rthstewart (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rthstewart) wrote2013-03-25 01:34 pm
rthstewart) wrote2013-03-25 01:34 pm
Entry tags:
Chapter 16 of AW (ZOMG she posts)
It's been a long time but I finally posted Chapter 16 of Apostolic Way last night.
It's no secret that I've been really close to hanging it all up. There are a lot of reasons for that, including a lot of RL writing, the grim reality of the hostile fandom, the grim reality of the story to come, and the real fear that I knew where I wanted to go and that I really didn't think I had the talent to pull it off and that readers wouldn't follow. But Starbrow and Oldfashionedgirl95/buttonloops started in on the whole post Jill and Eustace in Quebec story with the avowed purpose of trying to get me interested in picking it up again.
I know it's frustrating to read works in progress. So many don't. Nevertheless, I know that probably 75% of what is in the stories now would not be there but for readers. Lucy and Edmund's Spare Oom story during the War was, like Susan in QSiT and Peter and Susan in Rat and Sword, not something I'd ever intended to tell. Yet here we are.
So, a couple of things. In the chapters ahead something that will be useful to remember is that Lucy fails and this is a good thing; Edmund succeeds and this is a bad thing. Also it is in this context, via flashback, that I will tell the story of Black, White, and Gray in Between, of the Mole spies and the traitorous Mr. Noll. The Narnian elements, such as they are, will be flashback, not the allegory of TQSiT. I've gotten accustomed to writing historical fiction now, and so that's where we're going.
I have a lot of reading still to do. Edmund's story is fun; Lucy's is hard and those who have worked in relief, democracy building, and with the poor and marginalized will know why.
Alice Jones made her first appearance here, and some of her best lines were first written by others in that comment fic.
In my non-linear storytelling, you see that Morgan and Edmund have resolved their differences (H&M has for the moment stopped at a cliffhanger) and are proceeding through the Narnian bonding ceremonies, including the Gretna Green bonding. Heliopause mentioned the Scottish marital rites and I loved this version of a Las Vegas elopement so much, I ended up adopting it for Frank and Helen and the tradition then passes down. Yes the Reverend Collins is a nod to Pride and Prejudice's Mr. Collins.
The issue of food aid to starving Europe and the Total War doctrine (here and here, and here and Vera Brittain (and here) and her peace letters are all to come in more detail.
That line about schools in LWW is an odd one. Who imposed them or was seeking to impose them again that the Four would abolish them? How can it be explained other than Lewis' own views of school? I am now obviously drawing parallels to Nazi indoctrination, wartime propaganda on both sides, as well as the canon issues of Edmund and horrid school, and the in-story issues of Peter, his academics, the expectations placed upon him, and how that would impact Edmund. Edmund shall meet his father in the next chapter -- I decided to end it where I did because that's not going to be a pretty encounter and I really want to do it from Walker-Smythe's pov.
So, for those of you still with me, thank you. I so appreciate your support and reading and would love to strike up the conversation again if you are so inclined.
It's no secret that I've been really close to hanging it all up. There are a lot of reasons for that, including a lot of RL writing, the grim reality of the hostile fandom, the grim reality of the story to come, and the real fear that I knew where I wanted to go and that I really didn't think I had the talent to pull it off and that readers wouldn't follow. But Starbrow and Oldfashionedgirl95/
buttonloops started in on the whole post Jill and Eustace in Quebec story with the avowed purpose of trying to get me interested in picking it up again. I know it's frustrating to read works in progress. So many don't. Nevertheless, I know that probably 75% of what is in the stories now would not be there but for readers. Lucy and Edmund's Spare Oom story during the War was, like Susan in QSiT and Peter and Susan in Rat and Sword, not something I'd ever intended to tell. Yet here we are.
So, a couple of things. In the chapters ahead something that will be useful to remember is that Lucy fails and this is a good thing; Edmund succeeds and this is a bad thing. Also it is in this context, via flashback, that I will tell the story of Black, White, and Gray in Between, of the Mole spies and the traitorous Mr. Noll. The Narnian elements, such as they are, will be flashback, not the allegory of TQSiT. I've gotten accustomed to writing historical fiction now, and so that's where we're going.
I have a lot of reading still to do. Edmund's story is fun; Lucy's is hard and those who have worked in relief, democracy building, and with the poor and marginalized will know why.
Alice Jones made her first appearance here, and some of her best lines were first written by others in that comment fic.
In my non-linear storytelling, you see that Morgan and Edmund have resolved their differences (H&M has for the moment stopped at a cliffhanger) and are proceeding through the Narnian bonding ceremonies, including the Gretna Green bonding. Heliopause mentioned the Scottish marital rites and I loved this version of a Las Vegas elopement so much, I ended up adopting it for Frank and Helen and the tradition then passes down. Yes the Reverend Collins is a nod to Pride and Prejudice's Mr. Collins.
The issue of food aid to starving Europe and the Total War doctrine (here and here, and here and Vera Brittain (and here) and her peace letters are all to come in more detail.
That line about schools in LWW is an odd one. Who imposed them or was seeking to impose them again that the Four would abolish them? How can it be explained other than Lewis' own views of school? I am now obviously drawing parallels to Nazi indoctrination, wartime propaganda on both sides, as well as the canon issues of Edmund and horrid school, and the in-story issues of Peter, his academics, the expectations placed upon him, and how that would impact Edmund. Edmund shall meet his father in the next chapter -- I decided to end it where I did because that's not going to be a pretty encounter and I really want to do it from Walker-Smythe's pov.
So, for those of you still with me, thank you. I so appreciate your support and reading and would love to strike up the conversation again if you are so inclined.
Re: Immoral?
Of course I shall scold you for feeling your own work not up to standard -- whatever that standard is.
Something I realized today, and I'm just putting this here because I need to get it out and it's safe because no one will read it, except maybe you if you come back, is that I began writing Narnia because I was filled with hope for a better world. I wanted to show that Narnia wasn't just Eden, that it had some ugliness and difficulty and more importantly that this world has beauty and wonder too. That understanding was possible even if we came from different places, that tolerance was to celebrated. YEAH Darwin!
I was such a naive fool. I learned that American Christian fundamentalists/evangelicals/wingnuts reject science, reject recycling because they have dominion over this world, that they really, really believe that anyone not Christian is going to hell, that poor people are poor because they are not godly, and that tolerance is a dirty word.
And, I guess they won. I don't have that hope anymore and so AW languishes because without hope, it's really hard to finish.
So, thank you for your kind words. I need to remember that there are people still out there who are vested with me in this. Who see that hope and need and want it too.