osprey_archer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
osprey_archer) wrote2022-11-29 11:51 am
osprey_archer) wrote2022-11-29 11:51 am
Entry tags:
November Writing and December Plans
Did not get much writing done this month. Feeling discouraged about writing in general, to be honest. I’ve been struggling to write (so many of this year’s writing posts are some variation on “didn’t get much writing done this month”!), and my royalties are considerably lower than last year, and it’s all very frustrating.
I have decided that for whatever reason I am simply not Ready to write Sleeping Beauty, so rather than continuing to bang my head against that wall, I’m going to set the project aside for at least a year, probably more, it seems optimistic to imagine that I’ll be able to stand the sight of it after a mere year has passed. I remind myself yet again that Ursula K. Le Guin had to sit on Tehanu for eighteen years before she was ready to write it. Eighteen years!
Have been noodling on a couple of projects but who knows if they will come to anything.
***
Anyway, in years past when I have been struggling to write, I have found prompt memes really helpful. (The Time-Traveling Popcorn Ball originally grew from a prompt meme.) So I thought I would post one!
Tell me a little about a winter story I haven't written, and I'll give you several sentences from that story.
Winter doesn't have to mean holiday (although it certainly can!). Think snow, icicles, hot beverages by toasty fires, sledding and sleigh rides and being trapped by blizzards and unfortunate incidents involving holly dryads.
I will write ficlets for most any fandom I've written before (Captain America, Queen's Thief, various Sutcliffs, American Girl... I haven't actually written a Biggles or Worrals fic before but I've been thinking about trying) or for my own books, or for a completely original story.
I have decided that for whatever reason I am simply not Ready to write Sleeping Beauty, so rather than continuing to bang my head against that wall, I’m going to set the project aside for at least a year, probably more, it seems optimistic to imagine that I’ll be able to stand the sight of it after a mere year has passed. I remind myself yet again that Ursula K. Le Guin had to sit on Tehanu for eighteen years before she was ready to write it. Eighteen years!
Have been noodling on a couple of projects but who knows if they will come to anything.
***
Anyway, in years past when I have been struggling to write, I have found prompt memes really helpful. (The Time-Traveling Popcorn Ball originally grew from a prompt meme.) So I thought I would post one!
Tell me a little about a winter story I haven't written, and I'll give you several sentences from that story.
Winter doesn't have to mean holiday (although it certainly can!). Think snow, icicles, hot beverages by toasty fires, sledding and sleigh rides and being trapped by blizzards and unfortunate incidents involving holly dryads.
I will write ficlets for most any fandom I've written before (Captain America, Queen's Thief, various Sutcliffs, American Girl... I haven't actually written a Biggles or Worrals fic before but I've been thinking about trying) or for my own books, or for a completely original story.
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***
Mrs. Bickerstaff's prognostication proved true. Medraut was no trouble at all. He went to school and did his schoolwork and brought home good marks and stayed out of Gwen's way, always out tramping in the hills. "Just be home by dark," Gwen told him; and he always was.
At first Medraut tramped on his own, but soon enough Art's dog Caval accompanied him. When Art left Caval had pined; but now he was at the door with his tail wagging when Medraut got home from school. He came when Medraut whistled; he followed Medraut on his rambles; he sat at Medraut's feet at the table. He would have slept in Medraut's bed if Gwen had allowed it, but here she drew a line.
Medraut never argued, or asked for anything. But sometimes he went downstairs and slept beside Caval in the cellar, and Gwen fretted, for it couldn't be good for the child; but after all she hadn't forbidden it. And the dog seemed to make him happy.
But then Art came home on leave. Caval greeted him in a frenzy of barking, leaping and yapping and wagging his tail, moving so fast that Art, laughing, couldn't get a hold to pet him. And Gwen saw Medraut, standing at the top of the stairs, his sharp thin face wild with jealous rage; and then silent as a shadow he turned and disappeared.
"Where's this Medraut you've written so much about?" Art asked, once Caval had calmed down enough that they could settle down for tea.
"Out with his schoolfriends, I expect," Gwen said lightly. For he did have schoolfriends: he was wizard at cricket (as a neighbor boy explained), and could identify all the planes, "and he never backs down from a fight!" the neighbor boy enthused, spraying crumbs from the slice of seedcake Gwen had given him.
He came home sometimes battered and limping, and wouldn't let Gwen tend to his injuries. There seemed to be no special friend. It was hard to know with Medraut.
When he came back that evening, just before dark, Caval greeted him with his usual wagging tail. Medraut ignored him. As long as Arthur was home on leave, Medraut was out of the house except to sleep; and when Art went back to war, Medraut still refused to pay the dog the least bit of attention.
At last Caval groveled up to him on his belly, resting his head on Medraut's feet, which Medraut drew sharply away. Gwen had stayed out of it till then; but now, with some asperity, she said, "He was Art's dog first."
Medruat looked at her, the wary startled look of a wild animal. Then he looked down at his book again, one of those Biggles books that he devoured. He always held them in an awkward position on his lap, as if to hide the covers, so no one could see what he was reading.
That made it easy to see that he was not turning the pages. At last Gwen got up and went into the kitchen to make tea. She heard the back door open, and then Mordred's short sharp whistle; and after a held-breath pause there was the tinkle of Caval's collar, and the padding of the dog's feet, and the soft click as the back door shut.
They were not back till long after dark. When they returned, Medraut stood before Gwen, so stiffly erect that he shivered with the tension - although it might have been the cold.
"Wear a coat next time," Gwen told him. And then: "Caval can sleep in your bed tonight. Just because it's so cold."
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***
Mordred ruins things. It is his nature; it has been so since before he was born, as Mother often reminded him. “It was two weeks till my wedding,” she said, holding her white satin wedding slipper, growing more discolored with each year. “Only it became apparent that I was in the family way, and Reginald knew of course it wasn’t his.” A shrill giggle. “And he didn’t believe me when I told him who the father was. How could I say such a thing? And so I’m trapped here forever. With him.”
But he is very rarely there. He is away at house parties, or fox-hunting, or in London, returning only rarely to the country house where his sister lives immured with her son. And so to Mordred his uncle (for he always called him Uncle) was a strange and distant figure – until just after Mordred turned twelve, when he became suddenly, terribly close.
Mordred told Mother. She believed him, and in a jealous rage she beat him with her wedding slipper until he couldn’t stand.
Then she took him to London, for it was about this time that the Blitz was getting bad, and the children were being evacuated to the country. She made up a name, and got him on a train, and sent him away, and he never heard from any of them again.
He likes to imagine she wanted at least a little to protect him.
***
The train took him to Guinevere. Everyone else called her Gwen, and out loud Mordred called her nothing at all, for he can’t bear to call her Aunt Gwen or Mrs. Pendragon.
In his head she is Guinevere, the name as strange and lovely as her pale freckled face, her red hair, her gentle hand on his forehead that night he was lost in the hills, and they brought him home soaked through. Guinevere. He says it to himself with hot flushes in his heart, the loveliest name for the loveliest girl in the world.
There is a Mr. Pendragon, of course—Uncle Art, as they try to convince Mordred to call him. Mr. Pendragon is away fighting, mostly, and Mordred mostly pretends he doesn’t exist, except sometimes he gets leave and comes home and the whole house revolves around him as if he is the sun, not only Guinevere but even Mordred’s dog Caval.
Then, when Mordred is nearly grown, Mr. Pendragon is transferred to an aerodrome close to their house. Then they are seeing him all the time, and Mordred spends more and more time stalking the hills, alone, for Caval stays with Mr. Pendragon.
So he is glad, with a fiery hot gladness, when he comes home one night and catches Mr. Pendragon with Mr. du Lac.
They don’t see him. They are, as it were, otherwise engaged.
Mordred goes back out into the starry night, and thinks about what to do.
He can’t tell Guinevere. She is away; and anyway when she hears she will beat him. (She has never hit him, but he does not think of that.) She might not even believe him. Or perhaps she will believe him all to well, for if her husband can do that, then who knows what horrid, disgusting things he has forced his wife to do?
Mordred will save her. He will bring witnesses, grown-up men, (so Mordred is thinking, as he marches with hot cheeks down the cold road toward the pub where the airmen drink) who will catch Mr. Pendragon and Mr. du Lac in the act, and they will be kicked out of the RAF, and Guinevere can get a divorce and then Mordred will marry her, yes, he will go down on his knees and beg for her hand, beneath the blossoming cherry tree he will do it, and tell her that he will always love her, and he would never cheat on her, and they will always be together and no one will ever hurt either of them ever again.
Only the airmen don’t believe him. He drags them down to see, and then they have to believe him – only he realizes, then, that they would rather not have known. Mr. Pendragon and Mr. du Lac aren’t even cashiered, are just reassigned, and everyone is cross with Mordred, and Guinevere is away.
Mordred leaves. Hops on a train, lies about his age, signs up for the Navy, and in short order his ship gets blown up.
Perhaps he brought ruin to the ship as well.
He finds himself in hospital, and Guinevere comes to see him there. She knows about Mr. Pendragon now. But she is not grateful; and she does not love him.
“I love you as a son,” she says. As if that is worth anything. As if that matters, when she is going back to Mr. Pendragon, and Mordred is as always alone.
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He's so misguided and hurt and messed up.
Mordred is as always alone.
Rending my garments! :(((
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***
"You can't send Galahad on a honey trap mission!" Mordred is nearly dancing with fury. "Send me!"
The Chief bursts out laughing, and Galahad almost laughs as well, even though he knows that Mordred can't bear to be laughed at. Sure enough, Mordred's sharp dark face crimsons, and for a moment it looks like he might fling himself across the desk and punch the Chief.
But then he calms. "You don't think I can do it," he says, and his voice is cool, almost detached. "I can, though."
He takes off his tie. He sets it lightly on the Chief's desk, and undoes the top button on his shirt, and reaches up to muss his neatly shellacked hair. He is standing differently than normal, too, no longer tense and sharp as a knife blade, but relaxed, almost languid, one hip canted against the Chief's desk.
He swings off his suit jacket next, draping it over the chair. He unbuttons his cuffs, right cuff, left cuff, rolls up his sleeves, exposing muscled forearms, thin bony wrists like a child's.
"Mordred - " the Chief starts.
Mordred looks up, his dark eyes wide, his expression almost surprised, doe-like is the word that pops into Galahad's mind. He leans forward, looking into the Chief's eyes, one lock of his disordered hair falling over his forehead. His voice soft, intimate, confiding in a way that Mordred never is, Mordred says, "Don't you think we should continue this conversation somewhere more... private?"
The Chief slaps a palm on the table. He levers himself to his feet and smacks Mordred's back, too, hail-fellow-well-met. "All right, son," he says. "If you want the job so much, it's yours." He bellows out a laugh. "By Jove! I never would have guessed you could act like such a tart!"
And the Chief leaves the office, still laughing. Mordred's color is high. He stiffens again, back tense, chin lifted, reversing his strip-tease: sleeves unrolled, cuffs buttoned, hair smoothed down with the quick finicky movements of a grooming cat.
Galahad is staring at him. "Which school did you go to?"
"Grammar school."
I didn't know they had tarts and bloods at grammar schools, Galahad thinks. But he doesn't say it. Mordred's voice has returned to normal: tense, taut, buttoned down.
He ties his tie and grabs up his jacket and looks at Galahad sharply. "What?"
"I could have done the mission," Galahad says.
Mordred snorts. He swings his jacket on, a swift graceful movement of his arms, a twitch of his shoulders as he settles it. "I'll do it better," he says. Then, over his shoulder as he leaves the office: "I always do."
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He stiffens again, back tense, chin lifted, reversing his strip-tease: sleeves unrolled, cuffs buttoned, hair smoothed down with the quick finicky movements of a grooming cat.
I can picture him so exactly, the flip switched on and off like that for his demonstration before he goes back to his prickly self. Amazing.
And Galahad, left staring! Understandable.
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