tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85864503973692805992024-03-13T21:07:02.941-06:00The Laws of MakingMany people use. Some people make. <br>
This is a place to talk about that road less traveled.Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.comBlogger493125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586450397369280599.post-67377640338877492862015-02-19T06:00:00.000-07:002015-09-10T21:13:29.295-06:00The Alyscrai - Chapter 3: The High Service<div class="separator" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ue0JPpGSYoo/VfJGPc_e78I/AAAAAAAAAU0/Uk1OauBmOxY/s1600/LGoS%2B01%2Bv2%2BThe%2BAlyscrai%2BCover%2BWeb%2BThumbnail%2B133x200.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ue0JPpGSYoo/VfJGPc_e78I/AAAAAAAAAU0/Uk1OauBmOxY/s1600/LGoS%2B01%2Bv2%2BThe%2BAlyscrai%2BCover%2BWeb%2BThumbnail%2B133x200.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Chapter 3: The High Service</b></span><br />
<br />
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Reverend Dodgson conducted the common service in front of the Queen, the Reverend Lords Griffin and Tuttle, Reverend Master Tlaloc, and an overflowing crowd. Alysseren had never seen the reverend so self-conscious—and she’d known him all her life. But as far as she could tell, aside from the occasional stammer, he recited the liturgy without any flaws.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Of course, she should have been able to say precisely because she should have focused only on worshipful preparation for the High Service—as Fflwdw-llynwyn reminded her more than once. But though she tried, her attention drifted at times from the mystery of the Atoning Sacrifice to the splendid visitors arrayed behind the reverend, particularly the gallant young priest in the blue robe.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Where could such a young priest have come from? All the other priests looked much older—though they never seemed to change. But this young priest was something new.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Would he officiate in the High Service?</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Would he be the one who took her through the ceremony for the first time?</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Could she, perhaps, one day become a priestess and officiate with him?</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
She blushed. What an inappropriate thing to think at a time like this.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
After the priests dedicated the church, the congregation came forward one by one for the Obeisance. They knelt before the Queen, the people offering their finest to adorn the church and the tochtin, bowing especially low, to receive their grey wafers. The Queen, regal and magnanimous, received and dispensed and dismissed each of them with her benediction.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Shortly after Alysseren had presented herself and Fflwdw-llynwyn received his wafers, he paused midway through his second wafer, sat up, cocked his ears, and stared at the back corner of the chapel.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
She learned long ago that such behavior meant he was about to correct her.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
But Fflwdw-llynwyn said nothing.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Indeed, he seemed entirely unaware of her.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
As Alysseren waited for Fflwdw-llynwyn’s trance to end, she became aware that the lights and colors weren’t as bright as they should be; the room was awash with distracting scents of drying paint, sweat, and wet fur; the organ bellows creaked and a fair number of people were off key during the closing chorus. Why hadn’t she noticed any of that before?</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
She focused on the great gold and silver Cross of Atoning Sacrifice with its twined feathered serpents that hung gleaming above the Inner Sanctum. The screens below, which hid the Sanctum during the common service, were painted to show glory streaming down from the cross onto the faces of brown-robed supplicants approaching the Stepped Pyramid of Salvation.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Reverend Dodgson had assured her only that morning, as he rushed her through the two month Catechism of the Initiates in less than an hour, that the High Service brought supplicants to a state of rapture. But as she looked now the faces on the screen seemed more resigned than joyous.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren sighed and tried to shake off her peculiar mood. She had wanted to join the adults in the High Service for so long. Yet now, only moments away from being initiated into the mystery, why did she feel nervous instead of blissful?</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Perhaps it was simply that it had all happened so fast. The reverend had come last night, as she and Sister Alice were readying themselves for bed, to say she must be admitted to the High Service today. When Sister Alice protested that Alysseren needed the catechism and was looking forward to her coming-of-age party, Reverend Dodgson, rightly, pointed out that such things were secondary to the blessing of the High Service.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
As the last of the congregants filed from the chapel, Sister Alice pulled Alysseren aside and hugged her.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Oh, my child, I’m so worried about you.” Her eyes were red from crying. “I should be there with you. I should guide you through the initiation”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren put on a brave smile. “I’ll be fine. I know it’s too soon for you to go through the High Service again.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“What if you have bad blood, child?” A tear coursed down Sister Alice’s cheek.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Hardly anyone has bad blood these days.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Promise me you’ll run, if you must.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren opened her mouth and furrowed her brows but couldn’t think of anything to say. Had Sister Alice, the very model of virtue and religious devotion, just told her to defy the church?</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Sister Alice looked discretely to the left and the right, and then said, “There is something you should know, though it may cost me dearly if I tell you.” She slipped a small oilskin packet from beneath the waist band of her skirt. “There is a place—”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Ah, there you are,” the reverend said in a loud voice. He took Alysseren’s arm. “Come. We mustn’t keep the Queen waiting.”</div>
<h3 class="section-break" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #6e6e6e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.1; margin: 1.9em 0px 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; page-break-after: avoid; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
* * *</h3>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 30px; margin-top: -10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Fflwdw-llynwyn was still distracted when the reverend finished latching the main doors of the nearly empty chapel.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The three men who were to demonstrate the role of the supplicant to the initiates donned their brown robes, took an initiate by the hand, and led them to the priests behind the common altar.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren’s pulse quickened when her guide stopped in front of Christopher Tlaloc. As the Reverend Master regarded her with a slight smile, she was suddenly conscious that, aside from the Queen, she was the only woman going through the High Service tonight.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The organist began the Anthem of the High Service.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren drew a deep breath. Why did such thoughts distract her?</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
It was time to concentrate. She had spent her entire life—at least as much as she could remember of the last nearly sixteen years—helping Reverend Dodgson and Sister Alice bring people into the church of the Queen of Heaven so they could enjoy the blessing of the Atoning Sacrifice of the High Service. Now she was about to receive that blessing herself.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Are you sure you’re ready?” Fflwdw-llynwyn whispered. “You can still withdraw.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren paused, surprised that Fflwdw-llynwyn would suggest such a thing—and at how much the thought appealed to her.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
She closed her eyes. It must simply be her nerves.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
After taking a steadying breath, she said, “It’s too late for that.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“It’s never too late, dearest.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
When the anthem ended, the high priests opened the screens of the Inner Sanctum. Three mercy seats faced the pulpit beneath the great cross. Three golden grails rested on the table of the service in front of the pulpit. Unadorned crimson curtains covered the walls of the small room.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Is that all?” Alysseren whispered.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“The reverend shouldn’t have rushed you into this,” Fflwdw-llynwyn said as he looked at the back of the chapel again. “Why don’t you say you feel ill and withdraw?”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren shook her head just enough for Fflwdw-llynwyn to see. “I’m … I’m just a bit anxious, that’s all.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The brown-robed men took their places behind the mercy seats. The initiates stepped to the left, where they could observe as their guides demonstrated the role of the supplicant in the ceremony.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The Queen ascended to the pulpit while Reverend Lord Griffin closed the screens.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Reverend Lord Tuttle raised his overstuffed hands to make the sign of the accusation and chanted, “Your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with inequity.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren nodded and mumbled, “Blood is bad.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“We stand guilty before thee,” the supplicants answered.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Your lips have spoken lies; your tongue hath uttered perverseness.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The supplicants knelt. “Take away our sins, we pray.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“All things are, by the Law, purged with blood; and without shedding of blood there is no redemption.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Let the Blood of the Covenant be our Atoning Oblation.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The supplicants rose, sat on the mercy seats, and raised their right hands.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Their tochtin pulled down their brown sleeves, exposing their arms.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The supplicants laid their bare arms, palm up, on the arm rests of the mercy seats.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren leaned forward: it was the moment of sacrifice, but she didn’t understand the significance of the posture. She would be a supplicant next and she didn’t want to make a mistake.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The priests each retrieved a grail and what appeared to be a tiny golden trumpet from the service table.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
They chanted, “Between the falling and the rising, lies the blood,” as they placed the grails beneath the arms of the supplicants.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Between the oppression and the liberation, lies the blood.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The priests removed the sheaths from the needle end of the trumpets.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Not so tight,” Fflwdw-llynwyn gasped.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren forced herself to relax her grip. “Why do they have needles?”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Between the wrath and the mercy, lies the blood.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Deftly, each priest inserted a golden needle into one of the forearm veins of each supplicant.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren drew an involuntary breath. How could this be part of the High Service? How could needles in the arm have anything to do with blessings and rapture?</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Between the condemnation and the redemption, lies the blood.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Bright blood poured from the tiny trumpets into each grail.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren’s legs felt weak. She grabbed the back of the mercy seat to steady herself and whispered, “I can’t believe I’m supposed to do that.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Sister Alice’s words echoed in her mind.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Eyes closed and faces full of bliss, the supplicants said, “We give thee the blood of the sin offering in atonement.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“You want to run … I feel it,” Fflwdw-llynwyn whispered. “I can help.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren couldn’t take her eyes from the blood filling the grail. It came in spurts with each heartbeat—and there was so much of it. “All that blood,” she whispered. “It’s wrong. I can’t, I … I feel ill.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Fflwdw-llynwyn nuzzled her neck. “You should run from this place.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
When the grails were nearly full, the priests returned with plates and chalices for the supplicants and chanted, “Eat the bread of life. Drink the pure and living waters. Then enter into the rest of Heaven.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Trembling, Alysseren closed her eyes and drew a deep breath to quell the nausea. Was this what Sister Alice wanted to tell her?</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“I promise,” she whispered. “I’ll run.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The priests removed the trumpets, bandaged the arms of the supplicants, turned to the pulpit, and raised the grails to the Queen.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“This is my—our chance,” Fflwdw-llynwyn whispered. “Run! Now!”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
A wave of boldness washed over Alysseren. She turned, flung aside the screens, sprinted across the chapel, and fumbled with the latch on the main doors.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Bring her back!” the Queen cried.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren knocked Reverend Dodgson over when she burst out of the chapel. Others sprang aside as she fled through the foyer. She flew down the front steps and vaulted over the great stone feathered serpent on the right.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
She hitched up her white robe as she ran around the church. Fflwdw-llynwyn helped her slide her arms free and shed the robe before she sprinted under the airship, avoiding the electric lights shining from the gondola.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
With her skirt gathered, she careened down the slope of the sheep field, heading for the forest beyond.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The full moon peeked over the eastern mountains, but it didn’t help among the trees. Fflwdw-llynwyn, however, seemed to know exactly where to go. Alysseren was happy simply to run, as long as it was away from the church.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
After a time Fflwdw-llynwyn said, “You can trust Crewyngwen-afonbel.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Who?” Alysseren asked between breaths.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Sister Alice’s tochtin.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Why are you telling me this? Why did you tell me his name?”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
His only response was, “Turn left now.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren was quite out of breath when she tripped. She rolled instinctively to cradle Fflwdw-llynwyn but felt him flying away instead. Suddenly separated, she was barely aware of her surroundings until she blundered into a massive iron leg.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
A metal tentacle wrapped around her and lifted her above the trees.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Gears ground together as the riveted iron shell, stark in the moonlight, swung toward her and brought its guns to bear.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
It was a war machine.</div>
<br />
<div>
<b>The Alyscrai</b> is available in both <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SP9UPSU" target="_blank">Kindle </a>and <a href="https://www.createspace.com/5202091" target="_blank">trade paperback</a> editions.</div>
Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586450397369280599.post-86828538379985666692015-02-18T06:00:00.000-07:002015-09-10T21:15:32.679-06:00The Alyscrai - Chapter 2: The Queen of Heaven<div class="separator" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ue0JPpGSYoo/VfJGPc_e78I/AAAAAAAAAU0/Uk1OauBmOxY/s1600/LGoS%2B01%2Bv2%2BThe%2BAlyscrai%2BCover%2BWeb%2BThumbnail%2B133x200.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ue0JPpGSYoo/VfJGPc_e78I/AAAAAAAAAU0/Uk1OauBmOxY/s1600/LGoS%2B01%2Bv2%2BThe%2BAlyscrai%2BCover%2BWeb%2BThumbnail%2B133x200.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Chapter 2: The Queen of Heaven</b></span><br />
<br />
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 30px; margin-top: -10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i>Three Years Later</i></div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 30px; margin-top: -10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren, her hair spreading like dark fire over her snowy robes, stood with the other initiates at the head of the throng gathered around the broad sheep field below the newly finished church at New Harmony to await the coming of the Queen of Heaven.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Golden light bathed her upturned face as she watched the Ship of Heaven descend through the late afternoon sky. She shivered when the braking breeze from the airship’s great propellers washed over her and hoped she could remember everything she had to do to get through the initiation.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Why are you anxious?” Fflwdw-llynwyn asked as he shifted from shoulder to shoulder trying to keep her hair under control. “You’ve wanted this for so long. No one has ever been admitted to the High Service before they were sixteen. It’s a great honor.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Yes, but it’s all so sudden.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
One of the boys from the village was trying to catch her eye as he and his fellows helped the deacons catch the handling lines and guide the Ship of Heaven to the mooring lock atop the steeple. He seemed taller than she remembered and she quite liked the way he smiled at her.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“I only had two more months to wait,” she said. “And I was thinking about who might escort me to the coming-of-age party.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“You know I have to remind you that you need not to worry about such things,” Fflwdw-llynwyn said, his voice flat. “When your time comes, the priests will call and anoint your husband.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“We live by faith,” Alysseren murmured as she watched the lovely young men securing the gangway below the gondola. There were so many to choose from. Perhaps it was best for the church to decide.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Behind her, Reverend Dodgson was quietly assuring someone that rumors about a war machine lurking in the woods and stealing tochtin were baseless, and that a self-propelled metal tower bristling with guns and tentacles was the stuff of nonsense.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The Queen’s Own Guard, dashing as always in their crisp uniforms of red and black, filed out of the airship and took up their stations.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
A priest in gold-trimmed robes of blue was the first to descend.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren gasped. He was young—not even twenty—and tall, with what appeared to be broad shoulders beneath his robe. His hair was thick and sculpted, like the manes of the feathered serpents that flanked the entrance to the church. His eyes and brows, showing the marks of a keen intellect, were set in light, unblemished skin above a mouth accustomed to smiling.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Fflwdw-llynwyn popped up in front of her, just as the young priest looked at them, and said, “That should be the last thing on your mind right now.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“It’s not … It’s only that he’s so …”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Handsome?” Fflwdw-llynwyn fluttered his lashes.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“No, unexpected.” Alysseren pushed her hair away from her eyes. “I’ve never seen a priest who was so young or looked so vital.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“I know you better than anyone else. In a moment you’ll start to fret about how plain you are with your unflattering red hair.” He nuzzled her neck and muttered, “Honestly, it was much easier before you began to notice young men.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren cradled Fflwdw-llynwyn and caressed the white and brown fur on his chest as she gazed into his eyes. “I’ll always love you best.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“And I shall always love you,” he purred.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The world around her seemed to brighten and she heard the evening birdsong above the murmur of the crowd.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
She felt so thoroughly serene that she didn’t flinch when Reverend Lord Tuttle, a purple-robed mountain of a man with a puffed, pallid face, shuffled down the gangway. Surely he had forgotten about her youthful zeal nearly three years ago at the last dedication. After all, that was the day one of the congregation was found to have bad blood and had to be executed.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The second high priest, as trim and precise in his purple robe as his peer was over-abundant, joined the other two priests in the field below the gondola. He surveyed the congregation, the deacons who held them back, and the perimeter of guardsmen. Then he signaled Reverend Dodgson.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The crowd fell silent.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The children’s choir sang a song of welcome.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
An electric thrill ran up Alysseren’s spine and her pulse quickened as the supreme and most holy leader of the church, whom she had known, until this moment, only from paintings, glided down the gangway.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The Queen of Heaven, Corazón Hernandez de la Sangre Sagrada, was resplendent in robes of the richest crimson, trimmed with real cloth-of-gold and embellished with an encircling world-serpent, wrought of precious stones, in whose scales icons of all twelve angels appeared. Her face—porcelain-white with full lips that matched the color of her robes—was framed by the iridescent feathered serpents, whose jade tails were lost in the Queen’s raven-black hair, that twined around the magnificent cross of gold and rubies surmounting the sacred headdress.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren blinked. How curious: the Queen looked exactly like the hundred-year-old painting of her that the reverend had gone to such trouble to procure for the foyer of the new church.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The choir sang the final amen.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
As the Queen mounted the podium, Alysseren realized she had been staring at the sapphire image of Tlaloc, the Rain Angel, on the Queen’s robes and that the other initiates were already kneeling. Reverend Dodgson glared at her as she dropped to the ground.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“On this, the first day of May in the year of Our Lord eighteen hundred and ninety-eight,” the Queen said in a voice that echoed from the church, “I am come to accept your offerings and dedicate your new chapel. Let this day henceforth be a holy day in your calendar. May the blessings of Heaven ever follow your faithful sacrifices.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The people shouted, “Amen!” three times as the Queen, her priests, and the escorting guardsmen paraded toward the church.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The Queen stopped next to Alysseren and said, “Look at me, girl.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren lifted her head. The paintings fell short of capturing the beauty of the Queen’s face—or the cold power in her brown eyes.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“So you are Alysseren, from Dodgson’s mission.” The Queen studied her for a moment. “You’ll do.” There was a hint of a smile. “You’ll do nicely.” She turned to the thin high priest at her side. “Don’t you agree Griffin?”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The Reverend Lord Griffin regarded Alysseren for a moment and then nodded once.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren’s smile dissolved as her jaw grew slack. There was something in the Queen’s tone that made her feel no better than one of the sheep that had been cleared from the field this morning.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
With a swirl of crimson robes, the Queen strode away to lead the procession into the chapel.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren hurried to rise: the initiates were to follow the priests. But she stepped on her robe and tripped.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Arms outstretched, she landed heavily on the gravel.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Fflwdw-llynwyn barely managed to cling to her robes.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
An instant later, strong, gentle hands lifted her back to her feet.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren found herself in the arms of the blue-robed priest. A shiver raced up her spine as she looked up into his smiling face. It was the first time a man had held her so close.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Fflwdw-llynwyn pushed her arm away from her white robes and said, “Look at your hand.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Blood welled from her punctured palm.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Oh that’s bad.” Alysseren’s knees faltered and she felt faint. “Blood is bad.” She was babbling but couldn’t stop. “Blood … I mean, it will ruin the initiation if I stain my robes.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Allow me,” said the young priest, his voice a rich baritone.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Supporting her with one arm, he took her wounded hand and kissed it. When he raised his head, the blood was gone.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
A wave, warm and exciting, traveled up her arm. Before Alysseren could manage a reply, he had tied his handkerchief over her wound and helped her to her place in the procession.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“I, ah … that is, who shall I say came to my aid?” Alysseren asked as they entered the chapel.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The young priest smiled.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Tlaloc. Christopher Tlaloc.”</div>
<div>
<b><br />
</b> <b>The Alyscrai</b> is available in both <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SP9UPSU" target="_blank">Kindle </a>and <a href="https://www.createspace.com/5202091" target="_blank">trade paperback</a> editions.</div>
Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586450397369280599.post-81798488043324290942015-02-17T06:00:00.000-07:002015-09-10T21:16:01.550-06:00The Alyscrai - Chapter 1: Fflwdw-llynwyn<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ue0JPpGSYoo/VfJGPc_e78I/AAAAAAAAAU0/Uk1OauBmOxY/s1600/LGoS%2B01%2Bv2%2BThe%2BAlyscrai%2BCover%2BWeb%2BThumbnail%2B133x200.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ue0JPpGSYoo/VfJGPc_e78I/AAAAAAAAAU0/Uk1OauBmOxY/s1600/LGoS%2B01%2Bv2%2BThe%2BAlyscrai%2BCover%2BWeb%2BThumbnail%2B133x200.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Chapter 1: Fflwdw-llynwyn</b></span><br />
<br />
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The thought of being so wicked had been thrilling, almost intoxicating.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The reality was uncomfortable and dull.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
It had been easy enough for Alysseren to slip under the pews at the end of the common service while everyone else was busy. Sister Alice had gone to the vestry to prepare for the High Service. Reverend Dodgson was tripping over himself attending to the high priest who had come to dedicate the new church.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
That was fifteen minutes ago—fifteen minutes of trying to stay perfectly still while curled up on the hard wooden floor—and they still hadn’t started the anthem yet. Insofar as she could tell from beneath the pew in the middle of the chapel, the adults were simply milling about. Hiding to see the Inner Sanctum and watch the High Service no longer seemed like such a good idea.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“I told you this wouldn’t work,” her tochtin said quietly. “We can’t even sneak away now. There are too many people.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
He yawned, exposing his cat-like teeth, and stretched in her arms till his furry toes touched her thigh and his delicate hands reached past her head.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The floor vibrated with the heavy footfalls of someone crossing the chapel.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Her tochtin sneezed.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Hush,” Alysseren whispered. She held her breath until the dust settled. At least the dusky, just-rained smell of the new wood floor didn’t bother her.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Sometimes I think you want me to get caught,” she said.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“If I wanted that, I could have told the others.” Her tochtin’s long ears drooped. “Not that they ever listen to me …”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren scratched the fur on his belly until he purred softly, then said, “Someday we’ll show them they shouldn’t think so little of us.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The bellows creaked for a moment and then the organ sounded the opening chords of the Anthem of the High Service.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren rolled onto her elbows. Her tochtin climbed to her back. She couldn’t crawl, thanks to her skirt, but she could pull herself under the pews.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
They reached the second row as the anthem ended. Most of her view was filled with the brown robes of the people about to go through the High Service. No one, however, stood directly ahead and she could see the ornate screens behind the altar that hid the Inner Sanctum.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren drew a quick breath and a shiver spread across her back when someone opened the screens and she caught a glimpse of the red curtains in the Sanctum.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
A rough hand pinched her ear and hair, and pulled her to her feet.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Her tochtin cowered in the crook of her arm.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Young lady, this is unacceptable.” Reverend Dodgson’s tone was low and stern, and he kept glancing at the high priest as he marched her out of the pews. “You know you’re too young for the Mystery of the High Service.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Hold, Dodgson,” the high priest shuffling toward them said.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
He was the fattest man Alysseren had ever seen. In the robes of a Reverend Lord, he looked like a great purple turtle—and she almost said so.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The high priest took a lock of her hair, strained it through his pudgy fingers, and said, “Ah, the color of drying blood. I like that.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren shuddered.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The Reverend Lord turned to Sister Alice. “Is this your ward?”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Sister Alice stepped from among the other brown-robed supplicants and nodded.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren couldn’t bear to look at her sad eyes.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“The Queen will be pleased to know she’s coming along nicely.” The high priest turned back to the altar. “Take her away, Dodgson.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren managed to hold back her tears, even though her ear throbbed in the reverend’s grip, until they were out of the chapel.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“I am shocked,” Reverend Dodgson said, between breaths, as he dragged her down the hall, “that you would do such a thing … to me in front of the Reverend Lord Tuttle.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren had never seen the reverend so flustered.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“An orphan should be grateful,” he said as he pushed her into the children’s room, “and mindful of all I have done for her.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
He slammed and locked the door.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren sank into a corner among the toys, buried her face in the white and brown fur of her tochtin, and sobbed.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Don’t be sad, dearest,” her tochtin said as he caressed her hair with his tiny fingers.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Alysseren drew a deep, shuddering breath and said, “I so wanted to see the High Service before we go away to the next mission in New Harmony.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“You know very well that only the adults can go through it.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“It’s not fair.” Alysseren threw a doll across the room. “I’m not a child anymore. Besides, I know more about the church than most of those people.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The tochtin rubbed against her cheeks and dried her tears with his fur.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“At least you love me.” Alysseren sat up and studied her reflection in his large blue eyes. “And I love you.” She caressed his fur. “You’ll always be my snuggle bunny.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The tochtin purred and then said, “I have a gift for you.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
He leaned from her lap, collected letter blocks from among the scattered toys, and arranged them to spell F-f-l-w-d-w and l-l-y-n-w-y-n.</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
She wrinkled her nose. “Those aren’t words. They have no vowels.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“They’re very fine words—and they do have vowels.” The tochtin smiled. “In my language, ‘y’ is a soft ‘i’ and ‘w’ is really a double-’u’.”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“You have a language? What does that mean? How do you say it?”</div>
<div style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; font-family: 'Droid Serif', Baskerville, Times, serif; font-size: 19.2000007629395px; line-height: 32.6399993896484px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Flew-dew lin-win.” He nuzzled her neck and whispered, “It’s my name—a secret we give only to the ones we love best.”</div>
<br />
<div>
<b>The Alyscrai</b> is available in both <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SP9UPSU" target="_blank">Kindle </a>and <a href="https://www.createspace.com/5202091" target="_blank">trade paperback</a> editions.</div>
Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586450397369280599.post-32451397991441409422015-02-11T06:00:00.000-07:002015-10-07T18:49:09.118-06:00Dunlith Hill Announces The Alyscrai<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>“The reverend said rumors about a war machine, a self-propelled metal tower bristling with guns and tentacles, were the stuff of nonesense.”</i></span></span></div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<a href="http://dunlithhill.com/" target="_blank">Dunlith Hill</a> is pleased to announce that D.H. Aidan's <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/cat/f/lgos01.php" target="_blank">The Alyscrai, Book I of The Looking Glass of Souls</a></b>, is now <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SP9UPSU" target="_blank">available</a>.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hyQJPHDVzQg/VfJHp1PnjwI/AAAAAAAAAVA/POUISaVs6KU/s1600/LGoS%2B01%2Bv2%2BThe%2BAlyscrai%2BCover%2BWeb%2BDisplay%2B267x400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hyQJPHDVzQg/VfJHp1PnjwI/AAAAAAAAAVA/POUISaVs6KU/s1600/LGoS%2B01%2Bv2%2BThe%2BAlyscrai%2BCover%2BWeb%2BDisplay%2B267x400.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>In the California of an alternate 1898, Alysseren, a sixteen-year-old missionary, matches people with tochtin—lemur-like familiars who convert their hosts to the church of the Queen of Heaven. When she is admitted to the adult congregation, the bloody secret of the High Service shakes her faith.</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>At the same time, she meets two intriguing young men who vie for her favor—the handsome priest assigned to prepare her for the next High Service and a dashing Mayan amnesiac—and uncovers a conspiracy among the tochtin to use their human hosts as weapons against the Queen.</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Determined to save both the tochtin and the people they control, Alysseren navigates both a land infested with towering, steam-powered war machines and the attentions of her new companions as she tries to stop the rebellion. But every step leads inexorably to a collision with the Queen, and a terrible choice: sacrifice her beloved tochtin ... or herself.</i></blockquote>
<div>
<b>The Alyscrai</b> is available in both <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SP9UPSU" target="_blank">Kindle </a>and <a href="https://www.createspace.com/5202091" target="_blank">trade paperback</a> editions.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586450397369280599.post-16558579360398315202015-02-04T06:00:00.000-07:002015-02-04T06:00:08.249-07:00Surviving the Writing Life Set (Nearly) Free<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-S8qyELFKn0U/VL8aJPbArjI/AAAAAAAAASY/kbRMbCPjn34/s1600/DHWGEB1WebCover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-S8qyELFKn0U/VL8aJPbArjI/AAAAAAAAASY/kbRMbCPjn34/s1600/DHWGEB1WebCover.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
The ease with which an e-book may be revised and released is one of the powerful features of the new electronic publishing platforms.<br />
<br />
<b>Surviving the Writing Life</b>, the first Dunlith Hill Writers Guide, provides an introduction to the series. The framework it offers for understanding your motivations and expectations as a writer is among the most important insights available in the guides.<br />
<br />
While revising the guides in preparation for the release of Artisan Publishing and the collected volumes, I realized that <b>Surviving the Writing Life</b> could do a far better job introducing the series if it’s price were reduced and it included the first chapter of every other writers guide in a sampler section following the main text.<br />
<br />
I’m pleased to announce that <a href="http://dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/dhwgeb1.php" target="_blank"><b>Surviving the Writing Life</b></a> is now available for $.99 (and free at <a href="http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/surviving-the-writing-life" target="_blank">Kobo</a>).<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Deren Hansen is the author of the <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">Dunlith Hill Writers Guides</a></b>.</span>Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586450397369280599.post-19397611428615852802015-01-28T06:00:00.000-07:002015-01-28T07:47:48.687-07:00Dunlith Hill Writers Guide Collections<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
The Dunlith Hill Writers Guides were originally conceived as a series of concise e-books, each focused on a single topic. As I developed the guides, it became clear that some of the e-books belonged together. <br />
<br />
In conjunction with the release of Artisan Publishing and refreshed editions of the other guides, I’m pleased to announce that the Dunlith Hill Writers Guides are now also available in two collected volumes.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3qA1VPGAqhc/VL3Ab1i1h9I/AAAAAAAAASA/UOYeVkgE-JE/s1600/DHWC01WebCover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3qA1VPGAqhc/VL3Ab1i1h9I/AAAAAAAAASA/UOYeVkgE-JE/s1600/DHWC01WebCover.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Collection 1: <b>The Artisan Way</b> explores the writing life with:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li><a href="http://www.dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/dhwgeb2.php"><b>Professional Relationships</b>: How to Deal with the Characters you can’t Re-write</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/dhwgeb3.php"><b>Sustainable Creativity</b>: How to Enjoy a Committed, Long-term Relationship with your Muse</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/dhwgeb7.php"><b>Artisan Publishing</b>: Why to Choose the Road Less Traveled</a></li>
</ol>
And a bonus copy of <a href="http://www.dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/dhwgeb1.php"><b>Surviving the Writing Life</b>: How to Write for Money without Going Crazy</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YsmIpR0qo9o/VL3ApX0qnBI/AAAAAAAAASI/4Vj_rmd7dFM/s1600/DHWC02WebCover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YsmIpR0qo9o/VL3ApX0qnBI/AAAAAAAAASI/4Vj_rmd7dFM/s1600/DHWC02WebCover.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Collection 2: <b>Masterful Writing </b>presents a three-part master class in the art and craft of writing, and includes:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li><a href="http://www.dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/dhwgeb4.php"><b>Story Theory</b>: How to Write Like J.R.R. Tolkien in Three Easy Steps</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/dhwgeb5.php"><b>Verisimilitude</b>: How Illusions, Confidence Games, and Skillful Lying can Improve Your Fiction</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/dhwgeb6.php%22"><b>Character and Archetype</b>: How to Make Readers Fall in Love with your Imaginary Friends</a></li>
</ol>
<br />
In addition to an e-book bundle (which is more economical than purchasing the guides individually), the Dunlith Hill Writers Guides Collections are also available in trade paperback editions.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Deren Hansen is the author of the <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">Dunlith Hill Writers Guides</a></b>.</span>Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586450397369280599.post-45611579829366654942015-01-21T06:00:00.000-07:002015-01-21T06:00:08.727-07:00Artisan Publishing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-coft-pA70lo/VLs0Dp_V-xI/AAAAAAAAARw/WQndDPHP46k/s1600/DHWGEB7WebCover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-coft-pA70lo/VLs0Dp_V-xI/AAAAAAAAARw/WQndDPHP46k/s1600/DHWGEB7WebCover.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="catPageSeriesTitle">
<img src="http://dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/media/DHWGSeriesTitle7.png" /></div>
<br />
<div class="catPageBookTitle">
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Artisan Publishing</span></h2>
</div>
<div class="catPageBookSubTitle">
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Why to Choose the Road Less Traveled</span></h3>
</div>
<div class="catPageBookSubTitle">
</div>
<div class="catPageChapterOne">
<img src="http://dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/media/ChapterOne.png" /></div>
<div class="catPageChapterTitle">
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Artisan Publishing</span></h3>
</div>
<div class="MsoFirstParagraph">
“May you live in interesting times,” is an old Chinese curse, and sounds tame, as curses go, compared to ones that call down withering diseases, plagues of vermin, and the wrath of the undead. Its beauty, however, is that it looks innocuous, but packs a wallop: unlike the gruesome specificity of the typical curses <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal';">interesting times</i> could mean anything.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Regardless of the cause, times become interesting when old certainties no longer hold and no one knows what to do. Publishing is now in the midst of interesting times. For a substantial portion of the last century and most of the first decade of this one, the publishing industry has been defined by the logistics of distributing books to bookstores. There were innovations, like mass-market paperbacks and book stands in supermarkets and big-box retailers, but none of these changed the fundamental distribution pattern. Setting yourself up as a publisher required a second-mortgage-level investment to print books and a tremendous amount of legwork to arrange for distribution. The advent of electronic publishing changed everything because the barrier to entry dropped to little more than the time and effort required to write the book.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
What we used to call publishing (or commercial publishing if we needed to <span class="3DGramE">distinguish</span> the standard model, where authors were paid by publishers, from vanity publishing, where authors paid publishers) now gets qualified with words like, traditional, legacy, or even, dinosaur. And now we talk about self-publishing and independent or <i>indie</i> publishing (an attempt to align with the success and credibility of independently produced films and music), and even argue that trading a 70% royalty for a 15% royalty and recognition by a publisher is a new kind of vanity publishing.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
But there’s something happening in the market that is far more important than the tug-of-war between dependent and independent publishing models. </div>
<br />
<h2>
The Literary Market Opens Up</h2>
<div class="MsoFirstParagraph">
In an interview on the <b>Guide to Literary Agents</b> (GLA) blog, Jessica Regel answered the following question:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="quote">
<i>GLA: You’ve been agenting for almost 10 years now. You’ve got a great perspective on the industry. What do writers need to know about being a writer nowadays that perhaps was not a concern a decade ago?</i></div>
<br />
<div class="quote">
<i>Jessica Regel: I’m sure writers have been hearing this for years, I know I have, but the quiet, steady mid-list book is dying. It’s extremely difficult to sell a quiet, well-written book. Each project I go out with needs to have that one-line movie pitch. It’s all about the hook—paired with phenomenal writing. [1]</i></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s easy to hear that, “It’s extremely difficult to sell a quiet, well-written book,” shake our heads knowingly, and grumble about publishing following in the footsteps other entertainment industries that focus on blockbusters. Regel’s comment, however, is evidence of a fundamental structural change rumbling, like shifting tectonic plates, through the industry.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
In 1997, Clayton Christensen published, <b>The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail</b>, [<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemm=a">2</a>] in which he explored the generational pattern where once dominant firms are eventually eclipsed by more nimble startups that, in turn, become dominant. According to common wisdom, the old firms became dinosaurs for whom the meteor couldn’t come too soon because their management failed to keep up with changing technology. Christensen’s research uncovered something far stranger: the firms that failed were generally well managed—listening to their customers, investing in research and development, and aggressively marketing their innovations—and yet none of that staved off their eventual demise.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The problem, though, is structural. Christensen showed how, across many industries, companies consistently migrate to the high end of the market where their products enjoy the greatest profit margin. In doing so, they often abandon the low end to new firms with new technology. The key piece in the puzzle that Christensen brought to light was the fact that established firms could rationally abandon the low end of the market because the new technology was so obviously inferior to the older technology the established firms controlled. For example, the manufacturers of 5.25 inch hard drives had nothing to worry about when 3.5 inch hard drives were introduced because the smaller disks were slower and held less data: they were only good for laptops, where space was at a premium. But things tend to get better over time, and in a few years the smaller hard drives were good enough that computer manufacturers standardized on them for both laptop and desktop systems, and suddenly the market for 5.25 inch hard drives evaporated.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
What does this have to do with publishing?</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The disappearance of mid-list books from agents’ radar is clear evidence of publishers moving toward the high end of the book market and abandoning the low end: it’s no longer worth the time or effort to bring a quiet, mid-list book to market when what publishers really need is a string of bestsellers.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
E-books and online markets provide an inferior, but cheaper reading experience. It’s a textbook example of disruptive innovation.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of course, printed books and the established firms that produce them are not going to go away—at least not anytime soon. Books will continue to be available in a vibrant mix of print and electronic formats. But it’s not hard to imagine a time when printed books, like vinyl records, are only sought out by true aficionados.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The way in which the forces at work in the market for books will ultimately play out is much less important than the fact that established firms are moving toward the high-end of the market, creating space at the low end for smaller, newer firms and even for artisans.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
That would be enough to qualify as interesting times, but there is another, equally fundamental, structural shift at work in the market.</div>
<br />
<h2>
The End of Artificial Scarcity</h2>
<div class="MsoFirstParagraph">
I stopped going to first-run movies a long time ago. I made that decision during the era of local video-rental stores. The fact that I would eventually be able to see the movie, at a cost that was easier to bear on my starving-student budget, took the wind of urgency out of my movie-watching sails.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, the same thing has happened with books.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
There’s more to the analogy between book-buying and movie-going: both industries do their best business with blockbuster releases because they create value by creating artificial scarcity. Being among the first to see a much anticipated movie or read a major author’s latest release gives short term benefits, above and beyond the value of the story, like bragging rights.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Internet is well on its way to making anything instantly available. One of the consequences of instant availability is that being first in line to get something the moment it’s released becomes less important. Elizabeth Gumport said:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="quote">
<i>“Not only do we not want to read about Gary Shteyngart’s latest novel, we don’t even want to know it exists. Newness is not a fixed property. There must be a less arbitrary, more sensible way to encounter books, an organizational scheme better suited to identifying and highlighting excellence; one which doesn’t foreground mediocrities simply because they are the newest mediocrities. ‘Recent’ is not a synonym for ‘relevant.’” [3]</i></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Libraries, the antithesis of theaters and bookstores, are fundamentally about lasting value—not in terms of absolute worth but in the much simpler sense of something in which people continue to find value over time. The challenge for authors and publishers in the brave new electronic world will be to create lasting value that attracts an ever growing audience instead of relying on scarcity to create a bubble of demand around the release.</div>
<br />
<h2>
What is Artisan Publishing?</h2>
<div class="MsoFirstParagraph">
The <span class="3DGramE">opening of the literary market and the end of artificial scarcity have</span> together created an opportunity for a new kind of publisher: an artisan publisher.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The word, artisan, long carried the sense of the common practitioner, as opposed to the artist who brought genius and inspiration to the work. But as mass production blesses us with a collective and mostly uniform affluence, artisan has come to signify a means of production where low unit cost and economies of scale are not the primary objective. Artisan bread, for example, is made by hand even though there are bread factories that can out-produce an army of bakers.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why, if we are rational economic actors, would we ever choose a product that is more expensive and less available than a mass-produced equivalent? People who prefer artisan breads may argue in terms of the varieties or flavors available nowhere else, or the virtue of supporting local production, but for most people it simply tastes better. Small production batches and traditional, hand-made methods allow skilled craftspeople to invest love, care, and attention to detail to insure the integrity of their work.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Artisan publishing isn’t simply a variation on the theme of doing it yourself. The large, well-stocked home improvement centers dotting our suburban landscape owe their existence more to naivety, false economy, and hubris than to a genuine and supportable conviction that doing it yourself is the best way to get the job done well, right, and in a timely fashion. The path of an artisan publisher begins with having something worth saying and a thorough effort to determine the best way to publish that work. As with our writing, where no character, scene, or sentence is too precious to escape scrutiny, artisan publishing has nothing to do with shortcuts or showing the gatekeepers how wrong they were about your manuscript and everything to do with what is best and right for the project.</div>
<br />
<h2>
What do You Care About?</h2>
<div class="MsoFirstParagraph">
One of the most important lessons every skilled craftsperson must learn is just because you can doesn’t mean you should. The greatest works of art are exercises in restraint not excess.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Artisan publishing is a patient, laborious path. It’s not enough to have the skill, the aptitude, or even the inclination to publish your own material. You need to know why, both for your particular project and for you as an <span class="3DGramE">individual,</span> the way of the artisan is worth all the time and trouble it will cost you.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
A journey of a thousand miles may well begin with a single step, but your chances of completing the roughly two million steps that comprise the journey are poor if you don’t know why you’re doing it. There are many bad reasons—one of the worst being because everyone else is doing it—and only a few good ones. The difference is that bad reasons wear away over time but good ones will see you through to the end.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
No true craftsperson undertakes a work lightly—not because their work has mystical significance but because the hallmark of skill is to act deliberately. In order to act deliberately you need to know why you’re acting: you need to have a sense of your mission as an artisan publisher. Otherwise, you’ll provide yet another confirmation of the old aphorism that if you’re aiming at nothing you’ll hit it.</div>
<br />
<h2>
Why this Guide?</h2>
<div class="MsoFirstParagraph">
There are already too many books promising to give you the insider secrets that will enable you to make a fortune in electronic publishing—how to format and upload text, create covers, and build a readership with free, or cheap books, and paid reviews that will make your e-books fly off the virtual shelves.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
This guide covers none of that: it’s not a how-<span class="3DGramE">to,</span> it’s a why-to. It’s a guide to the context, philosophy, and expectations you should have if you want to be an artisan publisher.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Chapter 2</b> sets the groundwork with a clear view of the publishing industry. You need to understand what commercial publishers actually do and the roles of author and publisher if you want to participate intelligently.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Chapter 3</b> takes a sober look at the reasons you shouldn’t choose artisan publishing.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Having laid that groundwork, <b>Chapter 4</b> explores the advantages of being an artisan publisher, the biggest of which, editorial control, is covered in <b>Chapter 5</b>.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Chapter 6</b> turns to the challenges you’ll likely face as an artisan publisher. Managing time and your expectations about time is enough of a challenge, in its own right, that it is the subject of <b>Chapter 7</b>.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal';">Chapter 8</b> outlines aspects of the craft of publishing you will need to master.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The artisan philosophy of business and marketing are covered in chapters <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal';">9</b> and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal';">10</b>, respectively.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal';">Chapter 11</b> reveals the illusion of a national book culture that holds back many potential artisans.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal';">Chapter 12</b> explores strategic publishing in an age of abundance (what some have called the problem of discoverability).</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
And <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal';">Chapter 13</b> steps back to put the entire discussion into perspective.</div>
<div class="SceneBreak">
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The electronic frontier is neither literary heaven nor hell. It’s simply a new set of opportunities for readers and writers. It’s not a religion that requires you to renounce other forms of publishing. Rational authors, acting in their best business interests and in light of their particular circumstances, will find good reasons to take advantage of all the different publishing options at various times and places.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
The barriers to entry are low enough that you will likely find reasons to participate, but don’t confuse the ease with which you can publish with lower standards. In this new age of digital abundance, the one thing that matters—which is the only thing that has ever mattered—is writing a good book.</div>
<br />
<div class="catPurchaseHeader">
<img src="http://dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/media/Purchase.jpg" /></div>
<center>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00NQEH82U"><img class="buyButton" src="http://dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/media/AmazonLogoButton.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 5px;" /></a><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/artisan-publishing/id931167726"><img class="buyButton" src="http://dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/media/apple-itunes-logo.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 0px;" /></a><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/artisan-publishing-deren-hansen/1120376421?ean=2940150598058"><img class="buyButton" src="http://dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/media/BNLogoButton.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 0px;" /></a><a href="http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/artisan-publishing"><img class="buyButton" src="http://dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/media/KoboLogoButton.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 3px;" /></a></center>
Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586450397369280599.post-1500945502044182172015-01-14T06:00:00.000-07:002015-01-14T06:00:00.857-07:00What Ever Happened To…<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s1600/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s200/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" height="133" width="200" /></a></div>
Planetary alignments are portentous events. Project alignments just mean everything takes longer.<br /><br />This lonely corner of the net has been silent not because of inactivity but its opposite.<br /><br />Writing, while one of many modes of making, is still one of my primary passions. But the scope of my efforts over the past year has expanded to something we might call production.<br /><br />I’ve added a seventh volume, <a href="http://www.dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/dhwgeb7.php"><b>Artisan Publishing: Why to Choose the Road Less Traveled</b></a>, to the Dunlith Hill Writers Guides. But because each of the previous volumes had been modified to include a reference to the new volume it was also an opportunity to revise and refresh those volumes — essentially republishing the entire series.<br /><br />But, as the advertisements say, that’s not all. There was enough material with the new volume to warrant combining the guides into two collections devoted to the <a href="http://www.dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/dhwgcol1.php">life </a>and <a href="http://dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/dhwgcol2.php">craft </a>of the writer. The collections are now available as trade paperbacks as well as e-books (and a better deal than purchasing the guides individually).<br /><br />That work, however, was interrupted while I put on my audio book producer hat to narrate, edit, and master a seventeen-and-a-half-hour long <a href="http://www.audible.com/pd/Sci-Fi-Fantasy/City-of-the-Saints-Audiobook/B00N55YV5W">gonzo steam punk adventure novel for my friend Dave Butler</a>.<br /><br />All of this work is finally finished and available. But for a long time it wasn’t. With all the inter-dependencies among the writing guides there was a great deal of work without many visible signs of progress and so there was nothing useful to share about the project until it was finished.<br /><br />Now it’s time to introduce the work and share some observations. I’ll provide more details about these projects in subsequent posts over the next few weeks.<br /><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Deren Hansen is the author of the <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">Dunlith Hill Writers Guides</a></b>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=404">Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a></span>Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586450397369280599.post-29735280241275922662013-10-23T06:00:00.000-06:002013-10-23T06:00:12.213-06:00Ideas: Think Differently<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s1600/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s200/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Like the old beer commercial where people argued whether the best
thing about the brew was that it, "tastes great," or that it's, "less
filling," writers persist identifying themselves as, "plotters," or
"pantsers."<br />
<br />
If we must have distinctions, I think, "<a href="http://blog.derenhansen.com/2011/02/writing-intentionally-architects.html">architect</a>," and, "<a href="http://blog.derenhansen.com/2011/01/writing-intentionally-gardners.html">gardener</a>," respectively are much better labels.<br />
<br />
But we'd be even further ahead to <a href="http://blog.derenhansen.com/2010/08/discovery-vs-outline-does-it-depend-on.html">view architecture and gardening, not as defining our nature as writers but as techniques in our toolbox</a> that we use--like an artist uses pastels and oils--when appropriate.<br />
<br />
I came across evidence, on the <a href="http://www.spring.org.uk/"><b>PsyBlog</b></a>, that I'm not entirely out to lunch for thinking such a thing. They describe a study, in a post titled, "<a href="http://www.spring.org.uk/2011/05/unusual-thinking-styles-increase-creativity.php"><i>Unusual Thinking Styles Increase Creativity</i></a>,"
in which people who solved problems "using systematic patterns of
thought" (rational) and people who solved problems "by setting the[ir]
mind[s] free to explore associations" were asked to change their
problem-solving style.<br />
<blockquote>
<i>The researchers wondered if
people's creativity could be increased by encouraging them to use the
pattern of thinking that was most unusual to them. So, those people who
naturally preferred to approach creative problems rationally, were
asked to think intuitively. And the intuitive group was asked to think
rationally for a change.</i><br />
<br />
<i> </i><i>Participants
were given a real-world problem to solve: helping a local business
expand. The results were evaluated by managers from the company
involved. When they looked at the results, the manipulation had worked:
people were more creative when they used the thinking style that was
most unusual for them.</i><br />
<br />
<i> </i><i>One of the
reasons this may work is that consciously adopting a different strategy
stops your mind going down the same well-travelled paths. We all have
habitual ways of approaching problems and while habits are sometimes
useful, they can also produce the same results over and over again.</i></blockquote>
The
parallel should be clear: architects (or plotters) prefer to write
rationally; gardeners (or pantsers) prefer to write intuitively. You
likely feel more comfortable in one mode or the other. But if your
deeper goal is to write creatively you would do well to switch up your
style. <br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Deren Hansen is the author of the <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">Dunlith Hill Writers Guides</a></b>. This article is from <b><a href="http://www.dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/dhwgeb3.php">Sustainable Creativity: How to Enjoy a Committed, Long-term Relationship with your Muse</a></b>. Learn more at <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">dunlithhill.com</a></b>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=404">Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a></span>Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586450397369280599.post-10670965987119624462013-10-16T06:00:00.000-06:002013-10-16T06:00:07.051-06:00Ideas: The Hallmarks of a Good Idea<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s1600/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s200/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
It seems only proper, after encouraging you to <a href="http://blog.derenhansen.com/2011/05/ideas-dont-trust-first-one.html">distrust your first idea</a>, that we should look into the question of how you know you have a good idea.<br />
<br />
Of
course, it's not possible to be certain you have a good idea until you
test it on others. If it were, we'd have institutions that follow the
model of drug companies devoted to finding and exploiting as many good
ideas as possible. So the good news is that no one has a monopoly on
good ideas. The bad news is that the best we can do is find heuristics
to help us sort the good ideas out from the bad.<br />
<br />
One of the best heuristics I've found is that good ideas have a longer shelf life or more staying power than mediocre ideas.<br />
<br />
I once heard of a couple who didn't buy anything until they'd talked about needing it at least three times. <br />
<br />
Similarly, if an idea comes back to you at least three times you may be on to something.<br />
<br />
But by, "comes back to you," I mean something more than simply remembering the idea. When <a href="http://johndbrown.com/">John Brown</a>
talks about creativity, he emphasizes, "zing." That's John's way of
saying the idea gives you an electric shimmer along your spine each time
you savor it.<br />
<br />
Good ideas are the ones that still deliver that zing when you come back to them the third or fourth time.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Deren Hansen is the author of the <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">Dunlith Hill Writers Guides</a></b>. This article is from <b><a href="http://www.dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/dhwgeb3.php">Sustainable Creativity: How to Enjoy a Committed, Long-term Relationship with your Muse</a></b>. Learn more at <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">dunlithhill.com</a></b>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=404">Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a></span>Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586450397369280599.post-54434745155335010082013-10-09T06:00:00.000-06:002013-10-09T06:00:14.459-06:00Ideas: Don't Trust the First One<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s1600/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s200/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<a href="http://blog.derenhansen.com/2010/12/ideas-dont-stop-with-one-good-idea.html">I've encouraged you not to stop with one good idea</a>.
Implicit in that advice was the assumption that you started with a good
idea. Being certain that you have a good idea is much harder than
recognizing when your idea falls short of good. <br />
<br />
The first litmus test for a poor idea is simple: is it your first idea?<br />
<br />
In the game show <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Feud">Family Feud</a>,
the challenge wasn't to come up with the correct answer but to guess
the answers most likely to be given by the hundred people surveyed. Of
the four or five hidden answers, the top one or two usually account for
more than half the responses. That is, the first answer that came to
mind for a person taking the survey likely came to mind to every second
or third person taking the survey.<br />
<br />
As we've often
observed, 'novel,' means, 'new.' If you go with your first idea, you
stand a good chance of going down a well-worn path. If you want to be a
novelist, you must internalize <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python">Monty Python's</a> catch phrase, "And now for something completely different."<br />
<br />
But
this isn't novelty simply for novelty's sake. The deeper question is
how can you take the raw conceptual material and make it your own.<br />
<br />
Chances
are, your first idea really isn't your idea. (Why, after all, did so
many of the people surveyed for the game show come up with the same
answer?) It's simply the first association that bubbled up into your
consciousness. The first association is likely the strongest, having
been reinforced by external influences. To make the idea your own, you
need to let it steep in your unique soup of mental associations until it
morphs into something that's unmistakably you.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Deren Hansen is the author of the <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">Dunlith Hill Writers Guides</a></b>. This article is from <b><a href="http://www.dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/dhwgeb3.php">Sustainable Creativity: How to Enjoy a Committed, Long-term Relationship with your Muse</a></b>. Learn more at <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">dunlithhill.com</a></b>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=404">Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a></span>Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586450397369280599.post-85537377015630938642013-10-02T06:00:00.000-06:002013-10-02T06:00:13.214-06:00Ideas: Strength Through Association<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s1600/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s200/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
You've likely heard the spiritual, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dem_Bones">Dem Bones</a>,
and know that the toe bone's connected to the foot bone, and the foot
bone's connected to the ankle bone, and so on. It's both an anatomy
lesson, of sorts, and reference to the <a href="http://lds.org/scriptures/ot/ezek/37?lang=eng">Biblical prophet Ezekiel's vision of a valley of dry bones</a>.<br />
<br />
In
the vision, Ezekiel prophesies, as commanded, to the bones and they
come together, bone to bone, and sinews and flesh until "and exceeding
great army" stands before him. Without delving into the religious
significance of the vision, we can appreciate the structural
significance: by themselves, the bones are dry and impotent but in
proper association they become a strength and a beauty that is greater
than the sum of its parts.<br />
<br />
One of the strengths of the mass of interconnected neurons inside our skulls is in making associations.<br />
<br />
I've talked before about <a href="http://blog.derenhansen.com/2010/11/ideas-stories-are-molecular-not-atomic.html">story molecules</a>:
how a single idea isn't enough to carry a novel, which is why you need a
constellation of ideas, working together, to sustain a long-form
narrative. Associations are what bind those ideas together.<br />
<br />
Think
of it this way: if ideas are points, associations are the lines that
join those points. Two point can be joined with one line. With three
points, each can be connected to the other two with three lines. Four
points have six lines; Five points have ten lines; and six points have
fifteen. Each time you add one more idea, the number of possible
connections jumps. It doesn't take many ideas before you have a rich web
of associations.<br />
<br />
Another way to look at it is that
associating two ideas is a simple way to create a whole (the associated
ideas) greater than the sum of the parts (the ideas in isolation).<br />
<br />
Let's play a game: we'll start with one object, a gun, and associate it by proximity (i.e., placing it next to) another. <br />
<ul>
<li>What comes to mind if we place our gun next to a shot of whiskey?</li>
<li>Now, what comes to mind if we place our gun next to a pair of baby shoes?</li>
</ul>
Associations become even more powerful if we link ideas into a chain. There was a fascinating series on PBS called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_%28TV_series%29"><b>Connections</b></a>, in which host <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Burke_%28science_historian%29">James Burke</a>
showed how an event or innovation in the past traced "through a series
of seemingly unrelated connections to a fundamental and essential aspect
of the modern world."<br />
<br />
The associations in your stories
need not be so profound, but you can use the same principle,
particularly when brainstorming, to turn common-place ideas into
something special.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Deren Hansen is the author of the <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">Dunlith Hill Writers Guides</a></b>. This article is from <b><a href="http://www.dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/dhwgeb3.php">Sustainable Creativity: How to Enjoy a Committed, Long-term Relationship with your Muse</a></b>. Learn more at <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">dunlithhill.com</a></b>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=404">Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a></span>Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586450397369280599.post-57543033020104022432013-09-25T06:00:00.000-06:002013-09-25T06:00:05.297-06:00Ideas: How to See Something Special <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s1600/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s200/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
I once heard a rabbi, speaking to a mixed audience, say, "You know
the story of the Burning Bush and how Moses turned aside to see it. I
like to believe that Moses wasn't the first to see the burning bush, but
that he was the first to turn aside." (See <a href="http://lds.org/scriptures/ot/ex/3?lang=eng">Exodus 3</a>)<br />
<br />
While
taking care not to conflate writers and prophets, one of the
fundamental ways writers can get ideas is by being willing to turn aside
and see something--even something incredibly ordinary--in a new light
or with new eyes.<br />
<br />
Something happens to us as we morph
from children into adults: we move from a world of concrete and specific
things into a world of abstractions and classes. The process is
innocent enough. When a child points at the feathered creature hopping
across the lawn and asks, "What is that?", they want to know about the
specific one in front of them. But we answer, "Oh, that's a robin." In
doing so we give the child a word for a class of birds, of which the
specific one they see is only a representative. In time, we stop seeing
that one one bird and instead see a robin.<br />
<br />
What, then is the technique for seeing something special where others don't?<br />
<br />
Like the child, ask, "What is that one? How did that one come to be here and now?"<br />
<br />
Human
language is powerful because of its abstractions, generalizations, and
indirections. Most people use that power for their own purposes without
realizing the degree to which they are, in turn, controlled or at least
constrained by it. Writers, who regularly wrestle words to make meaning,
are among the best equipped to get out from under the oppression of the
abstractions and turn aside, like Moses, to "see this great sight."<br />
<br />
I won't promise you a revelation, if you turn aside, but you're likely to see something special.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Deren Hansen is the author of the <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">Dunlith Hill Writers Guides</a></b>. This article is from <b><a href="http://www.dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/dhwgeb3.php">Sustainable Creativity: How to Enjoy a Committed, Long-term Relationship with your Muse</a></b>. Learn more at <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">dunlithhill.com</a></b>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=404">Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a></span>Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586450397369280599.post-74706726709091075062013-09-18T06:00:00.000-06:002013-09-18T06:00:04.290-06:00Ideas: Random Name Generators<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s1600/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s200/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
A question commonly asked of writers is, "How do you come up with names for characters?" <br />
<br />
The
technique for finding names presented here is a good example of the
general habit of wondering how the things you notice came to be that
way--which seems common among the good writers I know.<br />
<br />
The pattern is simple:<br />
<ol>
<li>Find interesting names</li>
<li>Play with the history implied by the name.</li>
</ol>
Interesting names appear all the time in the written and spoken environment. I once noticed <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycerol_ester_of_wood_rosin">glycol ester of wood rosin</a>
among the list of ingredients in a bottled drink. Instead of fretting
about obscure food additives, I wondered how Esther Glycol, the
Regency-era daughter of an impoverish vicar, came to be mistress of the
estate of Woodrosin. (You didn't know you could get that much from a
list of ingredients, did you?)<br />
<br />
If you need to find
names more quickly, you can play the phone book game: open to a random
page and drop your finger to find a given name or a surname. On one
occasion, when I needed a set of modern, ethnically diverse names, I
collected all the surnames and given names from the credits of a recent
movie<br />
<br />
I've written simple programs that randomly
combine names from two or more lists of the lists I collected. If your
list of surnames isn't too large, you'll get several first name/last
name pairs and it's easy to imagine they're related. Not only will you
have names, you'll have genealogies, and perhaps some ideas about family
histories as well.<br />
<br />
I've also used this approach to
assemble names from syllable lists for fantastic or alien characters.
One nice result of this approach is that the names sound like they came
from the same culture because they're assembled using the same rules. <br />
<br />
The
important thing is to generate a number of names and then choose the
handful that speak to you. Play with the names that are most evocative
and see what else springs to mind.<br />
<br />
I have to be careful
when I play with names because it's so easy to find interesting names
and invent histories and relationships that I inevitably collect more
names than I can use and spend more time doing so than I should.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>A Sample of Name Generators on the Internet</b><br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.behindthename.com/random/">BehindTheName.com</a>
is a site for the "etymology and history of first names." It has a
generator that can be restricted to particular ethnic groups.</li>
<li>There's a US Census-based name generator at <a href="http://www.kleimo.com/random/name.cfm">http://www.kleimo.com/random/name.cfm</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-name.php">Seventh Sanctum</a>™ has a cornucopia of fantasy/gaming-inspired name generators for everything from people to pirate ships.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Deren Hansen is the author of the <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">Dunlith Hill Writers Guides</a></b>. This article is from <b><a href="http://www.dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/dhwgeb3.php">Sustainable Creativity: How to Enjoy a Committed, Long-term Relationship with your Muse</a></b>. Learn more at <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">dunlithhill.com</a></b>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=404">Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a></span>Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586450397369280599.post-87605436980874951792013-09-11T06:00:00.000-06:002013-09-11T06:00:04.906-06:00Ideas: Don't Stop with One Good Idea<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s1600/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s200/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Animator Patrick Smith, writing at <a href="http://scribblejunkies.blogspot.com/"><b>Scribble Junkies</b></a>, shared some of John Lasseter's advice in a post on the <a href="http://scribblejunkies.blogspot.com/2010/12/animation-101-7-creative-principles-of.html"><b>7 Creative Principles of Pixar</b></a>.<br />
<br />
The first principle is, "<b>Never come up with just one idea</b>."<br />
<br />
Here's how John explains it:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>“Regardless
of whether you want to write a book, design a piece of furniture or
make an animated movie: At the beginning, don’t start with just one
idea – it should be three. </i><br />
<br />
<i>“The reason is
simple. If a producer comes to me with a proposal for a new project,
then usually he has mulled over this particular idea for a very long
time. That limits him. My answer always reads: 'Come again when you
have three ideas, and I don’t mean one good and two bad. I want three
really good ideas, of which you cannot decide the best. You must be
able to defend all three before me. Then we’ll decide which one you’ll
realize.' </i><br />
<br />
<i>“The problem with creative people is
that they often focus their whole attention on one idea. So, right at
the beginning of a project, you unnecessarily limit your options. Every
creative person should try that out. You will be surprised how this
requirement suddenly forces you to think about things you hadn’t even
considered before. Through this detachment, you suddenly gain new
perspectives. And believe me, there are always three good ideas. At
least.”</i></blockquote>
The first key here, and it bears
repeating, is, "this requirement suddenly forces you to think about
things your hadn't even considered before." There are a lot of people
out there having good ideas. If you stop with your first good idea,
chances are very good that someone has already thought of it. But with
each additional good idea you bring to the table, the chance of someone
else thinking of the exact same ideas drops dramatically.<br />
<br />
The
second key is the perspective you gain through detachment. That is, if
you have more than one good idea then you've got a fall-back if one of
the ideas proves less good than you thought. More importantly, you can
compare and contrast the ideas and get a better sense of their relative
merits than if you have only one, precious idea ... gollum. <br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Deren Hansen is the author of the <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">Dunlith Hill Writers Guides</a></b>. This article is from <b><a href="http://www.dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/dhwgeb3.php">Sustainable Creativity: How to Enjoy a Committed, Long-term Relationship with your Muse</a></b>. Learn more at <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">dunlithhill.com</a></b>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=404">Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a></span>Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586450397369280599.post-18041473487998498312013-09-04T06:00:00.000-06:002013-09-04T06:00:01.468-06:00Ideas: Rebuttal Theory and Adding to the Conversation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s1600/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s200/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
I once heard that <a href="http://www.squeetus.com/stage/main.html">Shannon Hale's</a> approach to retelling fairy tales is motivated by the question, "What's bugging me about this story?" <br />
<br />
I
started thinking seriously about this question after reading several
books that bugged me enough that I wanted to make a rebuttal (it's hard
to set aside old debating instincts). It's not that I had problems with
the books themselves as much as some of the ideas in the stories.<br />
<br />
Two
interesting things happened as I thought about the ideas that bugged me
in each story and they ways in which I might handle them differently:<br />
<ol>
<li>I was drawn into the <a href="http://blog.derenhansen.com/2010/12/ideas-what-do-you-do-with-great-idea.html">"normal science" process of thinking through each idea (that I described last week)</a> and uncovered a host of interesting ideas.</li>
<li>The different lines of inquiry came together as a fascinating <a href="http://blog.derenhansen.com/2010/11/ideas-stories-are-molecular-not-atomic.html">story molecule</a>.</li>
</ol>
Shannon's question, "What's bugging me about this story?" is a
powerful idea generator if you follow it with a second question: "How
would I do it differently?"<br />
<br />
There's another important
consequence: as you work through the ideas until you can clearly express
what bothers you about the story and how you would handle it
differently, you find you have something to <a href="http://blog.derenhansen.com/2010/11/writer-zen-unique-in-context.html">add to the conversation</a>.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Deren Hansen is the author of the <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">Dunlith Hill Writers Guides</a></b>. This article is from <b><a href="http://www.dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/dhwgeb3.php">Sustainable Creativity: How to Enjoy a Committed, Long-term Relationship with your Muse</a></b>. Learn more at <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">dunlithhill.com</a></b>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=404">Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a></span>Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586450397369280599.post-31541845308957435672013-08-28T06:00:00.000-06:002013-08-28T06:00:01.336-06:00Ideas: What do you do with a Great Idea?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s1600/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s200/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" height="133" width="200" /></a></div>
What do you do with a great idea?<br />
<br />
First, a reminder: one idea isn't enough to carry a novel. <a href="http://blog.derenhansen.com/2010/11/ideas-stories-are-molecular-not-atomic.html">Long-form stories are best understood as a complex molecule made up of great idea atoms.</a><br />
<br />
So, what do you do when you have a number of ideas in intriguing relationships?<br />
<br />
Like any good evil genius, you turn to science!<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7d/Structure-of-scientific-revolutions-3rd-ed-pb.jpg/200px-Structure-of-scientific-revolutions-3rd-ed-pb.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7d/Structure-of-scientific-revolutions-3rd-ed-pb.jpg/200px-Structure-of-scientific-revolutions-3rd-ed-pb.jpg" width="204" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions">Kuhn, 1962 (from Wikipedia)</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
More to the point, you turn to the history of science. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Samuel_Kuhn">Thomas Khun</a>, a physicist who also studied the history of science, wrote <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions">The Structure of Scientific Revolutions</a>
in 1962. In that book, Kuhn challenged the notion that science was
steadily progressive and argued that it is in fact episodic. <br />
<br />
The two key ideas I want to introduce here are the alternating phases of <b>revolutionary </b>and <b>normal </b>science that make up an episode in Kuhn's model.<br />
<br />
<b>Revolutionary science</b>
is the time when a breakthrough throws the field wide open. Like
settlers pouring into newly open territory, scientist rush from one
discovery to the next as they map out the new landscape of
possibilities.<br />
<br />
Once the early leaders in the revolution have discovered the extent of the breakthrough, the discipline settles back into <b>normal science</b>
mode. Normal science is far less glamorous than revolutionary science
because it's about the careful work of confirming the initial findings
and filling in the details.<br />
<br />
"That nice for historians and scientists," you might say, "but what does it have to do with writing or creativity in general?"<br />
<br />
A
great idea is like the breakthrough that triggers a period of
revolutionary science. But that's only the beginning of the job. In
order to develop a novel-length story, you must do the literary
equivalent of the work of normal science.<br />
<br />
What do I mean by that?<br />
<br />
Let's
say you've just had an epiphany: the world will end when pigs actually
start to fly--it's the Flying Pig Apocalypse! Tingling with excitement,
you sit down to write ... and immediately run into questions: how do
they fly? Levitation? Wings that grow because a mad scientist wanted
bacon-flavored buffalo wings? Lighter-than air gas bladders? Do they
flock or are they loners? Do they cause the apocalypse by flying, or is
the fact that they take flight a sign of the impending apocalypse?<br />
<br />
My
point is that a "great" idea isn't ready to become a story until you've
done the detailed, far less thrilling work of thinking through the
implications of the great idea.<br />
<br />
Like science, which we
tend to think of only in terms of revolutionary breakthroughs,
creativity is more about the normal work of thinking carefully about the
"great" idea than the revolutionary work of having the idea in the
first place.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Deren Hansen is the author of the <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">Dunlith Hill Writers Guides</a></b>. This article is from <b><a href="http://www.dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/dhwgeb3.php">Sustainable Creativity: How to Enjoy a Committed, Long-term Relationship with your Muse</a></b>. Learn more at <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">dunlithhill.com</a></b>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=404">Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a></span>Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586450397369280599.post-44687039774375739402013-08-21T06:00:00.000-06:002013-08-21T06:00:03.468-06:00Ideas: Stories are Molecular, not Atomic<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s1600/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s200/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" height="133" width="200" /></a></div>
In <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_5,000_Fingers_of_Dr._T"><b>The 5,000 Finders of Dr. T</b></a>, a strange and delightful musical fantasy created by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Seuss">Ted Geisel</a>, there is a climactic scene that includes the following lines:<br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
"Is it atomic?"<br />
<br />
"Yes, sir, very atomic!"</blockquote>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/89/Fingers_of_dr_t.jpg/220px-Fingers_of_dr_t.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/89/Fingers_of_dr_t.jpg/220px-Fingers_of_dr_t.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_5,000_Fingers_of_Dr._T"><b>The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T</b> (Wikipedia)</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
You will, of course, have to see the mover for
yourself if you don't understand the reference. I mention it here simply
to lead into a discussion about the fact that novel-length ideas aren't
atomic, they're molecular.<br />
<br />
I first heard this concept from <a href="http://www.brandonsanderson.com/">Brandon Sanderson</a>. The essence of the notion is that if ideas are atoms, a single one isn't enough to carry a novel. You need a number of ideas.<br />
<br />
But
it's not simply a case of arranging a butterfly collection of ideas.
The ideas must be related. Brandon described his process of developing a
novel as, "bouncing ideas off each other to see which ones stick."
("Stick," here, means, "form interesting relationships.") As ideas stick
together, they form a story molecule.<br />
<br />
So, how do you build a story molecule?<br />
<br />
Begin with the basic creative process: <a href="http://blog.derenhansen.com/2010/11/ideas-creativity.html">ask questions and then generate lots of answers so that you can find the most interesting associations</a>.
Often, the best associations will be between something common and
something, which in the context of the first idea, is surprising. In <b>The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T</b>,
we have something common, a boy who wishes he didn't have to practice
the piano, and something surprising, his piano teacher's plans for world
domination!<br />
<br />
When people ask where the ideas in a novel
came from, they generally assume that the book was produced through an
alchemical process that harnesses mystic forces to transmute the base
metals of common ideas into the gold of a finished story. The truth,
like the transmutation of alchemy into the cold, hard science of
chemistry is more prosaic. Like chemistry, which produces complex and
beautiful molecular structures through a series of processes, the final
form of the story molecule in a novel is the result not of mystic
transmutations but processes that anyone who is patient and persistent
can master.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Deren Hansen is the author of the <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">Dunlith Hill Writers Guides</a></b>. This article is from <b><a href="http://www.dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/dhwgeb3.php">Sustainable Creativity: How to Enjoy a Committed, Long-term Relationship with your Muse</a></b>. Learn more at <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">dunlithhill.com</a></b>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=404">Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a></span>Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586450397369280599.post-34725676958523518722013-08-14T06:00:00.000-06:002013-08-14T06:00:05.414-06:00Ideas: Creativity<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s1600/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s200/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" height="133" width="200" /></a></div>
A question commonly asked of writers is, "How do you get your ideas?"<br />
<br />
There are many answers (including facetious ones, like, "I buy them wholesale from the idea distributors,"). This post is the first in a series exploring techniques for collecting and assembling ideas.<br />
<br />
The people who want to know where writers get their ideas assume writers enjoy a generous endowment of creativity.<a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/creativity"> Creativity is defined</a> as, "the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas."<br />
<br />
Many people treat that ability as something innate and quasi-mystical. The problem with believing that ideas spring forth from a fount of creativity is that if you don't have a great idea handy then you must assume the well has run dry and you're stuck until something happens to get your creativity flowing again.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://johndbrown.com/">John Brown</a> fell into this trap for a number of years before he discovered the secret to the creative process and went on to write <a href="http://johndbrown.com/fiction/"><b>Servant of a Dark God</b></a>.<br />
<br />
Here's John's mystic secret to the creative process:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>Creativity is asking questions and coming up with answers.</i></blockquote>
A bit anti-climactic?<br />
<br />
Perhaps I should clarify: a creative person doesn't settle for one answer to each question. If you stop after the first answer, you've done nothing more than identify the "traditional idea." Before you choose an answer, you want to come up with as many varied solutions as you can, particularly unexpected solutions. Given a large enough pool of candidate ideas, it's much easier to find "meaningful new ideas."<br />
<br />
So how do you prime the creative pump?<br />
<br />
Pay attention.<br />
<br />
Notice things, particularly the things that strike you as interesting or intriguing. John says you should collect things that give you a little, "zing," when you hear or read about them.<br />
<br />
If you'd like another perspective, spend ten minutes to hear what <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGt3-fxOvug">John Cleese (of <b>Monty Python</b> fame) has to say about Creativity</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Deren Hansen is the author of the <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">Dunlith Hill Writers Guides</a></b>. This article is from <b><a href="http://www.dunlithhill.com/cat/nf/dhwgeb3.php">Sustainable Creativity: How to Enjoy a Committed, Long-term Relationship with your Muse</a></b>. Learn more at <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">dunlithhill.com</a></b>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=404">Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a></span>Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586450397369280599.post-32709333590947282402013-08-07T06:00:00.000-06:002013-08-07T06:00:13.926-06:00Writing in the Dog Days of Summer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s1600/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s200/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" height="133" width="200" /></a></div>
The Dog Days of summer go back to the Romans and the Greeks, who associated the sultry weather with the star Sirius (the "Dog Star").<br />
<br /><br /><i>"[The] Dog Days were popularly believed to be an evil time [when] "the Sea boiled, the Wine turned sour, Dogs grew mad, and all other creatures became languid..." [<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_Days">See Wikipedia</a>]</i><br />
<br />
<br />When I was involved with an international business, our European partners became scarce during August. Our overachieving Americans, steeped in their Puritan work ethic, groused about our poor continental counterparts forced to languish as they took state–mandated vacations.<br /><br />It has long been the habit of commercial publishers, particularly those in New York City, to emulate the good folk across the Atlantic pond. There's something of a collective pause in the industry during August both because it's a good time to escape the sweltering city and because there's business that can be better handled when everyone's back on the job in September.<br /><br />The standard advice for writers (which is generally given by editors and agents taking August vacations) is to focus on writing during the quiet time (i.e., the time when their emails and calls to agents and editors will likely go unanswered).<br /><br />But isn't what's good for the goose also good for the gander?<br /><br />I'm not saying you should abandon a project if you're in the middle of something and the heat of the fires of your inspiration is driving your thermometer to new altitudes.<br />
<br />
Still, your muses might have more to sing about if you give them a cooler place to dance. And you'll definitely need to refill your well if you're running your creative swamp cooler at full blast.<br /><br />So, what do you like to do to keep the dog days from eating your writing homework?<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Deren Hansen is the author of the <b>Dunlith Hill Writers Guides</b>. Learn more at <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">dunlithhill.com</a></b>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=404">Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a></span>Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586450397369280599.post-79787524642785564672013-07-31T06:00:00.000-06:002013-07-31T06:00:02.772-06:00Writing Intentionally: Voice and Writing Every Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s1600/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s200/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Voice.<br />
<br />
Writers not only hear them, they're supposed to have one.<br />
<br />
"What's voice?" the new writer asks. "How do I develop one?"<br />
<br />
"I know it when I see it," answers the agent/editor/other publishing professional. Or they may try to help by recommending books they think have a great voice.<br />
<br />
So the new writer absorbs the voice, tries to write something similar, is told the piece has no voice, and comes away feeling increasingly frustrated.<br />
<br />
Artists, with their tracing paper, learn by copying. Why can't we? After all, isn't imitation the sincerest form of flattery?<br />
<br />
Ah, but there's the problem: imitation.<br />
<br />
Just like the high schools that are full of young people trying to find themselves by behaving exactly like all the other young people trying to find themselves, you won't find what's authentically you in someone else. <br />
<br />
Writing is about self-expression. Voice is about the self that is expressed.<br />
<br />
The reason we have trouble with voice is that we've absorbed so many influences and have built up so many assumptions about the nature of writing that we've lost touch with our own unique modes of expression.<br />
<br />
Erin Reel, in a guest post on agent Rachelle Gardner's <a href="http://cba-ramblings.blogspot.com/"><b>Rants & Ramblings</b></a> blog, titled "<a href="http://cba-ramblings.blogspot.com/2011/05/finding-your-authentic-voice.html">Finding Your Authentic Voice</a>," says:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>"Don't write in a language that's not your own. Forget about following a genre trend just to get published. Tell a good story—one that a large audience will want to read and can identify with."</i></blockquote>
Her tips for finding your voice include read, practice, get clear about the story you want to tell, and make it your own. ("<i>Make your story authentically yours by writing many rough drafts through which your voice will eventually surface.</i>")<br />
<br />
Writing every day will help you get past all the influences and assumptions you've internalized. I credit the journal I kept for several years for much of my own development.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Deren Hansen is the author of the <b>Dunlith Hill Writers Guides</b>. Learn more at <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">dunlithhill.com</a></b>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=404">Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a></span>Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586450397369280599.post-70264050302515223582013-07-24T06:00:00.000-06:002013-07-24T06:00:13.910-06:00Writing Intentionally: On the Advice to, "Kill Your Darlings" <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s1600/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s200/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
There's a set of actors, usually comedians, who can do remarkable
work if kept tightly under control but quickly become tedious if left to
their own devices. Robin Williams and Jim Carey are two example that
come immediately to mind. I'm sure you can think of others.<br />
<br />
I think of such talents when I hear the oft repeated writing advice that we must, "kill our darlings." <br />
<br />
Where did that quasi-homicidal advice come from? According to <a href="http://www.killyourdarlingsatl.com/"><b>Kill Your Darlings ATL</b></a> (a community for writers):<br />
<blockquote>
<b>William Faulkner</b> is rumored to have coined the literary expression “kill your darlings,” but the expression actually comes from British author<b> Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch</b>. ... <br />
<br />
When
describing “style” in his 1916 publication “On the Art of Writing,”
Couch argues that “style” is something which “is not—can never
be—extraneous ornament.” In an effort to stay on course, he created a
practical rule to follow:<br />
<blockquote>
‘Whenever you feel an
impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey
it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to
press. <i>Murder your darlings</i>.’</blockquote>
“Murder your
darlings” has since become “kill your darlings” as attributed to
William Faulkner whose famously quoted to have said, “In writing, you
must kill all your darlings.” [See "<a href="http://www.killyourdarlingsatl.com/2010/06/01/the-meaning-of-literary-expression-kill-your-darlings/">The Meaning of the Literary Expression 'Kill Your Darlings'</a>"]</blockquote>
While
I understood and agreed with the sense of the advice, I couldn't help
hearing its pithy formulation as, "you should delete the parts you like
best." That implies you can only write things you don't like, which
clearly goes too far.<br />
<br />
A better way to say it would be, "if it's too precious to go, it probably should go."<br />
<br />
But
the best way to say it is that nothing in the story is nonnegotiable.
Everything is open to scrutiny. If a word, phrase, passage, scene, or
character doesn't contribute to the story, it should go. The overall <a href="http://blog.derenhansen.com/2011/02/0228-monday-law-2-beauty-is-balance.html">balance</a> of the story is more important than any individual element.<br />
<br />
Which
brings us back to the comedians. I realized that I find them tedious
when they eclipse the story and reduce it to an excuse for a
performance. But when a good director keeps them under control and
allows them free reign only when it serves the story, the result can be
delightful. Similarly, you don't have to kill your darlings when they're
serving the story. If they call attention to themselves, "git the
rope!"<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Deren Hansen is the author of the <b>Dunlith Hill Writers Guides</b>. Learn more at <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">dunlithhill.com</a></b>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=404">Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a></span>Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586450397369280599.post-39924006662192687142013-07-17T06:00:00.000-06:002013-07-17T06:00:12.890-06:00Writing Intentionally: "Revise Without Compromise"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s1600/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s200/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Jael McHenry, writing on <b><a href="http://writerunboxed.com/">Writer Unboxed</a></b>, address the question of <a href="http://writerunboxed.com/2011/02/07/revise-without-compromise/">whether revisions requested by agents and editors make the books more or less yours</a>.
She points out the difference between the two senses of the world,
"compromise:" 1) to work together, and 2) to weaken the integrity of,
and argues that working through revisions with agents and editors is all
about compromise in the first sense and should never be about
compromise in the second. It's a beautiful observation, marred only by
my jealousy for not thinking of it first.<br />
<br />
There's an
important difference between trying to please people and finding ways to
say what you're trying to say so that it's accessible to more people.<br />
<br />
Some people think that as the source of <a href="http://blog.derenhansen.com/2011/02/writing-is-exercise-in-extremely.html">expression</a>,
the artist is the sole guardian of the vision and any request for
changes from another party will compromise that vision. Those people
forget that writing for readers is a classic example of the old cliché
about taking two to tango: you don't have "writing" unless the reader
gets something they value out of your words.<br />
<br />
But the
notion of author as the source of pure expression is more deeply flawed.
The words on the page are a lossy encoding of the author's ideas, so
there's no such thing as a pure expression. Put in more contemporary
terms, a writer is actually coding software that will run on
non-deterministic wetware (i.e., brains). Real software developers have
no qualms about debugging their code until it runs correctly. Why should
authors complain when revision is essentially the same process.<br />
<br />
Notice
the key qualifier in the statement about debugging? Software developers
strive to produce code that runs correctly. Revisions that clear away
confusion and help the reader to better understand and appreciate the
story are equivalent to debugging the code.<br />
<br />
But here's
where you, the author, need editorial help: because you know what you
meant when you wrote it, it's hard to see where others might
misinterpret what you wrote. That's why revisions are all about
compromise, in the first sense. You want to work together to make it
better.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Deren Hansen is the author of the <b>Dunlith Hill Writers Guides</b>. Learn more at <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">dunlithhill.com</a></b>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=404">Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a></span>Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586450397369280599.post-17584077745131029842013-07-10T06:00:00.000-06:002013-07-10T06:00:02.189-06:00Writing Intentionally: Story Bibles<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s1600/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s200/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
One of the most important enablers for intentional writing is a
system to help you keep track of story details. Having someone notice
that the hero's hair color changes halfway through the book (without a
trip to a stylist) is the literary equivalent of smiling with spinach on
your teeth.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/Family-bible.jpg/428px-Family-bible.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/Family-bible.jpg/428px-Family-bible.jpg" width="228" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Family-bible.jpg">A family Bible, from Wikipedia</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The best answer I've found is to turn to the bible.
(A story bible, not The Bible.) A story bible and a high-level outline
give me all the safety net I need to write confidently.<br />
<br />
When
writers talk about story bibles, they mean a place to collect all the
information that pertains to the story. The notion comes (I believe)
from episodic television where the producers had a document describing
the situation and all the characters. They would give it to the writers
brought on to pen different episodes so that the scripts they produced
had a degree of consistency (e.g., you wouldn't want a character who is
normally shy and retiring leap out to save the day in one episode and
then go back to hiding under the table in the next).<br />
<br />
When
software architects design commercial data systems, they are careful to
create a single source of truth. A story bible is really nothing more
or less than this. It can be physical, like a folder or a binder (bound
books are probably not suitable because you'll want to add, remove, and
arrange your material), or virtual (anything from a text file to a
database, depending on your ambition). All that matters is that it's the
one place where you can keep everything related to your story.<br />
<br />
Don't
let the word, "bible," frighten you with visions of formalities with
which you must comply. You'll probably come across suggestions that you
subdivide your bible into sections on characters, settings, backstory,
and so on. Those are reasonable but not the only ways to organize your
material. You could also organize your story bible like an encyclopedia,
with entries for each significant entity in your story. All that
matters is that you have a way to organize your material so that 1) you
can easily find it again, and 2) you know where to add new material.<br />
<br />
Remember, this is your resource, so the only thing that really matters is to find something that works for you.<br />
<br />
And, in the spirit of our recent <a href="http://blog.derenhansen.com/2011/02/writing-intentionally-architects.html">discussion about writers who over-plan</a>,
don't let the bible become something that takes so much time to
maintain that you have no time left to write the story. Promise yourself
that the bible will forever be a private document, the information
equivalent of what you look like when you get out of bed in the morning,
so you're not tempted to try to make it presentable.<br />
<br />
The good folks at <b><a href="http://www.write-thing.com/">The Write Thing</a></b> have a <a href="http://www.write-thing.com/2010/05/12/making-a-writing-bible-an-essential-tool-for-story-writers/">thorough discussion of what you might want in a writing bible</a> if you'd like more.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Deren Hansen is the author of the <b>Dunlith Hill Writers Guides</b>. Learn more at <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">dunlithhill.com</a></b>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=404">Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a></span>Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8586450397369280599.post-32655707558980531282013-07-03T06:00:00.000-06:002013-07-03T09:25:45.470-06:00Independence for Writers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s1600/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3i1xpQmDzGM/S7AaPgms_gI/AAAAAAAAADU/aH9qemETYeA/s200/photo_4778_20090222.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Independence is a funny thing: with tomorrow's celebration of the independence of the United States from Great Britain we will hear a lot about freedom but not so much about responsibility.<br />
<br />
The standard narrative often runs along the lines of, "Things were difficult in 1776 but the founding fathers were men of vision and courage—and look where we are today." We conveniently gloss over the first 100 years of the country's history when its viability and sometimes its continuing existence were more or less in doubt.<br />
<br />
Independence is a consistently harder road than dependence: like investments, greater rewards are always accompanied by greater risks.<br />
<br />
During the last five years we've heard various proclamations that writers can now stand independent of publishers. The standard narrative about independent publishing is similar to the narrative about American independence: heavy on the new-found freedoms authors enjoy but light on the new responsibilities they must shoulder.<br />
<br />
My aim in sharing these observations is not to argue that either the old or new ways are better, but to point out the deeper challenge of taking responsibility. The principle of taking responsibility should come as no surprise to writers: offering a book to readers under your name means you've taken the responsibility to provide intelligible, error–free, and grammatically–correct problems that tells a coherent story that will entertain and/or inform. One of the comforts in the old way of publishing was there were enough people involved that if you needed to apportion blame you could exempt yourself—the publisher chose a bad cover, the sales force to promote the book properly, or some event distracted the public, none of which was your fault. The inescapable truth of independent publishing is that, rise or fall, the book's fate is no one's fault but your own.<br />
<br />
Some of you may think taking full responsibility for your book sounds harsh. There is nothing wrong with finding partners for your publishing project, but even there you are still responsible for making sure they are the right partners. While we might throw around dichotomies like right and wrong or easy and difficult, taking responsibility is ultimately about maturity—something to think about tomorrow, both as a writer and as a citizen.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Deren Hansen is the author of the <b>Dunlith Hill Writers Guides</b>. Learn more at <b><a href="http://dunlithhill.com/">dunlithhill.com</a></b>.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=404">Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net</a></span>Deren Hansenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11260147750947135832noreply@blogger.com0