First and foremost a HUGE thank you as always to everyone who checks out these posts and has supported me in this project. The completion of this story means so much to me and I your wonderful feedback/comments make this all worthwhile and keep me going.

I wanted to post up something interesting today since I've been suffering from a severe lack of posting lately lol. So here's an excerpt featuring some of the background info of the world as featured in the story.

WARNING:

This is a draft copy and has been picked at to avoid some spoilers so not everything may fit together seamlessly in all ways. Please bear with this as it is not a full draft chapter but rather a post from the book with several key pieces added. This chapter has run a bit shorter then some of the previous ones which generally run around 5000 words, This one runs about 3000 currently in it's draft state and the included excerpt below runs about 1,700 words so it's a bit on the short side.

I hope that you'll find the excerpt interesting and it has been my mission these last few days to really fill in some backstory (Not that there was any shortage really) and add some additional depth before starting this chapter. It was a rough start trying to keep focused on keeping the story moving along while adding so much info. I didn't want to overwhelm the reader with a bunch of backstory so I found myself trying to strike a balance with it all. Keep the story moving along while giving you additional info.

So here is my Frankenstein/skeleton draft of the backstory chapter. I hope you enjoy!









A World Divided


        Vex took his first tentative steps into the schoolhouse. The smell of chalk and paper clung to the air as he walked closer towards the front of the room. Lierya looked up from grading the tests of the day and let out a small sigh to see Vex timidly approaching her.

“Vex, I know you are eager to find answers…” Her voice trailed off a bit and Vex felt his heart slump within his chest. “It’s okay Headmistress, I was only wondering.” He knew she could see right through him but he felt sorry for making her go through the trouble, especially since it seemed like something bad must have happened. “Are you okay?” He asked as he took a few steps forward, noticing the tears that began to well up in her eyes.

“Yes, thank you Vex.” She stood from her table as Tirys and Reia entered the room, light pouring in from the outside as they walked though quickly receding as the doors shut behind them. Tirys and Lierya exchanged glances for a moment, something Vex picked up on but remained silent. Lierya was warm and kind to everyone she came across, including Vex, whom the others mocked for not having an affinity. The headmistress however, went out of her way to give Vex private schooling, and never treated him like anything other than a regular Fae. Vex saw the look of suspicion on Lierya’s face as Tirys walked calmly towards the fire and took a seat. Reia spoke up to break the silence that had fallen upon the room.

“Did you happen to…?” Vex decided to answer for her. “No, but it’s okay, doesn’t really matter.” Lierya called them to sit with a gentle wave of her hand. Vex sat close to the fire, his mind still questioning as to why an answer was so far beyond him. As if able to sense his thoughts, the headmistress spoke directly to him. “The stone is an interesting marvel, it has the ability to store memories within it. But only memories of the one who owns their own stone can call upon such things and cannot see the memories of others.”

Vex understood now why the stone could not have given him the answers he sought and nodded softly. He saw Tirys shift slightly to reach into his tunic and glance at a small stone riveted with glowing marks upon its surface. Tirys noticed Vex and slid it back into his pocket and shrugged before looking back to the headmistress.

“Today is the last cycle of teaching I am going to be a part of, After communing with the stone I feel that now is a good time for me to begin my own journey, I have spoken with Reia and am leaving her in charge of this schoolhouse in my stead.” Vex felt a rush of disbelief at the declaration and deep inside of himself felt that he was the cause of her departure. “I feel that the timing is right and that the school will be left in good hands.” Reia nodded silently and stood up, walking over to the headmistress and wrapping her in a tight embrace.

“Thank you, but this cycle is not over and I have much to discuss with you all today.” Reia, holding back tears of her own smiled, nodded, and returned to her seat. Lierya smiled and closed her eyes, as if pulling up images within her mind to help her find the topics that she wanted to use. “Today I wanted to teach you a bit about our past, and just how different this world used to be.”


“ Long ago, this land was much bigger and we were united by a beautiful and loving queen. Also during this time our sun would set at the end of a cycle, falling beyond the earth while darkness covered our lands while we slept in our beds. To look up into the sky during these times one could see the lights of thousands of worlds far beyond our own, and to wish on one was said to grant you your wildest desires.”

Vex held back the urge to interrupt the headmistress with any useless questions the image that came to mind brought. He tried his hardest to image the sky, the worlds, and the darkness that fell upon the world but couldn’t.

“Cycles would come and go and the world moved on, seasons changed and with the coming of the winter months where the world would fall into a land of snow and ice, we would sleep, returning to the ether of the world, waiting until the spring came and our cycles continued.”

Vex raised his hand and when Lierya looked at him he couldn’t help but to ask. “What do you mean, Ether of the world?”

She thought for a moment before answering. “A substance we call ether runs through the very core of this planet, it gives life to everything and everyone that lives upon it. When it is our turn to rest, our souls return to the ether to await the coming of the changing season.  Now we know it as the place we return when we leave this world behind.“

Lierya looked towards Tirys who said nothing but seemed to know much of this already.

“But that is jumping ahead a bit now isn’t it? In any case our world was once a part of a great cycle that existed since the beginning of our planet itself.  Our Queen, Titania and her husband, Oberon, led our lands in peace and tranquility during the summer’s reign, when winter came and we returned to the ether it is said that Queen Mab would take her place upon the throne. I cannot personally tell you much about the queen other then what I have heard from stories but it is said that she was rarely seen in public but on rare occasions those who were lucky enough to meet her explained that she appeared draped in many robes and that her face remained hidden behind a copper mask that hid her features from the world.”

Tirys pulled himself to his feet and began to pace around the room. “The queen was a ruler of nothing! She was a monster that destroyed everything and everyone in her way!” Tirys shouted, his features contorted with anger and his eyes swimming through memories that no one in that room could even begin to imagine.

Lierya looked up towards him and spoke very calmly in an attempt to level his emotions out. “Spoken like a man with firsthand experience. I know only stories of her thus I would be interested in hearing what you have to say young man whose name I have not had the privilege.” Tirys stopped pacing and looked over to her, his body shaking and fists clenched. “My apologies for the outburst, but my story is not one worth sharing at this time.” He bowed his head slightly in a show of respect and returned to his seat.

Lierya watched him for a moment before continuing. “Perhaps to touch on what this young man has said, Peace as we knew it was only to last so long, Bonds began to strain and Titania was said to have sent Oberon on a quest to visit with the clans and arrange talks of peace but with winter coming soon the talks fell short as we prepared for a coming war.”

Tirys cocked his head to the side, obviously not aware of this portion of the story. Reia raised her hand up and proceeded to ask her question. “I’ve never heard of this war before now… Was this the cause of our current situation?”

Lierya smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “I wish I knew the answer to that myself honestly, It is said that the cause was from a flash of light in the night sky just weeks before the coming of winter and with it came vile monsters the like of which had never been seen before. Queen Titania drew her forces as the monsters began to attack the Elven clans and rushed to assist them against the beasts in an act of goodwill and mercy.”

She paused as if something had just struck her. Her lips grew tight and she closed her eyes in an attempt to stay focused. Then she spoke, the sound of her voice tinged with sadness and held back tears.

“M..My twin sister left to fight against those monsters. We were supposed to meet up before the last sun of summer had set behind the valley… But she never came back. And as winter enveloped me I kept hoping to see her face before my eyes closed to rest.”

Lierya coughed to clear her throat and stood abruptly. “When I came to, the world was changed. Half of it still existed as a winter night while this half was basked in summer’s gaze. I do not know what happened during my rest, but this is not the world I left. I have traveled to the other side but found only thorns of glass and ebony separating the day from the night. Our time has been frozen, the cycle has stopped, and our loved ones…. They are gone to us.”

“This is why I am leaving, I am going to try to find a way to the palace, to find what has happened and to find my sister may she still draw breath. I can feel her in my heart, I have to know what has become of her.”

Tirys cocked his head to the side. “Why now? I don’t mean to be rude but why have you been here all this time if a loved one could be in danger?” Lierya turned her head slightly as a tear slid from the corner of her eye and down her cheek.

“The stone has an interesting ability; we used them to store our memories before we returned to the ether so that we could call upon them once we returned… But I had learned that we could also use them to store harsh memories away. At the time I felt so lost that I couldn’t handle what was happening. I feel that now I am at a point that I can accept it. If… If it’s truly too late and she is gone, well, that’s a road I’ll have to cross if I come to it.”

Tirys lowered his head in understanding. “I’m sorry, I misjudged you Headmistress. I wish you well on your journey.” Lierya met his eyes and glanced to Reia, As to you, young Tirys.






As always, feel free to post a comment about what you thought of this post in the section below, you can subscribe to this blog by entering your email in the box located at the top right of this post (Your email will not be shared publicly)

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Hope to hear from you all soon!

So lately I've been doing alot of work on Faedlands (as most of you already know) But I also wanted to let everyone know that since the "Destruction and Rebirth" post about the demise of Nocturne I've been tinkering in my spare time with reinventing the story.

If you've already read the Nocturne draft I have up on this site (If not: HERE) you've probably noticed that while good, the level of depth in it compared to Faedlands is not quite up to par with everything I've been learning and adapting to the last few years. So rather then do a simple re-write I thought about the story that I was writing and realized that while I had an end game for the book I really didn't know where I was going throughout and each chapter became far more distant of my initial hope for the story.

Within breaks from Faedlands I've been putting together an overview of what I want to accomplish and what type of story I want to tell. I've become very attached to many of the existing characters and some of the scenarios that i really want to keep.

Faedlands is still going to be my top priority but I wanted to let you know that I'm not forgetting about Nocturne either :)


In other news I am happy to announce that I made a few emails and the artwork for faedlands that I asked for is going to be done sometime tomorrow. I'm really excited to be able to see it and share it with all of you.

Also on the artwork front I took some time out yesterday and created some mock images for possible cover art for Nocturne and I thought that I'd share them here since it relates to the above topics.

This pic was my first attempt to make cover art using photoshop for Nocturne in a couple of years. I posted it up and got some pretty positive feedback but decided that I wanted to try something a bit closer to my original concept for it and this next image what I came up with.

When I finished this picture up and let it sink in I was amazed at how professional it looks. (In terms of my own creation that is.) This was so perfect for what I wanted originally and it in itself looks like the cover of a book.

Now for opinions, Which one do you like better?

Leave a comment in the section below.

Anyhow, Back to work, I'll keep you all updated as things come out.

Thanks!

-Ryan

They say that writing never takes a break.

I have to agree with that.

Although the last few weeks have been slow on the writing front with me taking some personal time, The ideas and characters continue to form and take life within my mind. Here's an update for everyone on just what has been going on in the world of writing as it relates to me.

Vex and Reia have gone through some changes throughout the writing process from what their roles were originally and I must say that I feel that they are heading in an amazing direction and it makes the resolution to the first book quite an amazing concept for me to write.

Although many of you might have a notion of what will happen next in the story, Some of you may be surprised at the shift in tone that comes by the end of the fifth chapter.

Without giving too much away it should be known that Vex is going to go through a dramatic change. To answer some of your questions that have arisen, YES, He is going to awaken to his own affinity within the course of the book but the way in which it happens is going to take him down a very dark road. This isn't to say that it will change his character per say but rather will change certain perspectives about the way that his mind works.

I've mentioned a bit of this before in the "Q and A" Blog post awhile back. If you've yet to read it you can do so HERE to find out some more insight into Book 1 and Vex's story.


But I really wanted to take this time to explain a bit of what can be expected in the future of the series.

First of all, Faedlands is going to be a series rather then a stand alone book.

Each book in the series will focus on a different character within the world rather then focusing primarily around one individual. This I believe is the only way to truly bring each character to life and to get the whole story.

Although each book will consist of separate characters within the world all dealing with their own struggles, The stories will contain a underlying story arc that will push the series forward. This is not to say that each book MUST be read in order as each book will consist of self contained stories that will (In most cases) wrap themselves up by the books end. But reading them in order will surely add additional depth to the overall product and understanding.

So far, several stories have really stuck out to me that I want to explore a bit more of. As I have been writing the story Tirys has really stood out to me and therefore I took some time to explore some background for him initially to add depth to his character within Vex and Reia's book. Before I knew it I had a "Blueprint" of 6 pages worth of backstory that really lent itself well to forming where I wanted his character to go. As time went by I expanded on this bit by bit and now have enough material to say that he will most likely be getting his own book possibly as soon as book 2.

Another element that stood out to me was delving a bit more into the Winter Side and how the political system (Or rather lack of one) works. As I stated, The winter court is in a state of martial law with the armies of the former queen taking control of the residents and court. While they maintain a level of security in some aspects, "Justice" is carried out by a shadowy group of assassin's secretly contracted to take out anyone the court wishes.

In this I decided to look into the story of one of these assassins and explore this aspect of the world in a bit more detail.

To this the character of Fenris really jumped out to me. Fenris was originally penned as a werewolf character that I hadn't really given any specific story to as he does not appear within the first book. But as I began to pen details in the story really came to life and he became a perfect fit with what I wanted to do with this story.

As a bit of a fairy tale tie in there will also be a character that shares some symbolism with a certain crimson cloaked figure.


Lastly, although readers haven't met him yet within the posted material, A character named Iferion has his own story in the works however this won't be for some time to come as his story arc would dramatically change the world and it's inhabitants in a way that I'm not wanting to do so early in the story.

Many other characters have begun to surface too and I'm excited to see where everything begins to go in the future. I've decided that I don't care for deadlines or marketing at this stage and in this I'm really going to focus my efforts on making these stories the ones that I want to make and take the time to make sure that they are perfect before pushing myself to release them.

As always, thank you for your continued support, all of your kind words/RTs/shares and well wishes truly mean the world to me and make all of this effort worthwhile.

If you'd like to subscribe to this blog please do so by entering your email in the box provided to the top right of the sidebar to stay up to date on these posts. Your email will not be given out or displayed publicly.

Thank you :)

-Ryan Smith

Hey everyone, I know it's been awhile since I posted anything of import on here but I wanted to take a little time to talk about a few things.

First and foremost, A HUGE thank you to everyone for their well wishes and thoughts on May 6th for the anniversary of my son's passing. Your kind words mean so much to me and have touched me to no end. It has been a really difficult year and while I am trying my best to keep pushing forward sometimes I get caught up in everything around me.

Similarly, I have been working on Faedlands alot lately and although things have been fairly quiet on here please know that I am still around and trying to write the story as I have imagined it. I'm taking extra time to go back and edit things, flesh things out and make sure that this story is the one I want people to hear since it is so important to me that this is done my way.

In this also I must say that I may not be online as often as I have been, I want to take more time to write and I tend to get distracted fairly easily promoting my work and talking about it and while I absolutely love to talk with everyone about it I really should focus more on writing so that I can, in turn, have more to talk about :)

So in this, I'm not going to be on as much but I will continue to post probably once a week.

Anyhow, that's just to let everyone know that I'm still here and that you can write me on twitter, FB page, comments on here or ever send me an email at [email protected] and I'll do my best to respond to you.

Finally to let everyone know about upcoming events, Sometime soon I should be receiving the artwork that I had commissioned and I will be posting it up here. I'm really excited about it. The concept art that may be used for the cover is that of a "World Tree" featuring a large tree that is half in bloom and half dead and covered in snow. The tree's roots are entwined around the world which also shows half displayed brightly while the other remains in shadow.

I don't know exactly at what phase this is in right at this moment but as soon as it is in I will post it up here for your feedback.


And as always, if you'd like to subscribe to this blog you can do so by entering your email in the box provided to the top right of this post.

Hope to hear from you all soon!

-Ryan

For the duration of today (May 6th, 2012) I'm not going to be online or have my phone turned on.

Please click HERE for an explanation.

Thanks for your support during this most trying of times.

So this is kind of a random post but I wanted to speak on education for a bit. I recently read an article stating that funding for schools should be prioritized by academic achievement rather then by the number of staff.

While this idea sounds good in theory...

I think we need to look at the issue a bit closer.

Here is the article, As posted in the Seattle Times:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2018135510_guest04goding.html

While I think that the article makes some very relevant facts, I feel that there are numerous other concerns that should be addressed.

From a technical standpoint, "Grading" a school based off of it's academic reach is a bit short sighted. Our country is made up of a diverse group ethically and many of our students do not speak english as their first language. I believe in areas that have a higher concentration of diverse ethnicity are going to suffer greatly due to their school not being in a higher percentile due to language barriers that teacher would have to learn to overcome or adapt to. Additional time to overcome these barriers could very well hurt a schools overall grade as well. Teachers put in more work to give these children the best education possible and while that sounds so great... that extra time (according to the statistically driven) would be better spent helping those who need less excel in order to boost their schools rank. (You know, because everything is image.)

We must also think of what this would do to teachers. While this report seems to state that the number of teachers far surpasses what is needed to keep the school systems running while in fact, there is constant news of teacher shortages, not only in the US but around the world as well. Layoffs due to cutting beneficial programs, budget cuts and lower salaries mean fewer teachers overall.

I think that we should be helping the underprivileged and needy before anything else. I believe that if we want to see a substantial change to the way our education system works then we have to help out the underdog and put our eyes towards schools that are below the academic level and give them the resources to bring them up to a comfortable level. (At the very least give these kids a chance to do something important with their lives rather then forget about the minorities.

We need more teachers, we need a better and more secure structure to ensure that our next generation is well suited to excel.

Anyhow, just my rant for the day :)

-Ryan

PS: As always feel free to leave a comment in the section below with your thoughts on education and where it is headed not only locally, but internationally as well.