Day Nine {Current Project}

day nine: what is your current writing project



I have to laugh at this topic. I am sure you must already know what I am up to. At this very moment I have my USB drive plugged in, my document open, my massy bulk of printed manuscript sprawled at my side for reference, ready to begin this morning's session of editing-work. Oh, and, of course, I have my tea.



My current project, slogging through the editing stage, is the fantasy novel Adamantine, weighing in at the moment around 218,080 words. Being so very much bigger than The Shadow Things (which is 192 pages) she has given me a great deal more grief than my first novel, but, in a sense because of that, she has been that much more rewarding.



What is Adamantine? Well, I have a page about it, and I don't want to be redundant (it grates on people's nerves, don't you know?), but in summary I will say that it is a kind of sequel to Beowulf. There was not enough of the legendary heroes in the Old Poem to quench my thirst, so, as it is said, if there is a book you want to read and it hasn't been written yet, you have to write it. So I did. Beowulf was dead, but Wiglaf his heir wasn't - Wiglaf, who was bravery and loyalty itself. I wanted to know about him. But first there were fairies, and their empire which they had made; and there were savage cat-like barbarians living on the unenlightened outskirts of that empire; and there was Victorian England, and a young well-to-do orphan girl with some pluck and naivete. Things which did not seem to go together were being pulled together as I wrote and wrote and wrote; it seemed more as if I were merely following the single incongruous threads as they drew closer and closer together, as I grew closer and closer to the hand that was pulling them into a single cord.



the road now leads onward as far as can be

winding lanes and hedgerows in threes

by purple mountains and round every bend

all roads lead to you: there's no journey's end



Inevitably I will be asked how long it took me to write Adamantine. The simple truth is that I don't know. You might as well as me what time I fell asleep: how am I supposed to know? I didn't keep track of the time and day when I sat down to write the opening scenes of a drab rainy day and a drab rainy fairy. I had no clear idea where I was going back then, nor what might come around the bend of the next chapter. All I knew was that something was unfolding in those deep dark secret places, and I had to get it down on paper. It has come a good long way since those early days (it has not been an easy way, either) and it has a distance to go yet. But it has been very rewarding. Despite the inevitable ups and downs and garbagey passages that had to be ripped out and ditched and rewritten, despite the despair and heartache, despite not knowing where to go next, I can sit back and look at the under-construction bulk of Adamantine and feel pride and excitement chasing each other widdershins inside of me.



But they can usually be quenched with a good dash of editing.