Work in progress

The next chapter: update February 17, 2013

/ Melanie Marttila

Just a brief catch-up here on what’s been happening.  Brief, because what’s been happening = not much 😛

This week, I put my second original short story of the year, “Beneath the Foundations” in the can and submitted to the Sword and Mythos anthology.  I’m not optimistic because the story that bubbled up was not along the lines that the editor said she was looking for.

The editor was looking for aboriginal (not just NA, but Australian, etc.) northern Africa, Arab, Indian, or Asian settings, female protagonists, and in general, a new spin on the old Cthulian genre.

BtF is medieval European, specifically England during the time that King Alfred was ousted

English: Statue of King Alfred in Wantage, England

English: Statue of King Alfred in Wantage, England (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

by the Danes and was gathering his forces to retake Wessex and Mersea.  Adric, the protagonist, is male, though he is a little person, and by that I don’t mean that he was a pixie, but short of stature.

He’s bought by a Danish lord, Ofded, as a sapper along with several other boys from St. Jerome’s. Proper miners supervise the expendable boys in the endeavour.  Alfred’s supposedly harbouring in Castle Sark,  and Ofded wants to get the credit for his capture.

The story is about what Adric finds beneath the foundations and the horror that ensues.

So I’ll have to wait and see.  Typically, I don’t think much about my stories after I send them off.  I list them in my submissions table and mark off the result when it eventually comes in, or not, as the case may be.

Next up, I’ll be revising a couple of stories for submission to Tesseracts 17.  I haven’t quite decided which one I want to send in yet.  The deadline for that is February 28, for those of you who would like to submit.  Check out the guidelines.

I haven’t had a lot of time to work on Gerod and the Lions, and haven’t gotten back to Initiate of Stone yet.  I have a busy time coming up for the day job, and I have to pick and choose.

This week coming, I’m out of town for a training gig, and then again, after one week at home, I’ll be travelling again for more training delivery and my attempt at certification.  I don’t think it will be reasonable for me to return to IoS until after the next few weeks.

In March, when I dive back into my project, revising for beta-reader feedback (and yes, I will be asking a broad cross section of friends RL and online for their assistance) I will also be working on revising another, fairly long, short story for the next Writers of the Future (April 1) and a new short story (idea hasn’t cropped up yet) for In Places Between (April 4).

I’ve submitted to WotF before, and was pleased to receive an honourable mention certificate, but it’s hard to know how one would do in such a popular arena.  Again, I’ll encourage those of you who are working on your own stories to submit.

Also this week, I submitted some work to my critique group and am largely caught up.

Next weekend, when I return from training, I’m going to be attending a poetry workshop and I actually have some poetry to take with me.  My poet friend, Kim Fahner, graciously offered to have a look and I hope to have the few revisions she suggested ready.

I hope to submit some of my poetry to various journals, but I’m not so much into the poetry these days, so if anything this may be something that has to go by the wayside for now.  I definitely want to submit a poem to the League of Canadian Poets National Poetry Month Blog, and have a few options for online submissions that might suit.

Upcoming for the blog, I’m going to try my hand at submitting a post to Wordsmith Studio, another pupdate (Nu had her check up this past week, but I won’t have the time to commit it to the blog this weekend), I’m going to continue my new series, A life sentence, with mortal punctuation, I hope to have an interview with my friend, Brian Braden, about his new book, Black Sea Gods, and will likely blog about the training, the poetry workshop, and anything else my life offers up for sacrifice 🙂  Writerly Goodness

That’s it for now.

Good words at y’all!  Writerly Goodness, signing off.

The next chapter: the value of a good editor

/ Melanie Marttila / 16 Comments

Wherein Mel writes not only of her first experience with a professional editor, but also updates on her other writerly endeavours.

I posted last month that I had finally bitten the bullet and sent Initiate of Stone off for a content edit.  Well, the result is in!  I’ll tell you more about that experience in a moment.  First, however, I’d like to spend a few words on:

The value of a good editor

A lot of other writing blogs cover this.  Off the top of my head, I can think of posts by Kristine Katherine Rusch, Joanna Penn, and K.M. Weiland that have all dealt with this topic with much more aplomb and professionalism than I.

As ever, I write from my experience.  I only hope that my experience speaks to you, and that it might save you any errors I might make.

My history with editors has not been wonderful.  Early experiences taught me that teachers rewrite your work without permission; that apparent friends will destroy your work out of spite; that lazy editors will use technology as an excuse to publish your story with errors that didn’t exist in the clean copy you provided them; and that advisors who don’t relate to your creative choices will tear you down rather than admit they can’t help you and refer you to someone who can.

All of these lessons have made me afraid to show my work to anyone because they have informed my inner editor, that psychological construct that internalizes any negative experience and tricks you into believing the worst about yourself and your work.

I’ve worked long and hard to overcome my internal editor, but exposing my writing to the eyes of others still turns like a knife in my gut.  My first, instinctual reaction is to take every criticism to heart and therefore reject it out of hand as a result.

There comes a time in every creative project, though, where you cannot achieve the

Edit Ruthlessly

Edit Ruthlessly (Photo credit: Dan Patterson)

critical distance from your work that you need to self-edit effectively.  When you’ve gone as far as you can on your own, it’s time for a professional.

Yes, a professional, one who offers her or his services for a fee, can be expensive, but this is an investment in your work.  If you are willing to invest in writing conferences; if you are willing to invest in writing courses and workshops; if you are a member of more than one professional writers association; or if you are willing to invest in self-publication, then you should be willing to lay out some cash to make sure your work in progress is the absolute best product it can be.

Some would argue that beta-readers can be an effective replacement for the professional editor.  That depends on whether your betas have the skill and acumen to offer you a professional-level critique.

A note on beta-readers: For those of you who don’t know what a beta-reader is, the term derives from the online gaming and programming world.  As a computer game is preparing for release, the developers (analogous to writers) release the game to a restricted group of game testers.  Essentially, these are people from their target audience and they share with this select group the full game-play experience in order to obtain information on remaining system bugs and other issues that will affect the experience of the general gaming public after release.

In this sense, a beta-reader should be someone who enjoys the kind of novel that you write.  She or he should be a part of your target audience and while the primary goal is to point out flaws that may detract from the experience of your general reader public, their feedback may stop there.  I would argue that it should.

Once again, more astute minds than mine have addressed the topic on their blogs.  Just Google beta-reader and you’ll no doubt get a plethora of results and perspectives on the topic.  Some will advise you to use your fellow writers as beta-readers.  Others will tell you to restrict to well-read friends.

Here’s what I know: A critique group is a very different beast to a beta-reading group.  A critique group is more along the lines of fellow writers who will get into the nitty-gritty of your text, point out grammar and spelling errors, as well as plot and structure issues.  A critique group will also be diverse and the critiques you receive will often differ, if not contradict each other outright.

The thing you have to watch with a critique group is that they are your peers and often at the same or similar points in their careers to yourself.  You want that critique, and trust me, you need it, but a critique group is not a substitute for a professional editor.  My advice is to work with a critique group earlier on in your process, after your first of second draft but before you seek the help of a professional editor.

Beta-readers, on the other hand, serve their best purpose after the professional edit, as you’re putting your final polish on your product for publication.  They’re a test audience, a focus group, if you will.

Reworking, rewriting, removing

Reworking, rewriting, removing (Photo credit: mpclemens)

What I would recommend: Write, revise at least once on your own, work with a critique group and revise at least once more based on their feedback, seek professional feedback, revise based on that, then finally send your manuscript out to beta-readers, and put the final polish on your work prior to seeking representation, publication, or self-publishing.

If you go the traditional route, this may not be the end of your editing and revision.  Get used to receiving, assessing, and incorporating critique now so that you can respond professionally later.

What I learned from my experience with a professional editor

After choosing my editor, I reviewed her web page and followed her directions for contact.  I enquired if she had the time in her schedule in January 2013.  When she replied that she did, I asked further detail.  In what format did she want the manuscript (ms), and in what file format (.doc, .rtf, .pdf).  I also asked how long it might be until I heard from her, because I didn’t want to be waiting anxiously, or bothering her needlessly.

All that established, when the time came, I sent her a preparatory email (are we still good to go?) and then the ms.  While I waited for her response, I took on some other projects.

My editor was as good as her word and contacted me promptly when she said she would.  My first thrill was this bit from her email: “I have to say I’ve been enjoying the story so much that on the first read-through I actually forgot to do editing at times.”

Despite the nay-saying of my inner editor, I was doing the happy dance 🙂  We scheduled our conference call for Saturday (yesterday) and I was sent the reviewed document along with a couple of other documents outlining more general concerns on Friday.  I read the documents through quickly, because I wanted to be well-versed in the content of the edit while at the same time staving off that crazy instinct of mine to take everything to heart and get defensive.

Then I set everything aside until our scheduled conference.

I have to confess that I wasn’t entirely successful in remaining receptive throughout the call, but my editor made it easier for me by being kind and encouraging.  This is not to say that she blew smoke up my skirt 🙂  Far from it.  I have more work ahead of me, but in being honest about the relative value of my work and encouraging me to stay the course, my editor gave me the opportunity to set some of my defensiveness aside and ask some serious questions about where I needed to focus my efforts.

A lot of ink spilled

A lot of ink spilled (Photo credit: mpclemens)

It was a good experience and well worth the fee.

That said, I’m going to let the project incubate for a while again.  I now know where I need to go with it, and I have some ideas about how to get there.  I’m having more ideas all the time 🙂  I do feel the urgency to return to Initiate of Stone, and that, more than anything else, tells me that I will return to it with passion when the time comes.

In the meantime

I participated in Khara House’s “I ❤ my blog” challenge in January.  It was a nice, thoughtful way of starting out the New Year, and it confirmed for me many of the things that I am doing well with Writerly Goodness.  There are some things that may still change, but this blog, like everything else in my life, is an organic thing. Can’t be rushing it now 😉

I also put my name in to participate in Kasie Whitner’s “Just Write: 2013 Short Story Challenge.”  The goal here is to write one new short story per month.  As I hope to do that anyway, I think I can manage it.  My January story was flash fiction created for one of Chuck Wendig’s flash fiction challenges.  February’s is well underway (8 pp/2500 words so far).

Also in January, I revised and submitted a short story to On Spec.

As planned, I have returned to work with my online critique group.

I’ve also started working on a new novel.  Gerod and the Lions is about a young boy who sets out to save his little sister Annabelle from the child merchants after his pa sells her to feed their poor family.  This will be a middle grade (MG) fantasy and so the finished work should be about 40,000 words.  I have my outline and two chapters written (10 pp/3000 words).

As you can tell by my relative output, I’m a slow writer.  It comes from working a day job, I think 😀  Writing in the evenings and on weekends puts a limit on what I can do in any given week.  Plus, I write for Writerly Goodness and journal.

I’m going to finish my February short story and continue working on Gerod for a while.  I also want to submit another short story to Tesseracts 17.  I’ll likely get back to IoS before the end of February, but I want to make sure I have enough of Gerod done to feel that I can return to the project without having to start from scratch again.

Coming soon

In the next week or two, I will have a lovely interview with Lara Schiffbauer regarding her upcoming novel, Finding Meara.  I’m also going to be taking a bit of a morbid turn with a short series in death and how it’s shaped my life.  There will be another Pupdate when Nuala has her next check up, and a report on how my next training gig (and journey toward certification) goes.

As ever, it’s a mixed bag at Writerly Goodness.

Have a good week y’all!

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The next chapter

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments
Have desk, will write

Have desk, will write (Photo credit: Bright Meadow)

Today, I’m going to share some of what’s happening next with my work in progress (WIP).

Early in the life of Writerly Goodness, I blogged regularly about my WIP, from its origins, through various drafts, to the lessons the whole process taught me.  I also blogged my character sketches and world-building fairly extensively.  I’ve been a little quiet on the subject in recent months however.

The reason for this is that I have been focusing on the revision of my latest draft, and in keeping with my reasonable and malleable goals for the new year, I have now finished that work (to the degree I am currently able) and have sent my manuscript for a content edit.

This is scary.

Why?  Because it means that I’m taking this whole process seriously.  I’m getting closer to perfecting Initiate of Stone for submission and/or publication.

Given the responses I’ve gotten from various writerly authority figures in my early life, my internal editor is very well-versed in the whole “what the hell do you think you’re doing/you can’t write/your ideas are crap/your writing is puerile/you’ll never make it” brand of advice.  I’ve had to tame that beast and try to get over it.

But … there’s still this voice in my head that says: “but what if this investment (the content edit) backfires?”  What if the result is the confirmation of all my worst fears and neuroses?

I can’t think about that.  So, while I wait to hear back from the editor, I’m moving on.

What’s up, buttercup?

First, I’m going to make a few submissions of short stories.

I’m revising one for submission to an SF magazine, which I will have to do this weekend.

I’m going to participate in a few flash fiction challenges.

I’m also going to aim for a couple of anthology submissions:

  • Sword and Mythos – January 15-February 15, 2013
  • Tesseracts 17 – February 28, 2013
  • Plus, I’m going to keep my eye out for the open reading period for Fearful Symmetries.  I don’t know if I’ll have anything appropriate for the publication, but I’ll certainly give it a try.

Second, I’m going to move on to a new novel.  As of my last writing on the subject, I hadn’t decided what.  The logical next step would be the second novel in the Ascension series, Apprentice of Wind.  I’m thinking that something completely different might be in order though.

So just to give me a complete break from Ferathainn for a while, I’m going to tackle Gerod and the Lions.  I’m just going to leave you with the title for now and I’ll let you know how it goes 🙂

Finally, I’m getting back to work on my critiquing.  I’ve been inactive on this front for a while, again because I’ve been focusing on my novel, but I’m waaaaaay overdue in this department and I have to get back into it.

This will have to wait one more week, in the event, because I’m traveling for the day-job again.  My apologies to my peers.  Zombie Mel will return from the land of the critiquing dead, just not quite yet.

Set yourself up for success

The deal here is that if you are progressing on one project, but not actively working on it,

St. Augustine writing, revising, and re-writin...

St. Augustine writing, revising, and re-writing: Sandro Botticelli’s St. Augustine in His Cell (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

you may need to pick something else up.  Take on a new challenge.  Keep honing your craft.  Get over your bad self.

Now this is not something you might just choose to do while waiting to hear back from your beta-readers or an editor.  You could be querying, or trying to get your self-publishing ducks in a row.  Keep in touch with your creativity.  A writer writes above all else.

Some people may think that juggling projects is a bad idea.  They want to see one project through from beginning to end and believe that they can’t divide their attention with another novel.

There are going to be those fallow times though, and I’m not just talking about those times when you have to “get distance” from your novel between drafts, when you might want to do something non-writing related (I’ve done home reno projects, or some other form of artistic expression for this, drawing, pottery, or taking part in a play).

I’m not talking about keeping your creative reserves replenished with reading and movies and creative dates either.

I’m talking about those times when you’re waiting.  Fill up those fallow times with new creative projects so you don’t stall out entirely.  Don’t let your muse get lazy.  Keep him, her, or it, active and healthy.

This is just my opinion.  In no way am I suggesting that this approach is the only one.  It’s just the strategy that I’m using, and that I’ve seen other successful authors use.

How do you fill up your fallow times?  How do you manage your writing projects?  Do you work multiple ones at the same time, or focus on a single project until it’s completed?  Do share 🙂

The Next Big Thing – Initiate of Stone

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

My friend, Kim Fahner tagged me in this project in which the writer answers questions about their work and then tags other authors to blog their “next big thing” in turn.

So I’m going to victimize tag Scott Overton, who though he’s just published Dead Air, I know has more irons in the fire, Brian Braden, who has a fabulous WIP to share, Tim Reynolds, who’s always working on something fabulous, and Sandra Stewart, who likewise keeps her irons hot (in more ways than one!) 🙂

Onto the Questions:

  • What is the working title of your book?

Initiate of Stone  Bonus: Series title:Ascension, book 1

  • Where did the idea come from for the book?

This is one of the few ideas I’ve had that did not come from a dream.  I just started with an idea of a young woman, forged by elemental forces, who survives war to become the hero the world needs. Everything grew out of that seed of a character and story.

  • What genre does your book fall under?

Epic fantasy.

  • Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Actually, I’ve blogged this before, so I’ll take the lazy-a$$ route and simply link the previous character sketches, all of which include my casting suggestions:

Ferathainn

Eoghan

Dairragh

Supporting characters

Villains (muwahahahahaha)

  • What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

An uninitiated mage must uncover the secrets her family have kept from her in order to defeat the man who ripped her family, her hope for initiation, and her innocence from her.

  • How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

About a year, writing in the evenings and weekends, working full time in the day.

  • Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I’ve always wanted to write novels.  I have lots of ideas.  This just happens to be the first one I chose to work on.

  • What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

IoS features a strong female character that doesn’t necessarily find fulfilment with a guy.  There are romantic elements, but Fer’s issues can’t be resolved in the course of this novel.  Thematically, I address the painful legacy of secrets, even those kept in care or kindness; the sometimes twisted relationship between parents and children; the difference between institutionalized religion and spiritual practice (how the one can damage and the other promise healing); and the struggle to realize one’s true potential, whatever it is.

So I hope your interest has been piqued 🙂

Thanks for the opportunity Kim, and if anyone is interested, I’ve blogged about my WIP Writerly Goodnesspretty extensively.  If you’d like, just pick my “Work in progress” category and read away.  I haven’t blogged the novel itself, just the character sketches and world-building behind it.

It’s back to the day job for me tomorrow, so I probably won’t post again until the weekend.  Have a good end-of-the week all!

Writerly Goodness, signing off.

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Nine (plus) world building resources

/ Melanie Marttila / 7 Comments

Open any book on writing fantasy or science fiction and you’ll find a section on world building.

Cover of "The Craft of Writing Science Fi...

Cover via Amazon

Four cases in point:

Bova writes a section on “Background in Science Fiction” in which he discusses the uses of background (back story and world building elements), offers a complete short story as an example, and then practical suggestions on how to apply the techniques he’s discussed in the context of the story.  Bova makes reference to the greats of SF (Bradbury, Niven) as well as to literary works to round out his advice.

Card also has a chapter on “World Creation” which he summarizes thusly:

How to build, populate, and dramatize a credible, inviting world that readers will want to share with you.

Kinda speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

Killian writes a chapter on “Creating Your Fictional World,” including the following topics: A symbolic reason; A sense of what is natural; Parallel worlds; and Fantasy worlds.

Gerrold’s book contains several chapters on world building: Setting the stage; To build a world; Detailing the world; Building aliens; Believability; and Fantasy worlds.

Once again, every book on writing SF or Fantasy will include a section on world building in one form or another.  The more you read about it, the more you learn and the better you get at this whole world-building thing.

Books specifically about world building

I’m going to start with a book by fellow Canadian Authors Association member, Sandra Stewart.  She offers workshops in world building based on this publication.  Go check out her site for more information, or to get a copy of her World-building Workshop Workbook.

Sandra’s philosophy is to build from the micro to the macro and she gets into all the details from arts and entertainment, through calendar, to war and wizards.  She covers common pitfalls too.

Three more from Writer’s Digest:

If you’re interested in creating planets and star systems, this is the book for you.  In fact, I’d recommend the whole of the Science Fiction Writing Series, which delves in-depth into Space Travel and Time Travel among other subjects.

Ochoa and Osier cover some topics, like space stations, spaceships, civilizations, and other technological jumping-off points that some of the other writers don’t treat in quite the same way.

Contributors include Terry Brooks and Sherrilyn Kenyon.  As detailed as the above references are regarding the creating of a science fiction world/universe, this book is just as thorough with respect to the creation of a fantasy world.  It covers law and commerce, costume, myths and legends, and castles among other topics.  It’s a great starting point for research.

And finally:

Though this book might more appropriately belong in the books on writing SF and Fantasy (above), Scott fills more than half of it, pp 27-120, with various aspects of world building.  Like Stewart’s World-Building Workshop Workbook, I’d recommend Scott’s book because it offers a woman’s perspective on the techniques of world-building.  Further, Scott was Harvard-educated, which makes her perspective even more unique.  Her apology, “A brief defense of Science fiction, or why does someone who went to Harvard write this stuff anyway?” is both a humorous and insightful look at how SF is really a way to deal with our essential discomfort about change.

If I’d wanted to go tub-diving in my basement storage, I could have come up with half a dozen more books to recommend, but it takes something really special to make me dare the Rubbermaid jungle 🙂  Yes, I’m a book-addict.  Ask my husband, and if you do, have a beer ready for him to cry into!

Do you have any books on or containing sections of world-building that you’d recommend?  Share in the comments so everyone can benefit!

As a friend of mine says … heading for Bedfordshire.

Where my fascination with language got me

/ Melanie Marttila / 6 Comments

I’ve always loved language.  Well, except in high school when, though I was good at it, I couldn’t wait until grade eleven when French class would not longer be a requirement.  I think that had more to do with my overall dislike of high school rather than any particular issues I might have had with learning French.

In university though, my favourite courses were Old English, Chaucer, and the History of the Language.  I think I had a crush on my OE professor just because of the passion he had for his subject.  He worked up a sweat during his lectures, so enraptured was he with the poetic forms.

I also took Latin for a semester in university and enjoyed that considerably as well.  Plus, during one of my contract jobs at Laurentian, I enrolled in conversational French.  See, I don’t hate it; it’s simply that I have no family and few friends who speak French.  Every time I learn a few things, they quickly fall away from disuse.

More recently, I downloaded a few Oxford lectures from I-Tunes University on Tolkien, and in particular, the linguistic basis for his languages in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  He based his elvish language, in part, on Finnish 🙂  I think I might have mentioned my Finnish heritage once or twice?

Then there’s my husband, Phil.  He started to teach himself Japanese a few years ago, and more recently took some lessons in Chinese through one of the Y’s temporary employees in the Newcomers’ Centre.

Finally, there’s my own fascination with all things Celtic.

So I’m sure it’s hardly surprising that in writing my novel and developing my world, that I’d spend some time on my languages and that a little bit of everything got thrown into the mix.

The old language

This is the language that we might equate with proto-European, a language that we have no way to trace or understand except in its influence on the languages that developed from it.  This is the language that the Tellurin first spoke when communicating with each other, Auraya, and the akhis.

It only survives in the traditional names of the seasons and festivals, the names of the moons, weeks, and days.  It is also the language that the magi use in their rituals, though much of it has been bastardized since there is no written record of the language.

It’s also related to the language of the anogeni, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

I listed all of these, purely made up words, in my world info post.  I’ll just offer a couple of examples for clarification.  “-staya” is the suffix I chose to mean celebration of.  The prefixes combine to explain what celebration.  Kiestaya is the awakening; Anestaya, the engendering, and so on.  “-dranya” means the season of.  Thus, Shoudranya is the season of spring forth; Zaidranya, the season of the baked earth (though most people remember it as the season of the hot sun), etc.

The names of the moons are based on a rudimentary numbering system and you’ll notice the European influence there.

The days of the week are derived from the names of the akhis, which are also words from the old language.  “-akhi” means the spirit of. So Zaidesakhi is the spirit of the earth; Augesakhi, the spirit of the waters, and so forth.

The anogeni language

The anogeni were the special children of Zaidesakhi and Augesakhi.  They never communicated with anyone else and have lived in isolation, so it shouldn’t be surprising that while their language has some words in common with the old language, that it also has many of its own terms.

For their language, some of the words are made up, but others derive from some research into native languages, Ojibwe, Cree, and Oji-Cree, which are all slightly different.  Some Finnish and Japanese influences crept in here too.

Here’s a brief list of some of the words and phrases in anogeni:

  • mejni – eat
  • bizan – be still
  • hine – nothing
  • kabec – wait
  • gajachi – Tellurin (the pale people)
  • dimanzo – sight maker
  • oni – why
  • neesaimeno – prophecy
  • dimanzine – journey (shamanic)
  • mudashkiwine – bad medicine
  • namadiwine – bad thinking
  • bagan – if you/could you
  • gadga – explain, help understand, the ano understand through love
  • nimawe – contents
  • gadashki – love the greatest of the medicines
  • baska – head
  • gada – heart
  • onu mina – little teacher (f)
  • onen mina – little teacher, master (m)
  • no ashkida gadashki – there is no power greater than love
  • sagan nebawin – sword dancing
  • Ashki-Na – Grandmother, Auraya
  • Ashki-An – Auremon
  • Ashki-Nisa – Tryella
  • Namad-Ashki – Yllel, the destroyer
  • anzi – let’s go
  • anzi an dabo – let’s go to the one
  • ish nibi – she tries
  • ni – I am
  • gadana – thank you/I love you (they mean the same thing to the ano)
  • Anoashki – the great mystery (the spirit of the world)

Here is a list of the ashkiwine, or medicines:

agenewa – tea of three herbs; tadawa – cactus; swinnis – mushroom; yudana – woody herb; nabanda – tea again – cleansing; bishido – leafy herb; keshwara – nut (like nutmeg); angali – ground to a paste – placed in the cheek (stains the mouth); guryami – desiccated leaves easily powdered; shouba – like tobacco; nindaya – mushrooms again; gagini – seeds – crushed and held under the tongue.

To find out what they all do, you’ll have to wait for the book 🙂

The eleph language

Latin, Finnish, Japanese, and stuff I just made up.

Here’s another list:

  • finiris – Songmaster
  • sulonis – Dreamsinger
  • kaidin – sourceror/mage
  • damnasca – crazy one
  • shuriah – unwanteds
  • kishida – eleph kata
  • kishan – eleph martial arts
  • kishan-roh – the art of the sword
  • kishani – warrior
  • Felias es durithan – destiny is near
  • Felias es turia – what is your destiny? (formal)
  • Felias mariel es offiri portel – My destiny is to open the way (formal)
  • Tu kolue – I’ll kill you
  • Felarah, dalin – greetings sister
  • astaru – soul mate
  • astara – soul lights
  • umbriel – the shadow court
  • arbraith – special talent with the trees
  • norai, singular noraia – healer, healers
  • anathas – the Council of Elders
  • ardait – bastard
  • Ardai-rhone – the Destroyer – Yllel
  • rhanda – army (rhanda umbrielis)
  • kunia – queen (kunia umbrielis) (kunia me)
  • kaides esse – the powers that be
  • no te agi, astaru me – worry not, home of my soul

So that’s all of the original(ish) languages in Tellurin.  So far.

Next week: world building resources.  I’m certainly no authority.  You don’t have to do what I did, or do it in the way that I did it.  I just like to share 🙂

Have a fantabulous long weekend everyone!

Writerly Goodness, signing off.

The cities of Initiate of Stone

/ Melanie Marttila

World building is winding down.  After this post, I’ll probably have one more about the languages of Tellurin, and another to cover some of the odds and sods I haven’t described elsewhere.  Following that, there will be a final post on world-building resources.

Cities, towns, villages, etc.

I’ll start with Hartsgrove, Ferathainn’s village.  Situated west of the mountains, Hartsgrove is one of many free towns, or free holds.  Except for the Parimi, Haldane, and Espanic lands, which are proper provinces, most of the people who live in the west are clustered into such communities.

The village proper contains The Silver Swan, Willow’s public house, which is a structure half built, and half shaped from a massive oak.  In the back rooms, she brews her beer and ferments her wine.  Her distillery is off-site, for safety’s sake.  The Swan is the closest thing Hartsgrove has to a town hall.  It’s where most community business and assemblies are held.

A small stable, blacksmith, and a builder complete the village’s services.  There is a mill down by the Chance River, built to withstand the seasonal floods, and with a mill-wheel that can be raised and lowered given the water level.

The rest of the village, set well back from the river, consists of families that work on the farms in the surrounding countryside to earn their share of the harvest.  Willow’s orchards and fields (behind The Swan) are tended only by her and her brothers, though they recruit assistance for the harvest.  Even Fer does her share during the sowing and reaping periods.

Hartsgrove is just north of the Deep Forest and many of the trees around the village are ancient.  Think about pictures you might have seen of century trees.  The eleph have shaped their homes from these.

North of the village is a sacred grove, planted hundreds of years before.  It’s where the name of the village derives.  That’s where all of the seasonal festivals are held.  They’re mostly communal affairs, as Hartsgrove isn’t big enough to rate a priest.  They have to petition one to be sent from one of the larger centres for important events like marriages.

Selene and Aeldred share the responsibility of the physical health of both animals and people.

Hartsgrove sends annual tributes to Aurayene, Drychtensart, and Gryphonskeep in the form of food and Willow’s excellent brews.  There is a fair demand for The Swan’s beer, wine, and whiskey.  These might be the village’s only export.

There is no wall.  Only ones made of stone can withstand Vedranya, and there is no quarry nearby.  There is rarely any need of defence, and the men of the village, with Aeldred’s magickal support, are more than equal to the few bandits who choose to try their luck.

Aurayene is a sprawling city state founded by the Parimi.  It is the capitol of Parime, and the spiritual centre of Tellurin.  The Archbishop, the highest ranking prelate in the land, makes his home there, and the Monastery of Aurayene is the biggest of its kind, taking up fully one third of the city’s area.

The Archbishop’s compound and tower are palatial.  Not only the compound, but the city as well, are guarded by massive stone walls.

Aurayene is one of the few cities to have survived the Cataclysm, though only barely.  When the western coast sheered away from Tellurin, Aurayene stood on the very brink.  In succeeding generations, they adapted to their inconvenient perch atop a cliff that dropped several hundred feet to the Jagged Sea below. 

Miners and stone masons excavated The Long Stair, which descended through the stone beneath the city to the floating mass of docks that formed the port below.  A lift was also constructed to convey cargo up the cliff face to the city.

The Chance and the Aurayene Rivers flow respectively south and north of the city, cascading in incredible waterfalls to the sea below.  The land around Aurayene is mostly plain, though the coastal mountains, Les Bras d’Auraya, surround it.

Riversway is essentially a mercantile centre on the Aurayene River a day’s ride out of Aurayene.  Because goods coming into Aurayene from the port side have to be hauled up the cliff, and the city is so well developed, there’s not a lot of space, literal or figurative, to bundle things off to specific destinations.

Riversway serves as the place where shipments are sent in bulk, to be divided and repackaged for shipping further up the Aurayene, or by land into the continent.

Gryphonskeep is on the north shore of the Aurayene River.  Originally built by a discontented Alban lord (Murdo Christie)  who’d left the Island Kingdoms before the Cataclysm, the keep earned its name and reputation by virtue of several gryphon fledglings that the lord managed to capture on his journey through the mountains.

The keep was built for defence with thick walls and multiple sets of doors.  Christie was jealous of his new prize and distinction, and unwilling to lose either.

The aerie tower was built to simulate the gryphons’ mountainous home with broad balconies at the half-way mark and the top level allow the gryphons access.  During Vedranya, these are covered with massive wooden “shutters.”  The gryphons would much rather be up in the mountains, safe above the storms, but they like to humour their Tellurin caretakers.

Gryphonskeep has come into the hands of many lords over the years.  It is both a desirable reward—who wouldn’t want to be the Gryphonskeeper?—and a kind of back-handed compliment—who wants to be exiled to the western wilds?

The west of Tellurin is considered a barbarous and lawless land.  Few families have been eager to assume the burden when they could be living a life of relative comfort in the civilized east.

Killian’s father held Gryphonskeep before him, but his disreputable behaviour and abuse of the noble beasts caused him to be stripped of the honour.  Killian had to fight to prove his right and worthiness to hold Gryphonskeep.  Dairragh might be the first third generation Gryphonskeeper, if he can regain the honour.

Aumenburg is a small village nestled in a valley of the Great Ring Mountains southwest of Kriegstaff.  The mountains are Saxon land.  It is ruined by the time Ferathainn and Dairragh reach it, having been ravaged by Kane’s army and then abandoned to the storms.

Like Hartgrove, it has a grove.  Unlike Hartsgrove’s, Aumenburg’s grove has been forgotten and left to the wild things.  It also happens to be the site of a great sourcerous battle and the resting place of Jareth’s amulet.

Finally, there are five mountain keeps that guard the passes through the mountains.  These were built by the Saxon in the days when defence, or at least provision for travelers and protection from Vedranya, were deemed necessary.  All five keeps were constructed in much the same manner; all tall, rectangular, utilitarian structures built out of the mountains themselves.  Each was built on top of caverns which served as storage and dungeons, the foundations of each keep reaching deep into the stone.

Each has an outer baily, or commons area, and an inner fortification.

That’s it for tonight.  Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

What does everyone else in Tellurin believe?

/ Melanie Marttila

5 religions

Last week, I wrote about the two main religions of the Tellurin (humans): The Faithful, and the Holy Mother Church (HMC).  But what does everyone else in Tellurin believe?

You didn’t think I was going to stop at two, did you?

Well, I’m not.  But I’m not going to go into great gaudy detail about them either.  In the process, you’ll learn a little more about the various inhabitants of Tellurin.

Other Tellurin religions/belief systems

While the Parimi, Haldane, Espanic, Island Kingdoms, Saxon, Sami, and Skaldic all believe to a greater or lesser extend in Auraya and espouse The Faithful religion (some distinctively coloured by their own pagan belief systems), and the Caldone alone believe in the HMC, there are still other Tellurin cultures that believe in neither.

The Nubiin espouse a faith based in the divinity of their ruler, or Osire, and resulting cult of death.  The Osire (a man or woman) is tied to the land, responsible for the weather and tides that provide for a fruitful growing season in a relatively arid region.  Prosperity in the form of abundant crops and livestock result in a long rule, the opposite can result in a short one.

When an Osire ascends, work begins on his or her funerary monument.  The relative greatness of that monument and the treasures enclosed with the deceased is tied to the length of their rule.  Sound familiar?  It should.  The Nubiin are based losely on the Egyptian culture.

In the wake of the Cataclysm, and the advent of the devastating storms of Vedranya, the Nubiin faith was shaken.  If the Osire held no power over the storms, how could they be considered divine?  For nearly a hundred suns, the Nubiin struggled, even adopting a bastardized form of The Faithful religion for a while, but eventually, they returned to their traditions, rationalizing Vedranya as the cost of their prosperity otherwise.

The Hussar of the plains believe that the gods exist, but that they have no interest in what happens in Tellurin.  They believe in the power of a good horse, the strength in their limbs, and the pleasures of a life honourably lived.  They have an ethical code rather than a religion per se.

The Shooksa-Nai of the north-western region of Tellurin still live in a tribal fashion and have an animistic belief system, that is they believe in the spirits of things.  Their shaman are their spiritual leaders, healers, and advisors.  The Shanzu of the Deep Forest are similar.

A word about those pagan belief systems I mentioned off the top.  They relate to the first gods, the akhis.  Most revolve around the lord of the land (Zaidesakhi) and the lady of the waters (Augesahki).  Sacred groves were often consecrated to them.

Non-Tellurin religions

The okante (think orcs) territories are just south of the Shooksa-Nai and they too are a tribal, animistic people, and were largely peaceful until Yllel co-opted them into soul-slavery.  Now they live in fear of the mad god and do his bidding in the hope of saving their people from his wrath.

The krean (think trolls) are a seafaring people and revere the oceans and weather as their deities.  This has its roots in the akhis as well, Augesakhi and Freyesakhi.  Like the okante, they have been enslaved by Yllel and live in a similar fear of him.

The grunden (ogres), who live in the mountains, and blinsies (goblins), who live in the Deep Forest and love to harras the Shanzu, have no religion, but are also enslaved to Yllel.

The anogeni, as I’ve written in the past, were once the hands of Zaidesakhi, the fingers of Augesakhi.  The hidden people are special.  Though they’ve lost both “parents” they live in the belief that they will return to their children.  They have no true religion, because they know the true nature of the gods.  They do not require a structured religious practice as such.

They not only believe in the spirits of things, they actually study them and know them as friends.  There are twelve plants whose spirits have proven especially powerful: the ashkiwine.  It is through their relationships with the spirits that the anogeni practice their form of magic.

Because of their relationship to the akhis, they also know the spirit of the world, which they call the anoashki, the great mystery.  He is their grandfather, and they serve his purpose, one of the primary goals of which is to resurrect the fallen akhis.

Though the anogeni we meet in Initiate of Stone live in the earth, there are other groups of the anogeni that make their homes in the great trees, and in the oceans.  These last are an aquatic form of the anogeni, but they don’t have fish-tails 🙂

Another interesting thing about the anogeni is that they hold the memories of their ancestors, are born with them in fact.  As a result, they have a complex system of prophecies based on these memories and the patterns they have seen in them.  These prophecies and the anoashki guide them.

The dwergen, similarly, have no structured religion.  Dwergesakhi still lives in the heart of the earth, still speaks to them, and they know him well.  A self-evident god requires no faith.  Dwergesakhi is their creator, though, and as such they offer him respect and will do his bidding unquestioningly, as any good children might.

The eleph, being from Elphindar, are a little different.  Elphindar has no gods, but the eleph still revere the kaides esse, or the powers that be.  They believe in a kind of clock-maker, something beyond their understanding that created the universe, but then left the experiment to tick itself out in the fullness of time.  Like the Hussar, they have an ethical code by which they live.

When the eleph first arrived to Tellurin, Auremon came to them to try to make amends.  They were startled that the kaides esse of this new world took corporeal form and that they intervened in the affairs of mortals.  Since he confessed his role in their eviction from Elphindar and his inability to restore them, the eleph had no use for Auremon, and rebuffed him.

Not long afterward, the eleph encountered Yllel, when the mad god attempted to enslave them.  Yllel could not trick them, however, and this encounter only served to entrench the eleph enmity of the Tellurin gods and the people who worshiped them.

Finally, the favrard espoused an intricate system of ritual and discipline that did not focus on one god, but on all of them, past and present, known and unknown.  When Yllel enslaved them, he made them abandon their spirituality.  Some attempt to cling to their past, but Yllel punishes them for it.  The favrard are Yllel’s special pets, and one of the few peoples that he can possess.  The tortures he can inflict from within are fearsome indeed.

With this, we’re almost at the end of my world-building epic.  Next week, I’ll talk about some of the other distinctive features of Tellurin, some of the cities, keeps, towns, and villages that figure in Initiate of Stone, as well as a few odds and sods.

I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about Tellurin and the characters in my novel.

I’m Writerly Goodness, circling three times and settling down for a nice sleep.  Until next week!

Speaking of speaking to the spirits

/ Melanie Marttila
English: Religious symbols from the top nine o...

English: Religious symbols from the top nine organised faiths of the world according to Major world religions From left to right: 1st Row: Christian Cross, Jewish Star of David, Hindu Aumkar 2nd Row: Islamic Star and crescent, Buddhist Wheel of Dharma, Shinto Torii 3rd Row: Sikh Khanda, Bahá’í star, Jain Ahimsa Symbol (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A.K.A. Religion and spirituality in Tellurin, part 1

After last week’s lovely vacation from worldbuilding … it’s ba-ack 🙂  If you recall, last instalment, I talked about the specifics of how the magick works.  Part of that dealt with the nature of Ferathainn’s talent: her ability to communicate with the spirits of things.  We’re going to take that metaphor in a different direction this week.

So I’ve already covered the gods, and given a basic rundown of the history of Tellurin.  What’s left to say about the religions?  A fair amount 🙂

The two main religions in Tellurin, The Faithful and The Holy Mother Church are based on Auraya.

Once upon a time, on the eastern coast of Tellurin, the Parimi, Espanic, and the Haldane peoples lived in harmony with the Caldone.  Though all from tribal origins, all but the Caldone had settled into stable, agrarian territories that grew into allied provinces.

The Haldane were great artists and philosophers.  Their main tenet was to live every day to its fullest, to be joyful in the moment, and to follow their bliss.  This led them to strive for excellence in whatever profession they pursued.

The Parimi were of a similar disposition, but they were epicures verging on hedonism (eat, drink, and make love today, for tomorrow, you may die).

The Espanic expressed their philosophy in a different way.  They were great engineers, navigators, and scientists.

All Tellurin knew of the gods, but there was no codified religion yet.

In those days, Auraya, Auremon, and Tryella were active in the affairs of the Tellurin.  Auremon and Tryella weren’t interested in thanks or recognition, however.  Their efforts were altruistic.  Auraya loved the adoration and her partner and daughter were more than happy to let her take credit for their good deeds.

One of the Haldane began to collect tales of divine providence and intervention, and wrote them down.  He signed each story, The Faithful Scribe.  This collection became the Kas’Khoudum, or book of light.

The Parimi took these writings, and developed the set of practices that became The Faithful religion.  Mostly, they gathered at the full and new moons to share tales of wonder, to sing songs about them and to recite poetry based on the tales.  They shared food and drink.  In short, it was a big party that made everyone in attendance happy.  The Haldane and Espanic took to this form of gathering like bees to pollen.

Word of The Faithful gatherings spread beyond the borders of it home provinces and others began to adopt those practices.

The Cadone, however, were still largely a tribal culture.  Though they had cities, these were military strongholds and training centres.  They raided and attacked their neighbours, taking the conquered people as slaves.  When they observed The Faithful gatherings among their slaves, they thought it was pure debauchery and the Kas’Khoudum, a work of heresy.

Their Auraya was a warrior queen, champion of the bold and fearless.  They had established The Holy Mother Church in her name as an administrative branch of their great armies.  They determined that The Faithful had to be stamped out.

Though they drove the Parimi, Haldane, and Espanic peoples from their homelands and pursued them across the continent, Auraya intervened and chose one of The Faithful, Alain de Corvus, to be her Kas’Hadden, or hammer of light.

He saved the refugee peoples, turned back the Caldone, and the Parimi, Haldane, and Espanic settled peacefully on the western coast of Tellurin.

Over time, the religion of The Faithful became ritualized and the practice less joyful.

Yllel, trying to influence The Faithful for his own nefarious purpose created his own book, the Rada’Khoudum, or book of darkness (misleadingly translated as the book against darkness).  This was a book of ceremony and ritual, including a number of spells that when used, would actually bind and drain Auraya’s power, eventually weakening her.

After the Cataclysm, Yllel directed his soul-slaves to place the Rada’Khoudum into the hands of the surviving Faithful.  The Rada’Khoudum became the basis of modern Faithful practice and the Kas’Khoudum became a pleasant book of incredible tales, eventually laying forgotten and gathering dust on a shelf in the Great Library at Aurayene.

It might be helpful to think of The Faithful in the time of Initiate of Stone as analogous to the High Anglican Church in its early days, when multiple sects of Christianity were emerging and religious persecution was rife.

Think of the Holy Mother Church as Christianity in the time of the crusades, except that their collective target is any religion that is not HMC, magi, and any people not Tellurin.  They’ve been waiting and planning for years to execute their holy war.

Next week: The other religions of Tellurin.  You didn’t think I’d stop with two, did you?

Have a great long weekend!

Writerly Goodness, signing off.

The endless, stuttering, intermittent draft

/ Melanie Marttila

As promised, I’m taking a break from worldbuilding, itself a fairly endless task, to talk about my most recent draft.

Officially, this is number six (oh gawd, will I ever be finished?) but I’ve actually been through the MS once, and now I’m editing in fits and starts between critiquing and platform-building, and working.

I’m so tired, I feel like I’m sleepwalking.  With my somnabulant history, maybe I am …

I started honing number six in January when I joined my critique group on Author Salon.  The focus, at first, was my profile, which only featured about six pages of my writing, plus a short synopsis, hook line, conflict statement, protagonist, antagonist, and other character sketches, unique world, climax and denouement.

I still haven’t got the hang of it.

In February, AS announced their first Showcase, and I submitted my bits and pieces, only to be advised that my novel was far too long to be considered.  This happened at the same time that my original blog, labbydog, was hacked.

Faced with two fairly substantial pieces of bad news, I was initially paralyzed.  As I cobbled together my online life, I tried to figure out how I was going to compress a 250,000 word novel into 110,000 words (the AS upper limit).  I sat in a stunned boggle for days trying to think of what I could cut without sacrificing the story.

When my mind stopped spinning long enough to have a coherent thought, I realized the solution was simple, and had been staring me in the face the whole time: cut the bloody thing in half, revise, and edit down from there.  It was a far less daunting task that the one I was considering, and eminently doable.

So I cut, and went through the whole thing, tweaking as I went.  My mid-point was actually a little more than half-way through the original MS and even after that first review, I was still at 150,000 words.

In March, I also posted my first 50 pages to the AS critique group.  Well it was supposed to be the first 50 pages, but mine was close to 90.  The feedback I got was great, but meant that I would have to rewrite a fair chunk of my first act.  I started thinking about how I was going to do that.

Then life got a bit crazy.  March 14 would have been my dad’s 71st birthday, followed in quick succession by the anniversary of his death and funeral in April.  I wanted the world to stop at that point, but the crazy continued with some unexpected kudos at work and a new position in May.

At that point, I was just struggling to keep up, treading water and taking big gulps of air while the waves washed over me.  I know I was overwhelmed.  I knew it even then, I just didn’t have the time to feel it.  I didn’t work on my novel for the entire month of May.

Since then, I’ve conquered the rewrite, revised 30 pages out of the first part of Initiate of Stone, and just recently returned to the critiquing world.

So I haven’t finished this strange draft yet.  I have to work through the three remaining parts of the novel and cut the words/pages to the point where IoS is a streamlined machine, within the AS word limits, and hopefully suitable for a future AS Showcase.

I also have to revise my profile (again) to try and reflect the unique angle my novel presents.  This is a challenge, because IoS is a straight up, traditional fantasy.

What this process has taught me so far:

  • Life continues to happen while you’re making other plans.  It doesn’t stop because you want or even need it to.  The good and the bad crop up at the most inconvenient times and you just have to deal, take care of yourself, and stop worrying about what everyone else thinks.
  • Balance is the thing.  Time and project management skills come to the fore when you’re under stress.  Do what you can and don’t feel guilty.  It is enough.  You are enough.  All will be well.
  • Don’t stop writing.  Even though I wasn’t working on my novel, I was still writing, critiquing, and blogging.  Return to the words every day, and they will reward you every time.
  • Have a plan, or, if the plan you have isn’t working, change it up.  You can be the most meticulously organized person in the world, and something will always happen that sets everything awry.  It’s not a failure unless you quit.  Sometimes you just have to angle into the wind a bit more to keep sailing in a straight line 🙂
  • Write what you want to write, but then you have to find a way to make the concept of your novel interesting to an agent or publisher.  I’m still working on this one.

Will let you know how it goes.

A wee side note here: I’ve started using the super-cool journal my friend Margaret gave me for Christmas.  Embossed leather cover with a nifty semi-precious stone embedded in the leather, home-made, recycled paper laced into the cover.  I even have a refill that I can lace in when I’ve used up all of these pages.

Isn’t it just the coolest writer-gift ever?  I think so.

How is your creative project going?