Chapter II - The Great Wyrm

A few years back I was staying its my cousin in Bristol, and it was there that Castelmaine took on its true form. The city is an amalgamation in my mind of the British cities of Bristol and Canterbury. Canterbury for its winding streets and wonderfully fantastical architecture, and Bristol for just about everything else.

I had spent a morning first having a breakfast and ale at the local Weatherspoons, then had seated myself first on a grassy square in the shadow of an old university, surrounded by students, and then later in a grassy park near to a fountain. It was on that day that the Universities and Colleges of Castelmaine were founded in my mind, and immediately thereafter came the dragon Mozu-Beric, one of the three founders of Castelmaine, and the head of Berican University. For some reason, every time I write her lines, I hear Dame Judy Dench, and I think this is one of the reasons I love the Mozu-Beric character.

I once wrote some awesome scenes for her before and during the war that detail her earlier adventures and how she came to be sequestered in an eyrie at the top of the highest tower in the Glimmering City, atop her own university. But that is another story for another time. I hope you enjoy her character as much as I love writing her.

Chapter II - Gideon and Folk

I hope the pace is beginning to pick up a little more now. Pacing can be really tricky sometimes when writing. Of course, when reading over your own text, it's really easy to just read it really quickly. Certainly, I find it really quite tricky sometimes to get the pacing just right, or rather, to tell if the pacing is just right. 

Like most things in my writing, I just go in blind. Ultimately, I tend to write as it flows off my fingers and onto the screen (or paper if I'm doing it traditionally) and then maybe go back and tidy up minor details, perhaps correcting some punctuation or spelling, or tweaking a word that I realise I have used entirely too many times within one paragraph. These often slip through, but I prefer the raw writing style to something heavily edited and clipped. 

Again, comments are always gladly received. It's nice to know that people are getting any form of enjoyment out of my writing.

Chapter II - At the Brazen Boar

Having had a brief glance at some of the lands just outside of Castelmaine's walls (well, 'just' is a relative term since it's a good twenty or so miles across the northern bridge to the Twin Sentinels), this entry explores further afield and delves a little into the recent history of Evalaria, directly that of Auden Marr.

I'm really enjoying Marr's character, he's a new creation this time around for Evalaria, and he's not what I think a lot of people would expect him to be. There's a lot more to him than I'm willing to reveal at this juncture. 

As an aside, the Brazen Boar is based on a tavern I once frequented in Bristol when staying with my cousin. The tavern was 'The Hatchet' and it was a truly stunning public house, very old in its architecture. A lovely evening was had there, and now every time my mind need to create a tavern, WHAM, it's the Hatchet that comes into my mind. I've always been fond of taverns and public houses for their storytelling elements. As buildings, I find them fascinating and often beautiful and full of history. I find something quite poetic about them being the gathering places of stories.

Chapter II - Horrors In The Night

Now we move onto Chapter 2. Hopefully the scene has been set enough that the reader is familiar with Castelmaine, the surrounding lands and has a general feel for the world of Evalaria. I'm hoping that readers have a few questions as to the nature of certain characters and their motives, certain events that have happened and interest piqued. Now it's time to start raising some more questions and upping the pace. 

This section was a lot of fun to write, as I get to reintroduce one of my personal favourite characters, the nameless man in the first section, and I get to write about something truly disturbing. Again, I'm not great at description, and I'll never live up to the likes of H.P. Lovecraft when it comes to horror, pacing and suspense, but it's fun to try regardless. I hope it comes across, and that you enjoy the effect.

As they say in theatre, on with the show!

Chapter I - News From The North

Here I introduce the world outside of Castelmaine, and some of the creatures and goings on within and without. There's a lot of names in here, of places and of creatures. Some of them are explained within the text, but for now, it's probably also worth mentioning and explaining some of the others. They'll appear later in the story, and knowing about them now probably isn't important, but hey.

Vali are sheep like creatures that are kept for their wool-like fur, and eventually their meat, which is more expensive than many other meats due both to it's sweetness and the fact that the creatures are long lived and never killed solely for their meat. Geruun are sort of a mix of oxen and horses. They're used by the military (especially the Huszari) as mounts, and as cart-pullers by the rest of the world. These are fairly common beasts. Rakka are vicious predators, which I won't spoil here, and Muren are giant locust-goats typically found much further west than Castelmaine.

Again, I hope the descriptions are ok, not too clunky, and that the text flows. It can be hard trying to introduce concepts and places without the characters being there or seeing it, but at the same time, sometimes you just can't go there yet, but need the reader to have knowledge of it. I hope it works.

Chapter I - The City of Castelmaine

In this installment, I show you the layout of the city of Castelmaine. I hope I got it across well enough. It's essentially a pizza that has been cut into quarters, with a tower at the middle. This whole arrangement is in the middle of a flooded crater. It's a bustling city, something I've never been too great at describing with my usual style of writing. I'm not a great descriptive writer. I usually prefer to just lay out the basics and let the reader fill in the gaps, but with this I'm trying to be a bit more descriptive than perhaps I normally would. I hope it's not too weirdly written.

For a long time I pondered on how to introduce a minotaur as a main character. I needed to make sure the readers understood that I meant 'minotaur' literally, not as some kind of term, but at the same time, I didn't want to give a huge description of exactly what I meant. For me, it's important that the reader understands what is 'natural' (insofar as the word can be applied) in a fantasy world. I felt that a large and detailed description would bog down the prose and detract from that feeling of 'norm'. Again, I hope I managed to get it across okay. 

I will sit down and write a decent chunk at some point - since getting back to Epsom I've not had much time to kick back and get on with it. As always, feedback and comments are greatly appreciated. I hope you enjoy it!

Chapter I - In The Beginning

What follows is the first draft of the opening paragraphs of a story set in the world of Evalaria. In these paragraphs is detailed the creation mythos of the world, and the events that would bring about the two Cataclysms that the peoples of the world would come to call the "First and Second Coming of Blackfire". From this, we then enter Evalaria through the city of Castelmaine, a metropolis of magic, academia and commerce, and are introduced to a couple of the main characters, Gideon and Folk.

I hope you enjoy what you read here - comments are greatly received. I will continue writing and post anything as and when I deem it complete enough for viewing. Please note that all posts are subject to change, and though I deem them viewable, may not be entirely complete.