Sally Goes Sailing

I haven't felt much like writing about my life lately--when I'm not enjoying the good parts I'm too busy working through the less good parts to take the time to write about the good bits. But when you have a story to tell, well, it has to get out. That's what happened here.

When I was a little girl, my mom would tell me "Polly Stories" about things that happened to her when she was growing up. One was a story in which Polly gets sick of people making jokes about her nickname and asks to be called by her proper name. Whenever that was in her life, I always felt like calling herself Polly in the stories let me be closer to her--Polly was a little girl just like me. When I got older, I looked forward to telling my own children and/or nieces and nephews Sally stories (though the nickname Sally was even more short-lived than Polly had been). 

So, without further ado, and with a few bigger words than I would use for a kid, here is my first Sally story--based on real events, with all the usual caveats that go along with that phrase. 

~~~

Once upon a time (in 2004), in a state far, far away (Florida), a little New England family escaped from a harsh winter up north and rented a white sailboat to take in the beautiful Gulf Coast islands. They spent their days sailing under the direction of Captain Dad, with First Mate Mom and First Cabin Girl Sally manning the ropes (which were called “lines”) and the sails (which had several names). In the afternoons they went swimming and snorkeling in the glassy-clear water with the Second and Third Cabin Girls, Becca and Kathy, and in the evenings they read and played cards and laughed together. They lunched on extra-pickley tuna sandwiches, juicy oranges, and spicy ginger beer, and they snacked on a few M&Ms at a time (with pauses to comment on the ratio of colors they’d happened to grab). They tanned while they swam and sailed and combed the beaches, and they sang “A Pirate’s Life for Me” several times a day at First Cabin Girl Sally’s insistence.

 You see, Sally loved stories about the high seas. She could (and did) recite the whole Pirates of the Caribbean movie from memory, she kept a scrapbook of newspaper articles about shipwrecks and sunken treasure, and she knew how to make grog even if she would never, ever drink it. But these were just the latest in her list of sailing story loves. Her favorite book was The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. Ever since she’d read it in fourth grade, Sally had dreamed of having a high-seas adventure. Sailing in the peaceful Florida waters wasn’t quite what she wished for, but she was practical enough to know that this might be the closest she’d ever get, and made sure she enjoyed every minute of it.

One night there was a storm. It wasn’t anything like the awful hurricanes Sally had read about: Captain Dad and First Mate Mom heard the weather report on the radio, pulled out the maps, and sailed the boat to a sheltered little cove where they could anchor, with a dozen other boats, on a secure permanent mooring. First Cabin Girl Sally and Second Cabin Girl Becca hung over the bow of the boat with a long hook to catch the rope on top of the mooring buoy and helped Captain Dad tie it securely to the boat.

Even though they were sheltered from the worst of the waves, the white sailboat still jolted and juddered all night, the wind whistled through the lines, the rain beat down on the deck overhead, and clips clattering. Third Cabin Girl Kathy slept, but no one else did. The worst of it was a metal clanging, uneven in the wind and rain and loud enough to wake a whale. Finally, in the middle of the night, First Cabin Girl Sally heard Captain Dad open the hatch and climb out into the rain, where he thumped about on deck. A few lines rattled, then the clanging went silent. Captain Dad came back down and explained, while he dried off with a beach towel, that one of the big metal clips used to haul up the mainsail had been banging against the aluminum mast. He’d moved the clip, and now the noise from the storm outside was even and regular enough that the rest of the family could get to sleep.

The air smelled clean after the night’s rain when First Cabin Girl Sally climbed up out of the hatch with her tea the next morning. Captain Dad and First Mate Mom had mopped the benches dry with towels and were nursing their coffees while they read.

“I’m so glad you fixed that clip last night,” First Cabin Girl Sally said.

Captain Dad and First Mate Mom shared small, sheepish smiles. “Well, actually…”

Captain Dad explained that in the dark and the pouring rain, he’d accidentally attached the clip to one of the shrouds, the long, taut wires that helped hold the mast in place. The wire was thin and smooth, and with nothing to catch the clip, the weight of the rope had pulled it all the way up the shroud to the top of the mast.

“And that line is the one that pulls up the mainsail,” he finished.

“Oh.”

All three of them leaned their heads back to look at the top of the mast, where the little clip was just visible.

First Cabin Girl Sally knew exactly what she’d do if this was Charlotte Doyle’s ship: She’d find the ratline that went straight to the top and scurry up the rope ladder. But the little New England family’s rented white sailboat didn’t have ratlines. It only had thin mental shrouds and a smooth aluminum mast not much bigger around than Captain Dad’s leg.

“We won’t have to call someone, will we?” First Mate Mom said. “Seems such a silly little thing to call about.”

Captain Dad agreed. They kept looking up at the clip until Third Cabin Girl Kathy came up.

“Let’s use that other rope on the mast.”

Captain Dad shook his head. “That’s the jib line. It’s on the wrong side to pull up the mainsail.”

Just when everyone’s neck was starting to hurt, Second Cabin Girl Becca joined them.

“Just use the motor.”

“We don’t want to motor the rest of the trip!” First Mate Mom explained.

There was breakfast, and then all five of them were looking up at the clip at the top of the mast.

“Maybe I could climb the jib line,” Captain Dad said at last.

The three Cabin Girls burst into giggles at the thought of Captain Dad climbing a rope no thicker than his thumb, but First Mate Mom had a good point: “What if you fell?”

Captain Doug only paused a minute. “I could tie the rope around my waist. You could wrap it around a winch so it would catch me if I fell.”

It was First Cabin Girl Sally’s chance to share a glance with First Mate Mom as they remembered how it took two adults to haul in a sheet in a stiff wind, even with the winch to help, and how the winch lost its grip on the rope when the sail got too tight. A rope around Captain Dad’s waist might slow his fall, but wouldn’t necessarily stop it…and it would hurt.

And that was when First Cabin Girl Sally had her idea. “We could make a harness.”

Captain Dad shook his head. “I don’t think I knew enough knots even when I was in Boy Scouts.”

“No, I mean, I can make a rope harness.”

The previous fall, in gym class, Sally had spent almost four weeks in the patch of woods behind the high school track. There, telephone poles leaned between pine trees, wires just like shrouds held giant ladders hanging in midair, and tightrope wires zigzagged through the branches like strands of spiders’ silk. There were no harnesses: you only went up in you could tie a harness on yourself out of a single length of rope.

Sally was afraid of heights.

Sally loved every adventure she could have.

Sally could tie a tight, secure harness with her eyes closed.

Everyone in the white sailboat in Florida stared at her, half impressed and half skeptical. Captain Dad stood up, lifted his bench, and rummaged around in the hatch below to find two sturdy coils of extra rope. “Let’s see.”

One rope was too short, but the other was just fine. Sally took her time, remembering the wraps and tucks and knots. When she was done, she showed it off to the crew: these ropes pulled the ones that wrapped behind her legs to make a seat; this group of overlapping rope between two knots was where the clip would go before she started a climb. Captain Dad and First Mate Mom gave the harness a few tugs.

“All right. After we clean up breakfast.”

First Cabin Girl Sally wolfed her breakfast and gulped her tea, then left First Mate Mom to explain to Third Cabin Girl Kathy why a six-year-old couldn’t be the one to go up the mast.

First Cabin Girl Sally knew exactly how to prepare. She left off her earrings and took off her grandmother’s ring. She put on her pirate pants, which were tight around the waist, and her sailor shirt, which was tight, striped, and sleeveless. Charlotte Doyle had cut off her long hair; First Cabin Girl Sally twisted hers up into a bun.

When she climbed back on deck, she felt every inch a sailor. She was barefoot and tan, she had no loose clothes, hair, or jewelry to get caught on anything, and she had a length of rope in her hand.

The harness came easier this time. She pulled it tight and secure and made a few extra fisherman’s knots to tuck away the loose ends. She was ready.

Captain Dad showed her where to stand, clipped on the jib line, and gave her a boost up onto the boom. Then First Mate Mom took over his position at the mast while Captain Dad readied the winch.

“You ready?”

First Cabin Girl Sally couldn’t speak, so she nodded. The winch ratchet rattled and the rope around her waist and legs tightened.

In gym class, Sally had started climbing and her classmates took up the slack rope as she went. Now, with no way to pull herself up, the rope and her harness pulled even tighter to lift her into the air. She didn’t want to be pulled the whole way, so she caught the mast between her hands and feet and pulled a bit, though the winch took over so fast that she never knew if she’d really moved herself.

The climb had just started and it was already almost over. First Cabin Girl Sally looked up—better than down—and started to reach. One second, she couldn’t quite make it; the next, she wrapped her right arm all the way around the mast so she could grab the clip and haul its line back up, over the top, and down the shroud again. It was almost over and First Cabin Girl Sally hadn’t seen anything but her hands, the grey aluminum mast, and the line in between.

She looked down. Third Cabin Girl Kathy jumped up to the mast and grabbed the clip to pull it down the shroud. First Cabin Girl Sally looked over.

Far away, over the tops of the mangrove trees that sheltered the cove, were the dark blue waters of the Gasparilla Sound. In contrast, the pale green water in the cove was as calm as ice, clear enough that, from where she was, Sally could see the cement block of their boat’s mooring at the bottom. She could see where the water turned bottle green in the deeper channel that bigger boats had to use, and there, speeding about without a care for what went on above the waters, were two sleek dolphins.

She didn’t have a chance to call out: at that moment, Captain Dad started letting out the line, lowering her back down to the deck. Going down was much smoother than going up, like an elevator hugging her waist, and soon enough her feet touched the rough deck. First Cabin Girl Sally only realized she was shaking when her knees couldn’t keep her up and the rope lowered her to sit on the deck.

The Second and Third Cabin Girls cheered, and they weren’t the only ones. First Cabin Girl Sally felt her face grow hot when she realized that people in the boats anchored in the cove around theirs were clapping and whooping. She’d been so focused on her task and her goal, then on looking around while she had the chance, that she’d completely forgotten about anything beyond her family’s rented white sailboat. And here she’d just provided everyone’s breakfast entertainment!

There was plenty still to do that day—the extra ropes had to be coiled and stowed, the anchor weighed and the mainsail clipped back onto the line. As the boat slipped out of the sheltered cove later that morning, Captain Dad cut the motor while First Mate Mom and Midshipman Sally hauled up the mainsail. The papery sail snapped taut and Midshipman Sally reached for her book and a few M&Ms while the rented white sailboat carried the little New England family off to their next adventure.

Book Review: Lavardia, Part IV: The Second Destruction (a.k.a. I didn't know what else to name this section)

Okay, so after Parts II and III, I was really dreading this section. To my surprise...it was decent. It's still rough compared to any properly edited book, of course, but I felt like the plot moved at a better clip and was a tad more interesting. Plus, we finally knew the main characters enough to care about them. Well, I did. Which doesn't really mean much, does it? Yeah...

Due to some highly convenient time traveling, Willow, Lor, Jo, and Myra all end up hanging out together. I have a super squishy soft spot in my heart for this foursome, so I'm not even going to attempt proper analysis or criticism. Anyway, despite the fact that two of them sort of just died in battle (because timey wimey) and one of them has been pretty much useless except as a people-producer for 150 years, they decide that instead of taking some time to relax and enjoy life they're going to go exploring in the big bad human world. As one does. 

Unfortunately, while they were time traveling/living in a hidden valley, the outside world has spontaneously decided to become deliberately misogynistic. (I end up exploring how this might have happened in King of Worms, but at the time there was no excuse.) Oh, and they've invented these exploding things that look like rocks that are called...drum roll please...roks! The horror! 

My penchant for clever naming (which I would like to think has vastly improved since I was 15) continues as we meet the Evil prince Sean and the dangerously dim King Reg. Because for some reason I wanted the villain's name to be a tribute to the high school that I actually really liked attending. Fail.

We have another Party, some more Thoughtless Cruelty from Evil People and then, inexplicably, a Biblical interlude with Noah...er, Nomar. (Ugh, Nomar?!) Everything starts to fall to pieces (got to live down to that title) and Sean rats the non-humans to Reg. Jo has one BAMF scene and then with a hop skip and a jump we're back to Lavardia for a not-so Climactic Battle that culminates in a flood of, literally, Biblical proportions. 

I say all of that with a heavy dose of sarcasm, but again, I really did find this section more enjoyable than the previous two. There are actually some scenes with genuine internal reflection--there are people who feel tired of fighting to survive and, unlike Korcal's OOC mood swings, you understand why. I can see my love of world building starting to sprout in the places where I try to shoehorn cultural tidbits into otherwise innocent plot. They're actually some good ideas that I'd like to expand upon. 

Unlike the other parts of this book, the last one is not broken down in any labeled or logical way--I just let the breaks fall where they were needed. I actually really like this format, especially considering that many books these days don't have a table of contents even if they have numbered and titled chapters. What's the point? I use a similar format in King of Worms, though those are numbered even if they range from a paragraph to over twenty pages long.

Let's have some quotes now, then I'll make a few general observations about the whole book. 


Roundup

286) I really loved the bickering on this page. ("That's mine!" "No it's not!")  I was also weirded out by a) how little time had passed between parts II and III, b) how few people there were in the valley (coughincestcough), and c) how little I thought about what Jo would have been doing in the years between. 

291) "Lapis flew about like a pigeon with the power of a warlord." This may be one my favorite things that I have ever written. I like pigeons far too much for my own good.

311) In which an island sinks and a mountain erodes in less than 200 years because geology? What is this thing of which I ought to know plenty?

334) Sean calls Myra "the prettiest girl" in the room and I can't for the life of me think why. It's been established that she's more plain than beautiful and Sean isn't the type to pay compliments. I have a niggling little thought that it was a kind of manipulation, paying a ridiculous compliment so that she might feel obligated to show her appreciation. I'm going to go with that. Also: 

Myra: Pig.
Sean: Aren't we all? 

Huh?

359) In which I at least make an attempt at giving King Reg some depth and, later, repetition is used to heighten tension to the opposite effect. 

364) "Nomar began to run forward, remembered himself halfway, and hobbled across the remaining distance." I was surprised how much there was that was funny in this overall pretty dark section. Goodness knows what made me think of this in the first place. 


Things I'd Change

• Julian would have an ambassador program so that the people on the valley could stay on the peripherals, observing without any real power to draw attention to themselves. None of this "I'm 30 years old and the King's most trusted adviser" nonsense.
• More back story for the royal family of Quetsoni, of course. 
• More cultural differentiation and exploration of Quetsoni.

Overall Notes

Ages: I've commented on this before, but it strikes me now as extremely bizarre that some characters are relatively mature at younger ages while others are relatively immature at older ages. Then there's the fact that time is compressed so tightly: There are only a hundred or so years between major catastrophic events, not nearly enough time to recover from them or grow complacent. 

I think this is was partly just because I was younger. At age 14, 20 seemed adult and 30 seemed huge. (This was exacerbated by the fact that the past few generations of my family got married and started families when they were relatively young, so I always thought most people would have a kid or two by the time they were 30.) 

But that doesn't really explain the history time frames. As a history nerd, I knew that nothing changed quickly in the world until relatively recently. I simply can't fathom why I had everything happen in such a compressed amount of time. 


Crowds: I couldn't help noticing how many relatively intimate scenes there were that took place in front of faceless crowds. I kind of wonder if this went along with the feeling of being watched that I often had when I was younger. It's a common enough feeling for people, that their embarrassing moments are being seen and evaluated when, in fact, most people probably aren't paying attention because they're worrying the same thing about themselves. 

I think I felt (and, to some extent, still fee) very responsible for myself because I had the impression that what I did and how I behaved would have a major impact on others. Not materially, of course, but emotionally: I didn't want my parents to be embarrassed to talk about me to their friends. I'm still very conscious of how other people might perceive things--not to the point that I feel like people are watching all the time, but enough to think about how others might see something. I do think it can hold me up sometimes, but I've been teaching myself that it's sometimes okay to give in to impulse.

Maybe there was also a tiny bit of fantasy in there, that one person's troubles might amount to more than just a hill of beans in this world, at least to the people who know and care about them. It's kind of the opposite hypothesis: That I knew no one was watching me as closely as maybe I wished they would, so I gave my characters the audience that I felt they deserved. Even if, now, I know they really didn't.


Romance, Or Lack Thereof: Now that I'm "out", so to speak, I can talk about the weird romantic situations in this book. My mom commented in an early draft of Part I that she thought Willow and Lor were going to end up together romantically. And I did, actually, think about that for a while. I ended up changing it because it was deeply unsatisfying to me. It felt expected, almost obligatory, so I did my best to subvert it by making them siblings. 

I knew from the start that Willow and Myra were going to be good friends, but I never wanted them to end up in love for much the same reason. I think I was aware, even before I was very feminist, that there was often an inherent imbalance in a romantic relationship, at least as portrayed in the media. It was important to me that these four friends were all relatively the same--fast forged in the fire of circumstance, the way I later felt about my study abroad friends. That equality couldn't happen when romance was in the cards.

Now, of course, I know that this thinking isn't exactly healthy, but at the time, I didn't feel like I had any other option. Stories with girls in them had romance: there was no way around it. 

Jo was my sacrifice. I don't know why it had to be him--his abrupt declaration to Lor at the end of the story is really the beginning of the end of their foursome (though you don't see the fallout in the book). Up until then, they might have escaped and picked up life right where they left off. At the time that I wrote and edited it, Jo's kiss felt more like a betrayal than anything else. 

As much as I loved building Willow and Myra's relationship, it feels a little bittersweet to me now. Their genuine friendship was meant to distract from the hints of Jo's interest in Lor: look, here's this clearly developing emotional intimacy between a boy and a girl who aren't related. Obviously it can't be anything but romantic love.

I really resented that implication, that a boy and a girl couldn't be best friends and love each other deeply without ending up in love, if not married. Oh yes, that was often wonderful, but did it have to be inevitable? After all, I didn't want to marry any of my best friends who were girls, so who was to say that I'd want to marry my best friend if they were a boy? I didn't make clear in the book that Willow and Lor wouldn't end up as a couple, but that was always my intention. Not saying it outright was thumbing my nose at anyone who thought it. (A horrible way for a writer to treat their reader.)

Long and short of it is that I was pretty messed up about otherwise basic interpersonal facts, and it showed through here. 


Where Are They Now? 

This completely gratuitous section exists only to show how little life I have. I'm also skipping A LOT of backstory. 

Willow is Lord Overseer of time, responsible for making sure that fictional creatures stay real in their world and fictional in every other world, that anyone who tries to change time to better their own situation is stopped and the damage contained (even if that means ensuring that bad things happen--this ain't Doctor Who), and is pretty much always exhausted. He'll sleep for two days straight, take a week off to recover, and then be back to work. 

Lor and Myra became one person in order to combine their abilities to help settle the people of the Star in their new home. She's "Myra" to most and "Lor" to a select few. She's married to Jay Goodgrass, a (literally) gender- and species-fluid goblin general and Puckish mischief maker from my Goodgrass universe, and they have three adopted children and one foster child, all boys.

Willow and Myra/Lor live in a future version of the Palace with Jo, their seven sisters and one brother, an ever-growing gaggle of nieces and nephews both genetic and adopted, and various assumed-dead characters warped, adapted, and elaborated from other stories (Frankenstein's creation, the eldest son of Elizabeth and Will Turner, Anne and George Boleyn, etc.). Lapis loves them all dearly and is always happy to patch people up after their adventures, but doesn't leave the valley anymore. 

And they all go on adventures all over space and time and between realities. There are plenty of rough patches, but it all averages out to happily ever after. And "ever after" is ongoing...


Thanks for sticking with me! It was really interesting to read my book again after so long and approach it from a mixed inside/outside perspective. 

Book Review: Lavardia, Part III: Myra (a.ka. Shut your mopey mouth already!)

Okay, compared to Part II? This was even more painful.

I completely forgot how bad it was. Myra evolved and matured over the years so I completely forgot her origins as a whiny teenager (written by a teenager who was very clearly not having a typical teenage experience). Part of the reason is probably because I wrote this in the first person, so even though Myra wasn't me, I was remembering her as better than she was--you know, because all our memories show us as the protagonist, right? No? That's just me? Okay...

(By the way, I love how arbitrary all the ages I chose are. It's like, "Anything older than 14 is practically an adult! 20s are totally the be-all end-all!" I had such a bad thing coming...)

Myra was another foray into a different genre. While I will give my 15-year old self credit for the attempted variety of Part II, all I can say about part III is...what was I thinking? I bit off way more than I can chew! 

Myra's a descendant of the survivors of Part II (few though they were) (and disgustingly conveniently heterosexually paired off, I might add) (Tam marries some dude named Liam??!). So many people died that Lapis had to step in and have a couple kids of her own, which introduced magic to the gene pool. It's actually really stupid magic because the kind of magic I'd built, like Myra's seven sisters, was just too complicated to explain in a small amount of space. Only Victoria and Nelson (Nelson?) have powers related to their actual personalities then or now. 

Myra doesn't have a power but that doesn't matter because her great-grandma Lapis is going to be incredibly irresponsible and set her great-granddaughter loose with magical time traveling. All Myra has to do is read a book (a book--singular) about a point in history (like Egypt--EGYPT) and then travel. And she fits right in! 

I did, like, no research for this section. I read voraciously about all the places Myra travels, but didn't do any actual research. Aiyah. And to add insult to injury, there's no depth to the people Myra meets--it's not just that there's not enough time with them, it's that they're not distinct enough to be memorable, or for me to care that much about them.

Myra has horrific mood swings. She settles down a bit by the end, and I think (not having reread it yet) she's more mature in Part IV, but there's no real explanation of how she got from point A to point B. I think I got so caught up in the what of the story--the time traveling--that I neglected the other four questions. While plot-heaviness is still something that I struggle with, I'm happy to say that my struggles are a bit less egregious. 

Finally, this family is on the abusive side of dysfunctional. It's not charming or funny anymore, as I clearly thought it was at the time. I have a theory about that, but alas, I must keep it to myself. 

Anyway, time for some direct references and then I can bid this train wreck goodbye. (Would you believe me if I said that I'm still proud of this thing, despite how terrible it is?)

211) Myra's family is incredibly truncated from its original size (which has only expanded since). She originally had all four grandparents and seven sisters, many of them adopted. Also, there are apparently a lot of forced marriages. Because marriage is the only way by which kids are produced. *Sigh*

215) I flaunt my politics: tomatoes are fruits! Also, Myra cries. Just because, as far as I can tell. 

250) I actually laughed out loud at the *dramatic moment* that ends the chapter. 

Finally, one other thing I'd change? More time between Part II and Part III. I learned in college that it takes at least three generations for a major trauma like a relatively short-term genocide to be worked through.

See you soon for the final fourth and final part!

Book Review: Lavardia, Part II: The First Destruction (a.k.a. Everyone Dies)

I knew when I finished "Willow" that the story wasn't over. I futzed around for a couple weeks, really dissatisfied because I knew it wasn't the end but not really knowing where to go. It really bothered me, the kind of bother you feel in your chest that's a lot more of a bother than you can really explain to people, especially when it's something like a story you're writing.

Cue Dad's joking.

"Maybe you should just kill off all your characters."

Okay, I'm pretty sure that's not exactly what he said. I didn't start keeping commonplace notes until Stephen and Rosenwasser got me going on them in college, so even though I thought to write down a very rough end, alas, I didn't write down Dad's inspiring lack of sympathy for the agony of writer's block.

It was amazing how quickly the middle filled in, starting with this section. It's pretty obvious to me now that I'd hit my writing stride and was itching for a change of pace--this section is a series of chapters written from different characters' viewpoints. We get villains and victims, old faces and characters that I had oh-so-subtly (cough) referenced in "Willow."

It was great fun to write.

That said, when I say that I couldn't write Lavardia again because too much happens just because I need it to happen, this is the section I'm mostly pointing at. The vaguely-medieval fantasy equivalent of a World War is started in the wake of a small skirmish on an island that, I think, is not much bigger than Hawaii's Big Island (not that I ever looked it up, which you'd think would be an obvious thing to do).

Anyway, I thought for this section I'd give a little note or two for each chapter. You're welcome to skip to your favorites/the ones worth remembering (because I forgot about a couple of them).


Madoc

You would not believe how dull his original name was before I Googled a list of medieval names.

I loved starting out with a full 360 on "Willow", starting with an alternative perspective on the whole issue. That said, I could definitely do more with Madoc now. I kind of think it'd be cool to make this character a woman. (Obviously Domicallia's blatant misogyny would have to be rethought...or thought about at all, really.)


Trevar

The chief source of my, "you can't just say it's so to make it so" woes. That said, I actually liked this bit:

That evening the pesky butler and his 'news' were driven from Trevar's mind as he, his wife, daughter, and two sons attempted to make the Queen of Asya and her husband, sons and daughters feel welcome. It was not an easy task.

The two eldest children entertained themselves by sitting in a corner and whispering to each other, but the others--Trevar's two sons and the Queen's four young girls and one baby boy--were not so easy to amuse. The boys chased the girls around the banquet hall with butter knives, threatening to cut off their braids. The second youngest girl tripped and when Trevar's sons grabbed her, she gave them each a good kick in the shins. The boys howled in pain and one struck her across the face. There was a slice of silence while the two clans of children registered what had happened, and then they all yelled and (quite forgetting their manners) proceeded to pummel anyone they could reach.  

Trevar was a nervous man on good days. Watching this happen while the Queen and her husband just ignored it and talked politics was more than he could bear. He kept shifting in his chair, his eyes darting from his children to his guests, trying to pay attention to more dull talk and his brawling children at the same time.  

His wife was in no better condition. He could tell that she longed to stand up and end the chaos and send the boys to bed without supper. How on Earth could the Queen and her husband just keep talking in such calm voices? 

One broken finger, three nosebleeds and countless bruises later, they sat down for dinner. 

Perhaps I'll refurbish it sometime in the future. For one thing, it's hardly a demonstration of the equality that the genders are supposed to have in this world. But really, true equality might be too much even for my imagination.


Aly

One of the ones I forgot about. What was even the point of this ignorance-exposing chapter? (Other than to name two characters for a friend, Ally, and her crush on Rupert Grint. I didn't exactly tell Ally how it all ended.)


Anne

This character was originally a boy with an equally lame name. I now think that the character should have stayed that way, that he should have inherited the title from his mother, and that the chapter should have been told from Claire's perspective. She needs a better name, too. Another pretty lame chapter.


Birch

Okay, I actually like this chapter. You know, compared to everything else. I think it holds together the best, and it was another chance to look at a rotten character from "Willow" and see how they'd developed. So yeah, should the spirit move you, this one's actually posted on DeviantArt. (Weird fact: Birch and Willow actually look pretty similar in my head.)


Suzie

Another "???" chapter, though it's actually one I posted as a free sample on Lulu.com. I guess I was pretty proud of it at one point. It was fun to write from a kid's perspective. Now I'm just like, "Uncle Simon, dude, what are you doing telling your adopted daughter--who's, like, six--that she has a right to make choices about her future because she has no family? YOU'RE family!" Thank goodness for life, huh?


Korcal

Korcal suffered the most. She's freakin' awesome, so cool that I've never done her the disservice of rendering her death meaningless by magically raising her from the dead (though romping around in her past is another matter), but here she's out of ideas before anything even happens. Argh! Well, maybe someday I'll get around to writing her into another fairy tale retelling I've been percolating.

At the end of the chapter, all the travelers bond over the fact that they've met Willow. This is, in fact, the exact opposite of the effect that a proper Lord Overseer of Time should have--they should slip in and out unnoticed and unremarked upon. I guess I'll let it slide since he's still in his teens.

P.S. I would totally cast Laverne Cox as Korcal.


Jo

Jo does a 360 and starts being mopey and miserable instead of helpfully providing dumb battle ideas to people who have hundreds of years more political experience than he does. Another "???" chapter, though I do like his meeting with Birch and his last moments.

Jo and Lor became the victims of my heteronormative societal brainwashing in the original. At the time I wrote this, he was upset that he didn't have a girl because Lor's dead. Now, he's upset because he doesn't have either friend because Lor's dead and Willow's AWOL. Jo's technically about 8--even if his body grew up, he's still childish in some ways and not ready for actual crushes yet.


Rusty

I'm pretty proud that I thought of writing from Rusty's POV.

I'd originally named her for another friend before I realized that dragons came from Mars--which totally needs more elaboration. (For those who knew about my abandoned space dragons story, they were not related at all.) I actually called her Sizzle for a while, which is another great name for a dragon, but not one that I could use after I decided that my dragons didn't breathe fire. In case it's not clear, that myth comes from Jo.

Also, I love how Willow's little speech starts all stilted-sounding until Philip (what is with these awful names?) cuts him off. The language in the whole book is very torn between Harry Potter-casuality and Lord of the Rings-formality.


Alexandrite

I remember finishing Rusty's chapter and getting stuck. How was I supposed to make the next section work? I'd already used a bunch of POVs, I didn't want to repeat a character but I needed someone who'd be in the thick of battle. In hindsight, it's obvious I should have given Korcal's chapter to Ivy and put Korcal's POV here, especially considering that she ends the chapter.


Earth

Talk about big picture! I did like zooming out and making clear that Earth actually existed. The physicality of the space-things drove me up the wall, though. I ended up going with homonoid shapes, but it frustrated me so much that I was talking about hands and feet and hearts in imaginary space beings. I think I could do better with something like this now.


Finally, I'm 99% sure that my abundant use of commas these days is a direct result of not using them enough when writing this book. Clearly I was skimping on my quota earlier in life and I'm making up for it now!

Book Review: Lavardia, Part I: Willow (a.k.a. Look at My Elf!)

I thought about it, but I'm not quite narcissistic enough to add Lavardia to GoodReads. Instead, I'll be posting my reviews on my long-neglected blog.

I decided to reread Lavardia because it's been nine years since I self-published it and nine is very symbolic in the book because there are nine Lands and...

Okay, so I just decided to reread it. Mostly because I was curious. I still peck away at King of Worms from time to time, and Willow, Lor/Myra (long story), and Jo are all still actively bumping elbows with newer characters in my imagination, but I don't really reread bits of Lavardia anymore.

Anyone who read it will know why. It's not the best-written thing in the world--but don't get the idea that I'm going to spend my time here smashing my writing, because I'm still darn proud of this. Over the course of about two years, between 2004 and 2006, I wrote 360 pages of original fiction, develop- and line-edited the whole thing twice, almost completely revised the first six chapters, and massively rewrote the first chapter. I poured many of the little tidbits that I'd developed over the years into the story. It was an epic undertaking that I only wish I could repeat now that I'm a better writer.

With a different story, though. There are major changes I'd make to King of Worms if I was going to hawk it to agents, but I don't think I could tell the story of Lavardia again. There's just too much that happens because I needed it to, and I don't know how I could make it all work to my satisfaction these days.

Part of the problem is the sheer level of details. I didn't really know about the iceberg theory of writing, and to be honest there's probably more I'd want to squeeze in now that I've lived with the characters for so long. The influence of Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings is clear in that sense: there's a lot going on here that is usually cut pretty quickly. I think. My far-too-late-in-life discover of Tor is making me rethink a few things. Goodness knows if there's a place my writing would fit in, it's there.

I'm breaking this review down by the four sections of the book--not for any real reason, just because they're all so different.

With "Willow," I was definitely trying for the traditional book. It's broken up by chapters, it's a straightforward "quest" (subtlety wasn't my strong suit). Maybe it's a bit hubristic, but I see a slight comparison with the first of the six books of The Lord of the Rings trilogy: Tolkien knew he needed to write, knew he needed to get Frodo to Rivendell, but didn't really know why. I had to write Willow's story, though I didn't know the end at first and then it kept changing on me. When I got to the end, though, I knew in my gut that it wasn't over...I just didn't have the trajectory down or even the final goal. So there are lots of little distractions, side trips, stories, and discussions along the way. That I brought it all together as cohesively as I did with the next three sections quite honestly impresses me.

There are just two other things to mention before I keep reading.

First: Lazuli. In case it wasn't clear, Lazuli is Jesus. Essentially. Fresh out of Utah--Grace Lutheran School, overall religious atmosphere, the lingering ghost of Dad's cancer treatments--my faith was so important to me. I felt very close to God in my life, and it helped me feel a little less alone. Including Jesus as Lazuli, for me, was about showing that importance in my life while also kind of incorporating it into the godless life I found in Massachusetts. I knew faith wasn't important to most of the people I spent time with, but I still strongly believed in its influence. Lazuli's presence, his ability to appear where needed in various forms to offer guidance, was my answer to that.

All this said, I was very aware that I was writing a character. I've always been able to balance apparently contradictory ideas in my mind, and this was one of those instances. Of course, by the time Lazuli makes his reappearance with the "King of the All" in Part II, it's pretty obvious (to me, now) that my faith was going. I jumped into expanding the characters, being less vague than I was in "Willow". I didn't feel as much need to leave room for interpretation. This was fiction. Who cared? Art met life, and life won.

Second: One quote stood out to me. Oh, there were plenty of quotes that were clearly supposed to be IMPORTANT, but they're pretty lame, naive ideas and generalizations (a couple about mental health, and whoa isn't that an irony overload...).

Anyway, on page 118, Lor says, "I don't even know these people and they have my life planned out for me! I can't live like that, just following a schedule set down by someone else!"

You know what's pathetic? I feel like that's exactly what I've done so far.

To close, some general notes on things that have changed since I wrote the book:

• Jo's (obviously) pansexual and genderfluid, but I can't decide what pronouns Jo would want to use. Still working on it. (e/em/eir, a foreign language's gender neutral pronoun, and X (really, Jo?) are toward the top of the pile.)
• Willow's aromantic asexual. It's a side effect of being the Lord Overseer of time, which means that, theoretically, if he had a younger sibling, his "real" sexual orientation would emerge. Of course, that could very well be aromantic asexuality (since he's not going to have a younger sibling, I haven't given this any thought.
• Lor is on the ace end of the demisexual spectrum--a side effect of being the "spare" in case the Lord Overseer of time is killed, or just faffs off to parts unknown for a few hundred years. *cough*
• Overall, there would be much less heteronormativity and even more juggling of men and women in traditionally masculine or feminine roles
• Overseers of time live about a thousand years
• Lord Overseer of Time is the new "Descendant of the Star"...and for the record, I came up with that waaay before I knew anything about Doctor Who
• The fact that the Humans killed their sorcerer would be a way bigger deal
• Willow would be one of two elves in his year not allowed to pick their own careers (the other being Birch, who (desperately) needs some diplomacy classes)
• More time between the Great War and this story! These non-Human populations need to recover!
• Elves' bones are built like bird bones, so they're lighter for tree-swinging. Due to a lovely mix of genetics, Lor and Willow have hybrid human-elf bones, which makes one heavier and one lighter than their height and build would warrant. 

More to come!