Tag Archives: Obsevations

Life and Darkness.

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It was always my hope that within the pages of HTTK the characters would take on a life that felt real. I wanted the readers to form a bond with the characters as if they were real people within their lives, and so a great deal of my time writing this story was put into thinking each and every movement of the characters, and their reactions, which I hoped breathed life into them.

HTTK albeit a fantasy story, is in my mind about life, the normal everyday life that we all live in the time that we have. Life has many wonderful things, such as love, family, companionship, laughter and joy, but it also has its fair share of hurt, betrayal, sorrow, jealousy, and heartbreak. We are taught that life has to be a balance of both, and have many sayings such as, “taking the rough with the smooth,” and even though we may talk to others about their pain and suffering, I find it is often the case that people hide their own fears and pain, by burying it deep inside them in fear of the shame that they will appear less complete or weaker than those that surround them.

HTTK has many themes, but one underlying theme has been within the pages since the very start, and that is of course the darkness that is hidden from everyone. Throughout this story spanning eight books, every so often a little of the darkness hidden deep within has seeped to the surface, and this was shown in book one with betrayal, and two and three especially in the manner in which Mason’s soldiers conduct themselves. All of these served the purpose of showing a much deeper layer hidden inside the story that I hoped would serve to prepare the reader for the final two books. Greed and Power also show the darkness within people, and that has been very obvious within the tale since the start, and so these were my vehicles that would provide the truth of life, and clues to the final book in the series.

It is well documented, that in order to write Kingdom, I took much of my life experiences and that of others I had observed, and wove them into a fantasy series of books, using my characters as the vehicle to deliver my message, so if you take some time, and having read all eight books and follow the darkness, you will find that the final book comes to the most natural conclusion possible for this story, although I am sure at first reading that will not appear to be the case, and you will spend a little time pondering the way the book comes to its close.

In order to fully understand this, you have to go right back to book one and look at the actions of the green lord. He had watched for a long time, and seeing how out of balance the world had become, he decided to act, hence the Red Death virus that wiped out the largest percentage of mankind. Evil had spread through the lines of men, and they were blamed for all that was wrong, and so he took action to halt it for good. The opening of book eight begins with our old lord as he ponders everything, and in doing so he begins to realise he has made a mistake, for there deep within everything was a darkness hidden from everyone.

For myself personally, I feel that at some point in life, we too sit as the green lord does, and we all take some time to reflect on our past and on the life we have lived, and it is in these times that we begin to see that at some point in our life, we too have had to deal with a circle of darkness that surrounded us. Our lives do slip out of balance, and it is usually in these times that we suffer silently with our own dark thoughts, as our mind tries to deal with the experiences that we have had, and in most cases it is within the hours of darkness that our greatest fears creep into us, and we see the truth of not only our own lives, but also the lives of others. These are our own times within the circle, and they are powerful moments hidden from view, veiled from the rest of the world, and book eight is the book that finally brings these moments to the surface as everyone feels its effects and loses a little faith.

Without revealing any spoilers for the final book, I am sure those who have read the book will be a little surprised at the way this book comes to its close. I think I am right in saying it will be unexpected, although the clues have been there if you look for them.

The pace of the final book is very different from the rest, it is irregular as it weaves and twists through the highs and lows, and is filled with doubt and confusion. Book three was pretty dark in places, but this book takes that to a whole new level, you start to realise that the Specialist’s are jaded from over a year a hard fighting and they have lost a little of their zest, I think Rowan says it perfectly when he states, “he has seen things no man should have to witness” and just for the quiet contemplative man he is to suddenly admit that, shows the fatigue they all feel. He too is looking back and seeing his own personal circle of darkness and finally having to deal with it, as is Robbie, Rayne, Runestone, Jade and Sapphire.

Book eight reveals just how badly out of balance everything is, and it is not just a world view, or a natural environmental view, although they are important themes within all eight books, this time it on a personal level, and it does shake the inner most foundations of everyone’s beliefs, and that is why the ending of this book is the right one.

The only way to survive is to try and return things back to balance, there has to be light, but in order to keep the scales level, there also has to be some darkness, and this book looks at the way that can be achieved, and I am sure the last page of the book will highlight that perfectly.

Heirs to the Kingdom by Robin John Morgan

Heirs to the Kingdom was always meant to reflect life as it is today, and whilst it is wonderful to live in a fantasy that involves families, love, desire, friendship, simple living and compassion, sadly life today has too much of exploitation, violence, rape, war, and greed for wealth and power. Take a moment to study history and it reveals the great evils of the past that men have committed on their own race and other races. History shows how we have destroyed and exploited nature for gain, persecuted each other for power and control, and committed acts of horrendous evil. There was no coincidence in Opal saying “Look to the past,” her message was always to look deeply into the darkness and cast the light on the truth.

Life no matter how much you want to avoid it contains a great deal of pain and injustice, I know I have lived it myself, and witnessed it in the lives of those who have surrounded me. I have walked in my own circle of darkness and suffered, and I have fought on through it to find the light again, and I have accompanied many others on their own journey through the darkness into the light. What I have learned on these many journeys is that we do not always have control over it, we certainly hide most of it and wrestle alone as we deal with it, and sometimes, it is not us who can finally banish it, sometimes it takes another at our side to finally rid us of it.

We are never completely alone, we may feel it at times as the pressure mounts, but no matter how dark things become, if we have the courage to face the darkness and reach out, all of us find the help we so desperately need, be it a friend, professional or family, and that is the heart of the story that is Heirs to the Kingdom.

Heirs to the Kingdom by Robin John Morgan is a complete fantasy Adventure series that is available to purchase from Amazon and all other online book sellers.

Happy New Year 2019.

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Winter within the Woodland

At one hour past midnight in a glade filled with soft snow, the sounds of a small babies cries echoed through the bare snow dressed trees, around the ancient woodland that surrounded Robbie’s Mere, and the house of the Lord Loxley and his wife Runestone.

   As if they all knew, the few animals that scratched in the snow for food, stopped and all raised their heads and looked in the direction of the wooden house. It was a sacred time when a power of the sight of the future was brought by Stephanie and Jessica into the world.

   The house rang with cheers, and laughter and the ringing of glasses of celebration, and somehow in the world of the woodland that was asleep for the winter, life seemed to tread round the trees and bring tidings to all of a new addition to the noble line of Loxley.

Taken from The Queen of the Violet Isle. HTTK Book Four, by Robin John Morgan.

Is it 2019 already?

It is hard to believe that 10 years ago in January of 2009, I sat with my girlfriend, later to be my wife, and looked through every page of the Bowman of Loxley. We were in the process of starting what was to become a publishing deal for the first editions of HTTK, the only problem was, the publisher was concerned about the word count. We edited a sizeable chunk from the first book, something I did very begrudgingly, as this book was the culmination of 20 years of research and ideas.

It was an exciting time, I had been pushed and pushed by a lot of people to publish this book, and for two years I had dodged doing it, from my own point of view I did not feel like I was a writer, I simply wrote stuff down and enjoyed doing it. Writing was a past time, a hobby, it was not something that was meant to be serious, but having been pushed by just about everyone who had read the rough first draft, I had finally made the decision to publish and set about getting things ready.

The rest as we know is history, the book was edited down, the book was published in April 2009, followed by book two the same year, and the third book came out a year later. It has all felt like a whirl wind trip, and the kind of story dreams are made of, but sadly that was not to be the case.

The fourth book in the series was not published until 2014, four years after the third book, which was mainly due to the fact that as my third book hit the stores, I began to feel very uneasy about allowing my publisher of that time work on the fourth. Things felt wrong, and my suspicions grew a great deal that things with the publisher were not as expected. I am glad now that I listened to my gut feelings because as I arrive in 2019 I still have not received a single penny in royalties from those first editions, and I can no longer reach the publisher as they have disappeared, I have had no choice but to write off those earnings from what at the time was a lot of book sales.

It served as a lesson for the future, and became my driving force to set things right and establish HTTK by a means I could control, and funnily enough, it was New Year’s Day 2014 that I launched Violet Circle Publishing, after a year of seriously hard work and effort on the part of my wife and myself. January 2014 was once again a hive of activity as I pushed to firstly revisit the first three books, and put back all the edits that had been removed from the first editions. The focus from that point on was to completely re-format the interior with a format that could be replicated throughout all the books, I wanted it simple, clean, and easy to read, and by making the page size a little larger, I manged to drop the page count, and thus reduce the price of the books, as I had always felt the first editions were just too expensive.

January 2019 is going to follow a similar pattern; I will be writing none stop as my wife looks towards the editing of each chapter as I write it, in order to speed up production of the final book of the series. It will feel good to finish with the final book on the tenth anniversary of the first publication, a feat that will bring to a close a whopping twelve years of none stop writing of this particular series of books. Who knew it would take so long to actually get all of it to this point and into print?

Heirs to the Kingdom has seen me write millions of words, spend literally a good few years of just editing and revising, I have taken thousands of photographs, driven hundreds of miles, and have hours of notes on my digital voice recorder, and I think I have used a good few trees worth of recycled paper in the process.

I would love to say it’s been exhausting, but honestly even though there have been so many nights sat up alone writing, and I have at times suffered sleep deprivation because I got carried away on a particular stubborn part of the tale. Exhaustion was never an issue, it has been a challenge of that there is no doubt, but I loved every moment I have worked on this story, and it has become a huge part of the person I have become, and hopefully I think I can say I have finally earned my stripes as full time writer.

2019 will take me into a place where my focus and concentration have to be better than ever, I have a lot still to do to bring this story to its final conclusion, and it with that in mind that I take my inspiration from the last ten years of working to publish this story. It still needs a much bigger fan base if I am going to continue to write, and once the final book hits the shelves, that will be my goal for the second part of this year, but for now, I am simply doing what I love the most, writing the tale that you have all come to love, for all of you who read this are one of the inspirations that drives me forward, and I will be forever grateful to all of you.

I wish all of you the very best for this coming year, I wish you all peace, and safety in whatever you may face this year, and I hope all of you will get to walk a greener path lit by the shade of old trees.

Happy New Year 2019 to you all.

The dappled shade of the Woodland