Audio Chapter 2 of The Godward Sea: Warning - Emo, and Controversial in Nature

Chapter 1: Kosmos introduces Astrian the priest and minimally, The Moon King. Mostly, it’s about the City. Important place. I envisioned cities that could’ve stood in the Garden of Eden. There’s a lot of biblical language. Throughout Book One, I deliberately allude to the Books of Genesis, Enoch, and Solomon, as well as to the New Testament, to Greek mythology, Norse, and Celtic—all of which include scenarios similar to the controversial scenario in Chapter 2.

So onto Chapter 2: Promise.

Yes, I believe it requires a disclaimer because disclaimers reduce hard feelings and complaints. They let you know what you’re in for, and whether or not you might like to bail out. This novel is absolutely not Lolita--although I don't believe that novel to be a celebration of sexual indecency either. If my story is interpreted that way then it is misinterpreted.

2 was a difficult chapter to write (and narrate), mainly as I knew what had to happen. I had to play both the wolf and the lamb, and I had to make the analyticals ponder, which is which? Characters can and must be confused, contemptible, haunted or tainted by their past. Especially if they’re insanely beautiful and all-powerful.

It’s not my intention to define or analyze my characters’ motives, because that adds dimensions that I deliberately excluded from the book! One option for the audience is to postpone giving the entire body of work the finality of a generalization. “Oh, it’s about this.” No, no. Read on, and you’ll find it’s about that, too.

When you can only see the corner edge of an elaborate painting, it’s impossible to guess what the rest will look like. That said, if this chapter disturbs you, confuses, challenges, repulses—be patient that I will reveal the entire painting, and that there is a reason for every event and character interaction which contributes to the complete panorama.

It’s also pertinent to elaborate that no matter a character’s damage or wickedness, because I made them, I will adore them all the same. Characters can absolutely become your babies. You honor their traits, develop a sixth sense for what they will do, and are sometimes saddened by the route they do or don’t take.

I’ve tried to make the villains of The Godward Sea impossible to entirely despise, and entirely possible to empathize with; antiheroes, possibly? Characters with indefinite motives and endings with ambiguous resolutions allow an audience to theorize and rumorize and exercise and scrutinize. In this way, the story can resonate, maybe become a topic of discussion; even better, debate. That’s what I’ve tried to incorporate here: a godly character, beautiful and intellectual and tender-hearted, scarred by emotional and psychological wounds, making his wicked decisions thus. Of course, the ‘good’ heroes have their wounds as well, and then there are the damsels stuck between. But again, rather than me analyze them and enforce my opinions, I would have the truth be more personal and flexible. It will, hopefully, change based on individual perspective.

(As an aside, I’m a little more experienced with Windows Live Movie Maker now, which is both good and bad because the movie for Chapter 1 isn’t as graceful as the one for Chapter 2! Once my goal is a little closer in sight, I’ll return to Chapter 1 and apply what I’ve learned.)

  Audio/Visual Novel: The Godward Sea, Book 1, Ch 2 Promise, by TMA from Tanisha Mykia on Vimeo.

The Godward Sea Saga is an Audiobook

Before I start going on and on about how much I love these characters, how much time I’ve devoted to them bleh-blah, it only makes sense to present a synopsis of their story first. I don’t want to jump ahead of myself, but if I do it’s only because this is something I’m extremely excited about and proud of and swinging on cloud nine for because we finally completed the first audio chapter after months of collaboration and hard work and ideas—some failed, some successful, some forgotten or misconstrued; some completely spontaneous. And here’s the product, very near to how I dreamed it.

First, a basic summary of my motivation (a query, so to speak) and the synopsis of my novel, The Godward Sea. (Note: The “query” is written in the style of the novel so as not to mislead anyone who may or may not be interested!)

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Query and Synopsis
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The universe and its natural workings are intricate; so too the Epic Fantasy Saga of the Godward Sea, whereby a panoramic cast advances the plot of love and despair between gods, angels, and men. Book One introduces the concept of a sea of gods over mortals, a heaven divided into one hundred kingdoms, each respectively ruled. In the spirit of Greek tragedies, driven by a rebel god and his lust for earthly dominion, the saga of the Godward Sea is steeped in emotional drama and eroticism, subtle magic and flamboyant sin, swordplay and spirituality, politics and betrayal.

In the seductive City of Angels, amid an alternative retelling of the story of Adam and Eve, rivals take center stage--the One God Yeovah and his brother the All-Father Odin. But which is good, which is evil? Book One follows one god in his quest for love and the other in his debt to loyalty. Eve, beautiful and clever daughter of Odin, Princess of his earthly City, is torn between them. At the helm of an angelic army, as she seeks to unite a divided realm, her choice brings about the end of the Golden Age.

After years of soul searching, of studying old and new age theology, I came to a few mellow conclusions about faith, but was most intrigued by the unanswerable questions--and these inspired adult “science fantasy” tales: A sea of gods and angels, their obsession with mortals, the tragic results. A series came about. The Godward Sea Saga: Book One is complete at 104,000 words. Book Two, a sequel revolving around the same cast, is near completion. Three is in outline stage.

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Synopsis for The Godward Sea: “When you are fully aware of your own propensity for evil, you can sincerely turn it off ....”

War between divine kingdoms imperils Heaven, thus a dark angel journeys to Golden Age earth in search of her fugitive God to restore order. With her at his side, he regains lost memories of Heaven and spreads black wings thus to return. However, Odin the All-Father has other plans--namely, to rule mortals and fallen angels with his newfound wisdom. He rises to become the Moon King of Darkland, where Those That Leapt hail him as God for laying magic as the foundation of their new faith.

On the dawn of his daughter Eve’s coronation he presents a mind-reading jewel, the crimson Sphinx Rose, and asks her to exclude all men but him. He warns that if she forfeits her purity, the jewel will lose its magic. Hence, despite her blooming love for Astrian Zend, God-Prince of the Aeonikan Empire, she makes a promise to the All-Father.

Astrian Zend, a brooding priest, carries the holiest blade known to earthiankind, Oriadne. To all but Astrian--The Shepherd, he is called--it is heavy as a rooted oak. At the peak of Eve’s coronation night, dissent over Oriadne between Prince Astrian and the All-Father thrusts Eve headlong into an ancient divine feud. Scion of Odin, she alone must retain her right to his heavenly throne and outwit his cunning Nephilim lords who scheme to claim it. She will choose between her gods, and between Heaven and Earth, as the greatest era known to man suffers a violent death.

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A lot of work went into this audiobook project. What started out as an experiment kind of escalated until we realized we had about twenty-five hours of music and spoken word to edit down, splice together, and synchronize. I had to eat many, many lemon-honey cough drops in order to keep my voice after several hours-long sessions; Ricola were the least nauseating.

So far we’ve got nine chapters completed. After a few tweaks and edits—which is more time-consuming than it sounds—they’re good to go. We had to do this late at night, so I speak softly so as to avoid convincing the neighbors that I’m nuts. I’m lucky to have a musician/recording engineer in the family, and I’m wildly pleased with the result. Each chapter of the novel runs about twenty minutes, and there are thirty-seven chapters in Book One. That’s a whole lotta hours of original music and spoken word. It doesn’t quite account for the hours of mistakes I made, which probably should be released as a blooper reel at some point, if only to show that despite the dark, emotional severity of some parts of the book we had a ridiculous amount of fun.

Writers, take note! When you love your stories, devote yourself to them, stretch them and bend them into new shapes. Sure, this is just a simple DIY; it's also a way for you to control the promotion of your own work and pay homage to your characters, and if there's a following a way to give them a treat! For the curious, I used Windows Movie Maker for the video, Cubase for recording music and vocals, Photoshop for images, the Internet for everything else.


Audio/Visual Novel: The Godward Sea Trilogy; Book 1, Ch 1 Kosmos from Tanisha Mykia on Vimeo.

Liquid Story Binder: Favorite Writers' Software

 I wrote this article about two years ago right after I'd purchased the writers' software, Liquid Story Binder. Back then my netbook ran a dual boot with Linux Mint and Windows XP (I needed both operating systems for various nerdlinging reasons). Now I run a new machine that triple boots two Linux distros and Windows 7, and I’m still faithful at the church of Liquid Story Binder. I'm more familiar with the program now and absolutely still love it, and I'm not a shill like Dr. Phil. If something is good I report that it's good, go get it, tell your writer friends, the adventurous ones who like a little challenge. Some writers like their sticks and stones--a very basic and familiar setup, which is perfectly fine and has its definite uses--and some like a bit of glam. I use Liquid Story Binder enough to offer, hopefully, good advice to others who might appreciate the software as much.

If you buy the program in November, during National Novel Writing Month, it's half-off; at least it was the last couple years in a row. It's always free to try, no forfeiting credit card numbers or information. Just download the trial, give it a go if it looks useful. Some of the freeware I mention in the article below may or may not still be free; that is, they might now require you get the ‘pro’ upgrade. The only one of those programs I do recommend getting the pro upgrade for is WordWeb (see link below). Then you’ll have a very nifty dictionary/thesaurus in your Liquid Story Binder at a single click, and you’ll never miss Microsoft Word’s thesaurus. Irfanview (see link below), which is utilized by LSB to manipulate your images, is optional; you may already have Photoshop, which integrates fine. Or, if you’re using Linux—meaning you’re using Wine to run LSB, and I’ve tested that and it worked better than I expected—then you can use GIMP, which is also free and included with most Linux distros.

Okay, the article.
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Some writers rave about it. Others say it's overkill. Black Obelisk says the key to it is choice.
I believe all those things are true. Liquid Story Binder is, quite frankly, the sh*t. There are drawbacks, though. I admit  it was a complex little piece of software -- at first. I didn't understand its file system. I didn't even know where it put my books after it claimed to save them. I knew immediately it wasn't like any other program I'd ever used: a) it's gorgeous, b) it seems frickin vast, and c) it's only an 8 megabyte download.

For two weeks I played with it a little each day. The only thing I can compare LSB to is an operating system, a small one exclusively for managing and creating stories. Before LSB I wrote as slow as evolution. One of my books, an alternative historical, was such a P in the A. Historicals involve tons of research, cross-referencing, very little actual writing. It gets old. Now I keep all related references, chapters, images, etc in each "book", all neat and tidy and accessible in one click. I can focus on the premise of the book instead of burning out on the research. I can also pick up books or stories I haven’t worked on in a long time without feeling lost; all my notes, models, and all related imagery are there.

Please note: I did not say LSB improved my writing although, inevitably, writing more leads to better writing. Please also note: I am not advertising LSB and have no affiliation with LSB. Good writers' software is hard to find, and if it's good then shout it out I always say, thus this little demo/tutorial.

First, there's a difference between writers' software and word processing software.
Microsoft Word is a word processing program handy for correcting grammar and spelling with Auto-correct and Auto-format. Great for essays, research papers, proposals. Perfect for writers concerned with spelling, grammar, etc.

Liquid Story Binder XE, unlike MS Word, handles various file types. It does not correct your grammar. It facilitates your creativity by allowing extreme leeway to do whatever you like.
Some environmental differences between Word and LSB:

While Word runs on a "ribbon" menu that uses tabs--with such features as the "home" and "insert" buttons--LSB uses windows. Thus LSB feels more like an operating system than a program. This platform allows writers to click between various open documents/files, to link notes and ideas to respective documents/files, bring up references, keep organized lists, edit timelines, etc, etc in easily accessible files that can be edited, viewed, saved, whatever in a single click. 

One more thing. There are already some great tutorials online for LSB. The best source of information I've found is in the Help feature, located in the About menu. This is only a basic demonstration to show how I built my fantasy novel using LSB files. And to show those writers daunted by the program's many features that LSB is, with a little practice, a very sweet and writer-friendly program. At the very least, it's worth giving a shot.
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From the Library menu, choose Create New Book. Name it and, if you already have some in mind, type in any chapter names you want to create. Hit return after each title to create separate files. Then click Create New Book.

Don't worry about the parent folder; your book's fine where LSB wants to put it, which is in your Documents folder. If you change the book's location later on, say, to your Desktop, then the next time you open LSB your books will be missing. This is remedied by choosing View Library from Library and Adding Existing Books back into LSB.

Ok. I've created my fantasy novel, The Godward Sea.

If you like, go to Display on the main menu and select Wallpaper. Select Change Wallpaper. (Desktop wallpaper images are peachy because they fit the entire screen). If you like, tinker a bit with the Color Scheme from the Display menu. Choose from gradients, customize your colors, etc. Save the Scheme, name it after your book.

Here's my galactic Display.


Now I want to import an existing story from MS Word. Importing is different from Copy & Paste in that it will try to preserve the original formatting. From Shortcuts on the main menu I choose New then locate said file and save it as a Shortcut. The Shortcut will open in 'Read-only' mode. However, I can edit it externally (and save the edits at the same in LSB), but right now I am more concerned with transferring the content of this Word file into LSB. Shortcuts are also good for URLs to online books and articles.

Now I need to create a Planner. 'Planner' is LSB's odd name for a table of contents or an index. It's the key to my organization with a 120,000 word fantasy novel, two more behind it, 45 single-spaced pages of notes, 11 hand-drawn maps, 300 images, and even a playlist. If you love your stories that much, then LSB was made for us.

Choose New Planner from Planners to get it started. The first item has already been created and it's automatically named after my book, but I'd like to use my Planner as a table of contents so I'll change that to the name of my first chapter. I'll also put a little description of that chapter in the second textbox. Create more 'items' by hitting the new item button on the left. Save it for good measure.

 Create Chapters from your Planner by double-clicking on any of the new items you've added to it. If you've begun your novel in LSB, it might be a good idea to create a Checklist. It could be used to plot out the events in your chapter or for your entire story.

If it suits you (and it did me), create a Gallery. First, import your images into LSB. Go to Library and select Import Documents, then Import Images. My Gallery for The Godward Sea has several hundred images and photos that inspire characters, events, places, etc. Name your Gallery after your book. If you want to maximize one image at a time, double-click it. Or put all of your images in an animated slideshow if you like.

There are so many options that LSB can seem wildly complex at times, but keep Black Obelisk's motto in mind. LSB is about malleability and personal choice. You don't have to use every feature; they're simply . . . available. It's unnecessary to use all of them. Start off by getting used to the files that work best for you.

For instance, why use Timelines to chart events when you can use a Journal, which allows room for notes, ideas, or scenes? Or use a Journal to write as your character would if he or she kept a journal. Or record your own thought processes and keep little personal notes about your story like Poe did.

Vice versa -- instead of using Journals to chart events, try Timelines. These can be used to plot sagas or events that are extraneous to a main storyline, such as flashbacks that fall in sequential order as your main character remembers his forgotten past.

Next are Associations. Associations aren't as good as Listings (to me), but I will explain them because they do have their use. From your Planner choose File. Pick Associations. A dialogue will pop up showing the various file types LSB has to offer. If you choose Sequence for example, it'll ask do you want to make a new Sequence titled after your book? Yes. Voilá -- an Associated Sequence.

Associations are based on the names of your files. If my book is The Godward Sea and my Gallery is The Godward Sea, LSB will automatically recognize their Association. Open the Association menu at any time after creating a file like a Planner and you'll see that all the file types have already been named after your book. The text is gray to indicate that they haven't been created yet. Click one, and there it is.

 
No two people will use LSB the same way. There's no need to. It's like customizing a character class in an RPG; I don't want to go through the game using the exact same character someone else is using. I wanna play my way. That said, take everything in this "tutorial" with a grain of salt.

So, I have all the basics going for me now.

 
Click New Item (the little white piece of paper icon on the left) to start adding images to a Gallery. The images imported earlier are available for use.

Next are Listings. This is how you keep everything ultra organized. Once you create one and add all your relevant file types—your planners, builders, galleries, etc.—you'll open your book and all its goodies from it each time you start up. Put the files in whatever order you like, arrange it like a tree and have every file associated with your novel including images, songs, chapters, journals, etc., accessible from one neat and tidy menu.

And there you have it, the basics of novel creation in Liquid Story Binder. A few more points:
Formatting is of great concern to writers. Every publisher wants a specific format, each magazine has its own guidelines, your professor at school will only accept essays in Arial font, size 11. Worry not; LSB can do everything MS Office can do in terms of formatting, except more stylishly. However, depending on what kind of writer you are, that may or may not suit your needs.
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There are lots of features I've yet to explore that may be of use to others:

• The Character Generator. Haven't used it. My characters are 100% organic, born from daydreaming, drawing; sometimes they're parodies of people I know (and they are unaware of this). After I investigate the CG feature I might update this post.
• Auto-text and Auto Word Complete are simply luxuries. Much like in MS Office, you can set LSB to turn 'teh' into 'the', and 'htat' into 'that'.
• You can edit your story externally in another program like MS Word. Choose to do so from the main File menu. LSB automatically saves the document you were working on and opens it in Microsoft Word (or whichever secondary word processor you have).
• Download the freeware Irfanview to edit or resize your images for LSB.
• Download WordWeb (also free) and integrate its dictionary so you can right-click any word to access its definition with a full thesaurus and dictionary. WordWeb is also quite useful on its own, as you can, for instance, right-click any word on an Internet page and see definitions, synonyms, and so forth.
• There's a tool to record the revisions you and your critique partner have made on each other's documents -- Revision Marking.
• The Typewriter tool is for Notepad lovers. It mimics Notepad's full screen display to block out distractions. Eventually though you'll give in and customize. Don't knock distractions. They can lead to ideas.
• The Word Count monitor automatically sits at the bottom of every document file. The Timer begins as soon as the window opens. Right-click the Timer to pause it. Double-click it to change your goals or to check your statistics and see how much you've accomplished. I love this simple feature.
• When you're ready to print, page numbers are added. You'll have to adjust and edit your headers/footers in Print Preview. This is a little easier in MS Office, as you can format page numbers and headers/footers from the beginning.
• There’s more, but it all just sounds confusing without navigating the program first! A feature I use frequently is “Transfer Files”, which can be found on the main menu under File. This allows me to transfer files such as galleries, outlines, chapters, whatever into another binder. So essentially, if I’m working on a trilogy and I’m keeping all three books in three different binders but I’ve got all my character galleries in book 1, then it’s easy to transfer those galleries from book one to book two or three as well.

If You're Evil and You Know It

Tonight I stumbled -- and by that I mean searched for -- a certain writer's blog. Interesting things there. In one recent post he was addressing the fact that one of his readers -- of the 1st book of his trilogy which shall remain nameless -- insinuated that to write such evil heartless characters he too must be a bit evil and heartless. He went on to defend himself valiantly, stating that he didn't think thriller writers, mystery writers and the like were actually like the characters they wrote. 

 

....Which is funny, because....I always kind of thought they were. Neil Gaiman at times manages to write himself -- perhaps by injecting his voice -- into so many of his stories, and with a highly effective subtlety. I always imagine him as the Sandman (maybe it's just me), and Dave McKean seemingly lent The Dream King Neil's punk rock hair in homage. 

 

Jacqueline Carey's Phedre, in my mind, is poised like an avatar for the author herself. Her voice is so seemingly close to my ear that I imagine the tale comes from Carey's perspective, and although the tale is gorgeously obviously fictitious, there is enough of her voice in it to give Phedre a distinct human texture derived from experience, human error, love, etc. 

 

And let's not even get into Laurell K Hamilton, who (so I have heard) not only has a license to carry a gun in her purse -- tres girl power -- but somewhat looks and acts like her 25 year old serial-dating vampire-hunter Anita Blake. 

 

Octavia Butler blended techno sci-fi with young black heroines who suffered social injustices or who lived through abuses to tell; Charles Dickens famously wrote about himself and/or people he knew; Poe did the same; Orwell took themes of oppression and tyranny from society then blended in characters with his own -- at the time, very rebellious -- thoughts ingrained. Juliet Mariller is a Druidess, and all of her books center around Druids and ancient mystical rites and magic. Blake Charlton is an author who had to overcome learning disabilities, dyslexia specifically, to become an MD, and his character Nicodemus faces similar challenges, overcoming them the only way the author himself knew how, which he presumably acquired through personal experience.

 

And finally-- I made up the character Gianni with myself in mind, not the part about being a boy and getting ass-raped by da Vinci, but the part of him that felt crippled by his own mother and the jumpiness and aloofness he exhibited thenceforth. Also the way he refuses to trust the world, the way he questions the motives of everyone, yet will risk himself and spend himself to nurture the right person. We are too empathetic and we know what the cure is but we pretend we don't. I wrote me into him consciously. I was aware and that was the point; it made him authentic and it made him mine. 

 

What's the point. All authors write, to some extent, what they know, because you have to know about something rather intimately in order to write about it convincingly; either you have to have experienced it or you spend a great deal of time studying it to put yourself in your character's shoes. I studied the Renaissance period extensively, in and out of class, in order to capture the right feeling in Eye of Narkissos; ergo, I had to study one facet, and then derived the rest from what I've gone through. There are self-evident themes and thoughts and demons in my stories. I suspect they are in every author's stories, unless of course they are writing 500 word childrens' fables or Curious George books, and even then the monkey's adventures have to be based on something that someone either a) knows about personally, or b) studied to some extent. 

 

So, I feel like this author made a candy-coated pathetic attempt to deny his own evil, when he might have easily embraced it and pawned it off as- we all have tendencies, and writing is fucking art, and art reflects human nature. What about Bret Easton Ellis, author of American Psycho? He obviously put a personal touch on Patrick, perhaps even Evelyn, as he sculpted the David of sociopathic yuppie serial killers. No one cared how much of himself he put into it. It was controversial, it was genius, enlightening, maddening, and reflection: at one time or another we have all wanted to kill; if not, you are a slug or a side-dish veggie. What about Edgar Allan Poe? What about Stephen King? H.P Lovecraft? Harlan Ellison? That's why horror movies (like Saw and Vacancy) and violent videogames (most if not all are violent) dominate in entertainment, and Law and Order and NCIS and Criminal Minds are always on some channel at some time and probably on now as I type. 

 

I adore this author's work, honestly, and possess a great deal of respect which is why they remain nameless. However in my opinion, which this, my blog, is the enchanted land of, this author came off as inauthentic and graceless. He scuffed the human textures of his characters, so to speak, in an attempt to defend himself against one oddball opinion. You write a book about a villain, and of course you're evil inside; you've got to be. But inside. Where it's okay to think you're own thoughts and be yourself.  Perhaps I should be more upset with the fan, who posed the question in a near accusatory way. . . . Not sure.