#ask me hcmf things!!

[aritany]

Hey hey!! I dunno much at all about HCMF--you want to give me a rundown, or some favourite facts about it? :o

hiya, quill!

yes i sure do!

HCMF, as my first historical fiction novel, is comprised of six parts, set over thirteen years:

BOYHOOD - 1933-36, following finch and andrew as they meet, become best friends, and navigate the triumphs and defeats the epic highs and lows of being 11-14

THE SETTLING - 1937-38, the most lighthearted section by far, what can i say it's the most unsubtle queer coming of age story except finch is dumb and quite literally has no idea what's going on

GROWING PAINS - 1939-40, oop there's a war and also things are Getting Dicey in their personal lives, finch comes to Some Realizations

MAGNETIC DEVIATION - 1941-42, it's Flight School Time, maybe it's gay! ft finch being an excellent pilot and all around stand up guy. also terrible things go down with petra, finch's sister.

THE GO-AROUND - 1943-44, it's war. it doesn't go well.

AFTER - 1945-46, what, you thought i was gonna spoil the whole thing?

my favourite facts about it:

finch, our narrator, is neurodivergent of the "i don't understand myself yet nobody look at me" flavour

it's my slowest slow burn yet

it's Full of the longest most existential queer crisis of all of them except nobody is full of repressed angst about it

what can i say it's just guys bein dudes ft Tender Friendship

1930s-40s canadian politics are fuckin buck wild y'all

petra ivanov (finch's sister) is dillan fletcher's great-grandmother (Do With This Information What You Will)

thanks for asking!

[aritany]

This is pretty basic but what inspired hcmf? 👀

heya saum!!

this is actually pretty fun, because i don't usually have Origin Stories for my wips they just waltz into my brain one day with a vibe or a character and slap the inside of my skull until i give them attention BUT.

HCMF demanded real estate.

so it's mid-july. i'm reeling from a meeting with an editor that went excellently who shocked me with her suggestions of ways to make dillan fletcher's life worse in WCA (which i'm not gonna lie i had not thought possible! and yet!) but now we have to wait to hear back and i am getting stir crazy. i'm seemingly chronically ill and can't do much but sit around and think until one day i decide to take a drive to take my mind off book things. (all writers will recognize this for the terrible idea it was.)

i'm driving down south and y'all, southern alberta in the summer is a thing of beauty. i think to myself maybe one day i'll set something here and move on with my thoughts. trap #1 laid and i didn't even know.

i don't have a particular destination in mind, i'm just goin' in a direction when it occurs to me that in this direction there is a little town called Nanton and in Nanton there is a museum. now i don't know about y'all but i'm a sucker for museums and covid zapped my ability to go to them so i make a spur of the moment decision to visit it. what's the museum? bomber command museum of canada. now i'm not a ww2 type of person in general but it's a museum and beggars can't be choosers. trap #2.

i think i was in there for about two seconds when the Dread sank in. i know writers are familiar with the Dread. it's when you're minding your business and you're struck by an Idea. my eyes caught on an image of a young man in a little yellow plane. the plane was a fleet finch. you see where this is going. trap #3.

the first hallway of the museum is devoted to the history of the british commonwealth air training plan in canada and like a little museum starved neurodivergent i absorbed that shit by osmosis like a dehydrated sea sponge.

and then the dam raids. they had a whole section on the dam raids and i was captivated. i sent @paxtonwrites a variety of Oh No What's Happening To Me flavoured text messages which really meant Stop Me Or This Is Going To Happen which really meant Don't Stop Me, I'm Neck Deep In This Now.

by the time i was done in that museum i was stuck with the idea of two boys growing up and going off to a war that only one of them comes home from. i knew that it would be a tragedy, and i knew that i was about to write historical fiction, the genre i have generally avoided writing especially world war 2 historical fiction goddamn it but the damage was done.

[aritany]

Is hcmf you just making a noise or a new wip??? This sounds like such a stupid question lol but I’m desperate for one

hcmf IS a new wip! it���s my first ever historical fiction project surrounding the canadian allied effort during ww2 and the british commonwealth air training program leading up to the dambuster raids of 1943.

but the story isn’t really about that. the story is about finley “finch” and his best friend andrew as they grow up in southwest canada on the prairies. it’s about building a childhood, graduating together, going to flight school and eventually to war. it’s a little bit about canadian history. it’s a lot about falling in love with your best friend.

i’ll be posting a wip intro of some kind in the next few weeks since i’m working on this one in tandem with the drowned woman walks this fall. i’ll include a title reveal then too (it’s exceptionally cruel)

i’ve curated a small sample of vibes for your enjoyment:

(p.s. if this sounds like your jam i do have a taglist for it! ask & i’ll add you!)

[aritany]

i want to talk about HCMF related things. feel free to send me questions or Thoughts or anything via ask!