The original first line of A Stray Drop of Blood–the one I typed when I was a freshman in college–was “Abigail stoically warded off the tears.” Though I didn’t understand the difference at the time, I was using “stoically” in a modern sense–that she was trying to be strong, push aside her feelings. Seemed appropriate . . . until the next year, when I read a Roman philosopher named Epictetus.

Ever hear of him? I hadn’t until he appeared on my reading list. Epictetus wrote a treatise called Discourses, in which he outlined the philosophy called Stoicism. This single work became the foundation of Roman thought, of Roman interaction, or Roman personality. Most of us today only have minimal understanding of what it means to be a Stoic–much like I intended in my first line, we think of it as “strong and unfeeling.” An opinion based in the truth, but which falls sooooo short.

I really enjoyed reading Epictetus, and, as in many ancient philosophies, I found a kernel of truth that fit with my Christian outlook before it deviated into the unknown. The gist of the idea is this: we all have spheres. We have a sphere of choice, which are all the things we can let affect us. We have a sphere of influence, which are all the things we can affect. Epictetus argues that letting our emotions be swayed by things outside those spheres is not only ridiculous, it’s unnecessary–that we’d all be content if we knew the boundaries of our spheres and stuck to ’em. And that when you know your sphere, you’ll simply be unmoved by everything outside it. (If anyone has read this more recently than me, feel free to correct me on any details I got wrong!)

Abigail reads Epictetus in the second half of Stray Drop, and she points out the flaw I found in Epictetus–he doesn’t acknowledge that emotions simply exist. He thinks you can allow them, but that otherwise they’re just not there. She argues that they in fact are there, and that we can use them to gain allies in people with larger spheres, so that in fact we can influence things outside our own. Especially when one factors in God, with His universal sphere, and how He responds to the pleas of His children.

In my latest revisions, I took “stoically” out of the opening line, since it’s unlikely Abigail, raised to hate all things Roman, would have admitted any allegiance to the philosophy at that point. But I enjoyed weaving Stoic thought throughout the book in the Roman characters, and even at key points in the Hebrew characters.

Because when all else fails, most of us shut down emotionally–we close off our spheres. In that way, there’s a little bit of Stoicism in everyone.

When writing A Stray Drop of Blood, I had fun incorporating some of the phenomena that happened at the crucifixion. The sky turning dark, the earth quaking, the graves opening. (Don’t recall ever reading about that one in any other history!) And since writing it, I’ve done some Christmas research that piqued my interest in the star that led the wise men and the unique fulfillment of prophecy. It fit in rather perfectly with histories by ancient historians like Herodotus and Thucididies. They, too, tell about phenomena in the heavens and earth that herald the arrival of someone important.

As Christians, I think sometimes we jump up and down in excitement over the accounts in the Bible and then snarl at the other histories that say the same things happened for other people. But not me–I love seeing how God has his hand in ALL history. And since we firmly believe our heavenly Father has ordained every single event–since we firmly believe our heavenly Father put the earth on its axis and set the heavens in their orbits–why wouldn’t we believe that He, in His divine foresight set it up so that those two coincided, to shout the glory of His plans?

I especially love reading how His nature responded to His Son’s death. And so I had tons of fun finding ways to incorporate those events into my story. I hope everyone enjoys reading my take on it, too!

Jumping back to the Law of Moses today, and to one of the subjects of the utmost relevance to A Stray Drop of Blood. Slavery. Or, perhaps more accurately, bonds.

According to Moses’ account in Deuteronomy, Jews cannot actually enslave their own people. Now, he admits that the poor will always be among them, and that there will therefore always be servants. But if said poor neighbor comes to the Rich Dude and offers himself up as a bondservant, it isn’t permanent. It’s a six-year contract, after which Rich Dude must not only release him, he must release him with a nice severance package so Poor Dude can make a name for himself.

Now, if Poor Dude loves Rich Dude and wants to serve him forever, he can opt to bind himself to the family for life. At which point they’ll pierce his ear as a symbol of his commitment.

Obviously, nothing is so simple in Stray Drop, LOL. I complicate matters by making my main character a slave to a Roman. He observes Hebrew law whenever possible, but his family and colleagues obviously don’t. So while in the Visibullis house the slaves are treated as equals, in the eyes of Rome, they’re still just slaves.

Now, my setup is that Abigail’s mother’s second husband sells her after her mother’s death. I imagine this sort of thing happened, but the Law really, really frowned on Hebrews selling each other to Gentiles. Even more unthinkable is something I have later in the book, that a desperate mother sells her six-year-old boy. This is unlikely because without a son, a woman has nothing in that day. But my setup is that the woman already has nothing, and the son is to young to provide for her, so she pretty much gives up. (Not to mention she’s just a you-know-what. Not that we see her in this book, but I’ve developed her dubious character in the planned-out-but-unwritten sequel.)

During the main part of the story, Abigail is in her sixth year of service. I don’t talk about this outright, but an undercurrent in the plot is that Abigail wants to serve her mistress forever. Said mistress is determined to give her a brighter future and arrange her marriage. Cause for all sorts of troubles when the arrogant son who thinks like a Roman arrives back on the scene. =)

Also cause for all sorts of imagination when Roman law and Hebrew law clash on the issue. I have no idea what would actually have happened in the situation, but I guessed as best I could, LOL.

I find this subject intriguing and terrifying: hair care. I was one of those teenagers who had to wash her hair everyday, and by evening it was yucky again. Not anymore, thankfully, but still. The horror! And given that at the time I read more historicals than anything, I was always interested in what in the world people did with their hair before the marvelous invention of shampoo.

There’s apparently some disagreement about this. When I was researching an idea for a Revolutionary War story, I came across a reenactor website that had a seriously in depth section about the hair. There was, of course, the debate about powdering real hair versus a wig, etc., but what I found most interesting was the talk about washing hair in general.

As everyone probably knows, using soap on hair just doesn’t work. It strips it down, removes essential oils. Wash your hair with traditional skin soap and you end up with dry, breaking, nasty hair. So one of the theories is that people would do this, then oil their hair. There are some recipes for hair oil out there to support this.

But this particular reenactor had read something that said people simply washed their hair in water, so her group conducted an experiment. (These people are dedicated!) A handful of people began washing their hair with only water and kept doing it for six months or something. They found that after a week or two, their hair adjusted. It wasn’t oily. It wasn’t dry. It was actually perfectly balanced, glossy, and soft. You know, like we strive to achieve with expensive shampoos, lol. The fact that natural works so well leads me to believe that for most of history, this is probably exactly what people did.

The claim really, really intrigues me . . . though not enough to try it for myself. I’m not that dedicated to history. 😉 But I thought some of you might find that little tidbit interesting too, so I thought I’d pass it along. Now your hair can be one less thing to worry about if you’re ever stranded in the wilderness with water but no shampoo for an extended period of time. =)