Rhian Crockett

Today I am not so grumpy, you may or may not be glad to know. The writing came relatively smoothly today, though I'm irritated that a part I know I will have to cut most of, if not all, is turning out to have a lot of well-written parts in it. Argh.

Suddenly, though, 50,000 words is starting to seem short. I have a problem with longer pieces, generally: I'm so used to writing microfiction that I have hell trying to write anything long. I seem to have figured something out, this time, though. I hope so.

I was worried about disliking Guinevere, but a) she is a nicer person than I'd dare hope, and b) she's funny. Yay!

I have a long train journey in my future. I will have my laptop with me, so I might write, but I do prefer to read, on trains. Hmmm...

In the interests of being useful, here is an article about six (yoga) stretches you can do at your desk. Useful to know -- will help unkink your body, and give you a few minutes break from staring at the screen.

Also, I have discovered there's a pose called King Arthur's pose. Ha.

Today, I procrastinated a lot, did a lot of laundry (how do I wear so much?!), and eventually eked out the required word count... most of which will be cut in editing. I'm still feeling my way into the story, so I'm not unduly worried, and all of this is useful for that.

I've learnt a lot about Cai and Bedwyr, over the last few days. So far, it's been the minor characters that interest me most, which is interesting, given that Gawain is normally my main focus. It's probably a good sign that I love my subplots this much, in any case, and it's all relevant going forward into the potential other books (if I write the whole series, there will be five of them).

I always find myself wondering how much to tell people. Like the ultimate gossip, I know who all my characters are dating, but my POV character doesn't. If I don't tell you, you might figure it out for yourself, and that's awfully fun. On the other hand, you might not, and then you wouldn't know that there's an epic love affair going on behind the scenes. It reminds me of Rowling's pronouncement that Dumbledore was gay -- I didn't hallucinate that, right? -- I know who my characters are doing, but is it fair to give word of God on something that isn't actually included in the text?

For example, since I've mentioned it already, in a way: I'm pretty sure Gaheris is asexual. He just is, and he won't say so at any point in the text. I don't think he's even aware of the concept, he just knows he doesn't want a wife or any kind of lover. He's got more important things to do. As a reader myself, though, I don't really want the author stepping in and saying things are this way or that way: I have my own understanding of the characters. If I were reading it, maybe I'd desperately want to see Gaheris kidnap his brother's wife and marry her, or something. Or maybe I'd be pissed about the lack of the traditional wife and quest for him -- Enide, and his quest to prove himself a valuable knight even as a married man -- and want to write her in myself. In any case, I'd have my own ideas.

I think I've answered my own question, haven't I?

(But as a writer, I want to tell you!)

Welcome to NaNoWriMo! And to November, of course...

So far, the writing seems to be going well. Characters who weren't talking to me when I was trying to plan things are suddenly being very talkative. Case in point: Gaheris. I had an idea of him, but he wasn't breathing. I tried things out with him and nothing was working. And then today I sat down, and got writing, and suddenly he wanted me to know that he has a kind of rivalry with [spoiler] over [spoiler], and that he isn't interested in marriage, and that his first loyalties are to family and not to a king. And I discovered that he's the strong and silent type.

I also discovered that he'd rather like watching NCIS, but somehow I don't think that'll make its way into the narrative.

Still in quest of a title, though.

How is anyone else doing? Any startling discoveries?

I'm not, by nature, a poet. You might see one or two poems turning up on this blog -- at least two, given this post! -- but I don't promise they're any good. Just like I very earnestly wrote novels as a fifteen year old, as a thirteen year old, or thereabouts, I very earnestly wrote a lot of frankly terrible free verse. Now I tend to play with the very strict forms poetry, more to amuse myself than anything. The poems in this post are both fairly recent (the sonnet is, in fact, hot off the presses).

Both of them are Arthurian in some way, and both are about death. Oops? More commentary below the cuts, with some discussion of more general Arthurian stuff.

( Click here to read 'Ragnelle's Lament for Gawain', with commentary )

( Click here to read 'After Me', with commentary )

And now you guys know what my poetry is like. This feels kind of like showing my butt in public. Eek.


This work by Rhian Crockett is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

No one ever warned me how hard it is to write a blog like this! Sheesh. Imposter syndrome like mad, plus the worry that everyone's already said all the intelligent things about this particular topic already. It's possibly true: I'm going to say it anyway.

Anyway, this is the fourth draft of a post that isn't quite the post I was planning to do. I realised I have some things to say about my thoughts on retellings, given that a lot of my work uses pre-existing literature, myths and legends, and given that I also translate Anglo-Saxon poetry for fun. The two processes don't seem that different -- to me, anyway -- in some ways. When it comes to Anglo-Saxon poetry, for example, there are lot of poetic features that don't really translate. Kennings are my usual bugbear. For example, in 'The Battle of Brunanburh', there's a kenning that means 'the leavings of hammers' ('hamora lafan'). You have to think about that kind of thing: do you keep the kenning, to give a flavour of the original poetry? Do you trust that your audience (or the people marking your exam papers!) know that that means 'swords'? Or do you lose the poetic stuff and go for a pragmatic, barebones translation?

Every translation becomes a reinterpretation, too. To translate something in a readable way, you have to decide what it means. Wulf and Eadwacer is my favourite example when it comes to this. Are Wulf and Eadwacer characters? Or is it a literal wolf? Or both? What exactly is happening in the poem? What is the poem -- is it a story? a riddle? a relation of an earlier myth or folktale? If you're going to translate it coherently, you have to decide. You could even decide that the ambiguity of the poem is intentional, and thus try to translate it with as much of that ambiguity as the process of translation will allow. That's still an interpretation.

When it comes to retelling fairytales, or myths, or even history, you're translating it. If you're writing a retelling of The Iliad for an eight year old, you have to leave out the things your audience won't be interested in (the catalogue of ships can hit the cutting room floor first of all). If you're aiming your work at a bunch of academics, you better not take any liberties with the text. Or say you're rewriting Anderson's The Little Mermaid -- this is a pretty good (and hilarious) modern reaction (the link goes to a youtube video called 'Advice for Young Girls from The Little Mermaid'). I can't say it better than that video does.

You also have to do something new with them. Sometimes you can do that just by fleshing out the characters more, making the world richer and wider. Or there's the ever popular change in point of view -- Wicked, anyone? Or even Jacqueline Carey's Banewreaker and Godslayer: they're pretty much Lord of the Rings from Sauron's point of view. Grendel and Mordred and Morgan Le Fay deserve their say, too.

Some retellings change it to become their own stories. If there's no story where the princess kisses another princess, or the prince kisses the frog, write one. Malinda Lo's Ash is an LGBT retelling of Cinderella, for example. Modern retellings of fairytales often flip it so that the princess becomes the questing character, as in Robin McKinley's Spindle's End. Or you can go all metafictional, or use a new style, or add in a new twist at the end...

I think I've done pretty much all of these things, in my retellings. A serving girl kisses Sleeping Beauty. The narrative voice mocks the fairytale even as it uses all the formulae. Mark tells the story of Tristan and Isolde with bitter understanding.

The main project I'm working on is going to be based on Arthurian myth, to some extent. I've been hitting the books: I've read my Geoffrey of Monmouth, my Chrétien de Troyes, my Malory. I've also dipped into modern versions (and here I'll pause, to plug Anna Elliott, who offers some of her work for free, and is also involved with Arthurian myth). Hopefully, I'm going to make something new and fresh out of the same old stories. Robin McKinley's written two versions of Beauty and the Beast, at least -- which goes to show there's plenty to mine for in these old stories, right?

I'm also working on another retellings project, somewhat smaller in scale. That might be the next thing I post. If not, I'll try to tell you more about my NaNoWriMo project for this year.