Consuming Art, Making Do

When my energy is low for writing, my secret is to consume art. Any kind will do. A gallery or a museum. A movie, old or new. A performance. Live music. Those make me want to write because experiencing other works by other artists, struggling or otherwise, gives me hope and inspiration.

Television, the cable version, doesn't. I don't even have cable (to my family's chagrin).

This is my first post of 2019 because I took the month of January to finish the draft of my last Musketeer book. Then, it took about two months to prepare it for publication. It had been hanging over me for more than a year. I'd drafted most of it in 2017 during National Novel Writing Month, then didn't pick it up again until late last year. I kept telling myself: "It will only take a few weeks to get 'er done." The ending foiled me. Nothing seemed to click, and I finally decided it just had to be over. Someone had to die, and it couldn't be the main character (because, well, Dumas kept writing about Athos after the time period in which I placed him). I found this book to be the most difficult to write because the ending just never naturally showed up like the previous two books. The options were many and my decisiveness, missing.

www.TheMusketeerSeries.com

I'm not necessarily unhappy with the story. The last book wraps up the loose ends to my satisfaction. However, there's no sex in it, probably a big downer to readers of the first two novels. Brace yourself. It's just about a big, redemptive sword fight (no puns).

Another issue bothers me: the  first book in the series isn't widely available. On Amazon, the prices of Book One (Blood, Love and Steel) are astronomical. That's because the book is not available unless purchased as a used copy, and the secondary vendors have jacked the price. However, my shelves are flush if you want a copy. Not much I can do for the random shopper.

All this is to say, I'm making do. I'm relieved the last book is finished. The story stands on it own. It's a nice tribute to the original Dumas novel. There were a lot of days when I went looking for art to get me off my duff to finish the series and keep my head full of hope. All the other artists who piece it together gave me reasons to go on. Making art is a joy and sometimes a burden. It will fulfill you and make you frustrated. Do it anyway.

The Reality: I'm a Musketeer Groupie

Guess there are worse things to be? And, darn it, if I didn't miss the first episode of the new BBC TV series called The Musketeer, which aired for the first time on Sunday night. Now, I have to admit, I'm a little prejudiced about who the producers cast as Athos, my fav Dumas character of the bunch. I must reserve my judgment about whether Tom Burke is the right choice until I've seen him act. But I wanted him to be a hair more good-looking (not that his hair had anything to do with my opinion).

I'm a groupie. I'm coming to terms with this. On Google, if Musketeers is the search word, guess what? People find me. Yikes! And hurrah!

Recently, a woman in Canada contacted me because she's writing a stage play based on the book, and she couldn't find answers to questions about the novel (and history) that had been bugging her. Could I help her, she asked? Why, of course I could!

Her note:

I am currently adapting The Three Musketeers into a play for young actors. I've read the novel, another play adaptation, and the graphic novel (how great is that?!), but there are a few motivations that I don't understand. I'm hoping if you have the time you could share any insights that you might have with me.

1) Why does Richelieu want to expose the affair between the Queen and the Duke? Does he hope it will start a war?

2) Why does Richelieu want to start a war with England?

3) Why is Buckingham not safe in France when he sneaks over to visit the Queen? 

Thank you so much!

My response:

Glad you stumbled upon me. While I don't profess to be an expert, I can give you my take on your questions. Would love to know when and where your play will be performed. I also have a FB page, in which I post many tidbits about Musketeer-related news. There's a play that's making the rounds regularly in the U.S., but I haven't seen it yet. I picked up the Marvel comics graphic novel, but I couldn't persuade my kids to read it.

1. Why expose the affair? Political reasons, at least in terms of Dumas' rendition of history. Dumas doesn't get much more specific than that. Richelieu was a power-player and had eyes on influencing France's fortunes for personal gain. If he could gain the upper hand, he won. Plus, Queen Anne wasn't French. Probably in real history, this friction between them didn't exist. (Later, I read in the notes to the most-recent Richard Pevear translation of The Three Musketeers that Richelieu became bitter enemies with Marie de Medicis after a suspected tryst, and in 1630, on the so-called "day of the Dupes," Marie and Queen Anne, among others, tried unsuccessfully to get rid of him.)

2. War with England? The English were Protestants, and at the time, the French Catholics were struggling with their relationship to the Huguenots, the French Protestants, whom France tried to suppress (Siege at La Rochelle). In truth, Richelieu created peace with the Huguenots.

3. Buckingham unsafe? Because Buckingham is English and Dumas portrays the French as being disdainful of the English. And as everyone rightly suspects, because Buckingham's having, or trying to have, an affair with Anne. Ah, the struggle for love.

Hope this helps. Come back any time. This was fun.

The Three Musketeers Inspires BBC TV Series, Play, Comic Theater Troupe

Adaptations keep popping up of The Three Musketeers. Good for me and my book. The timeless story of d'Artagnan, Athos, Porthos and Aramis appeals to new fans because it's a great escape. Few activities sound as fun as galloping around the French countryside with a sword and a bottle of wine. Hey, I might try it myself some day.

A Musketeers play is making the rounds in the U.S. It's showing this month near my former home of Asheville, NC, at the Flat Rock Playhouse, but I've seen it reviewed and advertised at other venues around the country. I hope to see it someday. Written by playwright Ken Ludwig, it premiered in 2006 in the UK to wonderful reviews. The Bristol Old Vic theatre in England commissioned him to write it.

The Brits (hug one if you know one) have also finished production of a 10-episode TV series called The Musketeers. It will be released next year by BBC One and BBC America. I'm more of a movie fan rather than a TV watcher, but this series has me thrilled. It's a drama (yeah!) versus a new comic barbershop opera making the rounds in the UK. A comedy troupe called Barbershopera teasingly sings through the Dumas story. There's plenty to joke about and Dumas would have enjoyed the troupe's sense of humour.

Alexandre Dumas's work is also inspiring a Canadian to adapt the novel into a play for young actors. She found me online recently and asked if I could answer some questions about the book, and I gladly opined. Her questions were very specific, so I had to think through them based on the novel's version of events and what I know of history. Below is our exchange.

Q: I've read the novel, another play adaptation, and the graphic novel (how great is that?!), but there are a few motivations that I don't understand. I'm hoping if you have the time you could share any insights that you might have with me. 1) Why does Richelieu want to expose the affair between the Queen and the Duke? Does he hope it will start a war?

A: While I don't profess to be an expert, I can give you my take on your questions. Why expose the affair? Political reasons, at least in terms of Dumas's rendition of history. Dumas doesn't get much more specific than that. Richelieu was a power-player and wanted to influence France's fortunes for personal gain. If he could gain the upper hand, he won. Plus, Queen Anne wasn't French. Probably in reality, this friction between them didn't exist. (I've looked into this last point more, and accounts of the relationship between Richeleau and the Queen are less dastardly than the plot Dumas wrote.)

Q: 2) Why does Richelieu want to start a war with England?

A: The English were Protestants and at the time, the French Catholics were struggling to define their relationship to the Huguenots, the French Protestants, a group which France tried to suppress (ie: the Seige at La Rochelle). In truth, Richelieu created peace with the Huguenots.

Q: 3) Why is Buckingham not safe in France when he sneaks over to visit the Queen?

A: Because Buckingham is English and Dumas portrays the French as disdainful of the English (probably not far from the truth). And as everyone rightly suspects, because Buckingham's having, or trying to have, an affair with Queen Anne. Ah, the struggle for love.

This was a fun exercise for me, but I'm far from being a historian. I'm simply a super Dumas fan. If a historian of European history or literature happens to know more, I'd love to hear from you.

I Love a Musketeer: Q&A with a Lit Scholar

A friend of mine who has one of those fairytale publishing stories (a Big 6 approached her!) counseled me once that when my work finally reaches the public, it will take on a life of its own. Hers did. Awards, fan mail, recognition. My expectations are much more down-to-earth, but recently my work caught the attention of a scholar. A professor from the University of Bristol asked for my thoughts/reasoning for adapting The Three Musketeers.

When I first read his email, I did a little stunned look around my empty office (are you writing me?!), and then I wrote back a hearty: "Of course!" The Three Musketeers is one of my favorite subjects. I get eye rolls when I bring home a new translation from the library, or a graphic novel, or watch the Oliver Reed/Michael York/Richard Chamberlain/Frank Finlay version of the movie for the ?? time. (I skip to the parts about Athos.)

I'd like to thank Dr. Bradley Stephens of the School of Modern Languages at the University of Bristol, UK, for seeking for my input. He studies and writes about romantic literature and is looking at adaptations of romantic literature.

Here's our Q&A:

Dumas

JF: Dr. Stephens, To begin, let me humbly state that whatever comes of my novels is only possible because of the sweat and popularity of Dumas. When I started my first book (2009), I had no intention of riding his coattails. My sole purpose for writing was to please myself and take a character I loved and breathe new life into him. I'd be naive to think that I won't be judged on my choice to write from Dumas' classic work, but I've written my stories out of a reverence for Dumas and his work rather than my wish to exploit them.

BS: I wondered firstly whether you saw your fiction as a form of adaptation in itself? Various terms might be used to describe your writing -- 'new chapter', 'sequel', 'spin-off', 'fan fiction' -- and I wondered how you yourself as a writer would classify your work.

JF:This classification business puzzles me some. Yes, I do think the broad term 'adaptation' is correct. I'm playing with and embellishing the life of an existing fictional character. I do so because the work inspired me. That The Three Musketeers has survived and is still read is icing.

I've primarily tried to fill in the blanks. Two of the novels in my series develop the backstory of Athos. He's the character I most identified with when I read Dumas, and in many ways, Athos was as important in The Three Musketeers as d'Artagnan. I state this because of the major role he plays in the second half of the book and his connection with the pivotal character Milady, whom Athos was married to prior to the novel.

These connections between Milady and Athos made me ask a lot of questions. How did they meet? Why did he marry her? What kind of love did he have for her that made him later shun women? What did she do to him to make him want to kill her, this woman with the heart of a poet? So much of this psychological dynamic doesn't get explored or explained in the original text. And that's not a flaw of the original work. But it IS my purpose. I look deeper into the character of Athos and understand what happened to make him who he is. Think his thoughts. Feel his feelings. Recount his story. Dumas doesn't. So, I wrote it (and still am).

My first book Blood, Love & Steel (a working title, I may end up just calling it Athos) is a sequel in the traditional sense. It picks up the summer after the end of The Three Musketeers. The four have been to La Rochelle, have executed Milady and have dispersed. A pretty heady time, I think, for the man who killed the only woman he ever loved, now bereft of his constant companions. Prime for an interesting twist of events. The novel I'm completing now, Athos and Milady: In the Beginning, is all backstory. It tells the story of how a younger Athos met Milady, fell in love, was betrayed and eventually why he breaks, which, by the way, leads him to become a Musketeer. I get chills just thinking about all the possibilities. So, Athos and Milady can be considered a prequel to The Three Musketeers.

BS: A second question that immediately came to mind was: to what extent did Dumas' own sequels to his novel influence your approach to Athos?

JF: The book Twenty Years After has informed my first novel quite a bit, at least one particular plot point. In Twenty Years After, Athos has happily resumed his noble persona with a son. A son! My God, what happened that this heartbroken man would fall in love and produce an heir? That answer is glossed over in Twenty Years After and leaves a lot of room for a Musketeer fan to take some liberties, which I do.

My sequel is a romance. Athos falls in love with a new character of my creation and his melancholy over Milady is finally broken. Because I created a new main character/lover for Athos, a serious student of Dumas might wag a finger, but most people will never read Twenty Years After (I'm still trudging through it). It and Ten Years Later just don't have the same verve as the first novel. But in most plot nuances, I stuck to the Dumas version. 

BS: Does Athos' vulnerability as a heartbroken man lend him an irresistible allure to readers? 

JF: I'm in love with that man. No question. I'd have to be to want to write three books about him. He was mysterious and strong and flawed. Probably a looker, too. At least, I can dream. I have to give some credit here to Oliver Reed, who played Athos in the Salkind movies. I saw them when I was a teenager. He made Athos real for me first, before I ever read the book in my 30s. But the book, it rounds out the

elements of a great man. Underneath the bravado of a musketeer, Athos was deeply sensitive. I paint him as such. Let's hope readers find that I've done it in a tasteful, reverential way. (Although, I'm going to raise the flag now, the book of how Athos and Milady meet is full of sex.)

BS: I wanted to ask you what the story meant to you personally, and why it is you think that different cultures across national borders keep coming back to this novel.

JF: That's a question I can't answer adequately. We, as a human species, take comfort in our "stories." Yes? This one came about in a romantic time period when people needed to be swept away. And they kept reading it, generation after generation. The themes in The Three Musketeers go straight to our need for heroes and justice and a live-and-let-live desire. If you think about the iconic men (forgive my sexism) in our global histories, they share many of those characteristics. We want to roam the landscape and wield weapons and live by our wits without fear of consequence. That's what Dumas' characters did. Reading about those adventures makes us happy.
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You can find Dr. Stephens' profile here: http://www.bris.ac.uk/sml/people/bradley-c-stephens/index.html. You can also find a recent blogpost of his on the Huffington Post, which looks at the reception of Les Misérables: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bradley-stephens/finger-pointing-and-flag-_b_2345226.html

He also took part in a panel at the French Institute in London (with the new film's screenwriter and a West End star) on the novel's transition to stage and screen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEtTaSgs2F4 and he also wrote a new introduction for The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Signet Classics / Penguin USA, 2010). 

Thanks again, Dr. Stephens.

Cowboys and Musketeers

Randy Severe of Severe Bros. Saddlery.

My end-of-the-year post had an error. I have published in 2012. I freelance for a leather trade magazine. I didn't publish fiction last year, but I wrote many magazine articles for a small publication that covers leather trades -- saddles, tack, boots, Western personalities. It's fun work. I've met many interesting people who make a living doing unusual things. I like to think of myself as a cowgirl reporter. The Pacific NW is prime stomping ground.

I've added my photo of one of the highest profile people whom I interviewed last year, Randy Severe. He is a custom saddlemaker who works out of Pendleton, OR. I had the privilege of meeting him in September during the Pendleton Roundup, the Super Bowl of rodeos. He's been in the saddlemaking business since he was in his early 20s. He is 60 now and makes saddles that go for as much as $40,000 or more. No exaggeration. His saddles are trophies. Heirlooms. A product of a family lineage and a Western aesthetic that runs deep in eastern Oregon.

Really, Randy and his ilk, and there are plenty like him in the West, keep the cowboy way alive. They ranch and wrangle cattle, build fences and go on epic horseback treks. In his case, he also keeps up a lodging house for cowboys who travel on the professional rodeo circuit. The locals have dubbed his bunkhouse the Hotel de Cowpunch. He doesn't charge for a night's stay. He and his wife, Rosemary, and brother Robin, run their workshop and "hotel" and live a life often glamorized by Hollywood. His uncle, Duff, who taught him a few things about saddlemaking, is memorialized in the Smithsonian.

It's not a stretch to say the cowboy life informs my fiction writing. I don't write Westerns, but I see similarities between my Musketeer characters (courtesy Dumas) and the American cowboy. They both practice unique skills; they respect weaponry; they ride horses; they live with bravado, if only in legend. Could Musketeers be considered the French version of cowboys? I don't see why not.

What I'm Writing

"Three Musketeers" might be on a few read-this-book-before-you-kick-off lists, but it's not everyone's favorite. I think that's because it doesn't delve much into the thoughts of the Musketeers, for the most part. That's why I wanted to write a sequel about one of the men, in particular.

My book is based on Athos, the eldest Musketeer who shuns the company of women and favors wine. Good fodder for a romance novel, eh? Dumas wrote a book called "20 Years After," which I'm slogging through, where he revives Athos as a happy aristocrat with a son. How'd that happen? That's what I thought, so Athos is my subject.

I haven't found any blogs yet by romance writers who discuss whether they fall in love with their male protagonists (I know you are out there). I definitely did. He's complicated and brooding and lonely .... you get the picture. I'm also more interested in him than his love interest. Not sure that'll sell with the romance reading crowd, but I'll take the fan fiction spill-over.