World of Aona

I’m shortly embarking on a literary journey (although I probably shouldn’t refer to it as literary) of a kind that probably couldn’t be more different to the trials and twists of the Aona books. The idea was jointly and simultaneously thought up (and yes, I know that sounds bizarre if not impossible) by my niece and I, and it is actually a fantasy-comedy-drama aimed at 9-10-11 year olds. At least I have an expert to help me when I get stuck.

The whole thing is still being drawn up and ideas within ideas scribbled down, but we have a pretty good view of what’s going to happen. I have no idea if it will be any good- and that in itself is an odd feeling, because in the past if I feel something might not turn out “quite so” I tend to shelve it. This time, however, there are four hands on the steering wheel and the brakes don’t appear to be working.

It’s about as far removed from the Aona books as anything could be, in my estimation. But it’ll be fun, whatever the outcome, and it’ll certainly be a challenge- combining bizarre events, a bit of a superhero narrative, coming-of-age struggles and personal empowerment- and much more, but that’s all a Big Secret for now.

After a short break- which I hasten to add wasn’t a break from writing- I don’t do such things- I’m back at the desk of doom and writing up recent progress with The Endless Shore, the third book in the Aona series.

Although it’s clearly a continuation of the events in Secret Roads (some of which reach closure) it’s also turning out very much to be a chronicle of emotional connections, which is appropriate at this stage as many of the characters have spent a lot of time with one another, and more importantly, been through an awful lot, mostly the kind of things that are very difficult if not impossible to mentally survive on your own. These relationships are now developing and becoming more complex; they will of course continue to change, but that’s one of the main challenges for me in this book- exploring these interactions, almost living them in a sense.

So in a sense, Oblivion’s Forge might be thought of as an opening, Secret Roads as a broadening, and The Endless Shore as a deepening. What the next books could be thought of remains to be seen; even I don’t know how they will work out yet!

As I get increasingly involved in the write-up of the third Aona book, The Endless Shore, I’ve realised an odd thing. From the drafts, notes and scattershot scribblings created so far, it’s become clear that I’ve started writing a number of scenes that are not so much about anything happening or moving forward, but simply about the characters themselves finding temporary shelter from the terrors of their world.

Here’s a very rough first draft of one such scene:

“They listened to the rainfall awhile longer. Yui rested her head against Phyqor’s chest, one arm draped across him; he listened to her faint breathing, and thought for a while that she might have fallen asleep. I couldn’t bear to be apart from you, he thought. That was worse than any pain I’ve ever felt- a deep heaviness eating away at my insides, the fear that I might never see you again, never hold you again, never have the chance to watch you grow up.

That was worse than anything else.

Yui stirred and glanced up at him briefly, but said nothing. Presently she settled again, uttering nothing more than a sigh of contentment, and Phyqor closed his eyes, telling himself to treasure this rare moment- a brief respite for them both, a time when they could almost tell themselves that their lives were blissfully mundane; a father and daughter caught up in nothing more than the everyday trials and blessings of normal lives.”

It may well be that these more reflective passages are a product of the characters having already endured so much through the first two books; it may also be because as I write further into the Aona series, I’m finding that I want to explore the relationships between them more deeply. And it’s a voyage of discovery for me as well as for the readers; I don’t necessarily know how or if they’ll cope with the challenges being cast their way. Most of them are walking a metaphorical tightrope, on either side of which you can imagine the “two sides of the coin- good and evil for want of a better description” as one character has already labelled the Old Powers. The touch of any force or power by the hands of sentient beings is what turns or shapes that power for better or worse.

Suffice to say there are hard decisions to be made; and who has ever always made the right decision?

Going back to the subject in hand, with the series being three books in it’s probably natural for some of the characters to develop relationships, or reflect on existing ones. The curious aspect of it all for me is that often they seem to be doing it almost without my (conscious) involvement- as if I was only partly aware of having written these “quiet time” passages to the degree that I have.

The calm between the storms is a good thing, though; what diminished effect those onslaughts would have without the presence of their emotional opposites to counterpoint them…

One point of debate that I’ve become involved in from time to time is the subject matter of fantasy literature, specifically about just how “fantastic” the events that make it up really are. A few of my own readers have mentioned the “pretty disturbing” happenings in the first two Aona books- not in a bad way by any means, but it got me thinking about what what constitutes “disturbing” in the first place.

One of the peculiarities of modern “society” is that the general public remain easily “outraged” and yet the animalistic behaviour of a large number of people (supposedly members of that same society) indicates that we have in fact lost the plot completely and are gently sliding towards a state of amorality and chaos (or a totalitarian state run either by egomanic opportunists or religious fanatics- or, as I believe is more likely, all of the above). Every week some news story breaks that confirms once again, people have found even more depraved and violent ways to destroy one another- whether that’s the unstoppable epidemic of abuse and rape perpetrated by and on young people throughout our green and pleasant land (that’s the UK, but you can pretty much substitute any country you like here), or kids used as cannon fodder and strapped to tanks in Syria, or the constant terror felt by the people of Afghanistan, caught between torture and repression on one side and bombings on the other… or even on a less extreme scale, the state of utter corruption evident in every echelon of “authority” from politicians, and phone-hacking journalists who would literally kill for a story if they thought they could get away with it.

My point is that I doubt I could write anything as casually unpleasant as the reality of modern society, even if I tried.

I do think, however, that in fiction, any escape is a good escape- even if, as is the case in my books, the world is under threat from several completely different strands of evil and survival is, shall we say, a challenge that not everyone is up for. I would hope it’s a lot harder to become desensitized to the story- after all, it’s just a book, it isn’t twenty-four hour media being drilled into people’s skulls. It knows nothing of the endless, breathless rush of constant consumerism, constant networking, constantly being “switched on”, or the unstoppable need to buy and be bought- because in our intrusive and brightly-lit “real” world, all things have a price and nothing is sacred- but within the confines of an imaginative work, one has the ability to reshape the way that things work to an extent.

Because my characters are people rather than heroes, by necessity their psychology is influenced by the behaviour of actual people in analogous situations. They are human, after all. Well some of them are. But the quite different world and vastly different situation I think makes something which is, in a way, less grimly hopeless than the situations beamed at us by the intensity of modern media on a continual basis.

One comforting thought for the distant future (which, ironically, is the place from which Aona’s story comes): even in a few hundred or thousand years from now, stories will still be told. The situation and the mechanics may involve nothing more than a cave and a fire and a little imagination, but that’s the seed from which worlds other than these may grow.

Just a very quick update to say that my interview with Rachel Hunter has been added to her blog here: http://rachel-m-hunter.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/guest-author-simon-williams-and-world.html
Rachel seems to have a knack of asking some thought-provoking questions which were a pleasure to sit and ponder and eventually answer.
Have a read of it sometime.

I’m shortly about to make available Kindle versions of Oblivion’s Forge and Secret Roads, and quite possibly any and all future works. It’s something I do with somewhat mixed feelings; I’m not so much of a traditionalist that I stick grimly to the old ways regardless of technology’s relentless march, but at the same time I can’t imagine that reading from a Kindle or any other “device” is ever going to compare with the feel (and yes, the smell) of a real, tattered old paperback- or even a brand new one. Particularly these days, after spending a whole day staring at a computer screen, the last thing I want to be doing is staring at another, smaller one- and don’t most people spend all day staring into a screen these days?- but it seems I’m in a minority. So be it.

Still, as everyone seems to be migrating their way to new formats, and authors are pressed into releasing their works online at next to nothing, it really is a case of “You can’t beat them so join them.” Hence, the release of my works and future works in digital format.

I guess in a way I’d prefer that people buy physical copies of my books because it leaves a kind of legacy of my work- I like the idea that many years after I’m gone, there will still be shelves with my books on them (not many, admittedly, but some) for people to look at and maybe ponder about the author. Clearly that’s a triumph of the ego over rational thought- why on earth should it matter to me what people are doing in 100 years from now?- but it’s a strangely comforting thought nonetheless. And it has to be said, the idea that 95% of copies will simply be digital files floating aimlessly around in cyberspace, being passed around and copied probably far more often than they’re actually opened and read, is a bit saddening. Then again, if I shouldn’t care about the physical copies, I shouldn’t really care about the digital ones either.

Maybe it’s that I have this idea of a physical book acting as a kind of headstone- my marker on a shelf stacked with other long-gone writers one day, perhaps. It’s a way of being (possibly) remembered for those of us who won’t be remembered in any other way particularly. And now I have in mind an actual graveyard where the gravestones are in fact actual books… cue for a story of some sort perhaps…

I was asked the other day if I regretted anything about being a writer. At first I was about to say that no, I didn’t- it’s what I want to do after all- but thinking back, I realised that there were one or two things I probably would have done differently had I known how it was all going to pan out at the time.

I spent a great deal of the last decade attempting to climb the greasy corporate pole, although I never got quite as high as the glass ceiling before something or someone would drag me back down. I certainly wasn’t cut out for the corporate environment, and I was generally pretty unpopular- in retrospect, I suppose that especially during the final few years of it, I cared less and less, and I certainly didn’t care enough to at least hide my contempt for that particular world.

So I guess that would be one regret, although I don’t really think about it that much- like everyone else I had to get a job of some sort, after all, and like everyone else I tried to get promotions (or rather, I tried to get a higher salary. The promotion was the penalty I had to pay for that salary). But, not being much of a team player, and detesting having to put on a cheerful, helpful face every morning to all my co-workers, it eventually became clear that it wasn’t for me.

My main regret is that I would have wanted to kick on with my books and get them “out there” whilst I was still young. Everything becomes more of a struggle as you get older, and seems to sap your energy more and more. The one thing that does seem to have increased with age is my willpower (in terms of sticking at my writing tasks). Sometimes it even wins the constant struggle against the inevitable monster, Decrepitude. But that’s just as well, when physically and mentally you know you’re way past the cusp of the hill and freewheeling down into the shadowy valley.

You could say the two regrets are linked. The path of corporate mediocrity diverted me from the one thing I’ve always wanted to do- and although I can forgive the daily commute with identikit office drones, the tea rounds, the endless capacity for spiteful gossip, the not-compulsory-but-really-they-are drinks after work (when all you want to do is get the hell home), I really can’t find it within myself to forgive that choking, demeaning world of absolute dullness for causing me to stray from my real path.

But of course, I don’t think about it much. No, really.

Oddly enough, it was the publication of Oblivion’s Forge that really spurred me on to other projects- not just the sequel, and hopefully others in the series, but the anthology of short stories, and another novel which I’ve started work on in the last few weeks. I think partly it was because it generated a certain level of expectation amongst readers, and the feedback was so encouraging. Being on the path is one thing, but being on the path and being encouraged all the way is quite another- you feel that much lighter.

Speaking of which: words to write before I rest…

Secret Roads, the sequel to Oblivion’s Forge and the second book in the Aona series, is now published and is available here: http://www.completelynovel.com/books/secret-roads

It’s a little longer than the first book, although of course length isn’t everything.

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m pretty happy with it, especially from a character development point of view, and it works as a good launching pad for the third book, The Endless Shore, which I’ve started working on.

I also finally sorted out the stories to include in the new compilation of short stories- the title of which I just know will be a troublesome problem- and even had a dream the other night which actually works as a short story with very little adaptation needed- a pretty rare occurrence.

Finally, I thought I’d drop a link to Ross Kitson’s blog in here: http://mousesroar.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/oblivions-forge-by-simon-williams.html

Ross interviewed me about the Aona books and the whole exercise was very thought-provoking, mainly because the questions posed were excellent. Anyway, the interview gives some additional insight into the whole philosophy behind the Aona series so if you’ve read Oblivion’s Forge but not Secret Roads, or if you’ve just read the intro on CompletelyNovel.com (here it is if you haven’t – http://www.completelynovel.com/books/oblivions-forge–2/read-online) then why not have a read of it sometime.

So, last week I finally completed Secret Roads, the second book in the Aona series. I’m pretty pleased with it; from a character point of view I think it achieves what I wanted it to- to expand on a number of the people to whom the reader was introduced in Oblivion’s Forge, as well as take story forward (obviously).

The book has two maps included- really for reference rather than artistic merit of any kind. I wanted to provide some geographical reference points, but without burdening the reader with too much to look up- so the maps are fairly sparse and really show the relationships between different areas rather than anything more complex. I don’t know any cartographers!

There are three projects now in the pipeline:

1. Book III of the Aona series – current title is The Endless Shore. Parts of this have “sort of” been written (as in they will need to be re-written half a dozen times before attaining any sort of respectability). I’m planning to have this ready by the end of the year. I can promise more witchy stuff, and a few more steps towards explaining the whole theory / background to Aona, which as you may have gathered is a, shall we say, special world.

2. The compilation of short stories- some of these will be re-writes of old works, but there will be some new stories too. I haven’t completed a new short story in many years so this will be a significant challenge- but I’m keen to figure out if I can still write fiction of that size. I have absolutely no idea what to call the anthology though.

3. A short novel which will partly be a re-write of Shallowdeep, an experimental work that I wrote back in ’98. I thought it had some ideas that were definitely worth exploring further and improving on- the original work was severely flawed but I think it has enough going for it to be re-made (although I’d describe it as a half-rewrite, half new write). Who knows how that will turn out.

Anyway, Secret Roads should be available from next week or week after- once I’ve had a good look through the proof copy which is apparently on its way.

There’s much to be said, I suppose, for old-fashioned monochrome villains. They make good caricatures and easy props for satirists (prior to the eventual fall of the Gaddafi regime in Libya, the BBC seemed to take great pride in their frequent articles on the Colonel- seldom have glib, ten-a-penny phrases such as “out of touch with his people” seemed so easy to generate- but then mainstream media in general panders to the passive majority with consummate ease anyway). Old-fashioned villains are easy to identify, easy to make fun of, and sometimes they seem to exist to make those who point the finger feel just that little bit better about their own not-exactly-holy existences.

When I started writing fantasy, the villains I created tended to be very much in this mould. I grew bored with them though; as time went on I started to think more about what it was that made them tick. Were they just sadistic? Were they insane? Or did they actually think that their behaviour was for the greater good?

People seem to be infinitely complex. The world (any world) is a challenging, chaotic place for that reason. In Oblivion’s Forge I set out to show a little of the complexity that multiple races of very diverse beings bring to the created environment, particularly when that environment is under great stress from external influences (as is the case here). Ordinary folk, placed in extraordinary circumstances, react in ways we might consider strange. Ancient beings, older than any of the other races that roam the world, grow in strength as a response to a threat that could destroy Aona forever. Once, they enslaved the younger races- yet they also consider themselves to be the protectors of the world.

Perspective…

In Secret Roads, there are a number of new characters, many of whom are deeply flawed in some way (clue: one of them is actually introduced towards the end of Oblivion’s Forge and has become possibly my favourite character… and I can assure you I never saw that coming). These are the type of people I love to write about. They display the full spectrum of emotions given sufficient time (even those whose preferred method of survival is to wrap themselves up in sullen silence, ever suspicious and non-committal). It’s difficult to know how they’ll eventually work out (often even I don’t know at first) because they themselves don’t know. Much of the time they try to not even think about the balance between what they could do and what they should do. They’re not necessarily morally weak either (whatever that may mean); they simply don’t know which path to take much of the time- or they take a path and then curse their choice, looking back in jealousy or in guilt.

Anyway, these are often the most important people in the world; ordinary people, complete with issues, upon whom important decisions suddenly may fall.

I don’t really do heroes either, by the way.