How to explain...

Errg. Has anyone ever had the problem of trying to explain what they are writing about and why you think it is better than the average dime novel out there? I know I do. And fantasy is one of the worst genres with this problem. A writer says they're writing historical fiction, and someone's ears will perk up. But fantasy... meh. So, I have to go into a rather long-winded explanation of what my writing is, but more importantly, what it isn't. Conversations usually go something like this:

Friend: What's that?

Me: A story I'm writing

Friend: What kind of story?

Me: Fantasy. Though I really try to be original and stay away from elves, dwarves, orcs and the like.

Friend: Oh, that's cool.

Me: At the same time, I don't like stories which have the Aethereia riding Bjollen and living in Hoplathera. I try to keep things realistic.

Friend: Interesting... so you write original, realistic fantasy. Like with only humans?

Me: Well, actually I have the freeborn or alterers. They're something like shapeshifters, but they only have one form besides their human form, and they're not actually humans who can turn into animals. It's as much a part of who they are as sneezing is to us. They are not one or the other, or even both, but a single entity with the ability to choose between two of his forms. I only use the words 'human' and 'animal' because I couldn't describe it any other way.

Friend: Oh, ok.

Me: And I don't use magic, though I've been trying to bend physics lately. I'm still working with that.

Friend: So, is this another world?

Me: Yes, but it's connected to ours. Not sure exactly how yet, whether its out there in space somewhere, or if it's on some other plane of existence. But that's why there are the 'animal' names for the freeborn, they originally came from our world.

Friend: That's pretty sweet. So, how far are you along?

Me: Well, I completed a novel last November, 50,000 words, and I'm getting ready to do it again this year.

Friend: Woah. That's pretty impressive

Me: Thanks.


So, as you can see, it takes a bit of time to get them to see the whole picture of what I'm writing, and why it's different. And there's always the question: "So, it's like Lord of the Rings/Eragon/Dungeons and Dragons/manga/some other fantasy I haven't read ?"

No, not really. It's... my own.

Let it Burn!

Here's a fairly short one I wrote as a song... maybe I'll finish it and write music to it someday.

Let it burn!

Let it burn, let it burn!

All around the flames will leap

I don't care, I just want to yearn

To find my courage, take the leap

Let it fall, let it fall

All around it crashes down

I don't care, I just want to call

Upon my savior, catch me now

Let it go, let it go

Drop it down to the ground

I don't care, I just want to throw

My sin down to the ground

Let it spark, let it spark

A light to shine to other men

I don't care, I just want to mark

My way different from all other men

The Battle

Battle

Battle lines drawn up

Upon a field painted green

Silent, unmoving lines of soldiers

Waiting for the bullet's scream

The commander astride his muscled horse

The captain with his golden sabre

The sergeant standing with his men

And the private next to his neighbor

Across the rolling ground

The enemy lines come into sight

The slow forward march

Towards the approaching fight

"Fix bayonets!"

The command rings out

The clatter of sharp metal

Accompanies the resounding shout

The bugle sounds!

The advance is underway!

Quickly the charge grows faster

The victor will be decided today

Raw-throated yells

Guns held to the ready

Lines draw closer together

Both still steady

The crash!

Two armies collide

A wheeling melée of bodies and steel

Now is the time to decide

Who has the upper hand?

Tis imposible to tell

While one wing is hard pressed

The other is gaining well

The two opposing flags

Circle each other like hawks

As all around their soldiers

In bloody battle are locked

The screams of the wounded

The silence of the dead

The shouting of the still alive

And whine of flying lead

Ah, at last, some movement!

As one side gives way

But who the victor?

Even I cannot say 

Broken Sword

Broken

Jagged and torn

Splintered

Battered and worn

Shattered

Stained with blood

Cracked

Splashed with mud

Forgotten

Hidden from all

Abandoned

None remember the fall

Alone

Deep in a vault

Dust-covered

Whose the fault?

Discovered

Light breaking through

Reclaimed

Taken up anew

Heated

Shaped with blows

Hammered

The iron red-hot glows

Reforged

Pieces joined together

Remade

Hilt re-bound in leather

Sharpened

Blade gleaming cold

Restored

Again the glory of old

Wielded

In battle strong

Victory!

Thus ends the song

Poetry

I was looking through my itouch's notes today, and found a great deal of poetry I had 'forgotten' about. Maybe misremembered would be a better word. Anyways... since I haven't had the time over the last few days to write anything new, I thought I'd just post a piece on here every day until I've written more prose, or I run out of poems, whichever comes first :P . Without further ado then, the first poem:

The Minstrel's Song

The night air was drifting

As I sat softly lifting

A song to the sky

As all around did fly

The music I was making

Voice lifted up in song

Notes drawn out long

Words coupled in rhyme

Foot tapping out the time

To the music I was making

Countless stars twinkled down

As firelight lit the background

In quiet streets, abandoned

My melody softly landed

The music I was making

Touched by the bow

Strings sounded low

Fingers catching notes

Like dancing little motes

For the music I was making

Softly ended the song

Silence following along

Fingers rested atop

As strings slowed to a stop

And ended the music I was making

But lo! A note in answer!

And following like a dancer

Came a trill sweet and high

Piping notes that did fly

Like the music I had been making

Soon there came in sight

Swiftly approaching the light

The piper, skipping along

Mirroring her merry song

The music she was making

Then, with a merry grin

I picked up my bow again

And touching bow to string

I began softly to sing

To the music we were making

Melodies intertwining

Harmonies slowly rising

Notes falling like rain

And bouncing back again

The music we were making

Then did the darkened street

Begin to resound with many feet

As folk began to gather round

And voices began to sound

A song raised to the sky

By many voices raised high

The music we were making!

An Old Grey Book

This, my friends, is where my writing career began. This humble, gray, cloth-bound notebook given to me by some dear friends of mine for my 14th birthday. I had just completed my first fictional story ever, On Grace Alone, and wanted to write again. So sometime in September of that year, on the way to a church camp-out, I pulled out my gray notebook and wrote these words on the first page: The Grey Warrior. 130 handwritten pages later, most of them fairly ineligible to anyone except me, I had written 11 chapters chock full of improbable occurrences, cliché situations, and no plot to speak of, as well as some dozen pages of notes, a prologue for the sequel, and one or two other random ideas.

Near the beginning... notice the neat handwriting?

Towards the end... not so much anymore :P

I had already begun to transfer most of this to the computer, and so work on The Grey Warrior truly began. Several years of intermittent writing, computer crashes, computer moves, rewriting, another 20 pages in my gray book, and I emerged with an incomplete story 27,790 words and 13 chapters long; which documented quite well how much I had improved from writing the title to the last never finished sentence. The Grey Warrior taught me how to write, specifically in the area of what NOT to do. :P
Several more years passed, with sporadic writing in other areas, two short stories and several false starts on other works. In 2009, I revisited my grey story, completely rewriting the first four chapters in a more realistic tone, and implementing something of a future plot-line. Unfortunately, there still was not enough of a solid arc to keep the story moving, and it too fell by the wayside. Then, in November of 2010, I discovered NaNoWriMo: The National Novel Writing Month. The goal: write 50,000 or more words in 30 days. I dove into the idea, digging among my dozen of unused ideas for one that I could keep running for that amount of time. I had already been toying with the idea of combining several of my worlds into one, but had discarded it (mainly because I had been using Terra, the Grey Warrior's land, for the jumping point, and it didn't have any room to add something more). The idea came back in full force, especially when I discovered that an outline I had named According to Power fit extremely well in my Feather and Fang world. A month of plot outlining and re-outlining followed, with only a few key ideas from the original concept ending up in Freeborn and Freegiven. Then came November, and I wrote furiously for 30 days until I wrote "The End" on the 30th. (Then discovered that I was just over a 100 words short... and had to find somewhere to add a few paragraphs :P) During that time, however, I frequently used my little gray notebook to continue writing when I didn't have access to my computer.
When that was done, I took a break from writing for a few months, then started again on Feather and Fang, the sequel. Now, November fast approaches again, and Silver and Sable is slated for full novel treatment. And my writing has come full circle. Once again will the gray notebook be filled with the hairbreadth escapes and daring adventures of Rogart and Dakar, this time in rugged land of Theorlen.

 And this time, with plot-line worth hanging on to!

Sharpening his pen,
Farjag