A Cup of Classics

Oh, man. Oh man oh man. 

I really wanted to win this year! I really did! And I really tried! I just wasn't able to push out the required 1667 words every single day. I mean, I could have, but it would have meant sacrificing too much of my mental health and time spent with my partner that I couldn't bring myself to give up. Real life, man! Who knew it would get in the way of my imaginary life?

But! I won't let that get me down, because I still wrote more words than I've ever written in a single month. And because this is my literature blog, I thought I'd do a roll-call of the highlights of my novel. Or, more accurately, novel draft. Or, let's be real, half-completed novel draft.

Feel free to steal this format for your own blog - I think it'd work well as a tag!

NANOWRIMO WRAP UP 2018

Words written: 38, 453

Words spelt correctly: significantly less

Chapters completed: 5, with a generous helping of random, out-of-order scenes that don't help the plot AT ALL.

Favourite line: "OUT OF THE WAY, MAGICAL MISCHIEF COMING THROUGH! DANGEROUS INGREDIENTS BOTH FLAMMABLE AND POISONOUS, MIND I DON'T TRIP, EXCUSE ME SIR, KINDLY MOVE YOUR ARSE LEST YOU TURN INTO A FROG, MAKE WAY NOW, MAGICAL MISCHIEF ON THE MOVE.."

Most absurd, 'help its nearly midnight and I need more words' line: If there was one thing that she had found to be dependable in fair natures, it was their utter independable-ness

Favourite character: My main character, but I also adore a ridiculous potion-selling runaway I created (whose dialogue was my favourite to write)

Favourite setting: The Fairy market stalls on the bridge.

Happiest moment: Writing the happily-ever-after scene!

Saddest moment: Realising that writing novels is really, really hard, and I just couldn't finish this month.

What I learnt this month: Discipline over inspiration, reasons over excuses.

And,

What I'm most proud of: The fact that I tried, and that I wrote so many words for a whimsical, fairytale passion project that otherwise would never have seen the light of day.

Thanks for reading, and I tag everybody that wants to do this! Let's say bye-bye to Nanowrimo and a big HO HO HELLO to December.

Now who else could do with a glass of wine?

Ok, hear me out.. because I love Margaret Atwood, I really do.

But honestly, before it was announced yesterday that Atwood was penning a sequel set 15 years after The Handmaid's Tale, titled The Testaments; was there anyone out there hankering in wait for more?


Like many women, I see The Handmaid's Tale as a seminal work of feminist literature. It may have been written years before I was born, yet its relevance persists. It tells a timeless truth about how women are treated, holding an unapologetic mirror to our own society, revealing the ugly oppression lurking beneath. Indeed, its cultural resonance as an example of how women are demeaned and controlled has led the costume of the Handmaiden (largely thanks to the TV adaption) to become symbolic shorthand for womens rights movements everywhere.




And, on top of all that, it's a bloody good bit of writing.

But all of that being said, why do we need a sequel? Wasn't the whole story told? Everything that needed to be said, said? Said succinctly, poetically, powerfully.

Following the sequel announcement yesterday afternoon my first thought was "Oh, I'll definitely be reading that". But my own certainty gave me pause:

Why was I so sure I would like it?



Why, when the common denominator of sequels tends to be that they detract from, rather than add to, the legacy of the original? (Chief exception here being High School Musical 2, obviously)

I'm not saying it will be bad. I'm not saying it can't be the greatest literary work of the decade. Knowing Atwood's writing, it'll likely be gut-punchingly good. Nor am I critical of the need for more feminist literature.We are in constant need of works that examine, deconstruct and shed light on this bizarre gendered world we live in. But we need new voices. And we do have them; we know they're out there.

So why are they not being marketed to the degree that a sequel, a mere elaboration of an already-well-made point, is?

It may be cynical of me, but I can't imagine that Atwood's plans for a sequel would have come to fruition had there not been a pre-exisiting fanbase for the massively popular television spinoff of her book. Again, being cynical, she surely would have seen the potential market value that Handmaid's Tale represented.

And this is linked to a wider trend in publishing.

It seems the publishing world, in its constant effort to stay relevant, is going the way of cinema: rehashing old properties, capitalizing on nostalgia and trusting only in already-established names.

One need only look at recent bestseller lists to see this is pandemic to the industry; The Harry Potter series finished years ago but The Cursed Child and both Fantastic Beasts screenplays sold like hot cakes. Neither property represented anything remotely new, or original, but were familiar, safe (And dare I say it, boring) purchases, which will no doubt be repeated and repeated until every detail of the wizarding world down the type of toilet paper used by Arthur Weasley's dad has been exhumed.

At the other end of the spectrum you have Harper Lee's Go Set A Watchman, pushed out under dubious authorial consent and absolutely not presented in the way it was originally intended. Lee's artistic intent was sacrificed in the name of a huge payday, yet we all still bought it, because it's Harper Lee, and, well, we love Harper Lee. And it is precisely this knee-jerk buying response elicited by established names that seems to be the publisher's goal.

Margaret Atwood is well-known, widely read and hugely respected, with a TV audience to boot. She is a publishing goldmine.

The angle of her publishers seems to be that the world of Gilead is more relevant than ever to women's rights. And yes, it is. But we already have a book about it. That's why women are wearing Handmaiden costumes to rallies. And, even as Atwood remarks that her inspiration is "the world we've been living in" - a noble sentiment to be sure - I can't help but feel like surely someone, somewhere else, has something new to say?

I'm not saying The Testaments won't have any literary value, but I am saying that the steamrolling of publishing by big name authors represents a wider, worrying trend in arts and media wherein safe success is valued far and above creative risk. The only books deserving of large-scale marketing campaigns and wide readership are those written by already established authors, often nitpicking their own work which was completed yonks ago.

And that's sad. Because a world of stories told by the same few people means a very narrow choice of stories.

I worry about all the possibly brilliant, contemporary voices I'll never get to read because they were shuffled off the shelf to make way for the latest Atwood. Even after writing all this, I know I'll probably buy a copy of The Testaments.

I'm no expert on any of this - just a girl with a blog. But I've still got to wonder,  where is the room for creative risk, for originality?

Where is the room for new and diverse voices?

And one last time, do we really, really need another Handmaid's Tale?

Doesn't it do more on its own, a singular, powerful voice against oppression?

Do we really want to mess with that?

When I was little, I knew that books were magical. I could put my grubby hands on a book, and be whisked away to Narnia, or Hogwarts, or the Magic Faraway Tree.

These books found further life in my daydreams. They'd stay with me at school, at lunch time, on the car ride home. I lived these stories, and I loved these stories.

But that was when I was little, and whilst my love of books has never waned, it's been a very long time since I've been left awestruck by the magic in a book. A very long time since I've felt the magic leak through the pages, sweep me up, and not let go.

Until this book.

Strange the Dreamer is a little piece of magic.

A love-letter to fairytales and daydreams and dreamers and long-forgotten myths, Strange is neither cloyingly sentimental, nor childish, nor does it take itself too seriously.

It tells the story of a lost city, and dead gods, and a librarian that loves to dream.

In Lazlo Strange we have a a protagonist who is endlessly likeable, being both an underdog and a librarian. We get to see a fairy story through the eyes of one who loves stories, and then we marvel, wide-eyed, just as he does, at his sheer dumb luck to find himself inside of one.

 I have always had a special place in my heart for characters (and people!) that don't quite fit in with those around them. People that are earnest and good, yet lonely, and ridiculed, and hoping for things to get better. This book has that in spades, with warm descriptions of friendship, and honest tenderness, and blossoming love.

The setting is far from standard fantasy fare; drawing inspiration and reference to a generous mix of Eastern and Western mythologies and tales, as well as creating an elegant magic and lore which is of its own world alone.

Finally, the prose itself is a tantalizing dance between modern young adult narrative and an intricate weaving of a tapestry, rich in its depth and crystalline in its imagery. The result is somehow both stunningly literary and intensely readable. (I finished it in less than a week)

Huge in its scope, romantic in its essence, and beautiful in its telling, I feel like this was a book written by someone that just loves to love stories.

And, as I'm also someone that loves to love stories, I couldn't help but fall in love with it.

5 iced coffees.