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Optimistically, I have a goal of updating this journal at least once a week. Hmmm! I haven't much to say, at present: I've been diligently working on my plans for my NaNoWriMo project, and thus far have four chapters planned. I've been reading lots of Arthurian texts -- right now I have Wace's Roman de Brut beside me, though I haven't begun it yet -- and attending classes, but haven't found time to write the story I keep promising here.
I have planned stories that aren't retellings, too. I've been wondering about how to deal with the lack of diversity in a lot of retellings: they're restricted by the culture of the original tales, where everyone was white, probably male, heterosexual (or turned heterosexual -- I refer to Marie de France's 'Guigemar', which some critics think is a guide to turning your gay son straight)...
My NaNoWriMo project will give Arthur back to the Welsh, in a way: his court will be placed in Caerleon, and I will use the Welsh spellings for some of the names. I'll also be taking some things from the early Welsh source material, at least to reference. I find the role of Cei/Kay particularly interesting, for example, and I think I'll be using him. So there's that, and I do plan to give several women very important roles, both positive and negative. Still, there's not much room for more cultural diversity than that, and none of the characters so far have disabilities, or are non-neurotypical (or certainly not positively so), or are LGBT figures in any way.
It's hard, in that context, to do things like that. Even if I made a certain knight gay, my main POV character wouldn't have the least understanding of it. I could -- and probably will -- hint, that's what subtext is for, but it's not what I really want.
So, in any case, I have planned some stories that introduce some more diversity into my writing. Mostly in the sense of sexuality -- in this case, "write what you know" applies, at least for a start -- but I do hope my writing will be generally inclusive.
I have planned stories that aren't retellings, too. I've been wondering about how to deal with the lack of diversity in a lot of retellings: they're restricted by the culture of the original tales, where everyone was white, probably male, heterosexual (or turned heterosexual -- I refer to Marie de France's 'Guigemar', which some critics think is a guide to turning your gay son straight)...
My NaNoWriMo project will give Arthur back to the Welsh, in a way: his court will be placed in Caerleon, and I will use the Welsh spellings for some of the names. I'll also be taking some things from the early Welsh source material, at least to reference. I find the role of Cei/Kay particularly interesting, for example, and I think I'll be using him. So there's that, and I do plan to give several women very important roles, both positive and negative. Still, there's not much room for more cultural diversity than that, and none of the characters so far have disabilities, or are non-neurotypical (or certainly not positively so), or are LGBT figures in any way.
It's hard, in that context, to do things like that. Even if I made a certain knight gay, my main POV character wouldn't have the least understanding of it. I could -- and probably will -- hint, that's what subtext is for, but it's not what I really want.
So, in any case, I have planned some stories that introduce some more diversity into my writing. Mostly in the sense of sexuality -- in this case, "write what you know" applies, at least for a start -- but I do hope my writing will be generally inclusive.
