Following the Lines

I've been doing family research for many years and have ran into many gaps or holes in the lineage or even incorrect or inconsistent information or dates. Imagine my interest when I managed to trace my lineage back to (potentially) 620 A. D. I've just been tracing the lines that others have put out there, but I have no reason to believe that it's all that wrong when I've found historical references to back it up.


So, to "celebrate" (of a sort) discovering my Viking roots, I give you a poem. ;)


The earliest surviving reference to the term "berserker" is in Haraldskvæði, a skaldic poem composed by Thórbiörn Hornklofi in the late 9th century in honour of King Harald Fairhair, as ulfheðnar ("men clad in wolf skins"). This translation from the Haraldskvæði saga describes Harald's berserkers:

I'll ask of the berserks, you tasters of blood,

Those intrepid heroes, how are they treated,

Those who wade out into battle?

Wolf-skinned they are called. In battle

They bear bloody shields.

Red with blood are their spears when they come to fight.

They form a closed group.

The prince in his wisdom puts trust in such men

Who hack through enemy shields.

I guess this could explain why (in part) I've always been fascinated with Norse mythology and history.

World Building

I've been trying to do more world building. I decided to take a step back and make sure I've answered the important questions (or answered them clearly enough) that need answers before I can put together a truly comprehensive story. I discovered that I had a lot of things to answer. Perhaps all the details won't make it into the book (or books if I get that far) but I'm not sure that really matters. Knowing a bit more about who and what I'm writing about, and how it all fits together is more important.

So, here are just some of the questions I've been asking myself:

• What's the primary focus? What's the heart of the story? 
• Who is (are) the protagonist/s?
• Who are the heroes/antiheroes/villains?
• Where does everything take place? What do these places look like, smell like, feel like?
• What are the dangers?
• What are the wonders?
• What do they celebrate?
• How do they mourn?
• What do they do with their dead?
• What is their form of government?
• What is the food like?
• What are the traditions?
• What is socialization like between the various people based on gender, age, status?
• What are their homes built of?
• How do they light their homes?

I could go on, but I began to see how much I had yet to flesh out before I could truly sit down and sketch out what really should happen. I have no doubt the characters will guide the story to an extent, but I don't want to find myself lost in my second book (should I do one) and realize that I implied things in the first that weren't true etc. By knowing more about what all exists and how it works, I think I'll have a much easier time putting all of the pieces together.

10 Minute Exercise

I purchased a book recently that has some good exercises (from what I've read so far) for writing. It's called Write Great Fiction -Revision and Self-Editing by James Scott Bell. It advises "warming up" before writing, so during my lunch, I thought I'd give it a shot.  So here it is, an (interrupted) ten minutes with no real edits.

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I remember the bits of sunlight streaming through the trees in the woods. Each one speckled with wisps of fog and streaked with the edges of shadow. They were a welcome respite from the constant silence and darkness that we had just traveled through. It was a great relief when we, at last, heard the first sounds of life beyond our own footsteps crunching in the foliage. Bird and insect sounds floated on the air, much like the sunbeams, in bits and pieces as if breaking through the cracks in the shadowed barrier. I began to feel lighter as if the air pressure itself was lifting from my head and shoulders. There was a relief swelling in my breast and I breathed out as if I had been holding my breath for too long. My lungs burned slightly as I exercised them in an effort to breathe the suddenly cleaner air. The freedom I didn't realize I was yearning for was so close and tears began to come unbidden to my eyes. As I took the last steps that would bring me into the light, my surroundings fell into darkness once more, swallowing me back into despair.