Thoughts...

While I have not been reading much lately, I received a book highlighting the architecture of Frank Loyd Wright for Christmas. A genius architect, to say the least, but a staunch supporter of the transcendentalism worldview. The transcendentalist movement believed in transcending themselves through perfection. In less technic terms, they could become all the God they needed by perfecting themselves. They also believed strongly in a capital "N" Nature, as a force with which they could attune themselves as they sought transcendence. Many poets and writers were transcendentalists, among them Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott and Walt Whitman. 
I recently took an American Literature class, which covered the literature from the early colonists up till right before the Civil War. A good deal of what we read was this transcendentalism. On first glance it can seem quite true to Christianity, but a closer look reveals its virtual denial of God and its basis in the perfection of ourselves here on this earth, both of which are strictly in opposition to what we as Christians believe. It is important to know the lies of the enemy, so that we can act against them, and know them for what they are. As 1 John 4:1 says, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world."

Scritch Scratch...

Ahh, the sound of pen on paper. I have been rewriting the first section of Warrior in Grey, as I have already mentioned. Here is an excerpt showing what it was before and after. Hopefully you can see the change in style, as well as in proper grammer:

A few minutes later, they came upon a set of great iron doors. Daren stopped and gasped in amazement, not at the size of the doors, but at the huge creature that guarded them. Daren had never seen anything like it before, but he knew what it was, a Mandron, a giant armored gorilla, known for its low intelligence and immense strength. His armor consisted of bracers, shoulder blades, a helmet, and shin guards. A leather cuirass covered his chest and back.

The mandron soon noticed them, and stepped forward, brandishing its massive iron club. “Charge!” yelled Daren. This was the kind of fight he liked, even odds, and a fair chance of success. The mandron’s small brainpower quickly made itself apparent; the animal spent more time looking for his constantly moving opponents than actually fighting them. 

In the end, the mandron trapped Daren between himself and the door. The brute raised his club, and brought it down with all his force. But the mandron over-swung, and the club, instead of crushing Daren into matchwood, smashed into the doors with a resounding boom. The iron shivered, and when the mandron withdrew his club, a giant dent was seen in the gates. 

“Get him to do that a few more times, Daren, and we’ll be able to get inside!” Lanas shouted. 

The mandron, enraged, moved closer. Daren grabbed hold of the huge head of one of the many bolts that studded the doors. He pulled himself up, using the large bolt-heads as grips. He was about six feet above the ground when the mandron swung. As the club whistled toward him, he dropped, bending his legs to take the impact as he hit the ground. The club struck the doors and this time, the door buckled. The mandron, carried forward by the impetus of blow, also crashed into the doors, sending them smashing down. A thunderous bellow announced the mandron’s demise.

- - -

“Forward!” whispered Daren, hoarsely, and the small band began to sprint down the long hall. At the far end, an archway opened obliquely into a far larger hall. The torches here still flared brightly, and by their light Daren could see what he had hoped against hope he would not: the mandron of the Idikil dungeons.

The outlaws behind him froze. They had been told what to expect, but none of them had fully grasped the reality of it. Two huge iron-studded gates closed off the end of the hall, and in front of them stood the great beast, the like of which none of them had ever seen. Man-like it was, but covered in a black hair all over, with bowed legs and over-long arms. Even with its stooped back, its head was higher than two men standing on one another. Its face was a twisted form, with a leering grin, fat lips and tiny eyes. The beast was armored with large stiffened-leather plates that formed shoulder guards, bracers, and shin guards, along with a metal plate hung askew on its hairy belly. Its grotesque head was also partially covered in a strange mockery of a leathern helmet.

Daren looked sideways at Lanas, who nodded determinedly. They knew what they had to do.

“For KING and country!” cried Daren, and the little party rushed forward. The beast snorted, as if waking up from sleep.

Only half a moment had passed before the great iron club it carried was swinging through the air. It caught Lanas on the shoulder and hurled him against the wall. He lay for a moment stunned, and was barely able to roll away before the club smashed the stone on which he had been lying.

The next moments stayed with Daren forever; the dodging, the repeated crushing blows, one of his men crying out as the heavy club was brought down on his iron helmet and he crumpled beneath the overpowering blow, dead. How he himself had ended up between the mandron and the door, and only managed to throw himself on the ground before the heavy cudgel rammed into the heavy wooden door, inches above him. Splinters flew up, the great doors quivered, and a sudden thought had struck him. He had sprang to his feet, then dived through the mandron’s outspread legs as its weapon once again came smashing down on the door. The wood had bowed, and gaping cracks had suddenly sprung into life.

“One more time, Daren!” Lanas had shouted, then he himself had jumped in front of the mandron. The mandron had swung, but Lanas hadn’t been quick enough, and the club had caught him full on the chest, driving him into the door. 

The doors wrenched from their hinges, shattered into thousands of splinters, and the mandron pitched forward, carried forward by the momentum of its own blow.

“No!” Daren shouted. The monster landed heavily on Lana’s crumpled form, groaned and lay still. “Lanas!”

The First Stroke

Well, I have not been reading a great deal lately, but I have written quite a lot in the past few days. I have been continuing work on my magnum opus, my great work. It is a story entitled The Warrior in Grey, a medieval fantasy set in the imaginary land of Terra. I started writing the initial story in a bound journal a friend gave to me several years ago, simply because I wanted to write. I had finished my first story a few months previously, and my fingers itched to begin again. So, I started to write. I was, however making it up as I went along, so the story had no overarching plot or theme, only a string of adventures running together. A few months later, I transfered the unfinished story to my computer, expanding and clarifying parts. I returned to it from time to time, adding to it, though with no clear ending in sight. When I had no new ideas, I would go back and edit parts that were woefully in need of changing.
Then, this past summer, I accidentally crashed the hard drive to my computer, and so lost everything but what was in my mind and a early printed draft. So, I set down to rewrite the entire story, this time with an somewhat more experienced hand. I had not gotten far, though, when the same friend who gave me the notebook returned to me a zip drive which had accidentally been left as his house. And safe and sound on the zip drive was an extremely recent edition of The Warrior in Grey!
I replaced the first few chapters with my reworked portion, and have continued to edit the rest to match. I am now a little over a quarter through my forty-four page, 1,2900 word manuscript, which still needs an ending. Thankfully, about halfway through the already written portion my style improved considerably, and that section will need far less editing than the first half, which was, I humbly admit, a copied, corny, totally unrealistic tall tale. And so editing continues... Mayhap I will post a excerpt here soon.

The Dipped Pen

You may call me Farjag. Here begins my commonplace blog, wherein I shall seek to record my thoughts both on others' writing and my own. I shall seek to write here as often as possible, for a thought lost is often lost forever, and the placing of ink to paper helps solidify passing fancies into reality. May the following pages give the reader an insight into my mind, and a key into my world