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Writing

Author’s journal: The Battle of Holy River

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Statue of St. Olaf on Nidaros Cathedral, Trondheim.

Tonight you’ll get a bit of authorial journaling, since nothing better occurred to me. The other day I topped 40,000 words on my work in progress, The Baldur Game. I’m adapting saga material here (whether historically factual or not), and I don’t think I can do much harm describing some of the challenges involved.

The Battle of Helgeå (Holy River) happened some time in the period from 1025-1027 AD. Snorri Sturlusson, in Heimskringla (the sagas of the Norwegian kings) seems to place it in 1026. I actually spent some time analyzing the chronology and decided to use the same year – mostly because it fitted my plot. But I think it’s a good guess. We know King Knut the Great was in Rome for Conrad II’s coronation as Holy Roman emperor the following year.

The battle itself seems to have actually happened (contemporary chroniclers mention it), but the details are sparse and debatable. Snorri tells an elaborate tale about a sophisticated stratagem Olaf used to trick Knut (and Erling too, of course, since he was in Knut’s fleet), but the actual practical effects seem minimal, even in Snorri’s account. It’s treated as a great victory for Olaf, but in fact it only bought him a chance to escape – ultimately without his ships, which he left in the Baltic (Denmark, as I keep reminding people, controlled the Baltic outlets, the source of its power), going back to Norway overland and wearing his shoes out.

I’m not going to detail Olaf’s clever battle stratagem here. Wouldn’t want to spoil it for you; you can just wait for the novel. (Or read Heimskringla.) It doesn’t really work with the physical features of the topography at the mouth of the real Helgeå, which is one reason scholars have proposed alternate locations.

I’ve decided to stay with the traditional battle site, in eastern Skåne (part of Sweden today but Danish at the time). I’ll have to contrive some kind of fantasy device to epic-afy the whole business, but I intended to do that anyway. So far this first draft is a little light on the fantasy element, and my readers expect some mermaids and monsters. (I have to keep reminding myself that this is not a problem. I always tell aspiring writers that they need to remember that a first draft is just raw material. Doesn’t have to be perfect. Doesn’t even have to be good. It’s what you start with. Somebody (I don’t recall who) said, “Stories aren’t written – they’re re-written.” The revision process is as important as the first draft – maybe more important. It depends, I suppose, on what kind of a writer you are.)

I’m still less than half-way through writing this draft, but I’m OK with that. This is meant to be my big book. My epic. My War and Peace, or Atlas Shrugged, or something. I’ve begun work and I’m making steady progress. I possess few virtues, but finishing projects is something I do seem to be able to do.

Uncategorized, Writing

The transmission lockdown, continued

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I’m reading a book right now that I’m enjoying very much. But it’s long. Looooooooong. So the stream of consciousness blogging must continue, regardless of the cost in pain and suffering to our audience.

On the automobile front, my car, Miss Ingebretsen, yet languishes in durance vile, in the transmission shop. I learned today that the transmission itself is all right. It’s the shifter that’s broken. They’re trying to find me a used shifter, and I guess those things must be harder to find than you’d expect. Maybe tomorrow. Otherwise I’ll have to use Door Dash for groceries again.

If you skipped the video above, take a minute to watch it. It’s not much longer than that. It’s the Dragon Harald Fairhair, the big Viking ship I hoped to see in Duluth a few years back, but was disappointed. Seriously, was anything ever more romantic than that graceful ship cutting through a stormy sea? That (or the idea of it, anyway) was what surprised me by joy nearly 60 years ago, making me a lifelong Viking nut, and pointing me to my destiny, as a highly peripheral figure in the world of Norwegian history, literature, and entertainment. And, oh yes, a novelist.

I can report that I’m still working on the new Erling book, King of Rogaland. Its current status hovers in a weird space where the book is essentially written, but far from finished. We speak of “polishing” a manuscript, and that’s what it is. Very like sanding wood. Going over the same surface again and again, smoothing out the rough spots. I’ve got a few passages where I’ve left out place names I still need to select, with a map. And there are joints that aren’t tight. Once this current pass is finished, working onscreen, I think I need to print the next draft out, and labor over it on paper. Some things work better with a red pen and notes and swoopy arrows. Especially when you need to hunt through the pages multiple times.

Also, I’ve never gotten a splinter polishing a manuscript.

Writing

Research and re-writing

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Today has been, and continues to be, a heavy work day. I have an assignment from Oslo, not for a translation, but a sort of research job. I’m scanning through a very long document, extracting relevant passages into a separate document.

Not uninteresting. And it will take a while. Which is nice, since my time for translation will be curtailed when I go on jury duty. That promises a healthier paycheck at the end of the month.

Today’s Writer’s Aggravation:

There’s an article in the current Writer’s Digest about finding time to write, and writing faster. And it’s a good article, all in all. Lots of handy tips that are likely to be useful to aspiring authors.

What annoys me is the closing line. It goes like this: “And with nine minutes a day, you can arrive at The Sound and the Fury (97,000 words) in just under four months.”

That’s inspiring, but overpromising, friend. I’ll grant that it might be possible to finish a first draft in four months, employing the methods suggested. But that first draft will not be a novel. You’ve still got another year (or six months, anyway) of revising. It’s great to finish a first draft. I’ve often said that getting that one thing done is (to my way of thinking) the most important milepost in the process of writing a book.

But books aren’t written – they’re re-written. Heaven help the agent who gets that 97,000 first draft in the email from some nine-minute-a-day writer who thinks that’s sufficient.

Writing

Writing Update, ‘The Elder King’

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Last night I finished another revision of The Elder King, my latest Erling Skjalgsson novel, and sent it off to my faithful First Readers. I still have no idea when it’ll be released, but we’re that much closer.

This has been a periodic Lars Walker novel writing update. Thank you for your support.

Publishing, Writing

Status report

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I owe you an update. You know I’m done with my graduate work. That’s kind of an annoyance, in a way, because I’d gotten used to using school as an all-purpose excuse. “Gee, I’d like to help you move on Saturday, but golly, I’ve just got so much homework to do!”

Hard on the heels of that consummation, I was asked to do another edit on the Viking book I translated. I did that, and then when I had sent it in I re-considered and asked to have it back for one more pass. Because I like to do these things right. I have an idea that this translation will be a large part of the footprint I leave behind in this life.

Yesterday they sent me a draft cover for the book (to be called Viking Legacy, by Torgrim Titlestad). I’d share it with you, but I don’t have permission to. And it’ll probably change anyway. But I felt a quiet swelling of pride in my chest when I saw it. It’ll be good. Watch for it. This fall. Sometime.

Looks like I’ll be having some more translation work to do in the future too. I’m going to have to work out how to balance that with my novel writing.

I have been working on the next novel too, though. The problem is that this one’s a toughy. Of all the books in the Erling series, this will be the hardest to plot. It involves the lowest point in Erling’s life, and by extension in Father Ailill’s. I’ve got to figure out how to keep this one from combining the optimistic sparkle of Dostoevsky with the cheery fun of Game of Thrones.

Last night one of the characters did something I didn’t see coming. I’m still working out (while time is paused in his world) how Ailill will react.

So I shall not want for work to do.