Superstition
Image by u/allthekos
I will concede, the three-month break was not intentional.
What I’m Reading: The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln — Arrow Books)
What I’m Watching: King Arthur (Antoine Fuqua — Buena Vista Pictures)
That said, hello! Welcome back to you and yours truly. How have you been? I managed to survive a semester of university surprisingly intact, only to go and have myself a surgery the very next week. Indeedy, I did have a benign tumour in my face (and a benign lymph node, too! How rude, right?) which needed the removings. So now I have a pretty nice scar down the side of my face and neck, not to mention pictures of the surgery! They’re morbidly fascinating to look at. And yeah, aside from a permanently numb earlobe (a noble sacrifice) and some temporary weakness in the right half of my face (expected, seeing as the tumour’s home was beneath the facial nerve web there — again, rude), I’m doing quite well.
Busy, even. Which leads me to my title, about which you may or may not be raising an eyebrow. I’ll concede, I have something of an odd mix of superstitions. For example, if the Geelong Cats are losing a match and I’m in the room, I will leave it, and hopefully, that will make the difference. I don’t want to be the reason they lose! I have been known to leave and re-enter the loungeroom during a match multiple times purely for the Cats’ benefit. I can’t go to sleep if my wardrobe is evenly partially open because obviously, there’s going to be a monstrosity that escapes and kills me in the night. Paranormal Activity, anyone? I’ll also be perfectly quiet and still if it’s midnight, on the off chance a monstrosity appears. Another is I have to shuffle a very specific way, or else I’m guaranteed to mess up — be it with a game like Magic: the Gathering (Avacyn, Angel of Hope and Armaggedon combo, yo) or with tarot readings. As well, if my tarot cards point me in one direction, then that is the direction I’m meant to go.
About two months ago, I was at a crossroads. I have countless stories, all anxious to be told, but when there’s so much choice, it can be overwhelming. And so, with a new tarot set in my life — a beautiful Arthurian tarot deck by Caitlín and John Matthews, one I’ve been hunting down for actual years — I gathered the best thing to do was ask it. In reply, the very first card I put down was for the Spiral Tower, fashioned after Glastonbury Tor, AKA a significant location in Arthurian lore. Not only that, but it also ended with the Sword King.
Subtlety. I like it.
And so, I dove back into my Arthurian retelling, which includes one of my favourite, most realised characters I’ve created to date. Indeed, she has actually altered some of my life philosophies, which is wild. There was a problem, however! Part of the reason I’d never drafted more than the first 7,000 words was because pieces were missing. I couldn’t see all the story, even in a more generalised form.
It was later that month when I discovered a Twitter Thread by @MMSnodgrass on storylining. And to you, Melinda M. Snodgrass, I owe you 10,000 times over. I’m going to leave the link for that thread here, and if you’re a writer, I would highly advise you to go and check it out.
So now I have several cards blu-tacked to my wall, not to mention some fantastic Pinterest art nestled just below that, but there’s still so much I can’t see. At least I can see who my leading players are and what I’ve got thus far. But then, everything changed again, this time, with a conversation. It was about the Fisher King.
For those of you who don’t know, the Fisher King is a famous figure in Arthurian lore, the final keeper of the Holy Grail. I knew pieces of it, small fractions here and there, but this figure is a significant player in my WIP and has been for some time. A fortunate gift of mine is that my mother is herself a massive fan of the Arthurian mythos, and so I will tend to go to her and talk over my ideas. So I did just that, telling her what my plans for him were. After hearing what I’d come up with, she advised me to go and read up some more on the Fisher King.
I did, and it took me about three seconds to understand why: my character was not the Fisher King. And just like that, my story exploded with the promises of change; his character transformed almost entirely. Of who he was and who he is now, they share only a first name, their marriage, title, and first child. It’s weird, watching as characters are wholly erased before your very eyes, but it was necessary. The man I have now not only wouldn’t choose to have further children, but can’t.
That changes the ending, changes the heroes' motivations for the final act; it changes the entire story of one of my main heroes altogether. It changes why one of the main antagonists does everything he does. It also changes one of the most significant historical events in my world, a religious war in the teenage years of most of my characters.
Also, I realised said religious war was literally a Crusade, only I hadn’t realised it. It’s only a significant part of Grail lore. This kind of moment is what I like to call a, “Charis. Did you not see that— oh my good golly gosh, you dumb dumb.”
What has effectively blossomed, in short, is my research. To the right of my storyboard are my array of things to research. One of the ones I’ve been exploring, outside of the Grail itself and its history, is a lesser-known branch of Gnosticism called Catharism (i.e. where we got the word catharsis) victim to a Holy Inquisition. Unfortunately, there is very little on the religion itself (religion, not a sect or cult or heresy, I will add) because the Roman Church destroyed most of its lore in said Holy Inquisition. As a result, Charis is an unhappy camper, making do with researching Gnosticism and exploring the Gnostic Bible. It’s all so fascinating *does a shoulder shimmy*.
As a result of all this, things are gonna be a little different here for a while. Instead of book and movie reviews, seeing as my attention will be undividedly Arthurian, I hope to blog about my progress. But, for what’s included in this manuscript, which includes more sensitive content, I want to get it right. Wish me luck!
— Charis.
(PS. I won’t lie — the most challenging part of what’s to come is going to be not shitting on Lancelot at every given opportunity. If you wanted to know my least favourite Arthurian character, it be him.)
(PPS. I shit you not, yesterday, I came up with legitimately the most horrifically beautiful and gutting chapter for this book — it’s not graphic at all, but my first two immediate thoughts were, “This is going in the book,” but more importantly, “whAt ThE fUcK—”)
