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avevale_intelligencer...who has just posted a description of her Babylon Wood and some of the beings who inhabit it. My writing has fallen off lately, due to stresses of other things and generally feeling bleurgh, so I wonder if it would be helpful for me to do something similar about my inner landscape. Well, what I mean is, I'm going to anyway, so either click on the cut-tag or not, as you please.:)
My territory isn't nearly as fully realised as Seanan's, which will probably surprise no-one who has read her writings and mine. Lots of it remains to be fleshed out. One other difference, I think, is that whereas she is inspired by dangerous places, I tend to be inspired by Safe Places.
Outside the Library, then, is the village of Avevale, which is exactly the sort of place that turns up in episodes of The Avengers, only real. It sits in a natural bowl-shaped valley surrounded by hills, and most of the buildings still show signs of their original Tudor/Stuart construction. There is one pub, the Man At Arms, and a small clump of shops selling food and other essentials. The stone cross in the market square commemorates the names of all those who went to fight in the Great War. They all came home. Some Safe Places work even when you aren't there.
Outside the village, on a small rise beside the main road to Eltdown, stands the Church of Without Saint Paul, the only religious establishment serving Avevale. It's dedicated to the Apaulines, a schismatic sect founded in the mid-eighteenth century, which has died out everywhere else but remains alive and well here. A little further along the road is the gateway to Avevale College, formerly Convulsion Hall, for which the priest of the church, Father Antony Rede, is also chaplain. So far I've only met two of the teachers there, Paul Harding and Robin Fayne, though Fraser Monstrance occasionally does guest lectures in the summer. The College grounds back on to the Pretendwood, an extensive stretch of forest which curves around the valley to (I believe) the north and east. On the westward edge of the Pretendwood stands the Grange, where Sir Louis Grievance has lived for the past ninety years at least, and presumably his father and grandfather before him. Since they all bore the same name, it's hard to tell.
The other road out of Avevale also leads to Eltdown, via the Jariscombes and other even smaller villages, and this is the way the local bus service runs. As it chugs over the edge of the valley, you can just make out an incongruous establishment of portakabins and prefabricated huts, surrounded by a guarded fence and dominated by a large building with a dome-shaped roof. This is the home of the Gilchrist machine, and the hierophants and acolytes who tend it and hope never to come to understand it. It's about the least Safe of all the Places here. And somewhere underneath is the Control Nexus, tended by the four "archangels," the place where the stories are monitored as they run.
And that's it for now. More, maybe, in another post.
My territory isn't nearly as fully realised as Seanan's, which will probably surprise no-one who has read her writings and mine. Lots of it remains to be fleshed out. One other difference, I think, is that whereas she is inspired by dangerous places, I tend to be inspired by Safe Places.
Outside the Library, then, is the village of Avevale, which is exactly the sort of place that turns up in episodes of The Avengers, only real. It sits in a natural bowl-shaped valley surrounded by hills, and most of the buildings still show signs of their original Tudor/Stuart construction. There is one pub, the Man At Arms, and a small clump of shops selling food and other essentials. The stone cross in the market square commemorates the names of all those who went to fight in the Great War. They all came home. Some Safe Places work even when you aren't there.
Outside the village, on a small rise beside the main road to Eltdown, stands the Church of Without Saint Paul, the only religious establishment serving Avevale. It's dedicated to the Apaulines, a schismatic sect founded in the mid-eighteenth century, which has died out everywhere else but remains alive and well here. A little further along the road is the gateway to Avevale College, formerly Convulsion Hall, for which the priest of the church, Father Antony Rede, is also chaplain. So far I've only met two of the teachers there, Paul Harding and Robin Fayne, though Fraser Monstrance occasionally does guest lectures in the summer. The College grounds back on to the Pretendwood, an extensive stretch of forest which curves around the valley to (I believe) the north and east. On the westward edge of the Pretendwood stands the Grange, where Sir Louis Grievance has lived for the past ninety years at least, and presumably his father and grandfather before him. Since they all bore the same name, it's hard to tell.
The other road out of Avevale also leads to Eltdown, via the Jariscombes and other even smaller villages, and this is the way the local bus service runs. As it chugs over the edge of the valley, you can just make out an incongruous establishment of portakabins and prefabricated huts, surrounded by a guarded fence and dominated by a large building with a dome-shaped roof. This is the home of the Gilchrist machine, and the hierophants and acolytes who tend it and hope never to come to understand it. It's about the least Safe of all the Places here. And somewhere underneath is the Control Nexus, tended by the four "archangels," the place where the stories are monitored as they run.
And that's it for now. More, maybe, in another post.
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no subject
Date: 2008-03-06 08:03 pm (UTC)I am fairly sure that my inner landscape will feature chocolate mines somewhere.
The Grievances made me laugh. This may not be appropriate, but there you are!
no subject
Date: 2008-03-06 08:17 pm (UTC)Somewhere back in the LJ archives is a story what I wrote that features him (or his ancestor) and the original owner of Convulsion Hall. Mostly made up as I went along, but it has some nice bits. It starts here (http://smallship1.livejournal.com/114228.html) if you're interested.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-06 10:02 pm (UTC)It is good hearing more about the village and its environs, more detail than in the story. Perhaps you could put a map and list of characters in the back...
no subject
Date: 2008-03-06 09:59 pm (UTC)I'm very sorry to hear that. Do you need more time?
no subject
Date: 2008-03-06 10:45 pm (UTC)I shall at some point summon up the NaNo thing and the Stickytape and String story and see if I can do anything with them. I may have to start posting bits just to give myself incentive to write more. :eek:
no subject
Date: 2008-03-07 08:43 am (UTC)http://soren-nyrond.livejournal.com/76028.html