*ahem*

Ok. So most of you know this already. :) But in case you don't, and just so that it's official -

I am now an editor.

*huge grin*

Here is the anouncement; and if you wanna see my name on the contact page, it's here.

(insert Mr Green)

The Real History of Naevoria

A Look Into the Creative Efforts of Merlin

Naevoria is the name of my first and most detailed world. It started as an island in the midst of a broader world that I knew nothing about, it also started as the setting for a story that I called rather plainly the Adventures of Dannrel. I set out to write a story about a young apprentice wizard (roughly my own age, I can’t recall exactly how old, as I kept changing his age as I got older) and his adventures in his world. The first thing I decided on for the world was the politics of magic (trying my best not to draw on ideas from Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, while desperately wanting to copy them), I set up the Council of Magic and a master/apprentice training system and designed some rules to keep the use of magic in check. The second thing I added to the world was an evil wizard who had defied the council and made himself immortal, this began the First War of Magic (as it was called at the time, now it is merely another squabble between the council and a rogue wizard) and ended in the evil wizard’s capture and imprisonment in a nifty little spell that would hold him forever. (Forever wasn’t very long, as I noted in the story.)

As I wrote Dannrel I created various characters and added what would later become my dragons (as of yet they were merely varicolored dragons with little to set them apart from other dragons.) I always thought that the dragons should be good, but there was the small problem that the people in my world were dreadfully afraid of them and Dannrel managed to get into a fight with one. What were these bad dragons doing in my story? I asked myself. It seemed there were two groups of dragons, one that hated humans and one that tried to help humans. So K’randenmar Rebeldragon was born. The ideas did not yet fall together, they still needed something more.

That something more happened along as I was working on another story. In most of the stories I have read the armies of evil minions have been made up of pathetically weak, untrained soldiers (be they goblins, or some such with a different name) they always attacked straight on, in mobs with little thought for tactics other than superior numbers. This lead to the hero of the story having no trouble fighting scores of opponents and made him look like a magnificent swordsman. In my eyes it just made the bad guy look stupid and the people who died fighting the enemy look weak. I decided that I would create and army of evil creatures that would be really good at fighting. They became the Karadera, adept at all kinds of weaponry, masters of all aspects of warfare, well-trained, disciplined and controlled by mind-controlling wraiths. They were merely supposed to pose a threat, but they quickly overwhelmed the opposition and took control of the land they lived in. So of course I had to think hard to get the people of this land out of their trouble. Most people were enslaved under the Karadera (and their human allies). What they needed was a hero and a liberator. Cendris rose to the challenge and began a resistance that was crushed. He was forced to flee the land and go. . . where?

Until this point I had thought that this other story was taking place in another world. It was here that I realized that they were the same world. Cendris fled to Naevoria. And the people of Naevoria had come from Taera. This connection of worlds brought about the start of the story of K’randenmar Rebeldragon and the history of the Darktimes.

I supposed that the people of Taera might have had trouble with the dragons before. At first I thought for the longest time that some previous rebel dragons had been cast out of Naevoria and banished from the isle of magic and flown across the sea where they found Taera and burned their way across the land in what I called the coming of the Wyrms. So the people of Taera were rightfully fearful when they came to Naevoria, where they found more dragons and set about continuing their destruction. Obviously the dragons wouldn’t be too pleased by that. They fought back, there were casualties on both sides until a girl named Jennstie Morianne managed to bring peace between the two races (don’t ask me how, I didn’t get that far in the details). The leader of the Dragons, Eyreyandale, made peace with the humans. But his brother did not. So the seeds of Rebel Dragon were laid (it was one word back then, Rebeldragon, don’t ask me why, merely an odd quirk of thinking.) They would not be fully thought out until I revisited them when I considered writing Rebel Dragon.

I have always been fascinated with winter and I realized how cruel it would be in this world, so I created the embodiment of winter in the form of the Ice-Wraiths or Isilvrel. They were cold people, living in the north of Naevoria and hating the cold lands to the south. Every winter they would ride forth in an attempt to destroy the southlands. But every year they were driven back by springs coming. With the Isilvrel I also created the boarder country of Lindera (which was the forerunner of Dannrel’s Equilla and Iiyrie) and the men who stood guard against the winter. But they had not always stood. The wraiths had not always come. When they first came the south had fallen and been covered in winter for a few long years. They needed something to save them. It was then that I realized that the Dragons had not been banished from Naevoria. I realized that they had come from Taera in the first place. And that they had not always been dragons.

Fearadrel has always been one of my favorite dragons. He had only been remarkable in that he was the leader of the dragons that had been cast out of Naevoria and had been killed during the dragon purge of Taera. I made him more interesting. He became a powerful mage with a creative mind. Fearadrel gathered a following, starting with Sandra (one of my favorite characters) among them were all the great dragons I had ever named. They joined their power together and under Fearadrel’s direction made themselves something more than human. They made themselves untouchable by time and they gave themselves great power and new form. They became dragons. They had become powerful and nearly invincible. Some of them decided it would be fun to display their power. But they went a little too far. They brought the wrath of the other wizard-groups down on them and proved that even the most powerful could be brought down by numbers. They fought back. Cities were burned and many died. At last the leader of the wizards challenged Fearadrel to a duel, just as he had in my previous idea of history, before the dragons became human. They fought and killed each-other. Or so it seemed. Only Sandra ever knew that Fearadrel had survived in his human form (though his dragon form had been mortally wounded) and fled back to where he came from. The rest of the dragons (except Sandra) left Taera forever. They found Naevoria under the Ice-wraith’s spell and cast them back into the north.

There were many other innovations along the way. But that is the general history of the creation of Naevoria it is not in chronological order, since I started at the end with Dannrel and reached into the past as I created it. It is not a complete history in any way: I make only passing of the Darktime that spawned the Karadera and brought about the Cracking of the Sky and I completely neglected the dragontongue, the white tree of the north, the elves, the Faeisari shapeshifters on Whaldran, the men of Krysane, Teardrop and the Flamereach Archipelago. If I were to include the evolution of every idea it would make for a very long post indeed and would take almost as long to tell as it did to create. As it is this is quite long enough already. It covers the first ideas to the most recent and it gives a glimpse into my mind.

Of Chairs and Rolling Thunder

Picture the Inklings.

They are gathered in the rooms of CS Lewis at Oxford University - or perhaps in their favorite corner of the Eagle and Child pub, which they refer to as the Bird and Baby. What are they doing? Talking, of course - but about what? Perhaps Tolkien is reading his latest installment of the Lord of the Rings - or perhaps, if the scene is from a later year, his son Christopher is the one doing the reading. (Did you know once his son was old enough to join, they never let JRR read his own stuff? He spoke fast and unintelligibly. And he had horrible handwriting ... I feel in such good company!)

Or maybe it is Lewis doing the reading - from Narnia, or his space trilogy. Maybe it is Charles Williams.

Or perhaps they are just talking. There are many members who aren't writers, after all - in fact, I think it was Dyson that often refused to let excerpts be read, because they bored him. (This much to the annoyance of the other members.)

But the point is - can't you just see it? The close knit friendships, the laughter, the warmth; and imagine the amount of talent gathered in that one room! Genius burns.

Now, however, the scene changes. It isn't a pub or rooms at a college - it is a much lighter set of rooms, located just outside of a small town. The place is flooded with sunlight and classical music. Antiques and pretty things are strewn all about in an attractive manner - pleasing to the eye, if a strain on the wallet. In one room, tea and biscotti await; in the other, a small table with four chairs is to be found. Each of these chairs is occupied but one, which is piled with writerly paraphanelia. Notebooks, pens, and pencils are close to hand - though none of them are opened. Here, too, there is laughter, though of a much younger (and, I'm sure, sillier) sort. While in the former not a woman is to be seen, here the females outnumber the males. (Hence the silly laughter.)

It is quite a different scene than the one before it. They are separated by long years and a wide ocean. And yet they are also connected.

But the latter is interrupted by a strange and mysterious rumble. It goes by relatively unnoticed at first; but then it repeats itself, and continues to do so, until finally it draws comment and attention - at least from the female members. These two look at each other, and wonder aloud - now, what could that possibly be?

The first conclusion is obvious - thunder, of course. But thunder, on such a clear day? Outside not a cloud is to be seen anywhere. Perhaps, then, it is a large truck driving over a bump in the road. But over and over and over again? The small town outside can barely expect to see one, let alone half a dozen semis in its claustrophobic streets.

As the females discuss the issue with their usual whimsical seriousness, the tolerance of the male party finally crumbles. He rolls his eyes, and points out - ver patiently - that the noise is coming from some room directly above their heads.

The girls stare first at him, then at each other. Their eyes widen.

There's a storm in the attic?!

As the young man shakes his head in despair - yet not, perhaps, in surprise - they start gibbering excitedly about lightening and rain and floods upstairs. It is rather an exciting prospect - perhaps they should go investigate. Of course, it could be a truck after all ... but what would a semi be doing in the attic?! That idea they immediately dismiss as preposterous. And imagine what stories you could write around attic storms...!

Deciding he would be remiss if he allowed them to continue in this delusion, their male companion interrupts to deliver his own concise analysis of the situation. His proposal:

"It's probably just a rolling chair in an upstairs office."

The girls stare at him. Then they stare at each other. Then the ceiling rumbles.

It does sound remarkably like a rolling chair.

They sigh deeply. They dare not bruise the ego of their friend; but their eyes exchange a message. How easily our poor friend finds and accepts the obvious! Does he not realize how much more poetic thunder is than offices? Where would humanity be if we had chairstorms on rainy days? And what sort of writers would we be if no thunder rumbled in our attics?

So the scene fades. The Inklings and the Quillbearers - different in many senses, yet the same in so many others. Brewing storms of the mind ... Genius burns.

(Lyn ... you know we all love you. ;))

The Beauty of Sacrifice

I was just thinking about this today. The story I finished this morning has a lot to do with sacrifice; it's one of the main points of the story. And I was thinking--sacrifice so often involves loss of some kind, even death. It would seem like a horribly depressing thing--so why is it that whenever I read about some form of sacrifice (or, in this case, write about it), instead of feeling horrified or depressed, I always feel awe-struck and uplifted?

My theory is that by reminding us of what God Himself did for us, stories that show us sacrifice remind us a little of God. As we see how the character gave something up, we feel strengthened and inspired and begin to believe that we, too, can give, even our lives, if God asks it of us.

At any rate, that's my theory. :-)

What to Expect From Me

I haven’t completely decided what I want to post here, but you can probably expect observations about the real world and lots of world-building. Where some writers write for the sake of characters, story or an idea, I write for the sake of the world. I look to the world around me and I see a marvelously complex system. I steal what bits I like; I take things and rearrange them. My thoughts are filled with ‘what-ifs’ and ‘how else’s’. I say I concentrate on the world, but I do not neglect character, story or idea, for they are all part of the world. A world is much more complex than mere setting. It is the entire background of a story, encompassing the history that precedes it, the societies, cities and people that populate it and the things that can happen. Everything has a history and everything has a relation to something else.

My worlds, once built expand past the boundaries of any one story. There is always something left to explore or something left unsaid in the background. It is theses details of history and society that like to find their way into blog posts while I am trying to work consistently on one story. If they can’t make it onto paper as part of the story I am working on they might as well find their way to a blog.

What we'll post

Righty. This post is a little late in coming, but ... ah well. Live with it! :P

When I invited people to join this blog, I first led up to it by giving them the backstory. I wanted them to have an explanation of why, exactly, this site was made. They all listened quite attentively, until I actually invited them; then they promptly responded:

"But what will we post?"

My answer went something like: "..... Heh. Funny you should ask that ...."

This post being, as I mentioned, a bit late, we already have some fine examples. Look first at Liz's post. It is a complaint, a rant against her writer's block. It could also go in the opposite direction - a happy rant, a rambling about how wonderfully everything is going in your current story. You could talk about the sudden insights you received into plot or character; the amazing line someone dlievered in a scene that completely and unexpectedly blew you away; how horribly your characters are misbehaving and refusing to do what you tell them; the sudden spear of inspiration as it lances through your thoughts; those scenes, those moments when everything falls into place. Talk about what's happening in your life and writing as a writer.

Then there are the inspiring posts by Keesa. Thoughts about writing itself, about why we write, about our goals and ideals. And there's the post by Gen, which follows up on what Keesa said beforehand - it's a response.

Keesa's second post was generated by a comment that started getting longwinded. Comments, I think, are important.

I plan on posting here, hopefully within the next few days, about an article I read called 'The Evangelizing Power of Beauty', both summarizing what it said and giving my own thoughts.

We can relate the events of every day life through the eyes of a writer. This would include things that sometimes have nothing to do with writing, on the surface - moments of clear beauty, scenes we want to capture with our own words, and so forth. We can also post about the other arts - music, movies, etc - because really, they are all interconnected. Their aim in the end is the same. (I blogged about this once! *grin*)

And of course, books! Talk about what you're reading. And hey ... wouldn't it be awesome if we could read a certain book together, at the same time, and post about it? Or perhaps now and then we can pick a certain theme and each of us write something, and share the results? Another option is this - my spring break this year is mid-March. Liz and I intend to have a sort of writing retreat. Not hours upon hours of writing - just something scheduled. For example, get up at this time. Write for this amount of time. Eat lunch. Take a walk. Write more. Etc.

I think it would be cool if we could all do this together - each with our own schedules, of course. And we CAN do it together, because of Thunder in the Attic.

So. Share your own thoughts and ideas, tell me what you think of these.

End ramble. :)

A Question, and a Question Answered

In commenting on Gen's post, I made the remark that it was our own faith, bubbling up and spilling over, that would make our stories truly Christian stories, stories that would encourage others to move closer to God, and that would shine light in a dark world. (Well, all right, I didn't say exactly that. But it's close enough.) I follow that up with a question:

Can a story be truly Christian if it never mentions God?

After all, Tolkien's work never mentions God, or even an Aslan-like representative of God, until the Silmarillion, and then it's in the company of an entire Parthenon of lesser gods. Modern Christian writers seem to think that unless a story takes great care to mention God many times throughout the story, it isn't "Christian". The result is too often a nauseating, didactic mess, where bad preaching takes the place of a good story. Personally, I find such "Christian" books make me sick to my stomach. (No, I'm not going to name names, and yes, I do have an actual book in mind.)

Those of you who read my columns probably already know where I'm going with this. But the answer to the question above is a resounding Yes! A book need not mention God by name to be filled with examples of His holy power, to draw readers closer to Him, to uplift, enlighten, exhort. Look at the book of Esther.

Out of all the 66 books of the Bible, Esther is the only one that never mentions God, yet no one who had ever read it could deny that He was the most important character in it. Compare the two quotes below (both very rough paraphrases, I'm afraid).

"It may be that you have been placed here for just such a time as this."

"All I can say is that Bilbo was meant to find it, and not by its maker"

One is from Esther, the other from Tolkien, but note how pivotal God is in both of them, without being mentioned even once. Until we can say that Esther, a book of the Bible, is not Christian, we can never say that any other book is not, or at least not on those grounds. (Of course the majority of books being published aren't Christian; I would go so far as to say that some of the books published under a Christian title aren't Christian; the author merely inserted a few morals and stuck God into it because Christian fiction, at present, is a booming business, which is a sad thing if I've ever heard of one.

At any rate, the point I want to make is that the love we have for God, the faith that touches every area of our life, what C. S. Lewis calls "the bubbling", is what will make our stories Christian--and, ultimately, what will give the most glory to God.

Echoing Keesa

Your latest post was excellent, Keesa. You really do have a gift for getting your words across. You are able to express exactly what I think, and what I know the others think too. And I am so glad that you stated how important our relationship with Christ is; in order to be good Christian writers, our spiritual lives CANNOT be neglected. Obvious it may seem, but easy it is to do.
Some people, if they find out that I pray alot, think that I am all 'pious' and 'holy'. Those things I defintely am not (though we should strive for perfection always) but I pray so much because I need Christ so desperately! There would be no way I could get on without Him. Even little things throughout the day, I like to talk to Christ as if I could actually see Him sitting next to me; telling Him things that others may not think important, in fact they might seem downright silly, but I want to make sure that He knows that I do not want to ever forget He is there.
We need to pray always. We need to ask for help in our writings, so that God will guide our quills to the best our minds can put them to.

And before I go I want to share with you all a quote by St. Pier Giorgio:

"To live without faith, without a heritage to defend, without battling constantly for truth, is not to live, but to 'get along'. We must never just 'get along'."

A Challenge, and a torch to bear...

Thunder in the Attic

In the past few weeks, there's been one thing that's really been bothering me. It has to do with the quality of Christian literature in general, but it applies just as much to Christian spec-fic as to any other Christian genre.

It troubles me that there are so many good writers out there, and so many Christian writers out there, and so few good Christian writers. What's up with that?! Where are the modern Tolkiens and Lewises? Where are the Christian J. K. Rowlings?

The short answer is: right here. Every one of us is Christian; regardless of denomination, we all love God and want Him to use us to accomplish His work in the world. And every one of us is a writer. We all know the power of the pen, whether for good or for evil. It's one thing to see the problem and to decry it; it's quite another for us to shoulder our pencils and set to work making it right, but that's precisely what the very existence of this logue challenges us to do.

If we want to change Christian spec-fic (which Phy at DKA eloquently refers to as Speculative Thology), we have to be first of all commited Christians, dedicated to deepening our walk with the Lord, and second, commited writers, dedicated to constantly improving our craft.

So here's the challenge I have for you: first of all, spend time growing closer to God. This applies to myself probably more than any of you; it's easy to let personal devotion time slide in the face of so many Very Important Responsibilities. But how can we do God's will if we don't know what it is? Never underestimate the importance of growing closer to God.

Second, make a commitment to bettering your craft. There are a hundred million different resources for writers out there, some of them free, some of them not; browse any bookstore, and you'll find oodles of books on writing in all its forms. Read them, if they strike your fancy; join a critique group (Critters is good, but demanding; personal critique groups can be set up for free at TSR's forums*) if you have the time. But above all, never forget that the best way to improve your writing is simply to write. Set aside time to write every day, and write with the idea in mind of bettering yourself.

That's my challenge to us, as the Quillbearers. Good Christian books are put out by good Christian writers, and the burden is left to us to do exactly that.


*Actually, I think I'll go ahead and set up just such a critique group for us over there, if there's interest; I've already got one group that I'm leading, so I have a good idea of the ropes of it. They have some nice tools over there.

I Made It

I hope you all don't mind if I add a post real quick. Because after reading Rose's post entitled 'Who We Are', this one will be silly in comparison.
This is Genevieve typing; I made it here, not without some difficulty due to....technical matters. But that aside....I know this will be an awesome blog, and I am really excited. And that's all that I have to say at the moment...

Who we are.

Ok. Most of you have gotten the general gist of what I’m going to say via email or IM. But I thought it might be good to type this post, just to solidify some ideas, and to get everyone else’s.

First of all – we are the new Inklings! :) Mara pointed out that we need an original name, though – we can’t go around saying “I’m a Thunder in the Attic”. So she came up with one that I liked quite a bit – but I’ll let her post her idea. (Hurry Mara!)

I told you all, via a longwinded ramble that led up to the invitation to the blog, about Tolkien and Lewis and their needing to write what they wanted because it simply wasn’t out there. Their writing was beautiful, deep – and it pointed people to God. Now, look around you at the literary landscape of today. There are a lot of well written things (though there are also a lot of poorly written things that people think are good). But how many of them actually point you to God?

We want to follow in the spirit of the Inklings. We want to write Christian fantasy – perhaps with mention of God, perhaps without it: but we want God to be there, present in our writing.

There is a lot of very dark stuff out there. There can be darkness in good writing – after all, we are portraying a struggle between darkness and light. But light shall always conquer; light is stronger, even (and especially) when it appears the weaker. Evil should not overwhelm any story. I know I sometimes find it fascinating to write about darkness; but delving too deeply into the mind of evil is a dangerous thing, both for the writer and the reader.

We need to put stuff out there that fights this. We need to write about the light. We need to portray truth in all its beauty, and beauty in all its truth – and since these two things have their source in God, since God IS truth and beauty, we will be implicitly directing souls towards him.

That’s how I see it – that’s the call I feel, the reason why I’ve been given a love for writing. Recently in the Coffee House (the REAL one, on Nano ;) ), there was a discussion about writers who are ‘dabblers’. The people who have an idea, and that’s as far as it gets.

Dabblers don’t annoy me, as they do some people. What irks me is being taken for one. “Oh, you’re a writer? That’s nice.” “Give me the first autographed copy of your book.” (This is sometimes serious, but not very often. They don’t believe the book is ever going to be there.) But the things is – none of us are dabblers. I think we are all serious about our craft – because to us, that’s what writing is: a craft. It’s not always fun. Sometimes it’s a struggle. Sometimes – heaven help me – I HATE to write. I can’t make myself sit down at the notebook or computer and type the next paragraph, the next sentence. But we keep going.

Very (very) recently, a friend said to me: “So we study our craft, and build each other up, and know that giving the world truly great Christian fiction is a calling; something for us to strive towards for the rest of our lives. … And we all of us know that our stories are far from perfect; only God is perfect! But we keep learning and growing, and every step of reaching for perfection makes us better! Oh, it's a beautiful thing, indeed!”

Ok. The friend was Keesa. :) But she stated it so very eloquently, and so perfectly captured it, that I had to quote her. :D

The Inklings – a group of close friends with common interests, but first and foremost a common PURPOSE. Sound familiar? :)

Anyway. A few last things. (Don’t worry, the post is almost over!) First – COMMENT. We need to share all our ideas – add your own, or just say something like “Yeah, that sounds about right.” Comments are important!! Second – I think it would be cool to gather all our ideas etc and type them into one, well-written post, and have a link to that post on the sidebar. :) (And perhaps with the story behind the site name, eh? *winks at Lyn*) Also … does the subtitle look a little … boring? ‘The torch passes’ is cool, but do we want more up there? And FINALLY, a common question has been: What do we POST about?? I’m gonna type another post like this one (perhaps a little shorter … *grin*), giving my ideas etc; and we can just talk about it and see what happens.

Anyway. I am so insanely excited about this. *grin* But enough from me – your thoughts. (And if you’re terribly longwinded, go ahead and skip the comments to make a new post. ;))

Writer's block....

Okay, I've decided to dive right in and be the first to wail about writing. I have a problem.....for the first time in my life, I'm trying to write a short story, and I don't know how to handle it!! *cries* Marian won't tell me why she won't marry anyone, Ben won't tell me where on earth he came from and whether or not he's staying, and everything but the beginning is all messed up. *is sad* Is it just a silly little story? Or does it have a deeper meaning? Is it fun, or depthful. It won't tell me! I don't know what to do....

I needed to cry. Thanks for listening, everyone. *teary smile*

*hugs all 'round*

Seeker in Lace: January 2006

Seeker in Lace: January 2006

Did this work? I'm still trying to figure this thing out...

First post ...

Just testing. Seem to be having a little trouble ...