Loki's feeling more cooperative today. I think he's just spitefully happy at the research problems I'm having. High fantasy shouldn't have to be researched! But I wanted an authentic Norse-feeling culture, so I had to research Norse dwellings, Norse funerals, and mess around with Icelandic dictionaries. Sigh. Stop laughing at my pain, Loki.
In which the epic journey of blood, sweat, tears, and overly spiteful characters continues.
MORE STATS.
| Wordcount goal: | 3226 |
| Wordcount Today: | Seeing as I counted wrong yesterday, I think it's 936... |
| Wordcount of All Time: | 2650 |
| Words Remaining: | 47,540 |
| Greatest Achievement: | Surviving today...? |
| Greatest Annoyance: | Historical 'accuracies' and researching them. x.X |
So yeah! Today was fun! My outline told me I had to kill the king of the Aesir today, so I set about doing that, and then realized I'd probably need a funeral as well. So, being the kind of person who wants to be faithful to the original myths and the culture that spawned them, I merrily went off to research Norse funerals.
A noble and worthy goal, you must be saying.
I'd be inclined to agree, except I then discovered Norse funeral traditions are not exactly appropriate to put into a YA book. So I had to tweak the funeral a little (my excuse is there aren't enough men in Asgard at the current time to perform these unmentionable...rituals...).
I suceeded in figuring out how I wanted to portray this G-rated funeral at last and was happyfied!
Then I realized I also needed to figure out what Gladsheim, home of the king of the Aesir, looked like.
X.X
WILL THE RESEARCH NEVER END? I'm writing High Fantasy, here, people, I did this specifically to get AWAY from the research.
And this is NaNo, anyways. Research is for July!
But it's too early to cheat on descriptions and such, so off I trundled to look that up...and found nothing useful on the subject of kings' dwellings.
Sigh, okay, I'll just make it an ordinary dwelling, plus all the trappings, right? ...Right. Yep. That's working so far, and I see no need to change it...yet. I'm sure any Norse geeks who read my novel will be horrified at my information, but that's what September's for...editing those mistakes. =P
My apologies for said rant. Loki's laughing his head off at me. You have permission to do so as well if you wish.
Have an excerpt. Said excerpt is totally random and makes little sense out of context and isn't even particularly witty or funny, but whatever.
I saw Honir leaning on the wall outside the door, looking at the floor. Unable to summon a snarky question, I walked up to him and asked, “How is he?”
“Fading quickly.” Honir looked up. “I didn’t expect you to care enough to come. I thought you’d have run off by now.”
I shrugged. “I like to keep people on their toes.”
“He asked for you.”
“Rúni told me.”
“Don’t tell me you actually felt obligated to come see him.”
“…Yes. I did.” I didn’t expect Honir to really understand--the prince had probably never met a day of hardship in his life (and strenuous training with a sword doesn’t count in my humble opinion)--but I had never known either of my parents, and Bor had been a mentor to me. (Not that I took half of his advice, but it’s the thought that counts.)
Besides, I suspected that Odin would find out somehow that Bor had asked for me as well, and if I didn’t go see his father, later Odin would be sighing and talking about how it would have been nice if his father had gotten to see me one last time before he died. Which would (besides make me feel marginally guilty) be awkward. So it was best for me to be here.
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