The Way of the Windsmith
The Windsmith Elegy (2004-2012), cover art by Steve Hambidge
In the Hero’s Journey (Joseph Campbell’s imperfect, but still very useful mythic structure) there is a moment early in the first act when the protagonist receives the Call to Adventure – their invitation beyond the threshold of the familiar to the Special World where they will be tested, encounter allies and enemies, venture into the inmost cave, face the monster/their shadow/the big bad nasty, and, if all goes well, win the boon that will heal the Fisher King/restore the wasteland/make the sun shine again, etc. Well, recently I received a writerly ‘call to adventure’ – a publishing contract to write an interactive novel with an impressive looking West Coast start up. I am always firing off applications and proposals, so I had forgotten about this one (so many of them don’t bear fruit that’s it’s not worth holding one’s breath). It was a very pleasant surprise early last Friday. And a blast from the past – for the contract is to write a multi-linear narrative based upon my Windsmith universe. The Windsmith Elegy is my five-volume Fantasy epic, written between 2002 and 2012. I began the first in the series, The Long Woman, as my MA dissertation – a decade later I finally completed the journey of my protagonist, Isambard Kerne, an Edwardian surveyor for the GWR/observer of the Royal Flying Corps, who vanishes through a portal in the opening battle of the First World War into the Afterlands of his Celtic ancestors. To find his way home Kerne has to learn the way of the Windsmith – a master of the air, who uses the woodwords of the Ogham alphabet to summon power. The magical system is based upon my study of the Bardic Tradition, and the novels dramatise an initiation into their Mysteries. I put all my learning at the time into them – and wove in many of my favourite places (sacred sites), people (the ‘lost of history’), and mythological elements (chiefly from the Celtic tradition). And now my challenge is to resurrect this world, and create multiple pathways to allow the reader to navigate it by the choices they make. I certainly have plenty of material to draw upon – a large cast of characters; an extensive network of settings (set over four main lands: HyperEurus; HyperZephyrus; HyperNotus; and HyperBorea); and a quarter of million words of backstory. It is an exciting prospect – to revisit these lands with a fresh perspective, while engaging with a (relatively) new form of storytelling. As a youth I was very fond of the British ‘choose your own adventure’ books, Fighting Fantasy (stand alone adventures), and the Lone Wolf series (which had a ‘series arc’). Last year’s Black Mirror special, Bandersnatch, shows how, with emergent technology, this ergodic form of narrative can be cutting edge – and offer a myriad of narrative possibilities for the modern reader. I look forward to accepting the Call.
The Windsmith Elegy (The Long Woman; Windsmith; The Well Under the Sea; The Burning Path; This Fearful Tempest) is published by Awen.
