Anne Shirley's impassioned pleas to be called Cordelia and her devotion to her "bosom friend" came back to me this past week as I reread the early letters my friend Laura and I wrote on behalf of our characters who were fated to become the main characters of my novel, An Involuntary King. I have been posting the few that still exist from the period of 1964 to 1967 on my new blog of the same name. True, I was 12 and Laura was 11 when we started this project together, but hoo doggy, we almost put Anne to shame! If the novels about Anne were almost impossible for me to read, these letters... well, see for yourself.
I find myself hoping no child psychologist ever comes across them... I would rather not know what they reveal. And the stories to come are no better.
It seems like my pre-adolescent mania was for tragic near death scenes, a king prone to comatose periods, rash acts like murdering the man who bedded one's wife by poisoning him at the feasting table, florid outpourings of love and regret. I have only one of the letters Laura wrote but in it she presents only a slightly less manic self-revelation. References in our letters to ones that are missing show her having the queen so crushed by the death of her infant conceived in rape that she takes a gallant young knight as a lover.. he whom the king would later poison and then exile himself for a year as punishment. he drawing above is from the same time as the stories and shows poor old Lawrence bed ridden as usual, facing and giving command of his armies to Elerde, the man who had put him in that bed of pain by bashing him in the head in a duel. It's complicated... there is a woman involved of course.
And I am not even going to mention the sorceress who enchanted the king and is found with him, dead.
More recently Laura and I reconnected. We have had occasion to talk about these letters and stories. She revealed to me that she was always longing for the sort of love found in the sort of songs sung by the trouveres. My situation was a little more complicated, or so I believe, as I had a preference for being the protective, strong hero rather than the dreamy heroine. Then why was Lawrence always injured or sick?? Don't ask me. I can't know.
Let me conclude by assuring you that I am a much more stable, mature and able writer now... no, really.
