never happened to me, and, frankly, I find the idea a little creepy. My characters are all mute. I close my eyes and I can see them moving about but they have never spoken to me. With one exception. I was somewhat overwhelmed the day I sat down to begin writing I WAS ANASTASIA. I’d shifted suddenly from writing about Alcatraz to writing about Anastasia and I did not know how to begin. The idea of turning Nothing into Something felt impossible. I paced around my desk my desk for a few minutes and then settled in to work. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and then…I heard something--not an audible voice—but something nonetheless. A whisper. A woman’s voice. Irritated but insistent. So, I scribbled what I heard on a piece of paper. It became the opening to the novel and has never changed from the day I wrote it until the day it was published.