What's Going On?

I've been going through a lot for the last little while. I've had some physical health problems (there have been some nasty bugs going around), but I've also been having some mental health issues, as well.

Last weekend (and that seems like an eternity to me now) I was close to taking my own life. I wasn't going to do it because I wanted the attention, or to cause pain to anyone, but for the simple reason that I wanted the pain that I've been suffering with to end. To disappear. For it to finally be over.

Obviously, I didn't do anything. I fought very hard against it, and I'm still here. Since then I've seen a doctor about things. I've started a course of medication, which will likely run for two to three years (at least), and I meet up again with my doctor on Friday to discuss therapists and the like.

It's not going to be an easy road, but hopefully it'll get me to a better place. A place where I can begin to enjoy life again, rather than just endure it by breaking it down into little slivers that I have to make it through every day.

Depression isn't a new thing for me. I've been dealing with it my entire adult life. Some times I deal with it better than others. Some times I do a good job of hiding it from the rest of the world, and indeed myself. But it's always there. It'll probably always be there, but I hope to get on top of it, or at least learn to deal with it in a better way.

I was hesitant to mention it here, because this is supposed to be a blog about writing, my novels, stories, and the like, but I find more and more that I'm sharing about my life, and I wanted to keep everyone that reads this in the loop.

I don't want people to take pity on me, and rush out and buy my stuff because it might cheer me up, or make me feel better. I want people to understand what I'm going through. If people want to buy my stuff, I want them to do it because they want to, because they enjoy it, or because they want to read it.

Anyway, that's all I have to say about stuff at the moment. Thanks for reading (if you made it this far!).

Short Stories

My new job sees me spending some time on the train to get to and from work. At first I filled the time by reading Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. I'd never read them before (it's a long and not very interesting story that basically boils down to me being stubborn in the face of someone telling constantly how awesome they were and why I should read them every day for an extended period of time - don't get me wrong, I like people suggesting new stuff for me to read - what I don't like is someone practically shoving something into my hands and wanting to sit by me to make sure I read it), so they are a new experience for me. I quite like them, but after the first few, I ran out of ones to read, unless I bought more, and moving house, car insurance, new internet set-up, among other things, has really made a dent in my finances. So, I thought I'd give writing on the train a go.

It's actually been working rather well. Even though I'm commuting around peak-hour, most of the time I have no one sitting next to me on the train, or, if I do, it's not for the whole trip, or I still have enough room to type a bit.

I started off by getting back to a short story I started just after I finished The Dragon's Spine. For anyone who has read Eria you'll probably remember Elrath's cat, Dren. Well, this story is all about Dren. It's the lead up to what Dren was up to before he came into Elrath's life. I've finished the first draft, and I'm going to put it to one side while I work on another short story. The second one is similar to the Dren short story, but it will focus on Baedyr. Once that one has reached the first draft stage, and after I make another pass of Dren, I'm going to get started on Zelton. For those with a good memory, Zelton was Elrath's master's master.

Ideally, I'm going to release them one at a time over the period of a couple of months. I've already got some cover art in the works for Dren, and once I'm happy with that, I'll do the same with the others.

It's good to be writing again, even if it is for short bursts before and after work. Hopefully once I get settled into my new job and my new house I'll be able to find the time to get some more writing done in the evenings and on the weekends. And to update this blog more often, too, to let you all know what I've been up to. Not having a reliable internet connection kinda hurts the whole being active online thing.

Anyway, that's where I'm at at the moment. Until next time!

Sequel Names and Other Stuff

I've really painted myself into a corner with this one. When I write a sequel to Eria what am I going to call it? Eria II just sounds awful. It really does, and it'll do no justice to the original. For now, it'll have to do, I suppose.

Of course, the questions that I'll have to answer will be "what's going to be in this novel?", "will it be better than the first one?", "will Dren be in this one?".

Great stuff, yes and yes are the answers to these questions.

I love the characters from Eria - I have so much more planned for them. Bethany has some growth, Elrath has a lot to do and Baedyr will feature pretty large in this novel.

And Dren. Well, that cat's something I can't contain...

Eria - Six Months On

It's been six months to the day since I released Eria on Amazon. Originally I'd planned on releasing it on my birthday, but some last minute formatting issues and finalizing the cover art delayed that. In the end I was happy to have it out before Xmas.

Initially sales were good, as you'd expect. I put most of the sales in the first month down to friends picking up a copy. It was still nice. It was satisfying to see people getting behind me and my novel.

The next couple of months were just as good, and I was quite impressed. I couldn't put all the sales down to just friends because, and let's be honest, I don't really have that many friends.

In those first three months I got some reviews (which are always nice - I can't stress enough how much I love reviews), and some nice feedback from people on places like Google + and Facebook.

Since then things have kind of petered off. I knew it would happen, but it is still a little disheartening. In the last three months my total sales of Eria have been what the monthly average sales for the first three months was. I love that people are still picking up copies, and I'd like to think that it's through word of mouth, people discovering this blog, or maybe my presence on the social media sites. Not that I just pimp my stuff there (I find it a huge turn off when other people do that), but I do post often on those sites.

I launched my novella The Dragon's Spine in April, not really a prequel as much as a story set in the same world a few hundred years earlier. It was good fun to write, and I hope it was good fun to read, as well.

I've definitely learnt a few things over the last six months, but I might leave that for another post, as lack of sleep is kicking my ass...

Writing and Bread Making

I've been making bread lately. No - that is not an euphemism, Australian slang, or anything else like that. It is just something that I've been doing. Because I have a bread maker. It doesn't mean I have been making money hand over fist, either. It is, however, a good analogy for writing, the creative process and so forth. If you found this blog because you Googled bread making feel free to keep reading, because I will actually talk about bread making.

Anyway...

The new bread maker came into the house. I'd been talking about getting one for a while. Talking about how I like fresh bread. But I'd never really made bread before, or owned a bread maker. Maybe I just liked the idea of having a machine that could make bread at will. Or maybe I just hadn't thought the whole thing through.

My flatmate brought home the bread maker, much to my surprise, and almost to my chagrin - I'd been mouthing off about the bread I'd make if I had one. I guess she called my bluff.

Naturally, she expected me to know how to use it. Know how to make good bread. And expected we'd never need to buy bread ever again.

So, I did what anyone would do - I went to the supermarket and bought pre-packaged bread maker bread stuff. I read the instructions on the packet - Water, Bread Stuff, Yeast. In that order. Do not mix them up, add them in a different order - just do that.

I did, and, probably because I had done it with my own hands, watched the whole process, and held the freshly baked loaf in my hot little hands, I exclaimed to the world that I had made the best loaf ever. I feasted on that loaf. It was pretty damn good. It was the best loaf of bread I had had in a while.

The bread stuff I had bought at the supermarket had more bread stuff than required to make one loaf - it had enough for four loaves. I could have just repeated the process four times and had the same bread four times over, but my flat mate had some feedback - she wanted to some bread with cheese and sun-dried tomato. I looked for a recipe in the book that came with the bread maker, and there wasn't one. But there were a few similar ones. And I figured they were close enough to the pre-packaged stuff, that all I needed to do was chop up the sun-dried tomato and add the grated cheese. That became the best bread ever.

I still had the means to make another two loaves of basic bread. All I had to do was follow three steps, and I was done. I bought sliced bread. It was easier. It cost less. I just picked it up at the supermarket, and took it home. It tasted okay, but it was nothing at all like the bread I'd made, either the first or second time. Sure, it was bread, but I'd grown to expect more.

Tonight I decided to make more bread. I used the third of the bread stuff, and improvised a bit more. I had more sun-dried tomato, so I wanted to add those. I had black olives, so I used those. I had some ham, so I sliced those up, told them they would be bacon, and used those. The only cheese I had was sliced, so I took a knife and turned it into a fine diced cheese. I loaded the machine, but I knew I wasn't going to be awake when it all came together and made the next loaf. So, I set the bread maker to pause starting. Everything is still there, still ready, but it will start cooking, and finish cooking, at a time that suits me, not the bread.

I still have a long way to come with my bread making. I can make everything from scratch, for instance. Not use a bread maker. There are a lot of other steps I can take to make my bread better, or more original. But for now, I am happy with how this bread making is turning out.

Writing and Philosophy

Years ago a friend and I were discussing writing a Philosophical novel, and what it would look like. We were both studying Philosophy at the time, and it seemed like a good idea. Nothing ever came of it. I think we both got bogged down in the Philosophy side of it, and, quite frankly, nobody would want to read a novel that was just Philosophy. Because it wouldn't have really been a novel - it would have been a Philosophical text.

When I sat down to write Eria I tried to include a few Philosophical themes. Most of them are to do with Environmental Ethics and related concerns, and they are really rather subtle - if I hadn't mentioned it just now, you probably would have missed them. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I like to know that they're there, and I mention it so people that want to look for them can find them.

Environmental Ethics was something I enjoyed at university. Not as much as other areas of Ethics, but as far as some of the Applied Ethics fields go, Environmental Ethics is interesting in so much as it involves a thing rather than a person, and raises all kinds of interesting notions there. But I'm not going to talk too much about that here - just mentioning it, really.

When the time came to write my novella The Dragon's Spine there were a couple of ways I could have gone with it. Indeed, I toyed around with a couple of different endings (if you want to know which way I went, you're just going to have to read it). In the end I decided to go with Identity. Theories and notions of Identity were also something that I liked studying and talking about in Philosophy. I suppose if they weren't, I wouldn't have taken those courses, right?

So, I explored them a little in The Dragon's Spine - to be honest, I think I did a better job in the novella than I did in the novel. Whether that's because I'm getting better as a writer, or because the vehicle of the novella's story was better, I guess is up to you to decide.

The one thing I do know is that as I continue writing I'll be including more of my little Philosophical ideas into the mix. Not in a "beat-the-reader-over-the-head" way, but in a nicer, more subtle, more organic way.

If you want to discuss your favorite Philosophical ideas, feel free to mention them in the comments, or say "hi" to me on  Google +. I'm not going to say I'm always up for a chat, and I'm definitely not going to say I love to get into heated arguments about things, but I do like to hear people's takes on various Philosophical notions.

The Dragon's Spine - Another Excerpt

When I was writing The Dragon's Spine I wrote three flashback scenes. I wanted to add a bit more to Krullus's back story and history, and I thought this was the best way to do it. Also, I rather like flashbacks - I'm not sure why, but I find them useful, interesting, and if used well (which I hope I have) they don't feel like you're shoving information down a reader's throat. I know I hate that feeling as a reader (and a consumer). So, this is the last of the flashback scenes, and the last of the excerpts from The Dragon's Spine that I'll be putting up here. I hope you enjoy.

“You know you don't have to go, my son,” his father said. The man was older now; weak with age and illness.

The young man was now just that – a man. His red hair was wild and long, down to his shoulders. His face sported the beginning of a fine beard.

“You remember I asked you a question a long time ago,” it was a statement from the young man, not a question.

“I remember, my son,” his father replied. “It was 'why do people kill other people?'. We spoke about it a couple of times.”

His son nodded, fastening his chain armor securely. He picked his sword off the table, testing the new blade's balance, before sheathing it in his scabbard.

“It was something I'd hoped to answer properly before a day like this came,” his father continued. “So you'd be ready.”

“I think you answered it as best you could, sir,” the young man said.

“But it wasn't really the answer you were looking for.”

The young man looked to his father, placed a strong but kind hand on the older man's shoulder.

“It taught me something, though,” he said. “You taught me something important.”

“And what is it you've learnt, my son?”

“Sometimes the answers we receive are not the ones we want to hear. But they are answers just the same.”

His father nodded, his gaze following his son as he picked his pack up, tested its weight, and slung it over his shoulders.

“The important thing is to ask the questions we need to ask, and to deal with the answers we receive as best we can,” the young man said. “And if we can, to find a truth we can live with.”

“Why do people kill other people, my son?” his father asked after a long pause.

“It doesn't matter what other people do,” the young man said. “I cannot control that. I can only control my own actions, and answer for them when asked.”

His father thought about this, as his son made his way to the door.

“Why will you kill other people?” his father asked at last.

“Because I must,” Krullus said as he left, closing the door behind him.