Finishing the sequel

2013 has been an arduous year in my life. It has brought challenges and difficult times that have truly tested the limits of my perseverance and endurance. I won't detail the exact events that I am referring to, as that is far removed from the purpose of this post.

Despite the difficulties of this year so far, I have finally finished the first draft of my UNISON sequel, titled UNISON:ARC. The story is over 130k words long - just over 2x the length of the original. 

I have mixed emotions about this achievement. I love knowing that the story is substantially complete. Just being able to see it completed is the greatest reward for the hard work and time I invested into writing it. However, at the same time, I am disappointed that the substantive writing process is over, as writing this story has been a brilliantly enjoyable experience. Obviously I still have to spend a lot of time editing and rewriting this story to make sure that it's sufficiently vetted for submissions, but that experience is not the same as watching the story write itself and grow from plan to manuscript.

I'm not complaining about editing, by the way, even if I do have an aversion to the 'red pen' - I use green to avoid this, its much less aggressive.

I hope that the sequel will follow in the footsteps of the original and make it into print, but I am very aware of the print industry's difficulties and the immense hardship of getting that covering letter, synopsis and sample three chapters noticed. Fortunately I already have a foothold as a published author, so hopefully some more doors may open for me and my sequel. Though, even if my current publisher rejects the sequel, and other publishers reject it also, I will always have the option to self-publish. Isn't technology brilliant? I think so.

So, although my blog updates have been sparse, I have returned to blogging for this exciting announcement. I thank everyone for their support and feedback on the first book and I look forward to making the second available for reading in the near future. I will make sure that I post my sample chapters on here as soon as I am happy with the edits.

Thanks!

L.H

Zen

The Last of the Magi:

In the old times, when the ancient magical bloodlines were starting to grow and expand, few would have described magic as an instrument of tyranny and oppression. Ask the people today and they would describe it as exactly that. How did the ancient gifts of nature become so tarnished in reputation?

The Sorcern are the cause.

In the early days of magic, only the fortunate bloodlines could channel the powers of nature. It was seen as a gift, believed to be bestowed only to those families who had lived in perfect harmony with nature in a mutual relationship of respect. It was the greatest blessing any could receive.

In time, the bloodlines grew and intertwined with the non-magical bloodlines to the point that the every family, every town, every city had at least one Magi amongst them. They only ever used their powers to help cultivate farmlands, summon well-needed rainfall and protect those around them. The Magi were said to be compelled by the will of the earth itself. The old Magi diaries all recorded similar beliefs, they believed that their powers gave to them an affinity to the needs of nature, and they believed that the misuse of their magic would result in their magic being taken from them. So the Magi served nature from birth until death. No Magi ever committed a crime, or misused his magic for selfish or evil purposes. Nature had a way of making even the most unpleasant of characters act selflessly when it came to the use of magic, it was a bizarre fact of magic. So, over time, the Magi helped the weak become strong and helped the vulnerable find shelter in the comforts of nature. Despite all they did for the people, the Magi never accepted praise or joined in the celebrations in their honour. They preferred to do their deeds and then return to the forests, rivers, mountains and deserts of the world and attune themselves with nature.

I wish I could have seen those days. When people and nature were completely in synch, thanks to the Magi. But those days are gone. Taken away by the Sorcern.

There were many who grew jealous of the Magi and their gifts. They tried desperately to find a way to steal their magic for themselves. Some Magi were killed, some made prisoner. Some tried drinking the blood of a Magi, or torturing them, or even eating their flesh. But such crimes against nature only drew them further from achieving their goals.

Some of the wealthy lords of the land rallied together and founded an organisation that studied nature and the Magi in order to find the secret behind their connection. They created great furnaces, wind tunnels and water jets to study the forces of nature in its most intense conditions. Its not certain exactly how it was done, but the organisation discovered a new form of power in their great nature factories. It was said that they bathed people in the gasses and vapours that came from their experiments. No-one knows for sure because the Magi burnt the factories to the ground, along with those inside. The experiments make the Magi fill sick, as they felt nature being abused for its power.

Although they managed to protect the balance of nature that day, the damage in the long term had already been done. In secret, the surviving scholars and researchers had escaped with the product of their studies. The wealthy lords were able to quickly refine the process and imbue their bodies with the violent forces of nature. They had just created sorcery.

If magic was the ability to commune with nature and share its gifts, then sorcery was equivalent to stealing the powers of nature and manipulating it with force. The difference was plain to see in its execution. The Magi had the ability to raise the hopes of all who witnessed their magic, the sun seemed brighter, the birds sounded happier and even the grass and trees seemed to become healthier. The Sorcern could invoke great feats of power with their sorcery, but at a cost. Sorcery ripped the life out of the nature that it manipulated. It killed trees, crippled animals and caused storms and droughts when used in great intensity.

Now, many years after the first Sorcern walked the land, I have seen the friction between the Magi and Sorcern reach its resolution. The history books and diaries may be fact, or they may be fiction, but I know this much to be true, the Magi failed to undo the damage to nature caused by the Sorcern. When I was just a child I witnessed the Emperor of the great Sorcern city lead a war against the Magi, in a battle that is now called the Great Purge. The Magi were powerful, but their benevolence were no match for the brutality of the Sorcern. They were too defensive. The Sorcern killed every one, using so much sorcery in their assault that they destroyed one of the most verdant meadows, leaving it as a blackened, dead, scorched, cracked and barren wasteland. That place serves as the reminder of the Sorcerns' power and superiority.

People no longer praise the day that magic-users enter their town. The Sorcern use their powers to oppress and command the non-magical folk into submission. That I have also seen. I have seen towns levelled and villages burned to the ground simply because a villager gave a Sorcern a funny look. The same happened to me.

The Sorcern took my home from me a long time ago. I have called the wilderness my home ever since. I have met so many poor people on my travels, all fearing the day that the Sorcern knock on their doors.  I do not pity them. They choose to stay still and wait until that day comes, and they do nothing to stop the tyranny of the Emperor and his Sorcern. I take a different stance.

I stop them. I kill them. Then I'm gone. I'm just a traveller, they never see me coming. The Emperor needs to be put down, and I intend on being the one who does it.

Creativity & Knowledge:

I've been having another one of my musings. Instead of thinking about food or my workload for once I am thinking of something a bit more... philosophical, perhaps? Let's go with that. I've started to think about creativity and knowledge. In the past I have always seen these two qualities as being mutually exclusive of each other, as in you either do something which exercises your creative imagination or your intelligence. I think in a very monochromatic view of the world, like an old film, you can see life portrayed that way. I personally blame the Sims for giving me this flawed perspective.

Such phrases come to mind:
"Creative license"
"Knowledge is power"
"Knowledge is the food of the soul."
"A picture is worth a thousand words."

So what has resulted for me is that I have spent most of my life putting things that people do as a hobby or career in one of the two boxes.



For example:

Creativity -

1. Art
2. Drama
3. Music
4. Design
5. Film
6. Writing (Fiction)
7. Dance

Knowledge -

1. Science
2. Mechanics
3. Mathematics
4. Law
5. Logic
6. Medicine
7. Writing (Non-Fiction)

Oh sweet naivety. Its dawned on me that creativity and knowledge are far from polar opposites. At the very least it could be argued that they overlap, and at the very most it can be argued that they are completely harmonious. 

Take an artist:

Creatively they express themselves, their purpose or their ideology through whatever canvas they decide to use. The end product is a result of their imagination.

Knowledge plays a key role also, without it the artist would not have the understanding of the effect of their actions, of the colour fusion, of the brush strokes. Without knowledge of the world they are in, the life they live and the understanding of themselves their art would be void of meaning or ideology.

Or a Lawyer:

Having an extensive working knowledge of the law on an issue will put you in great stead for knowing whether the answer to a legal question is yes or no. Having the legal know-how is the fundamental basis for doing well in the area.

Without creativity we wouldn't have interpretation. Without interpretation the answer to the question will almost always be 'no'. With it, the rules can be questioned and explored for loop-holes. 

The reason I picked up on this is because, as a creative writer, I often re-read my work and realise that I have not mentioned much about the colours of things in the environment, or the texture and shape, or even the temperature. The same thing goes for particular human senses, its easy to rely on sight in description but equally easy to overlook smells and tastes. And as I considered more things that I overlooked in my writing I eventually came to considering character's cultures and ethnicity. 

The ultimate realisation for me was that my creativity in my writing only extended to what I had knowledge of. I would write ancient religious connotations because I had the background knowledge to apply it in a creative way. But I would not write about international cultures or lifestyles because it is an area that I know little about. In effect, we are paint brushes, with the ability to only paint in the colours that we know. If we want to expand our potential we need to learn more colours.

So, the philosophical message to come out of this is this:

In order to be creative, we must expand our understanding and experience. With knowledge, we can use our imagination to look upon what we know anew.

I hope you enjoy this post :)

L.H.