Well, after much hair-pulling and using some language my mother never taught me, I think I've managed to get my entire story uploaded to its own website. I thought about uploading it here a section at a time, but then sanity returned. (Not that, as it turns out, my solution worked out much better in terms of ease of copying and re-formatting, but at least it has a spiffy-looking setting!)
So, without further ado, here's the link to Anamchara!
http://duncans-anamchara.webs.com/ (http://duncans-anamchara.webs.com/)
(Oddly enough, "anamchara.webs.com" was already taken, so I had to go with "duncans-anamchara". Not that I really mind.... :D )
Feel free to comment either here or on my story website. (I don't know if you have to join the other website to leave comments there, but if you do have to, it's free to join.)
EDITED ON 16 JAN 2012: The link above appears to be seriously borked now, with most if not all of the Anamchara links inexplicably leading to a chapter of a different story entirely, so I have uploaded the complete story here instead:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gk-QafI_2vNqoW1FFyMH-EmtJf20sWIdir2fFJKxTtg/edit?hl=en_US (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gk-QafI_2vNqoW1FFyMH-EmtJf20sWIdir2fFJKxTtg/edit?hl=en_US)
If you tried the other link before and couldn't get to the story chapters, I apologize.
*sigh* In my proofreading of the chapters, I'm encountering the occasional missing word (usually ones which were formatted differently from the surrounding text, like in italics for emphasis). If you are reading the story and happen upon a sentence that seems to be missing a word or two, if you'll just leave me a comment (or cut/paste the sentence here and tell me which chapter it came from), I'll make corrections accordingly. I'm going through the story now trying to correct those errors, but it's always easy to miss something when trying to proof a multi-chapter story.
At least I don't think I have any chapters uploaded now that have 1/2 to 2/3 of the text missing, like I did last night, noticing only after hours of work and having to start pasting and re-formatting all over again.... *headdesk*
Hi Evie,
I'm doing a swift read through and then planning a more careful reread later. I'm having to take a break now as I think I have held my breath through Alaric showing Dhugal what happened in Cardosa and I may pass out. ;D
Just had to do a quick comment that Catriona is my middle name and I rarely come across it, so it's nice to see a Deryni Catriona. I'm guessing she's a Catri-OH-na though, where in mine the o is barely there, more sort of a Catri-uh-na. Cool all the same. ;D
Actually, there was originally a line or two in Kelson's section of the story where Dhugal makes a comment about Kelson pronouncing the name in the accent of the Isles, with the stress on the second syllable and the "o" more suggested than fully vocalized (in other words, more like how you pronounce it than how it's normally pronounced over here in the US), but then it dawned on me about halfway through writing it that I didn't even get it right half the time in my thoughts, since I'm so used to hearing it the other way, so I just struck that bit and left it up to the reader to decide how it's pronounced. :D
You held your breath through the Cardosa memory sharing? All of it? Lordy, woman, that shade of hypoxia blue isn't flattering on anyone! ;)
Well my ancestry is highland and island, so that's about right. Yes, the accent is on the second bit, thinking of it, sort of Cat-RI-uh-na. More people over here say it the wrong way than the right way (from my POV) to be honest.
And hey, I have seriously capacious lungs! Every time my DD performs I pretty much hold my breath till she gets safely to the end of it. When she was playing little 20 second pieces that was fine, but dang it's hard work for those concertos now LOL.
I tried to stay consistent in my use of borrowed Gaelic phrases, sticking to Irish for Cat's occasional islander phrase and going with Scots Gàidhlig for the one time (I think?) that Dhugal speaks in his border tongue (for instance, if memory serves, Cat would say "chroi" whereas Dhugal would say "chridhe", or Cat would say "chara" but Dhugal would say "caraid."). Hopefully I got those bits right, though I've read and re-read this story so many times now in editing it, I've gone a bit cross-eyed. :D
I did a quick read through last night, and will go back later. I like Catriona as a name too - though it is somehow always indelibly linked in my mind with Robert Louis Stevenson's sequel to Kidnapped, LOL. (Was looking for some surnames for characters, and Balfour might fit the bill nicely. In fact, David Balfour might be a nice literary nod, and I am dying to use 'Hannay' as a nod to Buchan's hero ...)
Must admit I wasn't too sure about Duncan's extensive use of the border tongue, because we don't see it very much in the Kelson trilogy or KKB, though if you keep it limited to discussions with Duncan and Cat, it should be OK. Had to laugh at the scene where Morgan is plying Dhugal with Fianna wine to get him properly primed for the revelations about Esgair Dhu and makes both of them ill: poor Dhugal has now had two such episodes drinking with our Duke :) But given what happened there, I think they both needed the wine.
And I really enjoyed your explanation of the difference between 'celibacy' and 'chastity'. Laughed at the accepted reaction of the young knights to their celibacy vow - I kept thinking of that lovely little tongue-in-cheek prayer: "Lord, give me poverty, chastity and obedience, but not just yet!" (or its variation - 'not to excess')
Did I have Duncan actually using the Border tongue (aside from the word "anamchara," which Cat has to explain to him for him to catch more than just the literal meaning), or just understanding it? I figured that, growing up in Cassan and Kierney, he'd have been exposed enough of it to have some understanding of at least the basics, though as a Duke more the product of Rhemuth than the Border, he'd not be a fluent native speaker. He'd know just enough to know "OK, Cat just said something in her dialect that sounds quite similar to something I grew up hearing in Cassan, so I'm guessing it means ____." (Which is how I manage to parse out Latin sometimes; I've never taken Latin, but I've taken French, and I also know a smattering of Spanish and Italian. Can't speak any of those languages except for a little bit of French, and my memory of that is awful, but I understand more than I can actually speak.)
I wasn't actually planning for Dhugal to have that violent a reaction; it just sort of happened. I typed it, had a mental "Huh?!" reaction immediately after the sentence appeared on screen, then realized that yep, that's exactly how he would've reacted at that point and just went with it. ;D
Every time I read about Conall's knighting, some impish part of me wants to yank that white belt off and say "Whoops! Too late!" ;)
Quote from: Alkari on June 15, 2010, 04:54:46 PM
I did a quick read through last night, and will go back later.
Oh, I meant to add that if you read it last night, you only got the first half of the story (and I think at least one of those chapters got cut off prematurely; I didn't notice Morgan's part was cut off in mid-sentence until sometime later this morning). So make sure to check it again when you've got time. I've got the full story up now.
Sorry Evie - I meant Dhugal's use of the border tongue of course!! These handsome Deryni men you know - they have a terrible effect on my typing fingers!!!
LOL! Oh, that! Yeah, Dhugal speaks like a borderer in the books too, though KK probably uses a lighter touch with the dialect than I did. (I'm not used to writing in dialect, for one thing, so I'm basically transcribing what I'm hearing in my head, which is probably influenced at least in part by my recent listening to the audiobooks, which I think are narrated by an American who reads Dhugal's part with an exaggerated accent that would doubtless make a true Scot cringe. :D ) But the "cannae" and "dinnae" contractions are definitely in the print versions; I've got TKJ by my recliner and had to flip through sections of it to get some of Duncan's healing scene right.
And they have a terrible effect on my typing fingers too. For one thing, they force me to sit at a keyboard for long hours, days, even weeks at a time typing out long-winded stories I can't even send off to a publisher afterwards.... ;)
Quote from: Evie on June 15, 2010, 05:25:40 PM
But the "cannae" and "dinnae" contractions are definitely in the print versions; I've got TKJ by my recliner and had to flip through sections of it to get some of Duncan's healing scene right.
Oh yes, and Duke Ewan of Claiborne certainly also uses such terms too, in TKJ. It's an issue that often plagues writers - how do you manage the use of dialect or portray strong local accents in a way that won't confuse many readers. And *shudders* at thought of American narrator doing pseudo Scottish accent. It's as bad as Americans trying an Australian one, because they
never succeed!! At least I 'hear' Scottish accents along the lines of the UK TV series
Taggart and
Rebus , together with the older
Hamish Macbeth, though they aren't really the thick Highland accents (which nobody would understand, LOL). But they are at least properly north of the border!
ETA: Perhaps we should complain to KK herself about the effects of her men. Or maybe this is secretly why we have to wait so long for new novels - she is constantly correcting typos!
Quote from: Alkari on June 15, 2010, 05:41:29 PM
ETA: Perhaps we should complain to KK herself about the effects of her men. Or maybe this is secretly why we have to wait so long for new novels - she is constantly correcting typos!
--------------
Dear Ms. Kurtz,
I am a great admirer of your Deryni series; however, I have a problem. It seems I'm spending so much time writing fanfic in your universe, I'm neglecting a perfectly good novel in my own. Can you recommend a good 12-Steps group?
Deryni Lovers Anonymous, or something like that?
-------------
So...should I mail it? :D
Can't connect to it tonight. Is there a problem with the site?
There wasn't earlier today when I checked it, though there was a brief period of time a few days ago when I was uploading the chapters and the pages were having trouble refreshing. Maybe try again in a few minutes?
I just checked it myself, and the site is down for me as well. Hopefully it's just one of those intermittent server glitches and it will be back up shortly. It was fine for me a few hours ago, and I got an email from the website administrators sometime after lunchtime (trying to sell me on paid premium service....*sigh*), so it seems to have been working fine up until that point at least.
The website is back up now. Hopefully it will be working fine next time you check.
Yup, it's back :) I have some uninterrupted free time today while DD is at the cinema with her friends, so I'm planning on a Deryni fest. Loving what I've read so far, and like I said to you, that shower cubicle spell is class!
I've just read a little less than half of this. Am I detecting a little bit of Mary Sue in Catriona?
Not sure, since I'm not quite sure of the definition of the term. (Aside from the fanfic here, about the only fanfic I've read is some on a Star Wars list I was on a decade ago, and some I used to read and write in Pern fandom about 20 years ago.) On the SW list, I always heard a "Mary Sue" defined as a story in which the heroine is a thinly disguised, or maybe idealized, stand-in for the author herself starring in her own story. If that's the definition, then Cat is really nothing like me aside from sharing a love for Duncan McLain and being called to a vocation. And even in that, we're different in that Cat's calling is to minister to the persecuted Deryni of Gwynedd. Mine is to minister to the persecuted Deryni in Alabama. ;) (OK, just kidding! But seriously, I minister to abuse survivors, which is as much a spiritual calling for me as Duncan's vocation is for him, so I think that's why I'm so drawn to his character.)
Here's what I was going for in creating Catriona. When I started out, I knew (based on the type of story I was discussing with my friend who inspired ANAMCHARA) that I wanted to write essentially a "what if?" story based on the premise of what would happen if Duncan fell in love after taking final vows. Duncan is a man of great honor and integrity who is completely devoted to his faith and faithful to his vows, but he also is fully human and therefore just as capable of flawed judgment and falling into error despite his best intentions as anyone else on the planet. So how would he react if he were blindsided by love the way Alaric had been with Richenda? How would he respond to that? How would he attempt to balance his devotion to God and his priestly vocation with his personal feelings? But for that to even become an issue, I had to figure out how a woman would even enter his life in a way that would allow them to grow close enough for him to even fall in love. Let's face it, it's not like priests or bishops go to Court dances to meet women! Where would he get to know one well enough to fall in love, in the confessional booth? I couldn't make her a lady-in-waiting either; I don't think Duncan spends a lot of time hanging around Meraude's solar, or even Richenda's. So I had to come up with a creative solution that would bring them together in the first place, so they could even form the level of friendship that could lead to an attraction growing. And proximity wouldn't be enough; there had to be something they'd have in common to bring them together emotionally. I can't quite see Duncan falling for a woman just because she's got a pretty face.
But of course, one problem with creating a woman with a religious vocation is that, aside from the convent life, that's not really an option for women of Gwynedd. But Torenth already has a form of Christian worship that is similar in many ways to the Church of Gwynedd, but also different in many ways. So I postulated the existence of another Kingdom (if you read the Introduction to the story, you'll remember I mentioned it's a bit "alternate universe" in that respect) which is based more on an ancient Celtic mythos. I also drew from that mythos (specifically from Scatha of, I think, the Cu Chullain myth...not sure of the spelling on that, though I'll admit my Scatha owes more to Stephen Lawhead's version than the original) for the idea of a land where a lady might be the direct descendent of warrior queens, the Island of Llyr. And I gave that land its own similar-but-different Church, figuring it would probably have developed more along the lines of a Celtic Christianity than the Orthodox Church of Torenth or the RC/High Anglican-like Church of Gwynedd.
So anyway, that's where I was going with the character.
Anent: "Mary Sue":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_sue
http://www.onlyfiction.net/marysue2.html
http://firefox.org/news/articles/6/1/Mary-Sue-Who-Are-You/Page1.html
http://www.bast-enterprises.de/ranma/MarySue.html
I've finally read it, and I am of two minds.
First, you write really, really well.
Now for what I didn't like:
I really can't see the Church of Gwynnedd, from what we know of them from canon, so blythely accepting a neighboring kingdom's church that not only allowed priests to marry but ordained women. I'm a cradle Episcopalian, and am old enough (barely!) to remember the brou-ha-ha over ordaining women. They might be able to accept married priests; or even priests marrying (the Eastern Orthodox Churches and Greek Rite Catholics allow a married man to be ordained, but not a priest to marry). But women priests? Think how shocking it was in "Harrowing" when they found indications that the Airsids may have ordained women to the diaconate. The willing suspension of disbelief is one thing. In this case, disbelief doesn't just have to be 'suspended.' It has to be drawn and quartered. (Note, I personally have nothing against woman priests; both the priests at my parish are women!)
Also, although Catriona and Duncan never were physically involved, they were emotionally evolved, and for a young man to marry a woman who was *that* close to becoming his stepmother. . . I'm sorry, it just squicks me.
All that being said, YOU DO WRITE WELL. I love your other stories. This one just didn't work with me.
I really need to find and re-read the Camber era books. My memories of them are so foggy now, about all I can recall of them is that I really liked Joram, Evaine, and Rhys; I learned to dread regencies; and there are certain historical periods in which it really sucks to be Deryni. :D
I really don't know how accepting or not the Church of Gwynedd would be concerning the doctrinal differences in the Church of Llyr, but it could well be just as controversial and as much a subject for concern (probably is, in fact) as the Church of Llyr's (and Llyrian society's) ready acceptance of Deryni. Duncan knows The Kyle as a priest for something like three years before discovering who "Kyle" really is, so he'd have had ample time to realize that Cat/Kyle has a true spiritual vocation. Whether or not he thought she should've been ordained to the priesthood, once he discovers she's a woman, might have been one of those differences they ended up debating about, but I tried to skirt away from him actually advocating women in the priesthood (he, after all, isn't in the Church of Llyr) or, on the other hand, arguing about it either. In fact, the first time he meets Catriona in her true form and the subject comes up, he diplomatically sidesteps it. On the other hand, even if he'd been opposed, I just don't see him being confrontational about it any more than I can imagine him getting argumentative with a priest from Torenth re: doctrinal differences. Arilan, maybe--he's definitely blunt enough--though Arilan is probably too concerned with trying to give his brother priest a wake-up call that he's drifted into the perilous territory of an emotional affair to sweat the whole "oh, and by the way, our church doesn't consider her a valid priest" question.
Yeah, I knew this was a story that, no matter how carefully I tried to handle it, wouldn't end up working for everyone, especially with Dhugal involved in the mix. I considered at one point trying to just tell the Duncan and Catriona dilemma/evolving relationship story from either Morgan's or Kelson's point of view, but I couldn't figure out any way to have either one of them invested enough to ferret out the full story, nor could I figure out the best way to get it across from Duncan's and/or Catriona's point of view. And if the relationship had simply jumped from the phileo (friendship) stage of love to the agape (unconditional love) stage without the struggle with the eros (erotic attraction) stage in between, that eliminates the whole conflict that inspired the story in the first place, which was "What happens if an honorable, celibate priest gets gobsmacked by love and has to figure out how to deal with that?" That wouldn't have been an issue at all if the only attraction between the characters was purely platonic. But yeah, trying to write it from Dhugal's point of view, and have Dhugal be the catalyst for moving the Duncan/Cat relationship past the dangerous stage to something more balanced, was what I was most concerned that I might not be able to pull off for everyone, and I'm sorry that it didn't work for you. I'm glad you're enjoying the other stories, though, and I'm having a lot of fun writing them. :)
OK; we agree to disagree. Keep up the good work---you do write well!
Tried to go to the site today to read the story and it won't connect. Since this thread is over a year old, I hope someone reads it.
Hi, Marko! Yes, I still keep up with replies to this thread. For some reason that Webs.com website that the story is hosted on is a bit temperamental and it goes down from time to time. Usually it's back up and running again in just a few hours, or if not by then, then try it the next day. That was my first attempt at Deryni fanfic (yes, my very first Deryni fanfic was a novella length mule-choker...go figure! :D ), and when I posted it, I had no idea yet what size chapters this forum board would allow, or if a story that long would even be welcome here. As it was, I ended up having to divide some of the original sections into half or even thirds to upload them to the Webs.com blog site.
If you continue to have trouble accessing it via the link, and you'd rather try reading it some other way, I could email you the manuscript directly. Unfortunately I don't have the story uploaded elsewhere, but if you are able to read a .doc (Microsoft Word) attachment, I'd be glad to email one to you. Just contact me via the Forum's private message system (see the "My Messages" tab at the top of the page, or else click on my name to get to my profile and then find the link to send me a private message) and let me know where to send the file. unfortunately there's not a way to send an attachment by means of the PM system, so I would need a regular email address. (By the way, that offer to send files by email stands if anyone else wants to read any of my other stories as a single document, with their original formatting. I usually save files either in .doc or, more recently, OpenOffice's .odt format, either of which is readable via MS Word and probably most other word processing software as well.)
ANAMCHARA. Thank you for writing it, I am not a writer by any means, but to me you put Dhugel on a par with Morgan and Kelson as far as a personality, makeing him feel like a whole person. One thing that I question and maybe it's just me but on page 60 it's Duncan's (sorry bad spelling) story to Dhugel, so should it not be " She reached up to stroke a stray lock of hair away from (my) /his face" ?
As I said I am not a writer but it just seems more to the issue of it being Duncan.
Hi, HealingWaters! I'm glad you enjoyed the story. :) I went back and looked at the scene you are referencing, and in that particular scene "his" would be correct, since this scene (and all of the others in italics) are meant to be flashbacks, showing in words what Dhugal is seeing through his rapport with his father (and with others in the story), and therefore I use the third person for pronouns in those scenes in order to show that Duncan is not narrating his own story in actual words, but Dhugal is seeing what Duncan actually experienced, said at the time, felt, thought, etc. from the viewpoint of someone else entrusted with the privilege of witnessing those private memories, if that makes sense. But yes, if Duncan had been sharing this story verbally, literally saying "She reached up to stroke a stray lock of hair away from my face," then the first person "my" would make sense in that sort of context. Since in real life we don't have the ability to communicate via telepathic rapport (well, some may, but I sure don't!), I tried to communicate the difference between the verbalized parts of the story and the Mind-Shared parts by use of both italics and pronoun usage to show that the shared memories are not narrations. Otherwise, since this sharing is taking place in private, Duncan could have simply told him the story of his evolving relationship with Catriona rather than shared the full experience of it with him via rapport.
Hopefully that makes things clearer. :)
Yes very much so, I get a better understaning of the sharing, with it, and my dislexic brain can comprehend it better.
Just found and read this story and loved every minute of it. After reading what happened to Cat at Cardosa, I agree that Kelson was too kind to Wencit at the end.
Nice to know people are still reading this story several years after it was first posted. This was my first venture into the scary (to me at the time, especially since I didn't know if anyone else would be interested!) world of Deryni fanfic writing. ;D I hope you continue with the rest of my story arc. I have a pinned post at the top of the Deryni fanfic section that gives a suggested reading order. We have some very talented storytellers on this forum (at least one of whom has gone on to publish original fiction of her own), so be sure to check out the rest of the fanfic as well. The new fanfic database makes it easier to return directly to the last chapter you left off in if you are reading one of the novella or novel-length stories.