Creation

Happy Tuesday Everyone.
On this chilly day I bring you a poem. A bit of a break from the normal course of work featured here, but it is a poem about writing. More specifically, a poem about world building. I love world building, it is my favorite aspect of writing. Creating a new world, wholly or partially original, is just such a joy. Figuring out the interactions between the characters, personalities, cultures all of it is exciting to me. So exciting in fact that I wrote a poem about it.

I stand in a field of nothing.

All around me is empty.

All around me is the world,

Only waiting to be formed.

It stretches out before my hand

Like a field before a farmer,

Its emptiness waiting to be filled.

It sits, expectantly, waiting for me.

Suddenly I feel it.

Like a song bursting in my chest

It calls to me, the world does.

Unable to resist its sweet call,

Caught up in it all, I begin to work.

From my fingers burst creation.

All that was, is and will be is known.

The world around me takes shape and tone;

Here a tree grows strong and true,

Its leaves basking in a sky ever blue.

There a city prospers and grows,

Its people living lives without woes.

On and on the creation goes,

Past the joys and whims of man

And into the dark and deep depths

Where monsters lie and men may die

Here dark thoughts and deeds rule the land

Their numbers as numerous as the sand.

Casting the world into deepest night.

Each one only adding to the worlds blight.

What will become of this wholly new world?

Will it be truth and justice that wins the day,

Or shall some dark force steal it all away?

Will great deeds be done on its natal shores,

Or shall this world be wracked with wars?

The world stretches out before my hand

Filled with only my deep and true desires

What was, is, and shall be only seen by me.

Each new form, every new life

A simple extension of my will.

The Nether Part 2. With Apologies

Hello all,
So.... it's Friday. About that. I was mildly distracted all of yesterday with a variety of exciting activities, ranging from piloting a spaceship to singing very badly into a microphone, and did not post the post I had planned to post. As you probably figured out by now. Never fear, for the post, she is today!

So about the Nether. This story was written in two sessions, one of the shortest gestation times for any of my tales. Whether that is a good thing or not, I shall let you decide. There will be more discussion behind it, and my thoughts on the whole story in the final part. Yes, that's right. There will be more parts to the Nether! And by parts I mean part. But for now, enjoy the second part of the Nether.

My Spoiler Lite Review of "The Wheel of Time" and A Memory of Light

Hello all! Hope you are having a good poor life decision Tuesday!

Today I being you news of an event that I have been waiting for either for two years or more than a decade depending on the way you count. In this post you will find both my thoughts on "The Wheel of Time" the series, and after the break, the final book, A Memory of Light. This post is less about writing and more about me saying goodbye to the series that got me started.

I just finished the last book of “The Wheel of Time,” A Memory of Light. If, at any point in my life, you were to ask me what my favorite movie was, I would answer, without thinking, Jurassic Park. That movie solidified my love of dinosaurs, and gave me the desire to become a paleontologist. It influenced my life and my goals so fundamentally that I could honestly say that without it, I would be a different person. If you asked me what my favorite book series was, I would answer “The Wheel of Time” just as fast and for the same reasons.

Back in middle school, I was just starting to enjoy reading. My mother wanted to keep me interested in reading and was always looking for a new book to gift me. When a colleague of hers mentioned a pair of books that her son was reading, my mother jumped quickly headed to Borders and bought them.  I came home that day from school to find Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and The Eye of The World sitting on my desk.

While I greatly enjoyed Harry’s magic filled world, Rand al’Thor’s journey really captivated me. Although the plot had been  done before, I had never seen it’s like at the time: the simple farm boy who learns that all the stories and tales he thought were just fantasy were actually real. That idea resonated with me at the time, and still does today.

I finished the nearly 800-page book in less than three days.

For the next ten years, I scavenged bookstores for the rest of the series, and when I caught up on all the published books, I eagerly waited for the next one. Though many of my friends gave up the series—the middle books had a large amount of filler material in them—I stuck with it, even through Crossroads of Twilight, the only book I have read where the main character is only in two scenes. Then, on January 8^th, I received my copy of A Memory of Light.

The book, what can I say, the book was good. I teared up more than once while reading it, not something I generally do when reading a fictional tale. But really, to me, it was more than that. After following the adventures of these character for more than half of my life, it is hard not to grow attached to them. To rejoice when the succeed and cry when they fall. It was amazingly experience reading that book, albeit a bittersweet one.

What do you do when the series that got you hooked on reading finishes? How do you cope when something that has been with for half of your life ends? No longer will I have a new book to look forward too. There will never be another book I have looked forward to more than this one, and now that it is past, I feel like there is a hole left in me.

But, the more I think about it, the more I realize that is false. Reading AmoL did not leave me with a hole, but filled one. All of those memories I have of reading “The Wheel of Time,” all of those characters and their stories- I still have them, whole and complete. When I think about that, all I feel is joy.

The Nether (Part 1)

Happy Thursday,
Today I bring you part one of "The Nether" a science fiction tale of exploration and the unknown. I want to say more, but there's more of A Memory of Light left to read. So here is the story.

The Wheel Turns

In which I continue my streak of not getting rejected outright...

I submitted another story to Daily Science Fiction and got another letter saying "Hooray, your story does not completely suck!" Paraphrased of course. Hopefully this time I will get a letter saying they will print it, unlike the last times. It is still good news, I am not writing worse stories, but I'll see if they are improving in a month. 

Last time I sent them anything, they eventually said it was "too similar" to other stories they had been printing in theme and what not. This time, this time I wrote something far different. Also it's shorter. DSF loves short stories. Hopefully they will love mine too.

I originally wrote it a while ago, but have been taken some time to tighten it up and fix a lot of silly parts. How many silly parts can a 500 word story have? you ask? A surprisingly large amount actually. We'll see what the judges say. 

Progress on the Rain (why I keep calling it that when it is not the actual title I do not know. habit I guess.) re-work is going swimmingly. There was a slight hiccup in that I was not sure how I wanted a scene to play out. It was kind of important to, as I had to figure out if I wanted someone to live or not. As this person was one of the central players, either choice would drastically change it. I solved that problem by taking the third option. What a twist.

In other news- A Memory of Light is out today, and very soon it will be in my hands. Sadly though, I have to go to work between now and then. Sigh...

In other, other news-I should have a story in this space come Thursday. What it is about you will have to wait and see. 

That's all I have to say for today.

-Me

Exciting things are a foot! Though very few of those deal with writing sadly. The changing of the year has been a very hectic time for me so I haven't had time to prepare a story for this slot. Don't think that this means I have given up on posting at all! Just that I am slightly behind.
In other news, the revised version of Rain is coming along nicely. More on that later. For now though enjoy the New Year.

-Me