In the spirit of participating in the Pitchwars mentorship contest, I’m going to share a bit about how casual writer like me came to be hammering out a full-on novel about an obscure sixteenth-century charlatan/mystic.
I’ve always written. I filled out a childhood diary every day whether anything happened or not and kept a sketchbook during my teenage years. By college, I was writing the occasional record review for the school paper and enrolled in the journalism program.
Keep in mind all of this was non-fiction writing. Growing up I read mostly history and weird stuff (UFOs, ghosts, cryptozoology). Ideally, both, when I could find them.
As such, I encountered John Dee fairly early, or at least the cliché/legend: a pious genius conned into letting mustache-twirling villain sleep with his wife or obsessed magus willing to trade his wife’s virtue for magical power. I found it interesting but not noteworthy, as nothing genuinely weird was going on.
Or was it?
I encountered Dee again in a biography of the “mad” Emperor Rudolf II, who collected alchemists, scholars, and charlatans from everywhere. I learned that Dee and Kelley were in each other’s pockets through seven years and at least as many countries. Huh. So, an incredible con if Kelley managed to keep Dee snowed for seven years.
Or maybe not so incredible, because Kelley tried to leave several times. Unsuccessfully, even though one would think that asking to sleep with the boss’ wife would be a sure route to being fired.
So then I got a biography of Dee and went down the research rabbit hole. I came to two conclusions:
- Something more than simple con artistry was going on with Kelley, making him more interesting than Dee by far.
- Dee must have been a pain in the ass to live with.
So why am I not writing a straight-up biography of Kelley? Because I’m not a historian, so there’s nothing I can add to that conversation. I’m not even a journalist, having switched from journalism to fashion merchandising my junior year (another story, for another time).
But I can make stuff up.
Because over the years I did discover fiction, both reading and writing. The latter mostly in the form of fanfic, first for myself and then for friends. A way to have fun with other fans, but nothing serious. Nothing original, and nothing that would make sense anyway outside the in-jokes of particular fandoms.
And then the Kelley bug bit me, and I found that fanfic had inadvertently been my first training ground for fiction writing.
So I wrote “Fool’s Gold” (a lousy name, and subject to change): Kelley as a con artist who got in over his head and started hearing voices, Dee as an obsessive who bulldozed everyone in his path, and Jane Dee as an overworked, stressed-out wife with (justified) anger management issues. It’s speculative, filling in historical holes. It’s creepy, with seances and spirits. It’s ambiguous, because those spirits might be angels, demons, Kelley’s imagination, or something else. It’s got necromancy, heresy, sexual tension, and uneasy alliances.
I’ve learned craft over the five years in which I wrote this. Classes, conferences, and a critique group helped me herd “Fool’s Gold” through 3+ edits. I think it’s a good, solid manuscript, good enough to query, as good as I can make it. But, I’ve reached the limits of my own abilities and resources, which is why I’m seeking mentorship through Pitchwars.
Maybe nothing will come of it. Maybe I’ll discover that “Fool’s Gold” is just a learning exercise that belongs in the bottom of a drawer. Maybe I’ll unravel the problems I have with it myself. Or maybe something I can use to become a better writer, of this book and those that follow.
All they can tell me is “no”, right?