Was thinking about the Dioscuri hunting down Theseus. This is one place I lose traction in my WIP; I'm not sure what spin to put on it. Yesterday I decided to dig into the subject and really get a grip on the multiple versions of what happened. I was trying to feel out what seemed most reasonable, and (just like when I try to feel out anything to do with Mycenaean thrones and inheritance) it got really confusing.*

Then today I was thinking through yesterday's stuff and realized that although I find it all very interesting, nobody else cares. It would be nearly impossible to get it set down in a story without being boring, and actually I could just boil it down to a sentence where we learn Theseus is dead and skip the rest--and then we're ready to move on. Without all the other stuff, the emphasis would shift to a story point: girls have to keep themselves shut away. This would provide a base for an idea (girls have to control themselves so men don't need to control themselves) that builds as the book moves along. I'm thinking I need to try (once again) to simplify because obviously I could wallow down all these byways for years and never come up with a storyline anybody gives a sh*t about.



*This is boring to everybody but me. I don't advise anybody to keep reading from this point.

Basically the main idea of the Helen/Theseus stories is that Theseus raped/kidnapped Helen, the twins' little sister. So they went after him. Sometimes in the various versions there are little pieces that make you go "Huh? Why's that in there?". Those are the pieces I like to look at, because they're sometimes the pieces that are older or that might be lost bits of history.

In myth the twins are generally considered mariners. (In slightly less exalted mentions they're raiders, kidnappers, rapists, and cattle thieves.) So anyway, I'm thinking if they tailed Theseus to Athens (after all, he was the king of Athens), they would have gone by sea because that was a lot easier.

However, they didn't go straight to Athens. They went to Aphidna, which is kind of north of Athens--it's nearer the far coast of the peninsula thingamajig that makes up Attica (which is where Athens is). Huh? Why would stories say they went around the back way, the long way?

It turns out that Theseus was from that area of Attica, and supposedly Aphidna (in some versions) is where he took Helen. Okay, that makes sense. That's why the twins sacked Aphidna then tailed Theseus to Athens where the Athenians opened the gates to them rather than be sacked themselves.

But then I see a version where the twins went to Athens not just through Aphidna but by way of Decelea, another place I never heard of. Turns out Decelea is a town near Aphidna. It doesn't appear to be on the way to Athens. It seems to have nothing to do with Athens or Aphidna or Helen. To me it still looks much easier to sail to the coast near Athens and go straight inland. To me it also makes sense that Theseus would take his kidnap victim to his home turf. But Decelea? Huh?

Turns out Decelea is the town at the mountain pass where trade goods (especially grain) from Eboeia had to pass before they could get to Athens.

Eboeia? Huh?

Turns out Eboeia is the looooong island north of Attica. If you look at it on a map, you can see that it totally blocks Attica from most of the Aegean Sea. Maybe Eboeia had a lot of grain of its own to sell, I don't know--but you can also see that anything at all coming from anywhere in the majority of the Aegean would have come either through or around Eboeia, then through Decelea, to get to Athens. Later in life, (this really happened) the Spartans took and held Decelea and this gave them a stranglehold on Athens. Supposedly the Spartans were always nice to Decelea because of Decelean help during the Theseus problems.

(My vague impressions that Athens was really not a very important place in pre-classical times have become a very strong feeling. Apparently Athens had to make do with whatever they could get overland via more important ports.)

So, stories say that the Dioscuri sacked Aphidna and were helped by Decelea and went to Athens where the Athenians invited them in and said, "We don't like Theseus either, so please don't sack us and we'll get a different king." The Dioscuri didn't sack Athens (some say the Athenians bought them off), and the exiled Theseus disappeared from the stories. Except for one story that he went to stay with the king of Skyros (an island off the coast of Eboeia!) and at some point the king of Skyros shoved him off a cliff.

So. Let's say that the point of all this blah-blah-blah is that Theseus is exiled and then killed by the king of Skyros (who after all had daughters, just as the Dioscuri had sisters). Let's say that the twins know he's dead, their vengeance is complete, and that the whole thing is over and done. Nothing left hanging.

Today I was thinking about all this and realized that nobody would care or need to know about the above, except for the last paragraph--the end result. And that led to the thoughts re. sticking to a simple point.

And this is a very good example of why I have trouble with transitions. I have to think through everything step by logical step, then try to figure out what's the important part storywise.

I did not realize that Road to Perdition was based on Lone Wolf and Cub. But of course it is. D'oh! on me. I guess I need to reread Road to Perdition now, and think about how it took the main story arc of a 28-book series and condensed that down to one novel.

I was thinking about Daigoro, the "cub" who's been raised as a stoical assassin and who has seen every kind of bloodshed, murder, violence, and sex that human beings can perform, even though he's just four years old at the end of the series. Not to mention his father constantly leaves him behind and sometimes leaves him to die. What a messed-up adult Daigoro would grow into.

Worked on writing-related stuff, then sat down to swordfighting WIP. I'm basically just spewing out backstory and going into detail whenever I feel like it, and it's all floating explanation and description with no scenes grounded enough to be truly set. It's almost freewriting. The funny thing is, I'll bet I could go on for a long time just getting all the backstory put down on paper, especially since I'm probably going to go ahead and write out the backstory for at least three characters, and maybe four characters and part of a fifth. Yow. We're talking a loooooong time.

I suppose I'll go ahead and admit to myself that the reason I don't mind doing this is that if I really end up trying to write a (short) series with a clear and finite arc (a la some manga series), I guess I'd better have a grip on the whole entire arc from every POV before I get started. Sad but true. I hope that bus doesn't come along and hit me anytime within the next decade, because I've got a lot to get done.

Spoke to a writer friend and will meet over breakfast to discuss the Vermont lecture and handout I'm preparing. I thought about printing out part of the former GN to show, but quickly nixed that idea because WF has already seen the first 30 or whatever pages a million times, and the rest is in humongous chunks. What I need help with is the very, very big picture, getting the humongous chunks mortared together. I decided to go ahead and print out what I have (the chunks, not the parts I'm messed up about), and maybe take it to breakfast, but mainly I printed it out to keep on hand for when I have time and am in the mood to attempt to see the very, very big picture myself.

Pages 1-68 are one humongous chunk. Then pages 95-176 are one humongous chunk. If you look at either of those, there's something to work with as far as critique. But the inbetween is a mess, and the afterwards is still in early stages and probably doesn't have enough grit for a reader to get much footing on what I'm trying to do with it.

I suspect that if I look back to a year or six months ago I'd see that I had the first 30-40 pages mostly together, and little more than that. So I may be making progress. But I'm not going to go look because who cares what I was doing a year or six months ago? I'd rather be trying to figure out what I need to do next. I guess it's nice to know I have made forward progress, but it would definitely feel better to actually be in the middle of forward progress than thinking about past forward progress.

No writing--or not much, anyway. When I've done any, it's been thingees for the swordfighting ms. My present approach seems to be writing down anything I feel like writing, no matter who it's about or when it takes place. If this continues, at some point I'll have about ten million words worth of cr*p to weed through and pull together. At the moment I don't really care, though. I'm just writing whatever feels fun or good. It's like a stress reliever.

No writing lately. I gave up and decided not to worry about it for a few days. Same with working out; I'm taking a few days off. The well needs to refill.

I started to get p.o.'d about this Dilbert strip:


http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-12-21


but then I thought maybe it was being ironic. Is it? I honestly don't know whether it's meant to be taken at face value or not. Either way, just seeing it stated so baldly makes me wince. Probably because I've heard versions of it all my writing life.

I think maybe the second you dare to call yourself a writer out loud, somebody outside the biz (family, friend, stranger) is going to let you know that you're not really a writer in the eyes of the world until you're J.K. Rowling or Stephenie Meyer. If you're not like them, then you're just not that good.

Come to think of it, maybe this is why some writers get so rabid about tearing down SM. She has the recognition and acceptance they should have had--and they feel that they write better than she does.* And maybe because she's so famous that she doesn't seem human or accessible, it feels okay to rake her over the coals. I can't get into that state of mind, because I met SM as the Twilight thing was really taking off (around the second book, I think? Or maybe between the second and the third? I forget.), and I was impressed by how unimpressed she was with herself. I mean like utterly unimpressed. Even my judgmental over-analytical raking-over-the-coals nose detected no scent of self-congratulation. No underlying oneupmanship. And no complacency. Not even a whiff. And when I think back to how I was with my first few books, even without being an instant raging success, I have to say that Stephenie Meyer's a better man than I am. So to speak.


*To me the question is always: What is the purpose of this ms? What does it want to be? A Stephenie Meyer book has a place and a purpose, and it needs to be well-written in the context of that place and purpose. Another writer's book will have a different place and purpose, and the standard that makes it a "good book" will be different. The money/fame part of it all seems to be randomly bestowed...unless you buy into what the Dilbert strip is saying...

note to self: questions to remember

What is the MC able to do by the end of the book that s/he wasn't able to do in the beginning?

Why is s/he able to do it?

What has s/he realized?

Can't get any traction in my writing. I've been working on the former GN, but it's like I'm turning a gear where the cogs are worn or broken and won't quite slip into place and make the thing move properly. I've got the middle set up more than I ever have before, but it's apparently not ready to click yet as far as creating its own momentum. Dammit.

What is the thing that's preventing it from slipping into place? Something's in the way, here. I need to try to figure out what it is.