MULAN SNIPPET & WHAT NEXT POLL

Hello, Dear Readers! All is well here in Zolah-Land - and I hope the same is true for all of you.

Last week I finished the first three chapters of my Mulan retelling (otherwise known as #codenamedth) polished them up and sent them off to my agent. I'm hoping to hear what she thinks of them some time this week - cross your fingers! - but in celebration, and because I'm falling deeply in love with Mulan and their fantasy world and just want to talk and think about them all the time, I decided to share a snippet from those first chapters with you today before I move onto today's other business.

Here we go (as always, the following will be subject to change or even deletion in the actual book, so enjoy it now!):

It is my clearest childhood memory. Mother and Father bursting into my bedroom in the darkness. The screams of the servants in the corridor beyond. How my mother’s hands trembled as she drew me back against her, seeking to shield my small body with her own, heavily pregnant one. The quicksilver flash of moonlight, blindingly bright, on my father’s sword as he drew it.

We might all have been slaughtered then, for nothing more than pettiness and spite. But Hsaio’s assassins had made a mistake. They thought they would be attacking a cripple and his undefended family. They had not reckoned with the effects of my Mother’s excellent care, and Hua Zhou’s own iron will. He might be unable to run, but he could stand and walk. And when a man fought as my Father did, what need was there to run?

His enemies seemed almost to fling themselves onto his blade, eager to meet their death at his hands. Though my Mother tried to press my face into her shoulder and cover my eyes, I watched it all. He slew five men that night, single-handedly. Their blood was black in the half-light.

But one slipped past him.

Xu Guo Liang, my father’s elderly servant, flung himself into the assassin’s path, clutching a cook’s knife that he must hastily have snatched from the kitchen. The frail old man was no match for the young, ruthless killer. I heard the servant’s wet, dying gasp, and saw his knife fall, unbloodied, to the wooden floor. The assassin leaped carelessly over his crumpled body. My Mother screamed and my Father wrenched his sword from the fifth assassin’s chest and whirled – and faltered, his bad leg going out from under him.

Everything up to that moment is as clear to me as the slow, serene drift of clouds moving over still water. But what happened next, I barely remember. I can only believe it happened because my Father gravely described it to me over and over, so that I could understand what I had done, and accept it. My Mother always refused to speak of it.

I, the seven year old daughter of the house, with arms as small and thin as twigs, who had never even seen a weapon before, let alone held one, ripped free of my mother’s desperate grasp and seized the knife from the floor. The assassin stooped over my mother, his own blade black, dripping in his hand...

I stabbed him.

You might question how my tiny hands had the strength – how I even knew where to aim the blade – but somehow I managed to drive the knife into the assassin’s gut hard enough to wrench it from my fingers and send him flailing back, with a howl of surprise and fury, into range of my Father’s sword.

It only took a single stoke of that great blade to dispatch him. Panting, disbelieving, Father staggered to his feet and turned to stare at me.

“Don’t you dare go near my Mother!” I shrilled, standing there with blood on my hands – shaking not with fear, but with fury. “I hope it hurts, you coward!” 

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What do you think, my muffins? Let me know in the comments! I'd really like to hear what people think not only of this piece of writing but the whole concept of the story - a fantasy version of Imperial China and a trans* protagonist - and I'm especially interested in anything that Chinese or trans* Dear Readers would like to share. I've had a couple of humbling, profound conversations with some exceptional youngsters about this book - one young man gave me such brilliant insight into gender-fluidity that it took a weight off my mind about how I wanted to portray Mulan - and I'm always open to more inspiration. Getting this book right, making it as good as it can be, really, really matters to me.

In other news, I sadly had to give up my idea of doing a Faux-NaNo throughout November, because Wonder Editor got in touch to let me know that she hopes to get the second round of edits on Barefoot on the Wind back to me early this month. I know I'll need to drop everything and focus on that when they arrive, so I'm just sticking to my previous slow-and-steady writing schedule until then. One day I'm going to make NaNo happen for me, dammit!

Now onto the other major reason for today's blog: I want your opinion on what YA book I should work on next after Mulan.

You might ask why I'm even wondering about that when Mulan isn't even half drafted yet, but this is the way my mind works. I always like to know where my energy's going to be directed in the long term, or else I start to worry that I'm going to run out of ideas and end up blankly staring at an empty page. For a long time I've had several contracts with my publisher lined up ahead of me and so I had a really strong idea of what books I would be working on and in what order. That's not the case right now - I don't even have a contract for Mulan. And of course my publisher will have the final word on what they want to contract me to write if and when I do get a new contract/s. But I'd like your input too.

Here are the half-cooked ideas which are swimming around in the warm stew of my brain juice right now:

1) Winterthorne. The most developed of my ideas right now, this book has three chapters and a detailed synopsis. I also shared a snippet of it with you in this post . It's a timeslip novel with the narrative divided between two protagonists - a rich, privileged girl leading a circumscribed life under her family's thumb in the glamorous 1920's, and a penniless, rudderless young woman stuck in care in the modern day. This book was inspired by the lush, romantic works of novelists like Diana Gabaldon, Mary Stewart and Kate Mosse. But because the setting is partly contemporary and timeslip is out of fashion in YA right now, it's a bit of a hard sell to my publisher. Here's the Pinterest board.

2) The Griffin Book. That's not the real title - I'm still mulling that over - but it sums up the major thing the story is about, which is a high fantasy world where society is shared between humans and a race of super intelligent, super magical griffin-like creatures (huge and winged, with the heads of eagles and the bodies of cats) who live in peace with each other. The setting is inspired by diverse cultures like ancient Mesopotamia, Babylon, Persia, and Byzantium, and the story's centre is the passionate, platonic romance between an asexual young woman and a glorious griffin whom she rescues, and who wants to show her the skies (and save the world and stuff). Here's the Pinterest board .

3) Another fairytale or myth retelling. This is the sketchiest option of all - I haven't even decided which fairytale or myth it would be or where it would be set or anything. I've got a variety of things in mind - for instance The Little Mermaid, the story of Medusa, a myth from the Welsh Mabinogion - but I don't know how I'd develop them. I don't have a Pinterest board for this option. I'm really just seeing if my readers would be happy for me to do three fairytale or myth retellings in a row (Barefoot on the Wind, Mulan and then another) or if you'd rather I space these out a bit more and write different things in between.

Here's the poll - feel free to chime in here or in the comments with any other ideas :)
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Which project should I work on next?
WinterthorneThe Griffin BookAnother fairytale or myth retellingOtherPlease Specify: fun quizzes
Read you later, pumpkins!