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This is a journal that I started to write in my mind some months ago. I came up with it when I knew about a story by Arthur C. Clarke in which a man falls in love with a gorgeous alien girl. The love becomes contempt when the man discovers that the alien girl was about 27 feet tall (9 meters).

I did not understand why a beautiful 27 feet woman could cause so much contempt, considering that Arthur C Clarke's character was previously in love with her. However, I never understood why some men are reluctant to date taller girls, although I think that this question is a different one, since in literature, most things are symbols or metaphors.

The Arthur C Clarke's story reminded some facts that attracted my attention when I read Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. In general, Gulliver's Travels seemed to me a really satirical and bitter book. As an example, one of the countries that he visits is called Laputa. For a Spanish speaker is an ugly word, since "la puta" means literally "the whore", and probably Jonathan Swift knew that.

But the travel to Brobdingnag, the giants' land, attracted strongly my attention when Gulliver depicted giant women. Giant women seemed to be specially repulsive and Gulliver depicted several times their breasts as something specially awful. Situations that could be arousing became repugnant due to the huge size of women involved. The more lovely the giant women were, the more repugnant they seemed to be. It was the same trait showed in the Arthur C Clarke's story: their huge height made repugnant to a beautiful woman.

Sexual desire, or the lack of it, and size are strangely related in a similar way in two very different stories. But it appears in other works. In a remake of the famous film, The attack of the 50 feet woman, where the giant woman is played by Daryl Hannah, the giantess enters in her pool because her increasing size makes her to feel hot. Her husband, annoyed, ask for some explanation. She does and after told that her heart is beating really fast. An in a seductive way, she proposes her husband to touch it, and he gets angry. It a strange situation: a straight man rejecting a sexual proposal from a beautiful girl because she is a giantess. Again, sexuality and size are related, and it seems that increasing the size of a woman, in fiction, makes her to express more sexual desire. Probably, there are more examples, but I do not remember much more examples about giant women, excepting a brief comment in a book from Game of Thrones.

I think that the main evidence about this trait is related with size as a metaphor of power. That is very clear in The attack of the 50 foot woman, that is a sort of reflection about the problems that could generate a woman who earns "too much" power. A giant woman is a destructive evil. A giant woman does not hide her sexual desire and that causes rejection amongst men because she is huge. Does these trends in fiction reflect that powerful women are a bad thing? I tend to think that the answer is yes.

Not always giant women are evil in fiction. Some writers use the size as a metaphor of femininity. And the sexual questions arise again. A giant woman is a extreme representation of femininity, fertility and, in certain cases, sexual desire. Sometimes, it is a positive representation: a powerful but good-natured woman that uses her power for helping. Sometimes, her huge size is fascinating. And in the case of macrophilia, huge size is the source of sexual arousement.

Considering the literary background that I have mentioned, I did not get surprised when I searched information about macrophilia and found that is mainly a male fantasy and, usually, it depicts huge women who interact with small men. And it is not surprising that, although some giantesses are "gentle", innocent and apologize if they break things, most of giantesses appearing in macrophilia are evil. The most strange thing of all is that the sexual arousement is acheived thinking about being crushed or devoured by a giantess. Again and again huge women have a huge power that they use to kill and destroy.

In order to talk about me, in Sails in the Distance there are no true giantesses: Neivria is 5' 11", tall but of regular size. She is a giantess only from Loztu's point of view, but my approach is related with "gentle" huge women. Neivria never took advantage of being so big in comparison to Loztu and he does not feel contempt because of her height. I am glad about it.

This is a strange journal entry for several reasons. One of them: it is related slightly to my novel, but I would like to write about things that are external to the plot. Other one, criticising some traits that I do not like about beauty and body types in women. But the reason that makes me feel that this is a "strange" journal is that I did not start to write Sails in the Distance in order to criticise the question related to extremely thin women as the only possible beauty standard, but Neivria became an involuntary protest against that.

This journal was conceived after watching a news in TV. A very famous brand or model agency presented to their new large size model. She was a young woman and she was 5' 9" tall (1.75m) and her weight 121 pounds (55 kg). A tall woman whose weight is about 120 pounds is considered as a "fat" model. Hard to believe. Considering than Neivria is 5' 11'' and her weight is around of 158-160 pounds, which kind of obese monster would Neivria be for that people? By the way, is it a healthy beauty model that a 5' 9" tall woman should weigh less than 100 pounds for being a "regular sized" model?

That news made me reflect. Why did I create Neivria for being a weight of about 158-160 pounds or 72 kg? I considered mainly the weight category for Savate where, considering her height, she could fit. Also, I relied in tables of "ideal weights". For a 5' 11" tall woman, the range of healthy weights is about 65 to 76 kg (143 to 168 pounds), depending on the corpulence. So Neivria's weight is a bit above the middle part of the range. Neivria is slender, but it is difficult to see her bones marked under her skin. If you touch her belly, her side or her legs you will not see the muscles marked (a man or a woman would need specific training and diet for losing the fat under the skin and get very marked abs), but you will feel that she is "firm".

But the main reason for picturing Neivria as a tall and "heavy" woman is related to her features as a fighter. There exist a big variety of martial art fighters. Even considering only a style, for instance, Tae Kwon Do, you can find fighters specialised in defensive fighting (usually, the taller and stronger ones) or in offensive fighting. I wanted that Neivria were a powerful fighter. Her fighting style is similar to Savate, that is a type of kickboxing. Her punches and kicks are strong and if she feels in danger and kicks with all her strength, she can floor her foe with a single kick if it landed fully in her attacker. She does not need a high precision as a small fighter could need: she hits hard.

Her fighting style, also, reflects her personality. Neivria does never take unnecessary risks. She will rely in her long range (her legs and arms are long) and in her physical resistence for avoiding to fight in short range. She will fight in a defensive way, without exposing, trying to exhaust her foe and looking for weak points in his or her skills. She will only hit with all her strength if she thinks that the attack will be successful. That kind of fight is appropriate for a strong fighter who is in good shape. That means muscles, and muscles weigh. A 5' 11" tall woman whose weight is less than 100 pounds would not be realistic fighter if her style is the one used by Neivria.

Here, we have reached the main point of this journal. Low weight seems to be an important part of beauty, so Neivria should be ugly. Sadly, too much people is convinced about that a female warrior must be ugly in order to write realistic fantasy. That is a very negative message. The fact that a woman who learns to fight becomes ugly is the same than telling the woman that only passive women are beautiful. If a woman does not need that a strong (and muscular) man defends her because she is a skilled fighter, she must be ugly. If a woman can not run, jump or kick because she is too skinny, she is beautiful. The beauty model related to extremely skinny and tall women limits their actions, prevents powerful female fighters unless they became physically awful. That is horrible.

That much people consider Neivria as a beautiful woman is an important feature in my novel, mainly because it lets me to write about how physical appearance changes the way in which people is treated. Considering the criticism of racism as a main topic, the idea that only women of your own race are beautiful (a common racist feeling) weakened in Loztu's mind when he met Neivria. But it has the same importance that Neivria hits hard. If the beauty model prevents that, I am in trouble. If Loztu can be a strong warrior and, at the same time, be handsome (he is handsome) because is good for the plot, it should not be a problem to depict a strong and beautiful female warrior for the same reason.

By this, unexpectedly, Neivria's body became a kind of protest against limiting beauty models. Beauty does not depend on a certain body type. Or it should not.

I will start this entry with the twitter tip. If you use Twitter for promoting something, you could consider to create your own "hashtag". In that way, if you post one tweet at day using your hashtag, if you press on it in one of your tweets, you will find a number of tweets about it. For instance, for my novel:

twitter.com/hashtag/sailsdista…

This is a lot of information about the thing that you wish to promote that you can share in other pages.

In connection with sense of wonder, I think that a very important thing when you create fantasy worlds is pay attention to the "wonders". In the real world, you can find wonders: nice cathedrals, impressive skyscrapers, lovely landscapes... Some of them are so beautiful or moving that you have to stop for a while for watching them.

Sometimes, you can describe in your own novel a wonder, but, for several reasons, you do not realise that you have described a wonder. In my case, I realised that the gate of Bukret's Dyke was such a kind of wonder. It is an old and huge structure, created with a technology that Hakol people lost long years ago, but that still works. It would be impressive for any of us, and I did not describe that in Chapter V of my novel. I will correct it in the final version.

I realised when I thought that this song ("Inochi no hi" from Tales of Earthsea OST) would be perfect for this moment:

"After picking up his belongings, several comrades who he knew during past tours approached him for telling goodbye, shaking his hand and wishing him good luck in his adventure. Uttuk, Easgu and Munture, his closest comrades, accompanied him to the gate of the Dyke and they farewelled him there. When the soldiers of the garrison activated the mechanisms and the huge gate started to open slowly, Loztu was already alone. His heart beat faster and he felt, for a moment, that he was not able to go out, but it had no sense to make the soldiers guarding the gate wait, so he, finally, crossed the gate.

He started to walk purposefully while he heard how the gate was closed behind him. When the sound of the mechanisms stopped, he turned back for the last time and he saw that, from the battlement of the Dyke, three soldiers farewelled him moving their arms. Loztu said goodbye in the same way and he went away the gate."

The song:

 

inspires on me that sense of wonder produced for watching something spectacular. I can image Loztu walking towards the gate and stopping a moment for watching the way in which it opens by itself.

I have stopped my work for a while, that is not lefting me almost any time, for sharing a memory. Before that, I will have to write some definitions.

Busindre is a small village in Asturias, a region located in the North of Spain. A Reel is a kind of traditional dance and music style from Ireland. They say that is the most traditional music style in Irish music.

In the world of Celtic music, people say that there are three basic kinds of pipes: Scottish, Irish and Galician. There are more types, but you can clasify all of them in one of those three basic types. It is also told that the Scottish pipes are the fire, Galician pipes are the earth and Irish pipes (or uileann pipes) are the wind. That is because the Scottish pipes are very powerful instruments, but the uileann pipes sound is quieter and sweeter. The Galician pipes are in the middle.

Last remarks. Asturias has its own kind of pipe, that is very similar to Galician pipes, and there is a Spanish musician, called Hevia, who invented with another two musicians an "electronic pipe". They invented it in order to let people learn to play Asturian pipes in their homes without bothering their neighbours.

Well... let's the memory begin. A lot of years ago (I don't remember well... 11 or 12) I attended a show by Hevia performed in a castle in Southern Spain. I don't remember well if it was before the starting of the concert or when the second part of the concert was about to begin. But I remember very well that there was a piper, dressed as the Scottish military pipers, at the top of the higher tower of the castle (perhaps 90-100 feet above us). And he played this song in the way in which is done in the first 40 seconds of this video.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cgwn1v…

Yes, it was Amazing Grace and, as the instrument was a Scottish pipe, everybody in the surrounding zone of the castle could hear it with no need of speakers. That lonely piper was preparing a surprise.

One of the songs was "Busindre Reel" by Hevia, this song:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_Q08c…

That song is a mix of styles from different places, although it has a strong influence of Asturian folklore. The first instruments, like flutes of grave tone, are not Asturian. A Reel is not from Asturias, even if they played it with Asturian usual instruments (pipes, drums...). It is very Asturian the short lyrics sung in Asturian language (very similar to Spanish) about minute 2:15 and the fact that an old woman sings them. The lyrics are, in Asturian

Tú nun güelvas más a mio casa
Faciendo ruiu con les madreñes

The most of Spanish speakers can understand it, because in Spanish is translated as:

Tú no vuelvas más a mi casa
Haciendo ruido con las madreñas

The only that most Spanish speakers outside Asturias would not understand is the word "madreñas", that means "clogs", because in Spain, only in Galicia, Asturias and a few more places the clogs are common, in traditional dresses. Also, the standard word for "clogs" in Spanish is "zuecos". In English, the lyrics mean:

Don't come back again to my house
Making noise with the clogs.

In the version that they played in the castle, the old lady's voice was changed by a wonderful fiddle version. Another interesting fact is that after the lyrics, Hevia changes the usual Asturian pipe by the Electronic pipe.

The surprise came in minute 3:44. In the video you can hear that until that moment, only a pipe sounds. In that moment, a lot of Asturian pipes join to the song until its end. In the concert, by the sides of the stage, eight Scottish pipers appeared, so eight Scottish pipes joined the song until its end. Remember that a lonely Scottish piper could be heard from the top of a high tower. Then, imagine the power of eight of those pipes on the stage. The pipes in the video seem too quiet to me after hearing the version with the Scottish ones... I also remember the effect of the pipers' uniforms in the stage: their red coats, their black and long hats, the kilts, the coloured and big pipes... I never enjoyed a concert so much.

The sad part of this memory is that I feel that concert it is very far from me, not only for the years passed, but for the changes in the world. Considering Trump policies, that are causing that a lot of Spanish language students are changing, for fear, their destinies from the USA to Canada or Ireland, and considering that the UK has left the European Union because they can't stand so much European inmigrants... The UK reasons are even more absurd considering that, for instance, there are more British citizens living in Spain that Spaniards living in the UK. And we are the undesired invaders.

I feel in this moment that loving other cultures and enjoying multicultural pieces of art is becoming a peculiar habit of this Spanish man.