Nuns, Detectives, and a Heist

 

Photo by Patrick Baum on Unsplash

I've always had a fascination with nuns. Growing up in a large French-Canadian family, I viewed my two aunts who had taken the veil with curiosity tinged with fear (what is it about the habits that make them seem unapproachable?). I read the Dune series with delight at the Bene Gesserit's machinations. Recently, I devoured the Warrior Nun and Mrs. Davis television shows. You may not have realized it, but nuns hold a powerful place in the Western imagination.

I started seriously pursuing creative writing after studying and teaching medieval religion and literature at university. At first, I thought I needed to write historical fiction to use my academic studies to full effect. With nuns, of course, since everyone would share my obsession with these figures. 

The story idea had some promise--strong female characters, a community with secrets and interpersonal turmoil, and cool historical details. But I couldn't make it work. Like Marcella (see her post here), I tried to shove everything into the story. There were secret babies (more than one!), a kidnapping and a murder, a mystical prophetess, a snooty Duchess, and an evil bishop... I could go on, but you get the idea. It was full of cringe (the common theme this week), yet it still holds a special place in my heart.

I learned a great deal about writing from that unpublishable project (it was no The Other Boleyn Girl). The closed setting of a nunnery was a great way to explore character dynamics. I identified a slew of genres and tropes that I loved and wanted to use (just not all at once). And I realized that historical fiction was too limiting for my purposes. I got caught up in historical details rather than letting my imagination take the helm. 

Too much time was spent looking backward instead of forward when I first started writing creatively. It was only when I opened myself up to integrating all the parts of myself--all my weird and wonderful obsessions and knowledge--that I found my voice as a writer. Whereas academic writing requires the author to subsume themselves and create an "objective" perspective (with many many rules and limitations on what can and should be said - and don't get me started on the fallacy of anyone having a quote-unquote objective perspective), creative writing asks us to embrace our whole selves. We pour in our creativity, experiences, and interests. We take the books we've read, the passions we've felt, and the questions we have, throw them into the cauldron, and stir them up into a wonderful new potion. 

My favourite cauldron is fantasy literature. It took me some time to get there, but it's where I can bring my whole self to my writing. Where I look forward, even as I look to the past. Where I have limitless options to play as I create. Where I can bring in  my fascination with religion and the supernatural, my desire for stories with strong women characters, my love of heist movies and spy stories, my fondness for romance and feel-good relationships, my lifelong reading of fantasy and science fiction novels, my penchant for fairy and folk tale themes, and anything else that moves me at that time! 

It can take some time to find our way when we begin writing. And that's ok. All the writing we do takes us further on the journey to find our voice.  

All the best,

Mimi

Careful with the Cringe

Current 'panther' friend

Three stories. First, the everything-but-dinosaurs-and-aliens story. It had it all: a castle, a princess fighting to save the kingdom, pirates, and a black Jaguar named Scott. Oh, and sword fights. Did I mention the sword fights? Lots of sword fights. I don't know that it had terrific narrative flow. Or even a plot. But I was 12. So that book covered ALL the cringe. That young Princess was a fencing prodigy, a horseback riding prodigy, and the black Jaguar was, naturally, her best friend. Of course, her father's Kingdom is under threat from within and from without as the pirates are raiding the town below the castle. Our heroine can't immediately address the internal threats, but she can keep the pirates from harming her friends in town. In the course of trying and failing to fight the pirates, she makes things worse by getting kidnapped by them and held for ransom. This is ransom no one is going to pay. See the aforementioned internal threat. It's all fine, because naturally, the pirate captain falls for her. I mean why wouldn't he? So now, insert redemption arc for pirates who are going to help her bedevil the internal threat and reclaim the Kingdom. Much swashbuckling, big Goonies energy, tons of fun. Totally reads like I was 12. This one is buried deep and so it will stay.

Second, fanfic. ALL the fanfic. Scads of it. All tucked safely into archives where it can’t get me into trouble for writing inside someone else’s IP. Was it cringe? Maybe. It was 100% self-insert into worlds that fascinated me, but at the time I was writing fanfic, AO3 didn’t exist. I could write whatever I wanted with the knowledge that none of it could be published, ever.

Unless.

It finally occurred to me one day that one could pub fanfic if no one knew it was fanfic. If I could change names and alter the world enough to be its own thing, I might have a viable product. And that’s how I found out it was far easier (and just as much fun) to build your own world and your own characters.

Third, the contemporary romance novel that lacked a single shred of internal conflict. I had a great time writing it. It was my attempt to prove that you could in fact write a rock star romance and make it work. Except, you know, for the fact that I didn't. It was supposed to have one of those 'annoying big brother' books. Curmudgeon and ray of sunshine things. The heroine is there out of necessity, in a position the hero doesn't want her in, but his meddling sister is intent on setting the two of them up. It was big on bickering, low on actual conflict, and it was a hoot to write. It still lives in a box under the bed. It is likely to remain in that box under the bed. I look back at it now recognize a slew of problematic tropes. There's nothing wrong with the heroine trying to prove herself. This story took it wicked too far. This heroine ends up a martyr. The power dynamic between hero and heroine was super dysfunctional. Granted, at the time I wrote it, I had some crappy relationship templates and what was ‘normal’ for me at that point wasn’t, in fact, normal. So yeah. I credit this book with being the one that started me on the journey of actually learning and understanding what makes a romance a romance. The story is okay. But reading it now, I flinch at all the stuff I see that’s wrong. I’m careful not to judge past me by what current me knows. But still. This book, while it holds together, won’t likely see the light of day, ever.

While I can freely admit that my early efforts at fiction might not meet the bar for publication, I want to say that when I use the word ‘cringe’ in this blog, it’s with a fond smile. Cringe is one of those words that has been swept up by society to judge and make fun of something. I don’t want to judge or make fun of someone learning how story works. Not even – or maybe especially not even – when it’s me. We’re allowed to be bad at something we love or are fascinated by. We’re allowed a visible learning curve. There’s art and grace in developing as an artist. The thing that gets lost when we talk about the lack of skill in our early efforts is just how vital and necessary those early efforts were to our survival. These stories I talked about will never be thrown away or deleted. They got me through times I didn’t think I could get through. If our early story efforts are called cringe because we get sexist BS terms tossed at us like ‘Mary Sue’, as if every action movie ever made isn’t some dude’s 14-year-old self-insert fantasy. There’s a fine line between acknowledging that our early works weren’t ready for prime-time and disparaging ourselves as creatives. I bet that if someone could find the first painting Picasso ever did as a child, it could reasonably be called cringe. It would also likely fetch millions on auction.

Throwback Thursday - Painful Fiction from the Early Years

Early efforts, huh?

Well okay. Just remember that someone (who wasn't me) asked for this. The following stilted and overly dramatic prose is from the first novel I ever managed to complete. It's so old, there are two spaces after every period. This book never met an adverb it didn't like. In fact, you know that meme about the overly attached girlfriend? Yeah. That's this book with adverbs. I love the fact that the characters go from 0 to 60 emotionally. It's a total soap opera and I keep it around because it so tickles me. The scene below is the first meeting of the hero and heroine. We're on maybe page 5 of the manuscript.

            Casey emerged from her shower feeling entirely refreshed.   Wrapped in her towel, she returned to her room  and toweled her hair dry.  She dressed in a leisurely fashion, listening to a song that had been running through her mind all day long.  Running her fingers through her hair to calm the curling copper strands, Casey unlatched her abused guitar case and seated herself on the bed to bend over it.  She plucked out a quiet melody, then altered it when it didn't quite match what she heard in her head.  She realized she wouldn't be able to blithely tuck her love of music out of the way for the convenience of Sonya's brother.  On the other hand, she didn't want to unduly antagonize anyone either.  Casey simply decided she'd have to be careful.  With a smile, she repeated the melodic line she'd just created and ventured to put some words to it.  Shaking her head, she decided her songwriting talent needed considerable polishing. 

            The door to Casey's room slammed open.  Startled, she jumped.  With a discordant twang, a string broke, snapping back to slash her hand.  "Damn it!"  She swore, glaring up at the door.  Her eyes widened.  The most alarmingly handsome man she'd ever seen stood glowering at her from the doorway.  She knew him instantly.  She'd seen Brennen James in concert once herself and owned more than one of his wildly successful albums.

            "Do you always slam into someone else's room without knocking?"  She charged, her voice clipped and short from the pounding of her heart.  "You made me break a string.  Thank you very much."

            "What are you doing here?"  He demanded, eyeing her with a cold, searching gaze.

            "Not that it's any of your business," she returned stung by his imperious tone, "I am here to help Sonya with her wedding.  Oh, damn," she swore again, catching sight of the bloody line along the back of her hand.  She grabbed her wrinkled tee shirt and blotted the blood away. 

            "Let me make something very clear to you, Miss..."

            "Casey Griffin."

            "Let me make something very clear to you Miss Griffin.  I am the only musician in this house.  I will not tolerate your musical pretensions..."  He began.

            Casey bristled, enraged.  Setting her precious guitar carefully aside, she stood and stalked up to meet him.  To her irritation, she found she had to look up to glare at him.  "Listen, you jerk," she shot back.  "You have no idea who I am or what I do.  My musical pretensions are none of your concern.  And until you know what type of musician I am, you'd probably feel less like an ass in the very near future if you kept your mouth shut now."

            She bit her lip, wondering at the wisdom of snapping at her friend's brother.  Besides, it wasn't as if she could hold a musical candle to the man.  With a sigh, Casey decided she should probably have kept her temper under better control.       

            "What amazing green eyes you have.  And that red hair," he observed, his tone amused, but still not terribly friendly.  "I assume that explains your frightful temper.  You look silly in purple," he observed.  "You should wear green."

            Casey stared at him, stupefied.  She wondered if he'd bothered to pay attention to anything she'd said.  It only irritated her all over again. 

"I look like a damn wood elf if I wear green," she groused.  "And no, my hand is fine.  Thank you for your concern.  Get out of my room."

            Brennen James, a man Casey had admired and adored since she'd purchased his first album, stood at her bedroom door and laughed at her.  Casey gritted her teeth and turned her back on him.  She returned to her guitar and carefully set about removing the broken string from its key.

The entire book is like this. So while I managed to write a complete novel, the story never saw the light of day. Editors rightly pointed out that this story has no actual conflict - it's all bickering. The great thing about those rejections was that I got actual REASONS for the rejection. Armed with those, I could learn what internal versus external conflict was. And then I could write a second novel that managed to get it wrong in even more spectacular fashion, but that's another post.

At least I can't offer up my very first attempt at fiction - the 15 year old heroine who was an expert horsewoman, an expert swordswoman, and a great tactician fighting pirates to preserve her father's reign. Oh. And she had a black panther named Scott as a pet. <shrug> Yeah, I dunno. I was twelve and it all sounded like a good idea at the time.