In Dreams Awake

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

(Henry David Thoreau)

Friday 26 January 2018

Magic And Derring-Do

 The new novel, How The Stars Shine, seems to have stronger love themes in it than I'd planned, or than I've done before. It's not a romance, by any means. I can't say much without risking spoilers, but I'll note that love takes many forms, and more than one appears in the story.

 It wasn't planned. Stories take their own shape sometimes, just as characters do - or should, if they're any good. I'll reach a certain point and a character will want to do something I hadn't considered before. That's good, it shows the tale has life thrumming through it, and unexpected things may happen. If I don't know for sure what's coming down the line, the reader isn't likely to. But this time, it's got me thinking. Stars is the first from-scratch novel I've begun since I met my wife. Everything else was at least blocked out before then, and largely written. Its broad form was set. Stars was not, and it's changing in my hands.

 Could this be, do you think, because I have love in my own life at last?

 I remember I said to Caz, before we were married, that I wasn't sure I felt love in the way that other people do. There have been signs of it. Me not crying while my whole family wept at the funeral of my grandfather, things like that. I'm known as a distant man, unapproachable as one of my friends called me - and if that's what my friends think, how must I seem to people who have only just met me?

 Caz broke through these walls of mine without trying. I noticed one day that she was already inside my castle, having a good rummage about and putting pictures on my walls. And I didn't mind. Hmm, I thought. Interesting. Again, not love as most people know it, eh? Then came the babies, Bella and Evie. Bells will be two next week. And with them, no doubt at all, I have learned to love the way everyone else does. Overwhelmingly, swept-along-in-a-flood helplessly loving them. I know now that all my doubts about love were rubbish. I can feel it fine. I just hadn't found the right place and time before.

 So love is a part of me now, and I guess it's finding its way into my work. That's OK. I'm not going to end up being Barbara Cartland. My stories will still be Fantasies, there'll be magic and derring-do and hopefully some strange cultures that the reader hasn't seen before. But maybe there will be a softer tone, just now and then, and you know, that's OK too.

Friday 12 January 2018

How The Stars Shine

 Hi all. Hope the New Year has started with promise for you.

 I'm getting right into the new novel, 22,000 words done now. I've renamed it How The Stars Shine, from a quote by Bertrand Russell about how he yearns to know so many things. Part of the story (before, it was called Eternity) deals with a scholar called Mani, whose job is to talk with the Sea-Goats who live in the lagoon and glean information from them. He's a man of learning in a culture where almost everyone works in farming or the military, who takes one simple step and finds that it throws him into the heart of events sweeping across the cities.

 Trouble is, from there the story has grown into something so ambitious that it scares me. There's a non-human species, the Sea-Goats, who are a bit like mermen but have a distinct culture and keep secrets all the time. There's a mad warlord who wants to live forever, and an almost equally insane High Priestess who thinks she can ride his coat-tails to power. There are betrayals and revelations galore. All this makes the story difficult to write in a structural sense, because there's so much going on and I have to keep it all tight and sleek so it isn't confusing.

 At the heart of it all is the longing for power, and the things people do to achieve it. We're driven by pride and ambition, even if we don't know what we'll actually do with power once we've got it. A bit like Donald Trump, who seemed to want the Presidency so he could boast to foreign leaders about how big his button was (metaphorically, hehe). The warlord in Stars is like that. He wants to live forever not so he can achieve good things for his people, not so he can understand mysteries, but just so he doesn't die. A little man holding great power is dangerous.

 Then there's Mani, who wants to understand all the mysteries, know all the answers to questions he hasn't even thought of yet. That's foolish too, because if we know everything we have nothing left to learn, or achieve. The Arabs have a proverb; "May all your dreams come true but one." Having one thing left to dream of means we remain dreamers, and isn't that good?

 I'm as guilty as anyone, by the way. I'm a bit like Mani, wanting to know all the answers, even though I know it's a fool's longing. But I do know there are limitations on what we can do. I've typed this blog with one hand while cradling a sleepy-struggly baby in the other, and boy, that teaches you the limits of what you can do.

 Is writing How The Stars Shine beyond my limits? Maybe. But if the project doesn't scare you it's not big enough, and as I've said before, God hates a coward. I think I can manage the story. Finding out is deliciously scary.

 Pip pip.