The Cluelessness of Writers
One of the minor ratbaggeries of writing a second book—note I am resisting calling it a sequel: as I keep saying, over and over and over*, it’s the second part of the same story, there’s no ‘sequel’ about it—that takes up where a first book left off, is that I can’t post snippets of it without giving too much of the show away. But I was reading through some of the earlier bits of PEG II** with some of the stuff I’ve been writing about writing lately still rustling around in the back of my mind, and it occurred to me that I could post this bit as a demonstration of how little in control, and how traumatically clueless writers often are.
Anyone who either reads this blog or has read the cover copy for PEGASUS knows the set up: humans and pegasi share some landscape, but can only communicate through human magicians—or in some cases pegasi shamans, but that’s a lot rarer for various reasons. To try and support this clearly doomed alliance, where the two parties can’t frelling talk to each other, there is a ritual called ‘binding’, where members of royalty and a few more high-ranking families on both sides are ‘bound’, one human to one pegasus. There’s a (ahem) fairy tale that bound pairs can sometimes communicate better than unbound humans and pegasi—but it’s mostly a fairy tale. Until my heroine, Sylvi, comes along and finds that she can speak to her pegasus, Ebon. This causes a major uproar, especially among certain of the magicians, who see their power base being knocked out from under them.
Bound pairs have a Speaker assigned to them: a magician who will translate for them. In the following scene, the dramatis personae include Danacor, heir to the throne and Sylvi’s big brother; Andovan, one of the chief magicians, although magicianry is technically democratic; Erendica and Cral are advisors to the king, Lrrianay is the pegasus king, and Fazuur is the king’s (or kings’) Speaker. Oh, and there’s a war. . . .
* * *
The first battle, and the first real blood, came as a shock, although they had been expecting it—had known it to be inevitable. There had been skirmishes before, but soldiers had always patrolled for and killed taralians and norindours and the other dangerous things that came out of the wild lands. It had been possible merely to think that there were more skirmishes than usual, more dangerous invaders needing to be driven back or killed; and there was always risk, dealing with those invaders. . . .
The message came first by the royal homing bird, the tastock, bred to be docile, to have messages tied round its legs, and to fly home as quickly as it could. The domestic tastock was larger and stronger than the common carrier pigeon, and the flash of blue on the underside of its tail identified it further, and if it was very close you could see the small pale bandage of a message wrapped around one or both of its legs. In the very earliest days of Danacor riding out at the head of a regiment and wearing the Sword—before anyone was using the word ‘war’, at least not aloud, or in the king’s hearing—Sylvi had begun to watch the skies anxiously for the familiar shape of a homing tastock. She had moved the big table in her study nearer the window for a better view; when she raised her eyes from her work to rest them from close reading, she thought, she might as well be looking for something.
She had seen this one fly in. She had seen it because she could not concentrate, and was doing more staring than reading. Andovan had brought a report to her father the night before that something was happening—some discernable flare of energy and intent—was occurring on the northwestern boundary, which was where Danacor was; but he and his fellow magicians could not say what it was, only that it was strongly marked. Too strong to be a mere skirmish. . . .
A tastock coming home from the western border would go past her window, because for something that could fly over the palace roof this was the short cut to the mews. She had seen the small flying dot before it was possible to have any idea what it was; but it also flew as if it were following a straight line, which few birds did. She watched it, fascinated, sure she knew what it was; but she waited, as if it were some kind of game, and she had to count to a hundred, or wait for the shout of release, till it flew past her window. She saw the broad slate-brown wings and the flash of blue under the tail, and then she was running out of her rooms and down to stairs to her father’s office, an interested hound or two in her wake, to be there when someone from the mews brought the message.
“Tastock,” she said breathlessly, when her father answered “Come” to her rather pre-emptory knock on the door—she saw one of the footmen on the outer door turn to look at her as she burst through. Erendica was with the king, as were Cral—and Lrrianay and Fazuur.
“Fetch the queen,” said her father to the footman who had appeared in the door behind Sylvi.
“If you can find her,” said Cral. When the queen wasn’t out on patrol herself, she was taking up some of the slack of running the country left by the king’s necessary preoccupation with maps and soldiers. And she liked to see things with her own eyes when she could. She might be anywhere.
“She’ll be in the Great Court,” said the king. “I thought it as well she stay close today, in case there was news. I—I dreamed about the Sword last night.”
Everyone else in the room went very still. Except for the Sword, and the traditional folk charms the hedge-witches knew, magic was left to magicians. Everyone was a little afraid of the Sword.
So did I, thought Sylvi. I dreamed about the Sword. I couldn’t see who was carrying it—their horse was brown, but whether bay or chestnut I couldn’t tell; it was in open woodland, and the shadows fell strangely. Danny rides a chestnut. I could see that the creatures facing him—facing the Sword—didn’t want to get close to it, whoever was holding it. It glittered like it does when Dad touches it. I didn’t know it would do that when someone was really using it—was ready to use it—not just for a ritual—or when it’s hanging on the wall, like it was bored. I wonder if it gets bored?
For a moment again there was a long narrow twisting blue gleam seeming to hang in the air before her eyes. She blinked and it was gone. I didn’t sleep very well, she thought. It’s why I was gaping out the window a lot. And because I guess I knew there’d be a tastock today. Her eyes refocused on the room around her, and discovered Fazuur staring at her.
* * *
Here’s the clueless writer part: Fazuur, as the king’s Speaker, is a fairly important figure, although he hasn’t been an important character—so far. Magicians as a group are under some suspicion—and the chief villain of the piece is a magician, and it’s not necessarily clear who all is on his side. Meanwhile I’m well over halfway through PEG II and I still don’t know if Fazuur is a good guy or a bad guy. And this is starting seriously to get on my nerves.
PS: I’m also really ticked off about the tastock. The tastock is one of the casualties of my chopping PEGASUS into two books, and when I tidied up the end of PEG I I forgot about the dratted tastock, and mentioned carrier pigeons. Arrrgh.
* * *
* Now supported by you semi-lucky people who have already read it, and fallen over the cliff at the end.
** With a praiseworthy desire not to re-invent characters who already exist under other names. I keep wanting to spell the king’s best friend’s name Kral, for example. And the copyeditor to PEG I caught me trying to rename his pegasus. With the magic of technology at my beck and call I have begun trying to remember to select and TURN EYECATCHINGLY RED everybody’s names in PEG II—everybody but a dozen or so of the main characters which even I should be able to remember by now—but this requires that I remember to do it which when I’m in the white heat or even the dull-copper glow of getting words down on paper^ I frequently don’t remember.
^er—screen
comments
Please join the discussion at Robin McKinley's Web Forum.