I am a writer, but more than that I love words. Able to read before I attended formal school, the library has ever been my favourite place- any town, city, country or continent. Bookshops, too, whether bright and modern or small and dimly lit! With my blog out there, I hope to hear from others like me. Tell me what your favourite word is, which line grabbed at your soul when you read it, what book caused you to sit up an take note, and so forth. And if you don't agree or you cannot identify with my blog, leave a comment to the contrary. Controversy has sparked many an interesting debate!
And now see the update!
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Soul
A derelict cloister garden in Ireland...still beautiful, still speaking to the soul. Beauty and atmosphere has nothing to do with any cult or creed- it simply is.Monday, September 15, 2008
Religion on Valaris
Valaris has a policy of freedom of religion, and the following are the main players of both past and present:
Naturalists
Techno-cult
Followers of the Prophet Monchalar
Followers of the Deity Tanos (this ‘religion’ did not die even though Tanos himself lived on Valaris openly)
Order of Continuity
Various others have come and gone over time, and are footnotes in history, and others will come and go as time progresses.
Naturalists
Techno-cult
Followers of the Prophet Monchalar
Followers of the Deity Tanos (this ‘religion’ did not die even though Tanos himself lived on Valaris openly)
Order of Continuity
Various others have come and gone over time, and are footnotes in history, and others will come and go as time progresses.
Neolone Dragon
He was an emissary sent to discover where the sorcerers had fled. A singular choice to exit one reality for another, tracking the cold trail of the vanished Q’lin’la. He was a creature of surpassing talent, but once he tore through the barrier, he discovered there was no way to return.
If he desired to go back he needed the Q’lin’la…or had to find another who knew the secrets of Rifts.
He came at a time when the Universe was in turmoil and it was familiar to him, this endless strife. What was not so familiar was the variety of species, each hounding him in their way, so many of them capable of sorcery…and he discovered that the power in the Light- previously sneered at- could be a truly powerful weapon. He had not expected a crowded realm and found he was more often fleeing than fighting. His appearances and disappearances during those first years searching for the feathered beings, is the phenomenon that heralded the myths that followed about dragons and their ferocity. He could not find the Q’lin’la, for they had already undergone the transformation from birdmen into Immortal birds, but he did find others with great skill in magic. These he bled dry of knowledge and yet none of it availed him the way home.
A few more years he roamed, learning, training and garnering ever more power, and in the process he discovered that there was such a beast as prophecy. It intrigued him, particularly when he understood that many an ancient telling had come to pass. These were living futures, glimpses of a time yet to come, and he gathered them all together- much as the Q’lin’la had before opting for transformation- and in those he found the thread that told of the coming of the One, a powerful being carrying within both powers of good and evil. Now that, he thought, was the very road to his salvation, a salvation that would see him return triumphantly to his realm. Good and evil, in one being- the One would have power over Rifts, had to have. He traced the telling back to the source, to the being that fathered the bloodline of this future force…and there he discovered Nemisin of the Valleur, the first Vallorin of the Ancients, the father of the Valla bloodline.
Every instinct revealed to him he was right and thus he warped time itself and went to the ancient rock to deal with Nemisin in person. The warping of time was something the Kallanon had garnered from the Q’lin’la, as they had their name, but they altered the art to suit their needs, warping it in truth, as they had with all they had been taught. It was, however, not a thing of evil, the manipulation of time; it was simply a power they had mastered, becoming greater than their instructors at it.
Nemisin came as a surprise to the Dragon emissary. Not his appearance- he was by then accustomed to bipedal creatures without scaled armour- and it was not his strength, his growing power so far back in the beginnings of magic or his awareness of the future, no; it was the man’s arrogance. It was something so akin to the Dragon’s way that the emissary felt almost welcome, if wary. That kind of arrogance bred treachery, and that had to be watched…and could also be so very useful.
The awareness of the future continued to intrigue him, of course, for it was an entirely alien concept. The Dragons had always thought in terms of the next battle and even when that battle was generations in the planning and preparing, it was never futuristic; it began and ended with said battle. But Nemisin, ruler of the golden Valleur, thought in aeons, delving into the distant future to reach for a glimpse of duty to the present. It was sobering, causing the emissary to realise how little the Kallanon really understood time, sentience and Universal cycles. All were integrally linked. Worlds were formed and destroyed in that linkage, and that was awe-inspiring. Had he the wherewithal to stand back and view his own actions objectively, the emissary would have seen that this realm had worked its magic on him also; he had become a creature in the grip of its ways. In his decision to go direct to the source of the prophetic One, he was choosing the long road, displacing the present with a distant and obscure goal. He was basing his existence of a view, a view only, of the future. He was, at that time, incapable of reasoning that way. And thus, ages back, a Kallanon, a Dragon, requested audience with the golden Vallorin Nemisin and the future was about to change. Or would it- had it not already been told?
If he desired to go back he needed the Q’lin’la…or had to find another who knew the secrets of Rifts.
He came at a time when the Universe was in turmoil and it was familiar to him, this endless strife. What was not so familiar was the variety of species, each hounding him in their way, so many of them capable of sorcery…and he discovered that the power in the Light- previously sneered at- could be a truly powerful weapon. He had not expected a crowded realm and found he was more often fleeing than fighting. His appearances and disappearances during those first years searching for the feathered beings, is the phenomenon that heralded the myths that followed about dragons and their ferocity. He could not find the Q’lin’la, for they had already undergone the transformation from birdmen into Immortal birds, but he did find others with great skill in magic. These he bled dry of knowledge and yet none of it availed him the way home.
A few more years he roamed, learning, training and garnering ever more power, and in the process he discovered that there was such a beast as prophecy. It intrigued him, particularly when he understood that many an ancient telling had come to pass. These were living futures, glimpses of a time yet to come, and he gathered them all together- much as the Q’lin’la had before opting for transformation- and in those he found the thread that told of the coming of the One, a powerful being carrying within both powers of good and evil. Now that, he thought, was the very road to his salvation, a salvation that would see him return triumphantly to his realm. Good and evil, in one being- the One would have power over Rifts, had to have. He traced the telling back to the source, to the being that fathered the bloodline of this future force…and there he discovered Nemisin of the Valleur, the first Vallorin of the Ancients, the father of the Valla bloodline.
Every instinct revealed to him he was right and thus he warped time itself and went to the ancient rock to deal with Nemisin in person. The warping of time was something the Kallanon had garnered from the Q’lin’la, as they had their name, but they altered the art to suit their needs, warping it in truth, as they had with all they had been taught. It was, however, not a thing of evil, the manipulation of time; it was simply a power they had mastered, becoming greater than their instructors at it.
Nemisin came as a surprise to the Dragon emissary. Not his appearance- he was by then accustomed to bipedal creatures without scaled armour- and it was not his strength, his growing power so far back in the beginnings of magic or his awareness of the future, no; it was the man’s arrogance. It was something so akin to the Dragon’s way that the emissary felt almost welcome, if wary. That kind of arrogance bred treachery, and that had to be watched…and could also be so very useful.
The awareness of the future continued to intrigue him, of course, for it was an entirely alien concept. The Dragons had always thought in terms of the next battle and even when that battle was generations in the planning and preparing, it was never futuristic; it began and ended with said battle. But Nemisin, ruler of the golden Valleur, thought in aeons, delving into the distant future to reach for a glimpse of duty to the present. It was sobering, causing the emissary to realise how little the Kallanon really understood time, sentience and Universal cycles. All were integrally linked. Worlds were formed and destroyed in that linkage, and that was awe-inspiring. Had he the wherewithal to stand back and view his own actions objectively, the emissary would have seen that this realm had worked its magic on him also; he had become a creature in the grip of its ways. In his decision to go direct to the source of the prophetic One, he was choosing the long road, displacing the present with a distant and obscure goal. He was basing his existence of a view, a view only, of the future. He was, at that time, incapable of reasoning that way. And thus, ages back, a Kallanon, a Dragon, requested audience with the golden Vallorin Nemisin and the future was about to change. Or would it- had it not already been told?
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Lifesource
Thousands of years ago when the Valleur settled Valaris, this was the place they came to. Water and its life-giving properties were and are extremely important to the Golden…to all races, true, who rely on oxygen and fertility to survive, but to the Valleur water was their collective soul, something to be respected at all times, something to be worshipped as a living entity. Thus they did not name rivers, for naming that to be worshipped was considered sacrilege. Thus they came here to acknowledge Life. Although Valaris had larger and broader rivers elsewhere, here the water was vibrant, trembling with joyous life within the core of the planet, and bursting forth into the light and freedom of the world in splendid glory. Here they built a temple of transcendent beauty, infused with the very earth’s telluric currents …small wonder that the monuments to death were located in the neighbouring valley: life and death, inseparable.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Death in the clanlands
They moved forward slowly, creeping up the steps that linked the terraces, stopping often to listen. Still nothing. They neared the hut, crept around to the rear to peer through a window, the front being too exposed. And then they fell back to the ground in fright, hearts beating…but it was only the dog inside that had put up a frantic barking at the faces peering unexpectedly through the window. Unless the dog wasn’t frightened of whatever may yet be in the area, they could probably assume it was safe to stand. They peered through again and this time the animal watched them with a wagging tail. There was no one inside. Flies buzzed around a half-made dough on the kitchen table…someone had been preparing to bake bread…
They crept from hut to hut, the dog trailing after them, and grew bolder and bolder as they went. They found nothing, no one, except evidence of hasty departure everywhere. They began talking loudly, making a noise, preferring it to the unnatural silence, and probably hoped the sound of their voices would lure out of hiding any frightened person. The dogs started barking all over and that, too, they found good, but no one came to them; nobody was left to come out of hiding.
They crept from hut to hut, the dog trailing after them, and grew bolder and bolder as they went. They found nothing, no one, except evidence of hasty departure everywhere. They began talking loudly, making a noise, preferring it to the unnatural silence, and probably hoped the sound of their voices would lure out of hiding any frightened person. The dogs started barking all over and that, too, they found good, but no one came to them; nobody was left to come out of hiding.
When Shakespeare is relevant
This fits in rather nicely with the time issues in Tales of the Valla:
When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded to decay;
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.
When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded to decay;
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.
On a character list:
When I started DRAFT NO. ONE of my work I started with a list of characters relevant to that work. Through every succeeding draft that list remained in place...and then I moved it to the Appendices at the back...and then moved it out completely.
I came to view that list as a pat on the back- see, I have multiple characters...
And yet, pick up a historical novel and there is invariably a list of relevant characters attached. Other novels, too. I skim over them, but do I do so because I need to know beforehand who the main players are, or do I do so because I am feeling resonance to my own discarded list???
What do you think? How do you regard a list of characters?
I came to view that list as a pat on the back- see, I have multiple characters...
And yet, pick up a historical novel and there is invariably a list of relevant characters attached. Other novels, too. I skim over them, but do I do so because I need to know beforehand who the main players are, or do I do so because I am feeling resonance to my own discarded list???
What do you think? How do you regard a list of characters?
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