I bring an update from the front lines!
As many of you know my next book is a historical romance and book one in a series about a modern girl who is dragged back through time and placed on the throne as King Arthur. The series will (probably) be called King Arthur and her Knights, although I’m still playing with title ideas for the actual book. Last time I reported in I had 5,000 words, I’m happy to report that I now have almost 15,000 words and that the writing is speeding up. I am certain I will finish it in the month of July, but I’m not sure how long it will take me to edit it and get it nice and polished for you, Champions.
For those of you who are real King Arthur geeks, I’m basing most of my story off the books written by Howard Pyle and Sir James Knowles. Both of these books were written in the late 1800’s/early 1900’s. I plan to use pieces from traditional Athurian ballads, as I did for my Robyn Hood series, but there are very few surviving ballads that provide the rich details of Arthur pulling the sword from the stone, being crowned, etc, which is why I’m mostly relying on Pyle and Knowles for now.
What makes this series particularly difficult to write is that all of our ideas of Camelot and King Arthur are historically inaccurate. Based on my research it seems that writers of the ballads, like Chrétien de Toryes who wrote the first story about Lancelot and Guinevere, took the concept of King Arthur and set it in the time period they lived in. In King Arthur’s time there was no such thing as platemail or even castles. The writers did this because their patrons–the people feeding, housing, and paying the writers–wanted to read idealistic stories about King Arthurs court in their time period. There is a historic Arthur, but he wasn’t a king at all, and he lived far before any of the medieval imagery we associate with King Arthur.
So, what am I saying? I’m saying that my King Arthur story will be exactly like the books you read as a child. While it will not be historically accurate–because King Arthur didn’t live in that time period–the details will be authentic and based off truths for the time period I’m setting King Arthur in.
Honestly it’s excessively confusing. But I still hate Lancelot. Which reminds me, I’m pouting. Lancelot ISN’T EVEN IN THIS BOOK! My Lancelot Torture Time won’t start until book three. Until Wednesday, Champions!
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