Winter has arrived

The first snow came and covered everything in its silent whiteness. Then crunching underfoot, boots sliding on hidden ice and snowflakes on upturned faces.

At night, the snow reflects the city lights and the grey ceiling of cloud is luminous as it reflects the snow, a pair of misted mirrors.

I am filled with a listlessness and I hesitate to blame the snow, but I am not sure what else it could be. My time is spent doing nothing of merit, and because there is less of it than before I chastise myself for being wasteful when I could instead be writing or exercising or performing household duties. I did not previously concern myself with being productive every minutes, but it feels like most weekdays I come home and sleep. Nearly two months later, I still have not found my rhythm. I feel I am getting closer, though.

It is important to write how I feel.

Tomorrow begins a new week of trying to undo the damage caused by taking a desk job. I continue to be amazed at the tightness of shirts that flattered my figure not two months gone. I don’t look any different apart from that: no new stretchmarks, my body has mostly absorbed this change. I worry about a heart attack at 30 and having to buy new clothes (I bought three new pairs of jeans because the old ones no longer fit).

I want to be better.

I am getting a guitar for Christmas. I look forward to drawing on my lessons from high school, learning how much I remember. I should have asked for my grandfather’s guitar but it seemed so wrong to want it, like I was gaining something from his death. Objectively, it makes sense to want something ot his to remember him by; what better than the very same instrument he loaned me to learn with? It’s likely too late now.

Music may help me to be more open. I am too private with my emotions. I should not be afraid to share them with those I care about.

 

changes

I’ve changed the name of this blog and I mean to post here more often than to store my latest addition to Project: Destiny. However, on that subject, I’ve been doing a lot of background work lately, fleshing out things like government and history. For the first time ever, I have a solid timeline of the lineage of T’Heri’s kings and important historical events. Before, I had only a vague idea of the order in which certain catastrophes occurred and no kind of history of kings or heroic figures outside the community of shadeweavers. The common folk need heroes too.

I’ve also done some developing of the ancient past, which is largely considered pre-historical, but I believe some scant few records have survived the ravages of time such that scholars may conjecture as to what happened in the Long Long Ago. Even if I don’t spell it out, it’s important for me to know what happened. It’s difficult to project an air of mystery if the pieces that remain point in radically different directions.

In terms of kings, there have been several who have earned themselves special nicknames: the Lightning Kings, the Bloody King, the Mad King (because you always need a Mad King, right?), the New King, the Wise King. Though only a man may sit the throne, I don’t believe the kingdom is inherently patriarchal; their oldest religion is that of the Church of the Sun, which teaches that the female aspect, Destiny, is the source of goodness and light while the male aspect, Fate, is the master of deception and manipulation. Also, the natural world is personified by three female aspects because life comes from women.

One of my main motivations in creating the royal lineage and history was to have a calendar. There’s one reference in chapter two that will have to be changed, for example. It says that records indicated that the Eyrtan prospered for over 300 years, which is laughable.

But I can now say that the calendar of T’Heri is based on the years that have passed since the kingdom’s Founding, with the prologue of the story taking place in 403 AF and the first chapter nearly ten years later. It was important for me to know how long the Guild of Colours has existed, when they began teaching Artifice, and when exactly a couple of cataclysmic events took place.

See, I say I want to post non-Destiny material here and I go on and on about it. My apologies.

If anyone is interested in seeing some of this background material and has a Google Drive account, send word and I’ll share the relevant folder. Or, if you prefer to read the narrative and present me with questions that might indicate holes or that some part of the history or world seems unclear, that’s great too.

 

Introductions

I have opened this blog with the intention of housing some of my writing here, likely unrefined bits that require edits or polishing. I anticipate a lot of exercises ending up here, or half-baked ideas. I would like to post a little something every day.

For now, I’m a little overwhelmed by the multitude of options presented to me. Several things like customizing the look of my blog I feel should wait until there’s a little more content. Perhaps I’ll change my mind and decide that this post is enough to give me an idea of what I want.

I am 25 years old and have been a university student for many years now. I am taking a semester off for financial reasons. My program of study is computer science, but writing is what I really want to do. I enjoy words very much, much more than I enjoy numbers. I read fairly constantly, though I had slowed down in recent years, likely due to a change of home.

I live in a suburb of Montréal which places the nearest English bookstore an uncomfortable distance away. The local library has a healthy collection of English books, but not enough to satisfy and, quite often, very few newer books. However, last September I purchased a Kobo Touch; I can now cheaply purchase English books from my living room. While they are not truly physical books, I find that reading on the Kobo is pleasant and convenient, and I especially enjoy carrying around a large selection of books without the inconvenience of their weight.

My favorite sort of book is fantasy, though I can be very selective. I insist that it be “done properly” with no deus ex machina and no magic for magic’s sake. I like there to be well-established rules that are largely concealed from the reader (though the glimpses they are given clearly indicate their existence). That isn’t to say I don’t enjoy “lighter” fantasy, but my preference is for sterner stuff.

Sabriel is my all-time favorite fantasy story. I also deeply enjoy most of Tad Williams’ work: Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, Shadowmarch and Otherland especially. Neil Gaiman’s delicious blend of mythologies in his myriad works is also quite captivating. I have recently been introduced to George R. R. Martin’s world of A Song of Ice and Fire and found it immense and breathtaking.

Following this post will be the aforementioned pieces and exercises, and though they are mostly here for my benefit, I invite comments and criticisms. Please keep in mind, though, that most everything that will be posted here will be rough drafts and far from finished.