Miles Hurt's Blog, page 2

Wandering Knife Update: Novel Cover Art Reveal

Red Harvest Moon, the first novel in the Wandering Knife series, is almost completed!

After two years of writing, I’m ready to send my first full-length epic fantasy novel forth into the world.

I’ve been sitting on the cover art of this for a few months now, and am very excited to share it with you. It was created by Olivia Rea, who did such an amazing job on the cover of my novella Bane of Wolves.

The cover art features the main character of the series, Ren, at a sacred site called Mirrorhill. Ren is a masterless swordsman akin to a Japanese ronin. I drew a lot of inspiration for this novel from the films of Akira Kurosawa, and asked Olivia to try to infuse a dash of Sanjuro’s poise and menace into Ren’s figure. I think she’s succeeded brilliantly!

The first novel in the Wandering Knife series, Red Harvest Moon, will be available in early 2021.

If you haven’t already gotten your free copy of the prequel novella, you can get it instantly at this link.

 

Wandering Knife Update: This Is Why You Hire An Artist Part One

For any writer out there wondering whether or not to hire an artist for their cover design, I present exhibits A and B.

This is my sketch of the cover of Bane of Wolves side by side with the final artwork, created by Olivia Rea. You don’t have to have a degree in fine arts to spot the difference!

I quite literally borrowed my daughter’s crayons to complete my version of Druun the hunter standing in the Yellow Forest. This was what I gave to Olivia, along with some description of the character and story. From there she worked her magic, and I was very pleased with the results. Seeing the characters of your imagination come to life like this is a great thrill.

In Wandering Knife news, the year is drawing to a close, and still no novel. I’m very close to wrapping up Red Harvest Moon but I’m going to have to concede that it won’t be ready until January 2021! Honestly, if I didn’t have anything else to do with my life other than write it would be a piece of cake to get this novel out there. However, with all the usual distractions (job, family, pandemic) it just hasn’t happened.

But it will. In the meantime, if you haven’t picked up your free copy of the prequel novella Bane of Wolves, follow this link to download it straight to your inbox.

Trust me, I write better than I draw.

The post Wandering Knife Update: This Is Why You Hire An Artist Part One first appeared on Miles Hurt.

Wandering Knife Update: This Is Why You Hire An Artist

For any writer out there wondering whether or not to hire an artist for their cover design, I present exhibits A and B.

This is my sketch of the cover of Bane of Wolves side by side with the final artwork, created by Olivia Rea. You don’t have to have a degree in fine arts to spot the difference!

I quite literally borrowed my daughter’s crayons to complete my version of Druun the hunter standing in the Yellow Forest. This was what I gave to Olivia, along with some description of the character and story. From there she worked her magic, and I was very pleased with the results. Seeing the characters of your imagination come to life like this is a great thrill.

In Wandering Knife news, the year is drawing to a close, and still no novel. I’m very close to wrapping up Red Harvest Moon but I’m going to have to concede that it won’t be ready until January 2021! Honestly, if I didn’t have anything else to do with my life other than write it would be a piece of cake to get this novel out there. However, with all the usual distractions (job, family, pandemic) it just hasn’t happened.

But it will. In the meantime, if you haven’t picked up your free copy of the prequel novella Bane of Wolves, follow this link to download it straight to your inbox.

Trust me, I write better than I draw.

Researching Violence: Joe Abercrombie answers my question

I find it curious that peaceful people such as myself, who view violence as something that humans should evolve beyond as soon as possible, still love to read books and watch films that drip with the stuff. If I ever found myself in a real knife-fight chances are I would somehow manage to cut my own ear off. I would greatly like to avoid anything involving blades and blood happening to me in my own life. And yet I find violence in art to be mesmeric.

Is it necessary to have violence in fantasy fiction? It would appear so. As such, when writing the first novel in my epic fantasy series The Wandering Knife, in order to convey a level of verisimilitude, I thought I should develop my understanding of how humans go about inflicting pain upon one another through the medium of swords, spears, arrows, teeth, hands, and so on.

My own life experience in the realm of violence is restricted to what, in am RPG setting, would at best be described as a tavern brawl. With me hiding beneath a table. I’ve had a little bit of aikido training, but am barely able to flip a pancake, let alone another human. I once unsheathed a real katana, and felt the strangely electric sensation of wielding one of these beautiful and deadly creations. But other than that, I have no direct experience of hand to hand combat, of sword fighting, or of warfare in general. Thankfully.

Going into my research I knew full well that I shouldn’t overdo it. The key is to convey conflict, not bore the reader to death with realism. For me, the goal is to write violence in such a way that the casual reader is able to enjoy the thrills and spills without being lifted out of the action by thinking ‘that doesn’t seem right’.

For the first novel in the series Red Harvest Moon, the protagonist Ren is depicted as being a master of longsword. I felt it was necessary to make an effort to develop my knowledge of sword fighting. Fortunately there is a wealth of information and opinion on the subject available via the interweb. Possibly too much! I’ve really enjoyed learning about German longsword through the multiple HEMA sites and channels available, and have delved into some of the source material such as Joachim Meyer’s A Thorough Description of the Free Knightly and Noble Art of Combat (1570). It’s fascinating, and the recreation of this type of fencing style looks awesome. In fact, if I didn’t live 150 kilometres from the nearest HEMA club I would definitely drop in for a go.

I recently read The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. The novel features a lot of duelling with swords. Abercrombie is well-regarded for the realistic depiction of violence in his novels. While reading the novel, I wondered what his research looked like, whether he’s dipped into similar materials for inspiration. On spec, I tweeted this:

Hey @LordGrimdark just finished Blade Itself. Good stuff. Just curious, did you draw on a particular treatise for your fencing scenes? #grimdark #hema

— mileshurt (@mileshurt) August 22, 2020

To which Abercrombie replied:

I don't want to bore you with endless stories of exhaustive research: poring over ancient texts, painstaking re-enactment, years of gruelling personal hand-to-hand combat experience. So I will admit that I mostly make it up. https://t.co/lZ9t7ypaFJ

— Joe Abercrombie (@LordGrimdark) August 22, 2020

I had to laugh at that. In hindsight, my question was a little earnest. And also, I was pretty chuffed that Joe replied. It’s great that we live in an age that you can shoot a question at a famous author and they’ll get back to you on the same day!

Wandering Knife Update: Cover Art Reveal

Here is the artwork for the cover of my fantasy novella Bane of Wolves!

I revealed in my last update that I often fall victim to the planning fallacy. Things always seem to take longer than I think they will. The Wandering Knife series is proving to be more of a challenge to get underway than I had foreseen.

However, there has been some serious progress made. The artwork for Red Harvest Moon, and its prequel novella Bane of Wolves, has arrived! I’ve worked with the very talented Olivia Rea to bring my cover art conceptions to life, and I have to say I’m blown away by the results.

The cover art for Bane of Wolves features the hunter Druun, who at the outset of the novella is doing his best to escape his past deep in the Yellow Forest. However his past is about to catch up with him, in the form of a crossbow bolt aimed at his head…

Bane of Wolves is available exclusively from this website.

Check out more of Olivia Rea’s artwork here.

Writing a Fantasy Series: How Far Ahead Should You Plot?

There’s a lot of fun to be had writing a big long fat fantasy series. After all, you’re the creator of an entire world, a world with endless possibilities. At the outset, these possibilities are liberating. Anything can happen. And the ideas for plots come easy. You feel you can take things in any direction you choose, follow any wild fancy. But in the back of your mind you know that at some point, probably after years of work, you will need to bring the whole great sprawling mess to a close.

Writing a plot over multiple novels, complete with a broad cast of characters each with their own intertwining arcs, is a daunting prospect. With so many unforeseen twists and turns that could take place, it’s a miracle that these sprawling works get finished at all. Writing a fantasy series is a bit like trying to find your way through a vast hedge maze that’s growing up around you as you walk through it. And it will take years to find your way out, with no guarantees your exit will be a satisfying one. There’s always a chance you’ll get stuck in a dark dead end somewhere, or fall into a nasty hole and not get out.

Surely having some kind of plan to get through the maze is a good idea. But writing is a creative act, and authors need to leave themselves open to surprise and serendipity. No plot line should be set in stone. With that in mind, how far ahead should you plan your fantasy series?

I’d like to know, because I’m writing one at the moment. I’m two years in, and am only just winding up the first installment. These things take time. (Just ask Patrick Rothfuss or GRRM.)

Writing the Wandering Knife series has been a convoluted process. This first novel has taken longer to finish than I would like. This is because the more I develop the world it is set in, and the further ahead I plan my series, the more additions and deletions I need to make to that first cornerstone story. But one thing that makes life easier is that, about a year into the process, I sat down and planned out an overarching plot with a conclusion. Yes, I know how my series will end. Or at least, I think I do.

If you are a writer of a series of books, fantasy or otherwise, my belief is that you’ll fall into one of two camps.

1. When you begin your series, you have no idea how it will end.

2. When you begin your series, you have an ending that will definitely change.

I have an ending. But I am still riddled with doubts and fears. I’m terrified of reaching book six of a series after years of work, only to realise that I made an omission or error back in book one or two. I’m terrified of leaving out a key element of worldbuilding, or putting something in that fatally undermines the premise. I’m also terrified of getting several novels into a series and reaching a point where I realise I have no way of resolving it.

But at a certain point, you just have to pick a path, and stride boldly into the maze as though you know exactly where you’re going.

 

 

Best Fantasy Novels: My Top 5

Like most of the seven-billion-plus people on the planet, I firmly believe that my opinions are important, unique and amazing. And as a self-aggrandising writer, I think that it’s necessary for others to be exposed to my excellent taste. To that effect, I’ve compiled a list of my all-time favourite fantasy novels. I’ve made every effort to be oblique and surprising. Two caveats: First, I have left The Lord of the Rings off my list for being entirely too obviously my favourite fantasy novel. And second, it could be argued that only two of these works are ‘novels’ in the standard sense of the word. But hey. I think they’re great, so they’re on the list.

The Odyssey (Homer, trans. Robert Fagles 1996)

Coming up on three thousand years old, The Odyssey is a colossus of literature. Strictly speaking, it’s a poem, not a novel. But it kicks off my list simply because it’s the greatest fantastical adventure story ever told.

You may have been put off from reading The Odyssey due to its musty age, its air of classicism. But don’t be fooled. It’s a cracking read. Heroes, villains, monsters, epic battles, tragedy, triumph, sexual tension, and lots of eating. This book has it all, and washes it down with a couple dozen amphorae of red wine. The tale of the journey that Ulysses takes from the battlefield of Troy to his home island of Ithaca is literally the definition of epic.

And demonstrating that the middle installment of a trilogy doesn’t have to be weak, The Odyssey is actually the second part of a three-part sequence of epic poems. The first being The Iliad, and the conclusion being The Telegony (not written by Homer). As with many later books in a fantasy series, I haven’t gotten around to reading The Telegony, but only because it’s sadly been lost to history.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Hayao Miyazaki, 1982 – 1994)

Readers may be more familiar with Miyazaki’s famous anime films from Studio Ghibli such as Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and the animated version of this manga. While the anime of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is fantastic, it barely hints at the depth of the compelling world Miyazaki created in his manga. Printed from 1982 to 1994, the manga follows Nausicaä (named after a character in the Odyssey, incidentally) as she walks a fine line between engaging in destructive warfare and saving the planet from environmental catastrophe.

The heroine of this graphic novel is in my opinion the most kick-ass female character in all of fantasy literature. Right from the get-go she is brave, compassionate, a leader of her people, in touch with nature, a brilliant pilot, and a fearless warrior. The action sequences in Nausicaa are a masterclass in raising stakes and elevating tension. Nausicaä repeatedly succeeds in battle due to her fearless ability to take it right to the edge.

The worldbuilding in Nausicaä is incredibly rich and imaginative. I would put it on a par with Tolkien, and I thought I would never say that. I can’t imagine how much time and effort Miyazaki must have poured into each panel and page of this work. The epic sweep of the narrative is staggering. Not to mention that those looking for something beyond the well-worn fantasy tropes will find something different with the flying airships and enormous insects of Nausicaä’s world.

The deluxe edition of this classic manga is a must-have for any serious fantasy reader.

The Worm Ouroboros (E.R. Eddison, 1922)

Before there was The Lord of the Rings, there was The Worm Ouroboros, an epic fantasy novel that details the rivalries of proud warrior-kings on a distant planet.

Dark magic, gloomy castles, fierce battles, and some amazing rock climbing crowd the pages of this thumping tome. The novel is epic in scope, and the writing in The Worm Ouroboros is rich fare. This isn’t a novel you’ll knock over in a weekend at the beach. But for completists of epic fantasy, it’s essential reading. And the quality of the prose, though dense, is several cuts above the work of most modern practitioners.

Upon reflection, the Nietzschean philosophy underpinning the plot may not appeal to the sensibilities of modern audiences, but it’s hard to argue with the staggering imagination of the work, the grand sweep of the saga.

It’s also worth noting that those who persevere to the end will be rewarded with one of the great endings in fantasy literature.

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, 1982)

“Two dice, a pencil and an eraser are all you need for your adventure.” How those words thrilled me as a youngster.

I’ve written elsewhere on this site about my love of the Fighting Fantasy series. One thing I didn’t mention was the fact that it was not easy for a child to escape the mundanity of rural Australia through works of fantasy fiction, back in the eighties and nineties. There weren’t many fantasy books to be found where I lived. Seriously, readers today don’t know how lucky they are to have the smorgasbord of books available to them. There was no such thing as steampunk when I was a kid, let alone new weird or grimdark.

As a child, I’d read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings a few times, but hungered for more secondary world action. There was The Belgariad. There were a few falling-apart copies of Savage Sword of Conan in the second hand bookshops. There was Damiano’s Lute. But there was not much else.

Thank goodness for Fighting Fantasy. I collected dozens of these books, and practically lived in their pages for several years.

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain was my introduction to the series. It was my introduction to the hack-and-slash dungeon crawl, beyond the Moria scenes in The Lord of the Rings. It was my introduction to RPGs. As the series went on, authors Jackson and Livingstone explored a wide variety of settings, from dark forests to cities teeming with crooks to pirate coasts. But the first title in the series was a straight-up dungeon dive. With its branching paths and multiple endings, it was a dungeon I spent a lot of time in. And the book remains to this day the only Fighting Fantasy that, despite many tries, I could not defeat. Maybe I need to read it again…

The Colour of Magic (Terry Pratchett, 1983)

Picking up the baton from the Fighting Fantasy series for me and running with it were the Discworld books. I discovered these in the early nineties, a period when it seemed that Pratchett was bringing out on average three awesome books a year. These books had a big impact on me, and were about 55% of the influence for my first novel, 1001 Monsters You Must Slay Before You Die.

Set on the ludicrous and brilliant Discworld, the series of novels that was kicked off by The Colour of Magic was a loving parody of fantasy, folklore, mythology and history. But they were so much more. Endlessly inventive characters and scenarios, great settings, fast-paced plots. The revelation that all of this fantasy stuff was not to be taken too seriously, that it could be fun.

What I really love about the Discworld series is Terry Pratchett’s writing. His prose is light and swift, and perfectly economical, in contrast to the heft and bluster of E. R. Eddison.

A problem thrown up by Pratchett’s writing umpteen Discworld books is, for the reader, knowing where to begin. Hence the numerous ‘reading order’ infographics floating around the web. Let me make it simple for you: start with Rincewind and work your way out from there.

So there you have it. Capricious, whimsical and utterly subjective. There’s not a hope in Hades that you’ll agree completely with me. But I’ll let these works stand for now as my personal top five, for their standing as literary works and/or for the impact they’ve had on me personally. If you haven’t checked any or all of them out, I can’t recommend them highly enough.

 

Wandering Knife Update: The Planning Fallacy

The dreaded planning fallacy has cast a pall over my writing.

I wrote in this blog last year about how my focus has shifted to working on an epic fantasy series, called the Wandering Knife. I had a grand plan for the next twelve months.

My grand plan was simple. Write the first three novels in the series by mid-2020. Sure, writing three fantasy novels in a year was ambitious. But ambitious people are the ones who make stuff happen, right?

Things were going great for a while. I had four months of leave from my day job, and was planning to focus entirely on writing.

But of course, life intervened. I sold a house, bought a new house, and moved. I took two holidays. I relaxed and enjoyed myself probably a bit too often. Oh, and the coronavirus happened. When I returned to my job, I had to shift to working from home which added about 30% to my workload.

Suffice it to say, I didn’t write three novels in a year.

I’d fallen victim to the planning fallacy. My predictions about how long my novels would take to write suffered from an optimism bias. In fact, I would call it a wildly optimistic bias. I fell short of my prediction of how much I could accomplish to the tune of two whole novels.

But what have I accomplished in the last year?

Well, the prequel novella of the Wandering Knife series is done. Again, this has taken longer than expected. Much longer! The first draft of this story was actually written in one day. However, it’s taken me months to polish it to the point where I’m happy with it, and where it ties in neatly with the series. This novella will only be available to subscribers to this website. Stay tuned!

And the best news is that the first novel of the series, Red Harvest Moon, is very close. Touch wood. I need to take another couple of passes to make sure everything is tickety-boo. But my new plan is that it will be published in about three months. Give or take.

The Wandering Knife series is almost underway. It’s almost ready to go. The creative part of my mind is thinking a lot about the shape of book 2, and beyond.

So how can I overcome the planning fallacy in the future? I’m really not sure. I deliberately chose ambitious goals, and although I’ve fallen short, I’ve at least got one novel close to release. I shouldn’t feel too bad about myself. In fact, having a novel ready to unleash after months of radio silence is actually a pretty good feeling.

I just need to get on with it.

See also: The Wandering Knife series announcement.

Announcement: The Wandering Knife

Over the last year or so I’ve been blogging less regularly.

When I created this website I envisioned it as being a place to record my thoughts about fantasy and science fiction, hence the tagline ‘Speculations about speculative fiction’. I have really enjoyed writing these articles, but I’m going to shift my focus away from producing this kind of thing.

When I was writing and releasing my first novel, 1001 Monsters You Must Slay Before You Die, my blog posts matched what I was writing. Light and fun, and ranging across a loose variety of topics.

I haven’t been blogging much, and since my novel was released I’ve only had one short story published, The Egg and the Cat, in Aurealis #111. However, I’ve probably been more productive over the last eighteen months than I have at any other time. But what have I been doing?

Since childhood I’ve had a love of epic fantasy, and have always wanted to write a chunky fantasy series in a secondary world setting. Since the start of 2018 I’ve been working on just that, an epic fantasy series, entitled The Wandering Knife. I’m getting close to being able to release book one, Red Harvest Moon, in early 2020.

If you’ve been following my blog you will have no doubt noticed that I love the writing of Tolkien. So yes, my series will be influenced by the master. But I’ll also be drawing on a lifetime of other influences: Lovecraft, Borges, Peake, Kurosawa, Miyazaki. All good stuff. Everything I’ve ever read or watched has led me to this point, where I feel ready to write something big.

I’ve invested a lot of my time and energy, a lot of myself in this series. I really want people to know it’s coming ahead of time. So to that end, the focus of this website and this blog is changing. I’m going to be using this website as a platform to let people know about the Wandering Knife series. I’ll be talking about my progress, as well as looking at the creative process behind the series.

I hope that if you are a fan of my writing to date you will be interested in this new series. And keep an eye out for a prequel novella coming late in 2019 which will be exclusively available from this website!

 

Moby Dick:The Classics Are The Classics For A Reason

A long time ago my good mate Jamie gave me his copy of Moby Dick. The inside cover is inscribed by Jamie with the jocular but somewhat incongruent phrase ‘MELVILLE’S IN DA HOUSE!’ I appreciated the gesture at the time, but I didn’t start reading straight away. Or for a long time after that.

In fact the book has sat on my shelf for almost twenty years unread. I lived in eight different houses, two countries, and one caravan and still did not read it. I must have walked past it thousands of times, occasionally looking at the spine and saying ‘I’ll read it eventually.’ Since Jamie gave me Moby Dick I’ve read quite a few books, but never as many as I’d like. I remember picking it up a few times and reading Jamie’s words. I would recall what he said to me at the time: ‘It’s fucking awesome.’

As my attention span was slowly whittled away by watching three minute clips on youtube, I despaired of ever being able to read a book like Moby Dick. I can barely get through a repeat of Scrubs without getting bored these days. But I finally picked the book up off the shelf last year and started to read.

And I’m glad I did.

536 pages; 135 chapters; a whole bunch of whales. It’s okay to talk in numbers because the narrator of the novel, Ishmael, spends a lot of time enumerating. How many types of whales are there? How long is a whale’s jaw? How many references to whales are there in world mythology? And on and on it goes. No novel in the history of civilisation is as detailed as this book about its subject.

At times, it must be said, this book is boring. Whole chapters are devoted to describing different types of blubber. Endless paragraphs detail how one of the ship’s mates smokes his pipe. About an inch into the width of the book, I began to despair. I was reading about a page a week, and thought I would never make it to the end. I reached chapter 42, ‘The Whiteness of the Whale,’ which is an eight page meditation on the terror of the colour white, and thought to myself, ‘You’ve go to be fucking kidding me.’

And yes, the book is about whaling, and we all love whales. It’s not good to kill whales. I get that.

But the classics are called the classics for a reason, folks. It’s the prose. This book is rich beyond belief. This book is like listening to Yehudi Menuhin play the violin for eighty-seven hours. A line that you glaze over in a daze, when reread, will reveal a glimpse into an infinite vista. And a really great chapter, like 48 ‘The First Lowering’ may be the most exciting thing you’ve ever read. Melville brings the elemental ocean to life, makes inscrutable gods of the creatures of nature. His powers of description are just about unmatched by any author I’ve ever read.

Today I read chapter 107, ‘The Carpenter’, and the first line blew my mind.

 

Seat thyself sultanically among the moons of Saturn, and take high abstracted man alone; and he seems a wonder, a grandeur, and a woe.

 

There’s a cracker like this on every page. This isn’t a fusty old Victorian book. This is Jack Kirby on acid. The vision, the splendour of the language is unending. Metaphors and symbols crowd the page. Moby Dick is about whaling, it’s about chasing an impossible dream, it’s about getting your arse kicked by nature and spoiling for a rematch and getting your arse kicked again, once and for all.

And it’s about the insignificance of humankind in the face of an unending, unknowable and powerful cosmos. That’s what the white whale is for me, a symbol of the eternal power of nature itself. But more importantly, Moby Dick asks the question where we fit in to this vastness. When Melville describes Queequeg’s coffin floating among the oceans of space and time, it’s clear that there is an essence and a beauty to being human, that we are not insignificant at all, that we are a part of it.

I understand now, that the book is indeed fucking awesome.

With everything that happens on the planet Earth at any given moment, it can be difficult to find consolation, but I think I may have found it at last. I hope I have, anyway. Having read Moby Dick, I realise I need to expand on Karl Marx’s thought, that I’m not just a citizen of the world. Only when I consider that I’m a citizen of something far greater, a citizen of the universe, is there peace. I’m completely insignificant, but I’m connected to everything.

A citizen of the universe? Yes, I have had my mind blown by a book, and am waxing verbose. But that is also the point of it. It’s hard to read a good book. I’m busy. I don’t have time. I would find it easier to watch AFL-X at the end of a long day. But I’m glad I finally got around to picking the book up off the shelf. The classics are the classics for a reason. Moby Dick is a Great Pyramid of thought. It is a pleasure to read a very very good book.

And yes, for another eighty-odd pages, Melville is indeed in da house