I have exciting news! Yesterday, while I was transferring larger video files from my phone to my Google Drive, something amazing happened. Honestly, it was one of the most surreal things I can remember happening to me.
As the files transferred, a folder with several documents that I swore were deleted, showed up in my cloud. At first, I thought they must be just showing the recent files I had looked at because, to be honest, I don’t go into my drive very often. I saw old work documents I deleted and Udal Cuain. So, as a joke, I clicked on it expecting my drive to tell me that the file did not exist anymore. But to my surprise, that’s not what happened!
I found every draft version of my unfinished manuscript from 2018 – Udal Cuain in this folder. It had the original version, the version with an updated timeline and calendar, the version when I divided the document into two books, and the draft where I began revising and changed the beginning.
It was all there, but it shouldn’t be. I clearly remember deleting it. I remember deciding I never wanted to work on it again. And dang, after looking through all the work I put into this story over two years, I am so glad that whatever glitch happened, did happen because I regretted deleting it. I really did.
I looked at the word count yesterday, around 124,000 words or 250+ pages single-spaced. There’s too much work there to abandon. I have to revise it, right? If I took out the dark directions it drifted towards and reengineered those motifs to a place that reflects who I am instead of who I was trying to be, it could work. It could really work!
I already had a non-fiction book idea I was planning to write this year, so I guess, what is one more project? 🙂
I’m grateful and excited to get started on the revising process because this shouldn’t have happened and I am pleasantly surprised that it did. It makes those lost years of confusion and wandering in a desert of shut doors feel like they were all for something important, something that started that I should have never given up on just because I got a job.
I never thought I would see that project again, and in some way, that’s what I needed for a time, but in 2023, I began to question if I made the right choice abandoning it. I wish I hadn’t but learned to accept that I made a choice and that was that. It’s taught me to keep hold of things, and wait and see instead of making snap decisions. I guess it’s maturity. But, I’m getting a second chance here and that’s pretty freaking awesome!
I am a visual person. When I begin drafting a setting or character it helps me to build a story around a tangible place. While I enjoy going to Pinterest for ideas, I like to sketch out original artwork to dive into a place of imagination. This week, I dove into my notebook of ideas and began painting places for potential settings for a story. Here are some of the places I came up with.
I’ve been thinking, to be honest since I put the Udal Cuain project on a permanent hiatus in 2019, should I attempt to finish it or revise it in some way that would be less dark and depressing? It’s the truth, the story went off the rails into a very dark place that I no longer enjoyed working on. But could I potentially unweave the threads of plots that took the story in an unsatisfying direction? That is something I’d like to ponder. And hopefully, this project is not doomed by its subject material! I think this is applicable to all creative processes because as you make something there is that tightrope feeling that you are balancing between success and utter crap. At least that’s been my experience.
Well, I think the only way to sort through this is to look at the things I think the story should keep and what was an utter disaster. I’m going to give each storytelling technique a grade for a bit of structure. Let’s jump in!
Religion
Udal Cuain is set in the Early Medieval period aka the Viking Age aka the dark ages, which is not as well known as other historical periods. Especially when it comes to Irish history as it was known as Hibernia at the time to the Western world. The Romans were tired of dealing with the Celts and so they built Hadrian’s Wall and left them be. The only group to venture closer were Christian missionaries, including St Patrick, St Brendan, and St Brigid in the 5th century AD. As Udal Cuain was set in the west of Ireland in the 8th century AD, with most of Ireland converting to Christianity and leaving Druidism, the choice to include a druid-influenced calendar and have open belief in the Druid Irish gods was a wise decision. It feels like a plot hole to the historical evidence we do have available. For this reason, I give this religious storytelling choice an F for disregarding history.
I wasn’t as committed to my faith at the time of writing and so I was not interested in bringing Christianity into this world, although I chose the setting to be in the era of a well-established church for the sake of being in the Viking raiding age. That was a bit of a faff and something I would definitely change today if I was re-writing this story. I would either set the story back before the 5th century and nix the Viking Age plot in order to explore the Druid era for continuity’s sake or would remove the Druid part and have a more nuanced approach to these cultural legends in the framework of the 8th century where the High Kings were part of the church and monasteries were a key part of the societal structure. I would probably choose the second option because the Druid world is so incredibly dark and evil – not exaggerating, human sacrifice was prominent – so I would prefer to research something a bit more light-hearted.
Villains
A goal I had for this story was to make a cunning and diabolical villain out of Tearlag, I wanted her to be so good at being bad that the reader could almost respect her but also be waiting for her demise. When we meet her in the story she is a widow who exiled her son and grandkids by force out of her kingdom. She is hypercritical of her children and conniving in her marriages. Her husband Conn was beloved by all but Tearlag has a Machiavellian streak to her. I wanted her to be untrustworthy and truly good at executing evil plans against her enemies, including her family members. As the Dowager Chieftainness I wanted her to have a legacy that she couldn’t quite nail down, but she would use to exact every last drop from her allies.
Tearlag became one of my favorite characters to write, she had so much sass and pure nerve to accomplish what she wanted without giving a hoot what people thought. In the end, it made me sad to know she would have to be defeated. I would say for Tearlag’s character I would give her a B+ because she accomplished all I wanted her to, but now I think I could make her character even more polished. I would develop her character even more to see the layers of how she became this way and search to find if there is any good in her or if she was always born to the villain of her life.
My secondary villain was Tearlag’s son Riordan, who was a chaotic character and a bit of a brat. I didn’t want him to be likable, I wanted his character to wear his misguided decisions like a badge as the selfish person I created his character to be. His flaws drove the plot, and his mistakes bred characterization for other key players in the story. His depression for a lost love that should have never been, all while being married to another woman displayed his inability to handle responsibility that would inevitably inspire his exile. I would give Riordan’s character a solid A because his character did not waiver into plot holes, it was a disagreeable anchor to the story. I would let his story sit in the plot and flush out his failings a bit more so that his exile is more clear to the reader. I may consider if he is redeemable or if a story arc would add anything to his character.
Protagonist
I’m going to start off by being brutally honest that I don’t care for either of my protagonists anymore and would have to re-write them. Both Kinvara and Saoirse fall into the trope of “not like other girls” and I don’t like that. It was such a common storytelling trope at the time of writing that I didn’t see I was falling into it when actually I was trying to make them outsiders in their respective worlds. For this reason, I give them each the grade of D because they’re not hopeless characters but they need some revisions.
Kinvara was the opening protagonist of the book, she is shy yet observant and doesn’t like the current place she finds herself, as an exile on Searbh because of her parents’ loyalty to Riordan and his wife Saoirse. Kinvara is intelligent but a bit judgmental, and has great dislike for her sister Aoibheann as being a frivolous girl for chasing after boys, yet Kinvara effortlessly gets along with the boys, making her a bit of a pick me girl too. Not what I intended! My revisions for Kinvara would be to eliminate with tension with her and her sister, making Kinvara more likeable. I’d also like to make her a bit braver and more willing to seek after the connection to the faeries, in doing so going on her quest without a guy to help her. I’d love to see her face down with Tearlag in a David and Goliath kind of scenario, completely humbling Riordan in the process for fighting this battle for him.
Saoirse was just too dang whiny. Like, if Riordan made her life that miserable I’m not sure why I kept them together? Through the process of the handfastening marriage they had a year to figure out if they wanted to be married, Saoirse could have left after a year since Riordan never stopped his relationship with Caoimhe. I’d like to keep Saoirse’s inner struggle with managing her emotions and feelings of rejection. Her addiction I think brought a depth to her character as self-hatred was a demon she was wrestling with. A relatable thing. Her mentorship with Cheiftain Conn was a plot line I didn’t explore enough, as well as the friendship with Brigid. Saoirse fell into the trap of being defined by her relationship which was not the kind of female lead I intended to create. Defintely a lack of experience in character development on my part.
Faeries
I absolutely loved developing out the idea of faeries in the story based on Ireland’s legendary origin story of a mythical people who founded Ireland called the Tuatha de Danaan and the Formorians. It’s where the legend of the banshee, Finn McCool, and the Children of Lir come from. The imagination of Irish storytelling is incredible and I wanted to incorporate that possibility back into the land of Ireland itself through the character of the faeries who communicated with the sensitive in society – Kinvara and Chieftainn Conn.
This provided a space to dabble into fantasy with magical portals to another dimension and unexplainable powers that would be channeled through the land itself, particularly the sea. Sometimes it would be channeled through specific characters in the story like Caoimhe being endowed with the powers of the raven, essentially a morrigan or banshee. Kinvara could sense would the faeries wanted and could feel the lack of peace within the land itself for the evils being carried out by the Viking raids and Tearlag. For how much imagination and possibility this storyline gave to the story of Udal Cuain, truly a driving force for the adventures and conflicts that awaited the characters I would give it an A+ grade. This was the best part of the story and made it feel unique.
Combat
As a sensitive person I didn’t expect to enjoy writing fight scenes but it was a lot of fun to write moments of struggle and strategic movements. It was something that grew in scope as the story evolved to a point where the characters were sometimes even fighting the environment around them. This added a spooky element to the battle scenes as the enemy was not clear. Would it be a human opponent? A human opponent with a pull over nature itself because of their connection to the faeries? Would the enemy be almost supernatural in strength like the Raven? Or would they just be a dang good fighter? These were ingredients for the pacing and intrigue for the story as it was a battle of kingdoms and ideas. I would give the combat scenes a B for their solid plot movement, but I’m holding back from giving it an A because I could have created more dimension in the story if I had been willing to lean into these battles more and move the story forward instead of being wishy-washy on characters dying.
Final Thoughts
I recommend taking a look at your writing in this rating type of analysis because as I wrote this I felt such clarity on what I liked and didn’t like. I think if I had done this while I was still working on the project I may have been able to revise and carry on instead of getting overwhelmed and burn out from the stress of my day job. Thanks, dear reader, for going on this little retrospective journey with me.
The sweetest package arrived early Thursday morning! I saw pure bliss for my tired and angry eyes – new glasses with fresh blue light blockers. My eyes were fried. Had been frying for weeks without me noticing. It happened slowly, building, draining, and then bam my eyes let me know, yes indeed, it was time to get new lenses. If not I think they would have gone on strike. Those headaches are such a nuisance. The aching of tired muscles around my eyes, and how heavy my blue frames, were the perfect combo for a week of migraine woes. But alas, it’s in the past and I am thrilled. For a few reasons! The new spectacles are super light. They are a fun style I wanted to try out after seeing Changbin wear this look for a stage performance, and I got the cutest dust cloth of a bun wearing glasses and a tie.
With the eye fry though, getting worse with time on my computer or phone, I took last week to give my eyes a break from screens until the new frames came. And it turned into a tremendous creative recharge time. I knocked out my open sewing projects, finishing my backlog of stretch-knit fabric items floating on their own island of procrastination. This was a problem because I had real projects for friends to work on and their procrastination island was taking up valuable real estate on my worktable. So it was time, and without the prompt of my lens wearing it may have been another month before I finished the stretch knit pieces. It was a good thing. I also used the time to sketch out potential maps for a novel idea I have. Well, two novel ideas, actually. I developed two plots and worlds, flushed out in my notebook with the settings, names, and timelines of the plot I want to write. Once I decide on which project I should move forward on, I’m excited to share it with you.
I’ve noticed taking a break, even just for several days in a row of not writing, my brain feels rusty and I feel clunky with my words. This skill of writing is so much more like a discipline of exercise than an art form sometimes.
To recharge my mind, and get those creative writing juices flowing hopefully better than before, I realized I should get back into reading to be immersed in fiction in order to learn from others what it takes to write a good original story. Someone I admire, without finishing the book yet, is the work of Judy I. Lin. I started her novel, A Magic Steeped in Poison back in September 2022. With my Autumn/Winter Collection sewing schedule I put it aside to keep my deadlines – it seriously pulled me in and plan to write a bigger appreciation post for her work. I jumped back into the story this weekend and dang – being fully immersed in a fantastical story with such layered culture and characters – it is just pure joy. I forgot how wonderful reading can be. With the final act of the book before me, I hunger for more of the story. I can’t wait to jump back in this week and carry onward into the sequel of the Book of Tea Series – A Venom Dark and Sweet.
The cherry on top of this weekend though was the S-Class M/V from Stray Kids along with 9 new songs! I absolutely adore the 5-Star comeback, from the style choices to the music. It really showed their range. The bonus content of the band reacting to the S-Class music video and unboxing their album together was the wholesome coziness I needed before today. Seriously, if I.N. is smiling, how can anyone frown? I needed that going into today, especially. It’s a day I remember a lot of pain and loss, but although how small it may be, the joy of a favorite band releasing a new album with their unique charm has been a wonderful distraction from the gloom that usually takes hold on this day.
As we begin this new week, I wish you love and hope that it is a good one for you.
I’ve decided to get back into fiction writing! It’s been a long time, so long I almost forgot how to begin. Because of how fuzzy my creative brain has felt, I’ve been stuck in the confines of what feels familiar. I’ve been wanting to go back to what I made before. At first, I wanted to bring back Udal Cuain from memory. The bits and pieces of the characters still live in my mind, but upon trying this without my manuscript – it is a bit daunting, near impossible to remember what I wrote 6 years ago. I considered rebooting it in a new story. I could fix the decisions with the plot that irked me, revising it into a thing, but at that point, why not just branch out to a new world and new characters that embody who I am now as a writer instead of what I was. And so here we are, and I’m excited!
The Writing Prompt
Since about October 2022, the pull to dabble in fiction has returned. This was in part from a close writer friend who challenged me with a writing prompt. She asked me to write about my favorite garment from fashion history and write a story from the perspective of the person who invented the garment. I began to research, to study, to not just pick a garment but pick several and then try to place them in a world with character. There were so many evolutions to this! It was an endless pit of inspiration.
With some time to dream and consider, my first choice was the corset – it is the ultimate historical fashion garment to me because of the craftsmanship, the foundation it created for silhouette and style, and truly to challenge the many people who use it as a scapegoat in the fight against the patriarchy. If only they would do some research (I’m talking to you BBC and Netflix). I ran into a problem – what iteration of the corset would I focus on? Should I include stays? How much is too much detail? Yeah, it was a bit too broad for the kind of historical mind I possess.
My friend suggested I narrow my wild mind down to one era, my favorite era of fashion history. What is my favorite era of fashion history? Well, I broke that prompt too! I could not decide between the 1890s, 1910s, and 1690s. I blame the fantastic fashion history content of Nicole Rudolph’s 1690s-inspired Winnifred Sanderson costuming, Bernadette Banner’s 1890s-inspired garments, and Bernadette’s 1910s Mary Poppins Jolly Holiday Lingerie Dress. My little fashion nerd heart was too enthralled to choose between them. I waded deeper into the idea. Maybe social and cultural norms would flush out the true winner. A character, if I placed her into these time periods, what would her life look like? Could she be a fashion designer like I strive to be or would limitations be placed on her talents?
If she would be prevented by society to make clothing openly, what story would there be to create? I realized I was approaching the prompt from the wrong point of view. It is not if she would be making clothes, it is in what context. A home sewist? A professional seamstress for a rich or royal family? Were women head tailors? Yes, yes they were until the mid-19th century and Frederick Worth changed the industry to a male-dominated designer world. With the right context, there was a bit more wiggle room. She could be a tailor.
There was that curve ball though, I was supposed to write from the perspective of the designer who invented the garment. And this is where my historically trained brain couldn’t seem to get out of its own way. Although I wasn’t finding a credited person for these garments, I was afraid of misrepresenting the history. If nothing else, the fashion industry has built itself on a shady foundation of misappropriating cultures, using questionable materials, pushing toxic beauty ideals, and mistreating its workers. My gut was scared of what romanticizing a garment could do to the real history at play.
Razor Clams and Melancholy
Alright, so what now? Well, I thought, what about the Alexander McQueen Razor Clam dress sketch literally tattooed on my shoulder? I mean isn’t that my ultimate garment? Isn’t he the one designer that captured my imagination? Yes, yes he was. I found security in knowing a rich history of who and how this piece of art came to be. It was safe yet true to my love for fashion design. This dress has always taken my breath away. There is something unbelievable about its construction, yet undeniably beautiful in execution, like a character in a fantasy novel standing before you with a real flying bison and bending to prove it.
I didn’t realize for years that it was made from real razor clam shells, I thought that the shells were 3-D printed. Understanding the realism captured by the use of real shells makes this dress so full of life and story. Literally, these pieces could not be here without a whole story of their own, from their former life as the home of razor clams, amidst the ocean waves to the cleaning and preparation to be sewn one by one into one garment. The time and care required to make this garment is extraordinary. I thought about my own connection to the sea, picking up seashells along the beach. Walking side by side with my Grandma, talking and stopping to discover every little gem of shell and sand. It was our thing. From Marco Island to New Smyrna, to St. Augustine, to Nags Head – we combed those beaches soaking in the memories of time, we can never replace.
I thought about McQueen and his close relationship with his own mom, and the pain that hung over him after she passed away. I pictured in my mind a day of walking the beach, with the razor-clam shells washing up. Could he have been a shell seeker like me? Could he have been as inspired to create as Grandma and I did with our favorite shell finds? Stringing them onto necklaces. A little souvenir of our walks together. As I wrote, the pain and loss washed over the words a melancholy snapshot took form on the page of a heartbroken fictional character making this dress out of heartbreak for the one he loved. The process was awful. As I wrote, tears slipped down my cheeks and I hated it.
Our Creative Well
The next time my friend and I met to discuss our writing progress, I told her of my switch to the Razor Clam dress and how what came out of my writing broke me. I was in a melancholy cloud missing the flurry of indecision compared to this. In all this chaos, I learned an invaluable lesson. As my friend phrased it, I tend to create from a place of sadness. I seek out the dark and dismal places in my brain to feed whatever I am making, like a tortured artist drinking absinthe or the despair of Poe, I am drawing upon the wrong thing to write from and therefore, my projects hurt me. The same thing happened during the Udal Cuain project. It got dark, and I couldn’t live in that world anymore. She challenged me to find a new place to rely on while I write, to create from a place of joy instead of sadness. It’s changed my whole way of creating as I mentioned in #17- Bad Writing Habits.
Where do you create from? Is it a place of joy or of pain? It’s an interesting thing to consider, and can definitely affect your tone, plots, worldbuilding, etc. I think the biggest takeaway from this process of failed writing prompt drafts was to reinvigorate my brain to imagine worlds from a simple inspiration, and to begin the path of research and brainstorming for characters, stories, and plots less traveled by the current influx of fantasies, thrillers, smut-tok, superheroes, and meta-storytelling. We need new kinds of stories. With that in mind, I’m excited to keep moving forward. I hope you join me on this journey.
Udal Cuain was a story of many locations, each with a key purpose and strategic place on the map. When I began writing this novel I found the easiest way for me to develop the setting was to make a map of the places and ideas I had in mind. But where to start? As this was based on some historical structures and locations in Ireland, referencing the Irish map was a great place to begin!
Sketching the Map
The setting of Udal Cuain was set in western Ireland within the ancient kingdom of Connachtha during the Early Medieval period. Connachtha was one of the historic provinces within ancient Ireland – Ulster to the North, Connachtha to the West, Munster to the South, and Leinster to the East. So looking at four kingdoms, with Meath at the center, the spiritual center of the Druid Celtic faith, the story had a world to research and emulate from the evidence that survives of these kingdoms.
With a title like Udal Cuain, which means “tossed around by the sea” in Gaelic, I settled on Connachtha because it is on the rugged coast of the Wild Atlantic Way. It is also one of the kingdoms on the western side that my family is not connected with. I have family connections to the Munster region and Ulster region, and I wanted something unfamiliar and neutral for these fictional characters. It left the door open to interact with Ulster and Munster if I changed my mind.
County Galway’s geographical features stood out for its port and bay with small islands, perfect for a fictional island to exile my characters on. The Burren of rocky terrain to the south along with the Shannon River provided some interesting options for a secondary chieftain’s home base and the key feature – the Aran Islands at the mouth of the bay. With these three I planned my three smaller fictional kingdoms of warring chieftains:
Galway of the O’Connors
The O’Connors’ kingdom, which I placed at the location of Galway’s current city, was supposed to be a well-established chieftain dynasty, that had many enemies and allies. I wanted the kingdom to be both strong; and yet on the tipping point of losing it all because of the internal strife. I wanted their kingdom’s fortress and main structure to be stationed at the Galway city current location, with the idea that the O’Connors’ land would cover the coast around the bay to the Connemara Bog and down to the Burren at the south so that they had room to farm, hunt, and keep livestock. They would also have access to building materials, road networks to interior Ireland, and the mountains. There would be a connection to Ireland’s spirit within the people and leaders. They would also be connected to the land and there for the Tuatha De Danann, the mythology of Ancient Ireland.
I chose this location because it had a long history in Ireland, but had room to explore imagined locations. Galway doesn’t have historic anchor points for this period, like Newgrange or Glendalough. It allowed me to invent without clashing with the established places or treading on the stories of real people. It also has great geography. The bay provides natural resources like fishing, trade, boat building, etc. It would make sense to have a marketplace there and an imagined fortress. To the interior, there are forests, meadows, mountains, lakes, waterfalls, and rock for quarries.
Aran Islands of Murtagh
The Aran Islands to the far west of Galway Bay, an outpost of the Irish language during the centuries of oppression by the British, and a population decimated by the famine, I wanted to make these islands a key player in my story. They have many stories to tell, but in Udal Cuain, I wanted to bring them back to life as a powerful seat of trade. A necessity to the kingdom of Galway and the enemy to the North, the impending Vikings. I chose to make the Aran Islands kingdom a rival to the O’Connors, with an imagined trading kingdom built around the ancient fort of Dun Aonghasa. I also saw this as a choke point for the Galway kingdom of the O’Connors, they must keep tensions cool with Chieftain Murtagh in order to keep their own economy going and allow free use of the Ocean beyond. Yet as in relationships, this is easier said than done.
Limerick
Limerick on the Shannon River served as a connection to the Viking Age. This city was a settlement historically conquered by Vikings, in Udal Cuain it is a place of cross-cultural influences. There was a historic kingdom in the story, the Ui Neills, that one character is closely connected to. Yet with the changes that took place within Ireland during the Early Medieval period, the Ui Neills, are faced with Viking invasions. I chose to use this location as a place to see the impact, good and bad, of Viking settlements in Ireland. This played a key role in Ireland’s structure historically, with Dublin the capital city being established by Ivar the Boneless. In my fictional setting of Udal Cuain, I wanted this Limerick settlement to explore the Norse and Celtic cultures, while pondering the pain, the greed, the bloodshed.
Searbh
The Island of Searbh is completely made up, yet inspired by the small islands in Galway Bay. Searbh, being a fictional island in Galway Bay was a blank canvas to create my own hub of the story without needing to adhere to established geography or history. Searbh served as an exile and prison for the characters sent for their crimes against the O’Connors, used mainly by Chieftainness Tearlag to reinforce her agenda. The name Searbh in Gaelic means bitterness, that was what I wanted this island to encapsulate, a bitterness of landscape and mindset. The exiles have bitterness in their daily life as prisoners, but it also bleeds into their relationships and attitude toward survival on the island. I wanted to create a place that could be seen as hopeless, or potentially a powder keg of motivation.
These locations form a triangle around the Island of Searbh, furthering the message that the characters sent here are cornered by the adversaries, yet an unlikely alliance might be within reach if they can get off the island. From Searbh, you can see Galway, yet you cannot reach your home. It is psychological warfare. The Aran Islands are beyond sight, but the hope of finding an ally in Chieftain Murtagh lives on in the minds of exiles of their potential support and refuge against Tearlag. Searbh’s location and removal from the actual kingdom with its society and drama, makes Searbh a place of escape from reality. Here the exiles can both dwell and escape the reasons that brought them here.
There aren’t many resources on Searbh and so they are dependent on their captors to stay together, they also learn to adapt to a new life. The exiles learn new skills and have to get creative. Strangely enough, there are many relics on this island, like it has a life beyond what the exiles understand. I wanted there to be a mysterious undertone to the place and toe the line between reality and delusion and the psychological warfare gets in their minds.
If you were going to design a map for an upcoming novel how would you design it? Would you reference a real landscape or would you design purely from the depths of your imagination?
Something I knew I wanted to capture in my novel Udal Cuain, was the deep world of lore that literary classics such as Lord of The Rings, the Hobbit, and Harry Potter present by creating books within books. Such as There and Back Again by Bilbo Baggins, Quidditch Through the Ages by Kennilworthy Whisp, or Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander. But it had to fit the world I had created in Udal Cuain with the type of literacy and availability of books, according to the time period.
I settled on a private journal that would make sense in the world of a Cheiftain living in Viking Age Ireland, that although Ancient Irish had a spoken language mostly, a brief written language of Ogham based on trees, they did have the influence of monasteries and with it written language and booking making availability. Especially if that Chieftain had studied with monks and was interested in cultures other than his own, a wanderlust and curious man, a recorder of history, both good and bad that could lead to secrets being recorded, that others did not want. A cause for his death? Perhaps! This was my jumping-off point for creating an active character in a story, where this character had already died.
In Media Res
Because I was a novel writing novice I wanted to be as slick and tricky as possible, at times writing myself into a corner by joining the story in media res, jumping into a story in the middle of the narrative without context. This left me with a problem, how do I tell the stories I need to tell without lengthy flashback scenes that may confuse the reader and muddy the plot?
Insert a lost journal. Found by a key character, with similarities to Conn. This character, who is one of the main characters, is named Kinvara. Kinvara is a misfit turned hero, through her pure spirit, she is chosen by the faeries to be their advocate and right the wrongs of her fellow clan. It is she who finds the journal after Conn’s death when she is in exile on Searbh for treason against the reigning Tearlag, widow of Conn. Kinvara desires to understand why her family and their allies were driven from home to this island, and why her parents would align themselves with Riordan and Saoirse, the ones accused of treason by Tearlag when they seem to be such bad people.
Kinvara like Conn, observes people, and so by choosing her as the character to find the journal, it is like we get to experience Conn in these situations and resolved a problem I did not anticipate – How do I make Conn a relatable character when he’s dead? How do I make the reader see his side? By making Kinvara a foil of Conn, her experience with the secrets she discovers inside Conn’s Journal allows the reader to understand who he was. How Kinvara reacts to the information both shows her value system and Conn’s and allows Kinvara to be a fly on the wall of events that apply to her but gives her the knowledge of such information that would not be available to her character otherwise.
It eliminated for me, the need to create an omniscient narrator. Something I wasn’t interested in.
Sowing Seeds of Story
Now came the task of integrating the two. How should this book, Conn’s Journal be presented in the story of Udal Cuain?
I pondered if it should be in reference only, or maybe a separate book? But that felt like I was putting a burden on the reader to seek this out when I didn’t know if anyone would care enough to do so. I don’t have a writing pedigree to fall back on, I’m an unknown writer that may not be engaging or worthy of devoting so much time to, so I thought about how to make the journal part of the chapters.
Integrating the pieces of Conn’s Journal into the chapters seemed like the most efficient option for the reader, if it exists in the story without requiring the reader to look up an additional source, I believed the reader would be more engaged, and more likely to read Conn’s Journal. This was a great strategy, I believe because this opened a new framework to chapters. If I wanted to reveal something from the past, instead of having the characters talk about it, I could paint a whole scene with action and foreshadowing, so that it was like the reader was reading Conn’s Journal like Kinvara and experiencing the story from her perspective, but also Conn’s perspective.
This plan provided a great opportunity to reveal more about the secretive O’Connors and fact-check what son Riordan, daughter-in-law Saoirse, and wife Tearlag were presenting to the characters in the story and telling the reader. It allowed me the chance to experiment with unreliable narrators, which was a lot of fun, and use the tool of dramatic irony.
Because of the seasonal framework, I discussed before in Ancient Irish Calendar, I had a concise way to show the reader when Conn’s Journal took place. His entries could be dated and set in a specific season or month that could be referenced before or later on, like a hyperlink. But, this could be more layered, Conn may have written about an event in his early life that was set in the calendar framework, and I could demonstrate when Conn did this writing later in life with an entry dated so that the reader could feel like Conn was a three-dimensional character. Just as in life, I wanted my characters to feel human and humans have memories triggered by events that are extremely personal in nature. We connect the dots in our own way, and I wanted Conn’s character to have the chance to tell his own story.
Thank you reader for allowing me to muse and reflect on this work with you. I truly miss the story within the story I created with Conn. What do you think about this writing technique? Would you apply it to your own work? Do you enjoy when authors employ in media res, dramatic irony, or books written by their characters? Should dead characters stay dead? It’s a lot to ponder.
An important part of the world I desired to create in my novel Udal Cuain was a sense of place. Since I chose to set my story in Early Medieval Ireland, also known as Viking Age Ireland, I strove to create a world that didn’t feel like our modern age but instead steeped in a culture unlike the modern North American one I know as familiar. A simple way I found to create this complete world was to research and incorporate the Ancient Irish calendar of months. The structure of this calendar looked a little something like this:
With Samhain celebrated the night between the last day of fall and winter, signifiying a new year. Later on in Nollaig the Winter Solstice was celebrated.
Earrach (Spring)
Feabhra (February), Marta (March), Aibrean (April)
With the festival of Imbolc, for fertility and planting, celebrated at the start of Feabhra. The Spring Equinox was recognized in Marta.
Samhradh (Summer)
Bealtaine (May), Meitheamh (June), Iuil (July)
With the festival of May Day being celebrated on the first day of Bealtaine. Summer Solstice recognized during Meitheamh at New Grange
Fomhar (Fall/Harvest)
Lunasa (August), Mean Fomhair (September), Deireadh Fomhair (October)
The Lunasa festival being celebrated at the start of the harvest. At the end of Deireadh Fomhair, Samhain night signified the end of the year.
Already this calendar has a different rhythm than our own, with the months with each season divided one month earlier than we do now. It is a calendar that reflects the agricultural tempo of the ancient Irish society and helped the Viking Age world I was writing about feeling like it had structure. These months are unique, based on a lunar structure with names that correspond to what’s going on within the season compared to the Gregorian calendar, our modern system, which is mathematical and accounts for the passage of time the Earth takes to orbit the Sun. Understanding how and why we use things is important to consider when creating a new world or awakening an ancient world within a story.
The people who created this Irish calendar understood the passage of time in a different, yet similar way to what we understand it. We have religious and cultural festivals, recognize four seasons, and even celebrate Halloween to this day. So there is common ground, and you will find your own common ground in your projects if you choose to add a calendar to your fiction world-building!
Passage of Time
I provided source materials to bring this structure into the story in a natural way, there was a separate section devoted to this calendar like an appendix to a book. Because of how complex the Gaelic language is, having the visible calendar to reference with the names corresponding with their meaning helped me keep it straight as I wrote and added a nice layer to the story, a touch point the characters could reference naturally in dialogue yet the reader could have the knowledge to understand the meaning behind these sometimes foreign words. I enjoy little details like that.
I think it’s why I enjoy Harry Potter, Avatar the Last Airbender, Star Wars, etc. I like to lose myself in a story and wander far into the world, a calendar is that little extra punch that pulls me in even more to a time and place. So when I was writing a character I fancied the idea of being able to think about that character’s understanding of time.
What were they looking forward to?
What would signify change or normalcy in that character’s life?
How could I take the research of Viking Age Ireland and synthesize it into a story that would feel tangible?
I came back to the passage of time and by illustrating that in the story with these seasons, sprinkling little details of the season, the weather, the natural processes that come with winter, planting, harvest, summer sunshine, and all the ways we as humans make sense of that.
Cultural Significance
Holidays and festivals are key to our lives, and so were they for the historical world I was reimagining. They are connection points for characters. Opportunities to naturally move the story forward with action sequences, unexpected plot twists, or just an excuse to bring all your characters together in one scene that is plausible. It provides a way to understand the world from different perspectives and how these characters view their customs and cultures. Generationally, characters may see these moments differently. Introverts and extroverts will experience the spectacle and parties in their own fashion.
With Udal Cuain, Samhain played a big role in framing the year because of how culturally significant this festival was to Ancient Irish culture. They literally believed the separation between the living and dead grew thin on this night, if their deities were not pleased bad spirits would come to harm and the world may cease to exist the next day. It was not just a night of spooky characters, it was a serious event, and as humans, it explores our own feelings of fragility in the greater universe. Mortals versus immortal forces. This is a fantastic source of natural tension in a story, and as the dead could come back to visit their loved ones it brought a source of mystery to the story.
Two main characters, former Chieftain Conn, and Princess of Inis Aran, Caoimhe were deceased by mysterious and suspicious means in Udal Cuain, but one Samhain they each came back, one to haunt and one to heal. It was a blast to write and I highly recommend playing around with a structure like this in your own unique way.
I hope this dive back into the world of Udal Cuain and the research I did to create this novel, serves to inspire you. Even as I write this, I feel an itch to get back into fiction writing. It is such a challenging yet rewarding art form, and so necessary to our human hearts. Stories make us who we are. Dear reader, thanks for taking time with me today. I wish you all the best.
Do you ever struggle with bad habits when you create? I do. I have the tendency to write from a place of pain or darkness and think the pain will create better art. You know, that tortured artist thing that our cultures celebrate. I get stuck in such a trap of that. I try to follow and write what I know but then if I am going through a day that reminds me of former pain my mind will get bogged down in that creative darkness and make things that I don’t like.
Everything is Content
Today, for instance, I spent the morning writing an essay about Prince Zuko that should have worked and instead of writing clear, introspection on his character it became a deep and personal comparison to things I see in my own family dysfunction that are not in line with the vision I have for this blog. I was proud of the piece until I asked my husband to read over it, and I became so embarrassed of the thoughts I had on the page, the emotional tapestry I wove, and that got me thinking are we getting too comfortable with oversharing in our modern age?
Like, if I’m not comfortable discussing such a personal and painful topic with my husband, who is my best friend, why would I think that would be a good piece of writing to share on the internet? It’s bizarre how social media has rewired our brains to view not just pain as art but pain as content. Take for example the popularity of the “Storytime era” on Youtube, making this personal content brought in huge views for creators but exposed the private lives and relationships of these creators to the general public. I’ve seen follow-up videos from such creators where they express regret for revealing so much information and the consequences this had on their relationships.
Joy > Pain
A friend of mine challenged me to write from a place of joy instead of pain, and I think her words are more profound than I realized. I think we should celebrate joyful, uplifting content as much as we do emotional, heartbreaking content. Learning the art of creating from a healthy place is far more valuable than we give credit to.
But when I stop and think about it, in this broken world and its 24-hour news cycle, I find myself gravitating toward comforting things. So if I choose to seek out calming and uplifting stories, why should default to making content that I would not seek out? It doesn’t make sense. That’s probably why, it’s my bad habit. And why I am struggling to write fiction again.
Because it takes guts to move beyond the habits and the easy, clickbait-style content and make good, useful things that may not receive the same appreciation but are better for the world, in my opinion. That’s not to say I don’t think honest, truth-speaking writing is always going to be comfortable or uplifting, that’s nonsense. Some of the most important pieces of writing are not comfortable reads, they challenge us. What I am saying is, I think my bad habit holds me back from making better art with my words.
Lost Art of Thinking
Something I realized today after I trashed my draft and saw that I had lost hours of productivity, was that I didn’t lose time or productivity after all. I had written something great but placed the piece in the wrong category in my mind.
For me, I was writing a post that would be shared and would be a useful thing for this blog, but in actuality, it was a helpful piece of journaling for me to get my private thoughts out on the page. Journaling is the right application for those kinds of pieces, it is what I am comfortable with and in writing privately I am not wasting my time. I’m getting thoughts out on the page and clearing my mind for better things. It is refreshing my mind in a creative sense.
Not everything has to be made for a purpose bigger than making it. Not all thoughts have to be shared. Social media platforms encourage us to do that, even reward us, but that is not the whole truth. Sometimes taking the time to meditate and think will produce greater fruit than putting the original thought out on social media.
I can feel how the last ten years have shifted my brain to create differently because of social media, and I’m not sure if it is a good thing. I’m glad I gained the confidence to share at all on these platforms, but I don’t want to be so comfortable that I forget to slow down and consider the thing I am making. I want to make things that matter, regardless of how well they may or may not perform.
Dear reader, what do you think? Do you agree with my thoughts on my creative bad habit? Do you have any bad habits of your own? Thanks for spending time with me today. I wish you happy and healthy creating!
I think my fascination with Ancient Ireland began when I was eight, on a family trip back to Ireland to see “the old country” and meet up with our cousins who live on the homestead in County Antrim. It was a tour around the island, starting in Dublin and rounding the coastline to the Wild Atlantic Way, finishing with the North. As a child, seeing both modern Ireland and ancient ruins next to each other was unlike anything I had experienced before coming from America. I mean, my hometown was founded in 1802, not very old compared to the beehive monastery I’m standing next to in the image above. To me, a storybook had come to life, and what intrigued me the most was what these ancient people were doing with these now stone ruin buildings that were so odd to me compared to how buildings function in our modern context. I was fascinated to understand what this world looked like.
Fast forward to high school, I am impatiently waiting to learn about ancient Ireland as I sit through World History, American History, and European History hoping maybe just maybe this is where I’ll catch a break, but no there was nothing but a short line about the Potato Famine, Oliver Cromwell and the obligatory St. Patrick mention on March 17. I wasn’t the only one disappointed by the underwhelming coverage of world history, a classmate didn’t even get the chance to learn about his home country of Australia.
But one day in my college class History 201 I was assigned a final project that fit the bill, a historical abstract and thesis, on any topic I wanted, this was the moment! Fascinated by this unknown Ireland, puzzled by why Belfast was closed down on our trip for violence, and curious to know why there was tension between my Irish Republic and Northern Irish relatives, I decided to dig into the 1916 Uprising and Home Rule Movement.
When we toured Dublin, I remembered that bullet holes pointed out in the post office, which I found odd at the time, and started there. What I didn’t expect to discover as I did this research was this call back to Ireland’s identity, and ancient Ireland before the Norman Conquest of 1069 AD. One of the High Kings and great legends, castles, and beauty. Ireland of the ruins I saw, a land of fortresses to defend against Vikings and neolithic structures that seemed impossible to build. I also found a deep Catholic sacrificial nature to this rebellion, an identity so complex it was so much deeper than I was expecting and made me crave more! Even after three months of researching for my thesis, I felt like I had just begun there are innumerable layers to the Irish fight for freedom.
A few semesters later as a junior, I had the opportunity to plan my own independent study. I decided to feed my curiosity about the inspirations behind the Uprising and Gaelic culture revival which began before the fight for Home Rule. I wanted this independent study to help me understand the poets, the language, and the culture. I chose the Early Medieval period from the 5th century to the 11th-century invasion by the English to basically study an overview of how Ireland turned from a pagan faith to Christianity, what this meant to the culture and how did Ireland look during this time of Vikings and High Kings. I dove into the legends of the mythical first Irish that enchant the spirit of the ancient culture. The storytelling and imagination were so beautiful to me. This space before the Normans came and began centuries of despair was so pure to me at the time, like Harry’s first time in Diagon Alley or Hogwarts Castle.
I carried this sense of wonder into adulthood, determined to understand this world of myth and legend deeper. When life gave me a few curve balls and I found myself with empty, looming days of unemployment, this sense of wonder carried me into creativity by starting the Muirin Project site and plotting out the novel Udal Cuain, complete with side journals of the Celtic calendar and character journals to fully immerse the reader in this world of my imagined storybook Ireland that my eight-year-old self wanted to explore. But I didn’t expect it to get so dark, and it did get very, very murky. Not that this is a bad history or unworthy to be studied, but I did learn to be careful of what you open yourself up to.
One Rabbit Riot 