Author-ized L.J.

#WordWeavers Apr. 8 – Do any of your characters tell jokes? If so let them tell us a joke, please.

Joking seems to be the preferred mode of courtship for Jozi, the butch servant from my upcoming short Between One Word and the Next. Here's what she might have said to her girlfriend Dandi if she knew the King was working on the creation of a Korean writing system (which would evolve into Hangul):

Jozi: What's the use of reading and writing for the likes of us, eh? Though if I did learn, I'd send you letters for your right pleasure, lil lady. (Waggles eyebrows)
Dandi: And get us both beaten within an inch of our lives by palace guards for how filthy they be?
Jozi: Right you are.
Dandi: Ooh, and now you GOT to learn it. I want me letters dirty enough to get half kilt over!

Hmmm so I guess they're more of a joking duo, and also kids could you lighten up a little 😬

#HistoricalFiction #SapphicFiction #Korea #writing

Apr 8 at 9:52amWeb
Show threadAuthor-ized L.J.1d ago

This imagined interaction got me a little sad because I had thought Jozi was the clown of the two, but looking back she only ever joked around when she was talking to Dandi. It was Dandi who brought out the laughter in Jozi because Dandi made Jozi WANT to make someone else laugh, despite the hardships and rage of their constricted lives :(

The events that put Sossang and Danji, the inspirations for Jozi and Dandi, in the historical record took place about 8 years before the promulgation of Hangul (or rather its ancestor, Hunmin-jeong-eum) and we have no idea if they survived to see it, or were together if they did. In my own little fictional space, though, my Jozi and Dandi lived happily and peacefully together after being sent away from the palace, and eventually learned to read and write together 🥲 And yes, they totally wrote dirty letters to each other!