It has been quite awhile since I’ve written. I suppose the main reason is I’ve been editing a couple of projects rather than creating new ones. Not much exciting to report about slogging through an edit.
I was working through The Quest for the Thing but went back to Lady Tedey’s Island of Treasure (my 2020 NANOWRIMO project inspired by RLS’s Treasure Island) as it seems more likely to be of interest to an agent or editor. This is draft VI. I work through maybe ten pages at a time, rereading them each time I reopen the document file. And each time I go over the same passages I continue to make tweaks until I say “enough” and print pages. Once printed I don’t go back. If I think of something that needs fixing I make a note on a Post It and affix it to the relevant page. Because Lady Tedey is set in 1834 and 1835, I continue to verify historical accuracy. I know I’ve made mistakes.
I took the local library’s spring writing class: Strong Women Archetypes. The instructor limited enrollment to women, which did not please the library management. However, it allowed participants to speak freely about our experiences in a patriarchical society. We ended up doing more of an exploration of the goddess archetypes from a variety of ancient cultures and the powers they represented. We also examined how revered goddesses were superseded by male gods. One participant has an ambitious goal to produce an experiential presentation centered on the Sumerian goddess, Inanna. (I don’t know about you, but my school studies were focused on the Greek and Roman gods. I had not heard of Inanna, nor realized she had so many over-arching powers that were later assigned to the male gods of the Greeks.) Other class participants wrote poetry related to the female experience, often relating to archetypical expectations imposed on women. I decided to use archetypes to develop the main characters for one of my vague story ideas and drafted an opening scene. The instructor hopes to offer another course on archetypes in the fall, this time for anyone interested.
I continue to be distracted by nebulous story ideas that involve a crystal sword, or centaurs, or the look-alike stand-in for a princess. But I also like the idea of adapting traditional adventure stories with male protagonists into tales with female main characters. So I’m going to see if RLS’s Kidnapped is applicable to one of my existing ideas or inspires a new storyline.
Mary S. Potter 