377 Days, Blog #98 For the Love of a Princess and all that love isn't

To give myself some sanity, I think it is fair to say that many of these November blogs will have something to do with the novel I will be writing for Nanowrimo.  It will be where my mind is at… and may even help to fuel inspiration.

So, that inspiration.  

I spent a good part of last week and for that matter, October, contemplating what this book… or series of books… is about.  I am retooling manuscripts I’ve written over the last twenty some years.  I’ve reread some of them – basically the earliest and the latest.  It fascinated me to see where I began with it and where I ended up.

The one thing that stayed the same was the heroine.  Leora.  Although in the first manuscript, her name was Emily.  I loved that name in high school, but once I left high school I didn’t really think of Emily as a strong name.  I wanted something with more matter. Something more suitable for her identity.  A strong heroine.  A leader.  A princess.  

God, I hate that word princess.

Disney has really ruined it for me.  For the world.  Although, truth be told, that early version – the one I’ll call the Emily version – completely bought into that naïve fantasy of happily ever after.  Worse yet, it was a princess waits for her hero to save her even though at the beginning of the story she is perfectly capable of taking care of herself tale.  That ends with a marriage. Because, as we all know, marriage is an end to misery and the harbinger of forever bliss.

I guess it is for some people.  I really wouldn’t know.  I’ve never been married.  I’ve just observed a lot of marriages with that writer’s eye.  Which understands some truth with objectivity but always remains separated from the reality.  I suppose if you read these manuscripts, you would see how my attitude towards marriage has evolved… or devolved since I was sixteen.  So while, yes, this is an historic fantasy about a strong leader born to a king… I think a lot of it is about marriage.  Marriage to the daughter of a king.  Who… this should not be any great spoiler to someone with limited imagination… is destined to become queen.

I spent a good amount of time in the late 90’s reading about the Tudors.  Even then, I was well aware that reading about Henry VIII against the backdrop of Bill Clinton and his several scandals proved that some things don’t change.  It was also a time when I decided to reinvent that high school novel.  I mean, I spent my afternoons wandering around a Great Hall staring at suits of armor and a giant display of a joust.  How could I not let my imagination go there?  And how could I not think about Henry VIII or his modern day equivalent?

While not the joust (I couldn't find a photo of that display), this was the neighboring display of the foot tourney - which would be part of the tournament and an equal influence on my imagination.

So my king went from being the (typical Disney) bumbling, kind-hearted, but clueless teddy bear of a king to a warrior with lothario proclivities.  That couldn’t help but change his wife into something other than an evil stepmother… into either a conniving temptress… or a wounded bride… or something in between.

But I still kept my princess chaste.  And pure.  Because, well… Elizabeth was the Virgin Queen, right?

I used to tell this story to my co-worker, or I should say partner in crime, as we would keep ourselves awake during Cub Scout sleepovers (Overknights).  She was disappointed in the lack of passion in the story, to the point that she even wrote a scene to make up for what she thought was missing.  I suppose that speaks to my own attitudes of my early twenties, when I was still unwinding myself and my reality from the Catholic beliefs into which I bought so sincerely when I was sixteen.

But then, I got over that.  

I got over that and put Leora aside for other stories, especially after I left Higgins and no longer had swords and helmets on the work table of my office.  She came back to me when I would walk the ivy covered paths at Hampstead Heath or listened to the soundtracks from all the Lord of the Rings movies.  I found a renewed interest when I was last in Ireland.  I reread The Mists of Avalon on the plane and in our car trips and at the picnic table near the palm tree as I looked out to some bay in Tuosist.  As we hiked through the heather and gorse of Connemara and peered over cliffs towards pirate caves, I imagined a much different life for this princess.  A darker path.  One that would definitely satisfy my co-worker’s disappointment from an earlier telling.

I never completed that manuscript, but I wrote very detailed notes.  Man, that was a jaded epic.  And not just about the whole marriage thing.  I think it’s pretty clear that version came about during the Bush administration.

Anyway, that’s the history.  The history that has rolled around in my mind as I determine where to take this story NOW and get it to completion.

Obviously there is a love story.  Several in fact.  This is going to be a series.  So that means this heroine has lots of adventures and friends who have side stories.  I also think that working title is still apt.  But… my concept of it is so far, so very very far from Disney and the sixteen year old girl who believed in such things..