changing history

All is changing.

I've decided to move my story forward in 'history'. Of course the history of the world I created for my characters is entirely up to me, so I could have made it anything I liked.

I first, instinctively, set it in a general, vague medieval era of my own imagining, so I didn't have to stick to the costumes, habits or customs of any particular century. And I made the Vangorns almost Romanesque, because it suited their brutual military, colonising society.

But now I'm shifting away from all that.

In part this is because I think it's too common for fantasy writers to set their novels in a pseudo-medieval world. And because I'm such a stickler for history, I get irrtated when authors don't do their research properly. Even Kate Forsyth, whose career I admire, puts her characters in velvet dresses while surrounding them in an era long before velvet was invented.

But I'm also moving away from medievalism because that's the way my mind's heading at the moment. Besides, a later era suits aspects of the story better. Perinor would look heart-stopping with pistols in his hands, like a true highwayman. Brand needs to wear a top hat. And Airdlyn should travel through the woods in a horse-drawn carriage.

So I'm moving it all forwards to the 18th century. Of course, parts of the story are necessarily set hundreds of years before this time, so I still have access to older times and thus get the best of both worlds. Victory!

the wrong audience

I haven't worked on my novel for ever such a long time. Partly because I've been busy, but mostly because when I've thought about it of late I've just had this growing, almost intangible sense of despair.

But I've finally put my finger on the reason for this!

It's simply that I've been aiming to please an audience - in itself not a helpful thing - and what's more, I've been targeting the wrong audience.

The people I've been subconsciously writing the story for are not the people who'll eventually read it. The people I'm in immediate contact with barely read at all, and they would shrivel up with embarrassment at the suggestion that they try young adult fiction, particularly young adult fantasy.

So small wonder I keep thinking they'll hate it!

There are plenty of readers out there who will like it. And although I'm ultimately writing this story out of a desire to honour my characters, I'd be more than happy for other people to enjoy the characters too.

Enid Blyton (not that I'm trying to emulate her - not professionally or personally) used to say that critics over the age of 12 didn't count, because that was her target demographic. And I think there's something valid in that.

Critics who don't like young adult fantasy don't count.

I feel so much better now I've realised this!

having the last say

One of the writing groups I'm on recently decided to compile a list of their favourite last lines in books. (Prompted by The Guardian doing the same thing.)

Some of the lines struck me as lovely or clever or intriguing, and I thought publishers should consider marketing books more on their last lines than on random, poorly constructed blurbs.

Here's a sample of other people's favourite last lines.

"When he comes, my Zaylo, be gentle with him. These Earthmen have big bodies, but inside them there are lost children". ~John Wyndham: A Time to Rest

"They had found universes in grains of sand." ~Greg Bear: Blood Music

"All letters of protest should be addressed to people not yet born." ~Greg Bear: The Machineries of Joy

"This afterlife shit is overrated." ~Richard Morgan: Broken Angels

"The long night had come again." ~Asimov: Nightfall

"Well, I'm back," he said. ~J.R.R. Tolkien: The Return of The King

"One by one, without any fuss, the stars were going out. ~Arthur C. Clarke: The Nine Billion Names of God

"And in the end, only the bards knew whether they were true or a legend." ~Lloyd Alexander: The High King.

(The person who contributed this wrote, "I bawl at the end of this series Every.Single. Time -which is why I'm a bit fuzzy on the wording - even though it is basically a happy ending, and usually want to shout at the author, But of *course* they were real!'" I remember this last line, too, even though I haven't read the book since I was 12 or younger. I had the same reaction.)

"There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind." ~Douglas Adams: So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish

the owl service

I stayed up til nearly 3:00am reading Alan Garner's The Owl Service. And I want to rewrite the last page.

It's an incredible novel. It's so slim it's almost a novelette, and I'm convinced it's literary fiction disguised as children's fantasy. It gave me the creeps.

The best way I can think to describe it is as a cross between Susan Cooper's The Grey King and Ian McEwan's Atonement. Like The Grey King, it's set in a Welsh valley surrounded by hills holding ancient, mostly evil magic. The famous Welsh myths force themselves into contemporary reality (well, contemporary meaning between the 50s and 70s) and the characters have to fight and defeat the old magic.

And like Atonement, it feels menacing and fatalistic from the start. Plus, both are set in a secluded stately home in the high heat of summer. And Gwyn, in The Owl Service, is - to my mind - so similar to Robbie from Atonement. He's the son of the household's cleaning lady, he doesn't know who his father is, and he's in love with the daughter of the household. And both in both novels, much of the story is told from Gwyn or Robbie's stream of consciousness.

aladdin's cave (going to boswell's)

I love to read as I'm going to bed and often can't sleep until I've had a fiction hit. It's a weakness, but I figure my superpowers make up for it. But the other night I hit the crisis faced by all hungry readers - a bookshelf full of books already reread. I made the best of it by rereading Howl's Moving Castle (Diana Wynn Jones) and then Equal Rites (Terry Pratchett) but they couldn't dull the pain.

So on Saturday I took my housemate to Boswell's. I rave about the place so she was keen to come. Some people describe Boswell's as "the place with the mural". I always describe it as "Like Black Books - only clean". However you describe it, it's a booklover's paradise - rows upon rows of second-hand books, stretching all the way to the ceiling and all the way from the front window to the back door of a long, thin shop. There's always terrible music playing from a dodgy old cassette player, a digital screensaver showing natural disasters on the computer, and the books aren't always (read: almost never) arranged alphabetically. But it's all worth it.

I don't know what my housemate thought of it - I was too busy novel-hunting to ask. Because trying to find a particular book in Boswell's is like trying to find a particular jewel in Aladdin's cave; you can't help but be dazzled by all the sparkles. The fantasy section is almost too big to comprehend and far too daunting to tackle unless you have an idea of what you're looking for and how to spell the author's surname. The literary aisle is so crammed with obscure titles that you wonder if you should just gamble and chose one at random. And the children's section has been pulled apart by eager little hands and then shoved back in willy-nilly at an angry mother's command.

Of course, it didn't help that I was looking for books by Alexander Lloyd. I even asked the shop owner if she could help me. It was only when I went to write down the name so she could have a look for me in the boxes in her garage that I realised my mistake. I had the name the wrong way around! It's Lloyd Alexander, not Alexander Lloyd. So I dashed away from the counter again, followed by mild groans of impatience from my housemate. She followed me into my messy little corner, where I'd already collected a small pile of treasures, and queried politely, "Are you looking for children's books?" in the same way most people would query, "Are you looking for earwax?"

Because you see it had dawned on me - I have very, very slow dawns on my planet - that I like young adult or children's fantasy. Like so many things, this became blindingly obvious once I'd spotted it. I read so much of it when I was a child. There was a phase in primary school where I sped through books at a speed I've never equalled since. And if I ever reread books, they're almost always children's fantasy novels.

So, yes, I was looking for earwax - I mean, children's books. And I found some. I came away with Charmed Life, from Diana Wynn Jones' The Worlds of Chrestomanci series. I didn't know she'd written a series so I was delighted and I'll have to go back buy the others now. I also bought The Black Cauldron and The Castle of Llyr from Lloyd Alexander's The Prydain Chronicles. I actually ordered the whole series online in January but they still haven't appeared, although the rest of the books I ordered did. Unfortunately Boswell's didn't have The Book of Three, which is the first in the series, but I'll go back later and try again. And I got The Owl Service by Alan Garner, who also wrote The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, which I loved and still do.

In an attempt to disguise my appetite for children's literature, I also nabbed a copy of The Amber Spyglass, which is the third in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. I haven't read the seond one, though, so I might buy a new copy so I can read them in order. And lastly, I bought The Shadow of the Sun by A.S. Byatt. She wrote it in her early twenties, so it intrigues me in more than one way. In total I brought home six books, having paid only $36. Bargain!

I've finished Charmed Life. I loved it. And I love Chrestomanci, which worries me a little, given that he's married and has two children... and that he's a fictional character. I can see a resemblance to Howl - both are always so elegant and calm, so when they finally show emotion and vulnerability your heart just melts. I kept giving my housemate updates on exciting twists in the story. "Guess what just happened? A little boy set himself on fire and died. But don't worry, he has nine lives. ... And guess what; I'm nearly at the end and this boy's sister came back and she was prepared to let people cut his throat!" My poor housemate must have thought it was a horrible book.

And after all that, what did she think of Boswell's? Well, I still don't know, but when I told her I planned to go to bed and read, she cried, "No, this is why you shouldn't be allowed to buy books! I never get to see you!" Oh, but Chrestomanci wins my time and affection. He's an enchanter, after all, and who can resist him?