Well, September has almost ended, so now we need to wake up Empress Maake.
No, I didn’t delay this post so long just to make a Green Day reference. Dragonslumber just kept getting bigger. ‘Slumber’ was the prompt for the August story, and when my husband and prompt-giver saw I had come up with a story too big to complete in one month, he gave me ‘Awaken’ as my September prompt so I could keep working with this story. Slumber ended up being 16,000 words, and seemed about half way through the saga I had been planning. I expected I’d end up with a similar wordcount for the second part, leaving me with a nice big novella.
The final wordcount for Awaken ended up being 33,575. Pushing the whole Dragonslumber story into novel territory. This was an obvious disruption to the 12 in 12 project, and alters my plans to make a collection of twelve stories. Still, I am so glad I kept at it. I have a novel now. A novel with a cool story that means a lot to me.
I was nine when the 1999 Australian Republic Referendum happened. Obviously too young to vote, but in the lead up to the vote we learnt about monarchies and republics at school. Despite being only nine, my Nana asked me what I wanted out of the referendum, and told me that she’d vote for what I want, since it would be affecting my future. Whether or not she actually did vote the way I wanted to I have no idea, but thinking I had a vote made me take a lot more interest in the lessons, and the republic debate in general.
I considered both sides as hard as a nine-year-old could and told Nana to vote yes.
The Republic Referendum failed to pass, with the yes votes making up only 45% of the vote. The failure is partly attributed to pro-monarchy Prime Minister John Howard proposing a method to select the president that was unwanted by the pro-republican movement. I was so disappointed by the result. disappointed by this. As I grew, this first brush with the democratic process has shaped the way I view politics.
I still believe, all these years later, that Australia should become a republic with a head of state directly elected by the Australian people.
Albo is supposed to be getting back to that now that his first term is over, but I think after the Indigenous Voice Referendum failed there may not currently be the political will to hold another referendum.
When I got the idea to write about a sleeping dragon ruling over people she was becoming increasingly disconnected from, a lot of these ideas about monarchies and democracy that I have been dwelling on for the past twenty-seven years spilled out. This includes the implications of holding onto the symbols and representatives of colonization in a country with a history as dark as ours. My current concerns about the rise of authoritarianism also made their way into this mix.
The Empire of Chaane is not Australia. Nothing that happens in this story is a one for one allegory of anything happening in Australia. Yet there are similarities. As I wrote about Sereg’s Conquest, the obsession over the Linage of Chaane, and all the ways Maake falls short, I could not help but reflect on our own history. I hope that by exploring how these reptiles deal with a heritage tainted by supremacy, we can better explore the same issues in reality as we dream about a better future.
Two months ago I was given one word and tasked to write a story. I looked through some notes on rejected story ideas from ten years ago and found the idea of Maake and Sereg, twins born on a throne who built a prosperous empire that their children destroyed whilst fighting. Then as I started writing about a monarchy, ideas that were planted way back in 1999 came and took over. The result isn’t subtle I’m afraid, but I hope it is coherent and entertaining.
Why don’t you take a look and see how it turned out
You know, I’m calling this finished, but that is just in terms of it being a monthly story project. Now that I know Dragonslumber is a novel, I can see a lot of ways it can be expanded on. At the start I was trying to keep my wordcount low, and therefore neglected a lot of description. I would like to better establish what the reptilians look like, what they wear, and how their tailblade fighting looks. I’d also like to add more descriptions of the places featured.
The religion of the Chaaneans is another area that I feel I neglected. Whilst I spoke a lot about their idea of Morel Reigns, rituals involving death and ideas about the social order can also be improved. I’m also debating whether the narrator should have a more noticeable presence.
I suppose what I’m getting at is that even though I am calling this story finished for the sake of the challenge, I’m not really done. Think of this version as a second draft. Feel free to offer feedback, especially if in my ramblings I have implied anything that goes against the idea of a democratic nation committed to reconciliation amongst all its peoples. Next year I shall be returning to this novel and expanding it without the time crunch I have imposed upon myself.
In the meantime I’ll be getting back to regular monthly writing challenges. The October Prompt is ‘Sword’. Yes, I am doing Swordtember in my own way. Despite spending most of September finishing Dragonslumber, I have also managed to make good progress with Sword, which may end up with an altered title. It may be a couple of days late. As well as all the work I put into Dragonslumber, I have also had a lot of real life challenges this month. We’ve been doing some pretty intense bathroom renovations that have taken up a lot of time and energy. Despite this, I’m optimistic that Sword will be done within the first week of October.
For that to happen, I better get back to work. See you all next month.
~ Jayde
