The Author’s Kingdom is a series of articles, where the Author explains his perception of Heirs to the Kingdom. It is written to cover the festive season of Christmas 2016.
The Day the World Died.
Have you ever crossed paths with someone who was just so vile and horrible, that deep at the back of your mind those naughty thoughts took over for a second? You know the ones where you look at them smirking and think if only I had a gun, you mate would be top of the list.
Admit it, like me you have been there. (Smiles)
I still have a list from school; yeah you know who you are J
The fact is that even through Harry’s glasses of violet tint, there are days when just about everything appears to rip at your soul and drag you down, and that one individual provides you with those quiet thoughts where you slowly think of more and more horrible ways in which to make them suffer… Enter the writer.
For me, it was my starting point, and with the added creative input of my constantly crazy and hectic mind, it grew out of control as the list grew bigger and soon in the darkest parts of my mind I had worked out a way to finally wipe out all of those annoying people and create a new way of living peacefully. Actually just so you know, I am a really quiet and nice person, it’s just I now have the skills from years of research to plan your death and get away with it, it’s a writer thing, honestly you have no need to worry… just yet!
Wiping out the world is fun, but hell its hard work (Giggles) When I first decided upon the means, which I referred to early in these blogs, I then had to work out the mammoth task of just how exactly a virus that was airborne would take to have effect. My book case has some strange book titles in it from that period of my life, and I am sure there were a few people at that time who were more than a little concerned to find me reading titles such as, “History of the Plague, All you need to know about Bird Flu, The History of Influenza, The Coming Plague.” To be honest after reading all of the material I did at that time, it’s a miracle I did not turn into some kind of sad Howard Hughes type figure living in a plastic bubble, because when you read this stuff it terrifies you.
It became clear that for this to work it had to be a worldwide pandemic. If it was just this country that suffered the Red Death, then other countries would come to our aid, so I knew I had to take on the world and eliminate a very large amount of the population. It had to be done in such a way, that the infrastructure of every country was crippled, which would then isolate every nation. This was my primary reason for an airborne virus; it can be carried and transmitted into any and every surrounding.
A small and what appeared to be an irrelevant fact at the time became the key to a spark that gave me the means almost in a head exploding moment of clarity, and believe it or not it was inspired by smokers. Crazy as it now sounds, back in the seventies and eighties when you went on board a plan, you were allowed to smoke. Due to the build-up of smoke in the plane, small vents were open to allow for the passage of fresh air into the plane as the air was filtered and expelled from the plane, this served the purpose of keeping the planes internal compartments fog free. It actually created a small amount of drag on the plane, which meant at that time the planes used more fuel. When the smoking ban came in, planes realised they could close the vents remove the drag and save fuel, so they then fitted air recycling units to the filters and recirculated the cleaned air back into the plane. I realise at first it does sound like nothing that important, but the thing here was, after a quick call to an old friend who worked at the time for British Aerospace, he confirmed that the filters do not remove things like flu germs from the air, they do take out a large percent of the carbon dioxide but that really is about all. Considering the point, I became very much of the opinion that it would be safer to have a little drag rather than breathe the second had air that you now do. Imagine a long haul flight such as UK to the USA, or UK to Australia, just exactly how many times do you breathe in the air that others have breathed out, frankly it horrifies me, but it became my saviour because what that meant was that it only took one individual to get on a plane with the Red Death virus and not be aware of it, and everyone else on that flight would become infected. Once they left the plane and went all of their different ways, literally everyone they came into contact with from that point on would become infected. Add to that the amount of plane flights that cross the world every day, which are literally thousands of flights, and you have a virus incubating globally within a matter of days. It was my mad scientist moment as I laughed hysterically at my computer and declared “I CAN DO IT HA HA HA!!”
It is actually a terrifying prospect that we can send a virus globally and infect the largest amount of the human population within a week simply because we use aircraft every day. I will say this, if I travel abroad, I am taking breathing apparatus with me, or going by boat, you cannot unread this stuff and it really is the stuff night terrors are made of. (Giggles)
I had the means to conquer the earth, what I needed then was a starting point and a way to spread it as fast as possible across the country. I always knew that the virus would be a creation of Nature, and for that I used the creator of all things Hearne, but how was I going to get it from him to the world? I felt it would be ironic if Hearne breathed it out, and then everyone else breathed it in, it somehow felt poetic, the one who created a great deal of everything, was also the one to bring it to its knees. This would be a targeted strike aimed at only humans, no animals or plants would suffer, after all they do live within a balanced state on the earth, it is man who is the great destroyer, and that thought triggered my next idea, because it hit the core of who I am. I am at heart a person who is inspired and has worked most of my life in the natural world. I was an environmental activist in my youth and I still speak out against the corruption of man and his damage of what I see as a beautiful planet. The key to my next success was Global Warming.
Having worked out doors for most of my life, I am a little more in tune with my surroundings than say an office worker. I have seen the seasons in this country change from when I first began in horticulture, and in recent years because of the changing weather patterns I have had to change and adjust the list of tasks I would usually do on a monthly basis. Winter extends now in March and the Daffodils take longer to bloom these days, back in my youth you could pick Daffodils in the woods in early February, something which today is a very rare occurrence. The cold kills viruses, and so I soon worked out to have my virus remain active in the air for as long as possible it would need to be warm. Spring these days with the first real warmth tends to be around late March to early April, or it was back in the late 1990’s when I first put this scenario together, I have noticed that it does occur even later these days. I have had years in my youth where I wore sleeveless T shirts in February outside as I got an early tan, these days I seldom remove my usual long sleeve tops before April, so I set my date for April, and as was normal at the time I made the weather nice and warm, just for a little spice, I made it warmer than normal.
The wonderful thing about the UK is we moan like crazy about the cold wet weather, and then we get a long warm spell and for a few days we all go wild and enjoy it, then we revert to type and moan about the heat and pray for rain. It was perfect, I gave the country a heat wave and had everyone complaining about having to work in a stuffy office in this heat, they prayed for rain, and they got it, it was for me the perfect British scenario. The virus was released into the air, and in came a cool front that spread across the country and brought with it the very first heavy downpours of Summer Rain. It fitted beautifully as I have memories of April and Easter working in a greenhouse as the rain bounced off the glass above me, it was timed perfect. The virus goes up, and the rain brings it down, and everyone stops and for a moment enjoys the cool dampness after a long hot two weeks, let’s be honest we have all done it and given that grateful sigh of relief, I have even danced with the kids in it.
After working out the means, I then had to focus on the effects. I did have a long list of bullet points, some of which I used in the introduction to book one, but I wanted to look at the Red Death in more detail, and it was in early 2005 that I decided to write down the full symptoms and the effects it would have on the human body. Again I creeped myself out as I listed all the things I hate the most about being ill. Coughing, itchy rashes, vomiting, sneezing etc. Then I began to time the process of when each symptom would appear, as I wrote what became my biological time line of the Red Death, like all things I write I added more graphic detail and gave it a horror factor, and the ending had to be so vivid and terrifying I would not sleep for at least a week. It worked believe me, I terrified myself, I played into my own fears of a gasping bloated violent death, and for a moment questioned whether my tale was a fantasy or a horror story.
The only thing I had left to work out was how exactly would the country cope? I sat down with a pad and began bullet points to make a list of the events as they would occur in a timeline. I began with the hospitals and the slow rise of flu patients, we have all seen this many times over the winter as the British NHS starts to strain when a particularly violet flu strains hits. This is very well documented so I did a little research and followed the news events as it happen in the UK over the winter, it was great source material. This allowed me to show the rise, but because this is so normal in the UK, there was little panic at a national level. We are so used to it we just down some extra vitamin C and take paracetamol to continue attending work, so again this set behaviour was perfect for spreading the virus even more. Once the hospitals filled to their limits concerns would be raised, but obviously by then it would be too late to really be effective, and I knew at this point the government would start to show the first signs of strain. The press are vultures in this country, the media is very alarmist about just about everything these days, so when the panic starts, it was obvious to they would fuel the fires as they always do.
Next would come riots followed by marshal law, and slowly the fabric of society would collapse into chaos. I had a huge list of blow by blow events all leading to that point where some of the few survivors would in a desperate bid to live, escape the cities and flee into the rural population. My biggest problem was it was a list. I thought about it for quite some time. I did not just want to list everything in the book, I had planned this as a look back piece for the start of Book Five, and I worked on several pieces at the time to try and find a fast and effect way of piecing this part of the HTTK puzzle together. It was my wife who after a conversation suggested I use a character living through it to get all the facts together, it was perfect and so I looked at all the characters to see if I had one that would be able to express this in a way that would work in the book.
By the time I got round to writing the piece, I had already began to write different bits that would be slotted into book five. I had at that time a little foot note that wanted to separate Jett and Rafe for a short time, and I had underlined it as a part to involve Sapphire, as I was looking to isolate her as the first of her power began to show. I wrote a few small bits and then I came up with the idea of what if Rafe’s mum was sick? It felt like a eureka moment, and I sat down in front of the computer and instead of writing the separation of Rafe and Jett, I began what was to become the history of Rafe, and his parents, who I placed into a hospital in Birmingham as part of the staff. Over a couple of weeks the start of book five evolved with the history of Rafe’s parents intertwined with the past and the present. What really excited me was this was something completely different to the introduction of the other books, and it really gave me a lift as my writing hammered out and I worked a scenario of a story spliced with bulletins to create the brief but better detailed history of the Red Death. I think it worked out really well, and I must admit it is another slice of my writing I am really pleased with, as I was able to add detail, mix it with tension, and keep it themed well to the characters, whilst creating an interesting backstory. I will add it also provided a much better set up for Rafe’s departure from Jett.
I had done it, I brought in death, added riots and bloodshed, saved a nice couple who would be very useful in the Woodland Realm, explained why Rafe was so close to his uncle, and taken Sapphire away from the crowds. Just to make it better, I worked it into a sequence that brought together the birth of Robbie and Runestone with the event of Hearne bringing forth the virus and the explained how some lived and were protected by Opal and Merlin. It was a brilliant move if I say so myself, and just to expand the moment before introduction the king, I threw in Uther and Una’s excited and girlish stories of Arthur, I really could not have scripted it better if I had tried and I gave a sharp breathe of relief as the first seven chapters of book five pretty much wrote themselves over four long weeks of late nights and exhausted long sleeps.
It is odd really to look back at it now. The Red Death took me almost six years to work out through reading and researching. It was a constant in the back of my mind all the time, and it evolved very slowly as I really did want to make it as realistic as possible. It makes me laugh to think that had I been paid an hourly rate to create this part of the story, I probably would have earned over 10k doing it, which would make each copy of book five one of the most expensive books on the market. It is the same for all writers, and whenever I work with a new author as I now do with VCP, I always question their motivation for writing, those who do it for the money, I advise will be very disappointed. The process of writing is actually hard to explain, I would almost compare it to the addiction of drugs. It gets under your skin and you feel the need to sit in front of the computer and write. There is almost an adrenalin rush like experience when you know it’s going fast and flowing, and I must admit, the experience for me as I write HTTK is deeply satisfying and something I love more than anything else I have done.
I tell my daughter Iona, writing is the ability to draw pictures in the minds of other people, at first she found this quite strange, but over time she has actually sat on my knee and read the words as I have written them on the computer, and when I ask her what she can see she explodes with delight and gives me her opinion of the pictures in her mind, it is like a game we play at times when her brother is being mean to her, and for myself it has become one of another aspect in the joy of writing. I have always written for me, I never write for others, it is my story and written as I want it to be told, and I hold that as my first rule of HTTK. No reader, friend or wife can tell me what to write, I ignore them, because this is my own adventure in which I have chosen to share each finished chapter with those who wish to read it. I decided one day to destroy the world, and from that has come the magic of this series. I have been asked if I will one day write a prequel to show how each of the characters dealt with the fall of the modern world, and I must admit it does interest me, but for now I am too busy working behind the scenes on the final instalment of the story we have. No doubt in later days I may consider it, but for now it is not viable.
As always I am grateful to those who have read it and enjoyed it to date, I have had some wonderful feedback on the last book, which was far better than I expected, because the simple truth is I have no idea how each book will affect those who read it. I am very much a hermit and I do shy away from the limelight, simply because it does conflict with my writing, and so I offer what I have done and hopefully it will provide you with as much pleasure as it does in its creation, so many thanks to all of you.