John R. Phythyon Jr.'s Blog, page 18

Donating Sales to Counter Arizona Bill

I am constantly amazed at the lengths bigots will go to protect their desire to spew hatred.

Last week, in my home state of Kansas, the State House of Representatives passed a bill that would have made it legal for any person, business, or government official to refuse service to anyone on the basis of “sincerely held religious beliefs.” In other words, if you think God hates gays, you could refuse them service. Welcome back, Jim Crow.

Fortunately, the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and a host of businesses decried the bill, saying it would have a negative impact on their ability to make money in the Sunflower State, so it was killed in the Senate. It’s amazing what power the sound of a ringing cash register has.

Sadly, this type of bigotry was not confined to Kansas, and, worse, not every state has the good sense to kill a hateful, unconstitutional bill before it becomes law. At the end of the week, Arizona passed a similar measure and sent it to Governor Jan Brewer’s desk. She has not yet decided whether she will sign it or not, but this is the same governor who did sign Arizona’s controversial racial-profiling measure into law.

Yesterday, on his blog, George Takei wrote a blistering response to the Arizona legislature’s action, in which he threatened not to go to Arizona or spend money there if the bill actually became law. You can read it here.

I am in complete agreement with Mr. Takei and will back his boycott. But I have no reason to go to Arizona any time soon, and I am unlikely to spend enough money there for them to care if I did.

However, several of my friends threatened to do something similar to Kansas (even though our bill didn’t even get out of committee in the Senate), and it bothered me, since I knew not all Kansans wanted to perpetrate the kind of discrimination the bill would have allowed.

So, in addition to refusing to spend money in or visit Arizona, here’s what I’ll do. I already donate 20% percent of the sales of my novel, The Sword and the Sorcerer, to Freedom to Marry. If you live in Arizona and you buy any of my books, contact me at john at johnphythyon dot com, show me a receipt for the sale, and I’ll donate 100% of it to Freedom to Marry. I’ll do so until Governor Brewer either vetoes the bill or it is struck down.

Discrimination is wrong. I will do whatever I can to fight it. I recognize there are those with “sincerely held religious beliefs” that homosexuality is immoral. I respect your right to believe that. I’ll even respect your right to shout it to the mountaintops.

But you don’t get to deny services to any American. It’s unconstitutional, it’s illegal (no matter what laws you pass), and it’s immoral.

It’s time for this sort of discrimination to stop.

Writing Two Books at Once Tough to Pull Off

Last week, I attempted something I’d never done before. I tried to edit one book and write another at the same time. As longtime readers of this blog know, I stack projects to increase my output. I write one book while my editor is working on another.

Last week, I got back the second draft of Roses Are White while I was in the midst of writing its sequel, Ghost of a Chance. I had just hit a flow on the latter, and I didn’t want to give it up. So I attempted to edit seven a chapters a day of Roses Are White and write a chapter a day of Ghost of a Chance.

How’d that work out?

Not as well as I’d like. The first two days I kept the pace pretty well. But afterwards, it became difficult. Despite my best efforts, I remain incapable of working in a vacuum where life cannot interfere with my output. As the week wore on, the distractions of everyday life wore me down. I couldn’t do both things, no matter how I tried.

By Friday, I was approximately 20 chapters behind on my editing. I did manage to get four chapters of Ghost of a Chance written, but I was not where I wanted to be on the editing process, which was ready to begin the third draft of Roses Are White on Monday.

So, sadly, I put down Ghost of a Chance and devoted a lot of hours on the weekend and Monday to finishing the edit.

I got there. Today, I beginning penning the third draft. My goal is to try to get it done a week from Friday. That should be doable if I work diligently.

Then I’ll be able to get back to Ghost of a Chance. The truth is, flow or otherwise, my execution was starting to fray. I’m not convinced things are happening in the right order and that I haven’t left out important stuff. In a couple weeks, I’ll be able to concentrate fully on looking at what I’ve got, rearranging as necessary, and then forging ahead.

The experiment wasn’t a total failure. I may try it again sometime. For the moment, though, I need to be working on one book at a time. I’ll hit my deadlines better that way.

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Roses are White and Ghost of a Chance are the next two books in the Wolf Dasher series. Marrying James Bond-style action adventure with a traditional Tolkienesque fantasy world, the series weaves exciting stories that are both familiar and fresh. Pick up a copy of the first book, State of Grace, at the links below:

Click here to get the Kindle edition of State of Grace from Amazon.com for just $2.99.

Click here for get the print edition of State of Grace for only $12.99.

Bonus Blog (BB): God Shot

John R. Phythyon, Jr.:

MY good friend Chris Watson finds an amazing Valentine’s message.

Originally posted on The Kansas Expatriate:

 

I was in our best local store for, well almost anything you could want, when, as is so often the case, the universe quietly sent me a message.  The Anderson’s (www.andersonsstore.com), besides being a great garden and home store, is also known for flowers, cheese, wine, the bakery, the deli, candy, and the meat market.  In other words, a great place on Valentine’s Day.  I was there for soy sauce.

I was in the 12 item or less aisle not so patiently waiting for the guy at the checkout trying to use an expired coupon.  The guy immediately in front of me had two plastic tulips.  They were the kind that you stuck in the ground and if the sun was shinning the nifty little solar panel not so subtly disguised as a leaf would light the tulip after dark.  As I said, I had soy sauce.

View original

Bonus Blog (BB): God Shot

John R. Phythyon, Jr.:

MY good friend Chris Watson finds an amazing Valentine’s message.

Originally posted on The Kansas Expatriate:

 

I was in our best local store for, well almost anything you could want, when, as is so often the case, the universe quietly sent me a message.  The Anderson’s (www.andersonsstore.com), besides being a great garden and home store, is also known for flowers, cheese, wine, the bakery, the deli, candy, and the meat market.  In other words, a great place on Valentine’s Day.  I was there for soy sauce.

I was in the 12 item or less aisle not so patiently waiting for the guy at the checkout trying to use an expired coupon.  The guy immediately in front of me had two plastic tulips.  They were the kind that you stuck in the ground and if the sun was shinning the nifty little solar panel not so subtly disguised as a leaf would light the tulip after dark.  As I said, I had soy sauce.

View original

50% of Sales Benefit Freedom to Marry for Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day!

This is one of those holidays that cuts both ways. If you’re in a happy relationship, you feel all good inside. If you’re not, it’s a reminder of how much your life sucks.

I’ve always been a fan of Valentine’s Day. I don’t see it as a manufactured, Hallmark holiday. At it’s base, it’s a day celebrating love.

Love is, as I’ve written in several of my novels, the most powerful magic there is. It is truly transformative. And there isn’t enough of it in the world.

It’s so easy to propagate hatred. It’s a simple thing to define someone or something else as an other and make them the object of revulsion.

But love is better than that. It feels better. It does more good. It heals.

50% of my sales today benefit Freedom to Marry.

Thus, in celebration of love and this being Valentine’s Day, I’m running another 50% Friday. I’ll donate half the sales of all my books today to Freedom to Marry, the national campaign for marriage equality.

Because love should be celebrated, not reviled.

It’s Friday. Enjoy one of my books. Celebrate love. Help earn the earn the right to marry for all Americans.

Happy Valentine’s Day, all.

Click the links to purchase the Kindle edition of these books from Amazon.com:

State of Grace (Book 1 of the Wolf Dasher series)

Red Dragon Five (Book 2 of the Wolf Dasher series)

Beauty & the Beast: A Modern Fairy Tale (re-imagining the classic story)

The Sword and the Sorcerer (epic fantasy)

Classic Villainous Traits: Ambition

Ambition. It’s such a double-edged sword. Without it, we flounder, drifting along aimlessly and accomplishing little. But too much of it turns us into greedy, morally bankrupt fiends only interested in our own pleasure.

I explore this concept in my new novel, The Sword and the Sorcerer. The antagonists in the story (they’re not all villains per se) suffer from this malady of too much ambition in varying degrees. In every case, it leads to tragic consequences.

Lord Vicia: Over-reaching

The novel begins with Lord Vicia of Eldenberg’s Council of Elders murdering Gothemus Draco, world’s most powerful sorcerer. Gothemus holds the lynchpin to the balance of power in the world, and Vicia convinces her colleagues on the Council she can kill him and steal the powerful artifact he uses to control things.

She cloaks this plot in patriotism, suggesting to the other Elders it will benefit Eldenberg, making it the most powerful city-state. But it is really her own aims she is feeding.

“Very well then,” Vicia said. “I shall move forward with my plan. I will deliver the Eye of the Dragon to the Council of Elders, we will master it, and Eldenberg will become the foremost power in the world.”

She smiled at the hear-hears she got from everyone but Lord Hedron. Now she just needed Elmanax to do his part. As long as the gnome could deliver what he promised, she was going to be president of the Council of Elders and the most powerful woman in the Known World.

Unfortunately for Lord Vicia, things start going wrong from the moment she kills Gothemus Draco. His magic lives on after his death, making it impossible for her to get the Eye. Her ally Elmanax is only using her to get the Eye for himself. And Gothemus’s son Calibot shows up to claim his father’s body and further interferes with her plans.

Her ambition is so great, it drives her to commit murder. It also causes her to reach for things that are beyond her skill. she makes an alliance with a revenge-driven gnome, foolishly believing first that he will do what he promised and then that she can defeat him in magical combat if he tries to betray her. Over the course of the narrative, Vicia’s position swirls further and further out of control until she becomes a pawn in her own game.

Zod: Blinded to Betrayal

Likewise, Gothemus’s brother Zod is unable to see the consequences of his ambition until it is far too late. In their younger days, Gothemus and Zod stole and plundered until they acquired the Eye of the Dragon. This mystical gem allows a magician to master the dangerous Wild Lands, making them safe to travel across. Gothemus and Zod establish a mining operation, and the two of them become ironmongers to the rest of the world, getting rich and powerful in the process.

Zod harbors dreams of being king, subjugating the other warlords and city-states under his rule with help from Gothemus. His brother has promised him Wyrmblade, a powerful sword that should make him invincible.

But when Gothemus dies, he bequeaths the weapon to his son Calibot instead. This is a double betrayal, because Calibot is a poet, not a warrior, and he has no interest in a magical sword.

Zod was disgusted. Why the hell would Gothemus give his useless whelp Wyrmblade? Calibot’s only skills were crafting pretty words and providing Devon Middleton someone to screw, and Zod was dubious about how good his nephew was at either job. What did he need with Wyrmblade? He certainly couldn’t wield it.

More importantly, Gothemus had promised the sword to Zod. Why had he betrayed him this way? Zod was going to become King of the Known World. Wyrmblade and Gothemus’s magic would have made that possible. Once he established himself, he wouldn’t need Gothemus anymore.

But that wasn’t the point. They were supposed to be doing this together. That’s the way it had always been. Gothemus provided brains, Zod muscle, and they conquered anyone and anything that got in their way. They were inches away from conquering the whole world!

And then Gothemus had gone and gotten himself murdered and given the sword to the ungrateful bastard he’d sired, who cared nothing for Gothemus, Zod, or their ambitions. Damn Gothemus for making this mess and damn his little-shit nephew for not doing the right thing and handing over the sword.

Zod’s ambition to be lord over all blinds him to the most important truth in his life — his brother isn’t loyal to him. They may have adventured together and built the Known World’s power structure, but Gothemus didn’t see things the way Zod did, that they would always do it together. Gothemus had other ideas, and Zod doesn’t notice until too late.

Gothemus: Missed Love

Despite being murdered in the opening chapter, Gothemus is one of the largest characters in the book. He has left behind a number of posthumous spells for his son, his death throws the entire world into chaos, and Calibot is haunted by the failed relationship with his father he never got to repair.

Gothemus was the most ambitious person of them all. His goals are so far-reaching, he successfully manipulates his son after death. He envisions a particular destiny for Calibot, and he destroys his brother’s position to make it happen.

But he ignores one very important fact: Calibot wants none of it. He just wants his father’s love and to be able to write poetry. Gothemus has no time for either of these desires. Later in the novel, Calibot reveals fully how he feels.

“Damn him anyway,” Calibot said.

“For putting you in this position?”

“For not being a father!” Calibot said, suddenly turning savage. “He cast this elaborate spell, so he could give me his final instructions on how to get the Eye of the Dragon. He put all this thought into this careful strategy for me to get my ‘birthrights.’ But he never said, ‘I love you.’ He didn’t even say goodbye!

“And now he wants me to use this stupid magic sword to break into his tower to retrieve another artifact. I don’t know what it’s for. I don’t know what to do with it, but, by the gods, I have to go get it and make sure it doesn’t fall into the hands of his brother or the gnome they stole it from.

“And then I’ve got to listen to everybody we meet tell me how wonderful he was. They all want me to know how much they admired him. Everyone wants to make sure I understand what an honor it was to know him. They didn’t know him! If they did, they’d have despised him. He was a son of a bitch, who only gave a damn about his schemes.”

Gothemus spent so much time developing his master plan, focusing on his ambition, he missed the opportunity to love. Calibot wanted his approval desperately, and he couldn’t get it because Gothemus was ambitious. Gothemus lost the most important thing he had — his son’s love — because he only cared about his achievements.

Ambition is a double-edged sword. It provides the motivation to live. It gives us something to work towards. But, unfettered, it also destroys. Lord Vicia, Zod, and Gothemus all have their plans thwarted because they allow their ambitions to develop into obsessions rather than simple motivation. It’s a classic, destructive trait for a villain.

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The Sword and the Sorcerer is available now. Click on the links below to purchase it. Twenty percent of the sales benefit Freedom to Marry, the national campaign for marriage equality.

Click here to buy the Kindle edition of The Sword and the Sorcerer from Amazon.com.

Click here to buy an eBook edition of The Sword and the Sorcerer from Smashwords.com.

Click here to buy the print edition of The Sword and the Sorcerer.

 

Can You Write Two Books at Once?

This is going to be a weird week. Hopefully, it won’t be too confusing.

As regular readers of “Pleading the Phyth” know, I stack writing projects. When one book is with my editor, I work on another. So, for instance, I sent the new Wolf Dasher novel, Roses Are White, to my editor a few weeks ago. While she was working on that, I started writing the next book in the series, Ghost of a Chance. It’s the only way I can hope to keep my goal of publishing three books a year.

Well, speaking (writing, actually) of those two books, they have converged. The second draft of Roses Are White came back Friday night with edits. It’s time for me to read through it, make edits of my own, and then write the third draft.

Ordinarily, at this point in my project-stacking stage, I put aside the book I’m writing to go back to editing/rewriting the first novel. After all, it’s first on the schedule, and the process comes to an unnecessary halt if I let it lie while I finish writing the next one. That defeats the whole purpose of stacking projects to begin with.

But I’m five-and-a-half chapters into Ghost of a Chance, and I’m starting to develop a nice flow. I’m loathe to just put it down.

I’m sure you can guess what stupidity I’m about to embark on. Yes, I plan to try to do both this week. I’ll edit Roses Are White while writing Ghost of a Chance.

In theory, I ought to be able to do this. At this stage of the editing process, I have to read the book again. I put the manuscript in front of me and read it from page one to the end, my pen in hand, poised to make corrections. I’ll also be reading my editor’s notes and figuring out how to incorporate her suggested changes. So I should be able to spend an hour or two writing one book and several more editing the other.

On the other hand, I’ve never tried to have my mind in two books at once before. That has the potential to get confusing. But even harder, Ghost of a Chance is a direct sequel to Roses Are White. So not only will my mind be shifting back and forth between novels, it’ll be moving back and forth through time — at least the time in the narratives.  That could get really weird.

However, I’m hoping that the two processes will inform my thinking. Editing the first book could keep me focused on what needs to happen in the second. And writing the second novel, will help make sure I foreshadow those events correctly in the first. So this could be a very good thing.

Of course, regular readers of this blog will also remember that my feverish obsession with the writing of Roses Are White during NaNoWriMo resulted in an actual fever and nearly two weeks of debilitating illness. So it seems I didn’t learn much from that experience.

Still, I’m looking forward to this week if for no other reason than it’s a challenge. How far can I get in Ghost of a Chance before I do have to quit so I can actually rewrite Roses Are White? I’d like to get about five or six more chapters written. Can I manage that?

And how many chapters a day can I edit in Roses Are White? I’d like to finish with the edit process by Monday of next week, so I can begin rewriting. Can I pull that off? Will spending this much time in Wolf’s world drive me insane?

And can I avoid making myself sick again?

We’ll see what happens. Writing is a deadline-driven business, and I’ve set a couple for myself with this week’s project.

But I’m competitive. I like games, and I enjoy playing them with myself as much as I do with others. This is a contest. I’m going to try to hit an outrageous goal — partially because it’ll be good for my business if I do.

But also because I just want to see if I can.

50% Fridays Benefit Freedom to Marry

As you’re probably aware, I’m donating 20% of the sales of my new novel, The Sword and the Sorcerer, to Freedom to Marry, the national campaign for marriage equality. The main character is in a long-term, committed, same-sex relationship, and, in my fantasy world, no one bats an eye over that. Calibot and his partner Devon are simply accepted.

I would like fantasy to become reality in the United States. All couples should be allowed to marry and live free of discrimination. Anything less is un-American.

But there are those who not only oppose same-sex relationships, they want it to be legal to discriminate against them. Here in my home state of Kansas, our legislature has become frightened of recent court decisions striking down constitutional bans on gay marriage in Oklahoma and Utah. Worried that the same thing will happen here, our state representatives have passed a bill that will make it legal for businesses to refuse to serve same-sex couples.

As it often is, this bigotry is cloaked in religious freedom. Basically, the Kansas legislature doesn’t want someone who opposes homosexuality on religious grounds to be forced to serve homosexuals. Wrap it up in the American ideal of religious freedom, and suddenly bigotry is a right, not a character flaw.

This is Jim Crow all over again.

So, since the forces of bigotry and hatred are stepping up their game to try to prevent equal rights for all, I’m upping the ante too. I’m designating the first Friday of each month as 50% Fridays. On designated Fridays, I’ll donate 50% of my sales that day to Freedom to Marry.

Today is the first 50% Friday. I’m hoping to raise $500. In terms of the money needed to fight these sorts of initiatives nationally, that’s a very modest amount. In terms of my usual daily sales it’s ambitious.

But whether I hit the goal or not, I’m very serious about this fight. I’m committed to being on the right side of history.

Won’t you help me? Buy a copy of The Sword and the Sorcerer, and you’ll get an epic fantasy about a young man thrust into a power struggle he wants no part of. You’ll also get the satisfaction of helping bring equal rights to all Americans.

Please feel free to forward this blog, reblog it, and otherwise spread the word. Use the hashtag #50percent4Freedom2Marry. Click the links below to make a purchase. I’ve also included a link to Freedom to Marry so, if you don’t want the book, you can still make a donation. Thank you.

Click here to purchase the Kindle edition of The Sword and the Sorcerer from Amazon.com.

Click here to purchase an eBook edition of The Sword and the Sorcerer from Smashwords.com.

Click here to purchase the print edition of The Sword and the Sorcerer from CreateSpace.com.

Click here to learn more about Freedom to Marry and to make a donation.

Rereading the Romantics: Finding Byron; Finding Me

Last week, I heard a story on NPR, wherein an author, who was a huge fan of George Elliot’s Middlemarch, was reviewing a memoir by another author essentially writing about what an impact Middlemarch had on her life. As I listened to her praise not only the memoir but her own memories of Elliot’s influence on her, I got to thinking about my own literary influences. Ask me who my favorite authors are, and I speedily tick off the names Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, Albert Camus, and Ian Fleming. But it occurred to me that, as profound an impact as the Romantics and Existentialists had on me, I haven’t read any of them since graduate school. I read Fleming a little more recently, but not much.

So it occurred to me that maybe it was time to go back and reread those classics that had such an impact on my young mind. Perhaps I should have another look at the literature that made me want to write, that inspired me. I left graduate school over 20 years ago. It’s not only possible, it’s likely that all that time in the real world has changed my perceptions. What do Byron and the Shelleys mean to me in middle age that they might not have in my 20′s?

So I plan this year to reread many of the books that inspired me in my young adulthood. And, of course, I’ll be blogging about them. Maybe I’ll get a memoir out of this. Maybe not. Regardless, I like the idea of re-exploring the classic literature that helped make me who I am.

Byronic Beginning

It seemed appropriate to start with Byron. He was easily my favorite of the Romantics, and he somehow is the very definition of the Romantic Age of Literature. As Jerome McGann writes in his introduction to the collection of Byron’s poetry I still own from my graduate school days,

Byron was born in London the year before the French Revolution broke out in Paris in 1789; he died in Greece in 1824. Since that time, students of history and literature have often dated the Romantic Period 1789-1824, partly because the character of this period was so determined by the epochal events in France, and partly because the career of Byron seemed at once its summary and its climax.

Thus, Byron has to be the right place to begin this journey.

My old copy of BYRON, THIRD EDITION edited by Jerome McGann. Squee!

I have to say, it gave me a little thrill to dig out my old copy of Byron, Third Edition edited by McGann for the Oxford Authors series. It’s about two inches thick, and it’s heavy. The pages are thin, like Bible pages, so that the book’s nearly 1100 pages can be more easily contained. Byron and I would both scoff at the idea of it being some sort of holy tome, but there is that sense of electricity that accompanies reading something on special pages that is over 200 years old.

Making a Pilgrimage

As I mentioned, my copy of Byron has almost 1100 pages of poetry and notes. Byron was fairly prolific. Where to begin?

I read a few of his early poems but settled on Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage as my jumping-off point. It was the work that brought Byron to notoriety. Hailed as brilliant and criticized for its protagonist’s unheroic character, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage is a complicated work. Byron maintained steadfastly throughout his life that it was not an autobiographical work, but Harold bears a strong resemblance to Byron, and his journey is based on Byron’s own travels. The first two cantos were published in 1809-10 when Byron was just 21. It seems hard to believe a passionate young man isn’t pouring himself into an epic that seems designed to decry the politics of the time.

I’ve made it through most of the first canto at this point, and a number of things strike me about the narrative.

First, Byron’s poetry is witty and amusing. I remembered this about him largely through his unfinished comic epic, Don Juan, but this humor is present in his early work too. In just the second stanza he writes:

Whilome in Albion’s isle there dwelt a youth,

Who ne in virtue’s ways did take delight;

But spent his days in riot most uncouth,

And vex’d with mirth the drowsy ear of Night.

He could have written that Harold was simply a scoundrel, but instead he chooses the wittier turn of phrase, “Who ne in virtue’s ways did take delight.” It gets a laugh, and it makes the poem more fun to read.

Along those lines, though, I also found I had to pay a lot closer attention to the text to understand it. It’s been a long time since I read British Romantic poetry, and the turns of phrase — the poetics, if you will — take some getting used to. Byron expresses himself in a way that is foreign to a 21st Century American.

But really, it’s sort of like listening to someone speak in a thick accent. After awhile your ear learns to hear through it. Such was my understanding of Byron’s poetry. After a bit, I got a knack for it, and I found that reading it aloud actually increased my comprehension.

But perhaps the most striking thing about the first canto of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage is how little action there is to it. There are 93 stanzas plus two shorter poems written by Harold contained within it. But the only thing that really happens is Harold gets on a ship, leaves England and sails down the Spanish and Portuguese coasts. The vast majority of the first canto is made up of Harold’s impressions of the scenery and the people who live there. For example:

Oh, lovely Spain! renown’d romantic land!

Where is that standard which Pelagio bore,

When Cava’s traitor-sire first call’d the band

That dy’d thy mountain streams with Gothic gore?

Where are those bloody banners which of yore

Wav’d o’er thy sons, victorious to the gale,

And drove at last the spoilers to their shore?

This is a fairly typical passage. Harold observes a place he passes, remarks at first on its beauty, and then decries the people who live there for not living up to their standards. With Napoleon’s transformation from revolutionary to conquering tyrant and the rest of Europe allying against him, Byron, and through his wasted hero Harold, finds Western culture at a nadir. The poem thus far is less about Childe Harold’s pilgrimage and more about his finding the West wanting. Harold may be traveling physically across the ocean, but he is actually a metaphorical vessel for Byron’s own internal journey.

Finding Byron; Finding Me

What I remember of myself in my early 20′s is a person who was much the same as this fiery poet. Like Byron, I was on an internal journey. I moved to Kansas to go to graduate school in 1991, but this physical journey, just like Harold’s pilgrimage, was an outward metaphor for my internal travels.

At the time I was disillusioned with American culture. I felt the first President Bush was out of touch with this constituents. I saw the justice system offering anything but justice. I didn’t really understand what love was despite being engaged.

I found myself in Kansas. I finished a blowing up of who I’d been in high school and remaking of myself into adulthood. And, despite having found Byron and the Romantics while I was in college, it was in graduate school — after the physical journey that stood as metaphor for the mental one — that I really came to know and understand his poetry.

Twenty-three years later, I’m a little embarrassed. If there’s anything I’ve learned after nearly a quarter century of both failure and triumph, it is that life is circular. No matter how bad it gets; it gets better. No matter how good it gets; it gets worse. You just have to wait out the bad times and hang on tightly during the good ones.

My younger self had no ability to understand that. Like the young, passionate Byron, he could only see the negative things and not hope for the future.

But if that’s a naive perspective shared universally by the young, it also has the virtue of passion. I remain a passionate person. I believe deeply in my ideals, and I fight for them. But I am rarely fiery anymore. It takes energy I need to conserve for other things.

In that respect, I have both lost something and gained something. I just can’t get as worked up as I used to, and that impedes my ability to fight for what is right. It also enables me to focus my energy on the battles that mean the most instead of scattering it across everything.

Byron came to me at a time in my life that he could give me focus, help me find myself. Now he’s helping me understand better who I was then and who I’ve become.

Crafting a Perfect Foil Part 2: Liliana Gray

Last week, I discussed the first of the two foils in my new novel, The Sword and the Sorcerer, Devon Middleton. Devon is a calm and loving supporter of the book’s protagonist Calibot. Whenever things get bad, Devon is there.

Today, I’ll look at the story’s other foil, Liliana Gray. Like Devon, she provides contrast to the brooding Calibot, who is forced into a mission by his murdered father he doesn’t want. But unlike Devon, she is neither competent nor loving. Liliana is there to provide support, but she’s very much a strange person who is difficult for Calibot and Devon to understand.

Comic Tension-Breaker

The Sword and the Sorcerer is a serious fantasy. It deals with tragic themes of grief, loss, unfulfilled relationships, and resentment. It also is a tale of manipulation and murder. There are not many laughs.

In a serious novel like that, a little comedy can break tension. Liliana serves this function at key moments in the story. She is the failed apprentice of Calibot’s father Gothemus. He may have been the world’s greatest sorcerer, but his apprentice is anything but. Liliana’s spells constantly fail, making her look quite foolish. Telling a story of her tutelage under Gothemus, Liliana says:

“Now silver dust and Mayberry ash look very similar sitting in a jar in a dark storeroom. . . . So I can hardly be blamed for grabbing the wrong one. The labels weren’t turned to the front, and I didn’t think to check. After all, I was sure I knew where the Mayberry ash was.

“But, of course, I had it backwards. So when I put two pinches into the cauldron, well, the results were very different.

“I knew something was wrong when the water turned green. I thought to myself, ‘I don’t recall Gothemus saying that would happen.’ And since he’s such a gifted teacher, I figured he would have mentioned that.

“So I consulted the potions book to see what I’d done wrong. But, of course, since I’d put the wrong thing in, the recipe didn’t mention at all what was happening now.

“Well, I’d just started to turn pages to see if I could find a recipe that might describe what I saw, when I heard this awful sound. It was sort of like a burp, but it had that wet sound — Like when you’ve got phlegm on the back of your throat? — and it sounded hungry. When I looked up, this green blob was oozing out of the cauldron and coming towards me.

Liliana goes on to describe Gothemus having to come to  her rescue before starting into another story of her misadventures. Calibot can’t stand listening to her, and she provides a comical contrast to his dark brooding.

Unexpected Insight

Because she knew Gothemus well, having studied under him, Liliana also has moments where she provides important information. The story involves Calibot having to unravel one of his father’s posthumous mysteries after another and, understanding both magic and Gothemus, Liliana often has information Calibot needs.

In a scene in Eldenberg, the Council of Elders has refused to release Gothemus’s body to Calibot. The trio of friends decides they should try to steal it. First though, they have to find it.

“Do you have any magic that could locate it?” [Devon said.]

Liliana thought for a moment. Her face screwed up in concentration before relaxing into a defeatist expression.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “The only way I would know to track someone is if we had something that belonged to them, but it would have to be something very personal, very important.”

Devon stared at her in disbelief. He didn’t know anything about magic, but it seemed to him the answer was pretty obvious.

“You mean like Wyrmblade?” he said.

“No, that wouldn’t work,” she replied. “It wasn’t something that was important to him. It didn’t have any significance to him personally.”

“Then why would he make sure to give it to me in a case only I could open,” Calibot asked before Devon could.

Liliana turned to him, opened her mouth to reply, and then snapped it shut. Her face lit up with sudden understanding.

“Good point!” she said. “It must have had some significance to him, or he wouldn’t have made sure I delivered it to you without me knowing what it was.”

“So you can use it to track Gothemus’s body?” Devon said.

“No,” she replied. “I don’t know that type of spell.”

Liliana has some insight. She gives them information that will eventually lead to Calibot figuring out how to locate his father’s body. But she also remains the inept sorcerer’s apprentice, and her comical foibles lead to another quick laugh to break the tension.

Wildcard

Liliana is also a wildcard in the game of power that is being played by the various antagonists in the novel. Her grasp of magic is poor. She constantly makes a mess of her spells. But she also comes up with unexpected solutions via sorcery. Sometimes her spells go awry in beneficial ways.

Calibot turned just in time to see another ball of green energy coming at him. He had just enough time to get the sword up. The spell hit the flat of the blade and exploded. Calibot felt heat wash over him, and his hands shook with the force of the blast. He couldn’t hold onto Wyrmblade any longer. It fell to the floor, clattered twice, and went out.

Now it was the little man’s turn to grin fiendishly. He leered evilly at Calibot behind a thick, white beard. His eyes flashed.

“You must be his son,” he growled. “I didn’t recognize you at first. Time to die like your father.”

He raised his hands. Calibot saw them glow green. He winced and prepared for death.

“Contera!” Liliana shouted.

A purple beam shot out of her staff and smashed into the strange creature’s chest. There was a bright, purple flash, and then he was gone.

Liliana reveals later that wasn’t what the spell was supposed to do. She was just hoping to immobilize their opponent. But something else happened instead. In this case, her bumbling saves Calibot’s life.

Here, she stands in contrast to the competency of Devon and the novel’s villains. All of them are very good at what they do. But Calibot is still trying to figure out what this is all about and what it means. Liliana provides a mirror of him in this case. Like Calibot, she has power, but she doesn’t yet know how to use it properly.

Like Devon, Liliana is the perfect foil for Calibot. She has knowledge he needs, she is a wildcard who often swings battles in his favor, and she provides some needed comedy in the midst of a dark story. Her foibles enrich our enjoyment of the protagonist while offering at times a reflection of his struggles. That’s a foil’s job, and she executes it precisely.

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