King Arthur's Sister in Washington's Court
Page 23
Finally, in early 2010 and with the words of my daughter ringing in my ears that I should just shut up and write, I exercised (literally, via treadmill, electronic fitness games, etc.) my way out of my depression and finished the first draft in a handful of months. KASIWC became the single most important project for me to reclaim my writing mojo, and I approached it with the determination of a prisoner who has miraculously come into possession of a shovel with which to attack the dirt floor of his cell. I shall always be grateful to Jessica for her succinct and well-timed reminder of this most basic of writing tenets…and for her suggestions about the wording of this version of my bio.
Fans of my other novels know that research is one of my passions, and KASIWC benefited from this proclivity too. In addition to studying Twain’s style and views as depicted in the texts of The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-day (1873), A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889), and his final novel, No. 44: The Mysterious Stranger (several different versions, published posthumously beginning in 1916), I garnered a wealth of information from the superb biography written by Ron Powers titled Mark Twain: A Life (Free Press, 2005)—which I happened across entirely by chance inside a Barnes & Noble bookstore one day. In this book, Mr. Powers delivers an immense amount of information about America’s iconic author in a manner that that evokes Twain’s style and wit, which served as further inspiration for my own emulation efforts.
I shall not belabor the explanation of every literary choice I made while writing KASIWC, but a few deserve mention here.
The decision to write KASIWC in the first-person narrative style may seem obvious, since Twain wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court in the first person. But for me the choice was not quite the no-brainer that it might have been for anyone else; it is my least favorite style to read, and I had never written anything publishable using this storytelling mechanism. Therefore, the choice became a facet of my mojo-recapturing mission.
Using Queen Morgan as my “eagle I” served an additional purpose of settling a question I’d long harbored about the Arthurian legends: how could two siblings who had sustained such a lifelong and vicious enmity toward each other (as depicted in Le Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory) reach the point in their relationship where one is willing to sacrifice everything to heal the mortally wounded other? Perhaps a simpler explanation lies rooted in the dynamics of sibling relationships, of which I have no experience, being an only child. For me, however, the development of the relationship between Queen Morgan and King Arthur as I portray it in KASIWC made the most sense.
Another facet of the reclamation of my writing mojo, which ultimately impacted development of the novel version of KASIWC, entailed my learning how to write screenplays. For the record, adapting any book—to say nothing of trying to adapt one’s own novel—to the medium of the big screen is nowhere near as easy as it sounds! I gained a new respect for screenwriters, and you’ll not hear me wail, “But the movie isn’t at all like the book!” Of course it isn’t; they are two different media, with their own unique structures and requirements. But as a clueless newbie, and at the insistence (read: hounding) of my son Jon, the budding filmmaker, in the spring of 2011, I bought a copy of Final Draft script-formatting software and sat down to start cranking out pages.
Fifty pages in (are we sensing a trend here?), I had no idea how to proceed any further. By sheer chance, less than two months later, I was attending the annual convention of the Romance Writers of America, where—again by chance (are we sensing another trend yet?)—I happened across the workshop presentations by scriptwriting consultant Michael Hague. Though geared toward a novel-writing audience, his lectures about the presentation of the plot and characters’ development as tied to percentages of the target page length of any given work were precisely what I needed to hear. Glowing with my newfound knowledge, I returned home from New York City and completed the first draft of the KASIWC screenplay in one week.
My son read the script, made some suggestions, and encouraged me to write an adaptation of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. This script, though aimed toward strengthening the ties between it and KASIWC, most notably in the beefing up of the roles of Queen Morgan and her sixth-century lover, Sir Accolon, comes the closest to Twain’s original vision of any feature-length version that I have ever viewed. Jon said, “These are good, Mom. Now go write a third.” Hence, following a five-minute argument best condensed as, “But I only envisioned this project as a duology!” The Once and Future Queen was born, which I plan to novelize after the trilogy of screenplays is purchased; or perhaps sooner, as the situation warrants. And I have my son to thank for pushing me in this wild and wonderful new direction.
Once I get a few more writing projects off my desk, I will return full attention to these screenplays to polish (read: be brutal with) them and ship them to producers. Of course, any producer reading this who would like to submit an inquiry is welcome to do so! I’m not hard to find online. A good place to start is my blog, The Maze of Twisty Passages.
My choice to scrub out all references to Major League Baseball™ teams and terms for the novel edition of KASIWC, to avoid any whiff of licensing and/or trademark infringement issues, is not reflected in its screenplay, where, for example, the New York Yankees™ appear in all their dark-blue-pinstriped™ glory in the epic 2088 World Series™ battle versus Queen Morgan’s London Knights™. (Yes, even the teams’ names, nicknames, logos, uniform designs, color combinations, mascots, and slogans are trademarked or service marked by the MLB™. Now I’m certain you understand™ my™ caution™.)
In conclusion, this Ghost’s Writer would be remiss without giving grateful nods to the non–family members of my team who labored to help me bring this book to fruition:
Deb Taber, my peerless and utterly fearless editor, who performed her own research to deliver a version of KASIWC edited to Twain’s nineteenth-century grammar and punctuation styles that awes me to this day.
The artist team of Jennifer Doneske (The Royal Portraitist) and Tom Doneske (The Creature King), whose memorable illustrations bring the KASIWC characters and their environs to life in a way I never could have envisioned on my own.
Judith Harlan of Lucky Bat Books, who researched Twain’s first edition of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court to establish for the print edition the trim size, fonts, margins, line spacing, indentations, and other layout choices to come as close as possible to emulating that classic edition, a 125-year-old copy of which sits peering over my shoulder as I write this.
Caprisha Page, the enthusiastic and talented voice artist who submitted a recording for the audiobook edition of KASIWC less than a day after I had opened it for auditions—and who nailed the persona of Queen Morgan right from the start.
Thank you all for embarking upon this journey with me.
kih, 22 August 2014
Wytheville, Virginia
Stories make us greater.