(no subject)
I'm gearing myself up to do NaNoWriMo. It's still a month and a half away, but I've fallen out of the habit of writing every single day and I'm trying to get myself in that mindset again. And getting excited about it, for me, means talking about it.
Possibly my favorite fairy tale is "Diamonds and Toads," or "The Fairies" by Charles Perrault. It's a pretty unremarkable story except that I took entirely the wrong lesson from it as a kid and when I read about the daughter who was cursed to have toads and vipers come out of her mouth when she spoke, I got excited and thought, "Hey, free pets!" So it stuck with me.
I read a lot of Alice Borchardt during high school and college, and around this time I got the idea of writing a historical fantasy sequel of sorts to Diamonds and Toads set in medieval France. Except that it never quite gelled and all I really got done was the sisters' names, Audovera and Fara. I've been thinking of them as Audovera and Fara since about 2002, so I got kind of set on that.
Cut to earlier this year, when I decided that since this is an on year for NaNo for me, I may as well write this. I started doing some research early on, finally picking up a good variety of research materials about Merovingian-era France, because I had some vague idea of having the prince be a Frankish Dux instead for the purposes of not dicking around with history too much. Except: enter Audovera, an actual historical queen, possibly assassinated by a possible basis for the wicked queen from Cinderella. And that was when things fell into place.
So now I'm planning to write more about Rigunth, Fredegund's daughter. Audovera and Fara are still a major part of the story. It's just less about fairies and more about incredibly dysfunctional families. (There will still be fairies.)
The more I read about Fredegund, the more I like her, incidentally. She kept her shit in order.
Between researching and outlining, I want to start writing NOW, except I don't quite have all the details hammered out yet. But I'm really excited.
Possibly my favorite fairy tale is "Diamonds and Toads," or "The Fairies" by Charles Perrault. It's a pretty unremarkable story except that I took entirely the wrong lesson from it as a kid and when I read about the daughter who was cursed to have toads and vipers come out of her mouth when she spoke, I got excited and thought, "Hey, free pets!" So it stuck with me.
I read a lot of Alice Borchardt during high school and college, and around this time I got the idea of writing a historical fantasy sequel of sorts to Diamonds and Toads set in medieval France. Except that it never quite gelled and all I really got done was the sisters' names, Audovera and Fara. I've been thinking of them as Audovera and Fara since about 2002, so I got kind of set on that.
Cut to earlier this year, when I decided that since this is an on year for NaNo for me, I may as well write this. I started doing some research early on, finally picking up a good variety of research materials about Merovingian-era France, because I had some vague idea of having the prince be a Frankish Dux instead for the purposes of not dicking around with history too much. Except: enter Audovera, an actual historical queen, possibly assassinated by a possible basis for the wicked queen from Cinderella. And that was when things fell into place.
So now I'm planning to write more about Rigunth, Fredegund's daughter. Audovera and Fara are still a major part of the story. It's just less about fairies and more about incredibly dysfunctional families. (There will still be fairies.)
The more I read about Fredegund, the more I like her, incidentally. She kept her shit in order.
Between researching and outlining, I want to start writing NOW, except I don't quite have all the details hammered out yet. But I'm really excited.