Somerset is a character I wrote about in 2016. I was sitting at my part-time, paralyzingly boring office job when a pop-up came on my computer screen.
It said, “Win A Publishing Package!”
I said, “God, if you want me to write a book, then help me win this short story contest and a publisher’s package!”
Five minutes later I was typing a short story, and I hit the “submit” button half-an-hour later.
A few weeks later, I was notified I’d won the publisher’s package! And, I had six weeks to present a manuscript for publication. I panicked. Write a whole book in just six weeks?!!
I guess other writers have manuscripts just sitting around ready to submit. I was no such writer.
I had a collection of story topics and ideas in a folder on my laptop. I’d been collecting them through my years at college, including the 2005-2007 attempt, as well as the most recent attempt (where I did manage to graduate) in 2013-2014. These ideas would flood my brain only when I was sitting in a classroom, for some reason, so I started collecting them into a folder on my laptop.
I was a single mom all throughout college. I was working, juggling motherhood, and sleeping little. I maintained a 4.0 GPA as I took an average of 5 classes each semester … all while battling a chronic illness that left me with daily fatigue, migraines and debilitating back pain. I didn’t have much time to devote to my most beloved passion, writing.
My pain and fatigue was so bad during the last 18 months of college, I often couldn’t hold my head up, so I would sit in the back corner of the room so I could rest my head on the wall. I remember laying on the classroom floor on more than one occasion to write because I was too weak to sit up. I was delirious at times. I had kind professors, to say the least. I took creative writing, film, history and art classes mostly my first two years. I took a break to be a stay-at-home mom. Then, I went back years later following a divorce. After what seemed like forever, I finally graduated with a bachelor’s degree in December 2014 at the age of 35.
My illness persisted after graduation, so I settled into a part time job with my family’s construction business while I searched out doctors and specialists who could lead me to a diagnosis. I had no such luck. However, I did find a holistic specialist who put me on immunity boosting liquid supplements and medications, and after about 15 months of taking them, I finally had enough of my focus and energy back to write. It wasn’t easy. The stabbing pain in my back, and the headaches, were still plaguing me (pains that would unfortunately continue until March of 2018). But I could focus enough to get office work done.
Now, I had to pull it together and prove I could, in fact, juggle my job, be supermom, and write a book, as well. It was either that, or forfeit my $6,500 winnings. I wasn’t about to let that happen! I’m glad I didn’t. Turns out I work well under pressure.
My story ideas were about a myriad of things, but they all seemed to have something in common. They looked at the world through the eyes of women who had not had it easy. Women who had faced disappointment and hardship. Women whose lives hadn’t gone according to plan. I was fascinated by the girlfriend of Hitler and the wife of Stalin. I poured over facts about Joan of Arc, Mother Teresa and Princess Diana. Usually, my story ideas were inspired by European and American women I’d learned about in history classes, but they were also drawn from experiences I’d had in my own life.
I decided God wasn’t going to pour more creative ideas into me until I had poured out what He had already given me. So, I took all those ideas and developed them into a single female character, Somerset, to submit to the publishing company. In just six weeks I wrote 38 chapters, and then edited them down to just 25. Somerset came to life for me, and she’s still loved as if she’s one of my own children. I think you’ll love her, too!
Somerset Trollope is a fictional twenty-eight-year-old daughter of a parishioner in and around 1911 London. She was invited to contribute to the Honey Bee Press, a small Christian press, between 1911-1912. By 1912, the writing group had exactly 337 regular subscribers, including a handful of her friends in America, and a dozen men from the Free-Methodist faith, who liked to keep a watchful eye on her … and on what the contributing writers were saying to their respective congregations.
Having grown up as a missionary’s daughter in America, and having lived temporarily in England as a young teen, she was named after the county of Somerset, where her parents had honeymooned near Bath. Somerset knew each subscriber personally. She had met many notable individuals as she travelled with her parents. She was schooled in traditional collegiate studies, as well as Theology, in Macon, Georgia, where her parents planted a Free-Methodist church near Wesleyan College for women. She also received a private and extensive education in England at the benevolence of a dear aunt, Anne Jacoby, who you’ll read more about later in the fourth short story.
Somerset had written many of her thoughts and ideas, submitting them to the press, filling her readers with hard-earned wisdom. Somerset’s inspiring, provoking notions about life and love as a non-legalistic Christian in her time will remind you about how transgressing we all can be to one another, and towards God, while also reminding us of how big God’s mercy and love remains.
Somerset, in history, was a name utilized by William Shakespeare, and it is also thought to have possibly come from the term used by the English who would mention those “summer settlers” that would flock to the countryside when the gloomy harshness of London winters had passed.
Somerset’s letters are filled with a like harmony and balance we find in our lives when we respond beautifully to a much anticipated summer season. They touch on the things we look forward to. They also, however, lend to how well we handle ourselves during winter, as we patiently await the gloomy clouds to break. Somerset shares about how we respond, not just in the glory of sunshine, but also in the blizzards of doom. Do we lie down in despair when the clouds roll in, or do we keep our eyes on the warmth of daybreak to come?
Everything we will ever need to know about ourselves, or another person, we will discover in a dark, winter season when everything is not going according to plan. Anyone can live a life of faith when running through fields of poppies in the crisp, warm air. But, can we conduct ourselves with honor and integrity when we are alone, forgotten, cast off, sick, or struggling for each and every breath we take?
At some point in our lives we may have to die to everything we ever loved or wanted. We are the only people we get to keep for the entirety of our lives, after all. Everyone else will die on us, or be left behind. How we handle ourselves until that day comes will make or break us. It will determine whether or not we lose ourselves in the winds of the unknown, or prevail in holiness, passing into the next season full of eternal anticipation and glory.
It is my hope to take each of these beautiful anecdotes, written by Somerset, and weave them into a screenplay for television. I believe Somerset, and the amazing characters she encountered throughout her life, will make people across the globe want to welcome her into their homes. If you know anyone at the BBC, or at Netflix, let me know! :)
Until then, enjoy this blog, where I will be posting 25 short stories, taken from the now unavailable 2016 book, Somerset, by me … Casey (Hutcheson) Hendrix, the original author.
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