Writing Is Kind Of A Bitchy Mistress

So, it's Thursday. Which means you should be looking at a new installment of Glyphs. Yet there is no new installment in sight. Sadly, there isn't going to be one any time soon either. Sigh.

I fought with myself about this all weekend and most of this week, but I finally had to admit to myself what I have  known pretty much since I started posting this story online. It just isn't happening. As of now Glyphs is officially on hold. I don't know when I will start it back up again. I certainly hope that I do, I can tell you that much. Writer's Podium Thursday is, in fact, also going away for the time being. I haven't quite decided yet what I am going to change my Thursday posts to. Until I decide, they are gonna be anything goes along the lines of the Friday posts. I've got a lot of great books waiting for me to read them, and I am hoping to finally be in a place where I can make myself take time to do that, so I might start doing more book reviews. It is one possibility I am looking at. In fact, let's just call it "Multimedia Thursday" and make that the home for all things TV, books, video games, or movies. Yeah, okay, that works.

I am truly, truly sorry to any of you who had started reading Glyphs and were looking forward to more. The story is there, in my head. I know what happens, I have the whole arc outlined and written out. I toyed with going ahead and putting that up in this space, but that would feel even more like giving up than just putting the project on hold, and I am not ready to give up on this tale just yet.

I follow the blogs of several writers, and many of them have expressed a philosophy that goes something along the lines of: "If you truly want to be a writer, you will make the time to write. You will find a way to do it."

I firmly believe that philosophy. And here's the thing, I do make/find the time to write, you are reading my blog after all, and it is updated five days a week. It's just that what I am writing these days isn't a story. I still have story ideas all of the time. Heck, the other day and idea came to me and I thought, hey, if I wrote Mass Effect fan fiction, this would be an excellent idea. That's just an example, by the way, not all of my ideas are for fan fiction. Not that I would be complaining if they were, because if I was writing fanfic I would at least be writing a story. It can be much less stressful to play in someone else's sandbox for a while, you know?

I got really excited about Glyphs and I jumped right into the deep end with it. Unfortunately I didn't make sure to stretch first, and I got all cramped up once in the water. It was easy enough to find things to blame for the lack of progress, to be sure. My playthrough of Dragon Age was certainly a distraction. But then I finished that, and I started finding other excuses not to work on the story. I randomly decided to start reading a webcomic with 1200 strips under its belt from the very beginning (um, in an entirely unrelated note, Girls With Slingshots is complete and total awesome-sauce, go check it out), I have assembled furniture, I started freaking exercising so I would have go to bed earlier (meaning I couldn't stay up to write after my daughter goes to bed). I mean, come on. When you start exercising to avoid doing something, that's a sign.

On top of all of that? I've been done with my playthrough of Dragon Age less than a week and I already kind of want to play it again. I also really want to start another playthrough of Mass Effect (which is why I was thinking about it enough to come up with a fanfic idea). Can't write and play a video game concurrently. At least I can't. For those of you wondering, the logic behind that is this:

When I write a story, I need to be able to just sit down and do it, with no distractions. The period of time in my average day when I can do this? When my daughter is a asleep, which means during naptime (when I do have other stuff I need to get done as well) and either staying up late after she goes to bed, or getting up early before she does (can't really do both of those).

When I play a game, I tend to get really into it and zone out most of what is going on around me. This is less than ideal if I am also supposed to be keeping an eye on my daughter. Thus, the time available for me to game is...when my daughter is asleep.

I think you see the conflict here.

Thing is, and this really was hard to admit to myself, right now I would rather play video games (or possibly reading a book) than be writing a story. I would rather get lost in someone else's world than try to create one of my own at this current stage in my life.

It makes me happier.

Do I expect this to last forever? Hell no. Do I still consider myself a writer. Yes. Very much so. Writing is an integral part of who I am. I don't think I will ever stop considering myself a writer. Like I said before, I do still make the time to write. Just because it isn't what I feel like I should be writing doesn't make it less valid. I am a grown woman (as much as I hate to admit it sometimes) and I am not only capable, but I am totally allowed to make these kinds of decisions for myself. As much as I believe the "if you really want it to happen, you will make it happen," philosophy I also very much believe that if something is just not there, forcing it won't make anything better. I still feel a bit like even just putting this story on hold is a huge failure on my part. When I told this to my husband he pointed out that if you never fail at anything then you aren't pushing yourself hard enough. He's got a point.

I truly believe I have another story in me that needs to be told. Glyphs is not that story. At least not right now. I don't know what that story is, but I am willing to wait for it to make its journey to me.

So, thanks for sticking around to read this. I hope no one is too disappointed that Glyphs won't be continuing here.

I'll try to come up with something interesting to fill its place.

Glyphs: Moving On (Part 1)

Hello! Welcome to Writer's Podium Thursday! I have a brand new story in the works, and to keep my butt in gear on writing it, I will be posting new bits here every week. Theoretically I should get a chapter a week done and put up. This week is the first little bit of Chapter One, my creative output has been dampened by, um, other activities *cough*DragonAgeII*cough* that I anticipate should be wrapped up fairly soon and cease to distract me from writing. 

For now, and for lack of a better name, the working title of this story is Glyphs. I hope that you enjoy it, please feel free to share feedback (negative and positive). This is definitely a work in progress, so I ask you to bear that in mind.

Feel free to share this, if you are so inclined, by linking to my page. All work below is mine, owned by me, not to be copied, reproduced, reused, you get the idea. Again, thanks so much for reading. Now, on to the story!

~*~*~

"How are we getting along, dear?" Mark jumped, and the book he had been looking through fell to the floor. The old woman set down a tray bearing what appeared to be tea and cookies, moving forward to examine the dropped tome. He winced inwardly, hoping it was not worth too many mets. "Ah! Bosgart's histories! What an excellent choice Mr. Carver! Did you find anything interesting?"

"Interesting...yes. That...would be a word." Mark looked down at the book, which had fallen open to one of the illustrations in the back that he just been about to turn to when the old lady had interrupted him. Interesting was definitely a word for it, he thought. Utter nonsense, another. Entries about things like "mythics" and beasts being captured for use in fighting other beasts of the same ilk. Beasts that didn't exist. Mythic, indeed. He looked at the illustrations again. He couldn't even begin to imagine. Pure, utter, nonsense.

Even the name, Bosgart. What kind of name was Bosgart? If he had been a historian then his name should be something simple and instructive, informative. Such as Teller. Or Scholar. Or Lunatic. Even if his ancestors had not always been scholars or historians, one would expect his name to denote the profession of his forefathers. Mark supposed it didn't matter, though. He had read the entries. Truly, they were far more interesting than anything he had seen in the real world.

"Yes. It was a...lovely...little tale." He answered her. The old lady, he realized he had forgotten her name, shook her head, smiling. She seemed rather unconcerned about damage to the ancient book. Of course, perhaps it really wasn't worth anything. Mark doubted that many people would dare try to buy something so frivolous. There was just no call for such a possession. The woman spoke up once more, causing him to wonder if she hadn't sensed his chain of thoughts.

"Ah, young Mr. Carver, look at you. Too entrenched in these modern thoughts and beliefs. Not a tale, my boy, not a tale. But. At least now you know! Your world is a little bit richer for it too, I'd wager. If I were a gambling woman, which of course, I am not. Mr. Harper would never have heard of it! When he was alive, of course. Just because he's gone now, that's no reason to pick up bad habits, eh?"

Harper! That was it. Her husband had made and repaired instruments. Pretty little harps to play pretty, boring music. Looking around at the eclectic collection in Mrs. Harper's library, he wondered if perhaps she had not been more than enough to counter such a boring career to the deceased Mr. Harper. Seeing all of the books spread out around him, he realized that he had been dawdling. Mrs. Harper wasn't paying him to stand around reading her books after all, but to catalog them, clean them, and put them in some semblance of order. There were perhaps two hundred books in the cramped study that she so grandly called her "library." He was daunted by the task. It had seemed simple enough when the job had been offered. It still was, he supposed, he just had no idea how he was going to arrange such a bizarre collection.

"Now, I know this work can be tedious my dear," Mrs. Harper chimed in, "so I've brought you a little snack." She indicated the tea tray, now perched precariously on the arm of a small overstuffed chair. Mark glanced at it and looked away quickly, suppressing an urge to race over and steady it. Mrs. Harper seemed not at all upset to find him reading the books he was supposed to be cataloging.  "Dinner is in about two hours though, so don't fill up too much! I've got a lovely little roast cooking, with potatoes and carrots and onions, all fresh from the garden." Marked blinked at this information. Dinner? He hadn't been expecting that, most people who offered him work expected him to get on with it and then be about his business as quickly as possible. "I don't expect you'll finish tonight, of course, so I've got the guest room made up for you. I'll have Genny come by in a bit to take your things up. That old arm chair is mighty comfy for reading if you find you want to spend some more time with Bosgart, dear." She patted him on the shoulder, seemingly oblivious to his state of shock. Before he could even begin to wonder who Genny might be Mrs. Harper had bustled back out of the room, humming some indistinct tune under her breath.

Slowly, Mark picked his way through the stacks of books to the chair in question. He picked up the tea tray and looked around helplessly for a more stable place to set it down. The only table in the room was completely taken up by the manifest in which he had been cataloging the books. With no stable surface to be found he set it carefully on the floor next to the chair, glancing at the discarded "history" book as he did so. Bosgart's The Age Arcana remained where it had fallen, open to an illustration of an animal labeled "Phoenix." Mark retrieved the book and poured himself a cup of tea, leafing through the illustrations while he drank. Mrs. Harper was right, the chair really was quite comfortable.

Glyphs: On The Subject of Mythics and Familiars

Hello! Welcome to Writer's Podium Thursday! I have a brand new story in the works, and to keep my butt in gear on writing it, I will be posting new bits here every week. Theoretically I should get a chapter a week done and put up. For now, and for lack of a better name, the working title of this story is Glyphs. I hope that you enjoy it, please feel free to share feedback (negative and positive). This is definitely a work in progress, so I ask you to bear that in mind.

Feel free to share this, if you are so inclined, by linking to my page. All work below is mine, owned by me, not to be copied, reproduced, reused, you get the idea. Again, thanks so much for reading. Now, on to the story!

Here, have a prologue.

~*~*~

(Excerpt from The Age Arcana by Alain Bosgart.)

On the Subject of Mythics and Familiars

Historians may disagree on the common assertion that such a thing as "magic" existed in the Age Arcana (this scholar firmly believing such to be the case) but irrefutable scholastic evidence does show that the creatures known to us as Mythics[1] did at one time walk in our world.

After the Age Arcana ended with the separation of the Mundane and Forgotten Realms[2] many scholars assert that these now extinct beasts were not entirely banished from our realm, with some remaining stranded here, roaming the wild places in the world. A long-standing belief is also held by many that the rift between realms took many centuries to fully close, allowing for passage between the two places for those adventurous (or mad) enough to make the journey. These two factors allowed for the rise of a class of citizens known as Summoners.

Those who would become the Summoners discovered the creation of two separate realms placed certain binding laws on the interaction between the men of the Mundane Realm and the beasts relegated to the Forgotten Realm, the Mythics. Certain ancient words (that this scholar concludes must be left over from the time when magic was a tool available to men) could be used to capture and control these beasts, tying them inexorably to the will of their captors.

Once captured, a Mythic's life-force is redistributed and a pictorial representation of the beast appears on the skin of its captor[3], the Summoner. Should the Summoner wish to make use of his familiar's abilities, he need only touch the glyph on his skin and speak the Word of Summoning. The glyph would then disappear and the familiar reappear, ready to carry out its captor's commands.

Though the entire process itself seems to be one of "magic," that is all of the supernatural there is to it as far as this scholar has been able to ascertain. Once summoned a familiar can only do that which its nature allows, although these things may seem magical enough. For example, if one's familiar was a dragon, one could summon it to carry him through the air in flight, or to use its fiery breath to burn something down. If one possessed a unicorn as familiar, the unicorn could be summoned to detect the presence of virgins in a village, a phoenix might be summoned to heal someone ill beyond the care of our medicines, and so on.[4]

Surely the reader can imagine the kind of power this would place in the hands of a Summoner. Thankfully, all of the scholastic data available on the topic[5] shows that Summoners were from the very beginning a solitary sort and very rarely sought one another's company. A band of Summoners is a terrible thing to imagine and, this scholar believes, no town would have been able to stand against such a group had one decided to seek power.

Indeed, much has been speculated on why exactly Summoners were so solitary. This scholar suspects that when a familiar is carried as a glyph on the Summoner's body, the life-force of the Mythic is in fact joined with that of the Summoner. Most Mythics were also believed to be solitary creatures, and a human carrying the life-force of such a beast would begin to exhibit many of the characteristics of his captured familiar[6], preventing him from seeking the company of other people.

As one might expect, the solitary nature of the Mythics also tended to dissuade Summoners from seeking out more than one familiar. In the extremely rare cases of a Summoner possessing multiple familiars the individuals have been well-documented to exhibit signs of mental instability. It should be note that whether this was their reason for seeking out more than one familiar or a direct effect of such action is woefully unclear.

Certainly an argument can be made for mental instability as a consequence, since a Summoner must demonstrate remarkable power of will to bend a Mythic to do his bidding. Even captured and bound by whatever mysterious laws that cause the Words of Power to control these creatures, they are fiercely independent beings that, once caged, will fight furiously for their freedom. A Summoner must undergo a constant struggle for control while a familiar is unsheathed, so to speak, lest the beast turn on its own master in an ill-guided attempt for emancipation. Such a victory on the part of the beast is short-lived, however, as the death of a Summoner has been irrefutably documented to result in the instant death of the familiar as well.

Familiars can be released, it seems, as there also exists a Word of Release. Again, research shows this to be an action rarely undertaken. In almost all cases, releasing a familiar has resulted in the freed Mythic turning instantly on its former captor, resulting in the death of the Summoner, although not of the beast. At least, until the rampaging beast was subsequently put down by local folk banding together against it in fear of their lives. This, too, was a common result of an attempted release of a familiar.

This scholar will note that a scrap from a journal found in his travels[7] seems to indicate that it is possible for a Summoner to release a familiar without incurring harm to oneself. The method requires the Summoner to locate a path into the Forgotten Realm itself and release the creature there, after explaining to it that it will be freed if it promises to let the Summoner leave unmolested. The author seemed to believe that only in the Forgotten Realm can a freed familiar avoid the "temporary madness" caused upon the breaking of the bond between man and creature. The author went on to suggest that the madness about which he wrote was the reason that released familiars so often turned upon their former captors.

This scholar is dubious about the veracity of the account but does find it an intriguing notion worth mentioning. It also brings up the question of communication between Summoners and their familiars. One must suppose that communication is necessary in order for a summoned familiar to carry out its master's will. No documentation, aside from a few ancient stories clearly written for young children, seems to suggest these creatures were at any time capable of human speech. Alas, this scholar has no solution to the question posed, but brings it up to illustrate how much information about this curious bond has been lost to the ages.

Scholastic evidence seems to support that Summoners did at one time exist in the Mundane Realm, though many would prefer to write them off as fanciful tales from less practical times. These same people would also, this scholar is sure,  very much like to argue that Mythics never existed as well, and that the bones so prominently displayed in museums are nothing more than an elaborate hoax. Or even that the Age Arcana itself is nothing more than a story passed down from our more primitive ancestors, meant to entertain rather than to educate.

At any rate, it is quite clear that no Summoners exist today. No Summoner, indeed nor any sightings of Mythics, have been documented in almost two centuries. Perhaps all paths between the realms have finally closed off, separating us forever from those fantastical beasts of olden days. Without any Mythics in the Mundane Realm, and without any way into the Forgotten Realm to find them another way, Summoners have sadly died out.

For posterity's sake, this scholar has, with great risk and effort, managed to discover the three words of power used by Summoners to bind and control Mythics. They are as follows:

               Géilleadh (The Word of Command, used to capture a Mythic.)

               Toghairm (The Word of Summoning, used to call a familiar into being from its glyph form.)

               Saoirse (The Word of Release, used to set a bound Mythic free.)

---

[1] Mythics is the accepted classification of such fantastical beasts such as dragons, phoenixes, griffons, fairies, unicorns, winged horses, sphinxes, etc. For more detailed entries about Mythics, as well as illustrations, refer to Index 8C, beginning on page 456 of this work. -AB

[2] For information regarding the separation of the Realms, and the existing debates on that topic, please see this scholar's work Forgotten But Not Gone: An Answer to the Rising Assertion That There Is No Such Thing As the Forgotten Realm. -AB

[3] The fringe "art" of tattooing, or permanently  marking one's skin with pictures in ink,  can be traced back to the time from when stories of Summoners began to appear on record. In his work Struggling to Retain the Fantastical this scholar asserts that the two are quite clearly linked. -AB

[4] The examples provided are based on the legends of creatures known as Mythics and their asserted abilities. For more information, see Index 8C. -AB

[5] Of which very little remains, after the Great Purge of Useless Knowledge. This scholar searched far and wide to find the information used to create this work. For a complete list of references, please see Index 13. -AB

[6] Such phenomena have, in fact, been documented in several accounts of Summoners. See Index 13 for more information on these accounts. -AB

[7] Sadly, the document was found on its own with no indication as to its author or date of origin. See Index 12 for a full account of the validation of and a transcription of the referenced document. -AB