Squeetus summer book club: The Goose Girl, chapter 10

Rain

Mmm, I love the coziness of being indoors when the world is doused in rain, especially by a fire with food and friends. This scene makes me want to wrap up in a blanket and just be.

Enna and the fire

The fateful scene that sparked Enna Burning, and in turn, River Secrets and Forest Born. I really meant to cut this scene each draft. It had little to do with the rest of this book. When I wrote it, I wasn't thinking, "this could be a sequel!" I was just allowing Enna to be interested in something that also interested Ani, and help form a basis for their friendship. It wasn't till much later that I realized it was the beginning of a new book.

Javelin and shield

This detail I also took from the Roman historian Tacitus's writings on ancient Germany.

The tale within the tale

With this book I was always conscious that I was rewriting a fairy tale, and by turning a fairy tale into a novel I was losing some of the inherent mystery and beauty. So I wrote a brief, mysterious fairy tale for this chapter, one that would evoke the same kinds of feelings that the original goose girl tale evoked in me. As I recall, the phrase "the fields she knows" was an echo of The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany.

"If we don't tell strange stories, when something strange happens we won't believe it"

Never was this more true than today, the morning after #SharkNado.

Ani telling stories

There are lots of "you're special!" books and shows for kids, created to combat low self esteem. And those are fine. But I've always believed that kids (and everyone) don't just need to be told they're loved and important, they need something that is theirs. Some skill and talent to develop, something they love that they work to be good at to set them apart. This is what Ani needed, I think, to finally make some human connections.