Story of a Friend Crush (or, Ari and Siegfried Sassoon, Part I)

If you know me in real life, or follow me on Twitter or Tumblr, you’ve probably seen me gushing about some old dead guy named Siegfried Sassoon over the past few months. And if WWI or war poetry aren’t your thing, you probably haven’t the faintest idea why I’m so excited.

So today, I’ve decided to fill you all in a bit. Who is this Sassoon fellow and why should you care? Well, if my fascination with WWI is an addiction, then Siegfried Sassoon was one of my gateway drugs.

And what a poetical BAMF of a drug. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

This is how it happened:

Last semester (fall of 2012), I took a course on total war in Europe from 1914-1945. Our midterm assignment was to read two WWI memoirs or novels and write an essay comparing them. I opted to re-read All Quiet on the Western Front (since I hardly remembered a thing about it) and Henri Barbusse’s Under Fire, a book published during the war and the first novel to depict life in the trenches as it really was. My professor was an ardent fan of Barbusse (like, he wrote the introduction for the edition that I got out of the library), so I figured it was a good option.

But when I started reading, I just couldn’t get into it, at least in part due to the translation (I think I would have enjoyed it more in its original French), and also partly due to the voice. Whereas the narration of Paul Bäumer in All Quiet had gripped my attention from the first page, I found myself pushing my way through each chapter of Under Fire with the grim determination of a soldier slogging through mud in the trenches. It got to the point where I lamented to my friend Sophia over dinner one day that I despaired of ever finishing it in time to write a paper on it.

“Do you have to read this book?” she asked.

“No, but I have to read a book, and my professor likes this one, so–”

“Well, that’s just silly. Go pick another book that you like.”

Easier said than done. I recall staring at the list of titles in my course packet, with little to no idea what each one was about. But the name Siegfried Sassoon jumped out at me a bit (as it tends to do). I remembered him from our readings on shell-shock, and flipping back through my packet, I reread his story as it was sketched out there. An interesting fellow indeed. And Mr Sassoon had written a memoir called Sherston’s Progress, and it was on my reading list.

Well…

I frowned at his picture there in the packet for a bit, shrugged, then returned Under Fire and checked out Sherston’s Progress.

To call this a “good decision” would be a drastic understatement.

Right from the beginning, I genuinely WANTED to keep reading. It wasn’t just that Sassoon’s voice was charming (though it was). It wasn’t just that I liked the writing (though I did). It wasn’t just that I was interested in the story (though I was). The most salient part of my experience as I read was how much I grokked this man. I got him. I don’t know how else to explain it. His thought processes, his sense of humor, his flaws and foibles, his self-acknowledged self-contradiction—they all made perfect sense to me, because they were mine too. My suitemate Hana can attest to the fact that I spent an afternoon and an evening on the couch in our common room delightedly spouting quotes at her whenever she walked into the room. “I love this guy,” I told her. “I love the way he thinks!” It was the feeling of walking in someone else’s footsteps on a beach and finding it the most natural thing in the world because that person’s legs moved just the way yours do.

Sherston’s Progress is actually the third part of Sassoon’s fictionalized memoirs, the first two parts being Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man and Memoirs of an Infantry Officer. I was dying to read them as well, but given the volume of work I had, I couldn’t afford to get hooked on a non-academic book. I contented myself with reading Wikipedia articles and such in my non-existent spare time. The more I learned about Sassoon and the First World War and the other war poets (Robert Graves, Wilfred Owen, etc.), the more fascinated I became, and as NaNoWriMo approached, I was struck by the notion of writing a story set in the trenches. The idea was inspired in part by a poem of Sassoon’s (called “Sick Leave”) which begins:

“WHEN I’m asleep, dreaming and lulled and warm,
They come, the homeless ones, the noiseless dead.
While the dim charging breakers of the storm
Bellow and drone and rumble overhead,
Out of the gloom they gather about my bed.
They whisper to my heart; their thoughts are mine.
‘Why are you here with all your watches ended?
From Ypres to Frise we sought you in the Line…’”

Arthur, my protagonist, is definitely not Sassoon, but I did draw a lot of ideas from Sassoon’s experiences. And what experiences might those be? Tune in later this week for the crazy story of Sassoon’s life during the war, and then finally, the tale of how I got to “meet” Sassoon last Thursday.

Missed part of the Ari and Siegfried Sassoon series? Here’s the rest:

Part I: you’re here!
Part II: Mad Jack, Poet, Soldier, Non-Spy
Part III: Shellshock and Poetry
Part IV: A Tale of Letters and Libraries

And because I’m curious, dear readers and raptors: Do any of you have a friend crush on a historical figure? Or a crush-crush? (I wouldn’t classify my interest in Sassoon as a crush-crush, but for or those of you who are prone to them, I suggest you check out this Tumblr.) Who fascinates you and why?

How NaNoWriMo Helped Me Love My Old Novel Again

Dear readers and raptors,

NANOWRIMO 2012 IS OVER, AND I HAVE 50,000 WORDS!!!

*confetti*

Four years in a row! Holy cow, how the time does fly, and gosh, I’m really proud of myself for pulling this off on top of schoolwork and extracurriculars. I’m also incredibly proud of all my friends who undertook this, regardless of their final wordcounts—you guys are ROCKSTARS!

But beneath all this noveling joy there lurk some things that you don’t know about me. So for this week’s Sunday blogpost (going back to my regular schedule now that NaNo is over), here’s an odd factoid:

In the weeks leading up to NaNoWriMo, I often go through a period of deep suspicion.

I don’t like to admit it to myself. I’m a little weirded out that I’m admitting it here. But basically, in realizing that I’m going to have to set aside my endless editing of Unfamiliar Spellings, I get kind of nervous and, dare I say it, resentful. I know I’ve committed to writing this new novel. I know I’m supposed to be worldbuilding and getting to know these characters. I know I’m supposed to sketch out ideas for plot elements so my pantsing will at least have a modicum of direction to it.

But every time I try to do this, I feel guilty, as though showing real interest in my new plot bunny is a betrayal of my work-in-progress (WIP). Out of loyalty to the intricacies of non-loc/spelling, I’m not allowed to fully appreciate the awesomeness of the holographic racehorses on Asta. The hilarious quirks of a spacefaring Shakespeare company are somehow in competition with Smeth’s sprawling cosmopolitanism. And God forbid I should love Tony and Bella and the crew of the Helen Aeris as much as I love Albert and Julia and Kozm.

All of that ridiculousness played out in 2010 and 2011, and I fully expected to encounter it again this year. Except I wasn’t counting on one thing:

By October of 2012, I was kind of sick of Unfamiliar Spellings.

Sacrilege. SACRILEGE. How could I possibly be sick of this story/world/characters?

Oh, I fought it. I didn’t want it to happen. I’d keep the document open on my desktop behind my schoolwork and poke at it from time to time. What I was refusing to recognize was that, by that point, I’d spent a good chunk of my year working on this novel—I went on an editing spree in early January before the Writer’s Digest Conference, and then a MAD PUSH of edits in February and March in order to send out queries in April, then spent a couple months querying before I stopped in order to do more edits, then got feedback from a new round of beta readers, then headdesked when I realized the extent of the new revisions I needed to make, then drew up a list of edits…

…and have been sitting on that list since the end of the summer, rereading the draft and waiting for enough free time to revise.

Anyone would be drained after that. Of course, I know the importance of taking time off before you edit, but I just couldn’t bring myself to set it aside. Even though I could feel my enthusiasm slipping away, I felt like I *should* be editing, so I kept trying.

And then came NaNo 2012. It was the latest I’d ever gotten into the month of October without knowing what I was writing. Fortunately, my fascination with my WWI/WWII class kept bleeding over into everything I did, and somehow, by 12:01 on November 1st, I had a very sketchy plot and characters.

Maybe Shadeshock wasn’t as “threatening” because it was in the same world as Unfamiliar Spellings. Maybe it was the novelty of writing historical fantasy (rather than the sci-fi of 2010 and 2011). Maybe it was the lack of prep work. Or maybe it was just that I was feeling so done with US and that there really was something special about Shadeshock. Regardless, NaNo 2012 was the first time that I didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty about enjoying the new novel.

I allowed myself to like the setting.

I allowed myself to like the plot.

Most important, I allowed myself to like the characters.

NaNoWriMo 2012 ended. I crossed the finish line with 50K and flying colors. And last night, I realized that in all the time I’d spent wrapped up in NaNo, I’d finally gotten enough distance that I was excited to go hang out with my old characters again.

And thus it is that, after months of angst, I love my old book again.

So hopefully, winter break will let me finally implement those edits, and maybe I’ll finish the Shadeshock draft too. For now, though, I’m off to WRITE LIKE THE WIND. (Finals, finals, finals. All the finals.)

How are you all? For those of you who did NaNo, how did things go for you? For those who didn’t, what have you been up to this month?

Oh, and though he’s been AWOL for a while, Frederick Regency Raptor would like me to let you know that he sends his greetings.

No-Sleep NaNoveling Nonsense (or, WTF Did I Just Write?)

Dear readers and raptors,

Behold: an excerpt of what I was writing at about 4:00 AM last night (this morning?). Never in my life has sleep deprivation caught up with me in a form like this. Normally, when I’m tired, I can get kind of loopy and my mental processes slow down a lot, but they don’t go all wonky and nonlinear on me. Nevertheless, last night, I could not for the life of me keep my thoughts in a coherent form—they drifted off on tangents (or into microsleeps) every 20-30 seconds or so. Often I’d be mid-sentence before I’d realized that I was writing something that made no sense.

Like, ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE. I think about 10% of the material in here is actually relevant to the story. And even that stuff is bad. Oy vey. o.O

Anyhow, I present this noveling madness (in its complete, unedited form) for your amusement:

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The next morning, Lena and Mother and Uncle Abram repacked their bags and trooped down to the hotel lobby to await a pick-up from Mother’s old school friend. Lena sat on top of her trunk there in the lobby, reading her book (the one disguised as a novel) on the features of some of the more interesting types of wildlife to be found in Scotland. A comprehensive book was not yet in the works, so some of the entries were outdated, such as the one who claimed that there were bullies who used the local crows as a sort of warning system whenever they were attempting to create some sort of achievement. The crows in question were probably magioanimals, which explained their fast skills and their great similarities (and weaknesses). But so many of these entries didn’t bother to distinguish between regular animals and magioanimals, which seemed strange to Lena. It was an obvious name to give to an animal who displayed features of intelligence and learning that were clever enough to make language a simple, algorithmic way of working. Reading this paragraph in the morning is going to be a fun exercise, because I can’t seem to keep a single thought in my head for longer than a few seconds (maybe reading about strangulation or something of that nature would help. Also, I have no idea why I wrote “strnagnulation” when I could have literally picked any topic under the sun. Strange Ari is strange. Anyhoo, more stuff to edit out SOON.). For now, let’s skip ahead to introduce Yealland (or his counterpart, at any rate). Or no, well, maybe I’ll go back to Lena briefly and then switch.

As she sat in the hotel’s small library, Lena became aware of the books other people were reading and of how small her little novel was to them. I think she decided to take a break from querying and not actually stay stuff as my characters and sometimes they’re less articulate than one might hope. But I still love them, as sure as God’s Green Earth would go.

I think this must be the most interesting experiment with writing under sleep deprivation that I’ve ever had. THANK GOD I don’t have to write a paper tonight (or at least not a full paper—reading response is another matter entirely. Oh dear lord, I really do need to sleep, and I’ve only got a few hundred more words to go. Okay, switching back to Lena now.

Still, there was something childishly fun about the illicit quality of reading a novel in a library—so antithetical to what she had been taught. Also, this page is going tot be just hysterical once it’s done and I get to look back at it during the TGIO or whateverwheneverthathappenes Oh wait let me write those again with spaces whatever, whenever that should happen.

Mother and Uncle and Lena were staying with Abigali Mercer, it seemed. Arthur had forgotten about her and the fact that she lived in Edinburgh. What was hard to admit was the fact that he truly did not want to see any of them, even when they had traveled so far and so long to be here with him. He was afraid of what he might become in their presence, when his sense of self (the one he carried himself in ever since the trenches) was forced to revert to childishness.

But uncomfortable as it might be, and as wary, Arthur agreed to straightforward dining hall atmospheres. They smelled better, though you’d be hard-pressed to coordinate enough to figure that out. I need to stop thinking about other book when I’m trying to finish mine—I feel like there’s no good way for this to work. But I’ve got just a little ways to go.

NaNoWriMo 2012: Sunday Check-In #4

Words to be written today: 1667
Words written today: 3003
Total word goal so far: 41666
Total words so far: 38003

Still behind, and still catching up! Woot!

Also, guys, I have a confession: I’m kind of falling in love with this book. That’s not something I say lightly—the last time I felt this excited about drafting a novel was back in the spring of 2010 when I was finishing up the first draft of Unfamiliar Spellings. NaNo 2010 had some delightful characters, but it lacked the forward momentum I’ve got with this one, and NaNo 2011 had a cool concept/plot but characters I never really got a handle on (as I mentioned, writing a story with characters I don’t love is…ugghhh, like pulling teeth).

But even in its ridiculously messy first incarnation, NaNo 2012 has it all so far (to me, anyhow): I’m genuinely interested in these people, and stuff keeps happening! Like Unfamiliar Spellings, Shadeshock has this marvelous feeling of certainty—that while I may not be able to see more than a few yards ahead of me at any given time, there’s plenty of story ahead if I just keep going. Which is awesome. And also strange/interesting, given that both stories take place in the same alternate universe, albeit about 100 years apart. (As my friend Nat pointed out, maybe the lesson is that this universe is just a sweet spot for me?)

Anyhow, enough rambling (you only came for the excerpt, right?). Usual disclaimers about NaNo drafts apply (particularly the disclaimer about historical accuracy—it’s NaNo, which gives me an excuse to make stuff up until I have time to do proper research). And while I’d normally include a bit of context, I think this excerpt is fairly self-explanatory:

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Arthur took a moment to look over his companions. One, Orson Wilkins, was a stolid man of 40 or so who had not spoken a word in the four days that Arthur had known him. Arthur supposed the trenches had rendered him mute—he’d seen it happen to several men in his own battalion. The other, Brian Yates, was a fair, freckled lad (not much older than Arthur) with a thousand-yard stare. His eyes, wide and pale, looked out into nothingness with a kind of mad serenity that Arthur both feared and envied. He sometimes wondered if he held that gaze whether he might somehow acquire it as well, but every time he met Yates’ eyes, he found he had to look away. The experience was too damn unnerving.
The orderly accompanying them to Scotland ushered them aboard the train and into a compartment. Yates moved mechanically, not seeming to take in any of his surroundings, and Arthur took it upon himself to help load Yates’ meager luggage into the rack above the seats.
“Thanks,” said the orderly, after they had fitted all the trunks into their allotted space. Arthur tried to remember his name. Something straightforward and so very English sounding. Corporal Smith? Johnson? Williams?
“You’re welcome,” he said, with a polite smile. Since Yates was still standing, Arthur maneuvered around him into the corner nearest the window and sat down so that he’d have a view and a wall to rest his head against. He lifted his rucksack into his lap and began to fish around inside it for his book.
“So what’s your story?” Corporal English asked.
“Sorry?” Arthur looked up from his bag.
“You seem right normal to me,” the corporal continued. “Past two days, I haven’t seen you do or say a single mad thing. Not typical of the lot we get.”
“Right,” Arthur said. “Well, I’m sorry to have confused you. Shall I put on a serious face and wrap my tie around my head and tell you about my mother the Faerie Queen?”
For a moment, the man just stared at him. Then he let out a chuckle and reached out to gently push Yates into a seated position.
“Can’t say I’ve ever had someone joke like that on this ride either,” he said. “You know, I don’t believe you’re mad in the slightest. Or shell-shocked. Or whatever it is they’re calling it.”
It was the sort of statement that ought to have pleased him but for some reason did exactly the opposite. Arthur inhaled and forced a smile. “I suppose that’s for the good men and women of Craiglockhart to decide,” he said. “Speaking of which, can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead.” With Yates and Wilkins and their luggage all safely stowed, the corporal flopped down into the seat across from Arthur.
“Who or what is ‘Halse’? The doctor mentioned the name just now, back on the platform.”
“Dr. Halse, probably. He works at Craiglockhart.”
“Do you know him?”
“No. Met him just the once, in passing.”
“How would you describe him, based on that?”
“Hmm.” The orderly tilted his head to the side, looking up towards the ceiling. “Agreeable. Energetic. That’s about all I can say.”
Arthur nodded, fished around in his bag until he came up with the book Uncle Abram had lent him—a copy of Tess of the d’Urbervilles—and resolutely buried his face in it, determined to avoid further conversation with Corporal English for as long as the 8-hour train ride would permit.

NaNoWriMo 2012: Sunday Check-In #3

Okay, I KNOW it’s not Sunday anymore. But I wrote most of this post yesterday in the wee hours of the morning and just ended up too tired to finish it. Better late than never!

Words to be written today: 1667
Words written today: 1667
Total word goal so far: 31666
Total words so far: 26689

So yes, as predicted, last week’s sleepless craziness curtailed my noveling activities—but it’s Thanksgiving break now (yayyyy Thanksgiving) and I am determined to catch up! Anyhow, here is another excerpt (usual disclaimers about the suckiness of NaNoWriMo drafts apply, obviously). For context:

Thanks in part to the events portrayed in last week’s excerpt, Arthur has been temporarily relieved of duty, which means that he’s no longer leading a scheduled foray into enemy territory. Instead, his fellow officer and new friend Emre will be leading the attack. Arthur is immensely frustrated and worried. First of all by the fact that he won’t be there to keep his men safe, and secondly by the fact that Emre (who’s currently making Arthur very…er, confused, on a number of levels) will be leading the trench-capturing attempt instead.

Arthur spent the next few hours lying on a makeshift cot in one of the commandeered houses in P’tit Auberge, staring listlessly at the ceiling. He felt he ought to be doing something productive with his time—sleeping or reading or writing letters or conducting some kind of experiment for Martin to make fun of later on. But the apathy gripped him and pinned him to the cot while his thoughts whirled. Other soldiers came and went in the hall outside, but he didn’t even notice that someone else had entered the room until he heard a voice.
“Arthur?”
Arthur looked up and then quickly propped himself up on his elbows. Emre stood in the doorway, one hand on the doorframe, his thin dark brows drawn together in concern.
“You all right?”
“Yes,” Arthur said. He swung his legs around to hang over the edge of the cot and tried to comb his hair with his fingers—basically doing anything he could to not look like he’d been moping here on this cot for the past several hours, even though that was precisely what he’d been doing. “Yes, I’m quite all right.”
Emre nodded as though to say, Yes, of course you are. You’re just as all right as the rest of us are, which is to say, not at all. He stepped into the room and shut the door behind him.
“Listen, I wanted to ask your advice about something.”
He didn’t understand it. How had the room become so much smaller now that the door was closed? Emre’s presence seemed to radiate out to fill the space, and Arthur felt uncomfortably warm. He realized he’d been lying there in his jacket and boots all afternoon and set about pulling the jacket off so he’d have something to do besides looking Emre in the eyes.
“I—“ Emre began, and promptly cut himself off. He made a couple of noncommittal noises. “Damn it, I can’t think of a good way to phrase this, so bear with me. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I know you’d do a better job of this than I would.”
“You’ll be fine,” Arthur said. “It’s a pretty routine affair, and you’ll have machine gun cover like always.”
“Routine for you.” Arthur glanced up. Emre was smiling so wryly that he looked more ill than amused. “The only forays I’ve led are on paper or in my mind’s eye. There are a thousand little things I can’t know. I’m as green as they come, and I know it. The men know it. I don’t know what Sharpe is thinking, assigning me to this.” He paused, picking at invisible bits of lint on the sleeve of his jacket. “You mind if I sit?”
“No, of course not.” Arthur scooted sideways, and Emre sank heavily onto the cot beside him. The room had become even smaller. Arthur felt like every molecule of his being was aware of the other man sitting there, staring at his hands, absentmindedly picking at his fingernails. Having shrugged off and folded his jacket, Arthur began unlacing his boots so he’d have something to do.
“You said you wanted me about something?” he prompted.
“Oh. Right.” Emre cocked his head to one side, looking towards the window on the other side of the room. The weak light of late afternoon painted pale highlights across his cheeks and the curve of his neck. He seemed to struggle to find the words before he blurted out, “You know the rumors about you, right?”
“Rumors?” Arthur repeated. Something hot and unnamable bubbled uncomfortably in his chest.
“About your hunches,” Emre said. “I’ve heard the men talking all afternoon. They don’t want me leading this either. They say it’s because of your hunches.”
“What about them?” Arthur muttered.
“That they’re accurate. Pure dead accurate.”
Arthur tilted his chin down and rubbed the back of his head, then ran his fingers through his hair to comb it back into place. Emre waited in patient silence.
“A few times when I was a kid,” Arthur said at last, quietly, “I’d be out walking, and I’d get this…this feeling. Dedham’s a perfectly safe place, so it only happened a couple of times. But each time, it was like this force pushing me away from the place I’d been standing. Almost like a voice telling me without words, ‘Something bad is about to happen here.’ Once, I was walking with my sister when that feeling came over me. I dragged her off the road and into the nearby woods. Maybe fifteen seconds later, an automobile came hurtling over the crest of the hill and crashed in the ditch right where we’d been. Another time, I was heading home from school and I had this sudden…I can’t explain it, but I had this urge to climb a tree right next to the footpath. A deer walked by a few moments later. And I was still watching her when the hunters in the wood shot her. If I’d still been down there, it could have been me they hit instead.”
He couldn’t believe it. As the words poured out of him, Arthur seemed almost to watch himself from a distance as he told his deepest secret to someone he’d known for a little over a week. But Emre was…Emre. It made sense, even when it made no sense at all.
“At any rate, I didn’t realize it was anything more than couple of peculiar moments until I got out here. I figure,” he added, “it’s because my chances of dying are a whole lot higher.”
“Well damn,” Emre said with a smile. “And here I was hoping you’d have some concrete advice for us mere mortals.”
The phrase “mere mortals” made Arthur’s stomach turn.
“Look, Emre, I need to tell you something else,” he said. The words poured out of him, as though now that he’d uncorked the bottle the wine could not stop flowing. “Did Sharpe tell you why I’ve been relieved of duty?”
“He…told me he was concerned you’d developed neurasthenia.”
“I don’t know. God, I don’t know what’s happening to me.” He rubbed his eyes and then pinched the bridge of his nose. “D’you remember Corporal MacGillicuddy? Did you ever meet him?”
“No,” Emre said softly. “I saw his name on a list of the dead. Was he a friend?”
“Of a sort,” Arthur mumbled. He was silent for a moment, then continued: “He was the NCO who took me under his wing when I was a greenhorn like you. He showed me the ropes. Taught me what to listen for to identify different kinds of shells. I captured my first trench with his help. Never would have got far without him.” He swallowed. “Well, as you know, he died a few days ago.”
“I’m sorry,” Emre said. He reached out a hand to touch Arthur’s shoulder, and a prickling warmth spread down across Arthur’s back at the contact.
“So am I. Only, I saw him yesterday.”
Emre frowned in confusion but didn’t speak. Arthur realized that was one of the things he appreciated about Emre—he left space for you to work out your own thoughts without assuming things or asking questions.
“I saw him yesterday, in the trench. And not in a ‘I wished that he was alive and wanted to see him so I thought I saw him’ kind of way. I didn’t fucking know he was dead.”
The tears came out of nowhere, so fast that he didn’t even realize what was happening until his face had screwed up and a painful tightness had swept up through him and into his throat. He put his face in his hands, clenching his teeth and trying to control the hiccupping that shook him. The hand on his shoulder tightened.
Arthur collected himself, and Emre waited.