Am in a crappy mood today. But I'm always in a crappy mood. It's illness-related. Three days straight without sleep can do that. Makes me a real bitch to be around. But there's also a kind of crappitude that comes from trying to figure out my present WIP. The logistics of it.
In a world where A is turned upside-down, what else would be turned around? The foundations of the world in Constant Tower is unlike the foundations in our communal (normal) world. So I really have to get into what kind of society, what kind of marriage, what kind of child-rearing, what kind of weaponry, what kind of cities, would involve in such a society. I find it opening up to me very slowly. That's what's kinda p*ssing me off. I'd like it to come to me quicker. I mean, today I realized that diseased children are thrown out of longhouses and cast upon the care of the night. I JUST now realized that. I've been working on this story for six months. At that rate of realization, when will I actually figure out what the story and this world is really like?
I also seem to be addicted to niceness. I want to empty my mind of this nice guy hero stuff. These are warriors, for heaven's sake. My warriors should be cold-hearted, like the guy Chiklis plays in The Shield. I have to free my mind and really allow the warriors to be harsh, cruel, fearsome. So the Christian reader as well as the secular reader can tremble in his 20th century politically-correct boots. I feel as if there are walls around my thinking and I can't see my way through and I can't push them down. Maybe I should spend a great deal of time watching cops-gone-bad movies and world war II prison flicks. I need to delve into evil and amorality...at least ---morality from that world's point-of-view. (which would seem amoral or immoral in ours.)
Something else kinda annoying me or putting a stranglehold on me. Reining me in, I guess. The book is for a Christian company. That creates creative borders and moral barriers I am loath to transgress. Other realization: the warriors tend to have shared wives. Brothers share a wife, or best friends share a wife. It's logical in this world that they should. But argh! how am I going to get away with putting that into a Christian novel? Kings with Concubines and multiple wives are acceptable but women with multiple husbands??? Ah gee! Gotta think.
I was made really happy when I saw this post over at Galaxy Express, . Gosh I wish I had been at Denvention for Bujold's speech! But the galaxy express blogger does a good job of pinpointing the main points and adding her opinion about the importance of politics, romance, and fiction. I'm psyched.
-C
Anotholgy: Shadows Out of Time Looking for Stories
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ANTHOLOGY OPENING. Several slots are open in SHADOWS OUT OF TIME. This is
an anthology to be published in 2020 by PS Publishing in a format similar
MOUNT...
5 years ago
2 comments:
Sorry to hear that illness have strife has been keeping you in a crappy mood.
I disagree that all warriors are cold-hearted. I think it depends on WHY they are a warriors. Some believe in their cause, or their leader and will defend them. They may need to fight someone they care about for someone that they care MORE for and it might displease them, but that isn't cold-hearted.
I think if you really want the book to appeal to a particular audience you need to tweak it so that it will, either that or you risk alienating that audience and possibly even publishers/agents for that audience. In the end, you need to be happy with what you're writing.
True, you're right. I don't want them to be cold-hearted. I want them to not be politically correct. YEah, trying to keep it geared toward the christian market. Thanks. -C
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