Am Reading Or Some Shit

While I don't write much about what I'm actually reading about, it's about time I do that. 

I'm holding my breath, waiting for The Witcher to come out on Netflix this year.

For those who don't know anything, this was originally a book series written by Andrzej Sapkowski, a Polish author in the early 90s. Despite this author's disdain for video games, it's the Witcher games that skyrocketed his recognition at all. I've mentioned in the past that he took a lump sum agreement rather than contract any royalties. So he made a whole lot less in selling permission than he could have if he had any foresight of how amazing the games would be. Honestly, serves him right, but nonetheless, I'm enjoying currently reading the translations of his books.

I didn't know shit about Witcher until I bought the third game for PS4. GOTY (game of the year) edition too, all beefy with the expansions (which are even better than the core game, but I've already written that review so I won't rehash it). It's dark, it's emotional, it's everything that made me burn to write fantasy myself. It takes old themes and breathes new life into them. Mythical monsters, the gritty realities of human life, the tortured main character who feels like an impostor of humanity meanwhile displaying it more often than most, through his grey veil of morality. He lives by a code, which he claims is the code of all witchers but is more a personal set of rules that we see both the wisdom and folly in.

But the stars that shine brightest in this loner's path are the women who pass through his life. Not the endless stream of prostitutes he patronizes (though these are never insignificant women either) but the little girl he is destined to protect and the terrifying sorceresses who reveal his heart. How efficiently they puncture and expose it yet never make that heart seem weak or unguarded. I am drawn most to this series because it appeals to what I aim for; an unbiased and unforced look at what moves living being and the world around them. It is not just sentient beings that shape a world. From the sudden burst of kingdoms at war to the last twitch of a dying insect, each detail is not insignificant or wasted. This isn't idle, self-congratulating prose. It's an organism in and of itself.

What captivated me most about the games is that you were given moral choices. There are hard consequences for making an essentially good or bad decision... And consequences for walking away. In one of my favorite storylines, you are given the choice to release a demon who tugs at your heartstrings with its take of being trapped inside a tree pulsing with pain for centuries. The reward seems satisfying... But if you choose this, the demon possesses a horse, which sets off a startling chain of events that leads to a prominent man losing his wife to their dead demonic stillborn child and hanging himself. Meanwhile, if you coldly destroy the demon, this man lives, as does his wife. His living child, him and his wife all surviving means a chain of far more rewarding events. You start to learn that Geralt's apparent coldness, playing him more as the code-bound monster from the books, actually exhibits his wisdom and greater good far more in the long run. While it doesn't endear him to most people, you start to see that the few who do trust his judgement tend to live longer and be more beneficial.

Like the Mary Shelley Frankenstein book, the lines between monster and man cannot be assumed. No one sees Geralt as more of a monster than himself, a fact which annoys those who know him. While his plans and actions aren't without flaw, they do not trust him lightly. Despite his refusal to see himself as more than a mutant, he doesn't distrust or reject his inner circle in any other way. He instantly passes off the reins to someone better suited to solve a problem, ready to step in when it is time.

What appeals most is how much he reminds me of one of my own characters. Oddly, a white haired assassin that looks younger than his years. He is unafraid of death, even seems keenly aware of it snapping at his heels. He doesn't stare death in the face or turn to catch a glimpse because he knows the hesitation means he meets death. There is simply a resignation and acceptance that death will walk with him one day. He will hasten it nor avoid it. He is no stranger to fear, but death, next to all of the evils in life, is just a last breath in the wind.

It's not exactly original. It's something many of us ponder and it's a resolution that many fantasy writers come to. Yet, well done, it has quite the impact on our most visceral fears and hopes.

If you've made it this far, then I hope I've inspired you to look more closely at this series too.

The details I know so far is that the Netflix series is coming sometime this year. It launches eight episodes for the first season and will see more if it's as popular as it's projected to be. I hope to all hell it is that and more. I was pretty psyched to hear Henry Cavill is playing Geralt. I've seen him act in many things and he's certainly got the unwavering eyes and strong masculine features Geralt is always accused of. The series is very adult and sexually charged and Cavill isn't afraid to get naked. I hope that we can see more series that steer away the prudish taboos that oddly plague fantasy purists. Deep and sexy aren't mutually exclusive.

So I'm more than ready to see it in live action. The books are entertaining, the games are absolutely stunning (the facial animation in Witcher 3 is some of the most expressive and engaging) but I can't wait to see where The Witcher show will meet between the books and games.

And fuck, Andrzej; hopefully, you bargained more wisely this time around. That writer's ego will take the piss out of you if you get too cocksure.

GoT is Done and I'm Not Disappointed

Yup, spoilers ahead so go ahead and jump ship if you're not wanting the series finale events to be spoiled for you.

First up, you couldn't have been that surprised that Daenerys had to go. As I've mentioned in the last episodic post, and as Jon Snow reaffirmed, she gained too much power with her good deeds, too much caution in not seeming weak, that she crossed the line from benevolent queen to warmonger. She outright declared Grey Worm her Master of War. What she clearly planned wasn't unlike a Holocaust, a widespread cleansing and fear campaign weaseled over with words like liberation. Remember in history when kings used words like divine right and explorers used manifest destiny? 

I don't think Daenerys 'got what she deserved'. It's nothing so easy as that. It was that childlike dreaminess returning as she tried to appeal to Jon Snow that was dangerous, made it most clear that she no longer understood the terrible weight of her actions. It wasn't clear whether she was being naive or manipulative, but what he saw was that she believed in it.

The suspense mounted most for me where Drogon began piecing it together and every possibility danced through my head excitedly. Would he avenge his Mother's murder? Would he bow to Jon? When he, in wise dragon fashion, turned on the Throne and melted it, I remembered the profound moment where Khal Drogo 'crowned' Viserys, ending the terrible dreams of a tyrant, and was never more sure that Drogon both knew her fate was coming and that this creature was more like Varys, never more sure that the fate of men had to be severed from the Iron Throne. Drogon represented the deeper wishes of the Realm and even of his Mother, who was blindsided by her good intentions and twisted promises of destiny. 

Though Samwise's idea of democracy was ridiculed, the Imp came through once more and more sneakily proposed much the same thing. The nobility might not have been ready to openly concede to the people, but he took a more civilized page from the Islanders, proposing a sort of Kingsmoot, where the Houses gathered upon the death of a chosen King to convey the wishes of their people.

The Stark kids each took on a position of royalty. Bran took the South, Sansa took the North and though Jon Snow was consigned to the "Night's Watch" (which if you were paying attention, actually positioned him as more of a King Beyond the Wall), and Arya took on the tongue in cheek position of finding what lay beyond that gaping hole on the map 'west of Westeros'. While not exactly royalty, she is all that her aunt might have been, wild and free, leading others and bound to none.

I think the book fans stomp their feet too hard in discrediting the writers' hasty resolution. Personally, I might have hated the slag of more seasons of catty comeuppance and the element of surprise where this story could go was running its course. That they are accused of taking GRRM's Rubix Cube and painting the sides to close up the intricate plots is completely overstated. The writing itself was starting to show that the more he tried to tie anything up and get to the damn point, the more his mind just wanted to make two knots of every one. The frequency of his book releases suggests he's not exactly eager to keep writing them either. Honestly, I'm not counting on him ever finishing them. Hell, he even released that tedious history of the Targaryen's book. He's not really interested in trying to tie things up. Like Tolkien, he just like the playground.

The show did well enough to snap the lid closed but still leave some room for decent spin-offs that can specifically focus more keenly on certain characters or aspects, but still drives a point I've suspected since early on. 

I'll say it again, just as the show had hinted when Cersei asserted that she is Queen and was met with the ever-prevalent quote that permeates fantasy; one who has real power needs never assert it. The minute they feel the need to assert it, they are only admitting their fear of that lie. Just as Varys stoically posited that the will of the Realm was not something any one man would ever grasp. It was never a game to be won. It was a game to be played out. Like every unfinished game of Monopoly I ever played, you play until you get sick of, then you move on to something better.

What disappointed the bulk of fans was that their wash-rinse-repeat wasn't there. The big battles were not strategic enough. Characters acted out of character (which I've also argued before is plausible in the face of traumatic events that they have no gauge for). Characters were killed off, along with whatever beloved theories they held onto for them. Some just wanted another tyrant on the throne. Or some other grimdark wanking fantasy.

As far as I've looked at it, it didn't actually feel that rushed to me. Sure, there were some parts you could pick at, like the rather sudden way the Night King's army came upon them. Yet I appreciated that there wasn't the same tedious and methodical pacing here. It held more of the fuckery and confusion and mistakes inherent with everything I've read on war. I've certainly tired of the all too perfect strategizing that is mostly just boring, drawn out and forgetting that warriors aren't perfect little chess pieces. They piss and shit themselves and cry for their mothers, the brave can turn tail and the weak detach and become bad ass.

It was a good way to go. This is one of the few shows I've been able to keep watching. It never went stale for me. The claims of being too abrupt were too emotionally attached to people's investment in the perpetual longevity of the source material. It ended true to its original namesake: in fire and ice. Neither sappy with hope nor wretched with despair. That, to me, gives it room to still feel like an organic experience rather than a story ended.

I'm crossing my fingers for the proposed Dark Tower series. Yet another one that blows hot and cold with fans. I'd like to see the characters stay true to the source, but I won't be disappointed if they alter or add to it a bit to arrive there. And it could use a better ending.

King, I love your story-telling, but your endings are absolute shit most of the time. And I don't just mean in the plotting sense or even emotional, I mean they seem like they were done by an internal troll who hates stories. I swear he took every method of writing a good ending and thought it was edgy to not do any of that. Or maybe he resents novels, because his short stories don't suffer the same issue.

Even though the Dark Tower movie tanked, I found that the remake of IT was actually pretty damn good. That's another hit or miss of his. It's become somewhat of King's thing to be a bucking horse. Unlike creators like Tim Burton or Danny Elfman who tend to shit gold by sticking to their strengths, I can't hate King for rocking a leaky canoe. If I had a cruise ship sailing alongside, I'd make waves too. Better than beating the dead horse of insisting everyone simply mastering one thing. Diversity is the thing that keeps a creator prolific. Less burn out, more turn out.

Fuck, it's time for me to cut this loose. It stopped being about the topic several paragraphs ago.

GoT--I'm cool with the ending. Peace!

Quick Update!

Even though I just published a post, I wanted to try to keep update and topic posts separate. Easier to find back posts if I pay more mind to the sorting!

First off, I finished a draft on a second 'short' story. This one, currently called All-Seeing Eye, falls at about 16K right now. That can change along the way. This is the first of my side stories based on UnNamed, going back to a pivotal point in the mercenary's history and (spoiler-free) after his run-in at the Uther Coliseum. As you may know, UnNamed largely dealt with an antihero that has a memory issue. The characters were described in pronouns and nouns and nicknames of an ambiguous nature, not from his point of view, but with limited narration to keep the reader hindered by his own challenges. The short story does much the same, only directly from his point of view. In this way, you get much more of his voice rather than just a narration inspired by it.

It will be compiled with the first short story I wrote as a sort of prequel to characters of my first series, called Drawn to Perfection, currently at 9K words. This follows Dinsch and Seles, Bryfolk (rabbit human hybrids) that you first encounter in the first trilogy, The Truth about Heroes (also called the Heroes Trilogy). Again, this one is written from their POV, an interesting take on how they view their history and where their impressions were both vastly different yet very much the same.

The third story I'm working on for this anthology, currently called 'Ashes, Ashes', returns to UnNamed's storyline, but explores what had happened if the mercenary didn't make a pivotal change in UnNamed. Because this one actually delves into the Maidens' back stories, I'm planning it as third person omniscient rather than multiple first person POVs. In order to be able to show how it ties to the history, the limited perspective and biases wouldn't work as well.

I believe I'll probably keep this to four stories, but only if the word count exceeds 80K for all four. The fourth is yet to be determined, but I do want to revisit characters from the first series. Yet to decide that. If I throw in a fifth, it could be Gretel's Gift (currently in a multi-author anthology, The Magical Book of Wands, but will be released back to me at the end of October), a standalone short story or I'll come up with a wild card idea. It may be another spin-off of a current series, a unique fantasy tale or even an alternative universe idea I've thought about, involving characters whose lives took a different turn. Anything goes, but I'd like to be able to decide a unifying theme before deciding how they'll be packed and published.

A little longer than I'd hope for when I said this would be 'quick' but I'm excited to do some short stories before I go back to the UnHeard behemoth. I'll probably stick to short stories for the duration of March before I focus up on the epic beast but I did a quick 70K for the draft in November and that was actually conservative. Quick math: if UnHeard were 300K words (UnSung is around 260K) and I have 10 months to write it (leaving a month to prepare it for publishing), that means (easy math there), I would only have to do 1K words a day at worse (this would also leave me with a first draft when I should have several drafts and an edit so let's not do that). The first draft should at LEAST be done in half that time so double it (2K a day). I write about 1K an hour and writing days typically mean no less than 3 hours of writing and often go a full 8. It's possible to do about 10K on a terrific day. I COULD do 300K in a month, technically, but not if I want a coherent, well-planned story, so planning doesn't really make 10K days realistic without thorough planning of all scenes written then. It's far more realistic that I do about 3-5K on most days. Having ample time to edit and draft, at least two solid months being ideal. 

Also, my life is not writing, so even if things do get hectic or I need a break, it's best to be ahead when possible. After drafting, I often walk away from the story completely for a few weeks, if only to make it easier to catch mistakes. This is sometimes not a total break, since it's a good time to write short stories. I do enjoy playing video games, so that's a nice break too.

Ahem, so... short stories for now, warming back up to the big show. I really just wanted to gush about writing because I can't withhold everything until the big finale. Talking about it helps me blurb it later too, so it's always worthwhile. Back to writing I go!

Pep Talk with Min Jin Lee

Kind of throwing this one out last minute, but these pep talks are always a fun topic to mention.

In the most recent NaNo mail, Min Jin Lee basically points out that, while we all have a book in us, sometimes it's not the one we think it is. We tend to set out writing a book that we think people will admire and our work suffers for it.

While I don't believe I'm entirely guilty of writing purely to ego, I can certainly understand why you might not be writing what you're most capable of. No matter how crazy your young life was, writing a memoir in your 20s or 30s is usually premature, for one. The decades that you spend reflecting on those events are important too. The questions you will ask yourself when you learn to ask the right questions. The genuine curiosity to not just record events but to learn more. Even when I jot down things for my how-to book, I never set out to only teach but to learn. To pose questions to a reader that they have to answer, to try to anticipate the needs of an audience and cast a net that includes their concerns in the best way possible.

I've said before that one of my regrets is that I set out to make UnNamed so short for querying purposes. I think it should have been a longer book, but I've decided the best way to rectify it would be to add some short story serials to it later. I let myself be guided by word counts that confined the traditional route, but I'm writing epic fantasy. I'm not here to wait for the permission to write the books my stories need to be. So often, authors need brand recognition to write longer books. This is why J.K. Rowling's first book was so small in comparison. Until your publisher is sure that you can sell, they confine the hell out of the requirements.

All I can say is that, in this golden age of publishing, write the book you have in YOU. Not the one you think people will want to read. That book is going to do a lot of transparent posturing and not be as genuine as you think. While, yes, I do want to write something an agent/publisher will want, that book isn't what I'm doing right now. I might have to wait for trends to change, for my work to find its niche, but that means exactly what I believe Min Jin Lee is getting at-- I'll come by that book genuinely, rather than intentionally. Whether it takes 10 or 30 years, I'll keep crawling along my path stubbornly.

As I've said before, I loved UnNamed, my flagship book for the UnQuadrilogy, yet that wasn't the book it could've been. Did I enjoy it? Yes. Was it complete? Sure. But there were many character aspects that could have been given more time to flourish in a larger format. The Rain Maidens and the main character both would have been deeper characters if I hadn't restrained them. Especially since my mercenary is a tough character to like. While I wanted him to be that way, I also felt like he deserved more time than he got.

So there will certain be more short story collections that will actually be supplemental to the main series. I even have working names for them. Gods and Sentinels will be one and Marked in Rain and Flame is the other. Sentinels and Gods will be a historical prequel that takes place where a lot of the problems in this world first started. Marked in Rain and Flame is a more recent prequel that will cover the mercenary's life leading up to UnNamed as well as the Rain Maidens' lives prior to meeting him. In the original, his past is only briefly glanced over, the Maidens only got a few pages of back story at best. It's enough that you get their motivations, but I feel like their backgrounds were just too constrained before. While the Gods and Sentinels are explained well enough, I wanted to showcase their conflict, their vulnerabilities and the grey areas that the main series was only ever meant to hint at. The focus was always on correcting their imbalance, not on justifying it or fully explaining the bumps and bruises of their indecision.

At least I am certain that UnSung, UnHeard and UnVeiled will better benefit from that trial and error. No more writing books that aren't what I think they need to be. As an American white girl, I can't bank on diversity to do me favors either. I don't write invincible females and guarantees. The trends are actually so completely not on my side that I had to come to terms with that uphill battle. 

The important thing is, I'm doing just that. I'm flexing my brain and my craft and I believe in my work. I see great things for my stories and if I have to hump out a studio and indie this shit to hell and back, it's happening. Because I'm not sure I care if I should or not, just that I can't imagine doing anything else.