Yes, I finally did it. I found the manuscript and shifted through the 250+ pages to wrangle this story of years past down to a neat 187 single-spaced. It was a mental challenge to revive these characters I knew so well and remember who they were and why they were important to me. More important to me than I think I gave them credit in years past. Saoirse, Kinvara, and Biorn were characters I felt connected to because they were just as lost as I was. They had life toss them about, treading water for meaning in the dramatic family civil war they found themselves in. It mirrored life. It foreshadowed the losses I knew were to come and helped me sort out the mysteries of my own life in an imagined Viking Age Ireland full of shifting alliances and invaders.
After all this time, why now? I have two other novel ideas I want to explore yet I felt unable to write again until Udal Cuain was laid to rest. The leviathan of the past which helped me forward when I was stuck. I believe I needed creative closure. It was a manuscript without an ending. I revised and revised the story in 2018, taking it into darker waters. It became too dark for me to continue as my life was moving from darkness towards the light once again, there were things from history and Irish Celtic culture, as well as Norse culture I was unwilling to interact with anymore.
When I was first working on this project, I was steeped in historical research from my independent study about Early Medieval Ireland and fresh from watching the television show Vikings. It was a time when I was hiding behind a shell, numb from unresolved trauma that I was a shell of myself. Hidden away from my true self, masking and unhealthy. The violence of this show and the research on Irish pagan rituals were something I ignored, even though I cannot think of them without shuttering now. These were things, details I needed to remove from my own writing to find my own peace. Not to censor it but instead to be authentic to who I am. If you want to learn more, this novel will just be a stepping stone for more research because I cannot in good conscience tell a story with such evil and bring that evil to you the reader.
The bulk of my revisions were just that, removing things I no longer felt comfortable with to have the story reflect who I am now.
Being in the present, and seeing through the time how I have found peace in my personal life since writing Udal Cuain in 2017, allowed me to give it an ending. I didn’t know where to leave my characters when I was walking through a season of confusion. I see now that I had to read more of my own story before I could write their story.
Why am I sharing this novel on my blog instead of shopping it around to publish or publishing it as an E-book? I don’t know if this novel is something at this time that I am pleased with as a representation of who I am as a writer. It was a story that I needed to write for myself but not something I felt like it was a story I wanted to have out there for people to rip apart. I don’t feel ready to put it to market so I am sharing it on this blog for you the reader to read if you would like to do so.
Analyzing how I wrote the story and talking through the novel planning process has been more rewarding than seeing it as a published book. It was a process that gave me meaning then and still rewards me now for the things I learned through trying something new. When I started jotting down ideas for Udal Cuain I was a non-fiction writer, preferring essays and historical research as a medium to write, as well as a creative expression like poetry. World building? Not a thing I thought I could do, nor did I think that creating characters and crafting dialogue would be as fun as I thought. If you have an idea, go for it! You will surprise yourself by what the discipline of writing and creating will do for your mind. It’s challenging, confidence-building, and relaxing to escape into a world of your imagination. I believe you can do it!
Thank you, reader, for supporting me and viewing those Udal Cuain novel writing posts. It gave me the encouragement to go back and finish what I started many years ago.
One Rabbit Riot 