Dear Readers,
I can’t thank you enough for sticking with Mesmered over the last year. Your responses to my blogs, your willingness to engage with someone you don’t know from Adam, the way we have found so many things in common have been, for me, the stuff of legend!
As I prepare for a holiday, for a break in the day to day grind, I’ve been gathering together a pile of books to read. To be honest, I had already started Ann Swinfen’s Testament of Mariam and finding it to be such a strong narrative and such a different interpretation to the familiar story of Jesus and his followers I had to keep reading and finished it last night. It was a superb read written by an author who has great sensitivity. Ann’s description of Galillee and Judaea, her interpretation of the religious truths, her depiction of Jesus and Judas through the eyes of Jesus’s sister Mariam, was emotive and intensely thought-provoking. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys historical fiction, especially historical fiction of ancient days.
I’ve seen dozens of writers blog about this question.
What question, you ask?
How much to write when you write about sex, of course.
Should we be explicit, they say, including every sweaty, gasping moment?
There are times in life when one just wants to forget about concerns and cares. To ignore the shouted whisper of caution in the ear. To believe that nothing could ever be wrong and that every dream or fantasy one has ever had is about to be fulfilled. This was such a time.
As the year draws to a close, the idea floated that The Stumpwork Robe and The Last Stitch have a bit of advertising thrown at them. At the beginning of the year they had the infamous book trailer whose making was featured quite heavily in the early days of Mesmered.
The difference between my world and our world is that Eirie is overlaid, underlaid and woven through with the Other world. At all times and in each of the provinces, Others; enchanted beings like the Færan or Siofra, hobs and merrows (and a thousand others from legends of our own world); merge and mingle, causing malicious mayhem before retreating to their secret places within Eirie. Till now the story of Eirie has shown little of the Other worlds, as though Others dragged at my pen for fear of what I might say. But in the fifth novel, I am fairly sure we shall be meeting a cartographer who shall cross through the cloak that veils those Other worlds and we shall see him taking his chances.
Till now my world-building has shown little geo-politics, something critics have found wanting. My comment is this: this is a story about characters, about what happens to those characters. The arc that the characters follow is never driven by some nebulous Venichese Doge’s political ambition or the Baron of Pymm’s mild mannered management of his archipelago, but by interaction with Others who help and hinder them in their journey. To be frank, life goes on for my characters in one way or another, whether the Doge, the Baron, His Bright Light in the Raj or the Emperor of Han sneezes, scratches himself or passes a law. Such detail which works for many, doesn’t work for me and I prefer not to drag my own characters through it.
What I love about world-building is the freedom to create rivers, forests, mountain ranges, villages, oceans, even celestial byways and to name them the way I wish. I use names that exist, some that might resonate and be familiar. But I never make up names. Again it’s something that works for others but ill-fits me. Tolkein is an icon and he managed it par excellence. Why would I even try? My names are now synonomous with my world, with a toe in the world of fantasy and reality. The most recent editorial report describes the path I’ve taken as magical realism and I’m immensely happy with that. Never have two words meant such a lot.
I admire the many fantasy worlds created by the most highly regarded of our fantasy writers but the ones I love the best come from my childhood, from legend told by heavens knows how many mouths. Tales from the riverbank or from the willows. From the wild oceans. From soaring minarets and ochre deserts. They have names I know, that are familiar, that may even exist . We all write differently, we all have different imaginations. This is just one writer’s view of a world . . .
The dirt stained the cloth that had been left for me and the water in the bowl looked as if it had been collected from a moat. I craved a warm scented bath, for my nails to be clean, for my hair to once again fall in a silky swathe. But it was not to be and I could see myself arriving before my father so travel-stained that I doubted he would recognize me. There was a chance he might not recognize me anyway as it had been three years since I had seen him. But worse, I had gleaned a subtext from Vasey’s words; that my father was not himself. He could have lost his mind with grief, he could be a soak, he could be anything but the man my mother had loved. I turned from the bowl to reach for clothes . . .
Sounds. My world is made of sounds. I sit with my eyes closed and I listen. I hear the waves chuckling along the shore in a breeze-driven chop. I hear the sea-breeze shivering the leaves of the silver birch, maples and willows; a silvery sound.
Please dear followers, excuse my lack of posts just lately. Lots of reasons:
* Am reading. Rarely get the chance to read a lot and have read three books in last few days
* Am writing. Big spurt. Ideas must be written down.
Fear.
The slither of ice down the spine.
The way the heart seems to stop beating for a millisecond before it begins a frenzied gallop.
The sort of sensation that writers must call upon when creating tension.
