So Time to Introduce the Gorgonus Clan

So where to begin... How about from the beginning;


The book I am writing is named Gorgoneion's Bane. The word "Gorgoneion" is the name for the Greek Apotropaic Horror Pendant which was used as a royal aegis and has been found on doors to jars. Sorta an early form of warding off the evil eye or negativity.


The planned number of pages for the finished book is 774 pages. And I plan to do a whole series of books each one from a different perceptive of each of the three Gorgon sisters.


The background or for lack of a better express what is going on the sleeve or back cover is the following:


"The Gods have had it with Humanity. First the mortals have forsaken their worship of the ancient Gods then they start to ravage our Mother the Earth, but the Gods have decided enough is enough and they are gearing up for another Titanomachy and this time it looks like it is directed at mortality. Hades and Tartarus has a huge overcrowding population problem while the mortals haven't  acknowledged the existence of the Greek Underworld in centuries that doesn't mean that their souls don't end up there after physical death. Charion's on strike, what else would happen when mortals get forgetful on the proper funeral rites to make sure they pay their own way across the River Styx not to mention the other four rivers in the Underworld. So what happens now? We do, we're the Gorgonus Clan, offspring of the great Titan Echindna.
I'm Medusa known to my friends as Medra and I work part-time at the Museum of Canada. Then there's my sisters --- Stheno an ancient Hitman...  opps Hitwoman and Euryale a Psychologist with no love for mortals. We are the Gorgons, yes that's right the true blooded half woman half serpent women who have a nasty habit of turning their lovers (and anyone else) to stone. Because our glamor hiccuped and turned our father to stone our mother exiled us up to the surface with a mission find out what the Gods are up to and destroy their plans anyway we can. Are we up for the job? not a chance in Hades but we are struck here. My old enemy Athena is back and she's out for blood particularly mine. So what's a Gorgon to do......"


So that's the basic background of the novel. The world that I have created is a combination of urban realism and fantasy with mythology thrown into the mix. In each series of the books I plan to introduce different deities and creatures from the different pantheons/mythologies.


That's all for now folks......

Characters, Settings and Realism

Today I was sitting at my computer, like which is usual routine had my cigs and coffee close to hand and after a quick check of email and Facebook both of those are such evil entities they are really bad for distractions mentally. Was about to plug in my writing playlist and had my ARC (Advanced Readers Arc well in this case Writers Arc) When I stopped cold in-front of my writing program and went shit I can't see my characters nor their setting its a blank! Sure I had pages of written material but the complexities that I had gotten myself into were beyond scary.
Then I remembered something my Grade 9 Creative Writers Teacher said in class: "Write what you know, your characters and setting will lack realism if you don't." Now your thinking this should be obvious and easy, Just you try it after 2 weeks of typing out characters and an storyline and making it flow and make sense so that an infant could understand it!
So scratching my head I said to myself WTF am I going to do I felt anger and all other emotions boil to the surface and an feeling of being in a leaky life jacket floating on shark infested waters with their shadows lurking below me just waiting to chomp on my ass. How do I fix this what? Do I gota scrap everything and start from step 1 my publisher would become an psychopathic serial killer that would make Jason Voorhees look like Mary's lamb.
I was at a lost of words and thoughts on what to do....
So the very first thing I did was take a couple of deep breaths then I plugged in my playlist and cranked Nightwish and stared at the computer screen... Still nothing.... Then I thought what if my characters lived in the same city as I actually did in reality... would it work for realism what if I changed the setting would I loose that realism. Taking literally the concept of write what you know I discovered to my distress that was more complex than I could image. I definitely couldn't even visualize the Gorgonus Sisters lurking in my actual backyard! 
So I began to panic then I had a simple thought They don't have to fit in exactly, besides it's not exactly none fiction that I am writing they can be inspired by events, places, people and even  personalities of house hold pets that I have had throughout my life. So with great caution and slowness I opened up my character background pad on the computer and copy pasted what I wrote of each of the three sisters to a brand new pad and stared at what I had written.
Then I had another what I would call Light Blub moment and rushed to one of my favorite places in  my house The bookcase. Many different Urban Fantasies stared back at me From Yasmine Galenorn's Otherworld Series to Jeaniene Frost's Night Huntress Series. I paused and grabbed afew of my favorites off the shelf and began reading.
I started reading a chapter here and a chapter there from a book here and a book there. Not reading for the joyment of engrossing myself into the storyline but looking at what some of my favorite authors had done creatively. Yes, like what my Grade 9 teacher said they wrote what they knew placing their characters in settings similar to their actual cities I know this because I checked the back of one of the books and noticed the city was the same as where she placed her characters. But I also noticed that my favorite authors were putting more description into their characters and that they were most likely using a heavy dose of creative licence for setting. "How could they get away with this?" I thought to myself and the answer was simple!
While a setting might be inspired by say for example the local coffee shop or the authors favorite park they didn't feel the need to become stuck in the black and white reality of those places and used them only as an very very loose frame to start off with.
The important thing to all my favorite authors were their characters, I had become lost in the framing of the concept and not in the creative process. It was at this point I felt like smashing my forehead against the computer desk. And looked again at my characters and got to work!


So a new rule I made for myself:
Don't be so exacting! realism will occur or it won't and if it doesn't scrap that area and start it fresh. Don't look at the little things too much leave that intil later on in a rewrite. You can lead your characters to water but if you haven't created the water to begin with they will drown in you the authors stupidity not in their own because they are neither intelligent nor stupid.

My Poem Book Excepts

Here are some excepts one from each book please note that this work has legal copy-right which I personally own via Lulu publishing


<< WARNING: The poem excepts are of an adult nature thus not for the kiddies read at your own discretion>> 



The First Book is titled:
Of Tisiphone's Seed and I published it exactly November 27th 2007 it sells for $12.96 through Lulu.com  here is an except piece from the book. (128 Pages are in this book)


I 
Underneath the blood red darkened sky
All along the Underworld's twisted way
The story told once again
Of Pan's sad sorrow and of his pain
One mortal's foll in a God's sweet dream
One venom-hearted queen of forest Nymph
This is a tale of their unrequited love
That's been written through the ages in blood's sweet tears
The Nymph smiles, Pan cries
Pan begs, but the Nymph denies
As night becomes light 
All his joy is fated to turn towards sorrow


Thus is a tale of a succubus of the forest shadows
A tale of Pan's love, pain and lust
His cheated heart and of the Nymph's the broken trust
And her death, and his death and of death itself


His ashes to Her ashes, dust upon dust
Where there's her love, there is his lust
Where there's a Satyr to give his heart
There's a Nymph to tear it apart
Where Pan's giving, the Nymph is taking
Where's the Nymph is faking, Pan's heart is breaking
Where he places his trust deceit's rises her head upon his love unbound
Pan's dream becomes his nightmare of a forest Nymph's treachery



Thus is a tale of a succubus of the forest shadows
A tale of Pan's love, pain and lust
His cheated heart and of the Nymph's the broken trust
And her death, and his death and of death itself


To his sweet despair the Nymph shall take Pan
A shadow of his pipes she will make him
Before Pan's love, his open grave awaits
For on his wrist, her razor blade waits
Young Nymph, hang your head and cry


The above poem was inspired by a dream I had of Pan and being lost in a dark nightmarish forest watching events around me of Satyrs chasing Nymphs.


The Second Book is titled: 

Megaera's Storm and I published it exactly February 1st, 2008 it sells for $14.47 through Lulu.com  here is an except piece from the book. (101 Pages are in this book) <within this book I also Titled the poems individually instead of just using roman numerals.>

Lost
Lost stone found far from time, numbness there gives in to swollen bone laid there
Incarnated flesh found of wood's ash smoldering there
Young flesh of cold flame so pure in corpse's light
Lost and found in a coffin's beloved velvet found there.


This short poem was inspired during a commercial break while watching the zombie movie Dead of the Dead. 


The Third Book is titled:
Alectos Scream and I published it exactly June 13th 2008 

it sells for $12.95 

 through Lulu.com  here is an except piece from the book. (69 Pages are in this book) 

<again within this book I also Titled the poems individually instead of just using roman numerals.>

Moonlight's Seduction

Clouds of parting way give lights shadow of a full moon
Its light that seeks for those chosen souls
Streaming breath of that dark wine from the severed bowl of sky god's genitals hung up high
That shall give life to those eternal temptresses
She that has become known as the whore of shadow's shades thus seen with the naked eye
Winged women of darkness born of the sex of the full moons light
You shall see their faces under that cold darkness mask of night
They bring beauty out into darkness's cold light
Full moons scroll of erotica found under those dark languid moans
Their performance becomes a dance of dark seduction on this cold moonlit night
They call to her to join their lesbos desire and dance and sing within that moonlit night
You fall in the warm grave of their temptation found there
And shall forever lay as dead stone upon the wet ground
And call down those willow branches to play amongst the orchids that are laying with you there
Those winged women dance around your naked flesh
You forever feel their fingers as they fondle your virgin places found naked there
You tremble there in the embrace of their temptations to your body as those dark winged women undress your flesh laying there
And as their dark queen comes forth she does throw off that is of a black dress dark as night
She shall stay upon her knees about your face
For your sight you shall see her dark seductive sexual hole
That dark mistress does lay down upon your body there and in her embrace your thighs shall become in cold heat of her flaming lust
And your feeling there shall feel her tongue as she licks slowly down to your blood filled clitoris there
Of a lick you do to match with her tongues sweet moan and bring cold orgasm of her full moon's dark light
Moonlight that shall light that orgy of those winged women that are bewitching your tender flesh found there bare
Your sight is unable to feel how their greedy mouths shall suckle upon your flesh
Your sightless pain shall flow sweet as that hot bloody wine of your naked sex under the moonlight there


This poem was inspired by several things all at once from a minor scene at the beginning of the Van Helsing movie where the Vampires flew towards the windmill and from reading Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla while hanging out in a used book store.


The Fourth Book is Titled: 
Morvoren's Shadow and I published it exactly January 28th 2009 it sells for $16.50 through Lulu.com here is an except piece from the book. (77 Pages are in this book)


Rain Chaos Call
Oh God of the Rain that calls your reflection of the Gods call to a lifetime of mortality that is not considered mine
Alone and empty she sits upon the throne of your astral belief
Singing harpy sings that chorus of suffering within mortality's grief so much like sand
Upon the anvil of this chaos of the Rain God's smile
That ultimate silence that comes within the quiet chaos of Gods
They have cast to lose their guidance of mankind
Rise the volume of the Storm God's laugh
Raise those chords of Rain God's smile
That dark age has come for the fight of those Elemental Gods
Preparing for a world that the Goddess has declared to be of woman's lust in rain and sand
Revenge mortality seeks of the heights of the Gods above
Upon the anvil of this chaos of the Rain God's smile
That ultimate silence that comes within the quiet chaos of Gods
They have cast to lose their guidance of mankind
They knee before her that cast her creation of this their mortal world
That ultimate silence that comes within the quiet chaos of Gods
Gifted with the silent mind and Goddess heart beyond her immortal soul found there given to you in the voice of your world of uncontrolled suffering lust
Liar voiced of your humanity that breeds chaos on the un-astral plane
Your mortal life of physical war and your lies of control of the natural plane felt inside of you so dark and silent sound
Living Goddess ignored inside your sacred soil
Tasting of my soul that you'll see in flames that this your sacred Goddess has given in her rulership of this your world
Only your most ferocious dreams come in their freedom that your Gods have given thee


This last poem except was inspired by watching Discovery Planet and the series Daily Planet which was talking about Population Problems in that episode I can't specifically remember the name of it.


I value any comments that you my blog followers wish to make!

Poetry is it worth anything in the 21st century

There are so many disciplines within the literary world but the comments I overhear the most (usually while I'm haunting a local Chapters bookstore) is on the Discipline of Poetry. It has been my life experience that novice authors (and even I fell to this pitfall) think that this is the discipline to start with to get literary experience. Nothing can be further from the truth!! 


We in this electronic, none emotional attachment to the written word society are along way from the Elizabethan Age of Poetry! This is perhaps the most difficult of the disciplines not to write poetry itself but to get to have it noticed by mainstream society at all. I have never checked on the sales of actual poetry books within bookstore chains but I would suspect that books in this genre are not be carted by the cart load up to the cash register.


So this brings me to the question which I have titled this posting; Does Poetry have a worth within the 21st Century? With the experience of nothing having just 1 but 4 Poetry books on the market (self published through lulu. More on lulu later) and having sold no more than a very conservative handful of books (even kept lowering my price) it is my personal opinion that other than a creative excise with the use of words and visualization that Poetry isn't worth alot in the 21st century.


Now I am definitively not saying there are not good poets and poetry out there. There is, but its a very selective market. This is not a discipline to start within if you are going to do this for even medium market sells try another discipline! But like I will always say Don't let me or anyone else stop you from discovering any of the disciplines including this one. Your experiences could be very easily different than my own!


now onwards; within this discipline I stuck to something with is close to my heart my spirituality. I have always written poetry easily, however my expression in this discipline I would have to describe to the novice as influenced by Dante Alighieri who wrote his poetry within an Act expression. Don't worry gang my poetry isn't in Latin! LOL. Another difference where Dante's poetry broadcast his strong Christianity and expressions of that belief form mine broadcasts the Old Wisdom (Paganism) across the Pantheons (not specific to a single Pantheon). I named the titles of 3 of my poem books after the three Greek Furies and the fourth I named after the Mermaid or some say Nightmare depending on the classification.

The Constricts of Characters

I have often looked at a book, movie, TV show and looked at the characters within and gone ok that's a good character that character the writers didn't use loads of intelligence when they thought it up etc. This thought pattern comes naturally to me and I do realize this doesn't happen with everyone especially those writers who are just getting started with writers concepts. So I thought I would do a food for thought posting for my blog on this subject.


Lets start with before you get your good guy (Protagonist) and your bad guy (Antagonist) your mind is full of probabilities for characters. So let's start with 3 well known type of  characters specifically in the movie genre: The Werewolf, The Vampire, and The Zombie.


1: Werewolf: Accept for the Underworld movie and the Twilight movie series this character has not had alot of "showtime". The makeup of weather the character is a protagonist or an antagonist is usually used in the format of balancing out the story, this is especially true within the Twilight series (referring purely to the movie series btw). Within the Underworld series they were the precieved Antagonist especially in the first film where you had the death-dealers and lycans explained as opposing forces. What surprised me here was (in my opinion) the writer of the Underworld series actually started to deepen the werewolves in his storyline moving away from the vampires and accept for the specific main character Selene the storyline became more of a werewolf vampire love story. <<getting back on track>> It has been my experience that werewolves are either Antagonists or Transplant type characters. Heres food for thought (to my knowledge there hasn't been to date a movie or TV series where the werewolf is portrayed as a Protagonist to even the neutral level of the Selene vampire character.


2: Vampire: From Dracula to The Vampire Diaries this character has been used from the Protagonist to the Antagonist and everything in-between. This is good but recently I've noticed a total lack of creativism not just in the creature concept but in character design. The "oh ok we have a vampire in our story it will have two fangs drink blood either fly or not be in sunlight for a limited time (Moonlight Series)" mentality. Which I'll go as far as saying will kill the attraction to any genre that has this type of character in. If I was to use a vampire in a story myself I would pay more heed to the character make up not of the supernatural aspects of the character because those will be self explaining as soon as the reader reads the word "vampire." For an example how could a vampire character who say was around during the Ancient Roman Empire affect history? Or what expressions would that character have going through that said history there is alot of room for character interaction and emotional expressions between the Vampire and other characters that cross their path.


3: Zombie: Now this is a character which really isn't a character. In my opinion they not even technically the Antagonist even in movies like Dawn of the Dead, Dad of the Dead,etc. I personally call them "Theates" a represented danger to both Protagonists and Antagonists within whatever storyline they are in. Now having said that the closest in my opinion that the Zombie has come to becoming a character was the weak attempt in Resident Evil movie series. This character format could work well in an Antago-Protagonist concept for example instead of doing Zombies chasing humans turn the situation around from a different angle the Zombie's individual perspective. Remember don't just go with the usual rule of (especially with zombies) that they are Undead with no intelligence. Be creative and give them some the character creation is your the authors domain and there are few rules to it.


So to all you novice writers out there Think Creatively! Don't just pick up where other authors left a character format! And most of all Think OUTSIDE THE BOX!


Thats all for now folks!!

Welcome One And All!!

This is my attempt at a very basic authors blog! The concept of this blog is to share with you the reader the Ups and Downs of writing. To outreach with other authors and poets that I know. To talk about some of my work in process, and recommendations for the struggling author and poet.


Your first question is probability what does Aaru mean? In the Egyptian Book of the Dead it is what the Egyptian Paradise is named. In my novel series it is the coffee shop and pub for my Chimera character. So there you go question answered so I dont get swamped with questions on what does your title mean?


This blog is not a step by step how to publish guild! So don't expect that! But having said that one of my goals is inspiration and information sharing so do with it as you wish! Those of you that complain about the red font live with it! Your welcome to ask me questions but don't expect me to answer ever single question in a timely manner I get extremely busy writing and that's just the way it is again live with it!