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Asayi: An Autistic Teen's Journey to Topple a Shogun in Medieval Japan (Novel)

The Resilient Writers Radio Show: Interview with Sharon Curcio – Full Episode Transcript

Intro:

Well, hey there, Writer. Welcome to The Resilient Writers Radio Show. I'm your host, Rhonda Douglas. And this is the podcast for writers who want to create and sustain a writing life they love. 

Because let's face it, the writing life has its ups and downs, and we want to not just write, but also to be able to enjoy the process so that we'll spend more time with our butt-in-chair getting those words on the page. 

This podcast is for writers who love books and everything that goes into the making of them. For writers who want to learn and grow in their craft and improve their writing skills. Writers who want to finish their books and get them out into the world so their ideal readers can enjoy them. Writers who want to spend more time in that flow state. 

Writers who want to connect with other writers to celebrate and be in community, in this crazy roller coaster ride, we call the writing life. We are resilient writers. We're writing for the rest of our lives and we're having a good time doing it. So welcome, Writer. I'm so glad you're here. Let's jump right into today's show.

Rhonda:

Well, hey there, Writer. Welcome back to another episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show. So I am here today with Sharon Curcio, and Sharon is the author of Asayi: An Autistic Teen’s Journey to Topola Shogun in Medieval Japan. Since 2024, Asayi has won four medallions of excellence and a historical fiction finalist award from the Next Generation Indie Book Awards and it averages a 4.9 in over 100 reader reviews on Amazon and Goodreads.

Sharon is a former account executive in an ad agency and a copywriter. She's had a lyric play staged as an oratorio in 2022. She has a script, including Asayi, and a climate change drama called Resonance. And she is the co-author of Till She Comes Home and Cowboy Poet.

So we're going to talk today about Asayi, which is volume one of a trilogy. So Sharon, how did you end up writing about an autistic teenager in particular?

Sharon:

Well, it goes back to my experience when I was living in New York as uh a young person in the advertising agency world. uh And even before then, when I lived in Connecticut before New York, I would draw I would take the train into the city every weekend and take sumi-e art classes just because I was fascinated by it.

Rhonda:

A what class?

Sharon:

Sumi-e art. It's the black ink, the dip of the brush in the ink and then learning how to wield your brush. So I took that class and when I was younger and very into it and very practiced, I did a couple of paintings myself. um It's an unforgiving medium because it's black on white.

There's no such thing as covering it over or trying to erase it or whatever, you know, get to do what Western painters do, which is blank out the canvas with, you know, white and start again.

So it really takes a lot of mental precision and accuracy between what's in the mind and what the eye is going for, then the coordination of the hand, you know, to get what you want on paper. So that kind of just catalyzed my whole uh journey into Japan when I was in my late 20s.

Rhonda:

Did you end up, have you been to Japan? Did you visit?

Sharon:

Yeah, I was there in 2024.

Rhonda:

Okay, cool. And so why an autistic teenager as a character in particular? Is there something there you wanted to explore?

Sharon:

Well, there was something I experienced. I could paint Japanese characters and other things, but I didn't know what any of it meant. You what saying?

I'm not literate in Japanese. I mean, I can paint a symbol. have no concept of what it means. So I'm thinking, well, you later as I approached retirement, I'm thinking what kind of child would be in that position? And it just occurred to me.

I mean, the autistics, you know, show a lot of diverse strengths, whether it's in music composition or painting or whatever. So I'm someone autistic could be in this position. So I'm thinking, okay, so I'm gonna have my autistic teenage heroine. And I was a high school teacher for almost three decades.

Rhonda:

Wow.

Sharon:

So teenagers were my world, know, just my world for a very long time. So I'm thinking, okay, that's what we're doing. And then I had to create, people say, what is the first thing you did when you wrote Asayi?

And I said, I looked for Japanese assassination event. And I know that seems like pretty, ah you know, gross, but I mean, I was looking for, I was looking in time to see if a Japanese shogun had ever been assassinated.

And then I fell upon Yoshinori Ashikaga and he was assassinated in 1441. And his assassination, the Ashikaga set up the Northern Court. His assassination begins the decline of the House of Ashikaga.

Rhonda:

So help me understand what is a Shogun? I mean, I think I kind of know, but I'm not sure I really, really know. What is a Shogun?

Sharon:
Well, it's more than uh starting your own gang as a warlord. The shogun, the first shogun who did the separation between the emperor's kingdom to the south and his kingdom to the north, they set up a lot of laws. They were codifying themselves. They hit the ground running with legal code and legal text.

So they had built all these structures like the bakufu and the constable. Constable uh org chart and you know, essentially the constables and policing and most of it was around property physical property because Only 20 % of Japan is arable.

Rhonda:

Okay.

Sharon:

Where they can where they can produce rice, right? So land is like, you know, that's our bread and butter. That's how we eat. So it's very important uh to know who holds the land, what are they doing with the land? Are they producing on the land? So a lot of that becomes a matter of state very quickly.

Rhonda:

Right, okay. So, and then what is Asayi's um kind of character arc from the beginning to the end there? I know you're working on a trilogy and it's the first book that's out right now, right?

Sharon:

Yeah, and I'm trying to finalize the second book right now as soon as I can get the cover done and all that other good stuff and have it proofread one more time. But Asayi's character arc is that, and I don't want to give away the book.

Rhonda:

Oh no, no spoiler.

Sharon:

But she grows up in the household of Yoshinori Ashikaga's chief scribe. And her father in the book is a very old man. And they can't get, Asayi's autism presents her as mute. Now she understands language. She cannot speak it.

But she copies it. And when the housekeeper Hatsu and Okutani, the chief scribe, have a discussion about Asayi, he admits that he and his wife, Asayi's mother died when she was like seven or eight, could not uh teach her how to sound language. So, I mean, obviously, if you don't really have an operational voice, you can't mimic language sounds.

So that was a roadblock in her understanding of language at that time. But she worked with her father and when the shogun sent over tax decrees and legal codices, she could copy. You know, because her father corrected all the texts first and she copied text and corrections that he made.

Rhonda:

What are the challenges of having a mute protagonist?

Sharon:

There are many. I was trying to model the character in a certain way where we understood why she was illiterate. She couldn't speak. It was difficult or her father didn't have the methodology in mind to train her to train her towards or into literacy.

So uh, but yeah, you know, she moves a lot by physical actions and conveying emotions in her expressions. So, and she indicates that she understands. And what she does do is she has trained herself to sketch. So she can rapidly do little sketches in response to certain kinds of questions.

Rhonda:

Oh, wow. That's fascinating. Okay. And so why did you decide that this would be a trilogy? What kind of thought went into making this a trilogy instead of like, you know, one really big, thick historical novel.

Sharon:

Oh, I think it's too complex. I'm interjecting fictional people into the world of real Japanese historical characters. And I got I divided it where I would do 1439 to 1441. And the 1441 is is the assassination of Yoshinori Ashikaga.

The second book is 1441 to 1443. And then in the last novel, I push it like 20 years into the future, we're on the verge of the Ōnin War. And the Ōnin War is the fall of the House of Ashikaga.

Rhonda:

Wow. Talk to me about the research you've done. Like how much research did you do and how did you do it to be able to write something that is you know, this blend of like historical accuracy and a fictionalized protagonist.

Sharon:

I was an English and history major as an undergraduate. So my feeling is you don't understand anything people write about unless you know the context and history is always the context. So I decided that I would be very meticulous in, you know, having the real historical events in place, they're not altered and the people's names and the dates are not altered.

But I'm kind of playing with exactly how it happens, you know, the assassination happens. And of course, my version of it uh includes two women, two female protagonists who get involved in this uh accidentally, if you will, or maybe unexpectedly together in it.

But yeah, the real assassination is uh horrible, it's bloody. It was just a major coup and attack on the Shogun when he attended a performance. It was planned. So it was really quite a brutal and horrific event. Mine is not. It's like really clean by the standards of comparing it to the real history.

Rhonda:

OK. And I mean, Japanese culture is vastly different than our own and certainly historical Japanese culture would be vastly different than our own. Is there anything that you had to do to sort of make the setting, the context, the culture within the book ah really come alive?

Sharon:

A lot of people tell me that somebody gave me a recent review and they said, the book is a master class in atmosphere.

Rhonda:

Ooh.

Sharon:

And I thought, wow, that was really insightful because I never thought of that. But I guess you have to really know what the architecture would be like. I had to know what the major painters of the time were like and what they were doing.

Now the Ashikagas were great patrons of painters, both Yoshinori and his father. So when you went to the palace, what are you gonna see? You're gonna see his and his father's art collections on the wall. And that's what Asayi gets exposed to because they have to go to the palace every once in a while to deliver finished manuscripts.

So she gets to the palace and she's looking around and she's taking all that in. So she has seen the hands of masters in her mind. She's figuring out ways to copy them. So I think that like all the pieces fit together. They just came together. And it was a fascinating experience to just get into it and then see how it shapes itself almost.

Rhonda:

Right. So this is an indie published book. Talk to me about the cover and the work that you did to get a cover that you were happy with for the book.

Sharon:

I lucked out and found a very good uh father daughter team. The daughter is the illustrator. The father handles like a lot of the fitting and sizing and all the stuff that you need to finalize to to get uploaded to Amazon.

But yeah, I lucked out and uh but the cover to me was agonizing because we had a problem with sizing it to get it to upload. It wasn't the picture that made me unhappy or anything else. It was just the process of getting all the measurements right so that it could be uploaded.

Rhonda:

Right. And um I've got it up in front of me here. And there's a young girl, and it looks like she's painting the kimono of another girl. What's going on there?

Sharon:

It's a metaphor for the book in the book. Asayi plays her own ghost.

Rhonda:

Oh.

Sharon:

One time everyone comes to believe as a very young woman that she is dead. And then the Ronin monks find her and she's not dead. And they come up with this great idea to have her play her own yūrei. And so the haunting adventures of uh Asayi begin.

And of course, uh she haunts her uh husband who plotted to frame her for adultery. She was uh mutilated, branded, and left to die in the countryside. So he's the first haunting. And of course, the Shogun eventually follows.

Rhonda:

OK, wow.

Sharon:

So she's painting it's a fun thing because it's like two teenage girls and she's painting blood on her yūrei costume.

Rhonda:

Oh, it's fun.

Sharon:

So it's it's it's if you really get into it. The cover is a lot of fun if you connect all the dots to see what's going on.

Rhonda:

Which the reader would do once they're ready.

Sharon:

Yeah once they're ready. I think they could look at the cover again and say, oh, OK.

Rhonda:

Totally. I love that. So what made you decide to go indie with the book?

Sharon:

As far as I'm concerned, I'm retired and I started the book just as I retired in 2018 and I don't have the lifespan to run after publishers for three and four years and do contracts. I wanted to get it done, get it out there, start on two, which I will complete and get it out this year. And then I will have to do all of my research for the final book, will be, you know, Prelude to the Ōnin War or something like that.

Rhonda:

Right. Okay. Okay. And so it really was timing. It was just, I'm going to do this on my own so that I don't have to wait forever.

Sharon:

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I mean, who can tell what you're gonna wait for somebody else to make a decision about your work? You know, I mean, I'm sorry, I just don't have the time.

Rhonda:

Yeah. So, I mean, I think a lot of indie writers feel that way, you know, that I'm not going to wait a year to get an agent, a year to get a deal, two years for the book to come out, you know.

Sharon:

And, know, if you're 30, you can do that.

Rhonda:

Right.

Sharon:

You know, I'm 72. I'll be 73 this year. I don't have four years to write. I mean, I'm just running out of lifespan. That's all.

Rhonda:

Right. And did you find it difficult? you did most of this yourself, right? So were there any pieces of the self-publishing journey that you found more difficult than others or was it all just kind of logistics?

Sharon:

Well, there was the logistics of the upload and getting all that stuff up and through Amazon and then out to like IngramSpark and Draft2Digital and whatever. ah I think the biggest problem comes in the marketing because I was approached by a number of people and we'll do this and we'll do that.

Or people that say, we'll introduce you to book clubs. And you pay your money, you take your chances. I learned very quickly for me, Amazon Ads did not work. ah And then I still have some other pieces, people that say, well, you need to fix the SEO and da da da. Everybody wants to send you back to their version of square one.

Rhonda:

Right, right.

Sharon:

And so I'm like, I can't keep doing that. So over time, what's been emerging is uh podcasts like yours and some book clubs that legitimately do a good job. Even if they charge you a little bit of money for sponsoring your book or something, it's not a big deal because you know it's going to hit that membership.

I had one woman who did an astonishing job with getting it out to book club members and then they wrote reviews and I ended up with a bunch of reviews on Goodreads. Now that to me was very productive, but you don't get many like that.

Rhonda:

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, I think that is the, the challenge of being an indie author is how am going to market this thing? Cause it's all you, right? So it's, all.

Sharon:

And the thing is you don't know who's trustworthy, who to trust. mean, what are you going to do? Spend three days doing a uh Google and you know, all, all, all search engines on research on every person that sends you an email. I mean, that isn't even feasible.

Rhonda:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, totally. Yeah. And there's a lot of scams out there. You have to, you have to be where there are.

Sharon:

Yeah.

Rhonda:

Well, this is great. So, um, so book two, you're just in final edits. Is that where that one is?

Sharon:

No, we're going to do a final proofread and then, uh, I should have a cover in like another month.

Rhonda:

Oh, wow. Okay. So it'll be out in the spring. Early summer?

Sharon:

Yeah, definitely, for sure. And I am going to London Book Fair next month because um only 8% of the Japanese speak English. So for accessibility to this novel set in Medieval Japan, I'm going to have to have it translated into Japanese.

And so I'm going to England to see if I can connect with a uh Japanese publisher and see if they can uh assist in that direction.

Rhonda:

Oh, wow. Well, good luck with that. That sounds amazing. That would be very exciting.

Sharon:

Yeah, I'm just gonna hope all things go well.

Rhonda:

Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, it's been really great chatting with you, Sharon. I feel like, you know, what you're doing here in terms of um bringing a like a particular historical period with true accuracy in historical fiction is really fun, like just really fun. And it sounds like you've had a great time with the research.

Sharon:

I did, I did a lot of research. And the other thing I was going to say is, even though I was a high school teacher and I had to de-Disney-fy half the universe, right? You know, they don't know that Jurassic Park is a tragedy and not a comedy, or it doesn't have a happy ending.

So, uh but I hoping that this book will give Americans some accessibility to this particular chapter in Japanese history. And I hope when it gets translated that the Japanese will, uh would be interested in reading an American author's take on their own history. So I don't know how that's going to go down yet, but.

Rhonda:

That's fun though. Yeah. And, and, you know, I think the only shogun I'm aware of is the current TV show which was based on an older TV show.

Sharon:

Yes, yes. The Clavell novel came out in the late 70s. I remember reading it. And then they did the first Shōgun as a mini series of sorts. And then they now have this second like Shōgun revival. And I really liked the new Shōgun because I think they did a lot of things right.

I mean, there's this stupid war where there's a betrayal and one group of soldiers switches sides and they join the guy who eventually, who does win that battle. And I'm thinking, thank God they didn't show it. I'm sure the Japanese know that piece of their history upside down and backwards.

Does anybody need to really see that? We just need to know a signal or a symbol of what happens and then we all get it. You know what saying? Saves a lot of money and people don't have to watch that gruesome stuff.

Rhonda:

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Cause some of it can get quite gruesome, you know, and we've kind of gotten used to gruesome with like Game of Thrones and so on, but it doesn't have to be that gruesome, I think. Yeah.

And maybe nobody wants to watch it. So, but I think a teenage, an autistic teenage, girl who is mute in that environment just makes for a fascinating protagonist. So, yeah.

Sharon:

Thank you. Thank you.

Rhonda:

Good luck with getting it translated. Sounds fun.

Sharon:

We will see. And thank you so much for your good wishes, Rhonda. Thank you for having me on.

Rhonda:

Yeah, was lovely to talk to you. Take care.

Sharon:

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Outro:

Thanks so much for hanging out with me today and for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show. While you're here, I would really appreciate it if you'd consider leaving a rating and review of the show. You can do that in whatever app you're using to listen to the show right now, and it just takes a few minutes. 

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