Monday, February 28, 2011

February 28th

I can't resist, I must tell you about the story I've been writing. I've been working on the faerie tale "A Sprig of Rosemary." This is one of the best faerie tales ever. Here's how it goes:

Once upon a time, there was a dirt poor peasant girl whose father worked her very hard. She's sent out into the woods to gather firewood and she sees a sprig of rosemary and thinks "Hey, rosemary! I'll add it to tonight's pottage."

No sooner does she pick it but she sees a handsome nobleman in the woods, and a la Beauty and the Beast he says, who sent you to pick firewood out of my woods?

She says, "My dad."

And he says, "I"m a great lord; how about coming away and marrying me?"

(Seriously. That's how the faerie tale goes. They're not big on explaining things.)

So she says, "Okay."

Off they go, they get married, everything being (presumably) great. So they get there, and there's this old woman who keeps the castle and has the castle keys. She gives the keys to the new mistress but she says, "Don't use them, or the whole castle will fall to pieces."

We all know how that's gonna to go. I mean, seriously? Who does that to a person? Here, take this book, but don't read it! Don't even crack it! If you do, the IRS will magically appear at your door for an audit and then garnish your wages for life.

Anyhow.

Of course she unlocks a door and what does she see, but a snake skin. Because why? Because her husband is not just a handsome nobleman, but a magician and a shape changer.

It could not get any cooler than that. Not only is he not a boring prince, not only is he a sorcerer, but he can take the shape of animals, a la Merlin. That's when I knew this whole faerie tale was for me.

However, as soon as she laid eyes on it, the whole castle disappears and the girl is left alone. Her husband has disappeared. She breaks off a sprig of rosemary (What? You don't break off a refreshing herbal sprig whenever anything cataclysmic happens to you?) and wanders, weeping, into the woods.

Eventually she comes to a house of straw. (Because every faerie tale is a better with just a smidgen of "The Three Little Pigs".)

The mistress there takes pity on the girl and gives her work, warning her never, ever to sneeze.

But all the girl does is cry, so finally the mistress says, "Clearly we need some girl talk and some strong elder berry wine. What on earth happened to you?"

She spills the whole story and the woman says, "I don't know where your husband could be, but I know someone who might."

So, the mistress sends her to the Sun, the Moon and the Wind.

Clearly she's not just some dame living in a straw house, clearly she's connected. She's got friends in high places, and all that.

Off the girl goes, on a quest. Because, here is another cool part; she is the rescuer in this story. She, the erstwhile poor, overworked peasant girl who used to have no sense of self worth, has become the heroine, with enough grit to go talk to the sun himself, in order to rescue her powerful, but missing, magician husband.

Anyway, off she goes. So she gets to the Sun, and he says, sorry, I don't know anything about him. But the Sun does give her a nut.

Why? I don't know why. This isn't my story, I'm just borrowing it. Maybe it's some celestial peace offering, like the pineapples of South Carolina. It's what they do up there. In any case, he sent her on to the Moon.

So she gets to the Moon, and he's all, nope, haven't seen him lately. But he also gives her a nut. An almond, to be exact. Then he sends her on to the Wind.

The Wind says, I don't know where he is, but I'm pretty sure I know where to look. So off he blows, looking.

What does he learn? He learns that her husband is being held hostage secretly in the king's castle, soon to be married to the princess.

Oh yeah, that's right, in this story, the king is the bad guy and the princess is a fashion obsessed, vain accomplice.

I love this story.

The girl begs him to delay the wedding until she could get there, so the Wind gives her a walnut and then blows off across the land in a gale and blows the wedding garments right out of the tailor's exacting little hands.

Now, for any other woman in love, the marriage would continue apace, right? Not for this princess. There's no way she's getting married in last season's fashions. The tailors have to start all over again, and the wedding is put off.

So on comes the girl. When she gets there, she's pretty much out of ideas. So, maybe she's hungry, or lord knows, she's a curious one, in any case, she cracks open one of the nuts. Of course there's a fine mantle in there, what else would be in there?

Then she gets an idea. She's goes before the Princess who gets all excited about the cut of the mantle and wants, wants, wants it. The girl sells it to the Princess for gold, but they also girl talk a little, because lord knows, the Princess loves an audience.

The next day the girl cracks the almond and it contains petticoats, which the Princess just dies over. I mean, hello? Needlework? Lace? You have not seen the like before. The Princess has to have it, so she buys it for gold. Then the girls chit chat some more, wedding stuff, probably.

The next day, the girl opens the walnut and finds a gown. We know how this is going. It's like this season's Gucci, alright? It's like, totally, Marchesa dreaming in Gucci, with a little Dolce & Gabbana thrown in for good measure.

This time, the girl says, "Sure, I'll sell you the gown, it's not in my size anyway and I'm an Autumn and this color is all Spring, which is totally your season." (She learned to talk like this so she could communicate with the Princess in a way the Princess could understand. When in Rome, and all that.)

"But," she says, "I don't want gold for this gown. I'm just dying to see your hunk of burnin' love that you've been talking about so much." (No one knows just how much of a hunk of burning love he is like his own wife.)

Well, the Princess knows she's not suppose to, but she can't help it, she wants to show off. She gets persuaded. Off they go, deep into the castle. They come to the room where the magician is, and the girl touches him with the sprig of rosemary that she'd kept with her all this time.

This brings his memory back.

They go back to her home.

The End.

What, you don't like that ending?

Neither do I.

I'm going to change it. I've figured this brilliant way of tying everything together so that the nobleman does not appear to be this vapid dude who randomly marries girls for no reason when he comes across them in the woods, and this reason ties directly into why on earth the king would force him to marry his own daughter.

I've written over thirteen thousand words and I'm literally at the point where the girl is at the foot of the stairs to the locked door, about to go up and bring her whole house, her whole life, tumbling down around her. And what am I doing?

Procrastinating, that's what.

I mean, I can't stand it. I love her. I don't want her to do it. I made up a diabolical lie, told to her by the old woman, who, in my story, resents her for taking control of the household, especially because the girl is as low born as the old woman. That's lie helps a little, but still.

Besides, I love her and the magician together. They're so cute together. He didn't mean to fall in love with her, but he does, he can't help it. It's adorable. I could probably write another thirteen thousand words about what they did, and then what they did next, and what they said, and what they ate, and blah blah blah, but that's not the story.

The story is that everything falls down. And then, after a long struggle (and some random gift of nuts) gets built back again.

Into the fray.