The Sorcerers' Realm – Author's Blog

This is my 365^th consecutive post since August 28^th of 2020.

I set out to prove to myself that I could accomplish a few things. One, to come up with new and interesting posts every day for a year. Check. Two, I wanted to share my writing and my writing process. Double check. My original intent was to share my writing journey as I wrote my debut novel, Fantastic America. I checked that box too, but it went by so quickly, the journey ended before the experiment was half over. And finally, as the experiment grew in scope, I wanted to connect with readers and other writers. All boxes checked.

Now that my experiment is over, and successful, I have to decide where to go from here. My first instinct is to only write once a week from now on, but honestly, writing a post a day has become part of my writing habit. Even on days I didn’t write anything else, it felt good to post something here to validate my other efforts. I haven’t decided one way or another yet.

I learned some valuable lessons.

I have learned a few other things during my experiment. I’m not great at getting people to engage with my content. Something I’ve been working on all year. I’ll keep working on that, whether I post every day from here on out or only when I feel like it. I also learned that I am a poor judge of what will stir people’s interest, or maybe I’m still learning how to judge that. I have plenty of work to do either way.

I also learned a bit about how I write. Early on I identified a couple of problems during editing of my posts that I still struggle with sometimes. It turns out I write long sentences. I’m not sure if that is good or bad, but as I recall, William Faulkner wrote long sentences, too. Not that I’m a renowned author of his stature, but at least I’m in good company. Other problems I found Grammarly to be a great help with, so much so that I ignore them until the program points them out.

All the posts I shared here are just the start, I learned just how many stories I have to tell (or show). Just in the past two months, I’ve created Torthal and Fractal, two very different worlds for two very different stories. Once my imagination is free, it runs loose and I build world after world full of stories to share.

Not quite, “So long, and thanks for all the fish…”

Finally, I’d like to thank those of you who’ve found me and stuck with me over the past year. I can count (usually on one hand) on a few of you to like whatever I’ve posted. Even when it was just a post to say I was sick or in the hospital, it still made me smile to see regular followers checking in on me. That may or may not have been your intent, but I told myself that was what you were doing.

Here’s to the next year of The Sorcerers’ Realm. Huzzah!

I’ve written a lot in the past year about writing, but unless you’ve downloaded the free short story I have hanging out on the side bar of my website, you have no idea if I know what I’m talking about. This post will, I hope, fix that. I am nothing if not a fixer of problems (in my mind at least). So here is a sample of a scene I’ve written, I hope you enjoy it:

Excerpt from, “Midnight at the Sultan’s Palace”

  “The Sultan’s Palace is a bit of a letdown,” Chaz said. He adjusted his glasses and gestured out the van window to emphasize his disappointment to his crew. “I expected a grand mansion with minarets or something. That’s just a fancy three-story house like dozens of others we’ve seen around the French Quarter. We’ll really have to over-sell it to the audience.”

  The pale pink building towered above his oversized van parked across narrow, one-way Dauphine Street. The four men inside craned their necks for a better view of the house. Its’ elegant wrought-iron balconies and railings surrounded the upper floors like the decks of an old riverboat tied to a pier whose passengers were too well off to notice the men in the van below.

  “Three and a half stories,” Barry, his tech guy said. “I found the plans for the place before we came out to film. The house has an elevated basement under the main floor. You can see the little cross-barred windows from here.”

  Chaz couldn’t care less about how many floors there were inside. This investigation was supposed to recharge his audience for the third season of his Spirit Searchers cable TV show. He needed a ratings boost for the network to renew them for season four.

  The Sultan’s Palace had sounded like the perfect December filming location. It was warmer in New Orleans than most places they investigated this time of year. The location had lots of reported activity, from door slamming to full body apparitions. Best of all, unlike Eastern State or Trans-Allegheny, there was no competition from other shows trying to film on the longest night of the year.

Back to writing about writing…

Chaz and his crew are in for more excitement than they planned. Their investigation happens to be on the night that magic returns to the Earth. The spirits of the house come barreling into the present, scaring the cable TV crew out of their minds in the process. I’ll leave the rest up to your imagination until I add this short story to the downloadable content on the site.

The point in sharing this short bit of the opening scene is to show how many of the elements I’ve talked about come together in writing. This snippet grounds you in time and place, New Orleans after the advent of cable TV paranormal programming. It’s 2012 in this case. Description, dialogue, and internal monologue all flesh out the scene as the crew arrives to start their investigation.

Had I shared more of the scene, I could go on about differentiating characters, showing vs. telling, building suspense, depicting action sequences, and showing character growth. All of that is hard to cram into a short story. But once I could do that, scaling it up into chapters was simple. Once I decided I could master the short story, writing a novel length story was well within my grasp.

As much as I prattle on about getting my butt in the chair to write, I don’t always push my self to finish what I start. So every chapter or short story I finish feels like a bigger win to me than it might to others. Tonight was one of those nights, I’ve had less than four hours of sleep in the past forty-eight hours. Somehow, I got the story done, and scrubbed through Grammarly to boot.

I’ll let the story sit a day at least before I try to polish it, then share it with my critique group, before submitting it for the monthly challenge. I have most of a week till the deadline, which should be just about long enough. That sounds hectic to me, I’m used to a much more leisurely pace when I write.

Like Hannibal said, “I love it when a plan comes together.” No matter how often I write, or how many new worlds and characters I create, the joy of finishing a project is exquisite. It never gets old, even if it’s just a milestone like finishing a scene I struggled with, or polishing up a chapter in a novel. Each bit of forward progress is its own reward.

I’m worn out but smiling. Sleepy, but proud of myself. Sometimes, I need that little rush of endorphins that tells me I’m making progress. I few likes from readers does the same thing, but feedback from my critique group helps fill that void, too. Writing in a vacuum leaves my soul stagnant, I like to hear back about what I write. Whether it’s glowing praise or a harsh reality check. As long as my work improves, I’m happy to hear either one.

Short stories are so much fun to write!

The story of the Centriole is coming together, and I have some great twists in mind. It’s another story I’m writing for a monthly challenge. I tried not to build a whole new world just for one short story, but I failed. Fractal is a folded world near the very heart of creation. Life evolved there before it did anywhere else in the universe (several times). Naturally this gave the original inhabitants of Fractal a huge advantage over other more primitive life.

Rather than launch an empire building interstellar civilization, the Uluuan explored the universe, cataloging the species they encountered. They eventually encountered sentient species, but were reluctant to make direct contact. After much debate, the Uluuan extended offers of membership in a union of social, economic, academic, and military to those they deemed worthy of association. More violent or barbarous aliens were left to their own devices.

The Centriole is more than just a club…

The esteemed center of that exploration began (and continues to this day) in the Centriole. It is home to the Society of Explorers, a club of enthusiastic adventurers from thousands of species. Their quest to understand the universe and its former iterations is matched only by their success in amassing knowledge from billions of galaxies. My story focuses on one such Explorer, Ailish Halfnine.

Ailish is on the eve of launching the first full expedition from the Centriole to the primitive planet Earth. She has already scouted the planet alone, and brought back enough data to bring a full team. Her experts will examine our cultures, sample our flora and fauna, and duplicate and collect artifacts from our world.

Is a utopia founded on lies still a utopia?

She is understandably excited, and rushes to the Centriole to meet one last time with the patron of her expedition, Count Baalan of Derent on Time. She expects a routine send off from the Explorers Lounge with the Count’s inner circle, before embarking on a fantastic journey of discovery. All of that does not go entirely to plan. I can’t wait for you to discover the truth along with her.

In the world of my debut novel, Fantastic America, zombies and ghosts are the least dangerous things that go bump in the night. After the return of magic, monsters from many worlds reappear in the modern world. Creatures of nightmare, legend, and folklore prove they are all too real.

Unfortunately, animals considered myths by our ancestors are not the only creatures stalking the dark places of the world. Wraiths, shadowy imitations of life seek to terrify and corrupt the living. As magic grows stronger, the creatures it empowers grow bolder, and a scream in the night might not be human at all.

Other, far more potent monsters emerge from other worlds, intent on more than food and shelter. Mortal flesh provides more than nourishment to the fiends in the dark. They can also increase their numbers from victims of their wild hunts. Our ancestors were right to fear the dark, a lesson the modern world will need to relearn.

In the world of the Magic Unleashed series, the monsters in the dark are not content to stay in the shadows. They wait only for enough time, flesh, and blood to leave the darkness behind. No one from the modern world has learned how to fight back against the evils that lurk in darkness and only retreat from the light for the time being. Who will save humanity from such diabolical dangers?

The setting for a scene, or series of scenes grounds your story in more ways than one. Locations can impact everything from mood and theme, to climate and time periods. How you describe those elements can make or break a good scene (or scenes). Memorable settings come alive with appropriate (not just detailed) descriptions.

For example, how could I describe the Pantheon of Rome from the picture attached to this post? Depending on the scene I’m writing, there are any number of details that I could include. But the scene, and to an extent, the characters determine what is important for the reader to experience.

Is there action in my Pantheon scene, or is it a a puzzle to be deduced like a Dan Brown thriller? Maybe I’ll try my hand at Romance and describe two history buffs exploring the rotunda. They would notice far different things than a super-sleuth. Perhaps the building and it’s history are irrelevant to my story, and the people crowded inside are the focus of the characters.

It might go something like this:

A shaft of sunlight pierced the ancient oculus in the ceiling of the former temple. It bathed an empty niche high on the wall in vibrant light, as it had for two thousand years. The couple stood transfixed by the light that managed to reach them on the polished marble floor. For just a moment, they could step back in time together.

Even stripped of it’s Roman identity, and festooned with later Catholic regalia, the sight reminded Ian of the glory that was Rome. He squeezed Miranda’s shoulder as they gazed at the wonder of engineering the Pantheon represented to both of them. The crowd of tourists faded away as he imagined statues of the Gods in their niches, and bronze eagles surrounded by laurel wreaths representing the majesty of the Empire.

The characters drive the description but I still have to pick the right details

Ian and Miranda might not even see the same details, but writing the scene with a single character’s Point Of View requires a good understanding of Ian, too. A historian (even an amateur student of history) would pick out different details. Ian is focused on the Roman history of the temple, but in modern times, the Pantheon is a Catholic church. Miranda might pick out those details.

Even two people with similar interests might see things differently. Had I written the scene from Miranda’s POV, the later pieces of Christian decorations might have been her focus. Either way, the couple moving through the space determines what elements the readers see through their perspective.

Fantasy descriptions and real locations can overlap…

The Pantheon of Rome is a fabulous location, but it isn’t a fantasy setting as we know it. One thing I love to do is dress up a real location with fantasy trappings. I can imagine the same setting Ian and Miranda moved through, with an added fantastic element (or several). Not to detract from the real location, but to raise the expectation of the audience.

Perhaps the characters are fleeing a horde of zombies, or are racing against time to perform a ritual in the ancient temple. Only a site standing for thousands of years can give them refuge, or allow the spell to reach its intended effect. The appropriate details would be far different than a casual stroll through the rotunda. Barring the doors, measuring out the space for the ritual, setting up barricades, or lighting ceremonial candles might be more important. Characters and the events they are involved in direct their focus and what details I include in the scene.

I’m in the last stages of some site updates to clean things up a bit. The changes shouldn’t impact reading my posts at all. If you do run into trouble loading a specific page, please let me know. Everything should be finished and stabilized in a few days at most.

In the mean time, I’ll be adding new download options for free short stories once the updates are done. Some of these are new stories for me, and a couple have been on the shelf fermenting for a few months. I’m excited to share them with you.

My 365 days of consecutive blog posts is coming to an end, too. August 28th will mark a full year of daily posts. I feel like an out of shape runner who can finally see the finish line. My vision is blurry, but I’m almost there. I will probably still post fairly often, but not daily.

Just to keep you in the loop, I’m still working on the Centriole story. I’m mixing genres with it ever so slightly, as science fiction meets fantasy. My take is very human centered, though the perspective readers will see the story from is very alien. Magic remains the great unknown in this story.

I think that’s about all for the end of summer. Kids here are going back to school, I have more peace and quiet, and that should translate into more writing time. I’ll keep my progress posted here, and I hope you’ll check in on me from time to time. And remember, like Heinlein said, TANSTAAFL!

I had a lot of raw emotion to deal with last week, and to be honest, I let it get the better of me for a while. I’ve tried to slide back into my writing routine, tried to follow my advice and get back to it. I failed. Repeatedly.

Failure is a great teacher though, it tells me all the things that don’t work. For one thing, trying to ignore how sad I was didn’t help. Drinking to excess also didn’t help, it was fun while it lasted, but I have new bruises I can’t account for. The only real solution I found was to confront my feelings and get my butt back in the chair.

Funny how that works, isn’t it? I penned a post about how much I’d miss my cat Chloe. What I didn’t mention was any of the stress induced medical conditions that flared up while I was in my feelings. Those are gross, and I’ll spare you all the details. I’m better now.

And since I’m better, I’m back to my desk and pushing out more words. It isn’t exactly work, but without my muse over my shoulder, it does take some effort. The truth is, it feels good to create, to overcome my inner struggle and produce meaningful content. Even if it’s only meaningful to me and a handful of other people.

So, expect to read about Ashley, Gari, and the other new characters I’ve been writing about lately. There are adventures to be had, strange settings to explore, and new conflicts to resolve. I may not be 100% again, but I’m well on my way.

Catching up takes us to weird topics…

I had a long talk with an old friend today. One of the topics that came up is something I address in my writing. Are humans the only sentient species in the universe? It reminded me of Arthur C. Clarke’s quote, “Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” Which is an excellent summation of Enrico Fermi’s famous paradox, probability says we are not alone, “But where is everybody?” It’s been 70 years since Fermi’s comment, and there is still no accepted evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations.

In my writing, I solve the paradox by imagining what that life may look like. I’ve created a number of civilizations who have visited Earth in the past. In my first published short stories, the Renegade Galaxy series, Humanity is part of a small group of interstellar civilizations in the Milky Way. In my fantasy series, Earth is also connected to alien worlds but has played a mostly minor role in their history.

Is there anybody out there?

In real life, Seti (the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence) has yet to find solid proof of alien life. NASA has tantalizing evidence that Mars may have supported life in the past, but has yet to publish anything definitive. I get to bypass reality and speculate, “What if…” in my fiction, but the underlying question remains. Are we alone or not?

The implications are staggering regardless of the answer. Fundamental questions humans have grappled with about why we are here, what our purpose may be, and whether this was all just a big mistake could be answered once and for all. If we’re the center of creation, maybe we are alone. If we’re not, humanity may be more insignificant than we thought. Or so rare as that our sentient nature alone makes us special in the vast void of space.

Maybe it doesn’t matter one way or the other.

Regardless of the answer to Fermi’s question, there is certainty in the stories I tell that we are not alone. Even if we haven’t been visited recently. My biggest practical lesson from either outcome is this: Life goes on. Humans want to live, to thrive, to leave something behind for future generations. Maybe that’s the only purpose we can hold on to with the data we have right now.

As I inch closer to 365 consecutive blog posts, I’ve spent a lot of time looking back to plot my course forward. What should I do next? What worked or didn’t work in the last year? What options will I have to make the most of my time? I still don’t have answers to all these questions, but I’m working on it.

In the next few months I plan to write at least four distinct short stories. Two I’ve already started, with Gari on Torthal, and the Explorers Club. I’m entering writing contests with each of them, and hope to build up diversity in my work. Winning any of the contests isn’t really the point for this exercise but it would be nice to place.

As the seasons change, I get nostalgic and restive. I want to hold on to the easy pace of warm summer days, but look forward to a quiet house to write without distractions. Part of me is always looking back even as I try to decide where to go next. Janus, or my idea of that august Roman deity, is never far from my thoughts about coming and going.

A year ago I had an unfinished idea for a book, and little faith that I would ever finish it. Now I have a completed, edited, and polished manuscript. It turns out, that was the easy part. I’m still querying, still writing, and still building up towards whatever future writing may bring me. The one thing I’m not doing while looking back is regretting the steps I’ve taken along the path. My writing journey continues.