Winston Churchill the Novelist? Who Knew?

Churchill, the Novelist

Did you know former British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, was a novelist? I didn’t either – until I read The Last Lion, a biography written by William Manchester.

As a child, Churchill was neither a writer nor a reader. Having endured the grueling experience of abusive schoolmasters in his boarding school, he was not what you would call a promising student. However, as he approached adulthood things began to change for him.

Enamored with the Written Word

Serving in the Queen’s army in India, he suddenly became enamored with the written word.

He found that he had “a liking for words and for the feel of words fitting and falling into their places like pennies in the slot…”

In the winter of 1896, as he approached his twenty-second birthday, he “resolved to read history, philosophy, economics, and things like that; and I wrote to my mother asking for such books…” (The Last Lion pgs. 242-3)

And so, at the age of 22, Churchill began to read voraciously. It would be a short leap from there to his embarking upon writing works of his own. Among other writings he began a novel in 1897 entitled, Savrola: A Tale of the Revolution in Laurania. It was first serialized, then published as a book in 1900. It was his only novel.

I find it fascinating that this man who was first and foremost a politician, a man who was instrumental in winning WWII, felt he had to try his hand at being a novelist.

Supported by His Writing

While most authors throughout history have tried to find work to support their writing, Churchill on the other hand, used income from his writing to support his deep longing to be in political office. Interestingly, book advances and royalties paid for a number of his political campaigns through the years.

When one thinks about Churchill, writer and novelists are not two terms that come readily to mind. But his love for written word became a high passion in his life, which then led to his becoming a great orator. And the world benefitted as well.

Leave a Legacy

Be A Novelist Winston Churchill’s “liking for words and the feel of words fitting and falling into their places like pennies in the slot…” served him well for the remaining years of his life.

Isn’t it great to know that we novelists have such impressive roots? By the legacies they leave, our forebears cheer us on!

What kind of legacy are you leaving for those who come along behind you? A weighty question that only you can answer.

Be A Novelist

Tired of the struggle writing your book? Need a helping hand? Norma Jean’s Coaching Services may be the answer you’re looking for. Fill out the questionnaire on the page and let’s see if we’re a right fit. A FREE consultation gets the ball rolling. (Or the pen writing!) Click HERE!

Glowing Review for “Brought To You By The Color Drab”

I was thrilled to receive this glowing review by Gail A. Eichinger for my latest release, Brought To You By The Color Drab

The writer has a skilled style that brings the reader right into the story line from the first paragraph – one brother frantically trying to get to another after hearing gunshots. Race knows it’s his brother Vince. The author powerfully creates a frightening gang life setting – Five buddies, Race, Wynn, Toon, and Pinky and Hawk, Wynn’s cousins. They were a rough pack of teenage boys resisting gang affiliation and running their own crimes of survival on the south side hood of Cincinnati known as Over The Rhine

The author brings her readers into the desperate home life of the boys where survival is a frightening struggle that is complicated and raw and demands crime as a way to live, to stay alive.

The pack began to fall apart without Vince and Wynn locked up. The writer adds a compassionate dimension where Race sets up a safe haven in an abandoned trailer in a salvage yard and becomes good friends with the junk yard dog he calls Monty Mutt. A wonderful element of hope amidst such tragedy. And as part of Race’s probation status after getting caught shoplifting he had to have a job and go to an alternative school. His job which he resisted begins to show him how other people live and treat one another. He is a driver for a blind man named Stan who fixes pianos and each home they go to offers Race one more opportunity to see life differently then he has lived.

The writer is brilliant in her style to balance good and evil. Race is in a war with himself to choose a broken loyalty to his pack and life of crime or begin to choose a better honest path he never thought was possible for him. The struggle for Race for loyalty to his old way of life and the promise of a new way of life tormented him terribly.

The writer has a powerful way of bringing this reader into every emotion as Race struggled to make the right choices so that his world could be colored brightly instead of drab like his brother Vince always said it would be. Anyone who has ever struggled with loyalty, right and wrong, how to survive against all odds, a conversion of heart where there was once no hope and just one person shows you that there is. This was an amazing book that moved me to tears as the dramatic life changing events unfolded. I recommend it highly.

**Download Chapters 1 & 2 of Color Drab FREE.**

CLICK HERE!

Be A Novelist Tired of the struggle writing your book? Need a helping hand? Norma Jean’s Coaching Services may be the answer you’re looking for. Fill out the questionnaire on the page and let’s see if we’re a right fit. A FREE consultation gets the ball rolling. (Or the pen writing!) Click HERE!