Tag Archives: British Culture

March 21st 1918

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“Too many good men have been wounded or lost in battle. Too many mothers have wept at the loss of their sons, those left standing this day will call themselves the victors, but no one has won here, for if the price to be paid is the spilled blood of good men, then there can be no victory for anyone. War is caused by those few who yearn for greed or power, and their blood is always too precious to spill on the grass, so innocent men die in their place. Those that start wars always survive them with greater riches or power, and many families weep for the loss of their young. Tell me Rowan, where is the honour or victory in that?”
Robert of Loxley “Heirs to the Kingdom Book Eight.”

 

 

On the thirteenth of April 2018, I travelled with my father to a service at Manchester Cathedral.

 

Manchester Hill Remembered was a tribute to those who were wounded or killed during World War One, on a small hill just outside the town of Saint-Quentin in Northern France, on March 21st 1918.

 

For myself it was a chance to fit yet more pieces into the puzzle of my family history, and learn a little more about a man I never met, as he died before I was born, my grandfather. For my father, it meant a great deal more, for he remembered the man who returned from war and conceived a male child, who he would grow to love and then lose by age nine. I cannot imagine how my dad felt watching the show, all I could think of was how awful it was that one day after his ninth birthday, he would lose his own father, due mainly to his wounds that he received in service to his country on that cold stark hill in Northern France.

My grandfather William Morgan.

Private William Morgan, was one of many members of 16th Battalion of the Manchester Regiment that fought a brutal fight through fog and mustard gas, which resulted in him being shot in the head and left for dead, on what today is known as Manchester Hill. After the battle where the Germans took 1500 prisoners of war, my grandfather was listed as missing in action. I cannot say how horrible that must have been for my grandmother, who would have waited in hope for a miracle, and prayed her husband was not dead.
It was sometime later that she discovered that my grandfather had been taken by the Germans to a hospital where he was tended to and nursed, and thanks to their compassion, he finished the war as a prisoner, and returned home after a lasting deal for peace was reached. It was after the war in 1938 that my father was born, and then later in 1964 I came along. Thanks to the German forces I am here today, it could have been a very different story if they had left him to die on the battlefield.

 

168 members of the Manchester Regiment stood against a massive German army that day, and only 17 managed to make it back to the British camp when it was done. 79 lost their lives, and the rest were wounded in the brutal fight, or taken prisoner by the German forces. It is startling to realise that they were mostly aged 18 to 21 years old.

 

The total number of killed and wounded during World War One, both military and civilian, is generally estimated to be about 37 million. There were16 million deaths and 21 million wounded. The statistics for those who died include 9.7 million military personnel and about 6.8 million civilians. Allied losses were 5.7 million and the opposing forces about 4 million. Just to put that in perspective, that is a about half the population of the UK today.

 

Most people are unaware of these statistics, most people do not even realise that this year marks the hundredth anniversary of the battle of Manchester Hill, or even that World War One lasted from July 28th 1914, until November 11th 1918. I have asked a lot of people of late, as I knew a while ago I had been booked a ticket for this event, hardly anyone I know remembered that this year marks the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One. How quickly it has faded out of the memory of the masses, and maybe that is why we are still starting wars all over the planet.

 

Tonight I stood in a cathedral in the heart of Manchester, and I witnessed many relatives who attended, talk with reverence about their family members, but the thing that left me lost for words, was that all of them were grandchildren of lost soldiers. My father was the only person there who had lost a parent who had fought in the Great War; it was a surreal feeling as I watched the startled and amazed looks of those who spoke to him.
As I sat on the train tonight travelling home, I thought of my daughter. She is nine years old, exactly the same age as my father was when he lost his dad, and I could not bear the thought of her having to deal with the loss of me. How could anyone ask that of a nine year old? My father grew up watching his dad deal with shell shock and mustard gas poisoning, and the after effects of being shot in the head, in one of the worst days of fighting in World War One. He saw how it affected him, even though he was only nine, he learned to understand that, even though his dad never talked of any aspect of the war, and it breaks my heart to think of that.

 

All my life, I have studied the effects of war, and those of you who know me in person, know how opposed to war I am. For ten years I have been writing Heirs to the Kingdom, a series about life set to a backdrop of fear and war. I have explored all my thoughts and feelings throughout the books, and as you can see from the passage above, which will be in the final book of the series, I cannot and do not understand why we cannot learn the wisdom we have gained from fighting two world wars, let alone all those that have followed.

 

No one wins in war. It is easy as Brits to fill our chests with pride, and boast about how we won two World Wars, but did we really?

 

37 million dead, how is that a victory?

 

A whole generation wiped from the slate forever, and 37 million families destroyed with grief. Was it not bad enough we did not learn from one World War, and we had to have another 20 years later? If we cannot look to the past, to learn for the future, how can we even call ourselves a race of humanity?

 

Too many have forgotten that our free speech and democracy were bought and paid for in the blood of two world wars, we must learn to move forward in understanding of that sacrifice, and strive to live in peace. Schools betray our children by not teaching them enough of our history, so they too can learn the lessons of our past and prevent them from being our future. It bothers me that Gallipoli, The Somme, Manchester Hill, Dunkirk, and Normandy are no longer important aspects of modern education, no one should forget that most of those soldiers who died, did so to make a difference in the world, and give all of us the freedom to live as we have chosen today.

 

I shall not forget this night, watching a proud son share the story of his brave father, and I shall never forget the sadness on his 80 year old face as he did so, for it was clear how much he has missed his father. I have been anti-war and a flag bearer of personal freedom for most of my life, but tonight it hit me hard. For it was whilst I stood in the beautiful surroundings of Manchester Cathedral, a sacred place to so many, I watched a screen about those brave men and I realised why I have so much freedom. My grandfather survived the war, I am so lucky as from that brave recovery my father was born. But as the names of those who lost their lives slowly slid up the screen before me, I understood that those were the names of the men that gave me their freedom to live as I chose, and it is a mighty precious gift indeed.

 

We should never forget them.

 

There is no victory for a country that has to pay such a high price, as the blood of our sons on the grass of a distant nation.

The Author’s Kingdom #18

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The Authors Kingdom is the Author, Robin John Morgan’s point of view that reveals an insight into his writing of Heirs to the Kingdom. It forms part of the Christmas Event for 2016.

 

A Circle of Belief

It is Yule in the Woodland Realm. The snow is white crisp and deep, the houses are warm, and a large log has been set to burn to bring back the light and warm the world.

 

One of the primary aspects of the woodland life is their belief system. When I first started out putting HTTK together, I tried to look at every aspect of life, and a part of that was the way in which the country would change, even within the spiritual belief of people. I assumed that all the remaining religions would declare that the chaos and death, was whichever particular God’s you followed way of showing their power, by wiping out the evil in the world. Too many times after a destructive event we are told, this is their will, and we are sinners who must repent, and this made me think, because I do understand how a large proportion of people think, what if those who were suffering could no longer accept that?

In my end of the world of Modern Man scenario the people fled into the countryside, and it was here that they found their saviours in the form of people who still embraced many of the of the old customs. It is largely true today that within the rural community there are still many of the old traditions that exist, even though Christianity is still a major factor of modern life. If you look you will find many pageants around the country that celebrate the Celtic and Saxon traditions of our past, and so that led me onto the path of looking at these older traditional beliefs as a way to reconnect the survivors with a different faith that could to a degree show to be their saviours.

In the scenario I wrote, I have shown how after the Red Death, and once the people had fled from the cities, the weather turned warm and nature flourished. Although I have never written it, I have implied that Opal played a big role in this, never forget she at that point was the Lady of the Woodland Realm. From my point of thinking, it was Opal who influenced the life all around her, and so therefore the harvests were better than normal, a very important ingredient in the survival of everyone in that first year. This created a scenario where those of a pagan based faith could stand and say that this was the work of their precious nature taking care of everyone, and in many ways for those who are disillusioned, I felt it would be something many would accept and embrace, after all their life had gone from one of the modern way of living, to working with the land.

One of the biggest problems with Paganism is that for the last two thousand years it has been painted black by the Christian faith, and so I knew at the time I had to approach the subject in a more sensitive way. There are many today who still think that to be a Pagan you have to be a devil worshiper, which is a tribute to the success of the Christian faith and its propaganda throughout the past. I have a lot of involvement with Pagans; I have many friends who all practice in different ways, but the one thing they all share, is a deep awareness of the world around them, and especially in the area of the Nature and the seasons of the year. I like to think that being a Pagan is a sort of life that is very spiritual (In many mays likened to Buddhists) and deeply environmental, there is no coincidence that many environmental protestors are Pagan, as they see the natural world as a sacred space, and they are prepared to stand up and fight to save it.

The most popular form of Paganism today is Wiccan, which began to resurge from about the late 1950’s in the UK and the USA, it has grown a lot faster in the states, but again there are many misconceptions about it, especially in the area of what they term as “The Craft.” Wiccans do call themselves “Witch and Warlock” as do many other kinds of Pagan, and to a large degree this frightens people off. I can assure you it is not all broomsticks and cauldrons and evil spells, in many ways it is the gentle approach to life and its surroundings that involve a directed focus on creating peace and harmony through rituals and spells, you may see it more as “White Witchery.”

Rather than have everyone in the books convert to Wiccan or any of the other forms of Pagan belief, I decided to create what we see in the books as Earth Faith. I used the term for two reasons, firstly to show the reader it was a belief based on the Earth (Nature etc..) and secondly I do not actually like the word Pagan. Historically and still even to this day in the dictionary, you will find that the definition of Pagan means at its most basic, “Uneducated Heathen” something I feel considering how many pagans I know is false. It is yet another example on the success of the Christian Church and how it has influenced every aspect of modern life, including our language.

Earth Faith in the books is based very much on the Pagan belief of the Druids. It is a way of life based in the soil and the belief that we are all connected to this Earth, and that there is an almost symbiotic relationship between us as humans and the trees and plants that surround us. The belief we are all dependant on each other in the circle of life is something I do actually believe myself, and so it was easy for me to write a belief system based on those views. Put as simply as possible, we need each other. We need the trees to provide the air we breathe, we need the plants to feed us and the animals so that we can thrive, we need the spaces to provide natural habits for the animals, and at the heart of all things we need the seasons and what they bring to help us maintain a natural and healthy environment, especially in the aspect of providing clean water.

In my mind all the above is simply the most practical approach to maintaining the world we live in, but even for those who are not believers of the Pagan way, I am sure you will agree that when you walk alone in a woodland, there is an almost spiritual air to the experience, as we all can when we look at nature, we feel our own connection to the world around us. Here it is easy to bring into play some real Pagan belief. We don’t always realise it, but in modern life we humanise everything, our TV shows have ghosts and talking animals. It is not uncommon to see children’s TV showing animals that wear clothes and drive cars and love all of the things we do, as they live in tiny houses etc, and yet talk of a man of the woods, lady of the lake, or god of thunder, and suddenly the modern world says we are all high on drugs and talking nonsense.

Here I always point to mythology, which has inspired the writing of books for hundreds of years, simply read the Tales of Grimm, Arthur and the round table, or Arabian Knights, and you will soon see that our whole world is underpinned with the tales of yesteryear, which are all based in one form or another on Pagan belief. These stories are not works of fantasy, they are the upgraded stories of our ancestors, all from a time long before the Christians or the Islamic faith grew to power. We are exposed to these tales throughout all of our childhood, and yet once we step into our adult life we are told it is nonsense, fairy stories, and wrong to continue to believe it. I always point out, that it was these very myths that taught children how to navigate our iron and bronze age world, and no matter how modern and protected we think we may be, nature as we have seen in the last decade has a funny way of rising up to show that man is not really in control, and we need to learn better how to avoid the pit falls she creates.

One of the easiest ways to get a child to understand something is to make it human like, which is why our ancestors did it, within HTTK I have done the very same thing. I have the Man of the Words who they call Green Lord, I have the source of life Eve, I have a power that lives in the sky, Albanlin, and I have a force of nature divided between two human forms, Runestone and Jade. Each of these characters interact with other humans on a human level, but they are the human representations of those very same powers of the Earth.

When it came to the rituals, I wanted to avoid the old argument of how the Christians used Pagan dates in order to supress Pagan belief, and introduce their faith to the masses. It is a very important aspect of Pagan belief, and so with a delicate touch I have introduced some of the main traditions of beliefs to the books under the guise of Earth Faith. I think to be honest a part of me wanted to write how living within the balance of life has its rewards, but I also wanted to show that these traditions are not evil, or devil related. I mention Imbolc (Fed 2nd) and show a little of what is still today a big part of rural life, in the form of Beltaine. (May Day) There is no coincidence that we all have a bank holiday on the weekend of May first; this is more a political thing today than say religious, but it is yet another example of how the Pagan belief has been manipulated to appease the masses whilst suppressing the Pagan tradition. Summers end is still the highlight of the Pagan year, and so I wanted very much to show it within the books. To overcome any issues that could arise from it, I spliced it with Runestone’s birthday, and her upcoming wedding. This allowed me to show the celebration in the background, whilst writing a full piece into the book on her wedding. Samhain, or All Hallows Eve, is a sacred time for Pagans. Whilst the rest of the country today celebrate the death of witches, (Pagan women burned alive for their Pagan belief) Pagan’s celebrate the end of the growing year, and the start of the preparations for winter and the new growing year to come.

Again with the modern world this is no longer significant as we all just run off to the local large market on the edge of town to buy what we need, but I wanted to show that for our ancestors this was a dramatically important time. The harvest was in, and it was a time to prepare for the storage of food, this is a life and death moment for those who live solely on the land, if you do not store enough, you will not make it through the long cold days. Samhain is about doing exactly that, you take what will be required and place it into storage, food is pickled and preserved, meat is salted and stored, and grains are ground to flour and placed in cool stores. It is the reason most houses to this day still have a pantry, because in older times that was where the food was placed until required. Once everything is stored away and safe for the winter, the excess was then used in a meal of celebration, and the whole community would gather to share a meal and strengthen the bonds between them. It is something I feel to be a tradition that we should revive, after all we all lock ourselves in our homes for the long cold snowy days of December and January, maybe a festival revival would make us realise that we do have neighbours, and we could strengthen our communities and maybe take a moment in bad weather to think of them and ensure they too are safe. This was the purpose of Samhian, and as I wrote it, it is clear that there are no devils or evil acts involved, if anything it is a festival of friendship.

Life no matter how you try to deny it is a wheel. It goes round in a circle dictated by the seasons and repeats, we are born, we live, we die. We are children who learn, grownups who work, and mature adults who retire, and then we die. We go to bed and sleep, we wake and eat, we begin our day and work, we return home at night to eat, and then we sleep. The whole of human life revolves around circular patterns of routine, the Pagan’s recognise this and work their faith within it.

My story centres on a farm that became the focal point of a group of people, and so as the year progresses I show the circle of the farms work routines. I show the fields of Mid-Summer filled with food, Jess and Hanna running the preserves operation as they pickle the tomatoes, or Fuse as he oversees the corn and wheat stores with Jess. Throughout the whole of Heirs to the Kingdom there is the farm always in the background noting the lifestyle of those within the woodland realm, even Joe alone in the woodland has his still as he cooks up potent whiskey. It is the cycle of rural life, and again it shows us all how we can live on the land with hard work and make it successful. Everything appears to balance, even Robbie when faced with a stag and the deer as he hunts, tells Runestone, “we only take what we need.” This is the heart of Earth Faith working to the benefit of everyone.

Today as I write it is the start of Yule, another element of the faith that I briefly slip within the pages of the books. Today we know that the days will begin to stretch and grow longer as more light will enter the world. Light from the sun is one of the most important elements of the growing year; it is the one factor that will determine the success or failure of your crops. It is the middle of winter, which is a time of concern, especially if you have to manage the food you have stored. In the faith it is important to recognise that the half way point has been reached, and soon you will be on the threshold of Spring. In Pagan belief evergreen trees are sacred; they show us that life can be sustained through the long deep cold of winter. They are the symbol of hope that kept our ancestors going, and today we take an evergreen and bring it into our home and decorate it. It is a massively Pagan belief, and something all of us do without even understanding why.

To our ancestors it was a significant act that brought new life at a hostile time, into the home to show that it was possible to live in the most hostile of seasons. The days are dark and cold, and so a large log is placed on the fire, they called it Yule Log; we still have them today except we make them from candy and cake. It is at this point when you look to your stores, and you will know how you will fair in the coming months. Up until this point food has been rationed, and so now is the time to see if there is extra. At this time of celebration of the halfway point, extra rations are given and it provides a chance to fatten up a little to have the important reserves within your body to face the hostile end of winter. It is an important part of the life we live in partnership with the land, and so it is a highly significant time in Earth Faith. It has been demonised by the Christian Faith as tree worship and demon worship and converted to Christmas, and yet even they bring in a tree and decorate it in their churches.

The whole point of Earth Faith was to give mu characters a stronger sense of identity based on rituals of the past. I also wanted to show that this belief that still exists today, is not evil or sinister as it has been painted, but is based on a way of life that kept us alive long enough to evolve into the world as we know it today. Like all things you can hood wink the people for so long, and Pagan belief has become a growing trend in the last decade. I still think there is lot of misconception between the clashing faiths of Pagan and Christianity, and actually the sad thing is that Christianity in a bid to overcome the strength of Pagan belief in the past developed a lot of its own ritual around that of the rituals it was trying to destroy, and as a result both faiths have very much a similar way of living their year. They have far more in common, than they realise, if fact I would even say they have more in common than they do uncommon. Christian’s have one god, Pagans give human aspects to the powers they know are out there, and yet the rituals and timing of them are very similar, and I felt when writing I wanted to show this.

In book four I deliberately wanted to show the Christian Church of the past, and the modern church. I crashed the two together in the chapters leading up to the chapter “Tests of Faith.” I think it is important to acknowledge those of all faiths who refuse to change with the times, and it was here I showed the dogma of Brother Argus, pitted against the reformer Bishop Steven’s. Into the mix I through reason in the form of Runestone, and as we see she does point out that they both have far more in common than they would at first realise. I like this chapter, although I will not deny I had a lot of flak over it, but at least that provides me with my side of the coin and I can explain to those who attacked me at the time what it was I was trying to show. Admittedly those entrenched in dogma were never going to listen and understand my point of view, but a lot did listen from both sides of the equation, and I felt that the chapter brought forth a lot of understanding for both parties, and that is a good thing. It is easy to sling mud at an opponent, but point out their similarities and the task gets harder.

In HTTK understanding Mason would seek to influence, I think it was simple deduction to say he would look to a surviving church, and so it made sense to give my opposition to Mason an opposing view. It served the purpose of creating a good clash between old culture and new evolving culture, and also gave me a chance to show a little more understand of all sides of the spiritual boundaries. I hope it worked well and did show the readers something new of this modern world. I think within Earth Faith it shows you can be spiritual, without being religious, and you can work to protect the earth without being a Pagan, but more importantly I think it showed that we can all live together with dialogue no matter what our spiritual beliefs may be, and looking at the current world today, I actually think it could be a very good thing indeed.

The customs and traditions of our past were there for a very important reason, and it is one we should not forget. They were customs that kept us in touch with ourselves and the land we lived on, and in many ways it is sad they have been left by the wayside in the wake of Christianity, and the growth of the modern world. Pagan belief taught us that we are all connected to everything, and modern life with money had taught us everything can be sold. More than ever it is important that we understand the past, for it is in doing so we can build a better future. I think the message of our ancestors is very important, and it is not one we should easily ignore as we are doing today. The messages woven in to early religious faith was based on the facts of survival, and we are all intelligent enough to now see that, and understand we can learn from these rituals without having to be a part of that faith, and as a result we can prosper in peace.

Heirs to the Kingdom highlights one way of life, that could evolve in future years, after all we really do not have any idea of what will become of mankind. No doubt if such a scenario did occur, I am sure religion would rise in one form or another to either control or aid the survivors. I honestly think if one religion rises, others will rise to challenge it, and within those faiths will be a blue print for the kinds of life those people want to rebuild. I have to confess it is a great deal of fun to sit back and play out all the scenarios, and I have very much enjoyed putting my little pieces together. I enjoy reading books that challenge my view of the world, because in doing so I have to open my mind and try to figure out where my place in it would be, and in a way I have done something similar with HTTK. I suppose now the only question is, where would you be in HTTK, green world or stone?

Be you Christian, Islamic, Pagan or any of the other faiths that exist in the world today, I send to you my wishes for a peaceful and prosperous time of year, and I hope your celebrations are fruitful and happy.

The Author’s Kingdom #13

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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 Contradictions of Jett Amber

Before you begin to read, I will warn you of a spoiler alert if you have not yet read book seven. As much as I do not want to spoil the book, this particular part of the articles does contain some hints that may affect the reading. I have tried to keep everything as low key as possible, but sadly in this particular article some important points from Book Seven had to be referred to.

Today I will open up and examine one of the most popular characters of HTTK. I am going to look deeper into Jett, the cold ruthless sword wielding comedian. This is the girl who will attack with no fear or no mercy, and all before her will fall, she will laugh and scream with delight as she fights, and yet contrary to belief, if she sees her friends hurt, her tears will be the first to fall, and as you will soon see, there is a good reason for every aspect of Jett.

When I first began to create my characters for HTTK, I decided to use the names of minerals to not only name the characters, but also explain a little about who they were. This was mainly something I used as a support technique, because it meant as I created each character and began to write them into the story, their name also triggered their behaviour, and so by using this as a kind of code, it helped me remember what each character was like as I threaded them all in together to interact with each other. One character that was always going to be prominent was Jett Amber.

Jet: Seen as the stone of sorrow, but mixed with the properties of Amber, it can have the reverse effect.

Amber: Known to clear negativity, and for healing, soothing and harmonizing. Can exert a great positive influence.

So if you look above and see the main influences, you very quickly begin to see how I was able to take some of these qualities, and weave them into her character. The one thing we all know is that Jett is loud, she holds nothing back and her brash attempts to fit in create humour amongst the group, which on several occasions in the early books breaks the ice and lifts the spirits of the group.

One aspect that I always saw as very important was her bonding with Jade. It is very clear in the early books what a misfit Jade is, and as a result it is also the cause of a great deal of unseen loneliness. Jett proves to be the cure, and as the two build up a friendship, they become inseparable and together create all kinds of mischief. Jett without realising actually helps Jade adjust and find a voice, and as a result she becomes a very integrated and important part of the Specialists.

Even the effects of the Jet Stone, which can be seen as negative plays a positive role due to the fact it is linked with Amber. There is a dark side to Jett which in the early books is not seen often, one of the elements of that is her power. Sorrow can mean many things, and I deduced that it could also mean pain. Jett prefers to use her sword to fight, it is actually really important to the type of person she will become in later adult life, but she does have a gift like all of the other members of the circle, she just chooses to only use it as a very last resort. Jett can focus her mind to create internal pain, something I show in book two when she is trapped in an impossible situation pinned to a wall. The Cutter who feels he will take advantage of this, soon experiences tremendous pain in his head as Jett’s eyes turn a violent dark blue, the result for the Cutter is death by excruciating head pains. I saw it when writing as quite a dark and sinister power compared to those of the others, and felt it fitted in well with the meaning of the jet stone.

Back in 2008 I sat in my office one evening with Louis, who was at the time working on sketches for the covers of the first editions. I had just finished the first draft copy of ‘The Darkness of Dunnottar’ which oddly enough at that time was actually being written under the working title of Dark Rock of Dunnottar, I changed the title shortly before it was published. As we looked at the book and described the action, it became clear that the working partnership of Jett and Rafe greatly appealed to him, and we talked at great lengths about the story as it was then. It was during this conversation that I mentioned that Jett was actually a multi layered character with many hidden levels which would be revealed over the next few books, I tried not to give any spoilers, but I slowly over the period of an hour pulled apart her character and showed him the reasons for each and every aspect of her characteristics. I still remember that conversation with clarity as I think it really opened her up and made him see her in a completely different light.

On the surface Jett is loud and brash, and very flaky at times, but actually like many people in this world today, a lot of it is a mask she wears to hide her real self, and it is in this area I have been able to slowly reveal the great depths of her character. Possibly the most obvious elements of this was in the chapter the “Coming of Queens” in Book Five.

During Dunnottar I showed a little bit of her vulnerability when she saw the people being brutalised by the guards and she reacted by attacking them with her gift. It was an action that alerted the Dark One to the presence of the Specialists, and had it not been for the swift action of Sinclair, they all would have been caught. Later she weeps and gives an apology, but the root of her pain and anger at the guards, was at that point she was starting to see her companions as family. In the Coming of Queens, I used a memory playing in her head, as she faced one of her most difficult opponents in the form of the brutal Ivor Walter’s.

During the fight Jett weakens under the powerful blows from Ivor, and it is at this point we get to see the childhood of Jett in the form of one of her memories. From this we discover that she has dance lessons as a small child, but whereas most parents would do this to provide fun and entertainment for their child, Scarlett has an ulterior motive. Dance teaches balance, and the more balanced Jett is, the better she is able to wield her sword in combat. As the voice of her mother talks in the back of her mind from the past, we get to hear her mother scalding her, and telling her to get up and do it again. I think at this point it becomes obvious that for Jett, childhood was more of a training camp that a fun experience. Her childhood was one long rehearsal for later life as Scarlett, a warrior queen herself, trained her eldest daughter to be even better than she was. Scarlett is incredibly competitive; we see this in small things like the meals she serves at the castle in Caerleon. Jett quips at the table, “This is just mum showing off, we will have toast tomorrow.” Losing is not an option for Scarlett, and through her endless training of her daughter, we start to see how this has been ingrained into Jett almost like a mantra. The result is exactly as Scarlett would have planned, Jett rises up and allows her training to kick in, and as a result she finds the skills and power to defeat Walters.

Once we start to fully understand her childhood, we begun to understand Jett more. Her life from almost day one was strict and controlled by her mother, her freedoms were very limited, and I think it is a direct result of her mother’s controlling nature, that breeds into Jett the rebellious instincts that become her most popular attributes for mischief. Jett learned very early to fight her mother with rebellion, and this to some degree shows the inner strength she has. I think it is very clear, she has no intention of becoming her mother, and from that appears her only real defence, she appears uncompliant. The ants in the cooks knickers, the attacks on Harry, her wild sexual deviance are all things her mother disapproves of, as they are not the sort of things that a warrior queen should be doing, this is Jett’s fight back to established her own identity and avoid the trap of being seen as cold and as calculating as her mother is.

Another telling aspect of Jett is her loyalty and protection of her little sister Ruby. It is here we start to see how much Jett values family, her sister means everything, and even though they are separated as Jett is constantly in training sessions, it is evident that for most of their childhood, Jett when free devoted her time to Ruby. The loss of Ruby is very difficult, we see that Jett struggles to let go, a moment shown here is when Robbie arrives at the graves to find Jett weeping for her sister. Even in front of her grave, and confronted with the facts that Ruby is gone, Jett cannot let go and still feels that Ruby is out there somewhere, something book Seven reveals the truth of, and here again we see that absolute dedication to her sister and her memory that plays a huge role in her loss at the bridge of the Mirrored Waters. It is clear as she defends Runestone (Who she also regards like a sister) and is cast towards her death in the Mirrored Lake, that her will power interferes with the powers of those trying to save her, and as a result she is cast beyond the reach of everyone into a land she should never have been able to access. This action as described by Tula, is something that should have thrown out the balance of all the realms, and yet for Jett it does not, which again is a direct result of her ability to create stability as her name implies. After a whole year in Maybean she finally is recovered, and yet that year to her is only a few weeks back in her home realm, but the changes within her are there to clearly see when she returns.

Book seven is a definitive turning point for Jett, here we see her confront Robbie openly for the first time. It’s almost a challenge to his leadership, and to be honest it is not done with malice, but it is clear to everyone as she turns on him and snaps back at him “Don’t you dare.” And “I am the queen of Caerleon.” It is a very important moment of clarity for everyone, but more so for Jett. Here is the moment when you finally see that in her year away she has had a lot of time to actually think over her life. In one way, it is almost as if she has given in to her mother’s wishes and has stepped right into her mother’s shoes, but we are talking of the qualities of Jet and Amber, and this is the contradiction that truly shows the hidden depths within the character. You see from my point of view it does not matter so much that her entire life has been combat training to become a warrior queen, the really important aspect her is the influence of Ruby. Through Ruby her younger sister Jett experienced love and compassion, she saw the true value to the protection of the weak, and in many ways these have had a much more profound effect on her. The love she holds deep inside for her sister sway the balance away from the cold ruthlessness she was trained in, into a more caring and affectionate person, and that as far as I see it is the defining quality that makes Jett the truly gifted and loveable character she is.

There is no doubt in my mind she will one day rule Caerleon as the queen with great authority, but because of Ruby, she will also rule with great humanity, and that makes her a very different ruler compared to her mother’s reign. Jett will probably be a much better ruler, as she will combine all the qualities of her inner self. I think I can clearly say that even though at this point I have not mapped out her future, if I do decide that she becomes a parent, I would say her approach to teaching her children will be very different from her mother’s.

There is no doubt in my mind that Scarlett loved her children, but her competitive edge and drive to prove herself as the supreme fighter who had no understanding of losing was indeed her greatest flaw, or was it? It was her drive and education that she instilled on her children that actually allowed them to find a way to revolt, and in doing so, it added a stronger and more determined if not at times softer edge to her children, and so in a way, it brought out the finer qualities of Jett and Ruby, so maybe in a weird way, it was for the better.

Jett Amber is an amazingly deep and complex character, but you have to peel away the layers to fully see and understand it, it is an aspect of the way I write that maybe my geeky side shows more than I realised. I have placed many layers within all the characters simply because to me it is a part of the natural process, due mainly to the fact that I grew up at a time where writers were deeply invested in ensuring their books could if examined deep enough reveal more than just the story.

What I have put above is just the tip of the iceberg, dig deep enough and you will be able to read far more into her character than you first realise. On the surface Jett is great fun and very bubbly, she is full of mischief and tricks and has a love of using sexual innuendo to gain an advantage by embarrassing those she deals with. But scratch at the surface and soon you will see the full depths to a girl who can lift a sword and dance like a ballerina with devastating results. In book seven Rowan comments that yes she can be flaky at times, but she is never complacent, it is without doubt a definitive explanation of her, and it also shows how deeply Rowan understands her. I am sure if you have read this and return to the books, you will start to see the qualities of her name start to show more in each of her interactions, and it is my hope that by doing so, you will enjoy her moments within the pages far more, or you can just take her as she comes and giggle at her loud and brash ways and her mischief, either way, the books are there to be enjoyed, and so I wish you well and hope I have helped to make HTTK a little more fun for you.

 

The Author’s Kingdom #12

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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.

The Author’s Kingdom #11

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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 science behind the fantasy

Some time ago I was asked by a reader if I believed in Aliens. Now I must admit at the time it felt like the oddest question ever in relation to HTTK. What followed was actually a very interesting conversation, and whereas the questioner had actually asked a question with some merit, I found in the conversation that followed some plus and some negative points to their thinking.

I am a writer, and an avid reader, and I think that one of the things that reading allows us to do is open our minds to the possibility of anything and everything. Before I give an explanation to the question and my answer, I will explain a little about my own view point when writing.

I do see myself as being very open minded, I am at heart a liberal person who believes in personal freedoms, which I do not deny conflicts with a few peoples closed view of the world. I like science, I am by far no expert, but I read a huge amount of all sorts of unusual and different subjects. Like most people some things I can accept, and there are a few things even I find a little too weird for even myself.

So back to the question. Do I believe in Aliens?

After some discussion with my questioner, I began to realise that their principle premise for asking was the Ruling Council. It suddenly made sense, as in the books I do indeed refer to them arriving in our solar system and discovering the Earth, on which half of them set up house on this planet and then start creating things such as humans and Fae. Ok now it made for a very good question, and I had to admit it was not at all how I had first thought of it. In all truth the Ruling Council was my way of building a creation that was an alternative to the whole God created the world in seven days event, you see I had set a line of people on the earth (White Circle/ Green Circle) that were not exactly the same as us, and so in my way this was one way of explaining their race and the powers they had. I suppose I was looking for a way to introduce the magic that is used throughout HTTK, but I must admit the alien theory did intrigue me, as in a way my idea of the Ruling Council did indeed point to the fact that they were not of this planet, and so therefore they could actually be perceived as alien lifeforms.

The questioner then went on to explain that they believed aliens walked amongst us and that the human race was actually manufactured by aliens, Ok so suddenly mid conversation I found myself walking into what I consider to be conspiracy theory territory, and so I began to tread lightly. The thing here is that the questioner made some really good points that I had never actually considered, and this indeed is one of the greatest things about talking to the readership, because it does provide that window on their thoughts. Do I think we are a product of alien creation, well having read the origin of species by Darwin, and garnering an understanding of his Theory of Evolution, I would possibly say that currently I think the world view (Darwin’s Theory) has more merit and is more believable, but again I am open to a good theory, so show me credible evidence and I will give it some thought.

I think the conversation remained with me for quite some time; well obviously it did because here I am some time later still pondering the question. How do you explain Runestone? Well actually the most simplistic way would be ‘well actually this is a fantasy,’ so I need no defined explanation, but in a way that would be wrong, because even though this is a fictitious tale, I do try on every level to create a believable scenario.

Ok so here goes…. Did you know there is a tribe living on an island in the South Pacific named Melanesia? Most people don’t. I read an article in a magazine many years ago that actually had the theory that the people who lived there have a type of DNA that includes the involvement of a third species. Now I have to admit at the time I thought it was pretty interesting, I mean we all know the story of the human development being a mixture of the Neanderthal and the Denisovans. Science points to the fact that these two distinct types of being were the initial man/ape like forms that at some point met and interbred to create what we all know today as the Homo Erectus or human being. The thing that fascinated me was that firstly science is exploring what they believe to be a third kind of species of man, and the second thing which really grabbed my attention was that these people all had sapphire blue or jade green eyes. Hmmm see where I went with that?

My questioner when given these facts was a little disappointed, and sort of elated at the same time, they announced maybe the third DNA from these people was alien, which ok suited their need to believe and who was I to kill their joy? I just was not ready to buy into the whole lizard Martian type theory just at that moment in time. The good news is since reading that article scientists have indeed isolated a third type of DNA in these people who previously we had no knowledge of, as to its origins, well science still has a long way to go so stay tuned.

The important point which my questioner missed was the very simple fact that here was an interesting and science based fact that I was able to take and manipulate to work for my story. It’s what I do, and to be honest they were a little disappointed in me because of it and clung to their aliens are invading us script, which to be honest I have no issue with, for all I know they may well have done, one thing I have always believed is that looking at the millions of solar systems we see through Hubble, I think only fool would think we are the only life form in the entire galaxy, I just have not met anything other than human beings yet to confirm my own private theory.

I use all sorts of facts to create my story, I do indeed allow my imagination to run wild, but I always try to find a logical explanation. So at this point I will turn away from ET and his supporters and try to explain my answer as to why I made the first Ruling Council the way I did.

In a nut shell I did not want one all seeing all powerful god. That pretty much sums it up; I did not want to get dragged into some form of religious dogma, which then embroiled the whole tale around some all-powerful creationist who set his children free to roam the planet whilst sitting in judgement of everyone. I wanted something slightly believable, but I also wanted something that was a little bit more human. I wanted something no faith could claim, this was to be a work of fantasy, and so I got imaginative and tried to pull something that was unique, but felt comfortable. In many ways I like the theory of the Greek gods, although when it comes to Greek mythology I have to confess I get tired of it, I did so much at school that I think it turned me off it for life, my wife however loves it, and she is the one the children consult, and she is good at rattling it off. The one thing that did always appeal to me was that the Greek gods were human in their approach to life, and yes in a way I pinched a little of it. You see Greek mythology has very human aspects to it, their gods are lovers of the same things and have the same failings as us, and I really do find that appealing. One of the things about most of the other faiths that has always been a little bit of contradiction for me is the whole concept of man being created in the supreme beings image. We are told we all God like, and then you read the books that contain all the words of this supreme God only to find out that pretty much everything that makes us human is banned by the god. The Greeks had one thing going in their favour, Human appetites. They love food, adore wine, they think and study, they are wildly sexual to the point of deviance, and have the power to take life and give life, and most importantly they bred with the humans to create lesser gods. This is a mixture I could use, in the Council we can see the qualities of us all, and that I feel is a much better working theory behind my characters. I adore the fact that Hearne carries his deep love for Eve so deeply within himself, I think we can relate to a ruling council who makes a mistake or can be wounded or killed as Eleanor was. These are the things that build a sense of identity within my Earth Faith, and we see them in Runestone and Jade and all the other members of the circle lines. I find it creates a deeper bond built on similar imperfections and makes them more believable as a result.

The example of the people of Melanesia helped me to realise that I could create lines that fitted into the human form and appeared human whilst still wielding unusual powers, and having created my first real line of different peoples, it was not long before I could use the same believability to create more. The Fae, a race of two distinct lines all based in the same theory of creation, and that led me to then take one of those lines and morph it into another as the Dark One does to create Houlen or Darkmares. I found a way to go into a complete realm of total fantasy but still had that small set of believable facts behind it all to back it up, and that made for better writing which leads the reader into a much deeper and more fascinating tale.

I like to create questions in everything I write, I think it is important that books make the readers think. Runestone and her families ability to communicate via their thoughts is yet another example. We all have that deep inner sense of being, and call it what you will as science still cannot fully answer it, but we do have an uncanny ability to suspect something only to find out we are right. That one human quality helps me explore the deep inner workings of Runestone and her family line, it’s almost like the old tale of someone after they discover their partner has been cheating, I have certainly been there in the past. You know something is not right, there is no evidence at all, and yet deep down inside you just know, and so you look and look hard. Most of the time being right and discovering the truth is not satisfying, and yet something deep and primal within you had set you on the right path to discovery. It is still something science cannot explain, and yet we all know it to be true, and again it is one of the most fascinating things about the human condition, we believe it to be true with no evidence to prove it all because we have felt it and we have experienced it. These are the simple aspects of human life that allow me to take a thin thread of fact and weave it into a believable story line, and let’s be honest no one questions Runestone’s abilities because of it. She just turns to Robbie, smiles and says. “Trust me I know stuff,” and bang I have you caught in the web of believability, for no other reason than at some point in your life you have been there, and experienced the very same thing.

I don’t need Mars, Saturn, Venus or Buddha, I have no need for a Christian or Islamic God figure, I have five entities of energy, who create a lifeform from what was the primordial soup of life and they inhabited it with all their human qualities. They learned from their own experiences and created other life forms the same way that were likened to them, and their creations held all the same qualities, and those are the very same qualities as you and me, and that creates a situation where they become more believable, because we can all identify with them because we all have made the same errors of judgement.

My Grandfather was a head teacher, or head master as the position was known back then, he became the inspiration behind Albanlin. He once said to me when I was commenting on a book, if the facts support how believable the character is, and if they have something in common with you, then you will identify with them quicker, and as a result you will understand them better. He must have seen the writer in me long before I did, but I find today many years after he is gone, because he died when I was just 17 years old, he gave me some of the best advice ever in that small statement for writing. I must admit I have also passed it on to other writers as a really good way of expressing how I create and write my characters. You only need the smallest seed to germinate, and then you have a story worth telling based on that one grain of truth, everything that follows is built on that foundation, and as I think about it whilst writing this particular piece, I realise that my habit of sewing science, history, mythology and human behaviour into my tale, has actually brought it to life better than I ever expected it to. Is it based on aliens, well to be honest none that I am currently aware of, although I must admit, at the time it was indeed a very fascinating and well thought out theory.

 

 

The Author’s Kingdom #10

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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.

 

Village life.

One of the most recognisable aspects of living in a small community is you never have any secrets. Village life is well documented for the neighbours who like to gossip, and if you move into a small rural community today, well you had better be squeaky clean in how you live, because if you are not, you can pretty much guarantee that very soon everyone else will know your business.

From an early point in Heirs to the Kingdom, I pretty much knew that I would to have to find some way in which to reflect community life, and it did not take me long to work out, that I had two options available to me. The first would be the monthly reports given to the Lord of Loxley by Fuse, and the other would be the gossips… Enter Agatha Patterdale, or as refer to her, the Queen of the Conversations.

Adding little snippets occasionally gave me the chance to explain a little of what was going on at Loxley whilst Robbie and crew were on the road. I had set up Loxley village in the early days with two rows of houses totalling 14 in all, and so by using gossip, I was able to fill in the blanks of who lived where and what their specific role within the community was.

The wonderful thing about doing this was not only did it give Loxley a familiar feel for the reader, it also gave me yet another place in which I could add scenes of importance. I think no one will forget book one and the clearing of the snow, without the kindness of Alice Kirk and a bag of warm scones, with a gentle prod in the back, you have to question if Robbie would ever have plucked up the courage to actually approach Runestone for a conversation. It was almost a mirrored scene of the one I had written at the time of their meeting when Rune first moved to Loxley, but that was a part of the story I did not share until book five.

The small street leading to the dusty road gets to see a lot of interesting moments, and I have to confess I do deliberately move back to the main street at times, simply because it is a place that I can picture so clearly in my mind, it is almost as if I am actually there.

The life and times of the dwellers of my street have become a very important part of Loxley, and early each morning we see the lights come on at just before dawn as the Alf Smith at number 13 starts his busy day preparing the meat for sale. Just up the street the smell of freshly baked bread is wafting from number nine, and Ann and Alice Kirk fill their ovens and put up their collapsible tables under the window ready for their freshly baked goods. Next door at number seven, Agatha is up and shuffling round her shop, as Melissa her granddaughter who has just snuck in after leaving the small flat behind number twelve is ready to carry the new Cheese from the cold store out to her Grandmother.

Johnathon Appleton and his sons Ben, Will and Ray have been up for quite some time and are already up at the farm herding the livestock out to grass, and as the lights come on in number Two, Graham Ashton and his wife Julie are feeding their two sons before heading to the farm to team up the horses to begin their long day working on the farm. It is a busy time, and as the sun lifts above the trees, the small street comes alive as the first of many visitors of the day arrives.

By Nine in the morning Joss and Maud Baily are hard at work in the candle shop, wrapping up their orders to be delivered, and across the street at Number 4, the pots and pans shop is open, and Susan and Jake Holmes are usually stood by their door sipping herbal tea and complaining about the lateness of John Lox’s latest delivery of freshly made metal pans. The last shop open is usually Number twelve, Trinkets and Trousers, and Runestone and her mother can be seen as they carry out their metal frames adorned with all the latest clothing designed and sewn together by Runestone. Across the street at Number 11 Ian Hall the furniture man, waves as he displays his latest freshly renovated furniture, and scowling across at the cheese shop is old Ruben Stien the cobbler at number 8, as he watches Agatha leaning on the doorway gossiping as usual whilst Melissa runs round the shop serving.

It’s a busy street with a lot happening, and sometimes I like to stop just to catch a small part of the conversations. There has been a lot of late about the book shop at number one, it appears since old Mr Hargreaves left, (Because nobody was told exactly what had happened to him) Some members of the street do not approve of the fact that Young Judith who now runs the shop, has had it painted from the old burgundy to a new and colourful powder blue. Agatha is not at all impressed and referred to it as gaudy, whilst Ann shrugged and expressed the fact she quite liked it, and so this morning in particular, it appears Agatha has decided to canvass the visitors and get their opinion, but only after fully expressing hers.

This is a street with history; Robbie’s meeting with Leenard ended up in archery lessons, and below the window at number 12 Steph gave her approval in front of a very excited Runestone for a hunting trip outside the walls. At the bottom of the street is where for many a year a young and rather tom boyish dressed Jade Opal would lean against the wall of number 13, whilst waiting for her mates to arrive, before slipping off to create some mischief. Although when it comes to the approval ratings of this street, here is one particular victim of the gossip and the way in which it can turn on you. Jade has witnessed quite a bit of disapproval over the years from the cheese shop, and it has not always done her good, there have been many times alone in the workshop at the rear of number twelve over the years, where Jade cried alone after a particularly nasty scalding from Agatha.

Every February second the windows fill with candles as new light is brought into the world with Imbolc, and early on the first day of May, all the residents decorate the fronts of their houses with freshly cut blossoms from the orchard, and gather with food to celebrate the Beltane or May Day parade, where the street is the focus of the start of a long parade and showing of the candidates for the New Queen of the May. Robert Lox with his wolves head mask has led the parade many times down this cobbled street, and in recent time after his death, his wife and land owner Jessica has taken to leading them out with pride.

Fires are lit at both ends of the street during Samhain and to the rear of the bakery and cheese shop, the large market square is a hive of activity as the community comes together to celebrate the completion of the harvest and the preparations for winter. Like any other small rural village in any other part of the country, this small street has become the focus of everything the residents identify with home. It shares a part of all their lives, and is the place to be for all the latest gossip and news as to what is happening where.

Out of all the places I have created in my imaginary world of Loxley, and that includes Robbie’s Mere, which is probably the one place I would love to live most, Loxley Village is without doubt my favourite place of all. It is one of the first places I built in my mind back in the early 1980’s, and I have tried to sketch it a thousand times, but in all honesty I am a lousy artist with no sense of proportions, and somehow even though the pictures in my mind are so clear, I cannot find a way to get my hand to move the pencil exactly where it needs to be, and in a way maybe that is OK, because I am sure every reader has an image in their mind of how it looks to them, and maybe that is how it should be. I love this place and one of the saddest things about finally after ten years of work finishing the story, is I will more than likely have to move along and leave it behind, which is a sad prospect for me.

A day will come in the future, when the house at number 6 will fall silent, as there will be no more Jett Amber residing there, and the sound of military horses clattering up the street to the farm will fade away. Bread will still be baked, cheese will still be sold, and Ruben Stien will possibly still scowl across at Agatha. The bright red hair of Tegan Lox will shimmer in the morning light, as she helps her older sister Iona set up the displays for her mother at Trinkets and Trousers, and life will move on as the aged figure of Alf will walk besides his son, as the meat is cut and hung in the shop. Around the Village hopefully life will continue, although there will lesser guards and the days will slow as people move on to other destinations, only returning for market days and big parades.

If you are very lucky you may even catch a glimpse of Lord Thorn, as he goes about his duty on his snow white horse, tending to his duties on behalf of the Lox household.

It has been a remarkable journey from the street and back, and I have thoroughly enjoyed bringing you the drama of Agatha being confronted by Beth, or Maggs and Harry as they sold beer at the markets stalls and were positively filled with happy vibes at the looming nuptials of Rowan and Jade as Robbie walked away laughing. One of the happiest memories of the Village for me was back in early 2008 when a new member of the readers group was reading the start of the draft manuscript of Book Two. She rang me up complaining that the group had still not made it back to Loxley, I smiled as she spoke and I think it was at that particular moment that I realised that this crazy person at the other end of the phone had fallen as hopelessly in love with the Village as I had. Such was the power of Loxley that in 2011 she became my wife, only beta reader and editor.

It has been a wonderful journey to share with all of you who have read HTTK, and it is not quite over yet, so I am sure we will walk at least one more time down the street of 14 houses, all with small stone garden walls and wooden gates, all displaying their goods for sale to the sound of trudging feet, clattering horse hooves and gossip.

I am always interested in hearing your personal view and experiences, so please leave a comment either here or on FB and share your joy with everyone who reads this blog.

RJM.

 

The Author’s Kingdom #8

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The Authors Kingdom is the Author, Robin John Morgan’s point of view that reveals an insight into his writing of Heirs to the Kingdom. It forms part of the Christmas Event for 2016.

 

The sinister edge of everything

When I first started to seriously plan the first book in the series, I asked myself the question, Is Mason Knox a God fearing man?

I realise it may at first to be an odd sort of question considering who Mason is and what he doing to the country as it recovers, but it felt like a very important question at the time, simply because I was dividing up the loyalties of the people to create the areas that would eventually become Woodland and Stone loving, and I knew that any surviving churches would have some say with the people.

The answer to the question was obviously no he is not, I mean how could he be, considering who is mother is? so I asked a second question. Could he bribe or influence the church to support him?

This is a far more interesting question, especially considering the state of the country at that time. I looked at the scenario I was creating, with the Cutters inflicting pain and death and stealing the harvested crops of those who could not defend themselves, and it was abundantly clear that Mason was storing up as much as possible behind his walls and swords. So here was the man who had everything, and he controlled everything, and in this scenario I think it would be pretty clear that to support Mason at that time, would indeed benefit those individuals.

It was clear to me that after a chaotic event such as the Red Death, people would seek out answers as to why the world went the way it did, I was under no illusion that there would be members of every faith that pronounced this as Gods will, after all there are certainly enough passages in all religious writings to show how God would punish the evil. It is a modern day phenomenon that after all disasters and community crisis, churches that have been almost empty for months, suddenly find themselves filled to the rafters as lapsed worshipers seek some form of spiritual guidance and answers, and in my mind the Red Death would be no different.

Ok so I have had a little bashing in the last nine years, and I have even been called anti-Christian, but actually this is so far from the truth, and my defence has always been, I have done my best to show a balanced representation of how I feel the church would evolve after a post-apocalyptic crisis. I am after all a people watcher, and obviously I have used the Christian Church as my example simply because firstly, Mason has been raised in what up until recently has been a predominately Christian country in which he has had to blend in for 100’s of years, and secondly, I have been involved with it and have spoken at great lengths to members of this faith throughout my life time. I would say also that when I talk of Christians, I am not talking about “The Church,” to me they are very separate indeed, as I see the Church as the organised political wing of Christianity, and Christians as the many diverse individuals who believe in the faith, and in my mind mainly due to my own experiences, they are indeed two very separate machines.

The Christian Church is simply wonderful material for a writer, it has a rich and at times highly questionable history, and really if you take the time to look at the broader picture of the Roman Catholic, Church of England, Baptist, Methodist and even Latter Day Saints side of the organised parts of the Church, there is a whole list of drama’s and scandals on which a writer can build a working profile. I asked myself would men who want wealth and power be drawn to the church, well yes of course they would, these kinds of people have filtered into every walk of life in the past to seize control and make personal gains, and so I had no problems lining the hierarchy of my surviving church with such people. I would add at this point that Mason has these kind of people all around him, they are in his Marshals, Captains of his Cutters, part of his military and so forth, and so it makes great sense that they would also be in the church. This was never a personal attack on belief, if anything it is my own attack on capitalists and greed as individuals, for the world today is riddled with them and I despise every one of them.

I once knew a Reverend who was to be honest one of nicest and kindest individuals that I have ever known. He was pretty unorthodox in his approach to the way he ran his church, he was very much a reformer, and I can tell you he was not popular with the old crowd. He died not that long ago, and I was so sad to hear it, because I genuinely really admired the work he did with his wife, I have some wonderful memories of his time at my local church, and the happiness and joy he created as he filled his church with young people and children.

The old crowd hated him, he disturbed their out dated ideas and routine in the church, and after a year they conspired and found a way to get rid of him, it is of these people, the control freaks and monopolisers of the church that I speak about when I write of Brother Argus and the First Church Council. Even though I was young at the time, it was easy to see how he threatened their control and the comfort they felt controlling the local church. I saw with my own eyes the pure vile and evil of these people, and it was a harsh eye opening in my youth to confront such prejudice and two faced hypocrisy. At the end of the day it all boiled down to a power play for control of the church, they won by underhanded means, but their church emptied and the collections slipped back to normal, in a way at the time it felt poetic.

I think it is very important to make the distinction between how I feel about people like this, and how I feel about people of faith, and within the plot line of this series, which I hope is as accurate and true to life as it can be for a work of fantasy, I would like to think that I have struck a good balance that highlights the difference between those who truly believe in their faith, the those who see it as a convenient position of power for personal gain and control of the people. Historically the Church has always played its part in politics and the control of their local areas, today they are not as influential which I feel is a good thing, but take the country into the kind of scenario I have created, and I think you will see some traits of old resurface, especially in a leaderless society.

It has been my aim throughout all of HTTK to show the accurate picture of division within the Christian faith, because it is an important political element to the plot. As the story has progressed and the Church has been woven through it, I show the side of Christianity I have seen in the form of Sister Mary, Father Warren and John Stevens, and I have pitted them against their opposing numbers, which again I have seen in life, such as Bishop Holmes, Brother Argus or the Brethren. I think it is evident, that good people do good things, and corrupt people corrupt everything, and I have shown this not only within the church, you see it in the midst of the army of Mason and at times within the Woodland forces, especially in the south where there is very much a sense of distrust amongst certain groups. Silas and his jealousy of the Outlaws for example.

One thing I do know, and has been something I have watched all my life is the scramble for power at every level of life, and so I think it is a natural element of every organisation, and no matter how hard you may want to believe that all within the church or any religion for that matter are pious, the simple fact is hypocrisy will show its hand far more often than not. When you pit the faith of one against another you will always get sparks of prejudice, and history is riddled with it within the church. The witch burnings, the crusades, the slaughter of native Americans and even the Irish conflict are examples of how certain aspects of the Christian church in the past has exerted it’s power, and even in today’s climate we see a great deal of war that has become embroiled with religious conflict within what should be a modern civilised world. I think it takes little to get emotions high and then factions clash and all text about peace and love get pushed to the side as the texts of fire and brimstone are wheeled out for battle.

The Church has always played a very important role in the affairs of state, none more so than in the monarchy. Lord Loxley mainly due to his teachings from Leenard is wise enough to know that without the Church he will never convince the people to support him. I think is also a relevant point that Mason has been more aware of, as he began very early on garnering support with the recovering church, and as the books begin it is already very obvious he has been hard at work behind the scenes laying the foundation for his own coronation.

Most of this comes down to a single point of great interest in relation to HTTK; can the church tolerate a Pagan King? This really is the centre of everything, because had Leenard provided paperwork for an heir to the throne that was a recognised Christian, would Lord Loxley really be having the fight he has to convince the church to support him? I think not. I am well aware that under the constructional laws of this land, the King or Queen become the immediate head of the Church of England. No Catholic is allowed under constitutional law to be seated on the English throne, so really any prejudice that is aimed at Lord Loxley in not so much about the fact he supports a Pagan faith, but more about the point that he supports a king assumed to be Pagan, I would imagine Argus and co would hate him equally as much if he was trying to place a Catholic, Muslim or Buddhist on the throne too. It is a rather wonderful mess and absolute gold for a writer as the web of deceit and intrigue widens out.

Historically the church has always used its very significant power to control the masses, and I think it is for this reason Mason would have looked to the church. He built them a new stone headquarters at Hull. He repaired and expanded the Cathedral at Lincoln, and funded Argus after the fall of the Church Council, in order to ensure that the church continues to publicly support him and convince the people to side with Mason as King, and not this so called Pagan pretender offered by Lord Loxley. As Mason is attracted to the church and its power, so are others for exactly the same reasons, and I would say if you look hard enough, you will see some of these kinds of people in positions of power in the church, local and national government and industry today, they are the ones who enforce the rules, yet they themselves do not live by them.

I see all organised religion today as divisive, and I think it shows in the writing. Religion preaches tolerance and compassion, and it is very evident in the world today that some people honestly believe in those ethics and live their life accordingly. On the other side of the coin, if you look at the internal squabbling in recent times over women vicars and bishops, and more recently gay marriage, the divisions are also clearly seen, and they are very deep indeed. On a more personal level, if you talk religion, or better yet compare religions with others, you very soon see the divisions between individuals, and this from my point of view has allowed me to open up a debate within all parties in the story to create much greater depth. Robbie takes what he has read in the small book given him by Sister Mary and found a great deal that matches in with his own belief system, and yet Sapphire who has suffered at the hands of the church hates them with good reason, although even she was touched by the kindness of Bishop Stevens. It is this wonderful set of contradictions that play well into the story line and it does give me great latitude to play people off against each other, be they Christian against Pagan or Christian against Christian.

Religion can be a mine field and I do tread carefully when writing, after all my aim is not to offend, but to provide interesting dialogue, but I do find I have a wonderful wealth of information on which to base my characters and their belief system. In book Seven you see yet another great example of the divisions created by religion when even Jett Amber, possibly one of Robbie’s loyalist supporters, speaks out publicly her objections to Robbie’s support of part of the church. It’s a wonderful heady mix that helps add yet more life to this tale, and it is my hope that it does keep the plot alive and bubbling.

I think it is safe to say that Mason probably enjoys watching the church fight internally for the controlling power of the people. To a degree it serves his purpose well, as all he has to do is sit back and wait for one to emerge with all the power, who he can then manipulate via their own greed to give him what he wants. After all he is the one holding all the best cards as he has the best equipped force, and all the reserve supplies to push the country forward into something more inclined to his view of the world. I have a three way conflict in so much as I have Mason, the church and Lord Loxley, and as the story has evolved there has been a good amount of doubt and uncertainty on all sides, which has allowed me to play out a scenario that does indeed hold tension at times. I have always felt this was good for the reader, and it has embroiled them in what possibly is one of the oldest conflicts of mankind. Historically none of these groups can be perceived as thoroughly good; all of them have a somewhat jaded history, be it the crimes and greed of the Christian faith, the rape and pillage of the Saxons, and even the Celts as they spread out from Europe long before biblical times, committed some horrendous acts against their enemies.

My aim has always been within the plot to show that not everyone is nice, and some people try very hard to do the right thing, I think this is a clear example of mankind, we are all saints and sinners and no one is perfect. As much as the old hippie inside me wants peace in the world, I fear it will never be so, it’s a great shame as we have the technology and the intelligence to actually create a far better world than we have today, hence my unrest and lack of faith in mankind at times. Sadly part of the human condition for some is greed and control, and I think no matter how far the human race goes, even if some apocalyptic incident happened, we would still be the primitive war mongering tribes we have always been. I think in the world today we may wear suits and act like we are responsible humans, but always simmering just below the surface is the primitive being we have always been, and all it takes for that side of humanity to emerge is one big chaotic event. Heirs to the Kingdom is for me a chance to lift up the false charade and take a peek at why lies underneath, and whereas sometimes it’s not really that bad, occasionally it does make all of us a little uncomfortable.

So in conclusion I will simply say this, I am a writer, and from my experience of writing and reading over my lifetime, I have found at times being uncomfortable makes for good thinking and the questioning of ourselves, and that is not always a bad thing.

As always, I love questions, because that begins good conversations that broadens the minds of both parties, and all of you are welcome at any point to message me and ask them, so until my next piece, I bid you all happy ponderings.

 

The Author’s Kingdom #7

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The Author’s Kingdom is a series of articles by Author Robin John Morgan that provides some deeper detail and understanding of his writing. This event has been written and planned for Christmas 2016

 

The Cycle of Life.

There is something quite special to the relationship between a person who works with the land and the natural world that surrounds them. Having spent most of my life working with plant life, I feel a lot more in tune with the world, than say some of my friends and acquaintances that work in offices and factories.

Even now, whilst I am no longer working as a professional in horticulture, and I sit at a desk most days to write, I still take out time to walk within the natural surroundings of my home. The strong urge to reconnect is never far away, and I can only go for so long before I feel the urgent need to work in the soil or walk beneath the trees. It is often hard to explain this to others who live a more material life within the built up areas of town or in the city. I feel that it is within this part of the person that I am that I have created the woodland peoples and the realm that they live in.

There is something about working outdoors and being part of the circle of creation of life that has a deep impact on you, and in many ways your senses changed and become more in tune with Nature. I have found after most of my life working with plants within each season that I feel the changes in the weather and the atmosphere as they build. People laugh when I tell them I can smell snow or rain coming, but I do notice those slight subtle changes. It is probably odd to say it, but the smell of the earth changes as you work through the seasons, and there is a very real difference between the damp earth of autumn and the earth of high summer.

Basing my Woodland dwellers in this cycle of a working life that is dependent upon the life cycle of life, not only gives me the chance to express a great of the joy I take from the wilderness, but I have also used it as a vehicle in which I can share some of these precious moments of my year with the readership. There is no coincidence that Robbie and Rowan react as they do to the world around them as I add small details to the background of my writing to let you know what is going on in the British wilderness at that specific time of year.

I started the books on New Year’s Day as a deliberate act so that as I progressed through the books I could introduce the circle of the year’s events and some of the tasks involved in the life cycle of the plant and tree life around the characters. It really pays to visit the British countryside and witness the life that the people there live, it is very similar to the way in which Loxley functions, and it is a very important part of our living heritage. Many towns and villages still celebrate many of what are now the old country traditions, and you would be surprised at just how many people get involved and celebrate. We are indeed a country that was built around Christian worship, and yet I am never surprised to see that a great deal of our Celtic and Saxon country based traditions are still upheld and celebrated, be it corn dollies in Somerset or well dressing in Buxton.

In many ways it is nice to know that around the country there are small pockets of people that work very hard to keep alive important skills and traditions. All of us have visited craft shows organised around our larger towns where we get to see just a small selection of a few of the living skills we hold on to, and it is important we see them, but it always appear to be the same old skills of wood turning or hand pottery throwing, yet in my travels over the past forty years I have delighted in finding that there are people keeping these important crafts alive such as spinning wool and cottons by hand and traditional weaving, even glass blowing has had a resurge over the years. What is even more important is that these skills that have been passed down from an age where they were essential to the survival of the community are now being taught to our young, and this is all happening quietly behind the scenes of modern life.

There is no coincidence that I started my series by mentioning how those who flocked to the countryside were saved by the country folk who had the skills but were too old to carry them out on a larger scale. I was questioned by a few in the early days of HTTK as to whether or not this would be a likely scenario, but if you look at the plain facts of younger people fleeing in terror from the crumbling cities, it is abundantly clear to me that the influx of extra youth into rural communities would serve to greatly enhance the survival rate of all of them.

I have always tried to encourage the people around me to look at these skills and learn them, my children have benefited greatly from both myself and my wife taking time out of our routines to teach them these skills. My children see this as fun family orientated activities, but it serves the important tradition of helping to keep these traditions alive, and it also has the added benefit of allowing me the personal experiences that enable some of my writing from a point of knowledge. We have made our own arrow heads, started fires without matches, learned to identify all the wild foods that are actually very nutritious and safe to eat. As you can imagine the kids love our wild rambles outdoors, as I always point some form of food they much as we walk, and even though they are not aware of it, I am preserving some very important ancient skills that sadly were once common knowledge.  

As with all things within the writing community, every experience helps to enhance the writing and although most readers probably do not realise it, HTTK is riddled with some really important ancient skills that are the reason we survived through the pre modern times. Ok so maybe we will not have some major apocalyptic event, I mean it’s not like I am planning one any time soon, but the thing here is we do really know the fate of the world? When I look back at my youth and then compare it to just the last five years of my life, I think it is very noticeable how the weather has become more and more extreme round the globe, even here in the UK we are seeing flooding and freak weather we have not witnessed before. It matters not if this caused by global warming or not, the fact is that the world as we know it at the moment is very unpredictable, and so the scenario I have painted or something similar could very well happen, and I feel that is even more an important point to consider. Learning a few of the skills of our past may be the very thing that gets us through some major future event, and that is why I feel it’s important to share the information or make people aware, which is one of the many purposes that HTTK also serves as a hidden layer between the pages. Ok so we don’t all have to become arran clad folk singers, who spend our days weaving and carving, although I must admit I think the influence of my father has given me a bit of a desire to get into wood work, which I need to find more time to practice more, but let’s be honest being more connected with anything remotely natural is not exactly a bad thing.

I cannot mention nature, country living without the influence of Pagan ways on my woodland dwelling folk. Earth Faith, which I created as a slightly enhanced version of what is traditional Paganism. I have had the privilege of being around Pagan’s for a very long time, and I do have a very deep understanding of their beliefs, many of which I share. HTTK does contain a huge amount of pagan ritual and beliefs due mainly to the fact that the faith is based to work within the wheel of the year and it is a very seasonal linked faith. When I wrote the very first draft of the Bowman of Loxley with a readers beta group, a great deal of the questions I got were Pagan based. The Beta group asked if it was actually feasible that a woodsman type belief would actually resurge across the country as depicted in the introduction of the book. I think they were surprised to learn that actually in this country there are far more Pagans than people realise, it is a faith that has been growing steadily since the 1950’s and I have been a large part of it. Unlike most mainstream religions Pagan tend to be quite secretive about their beliefs, which mainly is due to the stigma placed on it by both the Christian and Islam faiths. Devil worshiper is a tag often placed on Pagan, and even in this modern time, the slightest hint of anything remotely Satan based is still something very much shunned and frowned upon. The sad thing is that Satan or the devil is a Christian creation, and no self-respecting Pagan would support such nonsense, but mainly due to the fact that for almost two thousand years the Church has demonised Pagans, it is still a very sore point with modern pagans today, and society frowns due to a huge lack of understanding of the Pagan faith.

From my own observations and involvement with Pagan belief, I see it as a kind of spiritual environmentalism, which considering who my lead female character was going to be revealed as works perfectly into the woodland community. From my own point of reference and my knowledge of the lifestyle that surrounds plant life, I do not feel that there is a great stretch of the imagination to understand that people who turn to country ways in order to survive would embrace a Pagan based faith. I have always felt that people would tend to embrace what was around them, and Pagan tradition and lifestyles do still predominately get practiced on a higher scale in more rural areas today. It did help create a good backdrop on which to work in the politics of some of the Christian faith, after all we have over a thousand years of historical rivalry between the two, so from a writing point of view it does give me a good vehicle for a lack of understanding between the two factions. Although it was never planned or scripted, I have found from my conversations with readers of HTTK that it has actually broadened peoples understanding of the faith, which cannot be such a bad thing as knowledge breeds acceptance, so I take that as a plus for the books.

In HTTK I have taken the workings of the rural community, added a more earth based faith, and introduced what are basically the living skills of the medieval era, spliced with a small amount of modern technology. In my mind this was always a natural direction to take considering the scenario I had created, but I have to admit that from the initial scripting, to what has evolved in the books to date I am happy to find that the story almost feels timeless. I have had quite a few people comment that suddenly during the reading they stopped to think, and realised this is a story set in the future, and yet it would also fit snuggly into modern or even medieval times. It is hard for to me comment as at times I become so immersed in the story as I write that even I lose track of the date, although I will add at this point I do actually keep a calendar of 2038-40, to which I add each event as it is written just so I am aware of the actual date and the season. It is important that I keep this kind of record of events as it allows me to place my horticultural knowledge in its correct time frame, which is why I can write about the aconite popping through the snow or the honeysuckle creeping through the hedgerows of green.

There are days I sit back and ponder just why the hell I spend so much time sat at my desk adding all this stuff to the story in ever increasing layers, and then I get a message or someone I meet who has read the books comments on a particular aspect of the story, and it is during these moments of seeing the enthusiasm of a reader that all of it makes sense and it brings me a great feeling of satisfaction. I really do enjoy the feedback I get and the chances to explain something in deeper detail, and I always encourage questions, and so as I pull this next instalment of The Authors Kingdom to a close I will say that I am here and even though I have written a lot for this event already, I am happy to work out a piece that explains any aspect of the Kingdom, all you need do is message me, and I will write something to provide my view of it for you. It matters not whether I have one, or one million readers, as long as it is required from one of you, I am happy to keep writing it, and I am very grateful to all of you for the love and support you have shown my work, as always my thanks to you all.

 

 

 

 

Truce for Christmas.

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This is a very special time of year for families, it matters not what your faith may be, because a vast part of the world has been swept into the hustle that is Christmas. For many it is a time of peace and quiet, as the shops close and most of the countries take a pause, to allow those of faith to celebrate their own unique customs and rituals that represent their own ideas of family and their celebration of it.

It is a time I think, most of us consider as a time of peace and goodwill to all, and so it is very unlikely that many of us would be thinking of war. Sadly today there are parts of the world caught in conflict, and even though many of those involved will be placed somewhere on guard and watching, far away from their loved ones, in the backs of the minds of those individuals, there may be doubts as to why on this time more than most, men would want to fight and kill each other.

I am very much opposed to war, as those of you who know me will agree, it is a belief that runs deep within me that most ordinary simple men do not want to leave home and have to kill others. Many feel the pressures and are forced into enlisting, a great many feel a sense of duty, but if you were to ask them all how they feel deep down inside, I think you would find that they simply would much rather find a better way to resolve the conflicts they have been caught up in.

This year more than any other, I find it to be a poignant fact, as we celebrate an event that is 100 years old and highlights my point perfectly. I refer to the celebrated Christmas Truce of 1914, where enemies for a short while walked out onto the battlefield, and stood as the men they truly were, and wished each other Merry Christmas.

 

Christmas Truce 1914

Soldiers meet in a temporary peace for Christmas

It is a fact of history that the Pope had called out on December 7th 1914 for there to be a ceasefire, but those in charge on all sides of the war refused to make any form of official agreement, and they ordered the troops to stay alert and be combat ready. I love the fact that all along those cold miserable front lines of France, groups of both German and English soldiers defied their officials as they sang carols and hymns across the no mans land together, and eventually walked unarmed out onto the battlefield where they stood face to face, and wished each other Merry Christmas.

It stands I feel, as testament to the character of ordinary men, and reinforces my view that there is always another way to resolve a conflict, as long as the simple man makes a stand for what is morally the right thing to do. War is never about ordinary people, they are just the casualties that become swept up into the conflict, war is about the greed and lust for power of the individual, who drives that power to force an issue and embroils the others around them.

There are many cases in history that show us that there were men on all sides who took a stand against those who ruled them, but I don’t think the message here can be given a greater significance, than the simple act of those simple soldiers 100 years ago. Mankind has come so far in this world, and yet we still stumble and fall into conflicts that kill, maim, and wound men, women, and children across the planet. Most people shy away from doing something about it, they fear the system and so remain silent, so maybe it is the time to stand up and use the one weapon we all have and use it, and that is simply our voice. Speak out against the wars and injustice, and think more about peaceful solutions, and then voice those thoughts to others. Time and time again it has been proven that when we all speak up with one clear voice, those who lead eventually listen, and maybe 100 years after such an act of peace and goodwill, we too should take a stand as simple ordinary people, and say with a loud clear voice enough is enough.

World war one and two wiped out a generation of young men, and killed countless women and children, because as we know, regardless of what NATO or the UN may say, civilians die in vast numbers in all combat situations, as they get caught in the middle, just look at the media of 2014 and it clearly shows the despair created from the loss of loved ones.

The human race has the intelligence and the technology to wipe out poverty and world hunger, we have the capabilities to provide everyone with a home and a stable lifestyle, and yet even though today many will remember the unofficial truce of 1914, sadly despite all our advances, as humans we have learned little. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could learn from one hundred years ago today, and decide that from now on, the best way to honour those soldiers who as enemies, met and wished each a Merry Christmas, would be to do likewise? There is far too much hate in the world and it is bringing the world down, maybe we should learn and sit with our enemies and try for once to find a peaceful solution. Tolerance should walk beside us, and a smile should be our greeting, not bayonets or bullets.

Whatever your faith may be, and wherever you are on this planet today, I wish you a time of peace and safety, beyond today and into the coming New Year. RJM.

Soldiers meet on the battle field in France 1914

Soldiers meet on the battle field in France 1914

Behind the Words.

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One of the biggest drawbacks to being a writer, is there is this expectation that all writers should court the public to gain more readers, and therefore sales. In an age of public profiles on the internet, and socially sharing the contents of your lunch on Twitter, writers are expected to list every detail of their life, along with endless photos of themselves, with the aim of showing everyone on the planet how swell you are, so people will immediately run out and buy your books.

Every help blog and writers aide is the same, sell, sell, sell yourself or you will never make it as a writer. There appears to be this unwritten rule that the public must see and love a writer, before they are able to understand the stories they like, otherwise how could they ever read your books? If like me you are 80% introvert and just 20% extravert, and a quiet isolated life is your choice, then the thought of any of this instils very deep terrors indeed.

I have been published for a little over five years, I have been writing for most of my adult life, and if I am very honest, I had no intentions whatsoever of publishing Heirs to the Kingdom, I was if anything pushed. You see the thing here is very simply in a nut shell, I am not being rude, but, I don’t want you to know me, I don’t want you to know every detail of my personal life, I have zero intentions of showing the world my life, family or how I choose to live. I hate being photographed, and would rather be alone in the woodland than at the heart of a press conference or in huge crowds. The whole point of writing is that very fact, I write fantasy, not my life, and yet I am constantly pushed to sell my life so it will sell my books.

Call me old fashioned, or introverted, but isn’t the whole point of a book the words? I love John Wyndham, Arthur Conan Doyle, Tolkien and H.G. Wells, never met any of them as they largely lived before my time. I have read a great deal about their lives in their autobiographies, but that was only years after reading and loving the books that they wrote. Their stories sold me at the time of reading, I did not care who they were, it was their words on paper that exploded my imagination and sent me to the library or bookstore to find yet more of their books, and to be honest, I still think that is how it should be.

I like my comfort zone, and to be honest you should too, because if you take me out of it, I simply cannot write. Writing can be intense, I sit alone away from everything, I put on my head phones and play inspiring music, I am surrounded by files that hold the results of my research, which also includes pages filled with pictures of places, clothing, weapons and fantasy art, and I drink endless cups of coffee as I sit with a cigarette (that is usually unlit as I forgot to light it) hanging from my lip, as I reach that zone that allows everything to flow from my mind into the words on the page. It is mentally exhausting and exhilarating at the same time, and the world ceases to exist until I have finished the chapter or piece I am working on. There are times when it takes just an hour, and others where it takes almost all of the day, but the result is the start of what will appear in the next book.

I can tell you now; there is nothing within that process I want to share with the rest of the world. I am scruffy and relaxed, usually unshaven; I have even written naked on hot days, (Honestly you don’t want that picture believe me). I laugh as I make up the funnier sections and feel the tears in my eyes as I rip at my emotions to get those special moments just perfect. I talk to the characters as if they were present, as I try to work out if the conversations are flowing right, and too be quite honest, if you were walk in and film it, most of the world would think I was insane. The one thing I know without any doubt at all is that those moments are private and should remain so.

Ok I get that it is me, I understand that as the writer I impart a lot of myself into the story, after all it is my brain, my imagination and partly my view of the world, but it is also not me, and this is where knowing me is a pointless exercise. To explain it a little simpler, I pretend, yup you got it, I actually try and wear the shoes of another and make them do things I could never do. I do not hunt, actually I am a vegetarian, and have been for 25 years. I do love trees, but I have never killed anyone, (I am actually quite happy about that) and I never would, Mason Knox is very capable, and yes I wrote him, but that does not mean any aspect of him is me.

The words together free from any ideas of who the writer is, allow the reader to judge the story completely free of any bias, and that is the whole point of writing, it is and should be to a certain extent an anonymous act. Modern social networking has decayed one of the most important boundaries of any writer, as it has asked all of us to remove our privacy and reveal everything about who we are, but sadly knowing the writer will not enhance your experience of the book, if anything it will cloud it. Take my word for it, find a book by a writer who you know nothing about and sit quietly and ingest their words, once you have taken the words inside yourself, then let your imagination fly and paint the pictures chapter by chapter, and you will experience reading at its best, because that is the only way we should ever read a book. Who wrote it should be the last thing you think about it, and as to what their eye colour is or what pants they wear on the train, should never be anything other than the Author’s concern.

Sadly the world has taken a shift over the last few decades and we have become preoccupied with Celebrities, a whole industry has grown up around them, and it appears that writers are being dragged screaming into the mix, but the reality of it from a writers point of view, is that we would much prefer not to be. I understand there are those individuals who court the cameras and enjoy the exposure they get, but they are actually a very small number. The world has rolled into 24 hour news, and we have reached a point where media has become the only sales tool of anything creative, and it is a sad fact of modern reality that digging into the private life of any individual appears to be the way books, movies, art and music is sold today. Gone are the days where a news report would project a picture of the author or the book in the background screen, it has to be a live interview that is the feature of the moment, and sadly for the very many introverted and creative people who write, that is more than a little bit uncomfortable.

I use social networks, I have a few accounts across the many, none of them really feature me, I try to focus on just the stories. I do give opinions from the point of view as the one who wrote the books, I also provide insights and alternative theories as to why maybe the stories twist and turn as they do. I love to talk about the characters and what they like, and will do so for as long as people ask, just don’t ask me to tweet my lunch menu, sadly I am incapable of doing so.

It may sound odd, but the only reason I ever published HTTK was simply because I was asked to. It took a great deal on my part to share the story with those very few early readers, writing is a deeply private part of the person I am, and writing comes from the quiet isolated part of my life, it is from my comfort zone. I do not deny I can step out when required to meet and talk with people about the stories I write, but for me that takes a lot of effort and is emotionally draining, I am by nature reclusive, only feeling at ease around small well known individuals, and it is because of these very facts, that I am able to pour emotion into what I write and connect with the readers using words. I know a few creative people, and we all agree that being isolated is the place where our creation comes from, sadly the roar and turmoil of the crowd is not a very creative space to be in, something I am sure my wife who is my only witness during writing can testify to.

I often bring to mind an interview I read with Dan Brown which came out after he had published the Davinci Code, which had become a huge success. He actually told the press that actually his life was very normal and boring, and he had no plans at all to change it. I remember reading it as if a light had flashed inspiration before me, as I completely understood him. It was a wonderful moment of clarity, as he was an A list selling author who admitted he did not want the press intrusion, he did not want to tour the endless streams of press and TV interviews, all he wanted to do was stay at home with his family in his quiet rural home and write, everything else was just another distraction that prevented him writing.

To conclude, I think, I can safely say I am a writer. I write every day, some days it flows, and on others it staggers just a little, but it is a process that I am unable to switch off. I write my books, and endless amounts of short posts that I either blog, or store up on file for later use. I have a Facebook Page, and anyone can message it to ask me something, so in that respect I am always available. There are few days when I am not sat staring into space, putting together the pictures I see in my mind with the right words, and I feel it is very important to do the best I can to make the things I write as interesting as possible. In between those moments of creation (Which I do not control) I do everything else, including update social media and plan other things I feel may be of interest to those who read what I write. The more time I spend talking in the media, the less I write, and I am driven by some inner compulsion to write, so that tends to win over the day.

It makes me happy, and having spent 30 years outdoors in all weathers working in horticulture, I find being warm and dry surrounded by my family, who are a huge part of who I am suits me more and more as I get older. I am dedicated to writing the best story I possibly can, because that is what I feel the reader expects, and knowing out there in the huge world are people who have smiled, or shed a tear having read my words matters a great deal, it matters not if I have ever met them, it is simply wonderful just knowing I helped make their day a little bit better. No amount of media or press will ever change that, because that moment when I write that small piece which warms your day, is far greater than anything else I could ever do in front of a camera, and that for me is what writing is really all about.