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... I had been trying not to think on it for several weeks now, but we would soon be leaving this place. Having been found to possess the gift of magic and upon completion of our apprenticeships, the king’s law commanded that we promptly place ourselves at the service of the mage’s guild. Master Chadwick had declared us journeyman aspirants over two months ago now, and yet we had found reasons to linger. With the imminent arrival of the caravan tomorrow, the last of these justifications was removed, and his majesty’s mandate could no longer be safely ignored... Dark forces are on the move against the kingdom of Osten, but they hadn't reckoned on the wild new magic of Westarbor! Join the merriment as Lucas and his quirky cousin begin their sojourn to the mage's academy at Conclave. There will be further mayhem and intrigue, fantastic creatures, riotous conflicts and an assortment of new characters both odd and endearing as two young wizards take to the open roads. Notice that chaos has had a facelift =====> This smaller rendering doesn't do justice to the stars in the night sky, but rest assured it is glorious when the milky way is painted across the book's jacket! I left up an image of the prior cover at the bottom of this page for old times sake. Fun Fact: The way I've named the chapters is somewhat inspired by Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" of which 'The Miller's Tale' is among the most notorious.
Language As with my prior novel, I try to keep a PG rating overall, but do include a (little) bit of romantic tension and some off-color topics. There may also be some rather brutal violence. For this I remain unapologetic and I do not believe you will find it to be gratuitous. Music Hath Charms I couldn't rightly write a chapter entitled "The Minstrel" without having a song or two. And although I'm handy with lyrics to known melodies, I wanted to be able to publish them. One morning a unique melody was running through my head as I sat on my porch feeding the birds. I struggled to retain it. I picked out the melody on my piano: CCF, CA, ChiC!, etc...and called my sister, Terry Thorman. Terry teaches music and is a certified music therapist. She help me to arrange notes on a staff with the timing I had envisioned. Afraid I might have unconsciously plagiarized something I had once heard, I searched the internet to make sure that wasn't the case. The closest I found to some of the note and chord progressions in my piece was the theme song to the TV show, "Dallas". I breathed a sigh of relief that this was sufficiently dissimilar to my own tune. Within a few days, I had purchased a software package called "Forte" . After much research, I had determined that the musical trio of the caravan in my book would consist of: 1) A Lute 2) A Recorder 3) A Vielle (similar to a violin) 4) A surprise extra musician (no spoilers here) This was my first attempt at musical composition, but I think it turned out rather nicely. It further enhanced the story I was writing. It's a well-known tune in Westarbor sung by an anonymous knight about the "Battle of Goblin Flats". In my book, there is a large equestrian statue commemorating the battle at the crossroads. It has a marble base with a plaque honoring those who perished. The knight sings about his squire who was slain. You can find the MP3 version near the top of this page with my own voiceover. Please give it a listen, but have a care; it's a tear-jerker! A shout out as well to my daughter-in-law, Ashley Thorman. She also likes to compose and has converted a walk-in closet of her apartment into a surprisingly professional sound studio. She was kind enough to let me use it and show me the ropes to add my own voice track. Here there be Elves! Lucas and Royland will be journeying to a more cosmopolitan setting. Once I had determined that there will be some elves in my second novel, I immediately set to work trying to hash out some flavorful elven lore, customs, mannerisms and naming conventions to serve as a backdrop to my new story. For example, what would be the consequences to a people if their lifespans were counted in hundreds of years? When Tolkien wrote of the elves, he developed a large body of lore surrounding them, including a language and runic alphabet all their own. Rather than adopt these tropes, I decided to work out my own traits, idiosyncracies and history for a long-lived and distinctive people living alongside humanity. Pointy ears - check. Slender of build - check. Habits and predilections? These were an open book to me. I do confess to one slight bit of quasi-plagiarism. Rather than invent an entirely new language, I chose instead to base my 'Elven' speech on a well established fantasy language to give it a proper gramatical structure. I use an English to Klingon translator then massage out the glottal stops so the 'Elven' language can be more flowing and musical. For example: English Klingon Elven? our bright and shining queen wov 'ej boch ta'be' wova zeja bosch tazbeth It seemed to keep a nicely consistent vocabulary... I wonder whether this would count as cultural appropriation? It wouldn't do to have a group of angry Klingons (or trekkies) after me! |
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