TLDR: My postgrad course is fabulous, I wrote a short story based on greek mythology (scroll down a bit to read it!), I’m as obsessed with The Last of Us as everyone else, and I just started playing God of War.
TALES FROM THE MA
Last month I announced that I was returning to postgraduate study with an MA in Writing Genre Fiction in an attempt to combat the creative rut and minor career/existential crisis I found myself mired in last year. I’m now four weeks into the course, and I’m thrilled to report that it’s already reignited my brain with ideas, passion and techniques to improve my (very bad!) creative process.
My creative process, in case you’re new here (hi!) or need a refresher (fair), is generally to doodle an outline on a scrap of paper, give up halfway through, write a torturous first draft, scrap that, take what I learned in writing that draft to write a new draft from scratch, then do that until it’s good enough to fix typos, then release.
To be fair, this is also what Taika Waititi says he does with his film scripts (bar the Marvel ones) so it’s not a TERRIBLE system. It’s just very long. Unnecessarily so, one could argue. And after bashing my head against it all of last year, one does.
So now I’m learning how to approach pre-writing in a way that works for me. This means working on character development, themes, motifs, story and subtext before I start work on that first draft. Which sounds obvious, I know. And I’ve always known this is the most effective way to approach writing. It’s something I’m perfectly capable of doing when I do contract work for other people, for some reason. But when it comes to my own, solo projects? My impatience to get on with the draft has always won out. So I’m learning patience, and most importantly, I’m learning how to proceed in my work with purpose.
‘Purpose’ is actually the unofficial motto of this course, going by how often my teachers say it. And I’m making it my official motto going forward, because my lack of it perfectly explains how I got into my awful rut last year. I’ve been working as a freelance writer for so long, accepting pretty much any job or opportunity offered to me, that I forgot to think about what I want to do and say with my work.
But I’ve had a good think about what I want to say and who I want to be as a writer (it was a mandatory exercise in our first week of the MA) and this what I’ve come up with so far:
My purpose as a writer is to create immersive, dark, emotional, but ultimately healing stories built around unlikely heroes through the mediums of long-form narrative and screenplays.
I want to tackle themes such as mental health, abuses of power, environmental destruction, trauma, capitalism, and complex family relationships through the lenses of fantasy, horror, sci-fi and historical fiction while exploring the ways these genres can enhance each other when used in cohesion.
Through my writing, I hope to engender empathy and community with my readers by presenting worlds in which they are free to exist as they are and heal from the world they’ve left behind.
So here’s my very first offering as that writer. A 500-word short story that takes inspiration from the story of Apollo and Daphne. This was submitted as a part of our two-week study of first-person narrative.
If you’ve never heard of Daphne, the story in short is that she was a beautiful naiad and priestess sworn to chastity — a vow Apollo didn’t think applied to him. When he pursued Daphne, she ran and begged her father to help her. He turned her into a tree (the very first laurel tree) and upon seeing her new form, Apollo decided to use wreaths of laurel as his personal emblem.
Yeah. He tries to assault a woman, she asks her dad for help, and since he can’t stand up to a god he turns her into a tree rather than let her be violated. But she still is! Just in another way. And Apollo, of course, suffers no consequences.
So I wanted to explore the trauma of a woman famous in the Western Literary canon for ‘escaping’ sexual assault, and whose sacrifice was co-opted by her attacker as his personal emblem… but I also wanted to give her a little bit of hope and community, too. Let me know how I did!
It has been over a hundred years since anyone stood beneath me, and by my own design. I have spread my roots deep, whispered to the forest around me to grow into a fortress in which I can tend my resentment for the one who put me here in peace.
A god, they called him. Petulant monster would be more accurate.
He loved me as soon as he noticed me, he said. Such a love could not be denied or refused, he said.
What could I do but run? And when he followed, what could I do but beg my father to protect me? He was a god himself, lesser but still capable of some magic. He did all he was able to do.
In one agonising moment, my body changed. Flesh to wood, skin to bark. My pursuer fell to his knees beside my new form, pressing his pouting lips to my ridges. I was still beautiful to him even like this, he said, cutting long lengths of my flesh to fashion into a wreath. He set it in his curls as a visual symbol of our love, swearing that he would be back often to refresh it.
I never saw him again. It was his one, unintentional mercy. But too many others came in his wake. Songs had been composed based on the god’s version of my story, and I became a monument to chaste love. The pathetic creatures who came to whisper the name of their heart’s desire into my knots and whorls could not hear the mouthless curses I howled in response. They could not understand that the sap that dripped from every branch they tore without asking to burn in tribute was my blood, my pain. And so I spent centuries growing an endless thicket to keep them out.
But here she stands, a woman so tall and beautiful she could be a goddess, though she lacks their tell-tale glow of entitlement. She takes a golden knife from her belt and asks permission to touch me with it. She is the first. I grant it with a quiver of my leaves.
She tells me her story as she cuts a small branch. The god has hurt her too. He has hurt many while I have stood forgotten, but she has learned his secret and she will hurt him tenfold. She sets the knife to her own forehead and makes a second slice, pressing it to the wound she has made in me.
My sap mixes with her blood. The swearing of such an oath is its own breed of magic, more ancient and powerful even than the gods.
She will use that power to undo him, she promises, in my name and hers. She will even use it to free me, if I consent to be freed.
My leaves shiver in acceptance. I brace myself for the agony of transformation. Welcome it. We will return it to him soon enough.
READ ANY GOOD BOOKS LATELY?
SO MANY! January was absolutely full of book bangers. Here’s what I read, in order.
Her Majesty’s Royal Coven, a contemporary fantasy about modern witches that somehow manages to be a fun read and a searing indictment of the transphobic rhetoric ravaging the UK (and the US and Australia and everywhere else…) written by British trans woman, Juno Dawson.
Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes, a sharply funny and empathetic historical fantasy rendition of the story of Medusa, as told by the women and goddesses involved or around the edges of her life.
The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin (reread), a genre-defining science fantasy following a woman hunting her husband through the world’s latest and greatest apocalypse after he murders their infant son.
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler, a modern classic of speculative dystopian fiction that follows a young woman who creates a healing new religion as society crumbles into violent chaos.
Undercover by Tamsyn Muir, a fantastically gory horror novella about an agent who goes undercover in a mobster bar to make contact with a ghoul.
A Memory Called Empire, a cerebral space opera about an ambassador who travels to the heart of the empire to solve the mystery of her predecessor’s disappearance.
The Six Deaths of the Saint by Alix E. Harrow, a gorgeously dreamy fantasy novella about a female knight who repeatedly encounters the saint of death.
The Deep by Rivers Solomon, a fantasy novella about mermaids descended from pregnant slaves thrown overboard to drown during the slave trade.
The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson, a brutal YA riff on Stephen King’s Carrie examining racism in the modern-day American south.
The Children of Jocasta by Natalie Haynes, a historical fiction retelling of Sophicles’ Oedipus the King and Antigone side by side, from new perspectives.
I Want To Die But I Want To Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Sehee (translated by Anton Hur), the memoir of a young Korean woman who obsessively tapes her therapy sessions, and
The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, a lush Historical Sci-Fi riff on The Island of Doctor Moreau.
January is always my least-busy month, so it felt good to use it to fill my brain with great books. May they serve as inspo for the year ahead!
I’ve also been reading Robert Fagles’ translation of The Iliad and recapping each chapter on TikTok, which has been a surprising amount of fun. The reason I’m reading the Iliad? Well, other than a current hyper fixation on Greek mythology…
It’s research!
I’ll tell you what for soon…
WHAT ABOUT TV AND MOVIES?
Do I really need to say it? I’m as glued to The Last of Us as everyone else in the world. I’m a big fan of it’s showrunner and writer Craig Maizin (he also wrote all of the absolutely gutwrenching Chernobyl and a stellar episode of Mythic Quest) so I had full faith that it would be a faithful and competent adaptation at the very least. And he and the team have given us SO MUCH MORE than the least. This show is a masterclass in taking source material and dialling its themes and heart up to eleven, while making it all fit its new medium. Seriously, I have not one single note.
And yes, I have already ordered merch in the form of a Bill and Frank sweatshirt.
I’ve also started Poker Face, starring Natasha Lyonne. I worship the ground Natasha Lyonne walks on and I yearn to have her hair and every outfit she wears on this show and Russian Doll, and she is absolutely perfect in the role of a scruffy woman on the run from a vengeful millionaire. The hook of the show is that she can sense when people are lying — it’s not so much a superpower as a weird but infallible quirk — and it (paired with her inability to leave things alone) leads her into acting an unofficial private detective. So we get a super fun case of the week set up while she tries to hide from a powerful man who very much wants her dead. It’s got great writing, great characters and great style. It’s a hearty recommendation from me.
Oh, and I watched My Cousin Vinny for a fun 90’s throwback. I don’t like to let nostalgia rule my life, but there’s something about 90’s film structure that just WORKS for me. And you can’t go past Joe Pesci and the STUNNINGLY hilarious Marisa Tomei.
PLAYING ANY VIDEO GAMES?
I finally got around to playing Hades, which I’d been avoiding because I’m not a big fan of dungeon crawlers. But this game is SO MUCH FUN, with gorgeous design and an unbelievable amount of character dialogue and randomisation that stops the crawling from becoming monotonous. Also, the music rocks. The game also rewards you for failing (in fact, you cannot succeed at this game without failing dozens of times — minimum) which is an incredible game mechanic and quite a nice bit of commentary on, y’know. Life.
And I just this week started God of War, because the first one (the PS4 reboot/relaunch) was on special and I like stories where grumpy dad’s learn to emote at their children. I’m only a little way past the intro area, but I’m really enjoying it so far.
GOT ANY PHOTOS OF YOUR DOG?
Smithers loves (and is very gentle with) plushies, so when we saw a big ol’ octopus in IKEA we couldn’t resist. They’re now firm friends.
Until next time!
x