Blogging A to Z Schedule

Here's my planned schedule for my worldbuilding posts (arranged A to Z for the challenge) for the next month. Every post will pertain to the worldbuilding I have done for my fantasy realm of Akhet based on Ancient Egypt.

April 1: A is for Akh- a glimpse at a different kind of person-hood.
April 2: Ba is for Ba- how this aspect of the Egyptian soul is used as part of my magic system.
April 3: Sunday- No Post
April 4: C is for Cuisine- what do people in Akhet eat?
April 5: D is for Duat- the nature of the Netherworld.
April 6: E is for Education- how and where and what do the people of Akhet learn?
April 7: F is for Fashion- the clothes of Akhet!
April 8: G is for Geography- how closely does Akhet model Egypt?
April 9: H is for History- Even imaginary countries need a history.
April 10:Sunday: No Post
April 11: I is for Industry- what do the people of Akhet make?
April 12: J is for Justice- how the law works in Akhet.
April 13: K is for Ka- another important part of the person and what it means.
April 14: L is for Language- the challenge of using Egyptian as the basis of names.
April 15: M is for Monuments- an important part of the belief system.
April 16: N is for Nomes- how Akhet is divided into political regions.
April 17: Sunday- No Post
April 18: O is for Other Races- the quintessential question of fantasy: Elves or no Elves?
April 19: P is for Politcs- how Akhet is governed.
April 20: Q is for... actually, I haven't thought of this one yet.
April 21: R is for Religion- the beliefs of the most pious of peoples.
April 22: S is for Social Strata- rich vs poor?
April 23: T is for Technology- what kind of science will you find in Akhet?
April 24: Sunday- No Post
April 25: U is for Urban Centers- the city as an important aspect of identity.
April 26: V is for Values- what is important to the people of Akhet?
April 27: W is for Warfare- who, where and how.
April 28: X is for eXistence- the origin story of the world.
April 29: Y is for Year- time and the seasons in Akhet.
April 30: Z is for Ze End- finishing off with an some thoughts on Akhet's place in the wider world.

That's what I've got so far and yes I realize that X is stretching it a bit and Z is a total cop out. Those last few letters are hard! And Q... well, I'm sure I'll think of something. Plenty of time for that, right?

Good luck to all the others involved in the challenge! I look forward to reading as many of the entries as I can fit in my schedule.

The Art of Fantasy: Worldbuilding

Worldbuilding is one of the aspects that drew me into reading and writing fantasy. I'll admit it up front, I read fantasy to escape the real world. I'm just not a modern girl and I don't much like the modern world. I would love to go back to the days of long flowing dresses and swords. Yes, even without all the conveniences and yes I realize that the days of yore had their share of problems too. That's the beauty of fantasy. You can create your own secondary world taking or leaving whatever you want from the real one and adding to it whatever your imagination can supply. It could be a world of sunshine and rainbows called Happy Valley. Or it could be a world just as dark and dangerous as this one, but where you as the creator get to choose and control what kind of darkness and just how dangerous. And you get to choose who wins.

I love well created fantasy worlds. Middle-earth, of course, stands out as the shining beacon that I aspire to emulate. Narnia, Prydain, Discworld, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter... there's something about a well developed fantasy setting that has substance, that stays with you after you've finished reading. They feel like they could so easily be real. And maybe if we click our heels together or say the magic words... we could get there.

But worldbuilding isn't easy. Tolkien spent his entire life developing the world of Arda, of which Middle-earth is only a part. It paid off. There are people (not me, seriously) who learn to speak its languages fluently and know every single known detail about its history and peoples. Arda is a world that has substance and remains with people, but its level of depth and scope is a rare feat. (Possibly unique.) I aim for it tremulously.

Like Tolkien, I am inspired by various real world mythologies. Anyone who has read my blog even a little knows about my (somewhat obsessive) fascination with Ancient Egypt. It was the first mythology I fell in love with after learning about Egypt in grade school and one part of my world is based strongly on that culture. Other parts of the world will draw from other mythologies, such as Celtic and Greek. The question when being influenced by a real mythology is how much to utilize. How do I balance the bits I take from the real world with the bits from my own imagination? I don't pretend to have an answer. I'm just another storyteller trying and erring until I like what I see.

For the next month I'll be sharing much of what I've come up with while worldbuilding for my first novel. Since the first novel about my world is set entirely in the Egyptian inspired nation, I will focus on what I have developed of that country. (I haven't worked much on the other areas of the world yet.) This is for the A to Z blogging challenge so each day of April I will be taking a letter of the alphabet and sharing a bit about a worldbuilding aspect associated with that letter (like C is for Cuisine). I hope it will be fun for those stopping by, especially for anyone interested in worldbuilding. Tomorrow I'll post a list of all the topics I'll be covering for the next month.

The Nature of Magic Blogfest

Being a fantasy writer, I couldn't help signing up for the Nature of Magic Blogfest hosted by Tessa Conte and Laura B. Diamond.Here's the premise:

Write or share something you've already written that, to you, shows the nature of magic. It can be an excerpt from your WIP, something you've written especially, poetry, whatever strikes your fancy. It just needs to show the nature of magic as it exists for you or for those you write about.

I've elected to share something written about how magic works in the fantasy world of my current WIP. I often find that the best way for me to figure things out is to write short scenes of dialogue between two characters where they discuss the subject in question. For this project, the two characters are a priest and his would-be student based on the anecdotes found in Plato about the Greek statesman Solon and his journey to Egypt to seek knowledge from the priests there. Thus the student is called Sollon and the priest I have named Menes after the legendary first pharaoh who united Upper and Lower Egypt. None of the scenes I write with them will end up in the WIP, they are mostly for my benefit. Though at some point I may post all the material I write about them for free through my blog. On the other hand, sometimes I feel that there may be a sequel to be gotten out of them. We'll see.

Anyway, here are Sollon and Menes discussing power and magic as it is understood in Akhet, the Light Land.

    Sollon sat at feet of Menes in the House of Life. The ancient priest was gnawing on a chunk of bread. Sollon folded his hands around his knees and took a deep breath to maintain patience. Something in the old man’s eyes told him this was just another test. At last Menes swallowed and grinned at his student.
    “45 days ago you asked me about the source of a priest’s power.”
    “Indeed, venerable one,” answered Sollon in surprise. “You said I was not ready for the answer.”
    Menes grunted. “You are not now so full of ignorant presumption as you were then.”
    Sollon did not know whether to feel insulted or praised. He settled for bowing his head in deference. “Thank you, venerable one.”
    “The source of our power is a great secret fit for only those who follow the way of the gods,” said Menes.
    Sollon held his breath, wondering if his frequent sacrifices had been enough to pass this particular hurdle. “The gods of Akhet are great,” he said.
    Menes nodded, his hawk like features fixed on his student. “The gods of Akhet are great,” he repeated. “So you must know that if you use the knowledge I am about to give you for unscrupulous ends you will be made to suffer for it.” The priest peered into Sollon’s face, looking for any insincerity. At last he seemed satisfied. “I have told you much of the gods. I have given you some knowledge of Re’s travels through the heavens and the Duat comprising the 24 hours that we count in the journey of the sun, 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night. Know then that these realms of the gods’ abode, the heavens and the Duat, have properties which enable the gods to perform their duties and which extend even into the world of mortals.”
    Sollon frowned. “What kind of properties?”
    “It is a thing we do not fully understand even now,” Menes confessed. “Yet there is a... material sphere that we can neither see nor measure nor detect in anyway. Slowly it revolves around our mortal world and within it the stars are embedded. It is the realm of the gods.”
    “You mean... it is a place? Out there... in the sky?” Sollon questioned. He looked out the nearby window.
    “It is much more than a place,” Menes said. “It is a sphere of existence. Those of us who follow the way of the gods can reach into it. It is our ba that does this. When one’s ba is united to the will of the gods it gains strength, it is able to extend beyond you into the realm of the gods.”
    Sollon shook his head. “I still do not understand the ba.”
    “My ba is within me and it is without me. It is a part of me and it is more than me. I will become it when I die and I will also join it when I die,” said Menes.
    “Venerable one, you speak in riddles,” Sollon cried. “I cannot understand this thing.”
    Menes pointed to the table beside him on which was set a cup of beer. “Then watch.”
    Menes did not take his eyes off of Sollon, but Sollon watched the cup. There was... something... like an illusion in the air. He could only just see it and only because he was looking. It appeared like Menes and yet not like Menes. It grasped the cup and put it into Menes’ hand. Menes calmly drank of it.
    Sollon reeled. “I have never seen such a thing!”
    “It is not something that we show to outsiders,” said Menes with a tight lipped smile. “It is not something we do for the sake of doing. We obey always the will of the gods and use this power only in their service.”
    “Can you teach me to do as you have done?”
    “You must first know your ba and your ba must be united with the will of the gods,” Menes answered. “Then you may learn these things.”
    Sollon kept his gloating inward. After all these months! Being told he was an outsider and not worthy! Tested again and again but never being given anything but hedge knowledge!  Now he was finally going to learn of the true magic of Akhet.
    “I show you this thing because it has come to me from the wisdom of Dihauti, he of the Ibis, that you, Sollon, will be important to us soon,” Menes explained. “The Thrice-Great One sees darkness in the future of Akhet and you, Sollon, will be the light to guide us through it.”
    Sollon did not heed the old priest’s prophecy. It did not matter. He was going to be given the power he sought.
   
   

Ancient Egyptian Quote of the Week

Just a quick one today because I'm working on prepping posts for at least the first week of April for the Blogging A to Z Challenge.

First let me admit that I'm taking the following quote completely out of context and I don't remember what text it came from. It's just something I copied into my notes from Jan Assmann's Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt but didn't remember to properly attribute. Still, this one line really spoke to me. Sometimes you know things but need to hear them put in just the right words for them to really sink into your thick skull, you know?

Follow your heart so long as you live, and do not multiply concerns.

Now, when Egyptians are talking about the heart they don't mean feelings and emotions as we do in the West. At least, not just. To the Egyptians the heart was the seat of the emotions, memory, intelligence, will, etc. All those things that make a person a person. And they knew the heart as the source of the blood which brought its life giving connectivity to the body. To be "weary of heart" meant to be dead.


I like to think that this advice to "follow your heart" is a kind of "be true to yourself" message and a reminder to never rely on just your emotions or your reason, but to employ all those aspects of yourself in everything you do. They work best together in connectivity. And of course, I could definitely use a healthy dose of not multiplying concerns. Couldn't we all?

Thoughts on Self Publishing: The Question of Quality

There are a lot of issues to talk about when tackling the subject of traditional vs. self publishing. I don't claim to be any sort of expert, but I've read and thought a lot about it as an aspiring author who will be ready to publish a book (hopefully) this year. So first let me link you to three resources that have had a HUGE influence on my decision, three different authors who have all been traditionally published and have a lot of knowledge about the industry.

A Newbie's Guide to Publishing~ The blog of author J.A. Konrath. You've probably heard of him as the guy who is completely raking it in with self publishing and has become something of a self publishing guru. For some time now he's been posting guest posts by successful indie authors. There's a lot to learn about the actual process and what works and what doesn't from these success stories and the comments that follow them.

The New World of Publishing~ A series of blog posts by author Dean Wesley Smith. This guy knows a lot about the industry and is able to provide some really valuable insights into what is going on right now. Less abrasive and more open minded than Konrath, Smith realizes that every writer is different and that everyone needs to make their own choices about what is good for them in this changing environment. Check out his Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing series as well.

The Business Rusch Publishing Series~ I linked this yesterday, but it's worth doing again. Author Kristine Kathryn Rusch gives tons of valuable information about the business side of publishing, how it works, and particularly how authors need to stop being "please-take-care-of-me" artists and start becoming business savvy entrepreneurs who look after their own careers.

Now that you've got access to the advice of the pros, I'll proceed to giving my completely amateur observations, thoughts and opinions on the subject of self-publishing. I've decided to talk this time about the issue of quality because it's almost always one of the first objections that I see raised by published and not-yet-published authors when they think about self publishing.

The argument goes like this:

"Self Publishing is TOO EASY. It allows too much crap to be published. Anyone with a word processor can now slap down a novel and upload it without having to even use their brain. Look at how many ebooks are on Amazon right now and 90%* of it is amateur drivel. I'm talking MAJOR writing flaws like opening with description of the scenery and excessive adverbs. The market is being absolutely FLOODED with chaff and no one will be able to find the** wheat. Publishing NEEDS gatekeepers to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen. And that's what the agents and editors of the traditional publishing industry do. They make sure only books that are WORTHY to be published are. Circumventing the gatekeepers really only means you're not good enough."

* This is usually the number they use, though based on what scientific studies I couldn't say.
** Meaning "my". 

Yes, I have seen every single one of those things said, though not always in so direct a way. There's a lot to refute there so let's get going.

1. Self Published books are mostly (90%!) terrible.

To put it bluntly, bullshit.

First, this is absolutely impossible to know. NO ONE has actually read all the traditionally published books and all the self published books and thus been able to actually scientifically compare their "quality". So people who dredge up this argument have probably taken the chance on a couple of indie books and disliked them and then panned all indie books. I'm sorry, but that's absurd and illogical.

Second, that's a matter of personal opinion. I, personally, think The Da Vinci Code and Eragon, both very successful books, were steaming piles of crap. Does that mean they shouldn't have been published? Does that mean all the people who bought the books and loved them were wrong? Of course not. Because, to a certain extent, "quality" when it comes to fiction is a very subjective thing. 

2. Readers won't be able to find the quality books because of the vast number of terrible books.

Lets not assume readers are that stupid, ok?

I wonder if people who make this argument are aware of two things: 1. the entire capitalist world is fully of crappy products and somehow people still manage to find what they are looking for and 2. there are tools already in place to help people find the ebooks they want.

This is the internet age, where the whole world wide web has so many websites by so many people you'd think we'd never be able to use it to our advantage. You'd think it would just all be too much. Yet we do. We have search engines for looking specifically for the type of things we want. And it's cliche but true that the cream always rises to the top. If you have a product or service of quality that there is a demand for then people WILL find it. They'll go looking for it or they'll hear about it from their friends. Word of mouth is still the most powerful marketing tool in existence and it even works for ebooks. Oh yes, it'll take time. But the great thing with ebooks is that they have all the time in the world.

And ebook distributiors have purposely made it easy for people to look for what they want and to filter the good from the bad. Categories and lists are a good start. If I'm a fantasy reader (which I am) then I start by going to the fantasy category and thus avoid all sorts of genres that wouldn't have been enjoyable to me. I can look at lists to see what other people are buying and enjoying. There's a good chance if a book is high up on a list it's because people liked it enough to recommend it to all their friends. When browsing through books, I can look for the ones that have the descriptions that most appeal to me. Self publishing authors have a huge advantage here since they get to write their own descriptions to the best of their writing ability in whatever way they feel will best convey their story to potential readers. If I find a book I do like, the page will also show me additional books that other people who liked this book bought. More "word of mouth" type advertising. Last but not least, the glorious sample. Readers can, and do, easily download a sample of the book they are interested in for free. If they like what they are reading after they finish the sample, they can buy the book. If not, they can skip it at no loss.

And this is exactly what readers ARE doing. They are using their own intelligence and the tools available to them to navigate the waters of the ebook world and they ARE finding many, many indie books that they like, that they consider "quality". The numbers of successful indie authors prove it. The cream rises.

3. The "gatekeepers" in traditional publishing are necessary for and effective at keeping bad books from being published. If I publish traditionally both I and my readers will know that I'm good.

Again, bullshit. Book deals for the likes of Snooki and "The Situation" prove that this is rubbish. 

The truth is that big publishing doesn't give a crap about whether books are good or bad. They only care about whether they can sell them. With profit the only thing they care about, they haven't been effective "gatekeepers" for some time now. I'm not accusing individual editors and agents. I'm sure there are many that do care about quality stories, that do want to make the literature world a brighter place. But they don't get to decide whether or not a big publishing house will take your book and to the ones that get to decide the only pertinent criteria is marketability. And at this point agents are only considering books they can successfully pitch to editors and editors are only considering books they can realistically sell to their bosses. This is not a good time for creativity among the publishing houses. Though if you want to write the next set of bestselling vampire romance novels I suppose it can be good for you.

As a reader, I've long since ceased to trust publishing houses to only publish good books. I've read too many terrible ones with the big publishing seal of approval. And honestly, huge books deals for Snooki and any other celebrity who thinks they're a writer have made me totally loose respect for traditional publishing. Maybe once they could actually be trusted for quality. But not any longer. And more and more readers are coming to realize that. The stigma of self publishing is quickly eroding because it's a myth. Once upon a time, self publishing produced some of the world's classics. Until traditional publishing decided to convince everyone that they were needed, that you couldn't write a good book without them. Well, that's crap.

Are there going to be people who choose to self publish books that shouldn't see the light of day? Sure. There are always people offering shoddy products in every industry. But they're not going to fool anyone. And readers are smart enough to realize that it's the author who makes the book and that self published books are no more inherently bad than traditionally published books. Especially if big publishing keeps shooting its self in the foot with Jersey Shore cast book deals.

In conclusion, the face of the book market place is changing. Readers are becoming the gatekeepers, the arbiters of quality and success. That's a good thing for both readers and authors. Does it mean there are more books out there that you won't like? Yes, it does. It also means there are more books out there that you WILL like. All you need to do is use your intelligence and the tools available to you to find them.

The Self-Publishing Debate

A lot of discussion about self-publishing has been going on lately and has caused a lot of strife and discord. In particular, I've noticed that many people who are already established in the traditional publishing industry tend to look down their noses at self-publishing and attempt to warn people of all its risks in a fatherly sort of way. "Oh, it's just a phase," their tone seems to suggest. "Once they sew a few wild oats they'll realize that self-publishing won't make all their dreams come true and they'll come running back." I suppose I appreciate the sentiment (except in as much as I don't), but I find that much of the "advice" being doled out by these people is illogical and misguided at best. They don't really seem to understand the pros of self publishing so how can they reliably talk about the cons?

Then there are some authors who, having worked so hard just to get traditionally published, aren't prepared to let go of that triumph and refuse to see the benefits of self publishing. They seem to fall into one of the fallacies of human experience: the idea that if I had to go through hell to accomplish something then anyone who seemingly accomplishes the same thing in an easier way has negated my accomplishment. Traditionally published authors had to spend years querying agents and years on submission. They had to suffer rejection and sacrifice their stories to chopping block type editors just to get their names in print. And now these upstart self publishing authors come along and just skip by all that stuff and some of them even have to gall to be successful! How dare they take the "easy way out"? At least they'll never have the respectability of a traditionally published author! 

Of course, there are people just as narrow on the other side. J. A. Konrath, despite his "conversion experience" from trad to self publishing guru, is often not willing to admit the validity of any way but his (new) way. The risk takers who have the temperament to jump full throttle into "the next big thing" also tend to look down on those who don't. Konrath has done much to spread a lot of valuable and encouraging information about the possibilities (though he treats them as certainties to an extent) of self publishing. But his attitude (which often comes across as bitter and resentful towards legacy publishers) and his "accept no excuses or substitutes" approach often has a negative impact on the image of self publishing authors.

The only thing that is certain right now is that nothing is certain. The entire publishing industry is going through so many changes right now that it's difficult to keep up and impossible to tell the future. One thing that cannot be denied is the possibilities inherent in self-publishing while the advantages to traditional publishing are quickly dwindling. I'm not an expert on the subject by any means. As an aspiring author I've read a lot about it over the past several months and tried to learn as much as I could. Honestly, I've been a bit shocked by some of the things I've learned about how traditional publishing works. In the end, I decided that without a doubt I want to go the self-publishing route when I finish my first novel.

I'd like to give some of my thoughts on the subject, amateur that I am, and my reasons for deciding that self-publishing is the future for me. That's going to take quite a few words since my head is practically brimming with thoughts and opinions. I'll probably take several posts to cover it all. In the meantime, here's my advice:

Keep an open mind.

Also, if you haven't yet, read this absolutely amazingly informative series of blog posts about the changes to the publishing industry by author Kristine Kathryn Rusch: The Business Rusch Publishing Series. You will learn so much you won't even be able to stand it.

Character Study: Fantine from Les Miserables

I am very much a character person. As a reader, if a book does not have characters that I care about to some extent then I generally can't finish it. As a writer, my ideas and efforts tend to be character focused. I love characters. I love getting to know them and learning from them. So I thought I would periodically write posts about characters that I have read that I've learned something about storytelling from or that have had a strong influence on me.

Fantine: Prostitute with a Heart of Gold

Fantine, at first glance, doesn't seem like a very complex character. She was a typical young Parisian woman who made the mistake of falling in love with a jerk who left her before she told him she was pregnant with his child. Well, French society did not look kindly on single mothers, and so Fantine was forced to leave her child in the care of someone else in order to get a job. Poor, naive Fantine chose her daughter's guardians very poorly and spent the next several years being deceived and gouged out of as much money as the wicked Thenardiers could get from her. When misfortune struck her (she was fired from her job when it was discovered she had an illegitimate child) she did the best she could to get by. She lived a life of extreme poverty, she sold her beautiful hair and then her two front teeth to get money when the Thenardiers told her that her daughter, Cosette, was very sick. Still they continually demanded more money, and so Fantine in desperation turned to a life of prostitution in order to keep her daughter alive. But Fantine is ill herself and so even after she is ultimately rescued from her bitter existence by Monsieur Madeleine, she dies without ever seeing her beloved Cosette again.

Victor Hugo uses Fantine to illustrate the terrible way that society treated women at the time, forcing them into certain choices and then condemning them for their own survival. Fantine's fall from grace turns her into a kind of ferocious animal at one point, an example of the way society, by stripping away the rights and freedoms of such persons, also manages to strip away their humanity and turns them into the very thing it despises. She becomes a bitter, hateful, ugly thing at her lowest point, but that is not how she ends. At the end, with hope renewed, she is more angelic than human having never truly lost her pure and good nature, she dies in the light, redeemed and blessed by God.

At this point I'm going to compare her to another character from a modern novel I was reading recently. In Steven Erikson's fantasy novel Deadhouse Gates, there is a young woman called Felisin Paran who, like Fantine, was forced into dreadful circumstances where turning to prostitution meant survival. Here's the major difference between them: Fantine hates what she has become and only does it for the sake of her daughter. Because she is sacrificing herself for another she manages to retain her goodness (and my sympathy) and dies "luminous". Felisin lets her situation corrupt her completely to the point where she comes to like being a whore and actually chooses to whore herself out to anyone and everyone when she clearly doesn't really need to. Even when Felisin is freed from her slavery she remains a hateful, sick and twisted, unspeakably ugly person. She hates everyone around her (even those helping her) and she doesn't stop offering her body for favors. She is a truly reprehensible character with no redeeming qualities.

Like Hugo, Erikson clearly wants to expose the darkness within the human soul and within human society. The difference is that Erikson never stops wallowing in baseness. Hugo uses the darkness to juxtapose the light. From Erikson, there is no light, only despair. And this is the trend in modern fantasy fare, it seems. But Fantine reminds us that you can explore darkness and you can expose injustice without letting it consume your story and your characters. In fact, I believe that the very purpose of Fantasy is to use the darkness to make the light shine all the brighter. It seems a lot of writers have forgotten that. I intend to remember.