5 is better than one

A Unicorn is rare, desirable and difficult to find. In a world full of magic there are creatures which are even more scarce. The Pentacorn for one is the cousin of their single horn family member. They are a sight to see as they are rarely seen.

An infant corn will start growing their horns within months out of the womb. The protrusions at first form around its head in a crown like fashion. Over time the ones facing the sides and back will begin to move, eventually facing the front.

Consider yourself unfortunate to be in the way of this charging beast. Stories from old mythology have claimed these horns have magical properties and can pierce a dragon’s hide with enough force. What chance would a Cromie have if that were the case. Fear not friend, after all, they are rarely seen.

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Mischief managed

A friend had asked me once, “what’s in your book?” Not, what is your book about. This was during the aspirational pre-production phase, so I answered, everything. All the things that have ever floated around in my mind has a home here. I would liken it to a giant Halloween party, where a mish-mash of unrelated characters interact with each other. This is a playground where the following scene can actually happen. The wizard said this about the Pillsbury Bread Woman being escorted out for being sloppy, “Miss Chef managed.”

Anyway, so the question has now been asked, “what’s in your next book?” Would everything else be a sufficient answer at this point. With August right around the corner, Halloween is around the corner after that. All I can say is that there will be some tricks, some treats and some new frightful characters for you to meet.

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Man doing jumping jacks

Vitruvian Everywoman



 

Vitruvian Everyman

The concept for these logos were pretty simple, we are all perfect in our own unique way and are capable of achieving the extraordinary. The Vitruvian framing represents perfection. The non-descript gender models are inclusive of everybody (kid versions in process). My goal was to be inspirational. When my son spied these images, he thought it was cool that they were doing jumping jacks.

 

TY to TY indeed as she was able to exquisitely capture these visions and immortalize it in print. This image means a lot to me and still inspires awe. Now, it also makes me want to do some jumping jacks.

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Black hearts to kill black souls

Cuori neri per uccidere anime nere is the old world maxim of the Black Heart Academy. Graduates of this secret society were extremely skilled at doing one thing―killing. Other electives were also available like advanced interrogation, espionage, chess and historical art. Many peculiar habits were ingrained/beaten into the students such as properly marking weaponry right down to wiping your feet before entering someone’s home for a non-work event.

The world can be a dirty place at times and it requires people with the right training to clean it up. A spill requires a mop. A soulless creature requires a heartless individual with the proper weapons.

This message is brought to you by the Black Heart Academy, properly disposing evil since before time was recorded. 

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A hint of what lies ahead

“Magic abounds… dragons are its physical manifestation… they now live in varying states of depression after having their wings clipped. New dragons have not been created since that fateful day … the magical force has only dwindled with the passing of each dragon.”

As the prospect of regaining the gift of flight is understood, the dragons finally have hope. With their spirit reinvigorated, the magic in this world will grow stronger. There are certain aspects of the Kingdom that have remained dormant due to the lack of enough magic. What those components will be are sure to create additional challenges for the Community to navigate. Keeping this secret from the Cromies is going to be a whole lot harder.  

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Tools of the trade

The proper application of magic requires a deft hand, some savvy misdirection, smudge less mirrors and a whole lot of smoke. Hiding a whole Kingdom in darkness should require something a little more elaborate. The following are two tricks of the trade utilized to keep this long running secret alive.  

The seven-note tune serves in the same fashion as the Neuralyzer from Men in Black. When played to perfection, ”The unhampered mind became an open book: readable, editable.” An unimaginable amount of practice is required to master this ability. Most who travel down this road never complete the journey.

The void emanating from obsidian bricks requires a covered area to cast its effect. From inside, nothing can be heard or seen from beyond. From the outside, nothing can be seen or heard from within. ”For those unaccustomed, the vastness and wonder of otherworldly space was on full display… In the murkiness of this black pea soup, it was near impossible to see beyond five feet in front of them.”

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If you can make it here and all that jazz

New York City is renowned for drawing people from all over the world. There is a certain personality which is invigorated by the energy here. A taste of this experience will make some individuals pack their bags and make this their new home. This by itself can provide the basis for a good story.

This series can be described as many things. One way I like to characterize it, is as an immigrant story. Characters, human and fantastical, from all walks of life interact with each other. It seems almost natural that those interplays could happen right here.

New York City was meant to serve simply as the backdrop. However, like its denizens, it is a little pushy and demanded prominent billing in the marquee. Here's a little piece of advice, never argue with someone who doesn’t go to sleep.

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The first review

I can’t fully explain how nerve wracking it is to have your work judged. In my mind, I have created a magnificent work of art. However, A. Person’s art can easily be another person’s artistic failure. My friend had said it was really brave of me to publish a book. I did not understand the rationale. He illustrated by doing so, you open yourself up for critique and that is not an easy thing to do.

Excitement builds as I scroll down and see the top of the cover. Excitement came with a friend though as anxiety tagged along. The cover art is brilliantly striking and I still can’t thank my friend enough for illustrating it. This is the part where I close the screen of my computer.

I immediately tell my wife because I want to share this moment with her and perhaps because I am also not brave enough to read this on my own. While pouring over the review, I am stuck on the word rambunctious as I am iffy on it’s definition. My wife wants to keep scrolling down because she reads faster and knows what the word means.

The full review can be seen by clicking Revolutionary Readers. Be braver than me and read it in one take. Thanks again Valkyrie.

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840 acres without a mule

In the middle of New York City sits Central Park. It is a vast oasis of nature which provides outdoor space for a population lacking a backyard. It is a place that I frequent and imagine this story unfolding while doing so.

In the City of York we discover that the Conservation is located in the southeast corner. “Each person, animal, walkway, and tree could be put on-screen, right down to a gob of bird poo on the hoof of a statue.” That line was stated to highlight the importance of the park. Such extreme surveillance is usually accompanied by a strong desire for security. Is there possibly more to safeguard besides the dragons?

As the series progresses, we will find out the answer to that question. Central Park resides in the middle of New York City and it also does so in the City of York.   

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Blurb, blurb, blurb

Below are some promotional blurbs that I have thought of over the years. In need of a home, they have logically found their way to this blog of aimless sayings.

In the City of York, a hidden community lives amongst us. Can this society remain in darkness when a dragon once again flies?

Emily and her boyfriend are about to turn twenty. By chance she meets Hollister, the most eligible man in the City. Immensely rich, outrageously gorgeous and hundreds of years old. What’s a girl to do?

The Superbowl and WrestleMania combined into one. PEDs will not help you in this arena. This is the Smashes, the Greatest of Games.

Dragons and Ogres and Trolls, oh my. This is not Kansas. Welcome to the City of York.

Beware, Be Very Aware, Magic, Inside, along with a pinch of humor, some witty banter and a song or two.

Cat has an affinity for strays, pun intended. After anti-social bad boy Paulie saves her life, she can’t help but want to turn his life around. What else can she say, meow.

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Mighty Morphing Powerful Trolls

Trolls have always been a common inclusion within fantasy stories. They make for easy antagonists as they almost always maintain the negative attributes of being grotesque, surly and dumb. I wanted to reimagine them differently as protagonists and that act would require providing them with a sense of humanity to their personas. It was determined that the best way to do so would be to give them an actual human looking side. This provides for a little more relatability as it is far easier to connect with Bruce Banner and Dr, Jekyll than it is with the Hulk and Mr. Hyde.

Living near the Queensboro/59^th Street Bridge, on a non-Covid day I would pass by it almost daily. It was easy for me to envision a grunt (group of trolls) claiming the various parts of its underbelly as a home.  

There is a healthy rivalry between the boroughs that comprise New York City. It just seems natural that there should be some kind of competition among the inhabitants representing those spans as well. Mets vs Yankees, Knicks vs Nets and unbeknownst to most, there is also the Q Squad vs M Block vs K Band vs X Caste.

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Tone deaf?

I would like to believe that there is a rhythmic elegance in my writing. It would have been preferred to quote someone else saying that, but no one is saying that, yet. Anyway, this is due to constant re-writing. Once I have something down on Word, it would be passable but typically requires further refinement.

After several rounds of editing, proofreading and personal rereads, I finally had something I was proud of. This book was put to bed and published. Yet, I do not know if this is a personality defect but every time I read a passage, I feel like rewording something. So far, I have fought the urge to do so because I get the feeling this could be without end.

As a flawed author, I guess it’s’ only natural that I would produce flawed work. Here’s hoping that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure and A. Person’s rhythmic elegance is not someone else’s tone deaf muck.      

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Relatability

In the real world, those of us with the strongest moral compass can still do horrible things and those defined as psychopaths can still have moments of incredible humanity. Our lives are in effect a choose your own adventure story. We are all different and we must all make constant decisions that have an impact on our lives, those around us and the world at large.

I believe this also needs to apply to those who reside in the Kingdom in Darkness. A healthy amount of kindness, compassion and courage are required to have an affinity with magic, especially leading up to a rebirth. However, this does not in any way inoculate them from the pitfalls of lust, pride and wrath. Everybody is thus an imperfect character and becomes a little more relatable because we are too. 

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Un believable

My favorite chapter in this book is Eunice’s introduction. I feel this way because it is uniquely different. It was not my intention to be creative here and I was simply playing around to see how far this unconventional approach could go. Turns out, there are hundreds of words that have the prefix un and an untold number more that have that letter combination in the word itself. To say I had fun crafting this together would be an understatement.

Eunice was intended to be a prominent member in this motley cast of characters. She is the youngest member of the Weyr Society which means she is tasked with continuing its legacy and possibly becoming the next mage. The tunes played on a Chinese fiddle are an integral component to this universe and her being able to play the 8 note tune correctly is of vital importance. As a designated preturn, it is understood that she has the potential to be reborn on her next birthday. 

The magic in this world is wieldable but it requires a tempered mind, strong body and a heartened soul to unlock it. Everyday she works diligently to build up those components but things are about to get unexpectedly complicated. My high school had a saying where you could understandably have just two of the following three things: good grades, a social life or sleep. Uni has quite a lot on her plate and as things unfold, she is going to have to choose between two out of those three things.  

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What’s in a name

The absolute hardest thing for me to do when writing was coming up with names for the characters. Rupert Grim might be the best I can do. That happened to be a name which took me many years to conceive. With over thirty noteworthy characters in this book, that process was not going to be an option for everyone else. I was spending too much time trying to think of something of significance. Eventually, the decision was made to move forward by using placeholders with people I knew or just happened to be on my mind.

Han Solo, Katniss Everdeen, Voldemort are all names I thought to be laughably odd at first. However, they would represent the gold standard to me now. Their uniqueness is apparent and after getting to know them, their names have become very normal. As I think about the overall storyline and build out this universe, I am going to need dozens of new names. Don’t be surprised if I name a cavalier, arrow shooting, dark wizard Han Evermort. Additionally, do not be surprised if it sounds odd at first and then normal later. 

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Sharing the spotlight

The Kingdom in Darkness was a loosely planned multi-part series and when I say loosely it is in a WD-40 greased up kind of way. I have a good idea how I want to pace this story plus I know how I want this to end. How many books it would take for me to get there though is something I have yet to figure out. 

This story was originally supposed to be about the adventures of Emily, Cat and James. While crafting the people they would encounter, those new characters became compelling to me. I felt they all demanded more airtime and were deserving of it. I would now say this isn’t a story about three nineteen-year-olds but of the Community within the City of York. 

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A.P.’s quest for reviews.

In the act of penning this story, there wasn’t much structure involved to bind me. I would regularly write out of sequence and only when inspiration was in great supply. This for the most part was fun. Now that I have a polished product, real work had to be put in to have it marketed. A game plan needs to be implemented and the first step is to acquire reviews. This for the most part was not so much fun.   

During this process, these are some sobering facts that I have discovered. Over a million new books were published last year. There are thousands of reviewers but on average they receive dozens of review requests week after week after week. In a field of a million people raising their hands, my fellow authors and I are all screaming pick me.

I have to admit, it is pretty daunting when surveying the odds in its totality. If anything, I was going to need a killer solicitation letter to stand out. Luckily as an imaginative writer of fiction, this shouldn’t be too hard. I drafted up the following and I think it’s a winner perhaps with some tweaks.

Hello Random Stranger,

My name is a person you’ve never heard of before. I would like you to do something for me. This will require you to spend hours of your life reading a questionably put together product. After that you will have to spend additional time writing a summary of your thoughts then post it on Amazon and various other places. Your compensation will be the joy you receive from reading this. Oh, remember to be kind. You know, karma and the barking dog part.

Sincerely, I know where you live,

Your soon to be favorite author. 

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nuff said

I have probably read about a hundred novels in my life. Depending on who you ask, that could be considered impressive or lacking. What I used to devour though were comic books and that number would easily be over a thousand. In grade school, I was extremely fascinated by Greek mythology and that loosely translated into a fondness for Thor. I eventually discovered the X-Men when they were just uncanny and from there I was hooked on the M the C did not exist yet U.

My story telling maintains many characteristics of this form such as the concept of a large shared universe, veiled introductions, origin stories, multiple plot lines and Easter Eggs. Trollish behavior is accomplished not only by the grunts within these pages but also by the author. Team ups have a propensity of happening, the student teacher element is commonly portrayed, and there are always sprinkles of romance.

All these elements seem like a winning combination to me. It also happens to be the only way I can tell a story. I’ve had struggles with my editors’ feedback to revise certain sections because of the perceived awkwardness of this non-traditional approach. In the end, I decided that I would make my grits the way I want and that also applies to my mush. Enjoy the mush.    

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Me, myself and an idea

It was during the fall of 2016 when some aspirational taps on a keyboard finally kickstarted this stalled project. I had attempted to begin this process several times before. However, the fantastical which floated around in my mental ether never looked right in print. Where the rubber hit the road or in this instance where the text popped on the screen, there was a major disconnect. The fluidity of my imagination could never be read as more than a few barely sensible sentences slapped together haphazardly. 

Crouched in an Upper East Side coffee house for a little over an hour each week, I committed myself to this endeavor. Me/free time was scant, and these were moments I finally had just to myself. Week after week I again slapped together new sentences. Every following week I would always find myself reworking what I had written the previous time around. After about five weeks, I finally had a full page that I was proud of.

My struggle was not with conceiving the story as a good portion of my life had been spent daydreaming the unimaginable. My problem had been with properly articulating my voice and desired prose. After capturing what I deemed to be the right flow, it did just that and flowed. Once the first chapter was in my back pocket, an unknown number of additional ones would subsequently follow. Previously contained in darkness, this fanciful concoction would finally be brought to light.

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Onward. Mush.

What you have here is mush. Sit in front of a screen for too long and apparently your brain will turn into it. For decades upon decades, the imaginary has been colliding with items heard and remembered alongside those enjoyably misremembered. The media has successfully crafted concepts and rhythms which have incepted their way into my head. The proof is in the pudding or should I say mush.

Take out my brain from which all these files are stored and place it in a slow cooker for ten hours. Set it and forget it. Come back later in the day and uncover the appliance. Stir about the gooey creation nice and well. No one likes lumps in their grits or their brains. Take a spatula full and swing it at a wall. Do so as if you were in a frantic attempt to ward of a pesky little flyer. The globs that fall off, discard. The stuff that sticks is to be held in high regard. This I now present to you, clingy, questionably nourishing, intriguing mush.

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