Slogging

I'm having one of those weeks where you just have to keep lurching forward carrying one bag too many in hopes that the bus will be two minutes late, rather than two minutes early (so that you can still make it to your next appointment), but all you really want to do is lie on a beach somewhere, or maybe have a movie marathon, or something, anything, instead of everything on your to-do list.

After next week I have a week vacation from writing - not from work sadly - but still.  At the moment I can't tell if I am having writing fatigue or just deadline fatigue (though I suspect the latter.) 

So really, this is a very boring post, but also a very real one.  Some weeks you're just slogging.  This is one of those weeks. 

Marketing Idhua Part 1: Mission Statement

So, I have been working on my strategic plan - which is turning out to be a lot more fun than I thought it would be.  My sister, N, and I have observed to each other that often our challenge is not finding a way to do things, but to decide what we want to do in the first place.  It took me over fifteen years to decide I wanted to become a published author, but now that I have I am having fun figuring out how to make that happen.  I like the clarity the exercise of doing strategic planning brings to my process and the way I can go from distant goals to current steps to take towards them.  Here is my mission statement - I welcome any feedback people may have on it.  Leave a comment or email me at tannara.young@gmail.com.

Author Mission Statement for Tannara Young   My mission is to write, publish and promote mythopoeic high fantasy, set in the world of Idhua, for readers who desire such works. My stories are intended for an audience who is looking for high fantasy with a strong focus on lyrical prose that contains mythological depth. These stories will challenge some of the more conservative elements in fantasy by incorporating non-traditional characters and narratives, including female characters, non-white characters and characters of differing sexual orientations placed in atypical roles.

Spring has Sprung and So Have I...

... or is that just the coffee?


I feel like I am on a roll right now.  This week I have started my next country, Hynovia, and its accompanying story.  Hynovia is in the south-east of Idhua and has close ties to Eonia, so there is already some information about it from the work I have done on its neighbor.  The story is just an idea right now, but I am going to explore someone turning down the “great opportunity.”  This came from musing on the way in which our culture has a narrative that if someone has a talent or opportunity that will make them rich, famous or powerful then it should be grabbed with both hands.  Likewise, the story more often told is the young person who wants to leave home and claim their gifts.  While I don’t have a problem with ambition or exploration, I want to acknowledge that there is also value in the person who decides that love of what they have is enough, that they don’t need to do great deeds or have great acclaim.


Besides the new country, I’ve been editing The Summer Valley, which I have decided is pretty good as it is and I just need to get over being neurotic about presenting it to a big launch party in June.  I am also pursuing an idea of asking some of the other guests at the launch party to perform music or poetry and so to make the evening a literary and musical celebration.  To this end I have begun to make arrangements with Dusty Stings to rent a harp for my friend E.  She can’t bring her harp up to Seattle with her, but she and I are both eager for her to play at the party.


I have also been thinking about decorations and the menu, which is a bit early I know, but this is a big one!  I am thinking of a five to seven course feast, leaning heavily on the fresh produce that will be coming into season in June: asparagus, peas, and strawberries.  This week I am going to make and freeze Meyer Lemon Curd so that I can make Meyer Lemon Cream Puffs as one of the desserts.


Besides all the excitement in writing and party planning, Norwescon is coming up next week.  I am going with artist Sara Twitty who will have a display in the art show – so if you’re going to be there, head to the Gallery sometime to check out her work!

Finished Orin

I have finished both the entry and the rough draft of the short story for my next country: Orin.  The short story, titled “The Summer Valley” is being read by my kind and generous beta reader, M, whom I hope will not be quite as despairing about it as I have been feeling.  The reason I am being gloomy about it is that the launch party for Orin is set for June and it is going to be a big one.  My mom, my dear friend E, and my sister’s boyfriend are all going to be up from CA to see my sister graduate and will be here for the party.  In addition, when I sent out a “save this date” invitation I had a lot of positive responses, a number from people who will be coming for the first time.  So it’s not that I don’t like “The Summer Valley” but rather that I have been feeling that it should somehow be extra special for an extra big party with VIPs.


Orin is a country which spans a temperate and Mediterranean climate – in the north above the Idessa Mountains it is cooler and wetter, though it rarely snows, while in the south there are vineyards and orange and lemon orchards.  It was limping along a bit until I decided that they needed a legendary king to focus on with both their history and their legends and folk-lore.  I glanced over the Arthurian and Carolingian cycles, not only for inspiration, but also as an example of how such bodies of literature and legend work on a patriotic consciousness.


Here is the current map of Idhua: It is entirely coincidental that I have been working on the purple countries.  Apparently, I colored a number of the countries which were settled earliest (which is my criteria) purple without planning it.

Italian Anyone?

I have decided that I need to find a writing group that is interested in my kind of writing.  The two main review groups I have are a very close group of friends and family and the somewhat random group that I have encountered through the Meetup website.  While the first group likes the style I write in and is infinitely supportive, none of them are fiction writers who are seriously pursuing the improvement of the craft of writing fiction.  While they are all avid readers, and that is a good thing, they don’t necessarily read and critique from the point of view of craftsmen. 

On the other hand, the Meetup is a very mixed bag with some excellent writers mixed in with some neophytes.  I have found all their perspectives to be helpful in different respects.  The main problem I have with that group is that I don’t seem to be writing the kind of fantasy that they are interested in reading.  When someone begins their critique with “I don’t like songs or poetry in my stories so I suggested you cut that out,” or “I don’t really get into that mythic, epic stuff...” it becomes difficult to decide how to take their critiques.  Certainly, they make some very good points, but I feel like there as many critiques which are trying to change the way I write, as there are trying to take the way I write and make it better.  If my only goal was to write things and get them published according to the taste of the moment, I would be writing different stuff entirely.  But most of the reason that I am writing is to write the stories that appear in my head in the more epic, mythic, old-fashioned, poetic way that they appear there.

I am not bitter about this or trying to say that I have no intention of responding to the world’s response to my work.  It’s simply that if you want a good critique for – say – your Italian cookbook, you have to ask other cooks as well as other lovers of Italian food.  Comments from people who hate tomatoes and basil will not serve you very well, just as only asking those who frequent Italian restaurants, but don’t cook, won’t give you a good idea of the quality of your recipes.

I want to find other writers who are also, potentially, within the audience I believe I am aiming for in what I write.  People who like what I write, and have the experience and skill to make suggestions to improve my writing.  Additionally, I’d like to really be able to be invested in what they write and so do the same thing for them.  Some of the work I have been critiquing is so far out of my interests or desire to read, that I really don’t feel like I can offer all that much to its authors – just as they don’t have all that much to offer to me.

I don’t know how to get this writing group, but, obviously, the starting place is to want it.  I think the first step is to really define what I am looking for, so that prospective members will be drawn to the important elements.  Like a crowd in an art gallery – I need to find the room that fits my work best so that I can look among those lingering in that room for companions.

Ghost of a Rose

After spending most of the week flailing around trying to come up with an idea for my next short story, I just managed to write 2000 words in two hours.  I had the idea on Wednesday at work, let it marinate yesterday and it’s been bubbling out this morning.  What’s it about?  The Forest, young love, old love, summer time, an enchanted valley.  I wasn’t consciously thinking of the Blackmore’s Night song “Ghost of a Rose,” when I scribbled the outline at work, but it is surprisingly appropriate.  Since E was the one who gave me that song years ago, this one will be for you, my fellow Philomythus.

Goals for 2012

Inspired by Rachel Stark at Trak Changes my first post of the New Year is going to be a list of goals for 2012.  However, I want to begin by briefly looking back over 2011.

Last year, I completed four short stories and got one of them to the point where I am submitting it to online and print markets.  I held three launch parties for Fjallind, Eonia and Tav’uran, as well as working on the Idhuan religion. In April, I attended Norwescon and starting in September I began attending the North Seattle Science Fiction and Fantasy Meetup group.    My fellow editors and I published the second issue of the Amber Grimoire in November.  I am amazed and pleased by the amount I have accomplished last year and am excited for the coming year.

My writing goals for 2012 are as follows:

  Write 4+ short stories
  Edit 4+ short stories to the point where I am submitting them
  Have 2+ short stories published, at least 1 in a qualifying market for SWFA
  Hold 4 launch parties, get 2+ new guests at one or more of the parties

  Publish The Amber Grimoire twice as was our original intent
  Attend at least 2 fantasy/writing conventions
  Improve my networking skills by:
    Read 1+ good books on online/otherwise networking
    Hand out business cards at conventions, etc.
    Add people to my Facebook and Google+ circles
    Find ways to promote my blog

I am excited about the coming year – I feel that it will be a good one.
What do you think?  What are your goals for 2012?

Progress

I heard back from Abyss and Apex today.  They didn't accept "Catkin," so now I have my first rejection letter.  I would, of course, have been more excited if they had accepted it, but I am still excited to have received a rejection letter - it's a mark of progress.  In addition, it was a very kind rejection letter and they encouraged me to submit again.  While it's quite possible that it is a stock letter, nonetheless, as these things go, it was a very nice one to get as my first.

Anyway, I turned around and submitted the story to another magazine - Beneath Ceaseless Skies.  I once attended a motivational type workshop where we did an exercise in which the hundred or so people in the room milled around asking each other for something.  The something didn't matter, the rule was that as you were asked for things - a flower, a date, a job, an autograph - you said "no" to nine people, then "yes" to the tenth.  The point of the exercise was to remind us that if we didn't ask we wouldn't get to that "yes;" that the "yes" could seem arbitrary to us; but also that the "yes" was out there if we were persistent.  So here's to persistence and all the "no's" before the eventual "yes."

Endings... and Beginnings

It’s almost the end of the quarter and the beginning of the holiday break.  I am in that state of mind where I would rather be doing almost anything than the things I have put on my to-do list. Of particular interest are stories I am not working on, holiday plans which don’t need to be made quite yet and curling up with books and movies that are not related to either my dissertation or my writing.  Yet, despite the lure of the irrelevant I have been getting things done.  I put together my costume for the Tav’urisk party next week – and promptly misplaced part of it.  I have finished the menu, made shopping lists and have a final list of decretive elements to obtain. 

The writing on the religion, Daletha, is nearing a completed draft and I have finished drafts of the 12 Saints Tales.  Of all the entries I have completed for the Encyclopedia of Idhua I have the most doubts about the religion.  Oddly, as I noted as I began this project, it seems more strange and silly to create an invented religion and try to write about it, than it has to do so with invented countries and history.  Perhaps because I want to maintain the mystery at the center of things within my work and religions often try to explain that mystery – particularly in their written texts.  If I ever write a tale that is dealing heavily with the religion I will have to go back, but I have a slightly fleshed out outline – and an idea of the major historical periods and movements.

I will be glad to return to country building and short story writing in January.  I am going to work on the country of Orin next.  It is the country immediately south of Ariceda and settled early on by the same Seldue tribes that lived in Arcieda and southern Fjallind.  I have already written one short story set in Orin – Catkin – which is the one I submitted several weeks ago; however it is not a world-building or cultural exploration.  Orin was a convenient place for the physical requirements of the story.

Submissions!

I have finally crossed a line and begun to submit things!  I have submitted two short stories – on to the online magazine Abyss and Apex, and the other to the publisher World Wisdom.  Whatever the response may be, I will be excited to get a response as it means that I am starting the process of asking.  If you never ask, there will be no answer at all.  A “no” is preferable to nothing.  I was invited to submit something to World Wisdom, but I am really not sure if my work fits the expansion into YA fantasy/adventure they are considering.  I also submitted to the Fairwood Writer’s Workshop at Norwescon, which I submitted to last year.  It’s kind of amazing when I consider how far I have come in that year.  How many words I have written, how many critiques I have attended, and now I am finally ramping it up and trying to get published!

I would like to take a picture of my submission and pin it to the wall:  "Look, I have started putting my work into the world - here is the manilla envelope to prove it!"  Sadly for me, though better for the environment I suppose, so far I have submit electronically.  I must content myself with having made a new label color in my Gmail folders to indicate correspondence regarding submissions:

Letter to my Future Self

October 21, 2011

Dear Future Self,

I am writing to you from right at the beginning of your writing career.  You are about to submit your first short story, you have just begun the journey to understand the publishing, marketing, commercial side of writing, and are still in the early stages of the creative side as well.  So, what is it that I want to say to you, my future self?  First, I believe that I will get to you some day.  You are out there – with short stories published, novels published, and a fantasy world of depth and mystery that is appreciated by your audience as much as you care for it now.

Second, I want you to remember some things from now, things to be carried forward into that future. 

Remember why you are writing – how much you love the words and the stories, the characters and the richness of the land you are creating.  As time passes your writing will (hopefully) improve, and, no doubt, it will change as you change.  Don’t disparage the things you are writing now – no matter if they’re never published, no matter if they become that story that you could squirm to remember its melodrama or verbosity.  Don’t be unkind to me, here and now, struggling to figure all this out.  All of the things you have written and will write are genuine, and passionate, and sometimes awkward.  In that they are as human as you are.  There will always be critics who hate your works and ones who love it.  Don’t forget you have chosen a middle path – to love the work and to keep learning and striving.

Remember what it is like to be a beginning writer and to be flooded with advice and forecasts of doom and woe.  That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be honest about your experience of a writer’s path, but when you are sharing that experience remember to share the core of your passion as well as the warnings of the pitfalls.

Remember that I still have to go through all the challenges and hardships that you have already learned from.  Honor that journey.  Send me hope and encouragement for the tough times, send me joy and excitement from the successes.

I am excited to meet you someday – hang on, I’m on my way!

Love, Tannara

Struggling with (Fictional) Religion

I am finding that creating a religion is much harder than any of the world creation or invented history I have been working on.  I want to create a religion which is both unifying and divisive and that can enhance the stories I am telling without overwhelming them.  The religion I am creating is called Daletha.  It is a duotheistic, with a God and a Goddess, as well as a legion of heavenly messengers and saints.  Coming from one mind and in a short period of time, there is no way that its philosophy can attain the complexity over time that a centuries-old religious system encompasses, but I am trying to work out the broad strokes of its theology over time and record its major movements and systems.  Ultimately, it is going to be a transcendent religion, but I am trying to balance that with some descendant theology as well.
 
In some ways creating a religion is a profoundly personal aspect of the world, because it will become a skeleton for the stories I want to write.  If I create a religion whose adherents are not people I would want to write about, I have created a useless construct.  Yet, trying to develop a world-view and philosophical system that fits the characters I create has ended up making me take a close look at my own world-view, and consider the fact that though I am fabricating an imaginary creation it is personally resonant.
 
Scholars examining J. R. R. Tolkien’s cosmology have been quick to point out the ways it fits (or does not fit) his own Catholic faith.  While I have no idea if my (real or fictional) cosmology will ever be studied, I am, at any rate, aware of the assumptions (true and false) which can be drawn.  One of the reasons that Tolkien’s writing is so powerful is the powerful forces underscoring his story, and while he does not have a religion in Middle Earth that we would recognize as such, we do recognize the deep spiritual underpinnings of his work.  It is impossible to say if my writing will ever achieve that depth – I can only hope it will.

Progress Report

Idhua is progressing apace!  I now have five countries done, in first draft form at least.  The latest that I finished over the summer is Ariceda, neighbor to Lendhlay and Fjallind.  I have decided that instead of doing a country this fall, I am going to work on the religion as I am getting to the point where the details of that are very important as I figure out cultures.  I have The Penguin Handbook of the World’s Living Religions to help me consider what elements and practices I need to look into including to build a religion.  I think a book on medieval Catholicism will be in order too.  At any rate, here is the current map of Idhua and the countries that are finished:

Organizing!

I just moved last week.  Moving is always an exhausting process – but I am excited about this one.  Our new apartment is full of light, and has lovely large double-glazed windows.  I am still living with my sister N and our housemate M, but our other housemate S, is now in a studio of her own, a mile or so away.  My new room is tiny compared to my old one…but I really like it.  It has south and west facing windows, one of which overlooks the balcony where all my potted herbs are living.

I took the opportunity of moving to organize my writing-self:  I have a file box dedicated to writing and three wall pockets for manuscripts in various stages.  My notebooks have a place to live – that is not just a stack – and I even have a spot to put my computer case.  Now all I need is the internet to be hooked up and I will be set.
I also discovered a coffee shop in my neighborhood – in my search for WiFi – which is my new favorite coffee shop.  It is under an apartment building and is long and thin, with a coffee counter on one end and fireplace on the other.  The whole north wall is windows and there is a pair of comfy chairs that I can sink deeply into.  I haven’t liked a coffee shop this much since The Dragonfly in Portland, OR.  Check it out if you are ever out that way.

Lovely inside too!

In writing, my next country is coming along.  I spent a while yesterday designing a flag for it.  It is called “the oak and stars.”  The country is Ariceda, which is the setting for the novel I have in very rough draft form.  I know that manuscript needs a lot of work – if for no other reason than I have done a massive amount of world-building since I wrote it.  The short story I am working on for Ariceda is a sort of prequel tale for the novel and will, I hope, flesh out some of the secondary characters.
 

Despite being worn out from the move, I have been full of energy for writing.  I am plugging my way though editing and am collecting places to submit some of the more polished pieces too.  I hope I will be announcing some sort of publication in the next year or so.

Neil Gaiman's Advice

 I went and saw Neil Gaiman last night.  He is touring for the tenth anniversary edition of American Gods.  He is an eloquent and amusing speaker and I enjoyed the evening very much.  During the Q & A someone asked the ubiquitous question “What advice would you give to you fantasy writers?”   I suppose that authors must prepare stock answers for this question, but I thought his advice was particularly good:

• You have to write.
• You have to finish what have written.
• Don’t read fantasy – except to stay on top of the genre – instead read everything else.
• Read primary sources.
• Read outside of your comfort level.
• Tell the stories only you can tell.
• The quicker you come to writing those stories the better.

On Writing Short Stories - Part 1

In the process of learning to write short-stories I have learned – or, perhaps, relearned – that I have a tendency to be verbose.  I think it is partially instinctive, as I have always had a love for completeness.  It is not enough to know the bones of the story: I want to know what they ate and how they made paint or glue or how their language evolved, and what happened in the places they left behind.  The trick that I am starting to learn is that all of that can be explored, but the story is the network of moments within it that fit together in one tight, sleek shape.  I hope that in time I will be able to shorten the process – rather than writing the 20,000 word version, then the 12,000, then the 9,000 and then finally the 7,500, I will be able to hold the 20,000 version in my head while I write the 9,000 version and then edit it down.


The other reason I tend toward wordiness is from academic writing.  Somehow, when I was receiving my training, there was much more emphasis on achieving the page number than on saying everything that needs to be said elegantly and succinctly.  In retrospect I wish I had had a teacher who was skilled in teaching how to define a topic that is the right size for that 25 page paper while being concise.  I have had a lot of good teachers over the years, but as I think about it, very few good writing teachers.


At any rate, I am rewriting and editing five stories at the moment.  While I am nearly done with Tav’uran, I have decided that I am not going to start the next country until I have at least two, if not three, of the current stories polished up to the point I feel I can start submitting them for publication.

Norwescon 34 - April 21-24

So, I didn't write last week because I was busy going to Norwescon. S and I went down Friday morning and got back Sunday morning completely exhausted.   M joined us for Saturday and we all had fun hanging out and indulging our love of Fantasy and Sci-Fi.  I went to a ton of panels, some great, some ok and a couple of real duds.

I started with Best Fantasy and Sci-Fi of 2010 and got some exciting recommendations for books to read.  Perhaps the biggest thing that I carried away from it, was the realization (not for the first time) that as a big library patron I tend to be quite behind the times with my reading.  I am discovering things from two to three years ago and it would be good to freshen up my reading list a bit.

I also went to Marketing for Writers which had a lot of useful information.  Most of it I had heard in one place or another, but it was good to be reminded of it.  We got talking a bit about e-books, which is an interesting topic I am starting to think more seriously about.

Two of my favorite panels were the Interview session with Patricia McKillip and the Creating Your Mythos which also had her on it.  I have been a big fan of her for years – I grew up on The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, among others, – and it was really interesting to hear her speak.  I particularly liked her thoughts on writing about magic – she said that magic is already in the reader and that the language brings it out.  My sense is that she is taking about the way that well written magic stirs a deep longing and wonder inside the reader, creating as much of a sympathetic response as when you read of grief or joy and feel those emotions along with the characters.

One of the panels which was (unfortunately) not so interesting was the panel on World-building.   The main contention that I had with it, was that most of the panelists had similar methods of world-building and so could offer little contrast to each other.  Additionally, they appeared somewhat unprepared to discuss the topic and so the conversation was fairly flat and uninspired.

Besides panels, I went to some of the performances, music and the Masquerade.  I particularly enjoyed hearing Heather Dale’s music performance although I was so exhausted I couldn’t stay for the whole thing.

I also participated in the Fairwood Writers' critique session and received some very useful feedback/encouragement on “The Sorrow of the Lady of Sorjaey.”  I feel like I have a good sense of some of the most important things I need to work on in my writing, including point-of-view, wordiness and passive voice.  I also hereby vow to become a better self-editor – not that I am terrible, but I could certainly be a lot better too.

Writing.... slowly, but surely...

Writing the current country is coming slowly.  I have yet to settle on a name which I like for it.  For a while it was Anthuer – but I have several “A” names already and I didn’t particularly like the name anyways.  At the moment it is Tav’uran.  As I posted previously, this culture is built around their battles with demons and I have been playing with the idea that they leave a part of their name out in order to help hide themselves from the demons (or so the superstition goes).  The asterisk indicates where a syllable has been removed from a name to conceal the “real” name.  However, I am well aware that sticking asterisks into names is a fairly common and sometimes annoying fantasy trope, and I have not decided whether to stick with it or not.

At any rate, the story is coming slightly faster than the “facts” about the country – mostly because I had so much of it figured out ahead of time from my dream.  I am almost done with the first draft of it.  It would be good, I think, to work on the county entry before I start rewriting the story, so that I can allow that work to flesh out the world of the story.

All the writing has been slowed down, as I am still in beading mania, (as of tonight I have the bulk of it done and tomorrow will start actually sewing the dress again,) and am preparing for Norwescon.  Once all that excitement is over it will be time to buckle down to rewriting the Eonian tale besides finishing Tav’uran or whatever it is going to be called.

Enchanted Forests

Nisene Marks, CA

During my sister, N’s, spring break last week, we went to visit family and friends in central California, where we grew up.  There is always something a little heartbreaking about returning to a place that is not home anymore, but was once.

The coastal forests of California are the foundational forests of my imagination; the landscapes which are written bone-deep on me – the ones that don’t just fill my dreams, but scent them too.  While I can identify far more plants in that ecosystem than in others, even the ones I don’t know the names of, or uses for, are familiar to me.  I have seen them season to season, in all moments of their growth and death.  

Hoh Rainforest, WA

In visiting that forest, I am reminded of how little I know the forests of the Pacific Northwest.  There I am a visitor, who marvels at the sights but does not yet know the language.  In a strange sense the forests of the North are more accessible to me through the mediums of literature, photography or film.  In California the woods are familiar because they are inside of me.  Where I live now the experience of the forest takes the reinterpretation of the artist’s eye, my own or someone else’s, to allow me to recognize that what I am seeing corresponds to something I know.

Me, playing dryad

The Forest that lies at the heart of Idhua grows from that soil that grows the redwoods carpeted with wood sorrel; the tangle of hazel, thimbleberry and bramble that shadows a trickling creek.  The first description of the Forest I wrote (when I was in my early twenties) was both consciously and unconsciously the woods I walked in:

It was well after midday when she came to the first of the great trees.  It reached up and up in majestic grandeur towards the soft sky, high above.  Her heart leapt and she stopped to look more closely at the vast ancient tree.  There was a rich, sharp fragrance in the air of bark and leaf.  The dizzying height made her feel as though she were but a mouse creeping through a vast, living cathedral.  She walked in silence between them and at last, when the light was turning rich and golden, she came to a grove of giants that grew in a circle and in the center of them was a mossy mound.

My sister, playing dryad

The Forest of Idhua, besides being infused with enchantment, stretches from northern mountains wrapped in ice, to southern lakes, shimmering under a brilliant sun. My intention is that it contains many different forests – from cedar to redwood, from oak to maple – yet, I think it is inescapable that its primeval layer this first forest of my memory.  C. S. Lewis wrote that a reader “does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted” (29-30).  It is an interactive process for me, as a reader, writer and lover of trees; it is impossible to say whether the enchantment springs first from the forest itself, the trees I read about or those that grow in my imagination.

Works Cited:

Lewis, C. S. Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories. 2002. Boston: Mariner Books.

Epic Dream Inspires Writing

    Occasionally, I have dreams which have many qualities of an epic story.  I usually jot them down – some of them I have used as bases for stories or am saving for ideas.  As I was finishing my work on Eonia and began to turn my thoughts to the next country (which at the moment is still unnamed) I had one such dream.  I had already begun gathering bits and pieces of this new country in stories I had written, but the elements I was toying with didn’t yet fit together.  The bits I had come up with was that there were a people who were nomadic and very secretive.  They had a martial magic which was unique in Idhua, yet it didn’t make sense that they would be in any kind of lasting conflict with their neighbors.  I was just beginning to puzzle over the elements I had already given myself, when this dream offered some interesting solutions to some of the problems. 

    In the dream there was a kingdom, ruled by a Queen (who in the dream was my housemate M) that was plagued by demons.  I was some sort of sorceress who was trying to help the Queen save her country.  In an episode near the beginning of the dream I received a magical crystal sword which I gave to the Queen’s champion, who was my brother.
So far our battle against the demons had not been going well as our weapons were fairly useless against them. Our only reprieve was that they had not figured out how to stay in this world for any length of time.  The Queen’s champion went to fight the demons with his new sword and I, as the royal sorceress set up a sort of monitoring spell to help him.  The new sword was very effective, but, while they were fighting, the demons were pulled back to their own dimension and the champion was pulled too.
 

     However, somehow my spell on him remained intact and I went running off to find my sister, N.  She was also a sorceress and we began preparing a spell to summon our brother back from the demon’s realm, while at the same time helping to prepare an evacuation for the entire castle, which apparently was about to fall off a cliff because the demons had weakened the foundation.  Our spell was successful (which was surprising, seeing as how cause and effect can be very warped in dreams,) and having rescued our brother, we turned our attention to the evacuation.
 

    At this point the dream sort of degenerated into a common trope for my dreams: organizing things.  Most of the people were out of the castle (or house as it had become), but I had a vague sense that we would be heading out on the road in a quest like manner, rather than meeting up with the other evacuees. I determined we would need to take camping type gear. I was in the kitchen of the house and I was getting a little hung up on making sure we had silverware, a cutting board and knife, napkins, dishtowels and soap and an oven rack to prop over a fire for an open flame cooking rack. I was a little frustrated at our lack of useful rations – but when I grabbed the peanut butter I remembered the Emergency Kit I had made up for winter (a real project and I dreamt of the exact plastic crate I used).  My epic dreams often have an episode like this – everybody else will be discussing how to sneak out of the city, or retrieve the magical artifact and I am off making sandwiches.  :)

    But back to the point: I felt there were the bones of an interesting story with the demons, the magic sword and the different realms.  I was also intrigued by the sibling element, as I have not written about siblings for a while.  But besides the elements of one story, I found that idea of a people plagued by demons gave some interesting answers to a nomadic, warlike people who nonetheless were not fighting their neighbors.  The idea that I am exploring now is that in the distant past their ancestors started summoning demons to do their bidding, but at some point the demons figured out how to cross into the human world on their own, though they could never stay for long.  They are attracted to the blood of the sorcerers who first summoned them and so the people keep moving to prevent the demons from getting a “fix” on their location.  Obviously, the idea needs a lot more thought and fleshing out, but at the moment I am enjoying trying it on – and enjoying that my dream gave me some solutions to this next phase of writing.