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Category Archives: Books

And so on, and so forth.

“Come ride with me through the veins of history. I’ll show you how god falls asleep on the job. And how can we win where fools can be kings? Don’t waste your time or time will waste you.”

I mentioned earlier how much I love the Muse video for Knights of Cydonia (lyrics above). It’s an incredible song, with a fantastic video to accompany it, not to mention the depth to the title. Given the subject matter I’m attempting to cover with my latest writing project, it seems fitting to discuss a god who is less than completely attentive to the pleas of his followers. [Side note: I find it quite interesting that, hundreds of years ago, some people who heard/saw things that no one else did were welcomed as prophets. Today, most everyone who experiences something like that and tells someone else is given a prescription and told to shut up.] In my current work in progress, Arsus plays that role, but he is only one of many gods. Eventually, the other members of the pantheon of this world grow tired of his lackadaisical attitude and decide to teach him a lesson in humility. As Neil Gaiman writes, gods only have power as long as mortals continue to believe in them. What happens to a god no one believes in anymore? He ceases to exist. If one member of a pantheon grows bored with humanity and decides to ignore the people, prayers to that god will cease to be answered, and eventually will cease. Soon, faith in all of the remaining gods will dwindle as well. This is the belief of Arsus’ siblings.

With this in mind, Arsus’ siblings throw him from their side. He is banished into a world filled with the beings he had previously chosen to ignore. Arsus finds himself in Dhe’skuva, not far from a temple where a man has been praising him. When he introduces himself to Rime and claims to be his god in human form, Rime looks at him, and collapses to the ground in a fit of uproarious laughter. Arsus is naturally insulted by the indignity, and he attempts to use his godly powers to do something fitting to punish the laughing man in front of him. At this point, he realizes that he is, in fact, completely stripped of his powers, adding further insult to the injury of his human form. Eventually, a strange sort of friendship will form between these two, though Rime completely refuses to acknowledge that Arsus is his deity, since a god as mighty as he would never stoop so low as to take on human form; additionally, how could he be so weak that his fellow gods could force him into such a position? The god that Rime worships would never allow such a thing to happen to him. This is going to provide for some fantastic bits, such as when Rime discusses miracles worked by his god and Arsus denies ever having done such things, and when Zach explains some mythology in a “Disney” version and Arsus corrects him, providing the true “Brothers Grimm” version instead.

I still need names for the girl and the innkeeper. I’ve got time for that, though. What matters right now is focusing on the characters who are telling me about themselves a little bit at a time. I’m toying with the idea of making Arsus a winter deity, and patron god of Dhe’laza because it’s one of the few regions in this world that receives snow on a fairly regular basis, most of the rest of the country being one massive desert. This would make having to cross a desert even more uncomfortable for him, and add to the challenge he’s facing. I’ve also got several great scenes planned out in which the consequences of his actions as a god are presented to his mortal incarnation. One in particular deals with him seeing that blind devotion to him has lead to the deaths of many, even among his loyal followers. It’s going to be quite the journey.

It’s been quite the week. I’ve received one job offer, and now I’ve been asked to come in for an interview for something that would be full time, twice the pay per hour of my current job, and ten miles closer to my apartment. To top it off, it’s a job that is actually directly related to my degree! Shock and amaze!

Also, my prayers are going out to my high school this week, as a senior girl was killed in a car accident two months before graduation.

Books!

“There should be more books. I want to get lost in rows of shelves, filled with books in which I can lose myself. Books are like the pools in C.S. Lewis’ wood between the worlds. Each one is a portal to a new realm limited only by the imagination of the reader. The best part? You don’t need a magic ring to enter one, and any of the characters you find inside stay behind when you close the cover. I love to lose myself in a book. Too often of late that has been difficult. I find that I am surround by distractions that prevent me from straying too far from the printed path. They serve as signposts that I want to avoid. It’s a far better adventure when you don’t know the way. I love the feeling of picking up a book I’ve never heard of but knowing that it is about to pull me in. When I touch the cover of such a book, I feel an inexplicable joy, an almost electric rush, and an urge to drop everything and devour its contents before I can move on. This is a rare joy, but the scarcity of such books makes the finding of one all the more fantastic.

Doubtless, there are those who would call me mad, but never to my face. They would whisper, as so many have done, behind my back, though I would hear nonetheless. It is the nature of a whispered phrase to meander about until it weaves and winds and finds itself within the ears of the one about whom it was first spoken. It is the nature of secrets to be discovered, for riddles to be solved, for the sun to set at day’s end. It is the nature of the world for these things to happen. It was in my nature since birth to crave knowledge, and in my nature to seek it. It was in the nature of my father and mother to guide me to the books in which I could find such information, such wonder. It is in the nature of knowledge that lingers the traces of original sin. So it is that those who would seek knowledge lose their innocence. This is the nature of man. One could say that a library, for all the knowledge it contains, is more sinful than all of the bordellos in all of the world. Conversely, such a library could be considered to be more sacred to those seekers of knowledge than Mecca or Jerusalem or any similar site to her faithful devotees. In the poorest of libraries can one find more wisdom than in the minds of the richest woman or man now living.”

That’s a little something I wrote a few months ago, but finally got typed up. I’m thinking about how it ties in to the character of Rime and his understanding of his own religious beliefs. He begins the novel as a man who is beginning to,  for the first time in his life, consciously question the existence of his god. His brotherhood works in Dhe’skuva, the city on the desert’s edge, selling crops from their garden and spreading the word of the patron deity of the city of Dhe’laza. The people of Dhe’skuva are highly resistant to the visiting prophets, though they have allowed them to live within the city for almost ten years. Rime stays near the temple entrance most of the days, caring for the garden during the day when his brothers are out proselytizing (I love that word). He speaks of his god to any who come near, but the streets near the temple are empty throughout most of the day. It’s almost agonizing to Rime, knowing that his own effectiveness is limited by his location and his physical inability to keep up with the other members of his order. When he’s alone, with nothing but the echo of his own words for company, a little nagging voice keeps popping into his head. “What if you’re wrong? What if he’s not real?” the voice says.

Over the course of the novel, Rime will have to decide how much he’s going to listen to/trust the voice in his head versus what he’s seeing right in front of him. His interactions with Arsus are going to change his life. Landara, Zach, and the others who have yet to tell me their names are going to be a part of a great adventure. The journey to Dhe’laza is going to challenge them all in ways they never thought possible. Long-held beliefs about the characters are going to change. Zachariah (Zee) will be narrating, and at the same time providing some stories for the other members of the cast. As a wandering poet, he will have been accumulating knowledge over the many years of his life. However, he’s got his own personal demons haunting him, maybe more literally than he ever expected. Landara is fleeing her own heavy gambling debt and her past as a city guard, an enforcer of the brutal law that provides Dhe’skuva with its legendary security.

Then there’s Arsus. Arsus has a unique claim that no one can prove or refute. The first character he meets is Rime, and his first statement is that the voice in Rime’s head is full of shit. The voice of doubt should be ignored. Rime’s god is indeed real, Arsus says. Not only that, but he’s standing right in front of him, stripped of all of his powers and trapped in mortal form. Rime’s reaction is exactly what you’d expect from a man who spent his entire life dedicated to the praise and worship of a god who supposedly protects an entire city-state and is among the strongest in the pantheon. Rime hears this stranger’s words and immediately falls to the ground in front of this strange man who claims that he is his god incarnate, closes his eyes, and bursts into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.

Day 1: Part 2

And back to the blog.

Here I am again. After managing to somehow survive work today, despite a crazy man who claimed that I stole the $5 change I was supposed to have given him (a quick count of the cash register proved him wrong, thankfully), I am back at home. It’s nice to be able to come home to the apartment after a long day and finally get some dinner and a drink or two.

I’ve been spending a good deal of time thinking about this story I’m writing. I kind of wish I had more of it planned out in advance, but at the same time, I like to think that my first journey into this world will be far more similar to that of my future readers. Ideally, this means that I will be able to keep things from becoming too overwhelming/confusing for anyone other than myself. I want people to know how it felt as I was creating this world. I want it to feel lived in and rugged, but inviting to people who’ve never experienced anything quite like it (ideally, this will be all of my readers).

I hate when I read a novel and get overwhelmed with crap. I like something I’m reading to be accessible with a minimal level of extra effort required, especially if it’s the start of a series. If it’s a writer I’ve read before, there will be some level of tolerance. If it’s something that I already know, again, there will be tolerance. After all, “A Clockwork Orange” is still one of the best things I’ve ever read, despite the crazy dialogue and narration that goes along with the story of Alex and his droogs. I don’t, however, tolerate this kind of writing when it’s done pretentiously. If someone takes the trouble to create a language, they should make it useful, not just throw it in your face to say “OOOOO, look what I came up with!” Everything should have a purpose. Don’t give throwaway details. Make people question the intent of every line of dialogue, every description of every lamp and every passing dog. Create a visual that your reader can not forget. Forge something truly memorable. That’s my goal. I want to give my readers text that they desire. I want them coming back to my book every couple of years after they first read it and have them find something that they didn’t notice the time before.

At any rate, it’s time to write something before I fall asleep. As conviction becomes content, I shall post more.