I think I might actually finish my sixth scene tomorrow. I spent the time between Day 15 and Day 16 satisfying the muse, at least for some level of satisfaction.

Now that all questions of whether to move forwards with incorporating real (and thoroughly researched) Inuit mythology, actual history from old days to the modern day, to a vision of a bright future in the South Baffin, partly the result of the effects of global warming. It’s a complicated visioning, but it should be.

Another thing I’ve been running into… while books like White Heat and On Thin Ice are so far well-written and interesting and without that cozy comfort of most cultural appropriation, they’re not true Northern Voices, so to speak. I’ve been thrown out of the immersion of White Heat by, for instance, exclamations of “Holy walrus!” and something along the lines of “the news hit him like a herd of musk ox to the spleen”. I’ve been trying to research into whether these are things that Inuit, Yup’ik, Inuvialiut, Inupiat, or Yuit would say (though obviously I would focus on Inuit sayings, since South Baffin is the southern Canadian arctic area, where Tunngavik would be situated), or if they’re just another example of “yak-hair shirt”.

Which means pulling interviews and actual essays, poetry, and stories written by those of Inuit heritage, from then and from now. More money spent on Amazon.ca, but worth it—and of course, I’m making use of the web (and not resorting to Wikipedia), such as Nunavut ’99. They mean it when they say to go back to the source, or at least to sources that are labeled authentic by those with the right to tag as such.

I swear I’ll do this right to the very extent of my abilities. And if it’s not enough—then Seal Tales will remain a private musing. And I never want to hear “her story is so authentic” from anybody but those who have the right to say so. Sorry.

After all, I have a Vietnamese detective waiting in the wings. Which I still need to do research for, being as divorced from my heritage as I am. (Please don’t recommend stories about the Vietnamese from the perspective of American soldiers. They kind of make me angry because the Vietnamese characters often are there for the purpose of giving insight or targets and thence to die, often nameless. Shit like what’s in Watchmen, which I otherwise like-ish (except for other problematic aspects of it, like the portrayal of women and rape. Boy, I do like me my problematic media).)