Busy, busy, always busy

First of all, I have a new book release, and it is nothing like my others. Elora Goes to the Moons is a children's book I wrote for my youngest daughter, who loves the Moon. I made a weekend project of flying the cartoon version of her through the Solar System. Several of my friends wanted their own copies of the book after seeing my fragile scrapbook version, so I scanned it, uploaded it to Createspace, received a beautiful-looking proof, and made it available in paperback on Amazon. It's handmade and handwritten, and it has a lot of fun little science facts throughout.

I've hidden my epistolary blog, Cavelost. Why? Because it's finished. I've done a couple of editing rounds on it, and today I uploaded the formatted version so I can get a print copy to do final edits and copyedits on. The characters have decided to expand upon their world and make Cavelost the first of a series called The Bacra Chronicles. I'll be starting the next book, Faelost, during NaNoWriMo. Cavelost is told by a former mercenary named Rin Sylleth, who wakes up trapped in a massive cave system. Faelost will be told by Rin's second son, Tessen.

On a sadder note, I lost my cat muse on Friday. Reno passed away suddenly during the night, and we have no explanation for it. Since he was young, only between 4-6 years old, the vet said it was most likely caused by a heart issue. We adopted Reno on Valentine's Day almost two years ago. He helped me out of the doldrums so I could finish writing Sand into Glass and editing The Crystal Lattice, and he sat with me through nearly every word of the three books I've written since. I'm in shock and I'm going to miss him tremendously. I keep expecting to see him lounging on his favorite chair and when I get up in the middle of the night, I run my hand across the end of the bed, expecting him to be there. It's difficult to write without him by my side.

The Web

The Web is the deity hierarchy of the Malora universe. There are fourteen primary Elements and many minor ones. Humans cannot see or interact with most of the Elements, but Tenjeri and some members of the Aulor-descended races can.

A note on Elemental merging: It would seem the Elements are inbred, and in a way, they are. This is often found in world mythology. 

“The Elements of the Web are not people, Velocity,” Verity explained. “They are Elements and merging for them is like creating new colors by blending paints and pigments. Inquisitive child, there is nothing sinister about that when it pertains to the immortal Elements." - from Mayfly Requiem

The Web

Eryagloris (Stars) - One of the center points of the Web, Eryagloris is thought of by Lani as more paternal and caring than the other Elements, possibly because he spends more time watching humans than the others. He manifests as a pale man with indigo hair and eyes. Temple city is Starfall.

Aucra (Time) - Eryagloris' mate is constant and unforgiving. She holds grudges for eternity and occasionally plays games involving mortals. She manifests as a young woman with red hair and gold-flecked blue eyes. Like Lani, her voice is rhythmic and verging on monotonous. She is often seen not as Eryagloris' equal, but above him and at the very center of the Web. Temple city is Meridian.

Omalara (Ocean) - Daughter of Aucra and Eryagloris. She is as turbulent and changing as her element, and can slip from kindly to raging in response to a touch of wind or cloud that is not to her liking. She often chooses to manifest as a water-toned Watersinger. Patron Element of the Mero and all mariners. Temple city is Wavecrest.

Aumua (Desert) - Son of Aucra and Eryagloris. Arden Masiona describes him as "Aumua crept into my mind like lingering sand after a swim in the ocean." Aumua brings a cloud of sand with him wherever he ventures and can transcend space in a similar manner to the Aulor Bethel. He is the patron of glassmakers, and has taken several mortals on as his apprentices. He is the creator of Dunewind and the Vin people, is the co-creator of the Thulan, and has a tenuous alliance with the Marglor (sand spirits). He manifests as a sandy-haired, tan-eyed man who cannot escape his cloud of dust and sand. Temple city is Dunewind.

Rima (Sky) - The androgynous child of Aucra and Eryagloris can become male, female, or anywhere in between depending on mood. Rima manifests as a slight person with long blonde hair and blue eyes. Rima's Kiedran equivalent is Palas. Temple city is Skyspire.

Affaji (Tundra) - Son of Aumua and Omalara. Affaji generally dislikes humans and holds a great hatred for Rassa, but he greatly respects Bethel. He created the Tenjeri and is able to interact with them, and later with the Masai. He employs winged wolves (Grikashk). He manifests as a tall Tenjeri with white hair and silver eyes, and the sound of bells follows him. Temple cities are Northwinds on Malora and Trieskel on Rikulon.

Velatari (Rain) - The son of Rima and Omalara is universally described as "boring" by anyone he has come into contact with. However, he is the focus of the epic poem Sing to Samiaya, the most acclaimed piece of Tenjeri literature in the world. He has been referred to many times in the Malora Series, but has yet to make a physical appearance. Temple city is Palmshore in the southern rainforests of Kira.

Maldalo (Plains) - Also known as "The Lifegiver", Maldalo is the daughter of Aumua and Rima. She is the bringer of the harvest and the patron Element of the nation of Maritor. She manifests as a human woman with golden hair, rich brown skin, and blue eyes, hearkening to the wheat, the soil, and the sky. She often walks the fields of Maritor, unseen by humans. Temple city is Fruithill.

Samiaya (Aurora) - Daughter of Rima and Eryagloris. Samiaya is beautiful, but elusive and inaccessible to many who prefer a warmer climate. She manifests as a teenager with bright, color-shifting hair. Temple city is Icelight.

Aksuvian (Mountains) - Son of Rima and Maldalo. Aksuvian is gruff in manner, but generally harmless unless you venture too close. He manifests as a middle-aged gentleman with gray hair and eyes. Patron Element of the Baku and the Drey. Temple city is Nighthollow.

Faloway (Forest) - Daughter of Maldalo and Velatari, twin to Sepitira. Faloway walks the forest much like Maldalo wanders the plains. She is jealous and unforgiving of those who maim her trees. She harbors a long-standing feud with Affaji. She has not yet made a physical appearance in the Malora Series. She is the patron Element of the Efi. Temple city is Moonhaven.

Sepitira (Wetlands) - Daughter of Maldalo and Velatara, twin to Faloway. Patron Element of the delta country of Anor. She has not appeared in the Malora series. Temple city is Reedwater.

Metalis (Rivers) - Daughter of Aksuvian and Maldalo. Metalis deeply loathes Bethel and advocates his death. She has not yet made a physical appearance in the Malora Series. Temple city is Riverbottom.

Uadiamore (Sound) - Son of Velatari and Samiaya. Uadiamore manifests as a chestnut-haired, dark-eyed young man (not the silver-complected infant depicted in Sing to Samiaya). Like Affaji, the sound of bells follows him. Temple city is Cascades.

Outliers

Paradox - No one is sure where Paradox came from. He is a mate of Rima and has been imprisoned by Aucra for many eons.

Kairen (Metamorphosis) - The androgynous trickster child of Rima and Paradox. Kairen usually manifests as a color-shifting creature vaguely reminiscent of an owl, but has been known to take human form to procreate with humans. Kairen makes a game of influencing people and even Aulors to do things they normally wouldn't. He is often imprisoned by Aucra, but just as often escapes or survives his own execution.

Taiga (Boreal Forest) - Son of Faloway and Affaji. Patron Element of the Masai following his release from Aucra's Elemental prison. Affaji claimed there are over thirty Elements on the Web, but little has been revealed of the outliers beyond the core fourteen.

Sebelra (Oblivion) - The sleeping abyss is the counterpart of Eryagloris and Aucra, the void between the stars. He sleeps on unaware of his own existence while the universe grows and shifts around him. Sebelra is the only thing Aucra truly fears, especially now that he is on the edge of waking from his calm dream world. Bethel long-believed that Oblivion's soul lived in Rassa, but Affaji confirmed Bethel's assumption as an error, so the abyss still sleeps for now. When Oblivion wakes, the universe will know.

Laatulya (Redemption) - this fallen Aulor is the guardian of the Evergreen Abyss, the underworld that receives the souls of the damned upon their deaths. Laatulya appears as a heavily scarred young man in a ragged robe. His physical condition depends on how recently Aucra has repaired him. He is frequently abused by Aucra to the point where many of his senses are stripped away, but his mind is still mostly intact. He is tasked to relive the crimes of the damned along with them, but he has never been very good at his job.

Aspects

Aulors - Time Children, the human-like offspring of Aucra and Eryagloris. They are the sentinels of the Web, sent to the world in human form to watch and interpret between cyclic cataclysms. As of the beginning of Arrow of Entropy, six Aulors have been named. They exist only in pairs, and are biologically immortal, locked in time as young adults.

Morazend - Wind spirits, volatile and vicious. "The Morazend are infinite in number, the zephyrs on the wind. They are the ones who howl through the trees and against the windows during storms. We shall not invoke them either, for they are volatile and wrathful." - from Mayfly Requiem. There is one example in the series of a Morazend soul in human form.

Thulan - The Phoenix is believed to be the offspring of Eryagloris and Aumua. Only one exists at a time and the Thulan can be born into any sentient race. Examples have existed all across history and have been included as characters or referenced in every book of the Malora Series. Upon a great upheaval, altruistic action, or turning of events, the Thulan becomes self-aware and transcends into an elemental form. The Thulan dies in this form and is born again in a new body. The Thulan's primary responsibility is to illuminate the world, either through destruction or through bringing light, depending on what is needed.

Velador - "The Velador are the children of water, a trio of many-fanged creatures concocted by Omalara, Velatari, and Metalis to avenge any who might unjustly fall dead into the waters of the world." - from Mayfly Requiem

R is for Rastaban

Asphodelus albus, a flower associated with the dead and the underworld, and the inspiration for the name Azfadel in The Crystal Lattice.  Source http://www.biolib.de/

Names influence perceptions of characters. If the name isn't just right, the author may have trouble connecting with the character. I ran into this problem with The Crystal Lattice. I picked a name that never felt right. Nine years after my original draft, I finally changed it and instantly became more comfortable. My narrator's given name is Tesji, which didn't change in the rewrites. However, his chosen name is now Ravaki (Ravi). It finally feels more natural, not to mention easier to pronounce.

A protagonist with a soft-sounding name is immediately perceived differently than one with a harsh-sounding name. An abrupt or masculine name invokes barbarians, warriors, and traditional heroes while a softer name brings to mind bookish introverts and brooding antiheroes. Tesji is intentionally difficult to pronounce (Tays-gee) because of the Mero phonetics. It is one more thing that makes him stand out from his peers, whose names are based on Japanese and Spanish phonetics. Partway through the book, Tesji undergoes an emergence, where he communes with the elements and discovers how to use his talents. This emergence results in a physical transformation in addition to a mental one. Tesji renames himself Ravaki, and society's perception of him drastically changes. He becomes stronger, more confident, and less of a target for bullies.

But, enough about protagonists. I am more interested in antagonists. I perceive antagonists with a hard sounding name as being physically stronger and more directly villainous, while a villain with a softer name is plotting, sneaky, or ambiguous. The name can influence the back story and motivations. Maybe that villain was bullied as a child because of his name and is still bitter about it as an adult.  He proudly wields the name as a war cry of, "You bullied me. Now I will bully you."

This brings me to Rastaban, an ambiguous antagonist with a massive amount of back story, which I am still exploring in Absolution. When I first formulated Echoes of Oblivion, I had a difficult time coming up with the perfect names for the Achara brothers. My other characters were easier. The Geophorians all had names specific to their talents. Lirit was a chirping bird, and to keep an "L" theme in her family, her father became the very proper Lucienus. Rhodren probably has the best story -- the Greek letter "rho" plus a backwards "nerd". Hey, I'm an engineer... I can find inspiration in odd places!

Sevilen's name went through several revisions, all starting with the letter "S" before I settled on a Turkish name meaning "loved". The name immediately clicked, and I chased it with the rhythmic Achara, which I hoisted from the charaven device in my already-completed first draft of The Crystal Lattice.

So, now that I had Sevilen, I needed his counterpart. His name needed to suit a villain who was not quite what he seemed. The character was both ruthless and sympathetic, paternal, agoraphobic, charismatic, and casually homicidal. He was the confident leader of an empire, but panicked if he had to set foot off the grounds of his home. His motives were unknown even to the person closest to him. His name not only described a person, but an entire empire and an ancient dynasty. I spent about a week trying to figure out who he was, and then, while looking at an astronomy book, something clicked.

Rastaban: Beta Draconis, the head of the serpent. Third brightest star in the constellation Draco. Everything about it was perfect, including the alternative name of the star, Alwaid, which either means "who is to be destroyed" or "lute player" (Rastaban is also a gifted musician, though he rarely plays in front of anyone except Aridani). Rastaban Achara Eryaucra, king of Ganebra.

Once Rastaban was named, his lore fell into place. Every king in the Eryaucra line now carried the -ban suffix, which I translated as "sun". The convention began two thousand years before The Abyssal Night, when Valariban Eryaucra ascended. I continued looking through the astronomy book, and Achernar and Mirfak became foreign monarchs.

Then, Aridani Eryaucra came along. I wanted to keep the cosmic theme, so I named him after the constellation Eridanus, the river. He was a bit of flowing freshwater in tortuous Ganebra. His nickname, Ari, has many meanings in many languages. Fearless (Armenian), eagle (German, Old Norse), lion (Hebrew and others), 'one who shows the right path' (Hindi), clear (Maori).  I'll let you find out for yourself what his name truly means within the context of Malora.

Winter descends

The leaves have fallen, the flowers are dead.  The air is beginning to chill.  There is a month left until the solstice, but it is already dark by 5pm and the season has switched from transcendental color to monochrome grey.

I miss the pines.  I miss snow draped over cedars.  I miss the sandy crunch of fluffy snow under skis.  I used to ski for hours through the northern forests, but there are no great forests here.  There are no cedars, no pines which were not planted by humans.  This place is grey and domesticated.  Its winters are slush and fluctuating temperatures, naked deciduous trees, gloom, dormant hibernating death.

The grey buries memories of blinding snow.  It destroys hope with an unrelenting, undulating despair.  The winters here are two months under desolate skies.  There are nothing but death and waiting seeds upon the plains.  The leaves drop, the wind blows, and the winter falls heavy with silent gloom and dormancy.

Northern Michigan winters are a far different beast.  They are not cheery, but they are bright, and the whiteness of the earth competes with a blue-grey sky and the snow triumphs.  Even at midnight, the bitter snow is bright.  It reflects the light of the moon, and absent the moon, it mirrors the stars and occasionally the aurora instead.  You can find your way through the forest by the light of the snow and still view the spectacular glory of the Milky Way above.  I used to go stargazing on the most frigid winter nights.  The sky was always clearest then.  The moon would hang resolute above the pines and the aurora would streak kaleidoscopic across the northern sky.  Twigs snapped, owls hooted, and the symphony of life accompanied the brilliant cosmos in an ambient duet.

There is no music in the winter dark in Kansas.  Life hibernates and the few sounds are urban and incidental.  It is dark so early, but the darkness is not illuminated by snow and galaxies.  Instead, city lights muffle the sky, and only the brightest stars and planets are ever visible.  The visible Milky Way is a myth, and any moving lights are planes and helicopters instead of potential UFOs.  Imagination is lost on urbanization.  The beauty of the universe is packaged and boxed and shown only in school texts and television documentaries.

It is not much improved outside of the city.  There are no lights and the stars return, but the plains are desolate and dead.  Trees are scarce, and they are skeletons instead of majestic evergreens.  They die every fall and are reborn in the spring.  Everything does here.  It snows, but not enough, and the snow is gone quickly.  Ice is far more common, and every snowfall is guaranteed to blanket a substantial layer of ice.  The naked trees are weighed down with it and often break.  Broken, tired skeletons, longing for a spring not soon to arrive.  Everything is wet and dirty, tired and depressed.  Snow becomes slush once grounded, slush becomes ice, ice melts to become mud.

I miss the water.  I miss spontaneous hockey games and skiing through the forest at night to find the perfect stargazing spot.  I miss the thick blankets of fluffy snow that last for months at a time.  I cannot go back to those memories.  There is nothing for me in Michigan anymore.  Some family to visit, but there is no future there, only past.  My present is here in Kansas, but my future is to be determined.  For now, I'm trapped between desolate winters and scorching summers.  The unending flatness is my home now and for the foreseeable future.  I gave up beauty for stability.  I do not regret it, but sometimes I miss it terribly.  Sometimes I dream of snow-painted evergreen bows but wake up to bare branches perched on a lonely stretch of ashen earth.  The northern forests call to me, but I can only listen and not respond.  The calls will remain unheeded for now as I prepare myself for another Kansas winter.