Shrugging off that old skin

I’ve been doing a lot lately, changing things in my life, exploring and traveling. It’s just that time in the cycle of my life, time to do and change.

I haven’t taken a lot of time for reflecting on these changes, what the long-reaching consequences are, how my philosophies and theories need to change to reflect the person I am now instead of the person I was. This means that sometimes, I get trapped in the old skin. I am not as forgiving of that other person as I need to be. Old coping mechanisms are there for a reason and I need to be patient with overturning them. With more reflection will come more changes, I’m sure.

In writing news, I’ve reached a number of decisions about the trilogy.

The good news is that all of my first readers agreed about one of the main problems in all three of these books — namely — the main character Derik.

Derik has been a problem for me since day one. David Coe asked me years ago when I was writing this book which of my characters was my favorite. I realized in horror that I loved Peri, Sa’el and Jorg, but I only kind of liked Derik. He bored me, and he bored my first readers.

However, I love his arc. I love his problem. I want to keep that as much as possible. Namely, I want to write about a second child, the middle child. The one who doesn’t have an easy place in the family, who must carve out their identity and space. The one who is between things, and can never settle for an absolute.

The way I’m fixing my Derik problem is a gender-swap. Derik shall become Dagna. I questioned for a long while whether this was a cheap trick on my part — exchanging the bright shiny but not really addressing the issues. When I easily fell into her back story and started extrapolating, and soon realized that I knew more about her in two days than I had about Derik in four years, I realized I was onto something. She’s so much more real to me.

Her arc is pretty much the same, but more tense and complicated. She’s a failure to her father: when they discover she’s a lesbian (in a scandalous manner) that blows his chance to marry her off politically. She still has foresight, but not the kind that can be trained at the temple, so she’s a failure as a priestess, and can’t be used for power that way. She’s not a scholar, not really a good cook or good at keeping a house, though she’s been trained. She really wants to be a farmer, which her politically minded father can’t stand.

Yeah. Like that. The story just goes on and on. I hear her voice so much better than Derik’s. I know her character better. She *has* character, and is a stubborn shit. She defies her father, who is her king, as well as her family, before we meet her. She’s just so much more interesting.

Derik started as nothing in many ways and became something. She’s starting as something, and becoming something else.

The challenge before me is to make her more active, not just going along with things. That’s one of the things I’m looking at right now — making every scene more active. I think, now that I have a better character, that’s going to be easier.

Of course, I have to do this in only one month. . . *sigh*

Back to work.

I hope that all of you have had a wonderful weekend!