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Since January I have written some 20 or 30k words and I find myself late in the story, staring at what I believe is the descent - ascent, I suppose, but it feels like a descent - to the climactic chapters. It's altogether mind-boggling. But at any rate, I am at that thickest of thick parts where just about everything I come across reminds me of the story to a greater or lesser degree.
books
Tempus Regina involves and will involve a great deal of research, since it covers so much time. One of the earliest to get the story off the ground was, not surprisingly, The Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff. It invoked images of one world I wished to create, giving me the first glimmers of light as I ventured into the writing process, and I would thank Sutcliff for it if I could. At the other end of the spectrum, Dickens' Bleak House helped sketch the underworld of Victorian London in my mind; I do manage to thank him by letting him make a cameo appearance, albeit not a very flattering one. And then more recently, and for no particular reason, I found in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew a kindred spirit.
poetry
I don't read a great deal of poetry, but there are a few snatches of verse that fit Tempus Regina: mostly Tennyson, but also Eiluned Lewis' The Birthright and the classic final line from Lord Byron's When We Two Parted:
if I should meet thee
after long years
how should I greet thee?
with silence and tears.
There is also a particular line from Tennyson's Morte D'Arthur that I keep pinned to my corkboard and refer to from time to time:
...the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge,
clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walk'd,
larger than human on the frozen hills.
songs
Everywhere I turn, there seems to be a song that fits one part of Tempus Regina or another. I think in many cases it is wholly my own bias. The first ever to be connected with the story was Escala's Requiem for a Tower, and then Street of Dreams by Blackmore's Night. The march style of Sarabande, also by Escala, is appropriate as well. Andrew Peterson's lovely Carry the Fire makes a wonderful theme for the story as a whole, and several relationships within it in particular; Maire Brennan's Hear My Prayer fits nicely with Regina. They make sense enough, but other songs are rather crazier - like Can You Feel the Love Tonight, Falcon in the Dive (Chauvelin swears), and Adele's Set Fire to the Rain and Skyfall.
It's all about the bias, I tell you.
I love how you have a series of media that helps you and makes sense, and then those random other ones that are rather out-of-the-way. ;)
ReplyDeleteBut Set Fire to The Rain is also on my playlist for no particular reason, and I think that's because it's just a good, moody song. ;)
I suppose when you're in love with a story, everything brings it to mind! And Set Fire to the Rain is a good song, though it took me a while to warm to it; I only listened to Skyfall for the first time yesterday, and though it is a James Bond theme, it still managed to be appropriate to the book.
DeleteI just recently (very recently) stumbled across Andrew Peterson, and I've decided he's a favorite. His words are...as if CS Lewis had been a contemporary singer/songwriter, not an Oxford Don. :D
ReplyDeleteI have mixed feelings about Andrew Peterson, because while I love his lyrics (very Lewisian, very Chestertonian, and very Pauline), I have to be in just the right mood to appreciate his voice. However, Carry the Fire is one of the few that I enjoy at any time. And it's the theme song for a character of whom I'm fond, and who I'm not able to give half enough page-room.
DeleteI love this post, and I hope to write up one myself sometime, Abigail. As Bree said, I love those 'random' bits from media and life that just dance and weave their themes into what you write, and particularly into your book Tempus Regina :). I listened to all the song links (which I was very unfamiliar with) - but I enjoyed Andrew Peterson's 'Carry the Fire' as well as 'Requiem for a Tower' best (not too fond of the others to be honest!).
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of Andrew Peterson before - that song though, is quite nice. Is he a Christian, as I seemed to see reflected in the lyrics? I don't know, but I tend to favour strong-themed Christian songs to listen and sing to, though occasionally I enjoy those kinds of songs that may not be so 'obviously' Christian but the themes are there and are quite inspiring (i.e. LOTR's 'Into the West' or 'May it Be') or like this song :).
And Lantern Bearers - I have the book in my shelf ready to be read once I finish reading 'The Shield Ring' (which has taken me a little while to get into for a number of reasons: 1. I have little time to read as of late and most of my focus is on plowing my way through the 'Silmarillion', 2. the writing is deep and poetic and needs a good space to really enjoy it, and 3. it feels like that sort of tale that will demand the whole of me - concentration, emotion, etc. You get the idea!
and why are all my comments normally so large, I ask you? How often brevity eludes me!
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