Blue Flower
If only we could find the power
Hey! Do you have a favorite smell?
At this exact moment while writing this newsletter, mine is most definitely coffee. I always feel a sense of calmness in the darkness of the black liquid. A familiar way to wake up and start another new week.
With or without a clouded idea in my head.
Mountain Journey
The Maneus Book Club has made it to Chapter 18!
At this point in the story, Lithan and Aubir have made it back down Talge Kimmet with the blue flower in hand. But where one adventure seems to end another soon begins.
Last week’s reading concluded on a bit of a cliffhanger as Rosnirei returns. She meets her son for the first time in over a decade in the busy market square of Rifcam. I’m not sure Lithan could have ever guessed what would come next.
Before getting too excited about the next few chapters, I want to talk about how great it was to see more people sharing their thoughts and feelings on Book II. The long trip up the mountain and through snow and trees with passionate comments and interpretations about the magic in the air.
As a bit of context and insight into authorial intent, Book II is broadly broken up into two journeys. The first being this mountain journey and the second being a journey to Maneus’ corner store.
For me, Lithan as a character exists in this space where he’s pulled back and forth between desire and destiny. One part lineage of the hero of humanity, one part pawn in the villain’s grander plan. In either case, the world he knew was not the one to which he belonged.
However, he can’t reconcile these contradictions. Lithan, son of Maneus, never stood a chance against the current of Dwolmarik’s river. Bold actors and actions far outside his knowledge and view.
He is young - in my mind in his late teens - and he hasn’t yet learned who he is as a person. The two journeys are then how Lithan finds himself. One exploring his desires, the other accepting his destiny.
Now, I may have written Maneus with these ideas in mind, but I strongly believe that what I may or may not have intended is less important than what readers find in the story.
Rather than wanting to impose my understanding and my will, I love providing a platform where everyone feels comfortable asking and discussing difficult questions. That’s where a lot of the more “philosophy textbook” feel of Maneus comes from.
I say this not out of some kind of artistic act, but as a way to overcome my own issues with my past. In clearer terms, the first time I really felt like I was allowed to express myself via more abstract philosophy, was when a professor friend of mine valued and listened to my opinion. When I was about Lithan’s age, I didn’t know you could do that.
I didn’t know people could care about my words without judging them.
As that same philosophy professor friend would often remind me, he can’t take credit for how I was raised. That strong desire to look into the details of why and how and not just memorizing the right ways to regurgitate the what comes from my family.
I can already hear my sisters groaning in contempt at the previous statement though. I will thus add that while we grew up in a house that valued that ideal, we very much struggled to nurture it.
So, it’s from a very personal experience that I feel like having an outlet for difficult questions is needed. We would never be allowed to directly and methodically share thoughts and reasoning behind the abstract concepts - the conversations at the forefront of Maneus.
I would go as far to say there was a certain dogma, albeit not religious, but the taboos halted any discussions and planted an assumed arrogance around moral questions.
On the rare occasions those walls broke down, it was because we could talk about things via some form of media. Something unrelated to current events and modern politics that examined what an idea could really mean. If you’ll allow the allegory, having the comfort of shadows to talk in the cave.
This was almost always Star Trek for us - and specifically Star Trek: The Next Generation. I suppose we owe a thanks to Gene Roddenberry for how well he made difficult subjects palatable to mainstream audiences.
I also believe that the general feeling of being uncomfortable discussing questions that may have no answer is relatively common. Everyone has opinions and most people are willing to talk about and even change them. They just won’t when directly confronted or when it is intimately connected to ego.
So seeing anyone talk about those complicated ideas Maneus hides in plain sight makes me feel like I’ve already achieved more than enough with my book.
49 Confirmed Orders
It’s been about two months since Demo Day. At the beginning of the latest Buildspace season, I said I wanted to sell 100 copies and it looks like I’m about halfway there.
It’ll be a while until I’m on the New York Times Best Seller list, but I’m making slow unsteady progress.
I think I’ll let the goal extend a while longer and see if I can or can’t reach that number of 100 by the end of the year.
Although perhaps the strangest bit of book selling news is that there is now a used copy on Amazon. Either someone is already trying to sell their copy or I sold enough to pull in the attention of a random reseller.
One of those sounds like a bigger sign of success than the other!
Let’s not worry about which is which. Instead, if you’ve enjoyed Maneus or my ramblings, please tell your friends to get their own copy on Amazon!
I’m fairly confident that my goal of 100 by the end of the year is entirely attainable!
Revification
I also wanted to share that I’ve started a smaller project. A few weeks ago, my friend Bashir tried to tell me about this thing called National Novel Writing Month. I dismissed it out of hand in an arrogant moral superiority.
I’ve known about NaNoWriMo for about a decade now. I thought it was stupid. Perhaps because of the way it so directly reaches for an abstract goal. That’s on me. So, I decided to get over myself and jump in.
The idea is - like so many other random months - a wave of hype fueled by a crowd attempting to achieve the same thing. In this case writing a novel.
Rather than simply being a snob and looking down at all the writers having fun, I’ve started a new project. I realized it’s okay if I don’t intend to finish. It feels much better simply being a part of something.
At worst, I’ll have a fleshed out idea for a new story.
Until next time.
Cheers,
John