Pride Weekend!

My camera and I got a workout. Here's a short sampling. The whole glorious full color weekend can be found here.








(I've been plotting, but no actual writing. And between Pride last weekend and CONvergence next weekend ... I'll get back on the wagon next week.)

Interesting bits for today

Nefertiti and Ankhenaten formed a divine triad with the Aten, who was genderless. This resolved the problem of an unreachable, unknowable god for the masses who generally revered fertility. As the Aten was genderless, it was sole creator - something difficult to accept. Ankhenaten and Nefertiti, then, were seen as completing the traditional triad. Where, in the previous state faith, this was usually a god, his consort, and his son (see Isis, Osiris, Horus), now it was the creater god and the royal couple. The royal couple was the agent of this fertility, represented by the preponderance of images showing the royal couple with their daughters. Temples to the Aten now, instead of having a figure of the god (who, as literally the *light* of the sun could not have a human/humanoid body) had images of the royal couple. In effect, the state religion became one of worshipping Ankhenaten and Nefertiti as the divine inheritors of the Aten.

All other state deities were outlawed and no offerings were to be made to them (making their temples and clergy poor very quickly, and the throne very wealthy). However, the "minor religion" relating to Bes, Taweret, et al appears to have continued to flourish. Since these were regional deities that were primarily associated with superstition and magic, they posed no threat to the Aten's role of sole creator, and were therefore regarded - by the king, at least, as unimportant.

Tombs, rather than having images of the gods or the inhabitants, began to feature the royal family instead, and they were prayed to even while alive (thus transfiguring the "divine ancestor" narrative of pharoahs to "divine in the flesh.")

I have two story arcs in my head (soon to be written down). When I get the third, I'll be ready to start actually plotting this thing and really writing. I hope to have it all ironed out by the completion of my first read through of Nefertiti. So excited!

Oh, and "Step 2" of the process started as soon as I narrowed down my research to Nefertiti, which was sometime around ... last Friday, I think. My research gathering is now focussed, which is why I've started these (probably boring) posts with research information that I want to not forget. I need to spend some serious time in front of my computer with Liquid Story Binder and a soda or five.

Consecutive days of writing: 008
Longest previous streak: 007
Word count since 4/30/09: 7494

Digging in to Nefertiti

Ew. That was not the most inspired post title ever. Here's what grabbed my attention today:

• The temple-city of Amarna, which was built, then abandoned and destroyed
• Nefertiti comes from obscurity - basically wedded from nowhere - and begins taking on a more substantive role after only a year of Ankhenaten's reign.
• Nefertiti's "sister" - who arises out of similar obscurity, then disappears from the narrative. She is shown in the paintings, but takes no part in the Aten worship.
• Ankhenaten's remarkable "conversion" in his third year - and the enthusiasm with which Nefertiti embraces it.
• The temple at Hwr-benen, where no males - human or animal - are depicted on any of the walls, but Nefertiti and her eldest daughter always are.

Gah! I'm going to have to go through this carefully after I've read it the first time. There's just so many little gems that instantly become plot points, I'll never remember them all.

Consecutive days of writing: 007
Longest previous streak: 007
Word count since 4/30/09: 6508

Today's Daughter of Isis Notes

Professional mourners ... king's "harem" (difficulty in translation) ... honorary priestesses ... assasination orignating in harems ...

Queen Tiy -> Nefertiti (married to Ankenaten) -> Tutankhamen -> Queen Ankhesanamen (see p207) History in (The Royal Harem)

(Female Kings) - good stuff on some of the lesser ones, most interested in Nefertiti's connection to the heretical pharoah and Hatchepsut, of course. Next books should give me something definite, but 18th Dynasty seems the way to go.Queen Tiy being Amenhotep IV mother. He marries Nefertiti, who gradually leaves the picture after her daughter's death, replaced by the "young prince" Sen...something. Author made brief allusion to questions regarding Ankenaten's sexuality, when discussing that there were none with Hatchepsut. Where did Nefertiti come from?

My Muse is working with this, and some of it is becoming clear. Nothing definite, just yet, and I don't want to conscribe it by limiting it on paper. But there's enough ambiguity in that royal line to keep me busy for awhile.

Hatchepsut -> Tiy -> Nefertiti -> Ankhesanamen? Quartet of ruling women, yes, but what's my love story?

Consecutive days of writing: 003
Longest previous streak: 007
Word count since 4/30/09: 6187

Sun Jots

Still reading Daughters of Isis

• the importance of art (no superfluous painting/sculpture) (Introduction)
  
• the sexual division of worship and duties (Work and Play?)
  
• the importance of music (Work and Play)
  
• food and dining, dinner parties, sacredness of bread (Mistress of the House)
  
• making linen (Work and Play)
  
• professional mourners, djeryt (Work and Play)
  
• "trained security monkey" (Work and Play)
  
• pets: dogs, cats, monkeys, geese (Work and Play)
  
• body lotion, perfumes (Good Grooming)
  
• Importance of hair and wigs (Good Grooming)
  
• Kohl as protection from the sun, and other cosmetics (Good Grooming)
  
• jewelry as amulets (hair toys, necklaces, bracelets, anklets, girdles .... earrings?) (Good Grooming)

Consecutive days of writing: 002
Longest previous streak: 007
Word count since 4/30/09: 6007

Djeryt

A kite. Female mourners would dress up like this to represent Isis or Nephthys - representing death.

Nephthys is not a goddess with well-defined characteristics, but she may, generally speaking, be described as the goddess of the death which is not eternal.

From TourEgypt: Nephthys

Conflicts and Empires

I’m slowly honing in on the plot for Suns. Er, sort of plot. Here’s the problem (and this is always the problem): I have characters. I have a world, or at least part of one that I can later flesh out. What happens? What’s the conflict?

Um. Conflict, right. I’m more interested in what’s going on inside people’s heads than I am in the external events. Which makes for fascinating reading for me, but not so much of a novel.

I’m thinking some sort of coup or radical political disaster because, hey, that’s how I lean. Which brings up another thought that gives my brain something to play with: is it possible to write, for an American audience, the tale of a coup that does not succeed? That is, could I write a book that has the established order challenged by an outside force that’s not necessarily evil, and have the established force prevail? How much moral ambiguity do I get to play with there?

Reading the books that I do, they tend to fall under one or the other type: an evil (something) is looking to overthrow the Good Guys, generally with nihilistic intent, and Our Heroes need to stop them. There, that’s most of fantasy. Then, there’s the Evil Corporation/Government/Society that’s repressing the individual, and Our Heroes must overthrow them. That would be science fiction. Can you actually write a book that’s Our Heroes are part of the established regime, and they’re fighting against Someone Else’s Heroes (maybe misguided, but not evil) and Our Heroes manage to keep the current government, etc, etc in charge?

Are we wired now to think that all governing bodies are corrupt and should be overthrown? Or that all that oppose us are necessarily evil and must be repelled? How does that work?

Fantasy may not be the place to explore that … but it might be. And Egypt, where most people were pretty satisfied with the social structure – satisfied enough that it managed to survive mostly intake for nearly 3000 years – might be the place to do it. I can’t work out precisely how that would work, but it’s an idea I’ve been kicking around for awhile. Indeed, it might work better if I ever revive the Mythic Heights project.

Consecutive days of writing: 001
Longest previous streak: 007
Word count since 4/30/09: 5859

A Familiar Quandary

I do this every book I try to write, and nearly every story I conceive of. There are historical time periods that capture my imagination, that spread out before me full of panoply and grandeur – and stories. But I face an impasse: do I use history or do I make it up?

There are virtues to both paths, of course. I can either weave magic into existing British history (a la Judith Tarr), or I can make something up that looks kind of British (a la nearly every epic fantasy novel of a certain type.) I can tie myself to something closely resembling historical events in Venice (think Dangerous Beauty), or I can fashion something that looks like Spain, evolves like Spain, but isn’t Spain (Guy Gavriel Kay, for instance).

I can use the richness of Ancient Egypt and tie myself to the historical facts as recorded, or I can craft something that suits the story better. The advantages to using Egypt-as-it-may-have-been? It’s all there for me. I have the names of the gods, the myths, the rituals, the language. If I make something that suits me better, I get to play with that history, make it something else. I can make Khenepres and Hatsepsut contemporaries. I can have a slave race that may or may not be monotheistic escaping from a brutal tyranny. I can have a princess of another people hiding with the ruling class while a war is fought in her name across the sea. And I can have it all happen at the same time if I want.

But then I have to start from scratch. I need a language, a culture, names. And how much snipping, revising, and phutzing is appropriate? While I don’t think I’d have a line of Egyptian lesbians pounding on my door to tell me how I’ve done it all wrong and treated their culture with disrespect, what if I did the same with something more modern? What if, say, I wanted to create a story about a colonized country breaking free – but still keeping their slaves? Would this revision of early American history – not called that, of course – offend? Or is it all just fiction?

Regardless, I need to make some sort of decision on this, or I will continue to research times and places that fascinate me, make up stories in my head, and then … let them go. Nothing on paper, because I don’t know if it’s tied to history or not. And the bitch of it is, I can’t seem to make up my mind. Last week, I was all set to use Egyptian history as it is now known, and this week, I think I should just mirror it into a different world, so I can make it into the story I really want to tell.

Oh, for Kay’s talent at playing with mythology! If I could just create one world, and make it like our history, only not. Of course, now that I say that, I have Ideas.

Consecutive days of writing: 001
Longest previous streak: 007
Word count since 4/30/09: 5481

Casting the Net

I'm on the first step to researching for Suns now. It's casting the net - using Google-fu and library-fu to find what I need, what I don't need, what I never knew I needed, what I won't possibly use, and what fits precisely and exactly with what I wanted, even though I didn't know it existed.

I'll have a lot of material when I'm done. Most of it will be not precisely trash, but allowed to compost in the back of my brain as not quite necessary just now. For instance - do I want to put my story at the collapse of the Old Kingdom? It has some attractions that fit with the plot, and I could through Exodus in there, which would tickle me. Or do I want to set my story in the New Kingdom? It's glitzier there - faster, fancier. Do I even want to put it at the end of the New Kingdom, and get to play with all the gradeur that was the reign of Ramses II? Or, would I rather make Hetsapsut my backdrop, and imagine what her country was like? What about Ankehaten - the monotheist pharoah? All fascinating time periods, but, like reality tv, all but one will be eliminated, and I won't need the research on that time period - this time around, anyway.

The first round of books and DVDs are winging their way to my home even now. I suspect I'll need a second round, and then I'll make my decision and move on to Step 2. (Which is lacking a good metaphor right now. But it's the step where I'll exhaustively research what is relevant to this story. And start talking to the voices in my head.)

Consecutive days of writing: 001
Longest previous streak: 007
Word count since 4/30/09: 4975

Consumerism and Rites of Passage

Just a little evening armchair sociology. (Of the incredibly pompous and overly simplistic variety, because I'm tired.)

In the absence of ritual, are we buying our rites of passage? Or, since these new rites of passage become ceremonial and ritual, are we using money to substitute for community? Or something like that. I'm tired, and this is the wrong environment for Big Thoughts. However, consider a few ritual purchases: buying your first alcohol on your real government ID; buying your first car; buying your first home. If you believe Blue Cross's new ad campaign: buying your first health insurance. (For me, it was buying my first sofa. I've always been a bit odd.) For that matter, buying your first bedroom set. I would add buying your first cell phone and your first computer, but that's a bit dated now, as I assume that most people under the age of 25 or so are getting their first cell phones and computers from their parents. (I bought my first cell phone sometime in the late 90s. I hated it; my husband insisted. It was the size of the center console of my car. Anyway.)

I bought my first new TV today. Well, Shoryl and I did. I keep thinking this can't possibly be the first time I've bought a TV, but it has to be. My parents obviously had their own; had my husband not had one, I would have remembered being dragged somewhere to get one; EWT and I never had the money. So this must be my first TV.

Huh. I don't think it's a rite of passage, necessarily, but does stand out in my mind. Maybe someday, I'll even buy my first dining room set (I'm on my second sofa purchase).

Consecutive days of writing: 002
Longest previous streak: 007
Word count since 4/30/09: 4685

Blazing Sun

So, er. I went on vacation. It was lovely. I didn't write down a word.

But now. Now I'm back to work. And I've written today, something important. I've started the first Sun novel. Not the actual writing, not yet. But the Muse opened and words flooded me. I saw my protagonist, saw the price she will pay to save her society. I have a glimmer of her love interest. I have a mere inkling of what the other Sun books might be. And I don't even have a name of the competing evils that will be working throughout the books. I haven't - quite - figured out the Kaballah thing yet, but I'm close.

I have a character. I have a first scene (that I don't understand, but can see). I have 442 words that came straight from the Muse through my fingertips. And I'm excited.

Consecutive days of writing: 001
Longest previous streak: 007
Word count since 4/30/09: 4393