Right now I am spending my writing time thinking a lot about how do I flip what we know happened and existed and turn that into the narrative of our story.
The archeology and history that attracted me to writing this story—like the building of Columba’s monastery at Iona, the islands and churches named after St Marnoch (our Erna), the retreat of the Druids or indigenous belief systems, the eventual arrival of the Vikings and the destruction this wrought to what the church built—is so rich and yet it isn’t a story. It’s a collection of facts and even missing facts.
We have a fascinating cast of characters in St Columba, Erna, her father, the Dal Riadan kingdom at Dunnad and the people across the loch who are not at all interested in being converted to Christianity. The landscape itself full of ancient monuments even in the present time of the story is a fascinating character.
But what are the things that happen to reanimate them for us? At first I thought, well it is just an imagining of Erna’s life. And I begin to picture these unrelated scenes of what happens to her, like her relationship with the man across the loch ( Read that scene here). But why? How do we get from from a small girl arriving on Iona as part of Columba’s mission to the almost complete destruction of her memory? Why did that happen? Who decided? What were the most important and significant events of that story? How can I take us from there to here in any sort of interesting way?
How would she have seen her life, her decisions, and motivations in real time?
Did she dream of her name remaining entwined in the landscape like a whisper of her a thousand years hence?
What happened to her and them all between the facts?
This is my imagining work right now. I think I was getting stuck over and over looking at it all archeologically versus the shape of the story.
I so love the research and I know that’s going to be something I probably have to constrain eventually. But right now it gives me so many ideas! I attended a presentation from the superb Kilmartin Museum about one of the monuments in the glen—the Cursus Monument that is the remains of a spectacular burning of 375 oak trees cut and arranged for ceremony over 5,000 years ago. It isn’t yet on their YouTube yet, but you can read about the artist exhibition inspired by it here.
Last week this post on Instagram re-excited (?) me about the role of the white quartz in the landscape of our story. I love how the Bronze Age people were using it in their sculptures as eyes and I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to make my own version with some of the quartz I brought with me from the shores of Loch Fyne.
More soon!
Susie
Thanks for making me think about flipping the narrative even beyond the writing of your book. I appreciate you giving us a behind the scenes look at how you are bringing this book into the world. I love how the characters and story are revealing themselves to you through research, intuition, and your lived experience.
I just did a little research into cursus monuments. Very interesting! I guess I didn't realize that that's what those monuments were called. Archaeology (especially European archaeology) is so interesting to me.