Behind the Society: The Characters Less Mentioned

For Part Three of my little Escape Day Celebration, I'm sharing a little more about the Characters we meet in Fore Shadows: Escape 2169....

Character Spotlight: Tollack - The Elder

Fore Shadows: Escape 2169 was public on Writing.com first. (Most of what I write starts there.) Over the years, I've had all sorts of feedback on my writing - good, bad, soul-crushing - but, I think my favorite comment on any of my work, to date, was simply "I love Tollack!" I knew I'd accomplished my task.

See, when Sam first learns of the Society in the Shadow of Civilization in The Shadow Watcher, Tollack Pennington isn't so lovable. Having put himself in control of the world her grandfather founded, Tollack is less than thrilled to see Sam show up, because, as Samuel's heir, she could challenge his position. And she does.

What Sam doesn't know is the complex, centuries-old history between Tollack and her family. As her grandfather's best friend, Tollack was more than just one of the founding members of the Society - he was Samuel's most trusted confidant. But the Elder Sam meets is a bitter, jealous, power thirsty dictator. So, how did he go from Earth vacation fishing buddy to nemesis? Yes, it has something to do with a woman ... or two. At least, that's part of it....

Happy Groundhog Day! (Thank you, Phil. We'll take an early Spring, happily....)

It's been quiet in my little corner of the webiverse lately. Okay, more like silent. Except for the choir of crickets singing. Do you hear them? Oh, and the wind from this last storm system howling like a rabid pack of wolves for the last three days - that was exciting.

Snow blew in with the pack for about forty-five minutes Sunday. It wasn't cold enough to stick, but just enough to run around in and have fun with the kids. It also brought a mountain of tumbleweeds to our backyard, which was not as much fun. (Picture this multiplied by ten.)

Society (in the Shadow of Civilization) Talk

I've been on a break from the Society since A Shadow in Doubt. Mostly. The timelines, the hopping, the Fore Shadows, and the events unfolding were making my head spin. I have scenes, little bits and pieces, scattered about all over six hundred and seventy some-odd years now. Sometimes the best way for me to stitch the pieces together is to step away and come back later, with a fresh perspective.

So, I wrote something else for NaNoWriMo again this year, then let my brain turn into jelly for most of December. Now, it's eight days into January. Time to get it back together!

November News: Aliens and an Interview

November? Already? Where did this year go? It's day six of NaNoWriMo, but only my third day of writing. I'm close to hitting par for day three though, and I'm about to dive back in...after I write a quick post...

The idea for this year's attempt came to me a while ago. All I really did with it was write some notes about the two main characters, and a few paragraphs of a scene. Then I tucked it away in my treasure trove of story sparks,

Character Spotlight: Adjatay - Keeper of the Tree

(Spoilers, maybe? Be warned....)

Sam first meets Adjatay in The Shadow Watcher, and visits him again in A Shadow in Doubt. Though Adja's appearances are brief, he is a key figure as the keeper of the Flamella tree.

According to www.babynamespedia.com, the name Adjatay is of Cameroon/African origin, meaning prince". It was meant to be; in my head, Michael called him Adja, before I even started looking for names. 

Adja was taken in by the Society in the Shadow of Civilization in the mid-eighteenth century, and in recognizing the purity of his soul, he became a sort of spiritual center for Samuel, and later Sam. It takes a special kind of person to live alone in the jungle for more than a century, without going bananas.

Midnight Rambling On Nightmares: Horror Flicks, Ghosts and Aliens ... Oh, my!

When I was little, I had nightmares. I know, kids have bad dreams, but, these were terrifying. They were REAL.

I'd rather get some action in the first chapter...

That's not what I meant! But, now that I have your attention....

Final Front Cover Art, and First Chapter!

Time is capricious.

Sam's story continues - look for the first chapters on or Writing.com!

Is there a light at the end of this dark cave I've crawled into?

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like without all of these characters in my head, chattering away, nagging me to let them out.  Quieter?  More organized?  More focused?

Starting out, I just scribbled poems and stories for myself.  It was my therapy of choice.  Then, there was the first main character.  I was only concerned with building her world, at first.  And that world kept getting bigger and bigger....

I spent too many years working too many hours at a job that left me too exhausted to focus on writing, so I feel like I'm way behind in the game.  I've read more articles, essays and blog posts about the craft, the business, the art, the culture, the trends, and the futility of a writing career than I can count.  At some point, it all starts to bleed together into one big sign that screams Do Not Enter.  But those are my favorite places to go!

Despite the seeming pointlessness of trying to write books, fictional novels more specifically, I foolishly decided to listen to the characters who wouldn't stop talking.  Now, there are six distinct worlds in which I write.  But the more time I spend in them, the more I feel like I'm burrowing deeper in a cave.  The world continues to revolve around the sun, and I'm here in another one, trying to give it life.

At any given time or place, a large portion of my mind is somewhere else creating scenes, characters, stories, and sometimes I drift over there.  It's not intentional.  I don't mean to be inattentive.  It's just the embers of a story in my brain never completely go out.  The flames may die down, for months and years at a time, but the characters and their worlds are always with me, smoldering.

Do we all seek a light at the end of the tunnel?  I don't know.  For me, finishing a novel, and going through the process of self-publishing isn't enough.  I don't see a light.  I didn't expect The Shadow Watcher to climb any lists, and it hasn't, because no one knows who I am, or that it exists, really.  Not beyond you, reading my blog, those who've seen posts on Facebook, and family and friends who I've shared it with.  But now that I've gone through the process, I know what to expect, and I'll move through it more quickly with the next book, and the one after that.

All I see are more books that need to be written.  I'll worry about the light later....

I hope you're having a beautiful day!
Roari

Side Notes Turned Stories

Here I am blogging again, when I should be editing the sequel to The Shadow Watcher - which I keep calling The Shadow Society, but I already know that's not what the title is.  It doesn't work, at least not yet.  I'll worry about that later.

What's really distracting me?  When I started The Shadow Watcher, I had no clue what I was getting myself into.  The idea was to get away from complicated histories and such - I've got enough of that going on in the Isiterra universe.  I needed a break!  What started with two people meeting in an alley, having a strange conversation, evolved into a complex cast of characters with widely varied goals and motivations.

Those two people are still the core of the story, but I found the need to explore some of the other characters more, because their goals and motivations are equally important.  I've already written some short pieces I'm calling "Fore Shadows" - stories from Future Sam's perspective and from Michael's.  I'm saving the first one for after the second book, possibly will include it at the end.  Probably.

Kristoff wasn't supposed to become a main character, but he's becoming one of my favorites.  He was going to die in the attack, but I couldn't let him.  But, there's another book, so no one's safe!  I spent a couple days working out his back-story a month or so ago, which made me like him even more.

And, yesterday, I started on Tollack Pennington's story.  I knew it vaguely, but when I got into the exact reasons behind his resentment of Daniel Marquet, his best friend's son, things got interesting.  I spent too much time goofing around on the internet, but I did nail down some dates and locations that were still floating somewhere in the general fog of back-story.  I also got a much clearer picture of Samuel's life from 1513 on.

Those will be the future installments of "Fore Shadows."  I was going to include them in the sequel to "The Shadow Watcher", but I think they slow down the plot.  They'll make for interesting reading, but won't be central to Sam and Michael's story.

Well, that's what I've been up to, but now it's pool time.  More writing after the sun goes down!

I hope you're having a beautiful day!
Roari

The Wrong Characters Are In My Head!

All day, while procrastinating with blog and Facebook posts, I've been trying to work on "The Shadow Society" - but I can't get in Sam's head today.  The most progress I've made is deciding The Shadow Society won't be the title.  Those words may be involved, but not in that order.  I don't know....

Instead of editing, I've been thinking about "The Land of All But Forgotten Things,"  I wrote lyrics to an imaginary song in my head, and then there's another character - Kaylie/Tah - who woke up today for some reason.  She's been out for well over a year, and then all of a sudden, here she is babbling away about her past lives, and their relevance to the story.

Charlotte Fairgrey has been bugging me as well.  And then there's Aria, and the whole world there on Isisterra.  It's past time to go back there.

There's a lot on my plate, but the sequel to The Shadow Watcher is what's coming next!

I hope you're having a beautiful day!
Roari