And then there were two: first (left) and second (right) drafts of my WIP
The first time I did a complete read-through of my novel, I was terrified of what I’d find.
This time, I was excited as hell.
The reason being because, until recently, I never had a completed, novel-length work in need of revising.
Never being the sort put the proverbial cart before the horse, I always wanted my education in writing to occur in an orderly sequence, comprising only those aspects of which I’d have immediate use. This way of thinking served me well for the past 16 years, less the six of those I temporarily gave up writing altogether.
In many ways, it is the knight who seems to embody the spirit of the Middle Ages.
With his horse and sword, his armour, and the perception that he fought with honour and for good, the knight seems to harken back to a simpler time of when the forces of evil had a singular face and could be vanquished with a noble heart and a strong forearm.
I’ve done shit all writing-wise since.
And not just a small sample either. I’m hardly one to skimp on either my words or the ideas conveyed with them.
No one has ever accused my writing style of being “spare”. In university, I played the usual word-processor tricks with font size and margins, but in my case it was because my reports were always too long, not too short.
To begin with, the four seasons – marked in accordance with the medieval agricultural calendar – were observed at different times of the year than we recognize then today.
Ancient Greek men at a symposium (being entertained by a female musician) (painted mixing bowl, c. 420 BC)
Ever since I decided my next writing project would be my first (incomplete, shelved) novel – a fantasy – rewritten as historical fiction and set in Ancient Greece, I knew I had to seriously beef up my knowledge of that period in history.
In many ways, this would be me starting from ground zero in my research.
