Good Friends... (originally posted at Rhemalda in May 2011)

Everyone knows what a rare treasure a really good friend is. You know the kind – the ones who tell you, with love, the painful truths you REALLY don’t want to hear. The ones who love you no matter your failings. The ones who help you improve by showing you the faults you can’t see for yourself. The ones who seem to know what you need before you ask. Such friends are difficult enough to find in person, but when one arrives via the Internet, someone you never actually meet or even see via Skype, yet who still manages to connect instantly with your soul, that person is the rarest and most valuable of finds.

Well sadly, this weekend I lost such a friend. Gerry Dailey, who lived with her husband and family in Chicago, was the most loving, trusted and loyal friend despite the fact I never met her in person. We shared many loves, amongst which was a love of books and writing, and although she didn’t write herself (at least, not as far as I know) yet she has had a hand in the writing success of many authors; among them, I believe, Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind.

I first came into contact with Gerry two years ago via Authonomy, the HarperCollins peer-critique website. Her Authonomy profile-name was Ancient Reader. She read King’s Envoy when it was still being edited and despite loving it, gave me many insights, pointers and suggestions. When she learned that there were eight other books in the series, she was overjoyed, and enthusiastically read every single one. I made some important changes due to Gerry’s loving criticisms, and one of my major characters, Rienne, even owes her lovely name to Gerry. She also gave me permission to use an endorsement of hers on the book’s cover, for which I am very grateful.

I know there will be many, many people right now grieving for the loss of a true friend they never met. This post of mine is partly in tribute to Gerry and partly to say, if you have a friend like her, not only are you extremely privileged, but always make sure you tell them how deeply they are valued. Friendship is a precious thing and not to be taken lightly. The gift of someone else’s heart is the strongest, and yet the most fragile gift you could ever receive. If I can touch just one other person’s spirit with my writing as deeply as I touched Gerry’s, I will feel very special indeed.

God bless you, Gerry Dailey, rest peacefully in His arms.

What is an Artesan? (originally posted at Rhemalda in April 2011)

When I first began writing my fantasy series Artesans of Albia, it had a very different title. The premise is that a section of my world’s populace, drawn from five separate races, would be born with a certain talent. One manifestation of this talent is the ability to learn how to control one’s inner life force; an energy I call ‘metaforce’. Once this was decided, I found I needed a vehicle through which this metaforce would be channelled; something possessed by every living thing but which was unique in each case. I experimented with various terms until I hit on the word ‘matrix’. The matrix would be akin to the psyche, and it would be a thing of ephemeral, mystical beauty. It can only be seen by another practitioner of the craft and is an intricate, four-dimensional ‘pattern’, consisting of whorls, spirals, helixes, colors and emotions. The more skilled the practitioner, the more complex their matrix would be.

Having decided these things, the series’ title became obvious. It just had to be ‘Masters of the Matrix’. Brilliant title, I thought – I love it! (Can you see where this is going?)

I wrote happily on, oblivious to the slap in the face that was coming my way. Sometimes I just hate the film industry… Ok, of course you know, it was the release of the Matrix films. I spat feathers when the first one came out – how dare they ruin all my careful planning – not to mention a perfectly good series title? Not fair! For a while I toyed with the idea of keeping my masterpiece – maybe I could capitalize on the connection? Thankfully I thought better of it; can you imagine how mad someone would be if they bought one of my books by mistake, thinking it was related to the films? And I could just imagine what agents or publishers would say…

Anyway, now I had a problem. The people who exhibit this talent are not magicians or wizards in any sense of the word. Their ‘powers’ owe more to Druidical beliefs, or that of Wicca, than to such creations as Gandalf or Merlin. I had to find a unique name for them, a term that reflected their knowledge; their artistry.

One of the best-loved books in my writer’s arsenal is my Roget’s Thesaurus. It was a 21st birthday present from two great-aunts. (Actually my parents bought it, but the money came from my great-aunts.) They are both gone now – my 21st birthday was a long, LONG, time ago – but I still frequent my Thesaurus. When I’d exhausted all the obvious and immediate terms I could think of for my talented people, I dug through its many permutations and suggestions until I whittled all the possibilities down to two words. Artist and artisan.

Both these words carried elements (pun intended) of the skills my people possess, but both were too ordinary. I rejected them, but it wasn’t long until I realized there was nothing else. I’d already decided against coining a brand new word; I wanted potential readers to at least have an inkling of what the term might mean. Eventually, in desperation, I tried altering the word ‘artisan’ by exchanging the ‘i’ for an ‘e’. Bingo! The rest, as the old cliché goes, is history.

If Music be the Food of... Writing? (originally posted at Rhemalda in April 2011)

Music is terribly important to me; its strainsrun right through my life. From the nursery songs I learned as a toddler to the silly songs I used to sing in the back of the car on long journeys; tuneless ditties which no doubt irritated my parents no end! Music helped me to learn, from singing the Alphabet song to using rhythm to make my math times tables stick in my head. (There it failed – we’ll gloss over that!)

Later, as a teen, music often helped me cope with teenage angst. Belting out modern pop songs in the security of one’s bedroom– pop songs hated by one’s parents of course – was a mild form of rebellion, one they could do nothing about. Not that I really wanted to rebel against my parents, but adopting some form of individualism was required at age thirteen.

Then came serious singing, with school and church choirs. That was quickly joined by a passion for folk music when, through eavesdropping on what my older brother and his friends were playing in his bedroom, I discovered bands and singers such as Fairport Convention, Pete Seeger, and Joan Baez. I was hooked.

Folk music became the theme to my life and I honed my vocal chords by emulating Sandy Denny – long live the memory of her haunting voice. Recently I sang some songs during our village variety show and afterwards, one member of the audience made my day when she said my singing reminded her of Sandy. I couldn’t wish for a better epitaph – “Her singing sounded just like Sandy Denny’s.” Very soon now, you may get to compare for yourselves and I hope you will be kind!

Music also played a vital part in my writing. I find it essential to immerse myself in the world I’m creating as I write, and because Albia and Andaryon are in effect medieval worlds, listening to music from that era helped drown out the seriously un-medieval Chinook helicopters that regularly blat-blat their way across our rooftops.

It wasn’t medieval music, however, that had the greatest effect on me when writing my Artesans series. On a trip to the US in 2003 or 2004, we had the great opportunity to tour some of the National Parks. The Grand Canyon was also on the list and here, in one of the visitor centres, I picked up a cd of music inspired by the Canyon itself. It was called ‘Spirit of the Canyon’ and was by Ah*Nee*Mah (Diane Arkenstone, Seth Osburn, Delia Park, John Wakefield and David Arkenstone). As soon as the first track (Light from the East) began to play, I knew I would love it forever. There is a strong Native American influence to these tracks and my created world has no connection whatsoever to Native American culture or peoples. Yet that hauntingly beautiful track captures intimately the spirit of Major Sullyan, one of my main characters. I can see the magnificent horse the Major rides, Drum, galloping powerfully across the Albian hills. I can see and hear battles raging. I can see the Major’s Artesan powers, and watch the sun rise over the Manor. It has a very special place in my heart, that track, and I just had to credit its creators in the front pages of King’s Envoy. I wonder what they’d make of the book?

What's in a Theme? (originally posted at Rhemalda in March 2011).

It wasn’t until long after I’d finished writing the Artesans of Albia series that I realized there were several themes running throughout each book. I didn’t set out to explore these topics – they just appeared naturally as part of the characters’ lives. I guess there are themes in every fiction novel, otherwise there would be no plot, but I confess that mine snuck up on me.

Having realized this, and taken a good look at my writing with the aim spotting these themes, it became clear that the main subjects are personal development, and humility in power. At the start of King’s Envoy, Taran Elijah is a desperate man, struggling with a deep yet unfulfilled desire to learn the control of his power. Taran’s yearning has been frustrated by the death of his mentor (who also happened to be his father), and the fact that the Artesan power is in serious decline in Albia.

This concept of “what lengths might a person go to in order to achieve their potential” was the catalyst that kick-started my Artesan series, as I mentioned in my I DIDN’T WANT TO BE AN AUTHOR blog post. What I didn’t realize was how fundamental to the entire series this seemingly insignificant idea had become.

“Artesans” follows Taran through several stages of his life. In many ways he alters beyond all comprehension, yet in one major factor, his nature remains unchanged. I didn’t plan this, and it fascinates me. With no conscious help from me, Taran took control of his destiny and his nature developed at its own pace.

Taran Elijah is not the only character to have his nature exposed and tested to extremes in “Artesans”. Humility in power is another strong premise running throughout the series, and two other characters demonstrate completely different sides to this fundamental topic. As I don’t want to give too much away, you’ll just have to read the books to find out who they are and what effect this conflict has on the plot.

Novel characters - Fact or Fiction?

By which I mean, how do you create your characters? Which is best - basing them on real people, or creating them from scratch?

I expect everyone has a different opinion on this one so I’ll just tell you what works for me. There are no characters in my Artesans series based on real people, except one. I cannot deny that my main female character is the kind of person I’d like to be, but unfortunately, I’m nothing like her. Except that neither of us is tall.

The one character who is drawn from real life is Elias Rovannon, High King of Albia. I based him on the English actor Sean Bean, who many of you will know from his portrayal of Boromir in the Fellowship of the Ring, the first Lord of the Rings film. He also starred as Richard Sharpe, from novelist Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series. I have long been a fan of Sean Bean and by some unconscious quirk, when I began creating Elias Rovannon, the face in my mind was Sean’s. (PS: Don’t tell my husband! J)

I don’t know if Elias’s nature mirrors Sean’s at all, I made it a mix of Sharpe and Boromir, but physically, Elias and Sean are the same. Every time I imagine the thrill of having my series made into a film (and who among us doesn’t?) it’s Sean playing High King Elias.

I wonder what he would think about being the basis for a fantasy character? I hope he would be flattered, as although Elias has his faults, he’s essentially an honest human being who tries to run his realm fairly. He has some terrific action scenes and has to cope with betrayal, unrequited love, and a broken heart. He doesn’t come into his own until the second trilogy, but he’s a major player in the Artesan series.

So – who have you based characters on, and has that person ever found out? Or do you believe fictional characters should not be based on real people? I’d love to hear your opinions.

Fabulous Contest - you really want to win this one!

My friend and fellow Rhemalda author, Doug Brown, is hosting a fantastic contest to help publicize his fantasy novel Legends Reborn: Light of Epertase. http://www.atlasbooks.com/rhemalda/light.htm
This is a wonderful idea and I'm sure it will be massively popular. So follow the link to learn more, and go enter! http://epertase.blogspot.com/

Writing my novel - what an incredible experience!

Writing King’s Envoy, the first book in the Artesans of Albia series, was an incredible and, if I’m truthful, unnerving experience for me. I didn’t set out with the intention of writing a book – let alone a whole series – so I was completely taken by surprise when my little daydream, the scenario I described in my “I didn’t want to be an author!” post, turned into a frenzy of writing that took over my life. For nearly nine years. I can honestly say I’ve never experienced anything like it. For those who are old enough to remember the early computers, which used to spew their results out in a flip-flopping avalanche of perforated paper, that’s what writing Artesans was like for me. A good, old-fashioned “computer dump”. I had a hard time keeping up with all this “stuff” that just kept streaming into my head. I certainly didn’t know where it was coming from. At the time I started (Dec 2001) I didn’t own a computer and didn’t know how to use one, so I wrote everything longhand. Yes, in pen or pencil. (Anyone else remember writing like that?) I still have those first handwritten manuscripts (what a grand name for a stack of scribbled-on paper!) and the scrawly writing is testament to the efforts of my hand to keep up with the ideas tumbling from my mind. These days cut-and-paste makes things so much easier, but back then I had little arrows in margins and little asterisks on separate bits of paper, all indicating scenes that had to be inserted, or actions that couldn’t possibly have happened at that moment in the plot and had to be shifted. I still don’t know how I kept up with it all.

In those early days I was working “in secret”. I wasn’t writing a book, only amusing myself on cold winter days. There was no point telling anyone about it – there was nothing to tell. Only – gradually, day by day, something was growing. Something was struggling toward birth, toward fulfilment. Something was taking me over, using me for support, like a tree branch supports an orchid. Like that host tree, I was simply the framework from which this entity would flourish, and it would carry me along in its wake whether I willed it or not.

After a while - and after I began learning to transcribe my work to a laptop - I realized what was going on. I was writing a book! No one was more shocked than me. When I finally finished this “book” (it came out at nearly 400,000 words and eventually became the first Artesans trilogy) I knew I had to show it to someone. The obvious choice was my husband, who hadn’t failed to notice the times I’d woken in the night to scribble little notes, or the times during a TV program when I’d mutter, “Yes! That’s the way it’ll work” and scribbled once again. Bless him – what must he have thought? I’ll never forget the day I told him what I’d done, but I’ll have to save that for another post.