Slaying the Green-Backed Dragon

I was visiting with a friend last week who, like me, and many of you, is a writer with a day job. The topic of wishing we could write fulltime is one that has come up before, and it came up again. We both bemoan our need to earn money, and joke about wishing we could retire or win the lottery, or some such, which would enable us to write—unencumbered by odious day jobs that have nothing to do with our Real Work. She and I have a writer friend who has that leisure. And we both envy him those long days of uninterrupted writing. He is cranking out some wonderful stuff.

I grouse about this issue to someone at least once a week, especially if it’s a bad week for the day job. Or a really good week for the writing—in which case, anything that takes me away from what I really should be doing is viewed as evil. There are days when I am sure my day job has robbed the world of the enjoyment of my genius. When I am certain that, had I been left alone to write, I would have created something remarkable. I write this in jest, but even as I write it, a small part of me thinks it might not be B.S. Such is the hopeful ego of a writer.

But here’s the thing. Another part of me secretly suspects that if I didn’t have this pressure to make the most of my writing time—I wouldn’t write nearly as much, or nearly so well.

I have a sneaking suspicion that my craving for writing time makes me hot to sit down and write. It’s the impetus that springs me out of bed at 5 am, to stumble downstairs, grab a cup of tea, and eagerly crouch over my computer keyboard for the next three hours—sometimes with my heart racing. I don’t know if I would feel the same ardor for it, if I had all the hours in the day. Maybe I would, but I’m not sure.

And here’s another thing. I meet all kinds of characters, overhear every kind of crazy, sad, poignant, weird, greedy, profane, sublime conversation in the course of my work day. The folks I meet come from all walks of life: clean-cut villains and tattooed angels; type-A workaholics and winsome widows; lonely, paint-splattered men who try to tell me dirty jokes, and funny, chain-smoking gurus. My workday is a cornucopia of characters. And they fill me up with stories!

Would I meet so many vivid characters if I didn’t have to venture forth and slay the green-backed dragon? I think not.

Still…I would be willing to try it.

I could always get another day job if things weren’t working out.

Writers: Do you have a day job? How does it affect your writing time? If you don’t have a day job, do you ever suffer from writer’s block?

Oh and, FYI, caring for young children is having a day job. So don’t feel left out of the conversation, if parenting is what you do!

A Goodly Deal of Cursing

In days of Olde,

when knights were bolde,

and laptops not invented,

well…only monks could read.

Or write anything down.

Okay, I know that doesn’t rhyme…but it’s true!

And so what we’ve got from that era is filtered through a narrow monkish perspective. Hence…no swearing. There simply are no records of what kinds of bad language folks used back then. Which makes it devilishly difficult to write about a bunch of hardened knights doing gruff manly things – which surely involved a goodly deal of cursing. (Imagine a bunch of marines doing what they do and not swearing… See what I mean?)

But what kind of swearing went on in medieval times? you ask.

In 1100 the F word did not exist. Like the laptop, it simply hadn’t been invented yet. In medieval England they said swiving. And it wasn’t really used as a curse. More just a benign description of the act.

Doesn’t have the same umpf anyway, if you ask me.

We’ve got some nice juicy cursing from Shakespeare’s time:

Thou gorbellied brazen-faced gudgeon!

Thou puking ill-breeding malcontent!

Thou infectious guts-griping hedge-pig!

Thou pribbling milk-livered haggard!

Ahhh…The Bard did have  a way with words, didn’t he?

But that was five hundred years later than the century Sword of Mordrey is set in. Which would be like asking a pilgrim character to swear how we swear now.

What’s an historical writer to do?

I know I can use my imagination. That’s what writers do, right? But think about it. You who write modern day stuff don’t have to think up swearing. There’s an abundance of colorful descriptive nouns and adjectives all around you from which to choose.

One of my fellow writers, David Waid, is also working on an historical novel, and I received an email from him a while back that would make most of you laugh (it did me). Because it was a desperate call for medieval cursing. I must admit I had fun answering him. (Maybe too much.) I’ve had to imagine most of the cursing that goes on in my novel. Plus I’ve picked up some foul language from other medieval novels I’ve read over the years.

Things like: God’s blood, God’s teeth, By the Virgin, By Satan’s hairy arse or warty prick.

I imagine medieval cursers enjoyed comparing people they didn’t like or who behaved badly to animals, much as we do now. Pigs, or dogs (who let the dogs out? woof! woof!). Serpents and shrews. Being so religious, I bet many curses had to do with defaming the other person’s soul, or cursing them to Hell. And you could always defame their parentage. Especially mom. Saying something nasty about a person’s mother is and always will be offensive. Whore’s son is a perennial favorite of historical writers. And you can always add some descriptive before the insult to mom, like this: swag-bellied whore’s son. That’s got a kind of satisfying alliterative ring to it, don’t you think?

Then there were those jibs that just attacked the way a person looked, and or their intelligence, or possible lack thereof: Swag-bellied tosspot for a fat drunkard. Pimple-arsed lackwit. You could go after their profession, or imply a shameful one: Poxy-cheeked strumpet.

Well, clearly this is a challenge writers who set their novels in modern times don’t have to face. But it has been fun, hasn’t it?