#she wants him to identify the species for her (it is a field mouse)

[hey-scully-itsme]

a little drawing of stephen and brigid for new year’s

[skeptycats]

Vicky Archives #2

FOREST OF SECRETS - A mother’s decision

Vicky Holmes, the former editor of the Warriors series, has been doing short extract readings on Facebook since the start of the UK lockdown back in March. There’s some really cool anecdotes hidden within some of these videos, so I decided to begin penning them down for posterity and easy reference.

I won’t be transcribing filler, hedging and false starts but I’m including some amount of preamble just to be comprehensive.

Vicky started splitting the readthroughs into three parts starting with this one: the reading itself, ‘behind the scenes’ discussion, and topical creative writing exercises. I will be transcribing all three sections under different headers.

#1 Into the Wild | #2 Forest of Secrets | #3 The Darkest Hour | #4 Code of the Clans | #5 Firestars’ Quest | #6 Twilight | #7 Long Shadows | #8 Leafpool’s Wish

---

Hello! Welcome to my kitchen today!

My reading today is going to be from the third book in the first series, Forest of Secrets. This was the first book I wrote with Cherith Baldry. 

For the first book, Into the Wild, we took writing samples from several writers, a dozen writers, even, and Kate Cary was a new writer to my company and to me. We felt like she had an amazing voice and a real grasp of the sensitivity of the cats, a real feel for the story. And that’s how we chose her, through auditions.

For this book, I went straight to Cherith. I worked with her already on a series called Puppy Patrol by Jenny Dale, I think on a couple of other projects as well. I knew her well, I worked with her very well, and I knew that she loved cats, which was good to balance out my natural antipathy towards the feline species. So I just had a hunch she would be great, and of course, she was. 

We’re going to read the prologue:

Cold gripped the forest, fields, and moorland like an icy claw. Snow covered everything, glittering faintly under a new moon. Nothing broke the silence in the forest except for the occasional soft rush of snow sliding from the branches of trees and the faint rasping of dried reeds when the wind swept through them. Even the murmur of the river was stilled by the ice that stretched from bank to bank. 

There was a flicker of movement at the edge of the river. A large tomcat, his bracken-colored fur fluffed up against the cold, emerged from the reeds. He shook snow impatiently from his paws as he sank into the soft drifts with every step. 

In front of him, two tiny kits struggled forward with faint mews of distress. They floundered in the powdery snow, the fur on their legs and belly matted into icy clumps, but every time they tried to stop, the tomcat nudged them on. 

The three cats trudged along the river until it widened out, and they drew level with a small island not far from the bank. Thick beds of reeds surrounded it, their dry stems poking up through the ice. Stunted, leafless willow trees concealed the center of the island behind snow-covered boughs. 

“Almost there,” the bracken-colored tom meowed encouragingly. “Follow me.”

He slid down the bank into a narrow frozen pathway through the reeds and leaped onto the dry, crisp earth of the island. The bigger of the two kits scrambled after him, but the smaller one collapsed on the ice and crouched there, mewing pitifully. After a moment’s pause the tomcat jumped down beside it and tried to nudge it to its paws, but it was too exhausted to move. The tomcat gave its ears a lick, roughly comforting the helpless scrap, and then picked it up by the scruff of the neck and carried it onto the island. 

Beyond the willow trees was a stretch of open ground broken by bushes. Snow covered the earth here, crisscrossed by the pawmarks of many cats. The clearing seemed deserted, but bright eyes gleamed from shelter, watching the tomcat as he led the way to the largest clump of bushes and through the outer wall of tangled branches. 

The icy chill of the air outside gave way to the warmth of the nursery and the smell of milk. In a deep nest of moss and heather a gray she-cat was suckling a single tabby kit. She raised her head as the tomcat drew closer and gently set down the kit he was carrying. The second kit staggered into the nursery behind him and tried to scrabble its way into the nest. 

“Oakheart?” meowed the she-cat. “What have you got there?” 

“Kits, Graypool,” Oakheart replied. “Will you take them? They need a mother to look after them.” 

“But…” Graypool’s amber eyes were shocked. “Whose kits are they? They’re not RiverClan’s. Where did you get them?” 

“I found them in the forest.” Oakheart did not meet the she-cat’s eyes as he spoke. “They’re lucky a fox didn’t find them first.” 

“In the forest?” meowed the queen, her voice rasping with disbelief. “Oakheart, don’t talk to me as if I’m mouse-brained. What cat would abandon her kits in the forest, especially in weather like this?” 

Oakheart shrugged. “Rogues, maybe, or Twolegs. How would I know? I couldn’t leave them there, could I?” He nosed the smaller kit, which was lying completely still except for the rapid rise and fall of its tiny ribs as it breathed. “Graypool, please…Your other kits died, and these will die too, unless you help them.”

 Graypool’s eyes clouded with pain. She looked down at the two kits. Their tiny mouths gaped pink as they mewed pitifully. “I have plenty of milk,” she murmured, half to herself. “Of course I’ll take them.”

BEHIND THE SCENES

So that was the prologue of Forest of Secrets. I don’t think it’s a massive spoiler to say that was Oakheart taking his and Bluefur’s kits into RiverClan after Bluefur, who we know better now as Bluestar, made the terrible decision to give up her kits in order to become deputy of ThunderClan. She knew that a nursing mother would never be allowed to take position. She had to make that ultimate sacrifice. She had three kits, one of them died in the snow on the way, and two kits remained.

Now, when I started writing Forest of Secrets and coming up with the storyline... this series, you have to remember, was very much flying under the radar. It was still just a little series about cats. Yes, we were going to do six books instead of just the one, but it wasn’t selling very well. HarperCollins wasn’t promoting it massively, they didn’t feel the need to. It was just a bread-and-butter series. And because of that, I’m not going to say I was allowed to run riot, but I certainly had a lot of freedom with the storylines, and that meant I could come up with all these backstories for cats. 

It’s so long ago, I can’t remember how I had the idea that Bluestar had given up kits, but I do know at the time I was very personally aware of the conflict between a mother, with young children, and a career. As a parent, and especially, I think, as a mother even in this day and age, you have to make really hard decisions. You can’t be the best mum in the world and the best at your job. It just tears you in half. And I wanted to demonstrate this. It was what I was living through at the time, and I wanted to demonstrate this in my books. And so, I made Bluestar the ultimate career woman, and she gave up her children. With terrible consequences. So that was the first freedom that I was allowed. 

The other great freedom was that I was writing about cats, and therefore I could write about old characters. Now, when you’re writing children’s books, and as you know I’ve written many, many children’s books, normally your protagonist, your central character, will always be the aspirational age of your readers. So, for example, if you’re writing a middle-grade series, which is for ages 8-12, your central characters will be 12, because that’s the age your readers will identify with and want to be. It has this slight glamour for the younger children, and the older readers will think ‘yep, I get them, that’s what I’m living at the moment’. 

However, because I’m writing about cats, cats age far more quickly, obviously, than humans do. So my characters could start off as kits, but within a book they would be apprentices, and then within another book they’d be grown-ups, and having a job, and having great responsibility, including over life and death. And they’ll be able to get married and have children, basically, in the cat world. That meant I could have central characters that aged, and that felt very new at the time, and very fresh. 

Therefore, I was able to have in Bluestar a central character who had not only had children, but she had given up those children for the sake of her job. Including losing the life of one of her three babies in the snow, and then had had to live with those consequences all through her career. And it destroyed her mind. Therefore, in Forest of Secrets and all of the rest of the first series, I was able to show an old character, her mind disintegrated. I think if Bluestar was human we would’ve said she had symptoms of dementia. She certainly had symptoms of massive depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. We don’t need to label it, we just need to empathise. 

We can really see how she was destroyed by giving up her children, and as series one progresses and the trouble with Tigerclaw emerges and she faces losing her whole Clan, it seems to her that her sacrifice was for nothing. And the pain of that is, well, I think it’s probably more than I could contain in words. And both Kate and Cherith, both mothers themselves, just captured that I think, the disintegration of an old person. 

It’s safe to say that for Into the Wild and Fire and Ice, I didn’t love Warriors. It was part of my job, I was working on other things that I much preferred. Didn’t really like cats, didn’t really see where these stories were going... you know, just ‘bash them out’. And that sounds awful, but that kind of was the truth. Forest of Secrets? I fell in love. Fell in love with Warriors, I fell in love with what these characters could do, I fell in love with what I could do with them, and this is when the series became me. Became personal. When I opened up my life onto the page.

CREATIVE WRITING PROMPTS

So I’ve read my prologue, and I’ve talked a little bit about the freedom that writing about cats gave me, and especially writing from the perspective of an old person. If you’d like to use this for your own creative writing today, I’d like you to have a think about writing from the perspective of a grandparent, or someone who’s lived hundreds of years and is looking back over their lives. How would they see the world differently? What sort of extra perspective do you think that gives them? 

Ordinarily, as an English teacher, when we’re encouraging our students to write from the perspective of an older person we often say go interview your grandparents, especially if they’ve lived through the Second World War, because that was a time when society was very different and very alien. We are in the unique position now of living through our own version of that war. Society is different now than it ever has been before, and so what I think might be interesting is to imagine yourselves way in the future, having gone back to living very normal lives, hopefully having families of your own or surrounded by children from your neighbourhood. 

What would you tell them about this time now? See if you can get into the old person’s perspective, would you look back on this and say it was a positive time for connecting with your family and learning the good of the Internet? Would you perhaps be nostalgic? Are there things you might miss about this time? 

But you can also be realistic about how scary it was, especially if you’re younger you might feel particularly that you can’t control it and you don’t know what happens next. I’ll let you into a secret: I’m a grown-up and I don’t feel in control, and I don’t know what’s going to happen, and I’m very, very worried about my family especially. 

Have a go at writing today from the perspective of an old person. It doesn’t have to be about now, it can be something perfectly happy. Do your bones ache? Does the sun warm your skin? Think about how it would be to be someone else, someone of a different age. 

As well as creative writing you could also look at your own books and check out the ages of the protagonists, check out the ages of your central characters. Do you have any books which present events from the point of view of an elderly person? At the moment we’re all about inclusivity in children’s literature, writing from all the different viewpoints, which is just a fabulous thing and I’m learning as much as anyone else about it. Old people have a lot to say, and it’s worth listening. We have a good perspective, even though I’m not nearly as old as I would hope one day to be. 

[thesunsingsforthem]

The Emperor’s New Groove - What animal would you associate your muse with? Why?

Nyline - A cat, I think. She’s very full of personality, very proud, but becomes incredibly attached to the few people she decides are worth it. Possibly a smaller wildcat, such as a Serval, Caracal, or Ocelot, but I’m not sure what species exactly.Aideen - A jaguar spurned by humans. They have power and they know it, putting it to work to keep themself alive and to their own benefit. Solitary, hard to read, temperamental, etc.Althea - Electric eel hahaha. But actually... maybe a corvid? She’s very smart, will tinker and come up with strange and interesting solutions to problems, and loves some edgar allan poe. Or maybe that’s just me. Imagining a raven with a taser is pretty hilarious and pretty accurate, honestly.Rowan - A smaller bird, like a swift, swallow, or something like that. She’s happiest in the air, surrounded by wind, and has a few tricks up her sleeves to avoid before she’ll try and fight.Augustine - Funnily enough, a Kangaroo was the first animal she was compared to back when i first started writing her, for her powerful defensive reactions, kicks, and ‘mothering’ nature to the people she’s in charge of or has claimed as her friends. Also apt could be a wolf, as she likes having her ‘pack’ around and will defend them with her life if need be.Amdis - Some sort of hunting dog, maybe a wolf. He loves canines in general, but also identifies with them and respects them as they’re much more loyal than humans ever could be. He’s possibly a bit more solitary than a full on pack wolf would be, but he will occasionally pick and choose other ‘outcasts’ like himself to take care of, they just usually don’t want to be taken care of by him in the first place lol.Rhys - Is it cheating to say dragon? Perhaps an elk, deer, or moose then. Rhys is a bit difficult to pin down, and the fact that they’re technically an animal already, albeit a mythological one, doesn’t help. They have a bit of a fey nature to them as well though, which is why I’m leaning more towards elk or deer.Israfil - Red-Tail Hawk. It fits his red theme, he loves open fields/spaces to relax in or soar through once he gets a hang of the whole flying thing, is very much a fan of waiting for things to happen rather than ‘hunting’ on his own, and i’m pretty sure red-tail hawks are even one of the more monogamous of the animal world which fits his supreme loyalty and ideals to a T. Alternatively, he could TOTALLY be a golden retriever that got some red paint splashed on him.Remiel - A fox or coyote probably. They tend to think through problems, preferring ‘clever’ solutions to brute force ones, as well as humor to diffuse situations. They also, both by choice and by coincidence, end up going against quite a few social conventions, and have learned to just go with it, being mostly solitary but forming very strong bonds with those who have shown acceptance.Marcus - lololwerewolfisadog, but actually probably a bear of some sort. He prefers to keep his distance from things, not bother with people or society or any of it. But if you piss him off, he has an incredibly explosive temper and would rather completely remove whatever the problem is, even if that is kind of frowned on.Lalna - A mouse or rat, as he’s incredibly intelligent, linked to science and science experiments, and sort of has a bad reputation that isn’t really deserved. Nikola - Pigeon? :P   I think I’d argue for a feline or vulpine but I’m not really sure what would fit him best. He has the attitude for it though, certainly.Nigel - Chameleon! Except also a really sweet dog of some sort, like a retriever or shepherd dog.Adam - A striped hyena, ironic for the belief that they were vampiric or that some human/demons turned into them and drank blood/ate humans in a lot of middle eastern stuff, but also is timid unless defending its young, is the main hyena species where the male takes care of the young, is primarily a scavenger and not a hunter, and is known both for treachery in stories as well as being a symbol of love.

[duraxxor]

"͜A̧ w̡ord,̢ ̸Lo͏rd̛ling:̵ t͝r̀us̕t th͞y̧ ̢d͜e͘ar̢ęs͢t ͘f̸rien͠d ͏as t̶h̕o̷u ̴wo̕uldst ͟tr̢ùst thy sw̧o̧r̕ņ e҉n̶emy.̶"͏

Several weeks after Duraxxor’s resurrection… 

A lone, Quel’dorei ranger found herself running through a small ravine to the north of the Hinterlands. Panic had already taken hold of her entire mindset. As she gasped for air, she limped to the closest hideaway: A crevice in the edge of the ravine. Leaning herself against the hollow wall, she covered her mouth to muffle her ragged breaths. The scent of her blood started clouding the damp oxygen, pushing her sense of thought to grow desperate. 

“ Nora… you have to calm down… if you don’t, you’re going to die… “ Just as she completed the very sentence in her mind, her eyes widened as the lighting outside was briefly eclipsed by a figure in passing. It was of humanoid shape with features hidden by this blackened aura of the likes the ranger had never seen before. Her heart rate thudded so loudly that she couldn’t even hear the purring growls that emanated from the figure. It then began to make it’s way up the ravine rather than pursue what was obviously a blood trail. 

“ Shit… “ She cursed internally, relieved that the monster chose to change it’s course. “ What in the hell was that creature?… “ Cautious eyes looked around, allowing her senses to detect whether or not the thing was still in the vicinity. She peeked her head outside, looking to the left and the right only to recede back into the hiding hole.  Many would think at first glance Nora was some species of cave gopher.

Once clear, Nora dropped her guard and began rummaging through her bag of supplies, pulling out field dressing. “ I best not leave this unattended. I wouldn’t want to give that beast a trail to follow back. Not to mention… if I keep losing blood I won’t make it back. “ Her whispers in self discussion were barely audible to any prying ears. She slowly backed into the cavernous stone while holding the dressing in preparation. However, what her back struck against was far from solid rock. In fact, it felt though there was someone behind her. 

She gasped. “ No… “ Her thoughts regressed back to panic, praying that it was all just her imagination. In the process, she dropped everything in her hands, reaching back to feel a leather clad individual. “ No! How… how did he? It? By the Sun, NO! “ 

In her desperate attempt to run, she was constricted by a pair of arms that enclosed the blackened aura around her. A set of teeth exhaled the scent of death across her neck, smiling in regards to the now chirping woman who couldn’t even scream to save her life. “ I enjoyed our little game of cat and mouse, little one… but playthings eventually break under pressure… “ The creature’s voice flowed pleasantly while revealing that the entity was male by nature. A displeased moan flowed between the creature’s talons as he slithered an elongated tongue across her neck. She was too late, her life was about to end as he drug her through the shadows themselves. Never to be heard of again… 

Later that same evening… 

The monster rose deep within the bowels of a cavern that dwarfed the one prior to the capture of his prey. The left arm fidgeted and created a series of pops and cracks. An unnatural regeneration of sorts transpired as the male creature stared with his right eye to the skeletal remains that had been stripped of every bit of flesh and mana. The creature was revealed by the setting sunlight to be a masked vigilante that looked physically similar to the long-deceased Lord Daevara at first glance. “

My hunger tore from you more than I had anticipated… I devoured nearly every fiber of your form, Nora… “ The recital of her name was information he had reaped from her very essence, having devoured the woman’s own soul. “ Bone is still something hard to digest, however. “ He lifted his left boot and with very little sympathy, he stamped out the shattered skull to nothing more than dust to be carried off into the gusts. “ Though… I never believed that I could truly create a veil of flesh over this… phantom limb I possess. She will be pleased with my progress… “ 

“͜A̧ w̡ord,̢ ̸Lo͏rd̛ling:̵ t͝r̀us̕t th͞y̧ ̢d͜e͘ar̢ęs͢t ͘f̸rien͠d ͏as t̶h̕o̷u ̴wo̕uldst ͟tr̢ùst thy sw̧o̧r̕ņ e҉n̶emy.̶"͏ 

The sudden whisper gained his attention, causing Duraxxor to retract his head backwards. His eye was cast upon the surrounding area with little effort. Perhaps it was simply what it presented itself to be? A whisper directly to cautious ears. 

“ Lordling, you say? “ A brief chuckle rippled through the metallic veil from the amusement that such a title still followed him. After all, the mantle had been given to his son upon death. “ The shadows seem to cling to the notion that I am an active Lord of sorts… “ Duraxxor brought his left arm to twist backwards, creating a disgusting pop that was reminiscent of stepping on a bag of potato chips. The male dispersed into the shadows only to step over to a nearby boulder that he chose to perch himself much like a vigilant hawk. 

“ The darkness isn’t the same whispers I’ve been hearing since my awakening, yet… I will indulge in your conversation for a moment. “ The white curls of his mane brightened from the reflective lighting of the sunset, giving it a fiery gleam. “Trust my thy dearest friend as thou wouldst trust thy sworn enemy. “ He repeated. “ A lesson that even to this day many believe they have figured it out. So often they think to themselves that when they meet someone one can truly rely on that betrayal is an impossibility. “ He briefly shook his head before the continuation of the matter at hand. “ I knew a man who was once a married man in two different lifetimes, both women were very different yet they had one thing in common:  I didn’t know whom they truly were. It is when one is most desperate that one can often find their true nature to be revealed.“ 

The crimson glare darted across the scenery as if identifying any sudden changes in the background. “ The first wife I believed was a courageous and thought to always stay at her children’s side. I was proven wrong and for that, said children were forced into abandonment due to my untimely absence. “ He paused, creating a sickening crackle of his left arm that was pushed back into place. “ The second… She was vicious, protective even, but her inability to continue is what led to her downfall… a sacrifice that should have never been made. However, it was necessary in order to protect the daughter of her husband. “ 

The masked figure canted to the left, a habit often familiar to animals such as a canine that personified curiosity.“ I have and have had friends and enemies alike, some of which took on the title of both at some point. However, none of them are aware of my existence. At least, not yet. “ Duraxxor deeply exhaled an unneeded breath, rolling his shoulders to also pop. The creatures body seemed to always need some sort of skeletal adjustment every so often. 

“ I would ask whom you may speak of, sweetness. But, I think I may have a guess. I appreciate your warnings and I do wonder if it is because you care for this creature? Or perhaps you seek to promote second thoughts to implant more distrust than I already feel for this world?” Once more, amusement hummed from the man’s throat. “ That is why you speak through the shadows rather than aloud or to my physical form, no? I don’t blame you though. Approach with caution because I possess the time and patience to think of how I may yet indulge in your company. Who knows? Maybe we could be… friends? “ 

[[ Thank you anonymous for the interesting prompt. And may I apologize for the delay. With events in both RP and real life, I wanted to answer this on a day where I could collect everything in my head. You have been honored with the first prompt upon his return to this world. ]]