Rhian Crockett

From the world of dissertation hell, I actually bring you poetry. Which has very little to do with my dissertation, except in being vaguely Arthurian. I feel sort of tender about the moment when Gawain kneels down and bares his neck for the Green Knight, and I wondered how the Green Knight might feel about it...

The title is a quote from the medieval poem, translating to 'your kisses and your conduct otherwise'. The poem is a rondeau.

thy cosses and thy costes als

You kneel at my feet, and I see the nape of your neck white and bare,
and in the castle my wife smiles at your aunt and tosses her hair,
and I see you tremble, and I know you are but a man,
and I hold my axe, and I wonder if I can
and I lift my axe, and will I, can I dare?

Your eyes are closed and your lips move in a prayer --
lips that have touched mine as you paid your debt fair.
And I bring the axe down once, a span
from your bright head.

Your hand goes to the green girdle that you wear
and ah, Gawain, it is here that at last you err.
The jealousy swells in me bitterer than
bile. Not jealousy of you, but at her plan
that made you at last give up your care
for me. I could almost see you dead.


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

I'm finally back to working on the series of short stories I intended to get published in time for my mother's birthday (which was in February). I can never seem to work during the semester: there's always too much else to think about, so that the stories can't percolate properly in the back of my head.

Anyway, I'm at work again at last, and have just finished the first of a new set of stories to fit into that anthology. Hopefully, they're going to pick up the thread of Mordred and Agravain, which was left somewhat hanging originally, while I focused on Gawain, Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere. I just did a retelling of the story of Erec and Enide. So far, I've tried to stick close to my sources: I even refused to write properly about the cauldron in my substitute for a grail story, the voyage to Caer Sidi, because what we've got says they don't achieve it. Only seven return from Caer Sidi, and one gets the distinct impression they're not triumphant.

Which is great, except I just identified Erec with Gaheris, on very little grounds, if any. Oh, I know other contemporary writers have done it -- one at least: Sarah Zettel -- but it doesn't quite sit right with the work I've been doing so far. At least in theory. But in practice, to me, it feels right. It fits. It leads on to other stories and links back to others. It makes the story of Erec and Enide urgent to the reader, because they already care about Gawain and Gareth, and Gaheris is their brother.

The thing about Arthurian literature is that it's not a tapestry executed by one person, but more like a patchwork quilt made up of whatever each author had to hand. You can't match your colours and thread to all of the others, because everyone used their own material and what's there already doesn't match. You just have to pick and choose what works for you -- and that's one of the things that appeals to me about Arthurian literature, and about doing my own retellings. It's a riotous mass of colour and life, held together by the basic framework which everyone knows.

So, I don't think I'm apologising for stealing Gereint/Erec's story and giving it to someone else.

Next up: a reworking of Yvain, working in a backstory from a Scottish ballad, which is also sort of cheating when it comes to sticking to my sources. I'll leave you to wonder about that one, at least for now.

Been reading poetry and prose-poetry today, and I've felt like writing for a few days, so I sat down to do something. Especially since I've had so little time to pay attention to this blog, and it needs content! It's about Lancelot and Elaine...

(Also, look! I made myself an icon out of the draft artwork.)

( The Traitor's Heart )




The Traitor's Heart by Rhian Crockett is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The advice is always to leave your NaNoWriMo manuscript a while and come to it with a fresh eye, possibly in January. Well, it's been longer than that for me, but I finally seem ready to look at it -- it's only the second time I've felt compelled to come back to a story, really, and try to edit it, so that's probably a very good sign. The first time was in my first year of participating, and it came to nothing, but I have hopes this time.

I'm not sure how much of the actual writing I'll keep, but it definitely helped me get to know my characters. Right now, oddly enough, I have a lot of affection for my version of Bedwyr. I mean, I like him as a man. He's extremely close to Cai, and he balances Cai in many ways, and is good for Cai. (Who is rather more the Welsh version than the French: hot-tempered, but not deliberately malicious.) He 'told me' early in the process that he was one-handed, and that turned out to be somewhat plot-relevant, so I can't really tell you about it.

Vivienne is also involving herself much more than I expected. Which makes sense, as she'll become more prominent in the later 'books', as I have it planned. As long as she stops flirting with Gawain. (Characters. What can you do?)

At the moment, there's basically six 'books'. I have no idea how long they're going to be, though. I felt like I was stretching the first book, when I was writing it for NaNoWriMo, even at 50,000 words, which is considered short. I think I'll just see how it naturally falls, plus I'll expect words to be added during editing -- my style tends toward the sparse, without work. Since I'm planning to make them into ebooks myself, not try to sell the stories to a publisher, I think it'll be much less of an issue than it might seem, as long as the pricing is fair. And it will be, since I'm still not sure I'll charge anything at all.

Anyway, I'm very happy to be back to work again, and to have my 980 words of planning and structure as well as my messy, potentially hopeless first draft. It's a beginning.

I really need a title, though.

Hello, everyone! It's been a while, I know. I'm knee-deep in writing an essay that's essentially a mythic biography of Sir Gawain, so that's taking a lot of my energy right now. But I do have three things to say.

1) I am still in love (in love all over again?) with the love story in The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle. It doesn't run throughout the text, no, but the ending leaves the reader in little doubt of how Gawain felt about his wife:

She lyvyd with Sir Gawen butt yerys five;
That grevid Gawen alle his lyfe,
I telle you securly.

In her lyfe she grevyd hym nevere;
Therfor was nevere woman to hym lever.

Even though it does say that 'Gawen was weddyd oft in his days', his relationship with her is set apart as special. I do love it.

2) I am planning, after this Christmas, to put together the Arthurian short stories I've written into a book. This will probably require revision of those already existing, adding some new ones, and the subtracting of those that may not be of general interest (or which I haven't personally researched with references to primary sources).

I'm trying to think up what to do about the cover art. Fortunately, my close friend and my mother are both artistically inclined, so there might be some help for it there.

3) The anthology project is going ahead, still. If you want to get people interested in it, I suggest you link to this post, which talks in depth about the kind of things I'm expecting to include. You can ask me any questions here, or by emailing me at rhian.crockett[at]gmail[dot]com. That's also, I think, where you can send any submissions.

I think I will arbitrarily choose 23rd March as the final submission date, since it's a date I can remember for other reasons! Submissions before that are welcome, but I will probably wait until that date to actually make decisions -- the most you will get is an acknowledgement of the story. If there are any problems with your story (not relevant enough, not in line with the goals of the anthology, etc), I'll email you back if possible, so you can revise it or submit something else. Multiple submissions are okay: max of 5,000 words for an individual piece, and do not submit more than 10,000 words total.

Got my wordcount in the library, typing away awkwardly on my tiny little netbook, appropriately named Gawain. I'm slowly coming to terms with the realisation that I can't use much of this. But I'm getting to know my characters, and feeling out the plot, and starting to understand my world better, and that's all I really ask.

Now excuse me while I toddle off to do yoga and read more Garth Nix get an early night.

(My mood is due to a case of particularly pernicious hiccups. Ugh!)

Day thirteen was... day thirteen. I backed up my novel, and eked out my wordcount during another interminable train journey. I'm currently developing the character of the victim's mother, and she is surprising me a little -- she embodies a kind of commentary about the kind of king Arthur is.

Too bad this chapter is badly overwritten and probably needs chucking, when I edit.

In lieu of more interesting content, here, an article I liked on inclusionary writing.

I've procrastinated far too much today, but I have at last got today's count. Have seriously been neglecting my studies, though, so now I shall get on with those -- once I get dressed. Oops.

(And perhaps I should tidy my room. *eyes the chaos of papers and books*)

Got my writing done early, today! This because I am going to go out and do outrageous things, like talk to people in the real world.

At the moment, I'm still intrigued, though, by what my characters have been setting up behind my back. First Gaheris was all worried over some issues with Gawain, and then Cai stepped out and mirrored him, with his issues with Arthur. I didn't expect that.

Gawain remains clueless, though; it's only Gaheris and Bedwyr that realise there's parallels. Oh, characters.

(Still no sign of a title. I wish it was something you could go out and hunt: I wish that somewhere there was a big cave, called, say, "The Cave of Prospective Titles", and you could go there with a butterfly net and catch one, and it would know best about what your work should be titled, and you could accept its professional judgement.)

Today was mostly a day off, since I haven't been well, but I have (eventually) got stuff written. And I've finally shut Ragnelle up: I forgot how chatty she is. Good for word count, but most of it will have to hit the cutting room floor. I'm pleased that I snuck in a reference to Bisclaveret, a Breton lay that I'm thinking of doing a proper (and possibly diversified) retelling of.

In the course of messing around on the Kindle store today, I found some ebooks relevant to my interests in retelling fairytales. Or to some people's interests, anyway. There's various different collections, and they all seem to be erotica, but if that interests you, here are the two most relevant: Like a Queen: Lesbian Fairytales and Like a Prince: Gay Fairytales.

I haven't read them, so I can't speak for the quality of them, but I'm sure someone among you would be interested...