Becca Edney's Blog

I'm delighted to announce that one of my short stories has been accepted to - and published in - a new anthology: The Chorochronos Archives!

It's a fun collection of time-travel and alternative-history short stories and you should check it out (and particularly let me know what you think of I Did But Dream).

My project: Random Walk

Camp NaNoWriMo is upon us again!

I originally planned this month to set myself a stretch goal for editing Border Crossing, the sequel to Bladedancer's Heirs which I swear I'll finish one day. However, I've been hammering away at it forever and I think being tired of the sight of it was fuelling some serious writer's block, so I changed my mind at the last minute.

Instead, I've set myself a challenge to write at least 500 words every day on a different prompt, and to keep myself accountable I've made a Wattpad account. If you want to follow along, you can read it at the link at the top of the post.

So for longer than I care to recall, I've known that there was a small bookshop tucked away down a little side passage off the market in my home town. And every time I pass it I've said to myself "I should go check that out sometime." After all, I talk a big line about supporting brick-and-mortar bookshops, and I'm aware of the fact that small independent shops 1) often have a good line in second-hand books, 2) often have unusual books, and 3) should be supported because they're independent small businesses and we need more of them. But it's hard to get into town, I'm often there for a specific reason, and as soon as the thought crosses my mind I forget again. Plus, I'm shy and find it much easier to be anonymous as one of dozens of people walking in and out of a large bookshop.

On Friday, I said to myself that although I had several errands to run in my lunch break, I was going to go into that shop. I was going to prioritise going into that shop. And I did. And although there was an awkward moment because as I'd feared the guy at the counter was really kind and friendly and wanted to make conversation, the place was amazing. It was like a tardis lined on every wall up to the ceiling with books. There was a basement. There were masses of books that I didn't even know I wanted.

I spent way more money than I had been planning, but went home happy and am definitely checking it when I want to browse for books in future.

I recommend that if you have a little bookshop in your town that you've always kind of noticed but never visited, you make a commitment to actually go in there. It's an experience.

I have...

*grabs The Knight Who Saved England: William Marshal and the French Invasion, 1217, Lancaster and York: The Wars of the Roses, and She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth off the shelf *

... a burning...

*buys The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England *

... need.

OK, so full confession this particular obsession was triggered by a TV documentary, not a book, but now I'm reading every book I have on the topic because I want to read all the things.

I often sneer at people who try to bring history and fantasy too close together, despite my conviction that all fantasy writers should read lots of history. That's actually not as much of an opposition as it may seem at first, because most of the time "historically accurate" fantasy isn't. Talking about how one fantasy book is better than another (I mostly see it done with A Song of Ice and Fire and The Lord of the Rings) because it's more historically accurate is nonsensical because there's a big difference between history and fantasy. As I often say, the Anarchy was not known for its dragons.

Often, "historical accuracy" is an excuse for two things: first, ultra-violence. And yes, I can't read a bunch of stuff on the Plantagenets without admitting that they were totally into that. The second is marginalisation of women. You object to the pattern in anything set in any time period pre-1992 or in fantasy of women being invisible except when they're the victims of sexual violence of one sort or another and the response is always "but historical accuracy!"

That's why fantasy writers should read more history. I invite anyone who knows about Maud, Matilda, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, or Margaret of Anjou to say it's unrealistic for a medieval woman to wield political power and make her own decisions, for good or ill, and then I recommend reading She-Wolves as an introduction.

Also, you get to learn about so many cool things that happened, which is good even if you're not planning to write a book. Right now, for me, it's one period in English history. I encourage everyone to go find something in their own history to get obsessed with.

NaNoWriMo is flashing back this week, so I thought I'd take some time to reminisce about how I got into NaNoWriMo and all it's done for me.

When I was a kid, I used to love telling myself little stories, especially when I was trying to get to sleep. Sometimes I'd act them out on my own in the playground - the other kids probably got quite used to me running around pretending to be a Spitfire because my main character was an RAF pilot. I never wrote them down, though, partly because I was too embarrassed in case anyone else should see them and partly because they were generally just the same scene over and over again with little variations. I had never thought I could sit down and write a book.

When I was in sixth form, I heard about NaNoWriMo. I can't actually remember where now, but it sounded like a fun thing to try and I talked to my friends about it to try to get a group together. Back in those days, there was no such thing as Camp NaNoWriMo, and we all agreed that November wasn't a great month to add something to our workload. Instead, we made up our own version: 50,000 words in August.

I won that and then did the real NaNoWriMo that November anyway.

My school WriMo ran one more year, and I did it then too, as well as NaNoWriMo almost every year since then. It was NaNoWriMo that got me writing down the little stories and making them into bigger ones, and NaNoWriMo that helps me improve by challenging myself year on year. The Golden Leaf and Fire and Forest that first year have led to the existence of The Fellowship of Fanatical Female Fantasy Fans, Fear and Vengeance, Queenstone, Swift, Fighting the Madness, Without a Fight, Bold, Sanctuary, The Rescue, The King's Jewel, and Weaver, and hopefully will in future lead to the existence of The Grail Quest, Starships, Battle Academy and many others that I have yet to think of. It indirectly led to the creation of Bladedancer's Heirs , Border Crossing, and Little Archer. It was NaNoWriMo that made me a writer.

So thanks for many happy years, and a fond wish that there will be many, many more.

I've been slowly working my way through A History of Political Theory over the last couple of months. Not only is it a subject I'm generally interested in, having taken a course or two in it at college and now being friends with a philosopher, but it's great bedtime reading.

What it also is is a great source of inspiration. Watching the development of ideas of how government should work and how it should interact with the people and the church is really great when you're writing fantasy because it gives a way to peek behind the curtain.

Conflict over whether a king is a good or a bad king gets much deeper when you've been reading about the source of law and its relationship with the monarchy.

A slightly delayed update on the latest Camp!

This year's first project (and probably second as well) is the continuing editing of Border Crossing, the sequel to Bladedancer's Heirs. I'm now up to Chapter 5 of 16, but it's coming together.

One thing I'm definitely learning is to get beta readers involved early in the process, so I can make all the major changes in one go, rather than having to do multiple editing runs, but things are finally moving.

**SPOILERS FOR THE LORD OF THE RINGS**

I know we're out of romance week, but it's only five days since Valentine's, so I wanted to share a link to an old blog post on my favourite fictional couple: Faramir and Eowyn!

I really like their story just because, while it takes place almost entirely in one chapter inamongst everything else happening in The Return of the King, the characters themselves have been so well developed that that's all J.R.R. Tolkien needs to show us how they can fall in love and how good for one another they truly are. Though it pains me to not name Beren and Luthien, or Tuor and Idril (both from The Silmarillion), or even go into non-Tolkien works and give a really special good word for Darcy and Elizabeth from Pride and Prejudice, it really has to be Faramir and Eowyn.

I recently finished Dracula. Now all I can think of is restarting my urban fantasy series in the same format.

Dash it all, brain, I already have five unstarted projects lined up!

I was going to work on some more writing for Camp NaNoWriMo this month, but at the last minute I decided I need to knuckle down on editing instead. Border Crossing continues to make slow progress!

When it's done I'm thinking of running a giveaway on it and Bladedancer's Heirs to celebrate.