Lavinia Collins's Blog, page 22

OUT NOW: The Guinevere Trilogy vol.ii “A CHAMPION’S DUTY”

 

The second part of the #1 Arthurian bestselling Trilogy is available now on Amazon!

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/CHAMPIONS-DUT...

US: http://www.amazon.com/CHAMPIONS-DUTY-...

Already 5 5* Reviews. Reviewers have said:

“Anyone who read the first and was hoping to see a lot more Lancelot won’t be disappointed! I don’t think the love between him and Guinevere has ever seemed more real and urgent than in these books. I thought this was really well done as a sequel because it has developed from ‘The Warrior Queen’, with the connections between characters get more intricate and troubled, but Guinevere’s voice is still fresh and personal as ever. It was also great to get a woman’s perspective on the Holy Grail quest. I really can’t recommend this series enough!” 

 

“Rarely will I describe a book as ‘unputdownable’ but this one certainly was! Collins kept me guessing about where she was going to go next, and I was alternately frustrated and relieved as Guinevere manoeuvres through life at court with zest, passion, and intelligence. A fascinating take on life for Medieval women, suitable for anyone who is looking to read to relax or be intellectually stimulated – a winning combination. Can’t wait for the next one, but sad it will be the final instalment!” 

 

 

Calm Down Dear: The Sanitization of Angry Women in Film & TV

Cersei Lannister: NOT an example of a sanitized angry lady.

I love all Arthurian film and tv adaptations. Love them. Even the worst ones (lookin’ at you, ‘King Arthur’ 2004) have some of the original story’s natural charm and merit. However, there is one annoying trend I have noticed. None of the women are anywhere near as badass or angry as they are in the original literature (except in Tennyson, where no one is angry, and everyone is really really tedious and moralising. Sorry Alfie T., but it’s true).

Morgan le Fay, quintessential sidelined angry lady who is up to all kinds of angry revenge-related capers in Malory is invariably fitted into the safe little box of dangerous sexy seductress in film and TV versions. In ‘The Sword of the Valiant’ she is typically comedy horny lady trapping knight (Gawain who is BTW her nephew but, you know… whatever) in her tent, in ‘Excalibur’ she is a little better, but really more totally bonkers than angry. Perhaps most irritatingly of all, the 2001 TV adaptation of ‘The Mists of Avalon’ tried so hard to make Morgaine likeable that she lost all of her righteous anger, and all of her power. Though Julianna Margulies made a sensitive, very sympathetic Morgaine, the adaptation from the book glossed over all of her more morally ambiguous deeds. The message is that a woman who behaves “badly” can’t be liked, won’t be liked by film and TV audiences. You can just about get away with it in a book, but not on screen.

Worst of all, of course, is Guinevere. In Chretien de Troyes Lancelot she’s constantly dissatisfied with her lover, bitchy, manipulative and demanding. And awesome. She don’t take no shit, you guys. In Malory, she rides into battle beside Arthur, makes a lot of important political decisions, and manages to nag her way out of a terrifying rape scenario. She’s fiery and headstrong and determined. She, like Chretien’s Guinevere, is also wild and jealous and demanding. She’s a powerful woman, and the history of readers of Malory and Chretien have proved that this is not always likeable. And what do we see when we see Guinevere on TV? Something entirely different. Marion Bradley sidelines her in ‘The Mists of Avalon’ understandably, but in the book she has a kind of attractive coldness about her. In the TV adaptation, she is a pouting wide-eyed ingenue, devoid of any kind of agency. In ‘King Arthur’ she gets to do a bit of fighting, but Keira Knightly, great beauty though she is, hardly embodies strength and military competence, and besides more emphasis was given to her hanging out in the bath and making moon eyes at Clive Owen. In Excalibur  she barely speaks except to protest her innocence. We don’t see jealousy , or power, or plotting, or scheming, or brains or even any kind of real, raw emotion. TV and Film executives still think that this is distasteful, and we won’t want to watch women behaving this way. A man who does so is a man of strong and noble emotions. A woman is hysterical.

Thank God for Claire Underwood and Cersei Lannister. I truly hope that these two women – bitches who get shit done – presage a turn in our film and TV culture that allows women to be angry, to be powerful and to be independent. Allows us to like women because we respect them, because we are interested by them, not because they are “nice”. I truly, truly hope that this will mean that in the future we will be able to see the glorious women of Arthurian legend in all their various aspects. We will be allowed to decide whether we like them or not, not just to see them in the witch/maiden/whore roles that previous adaptations have tended towards. I’m keeping my fingers crossed, because we all deserve to see it.

A Trip Back in Time: Medieval Chivalry, and the Rise of the ‘Nice Guy’

There’s been a lot of internet discussion around the new phenomenon of the ‘Nice Guy’. The Nice Guy is your friend. He listens to what you have to say. He cares about you. Isn’t he nice? Well, he certainly thinks he is. But the Nice Guy is only nice, because the maths he mislearned in school was Nice + Woman = Sex. No no, Mr Nice Guy. No no. That’s some pathetic mansplainy bullshit you got right there.

But this has set me thinking about Medieval Chivalry, and really what a ‘retro’ pattern that of the ‘Nice Guy’ is. You see, it’s all about the illusion that the woman has a choice, while the man fulfils and social ritual that is essentially meaningless, and then reverts back to his privilege. No woman in a medieval romance ever refuses a man who fights valiantly for her. There’s a practical element to all of this, you know. Are you going to say no to the man who has just knocked all the other men down when you are a woman without a sword? So courtly love makes it seemly. Just like being a “Nice Guy” and pretending to be friends with someone before you pressure them into sex is just a seemly (or not so seemly – sorry Nice Guys, we ain’t so fooled) illusion that does painfully little to conceal the fact that an assumption of ownership is being made by any male who takes care of a woman. Is kind to her. Implicit in this is that she owes him something because he has not pressed his advantage, when the reality is that he already has.

I’m not saying men shouldn’t be polite to women. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be aware of their physical strength. I’m not even saying that they shouldn’t pull out chairs or open doors. People should do those things for people, because it’s friendly. No, what I am talking about is different. Kindness, that is aiming for something. Kindness that is not disinterested. The kindness of the ‘Nice Guy’. The chivalry of the medieval knight, who is conveniently also looking for a wealthy patroness. It’s like the mafia’s protection racket. I’m being kind to you. I could harm you, but I’m not. You owe me something.

The ‘Nice Guys’ say they are hard done by. They are kind and polite to women, and all the women want the bad boys (that’s a whole pile of sexist bullshit, but I will leave that there because I think we’re getting into tl;dr territory). But what is all this “politeness”, this “kindness” worth if it is all proprietorial? If you are kind to me to express that I belong to you, and should be grateful for it? If it comes with pressure attached to respond in kind?

For my part, my answer is no. You can’t have my castle or my land. I don’t care how many stanzas of Troilus and Criseyde you memorised because I liked it. I don’t owe you shit.

eBook Bargain – Get it while it’s HOT*!

*It’s always going to be hot.

Just to let you lovely blog readers know that Book I of ‘The Guinevere Trilogy’ is currently (just until Saturday!) going for a steal at 99p!

Amazon reviews have said: “I loved this book – Guinevere is a totally compelling heroine and the setting in Arthurian England is incredibly immersive. This is the most fascinating and realistic take on the Arthur legends that I’ve ever encountered – even if there is a bit of magic involved! What I liked best about this book was the depth of Guinevere’s character. She shows how it’s possible to have complex feelings of love for more than one person, and I loved her wilfulness.”

 

“Lavinia Collins has created a Guinevere unlike any I can recall encountering before: vivid, psychologically compelling, and as forceful a personality in her own right as any of the men with whom she interacts. This is no Lerner and Loewe ingenue, existing as much as a prize over whom two men struggle — Collins’ Guinevere is a force unto herself, and contradictory (and aware of her contradictions) in a way that renders her very human in a role that has often been made mystical or passive.”

Hurry to Amazon and get it for this bargain price while you can!

 

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/THE-WARRIOR-Q...

US: http://www.amazon.com/THE-WARRIOR-QUE...

 

 

 

 

 

The Dreaded Question: Is Anyone Based on Me?

The question every writer dreads. “Are any of your characters based on me?”

…

What is the right answer?

Never, of course, the truth.

Especially, if your book contains sex scenes.

People don’t want to think that you wrote without their influence, or that they did not inspire you. Nor do people want to think that that character you gently (or perhaps ruthlessly) mocked is them. Also, they have their own ideas about who they are. I once commented that one character was based very loosely on my best friend, to which my partner loudly exclaimed, “No she isn’t!” Of course. How wrong I was about my own writing process.

And of course, the big danger with writing first-person narrative, as illustrated perfectly by a close friend who read the book exclaiming as she stepped off the train in a crowded public place, “Guinevere is YOU,” (to the bafflement of the people around us), is that everyone assumes that you are writing exactly what you think and feel. Well, after she had recounted her recent adventures to me, I pointed out to her that Guinevere was possibly also her, which she did not seem too put out about (of course).

We love to imagine ourselves in fictional places, in fabulous worlds, and the thought that someone else has imagined us there too is kind of exciting. I feel the same thing, too. That longing for escape.

Still, what does it mean that we are always looking for ourselves, and those we know in fictional characters? Why did my friends have a few drinks and ask me which character in the book was my partner? (Spoiler: none – they’re all made up. From my imagination. Like all fiction) Which were them?

The fact is that the characters we write, like the characters we project of ourselves and imagine of our friends, are always necessarily a composite. A combination of what we have read, what we have seen and what we have imagined of the interior lives of our friends, both real and literary. But we want to know. We want to know because we want to see what ‘type’ our friends see us as. I understand that.

Still, I’ll never tell. They would all be too offended.

On writing a sexy book – and telling your parents you’ve done it

On writing a sexy book – and telling your parents you’ve done it 

I wrote The Warrior Queen during a long, hot summer, when I was supposed to be studying. It was just one of those times, one of those strange, special times, when the world seems a little bit different, and you slip away from reality. Perhaps it was the heat, perhaps it was just the attractiveness of a displacement activity when I was supposed to be producing several thousand words of academic prose, but I found myself utterly absorbed in the haze of writing a ‘sexy’ book.

I wanted it to be racy, I wanted it to be sexy and exciting. That was the kind of thing that I was interested in reading, so naturally it was what I wanted to write. I dreamed that one day it might be published, but I never really engaged with the idea that if it did, I would probably have to tell my parents.

“What’s the big deal?” I hear you cry.  “Your parents, by virtue of being your parents, can’t be totally sex-averse.” True! But being raised in a religious household, going to a Christian school and brought up with the idea that one really doesn’t talk about that kind of thing (that I never quite managed to espouse myself), I was beyond nervous to share the news. What if they were horrified? I thought about sharing it, and then asking them not to read it. Impossible. They would only assume that it’s full of something extreme and/or disturbing. What to do?

What was also unhelpful was the various responses of my friends who had read it in the draft phases. One described it as ‘steamy’ and claimed it left her alternately blushing and white with excitement, whereas another (who was French – not to play to stereotypes at all) simply shrugged and said it was sexy, but not anything to be shy about. Least helpfully of all, my partner simply shrugged and said it would “probably be fine” to tell them. I found myself utterly unable to judge what the threshold for weirding out one’s parents with sexual content was.

It wasn’t that I was embarrassed about anything that I had written, it was just that I didn’t want to make anyone feel uncomfortable. I knew it was something that my mother was uncomfortable discussing on a personal level. I am not a child – have not been for a long time – so perhaps I should have approached the whole thing with more of a casual air of nonchalance, but I could not.

As it turned out, it actually was fine. After a few moments of my mother shouting several times, “You’ve written a bonkbuster?!” (her words, not mine), she calmed down. In fact, they both thought it was rather exciting, and rather funny.

So far, so relieved. My mother then immediately downloaded it, read it, and enthusiastically protested her enjoyment. All excellent. But then, it seemed, the can of worms was open. Rather than being horrified that the little girl they raised had gone on to produce some racy fiction, my parents were so pleased that they told everyone they knew. Including both my grandmothers. One of whom has read it, and recommended it to her octogenarian reading group. I suppose it’s true that you really can’t ever surprise anyone older than you with that sort of thing. Our generation really didn’t invent sex, and what’s more we aren’t even the ones that are most excited about it.

So there we are. Parents can surprise you. In fact, rather than my mother (and grandmother) learning something about me I did not want them to know, it seems that the whole experience taught me more about them than it did them about me…

If you fancy something sexy, The Warrior Queen is available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/THE-WARRIOR-QUEEN-Guinevere-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00IPRC0TE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393635696&sr=8-1&keywords=lavinia+collins

Why not share it with your parents?

Blurred Lines: History and Fiction

In an interview today with Radio 4, Professor Sarah Churchwell (The University of East Anglia) complained that with “Historical Fiction” ”We’ve started to blur the lines between fiction and falsity”.

This raises some rather interesting questions for one such as I, who consider myself an author of “historical” fiction, even though I don’t consider the history I am writing about to be grounded in fact. But I would argue, also, that something that is not fact is not necessarily ‘falsity’.

Legendary history catches you in a difficult place. The potent mix of magic, history, romance and idealism makes ‘fact’ not just difficult to determine but also irrelevant.

History has always been, to an extent, fictional. There are battles in ancient history where the records of both sides say that they won. The Ancient Greeks had the fall of Troy, the Romans had the journeying of Aeneas, and we have King Arthur. These legends are an essential part of our national identity, mythic history and sense of cultural self. Are they valueless because they are not “true”? Does ‘true’ matter more than ‘meaningful’?

Even in our modern world, we have to admit that even as history is made, it is subjective. Between Russia Today, CNN and the Daily Mail, fact is as elusive as it ever was, and ever will be.

I was recently told that my novel “sounded like fantasy”, not historical fiction. Where do we draw the line? Fantasy is just as fictional as Arthurian legend, but the difference is, it isn’t tied to the world around us. It isn’t set in the same places, we aren’t invested in it as part of our heritage.

Geoffrey of Monmouth, that famous falsifier of history – called by another contemporary historian, William of Newburgh, an ‘outrageous liar’ for his inclusion of Merlin in his History of the Kings of Britain – gave us characters that have formed the backbone of British culture. No Geoffrey of Monmouth, no King Arthur as we know him now. No Shakespeare’s Cymbeline. No King Lear. Is it worthless, then, because it is not true? Should we throw away our fictions?

Our national myth is a part of us, a part of the land and the culture of Britain. The stories we tell about ourselves are more revealing as to who we are than the cold, hard facts of our lives, of the lives of the people of the past.

So, I for one am saying, don’t unblur that line. The history of who we were is more valuable, more beautiful and more interesting than the history of what we were.

Besides, ‘factual’ history doesn’t have dragons.

The Best (and worst) Times in European History to be a Woman

The BBC just released data on the best place in the world to be a woman (spoiler: it’s Iceland) in which the UK and America didn’t even make the top 10. Surprise surprise.

(You can find it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-24650912)

Before you consider moving to Iceland, why not consider moving back in time? In case this is an option open to you, I have prepared some thoroughly researched* information for you, so you know what to expect.

(*mainly wikipedia and historical TV dramas on HBO)

Ancient Rome (Augustan Era c. C1st bce – C1st ce) 

If you were a woman in Ancient Rome and you had a bit (actually, quite a lot) of money, basically the only thing you couldn’t do was vote. Power was officially forbidden to women, but influence was almost limitless if you were rich, resourceful and sexy (as I am sure, reader, you are), and Ancient Rome produced such enduring powerful women as the Empress Livia (pictured above: she’s fabulous, but she’s evil), and most famously Cleopatra. A reliable historian friend even told me that the Romans had discovered a contraceptive plant so effective that they consumed it to extinction, which explains why everyone has so much sex in I, Claudius and Rome and yet there are so few babies about. There you are.

Just, if you go back in time there, hope you’re not poor.

Early Medieval Britain (c.500-1000) 

Irish law codes from this time forbid women from giving legal testimony (boo), but if you were a woman and you owned more stuff than your husband, basically he was your bitch and had to do everything you say (hooray), hence the famous “pillow-talk” argument at the beginning of the Irish epic the Tain Bo Cualinge where they count all their stuff. (Wikipedia it here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Táin_Bó_Cúailnge)

Also, if it’s your home county and you’re the woman, you own all your husband’s stuff and own him legally, so he can’t make legal contracts without your permission. Hooray again!

“But I don’t want to own my husband’s stuff,” you say. “I want to be free, and to have my voice heard in society, and be a valued member of the community.”

Well, tough. All you get is his stuff.

High Medieval Britain (c.1000-1300)

Good news, women: as of the c12th it’s your consent, not your parents’ consent that is required for you to get married! Bad news, women: this is all nominal, and your parents will still probably make you get married at 11. Sorry.

Unless you’re Eleanor of Aquitaine (pictured above, lookin’ sexy), you’re not going to have much fun living in this period. Only way to get your hands on any power is to marry a king, and make sure he dies while your son is still underage. In this case: Jackpot. In all other cases: sorry ladies.

Time travel tip: be Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Late Medieval Britain (c.1300-1500)

Sorry folks, it doesn’t get much better. Courtly love is pretty big, but that’s basically just minstrels sucking up to you so that your husband will give them some money. Remember that husband you married at 11 in the high medieval period? Yeah, that’s still happening. Sorry.

If you were powerful, you were a witch (looking at you, Elizabeth Woodville!), and if you didn’t want to be a witch you had to do as you were told. There were some pretty badass ladies up to stuff, but no one was very polite about them in public (except that wiley old Margaret Beaufort because she was all saintly like a woman should be).

Same story as the high medieval period really – best to be a widow. Or, late-medieval special move: a religious fanatic! Either that or a witch. Just make sure no one ever tries to weigh you against a duck.

This is where my historical knowledge runs out.

But I hope this has been amusing and (relatively) informative.

My pick would be Ancient Rome.

How about you?

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International Women’s Day, “Women Writers” and the Woman Corner

Today, since it is International Women’s Day, and the theme is ‘Inspire Change’, I thought I would take the opportunity to talk about one small change that could be made, that make a huge difference to me, and “women writers” like me.

And this is part of the problem. I am sure I am not the only one who dislikes having to refer to herself as a “woman writer”, or who bristles any time anyone uses that awful, insulting derivative “authoress”. The “Woman Corner” where all of the women who write novels, or poetry, or plays, are put is still a big problem. It’s the reason that (in the distant days of being student) I managed to spend three years studying literature and only read two female writers: Elizabeth Barrett Browning (commonly also referred to only by her married name as Elizabeth Browning) and Margarey Kempe (who possibly did not even exist). What’s more, reading their work came under a “women’s writing” themed week.

We have one day a year. We have one week a term that is the “women” week.

But women are not a special event. We’re half the world (slightly more than half). Still, the view of the writing of female authors is still so backward that last week I walked into Waterstones to find that there was a “women writers” stand where Harper Lee was placed right next to Phillippa Gregory. I like Harper Lee. I like Philippa Gregory. But apart from being successful authors in their wildly different fields, all they have in common is their chromosomal makeup. I should let it slide, you say? I wonder if people would let it slide if Waterstones had a ‘black authors’ stand.

Apart from the fact that it’s downright unhelpful to lump all female authors together on one stand, it’s offensive, and it’s symptomatic of the wider problem that men are seen as the default, and women as the special event. It was a long time ago that Samuel Johnson said ” a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all”, and while the attitude to female authors has at least progressed a long way from this, we are still in a “woman corner”, identified by our gender rather than what we write.

So, some fiction is “gender neutral”, some is aimed at women, and some at men. That’s an important part of marketing. Why, then, don’t we have a “men’s fiction” section in waterstones, that features novels with cars on the cover, or the word ‘spy’ in the title? Just as many romance novels are also read by men, these novels are also read by women, but marketed to men.

There’s nothing wrong with saying that specific books are marketed to specific genders. Certainly, my own work is (appropriately) marketed to a female audience, part of the reason why I used my first name rather than initials, which would have been marketing suicide if I were publishing in a different genre. Gender-weighted marketing makes sense. What doesn’t is the idea that there is “women’s fiction” and then everything else. “Women writers” and normal writers. Authors, and  authoresses.

So, maybe this seems trivial to you, but the change I am suggesting this year for International Women’s Day that we make a small change to our bookshelves, that will hopefully reflect a big change in thought. Please, no more “woman corner” where female authors of all genres get inelegantly lumped together. Please, no more “women’s fiction” unless we are going to have “men’s fiction” as well.

Women represent 58% of book purchasing. Don’t put us in the corner anymore.

The Guinevere Trilogy Vol.1 ‘The Warrior Queen’ OUT NOW

 

This week saw the single most exciting moment of my life – the publication of my first novel! It was scary, exciting and wonderful in every way. When I wrote it, I was just pleasing myself, stopping myself from going mental studying by escaping into my imagination. I’m so glad I have had a chance to share the little escape I imagined with everyone else, and more importantly that this means I have a chance to share this wonderful story – this untold version of the story, I feel – as well. 

So many of the adaptations of this story make Guinevere very passive, regretful, a victim of circumstance. I wanted to fight against that a little bit, but also this just wasn’t the story I was getting when I read Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur. I imagined a Guinevere who was strong, who wanted freedom and independence. One who was passionate, in every sense. I hope that is what I will manage to share with you through these books. 

So I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I liked writing it! 

 

Some praise from its Amazon.co.uk site, to lure you in: 

5.0 out of 5 stars Enthralling! 1 Mar 2014
By katherine miller
Format:Kindle Edition
I loved this book – Guinevere is a totally compelling heroine and the setting in Arthurian England is incredibly immersive. This is the most fascinating and realistic take on the Arthur legends that I’ve ever encountered – even if there is a bit of magic involved! What I liked best about this book was the depth of Guinevere’s character. She shows how it’s possible to have complex feelings of love for more than one person, and I loved her wilfulness. Definitely a good book for escaping boredom. I can’t wait for the sequel!

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant 2 Mar 2014
By lydia416
Format:Kindle Edition
I absolutely loved this book.

For anyone who loved the Game of Thrones series, The Guinevere Trilogy is a must. It’s so refreshing to see the medieval setting done well, and Lavinia Collins brings Arthurian England to life better than any author I’ve read yet. Guinevere is a truly engaging heroine, and her outlook on love and life is much more complex than other female protagonists in the genre. It’s all topped off with an addictive mix of passion, plotting, intrigue and a little magic to boot. I’m so glad there are two more in the pipeline.

 

 

http://www.amazon.com/THE-WARRIOR-QUEEN-Guinevere-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00IPRC0TE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393791806&sr=8-1&keywords=lavinia+collins

http://www.amazon.co.uk/THE-WARRIOR-QUEEN-Guinevere-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00IPRC0TE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393791776&sr=8-1&keywords=lavinia+collins

 

Tweet me at @lavinia_collins