This is a blog about writing a novel. I've been working, on-and-off, on a sort of a pulp fantasy romance murder mystery with profound things to say about duty, honor, love, spirituality, magic, ethics, and leadership for, oh, about a decade now. It's called The Weathermaster's Tale, and I'm writing it under the pen name Peter Cooper Hay (Cooper being my maternal grandmother's maiden name and Hay being my great-grandmother's maiden name).
I've been stalled for the last couple...three...maybe four years. But it's not like I'm not writing. I write a lot. But what I write is a journal, and essays on theology (over at a blog called Quaker Pagan Reflections) and write-ups from a role playing game (at yet another web site called Alethe.org). The thing that's different about that kind of writing is that the pieces are short, so the task of writing can be accomplished in a weekend. The novel got its start in a similar fashion. A scene would come to me, I'd write it up, and when I had a few of them I'd stitch them together. But the next piece that has to be written is a big chunk. There's a minor character who kind of got pulled into events so that she plays a major part, and I need to make her into a major character. That means I need to learn more about her. A lot more.
I've been reading the Anchor Bible version of the Old Testament and writing commentaries as I go. Learning about Hebrew history and theology is at least as big a task as learning about women in seventeenth century China, but I'm able to do it and have fun with it because I can read a bit, write a bit, and read a bit more, and people respond to my writing. I don't know if anybody will respond to anything I say here--I don't know if anybody but me will ever read this--but I want to try to get into the read a bit, write a bit mode with China as well.
The character's name (provisionally) is Hu Tien. Thus the name of the blog. So who is Hu, anyway?
I've been stalled for the last couple...three...maybe four years. But it's not like I'm not writing. I write a lot. But what I write is a journal, and essays on theology (over at a blog called Quaker Pagan Reflections) and write-ups from a role playing game (at yet another web site called Alethe.org). The thing that's different about that kind of writing is that the pieces are short, so the task of writing can be accomplished in a weekend. The novel got its start in a similar fashion. A scene would come to me, I'd write it up, and when I had a few of them I'd stitch them together. But the next piece that has to be written is a big chunk. There's a minor character who kind of got pulled into events so that she plays a major part, and I need to make her into a major character. That means I need to learn more about her. A lot more.
I've been reading the Anchor Bible version of the Old Testament and writing commentaries as I go. Learning about Hebrew history and theology is at least as big a task as learning about women in seventeenth century China, but I'm able to do it and have fun with it because I can read a bit, write a bit, and read a bit more, and people respond to my writing. I don't know if anybody will respond to anything I say here--I don't know if anybody but me will ever read this--but I want to try to get into the read a bit, write a bit mode with China as well.
The character's name (provisionally) is Hu Tien. Thus the name of the blog. So who is Hu, anyway?
