Mightier than the Sword - A Part of the Aidan Moher Network

Ahh, I must apologize for my absence. It’s not for lack of wanting to update, truly I did… but, well, you know how it is.

Life’s been busy lately, and writing’s been sparse. Well, no, scratch that, I’ve been writing a fair bit, but in the form of A Dribble of Ink as opposed to Through Bended Grass, which is valuable in its own right.

Those of you who follow both of my blogs (which I expect is about, well, all of you) probably followed along the little incident that happened as a result of my review of Paul Kearney’s The Ten Thousand. I didn’t talk about it much over at A Dribble of Ink, but the aspiring writer in me had a really hard time writing that review.

Writing Through Bended Grass has been such a learning experience for me, such a labour of love, that the writer in me (as opposed to the critic) could understand Kearney’s reaction 100%. I know how heartbroken and frustrated I’d be if someone said similar things about my baby. An author puts so much of themselves into each and every novel that they write, that it would almost be like a personal affront to hear negative things said about their work.

Being a critic, as much as A Dribble of Ink qualifies me for that title, leaves me, and any potential novels I write, open to harsh criticism. I have to be as blunt and honest, as objective and fair, about every novel I read that I can expect nothing less from those who read (and hopefully) review them.

To this end, each time I set out to write a review (whether positive or negative), I keep it in mind that the reviews I write can be a powerful tool for the authors of the novels. Positive reviews can help fuel their engines, their desires to writer; negative reviews can help point out the areas in which they can improve. An honest review, therefore, is almost as much help to the author as it is to potential readers.

If Through Bended Grass does make it to shelves, I know that I can’t expect every review to be positive, that’s just not the way it works. I do hope, however, that I can learn something from each of those reviews, something that can help me improve as a writer.

Hopefully Mr. Kearney was able to learn something from my review, whether he agreed with it or not.

As for Through Bended Grass, as I mentioned a couple of days ago, Chapter 16: The King of the Faeries? has been done for some time now and turned out even better than I had hoped it would.

It’s a very surreal chapter - not a whole lot of action, but a good glimpse at some of the more obtuse and fucked up areas of the Fey world. This area that Rowan finds herself in is infected by the addled magic of a particularily prominent Faerie who seems to be Rowan’s last hope in finding Lewis.

Playing with her perceptions of the world, which is an endlessly shifting morass of imagery. Rowan has, up to this point, taken most of the weird shit she’s encountered off the chin, with a certain distractedness. This chapter is one of the first times where she really starts to question what she’s seeing, to consider the reality of what she’s been accepting on her journey to find her son.

It’s a tough aspect to juggle. A lot of people would just collapse under the stress of being thrown into a bastardized version of a landscape that’s only supposed to exist in their picture books; Rowan’s a special breed, though. But even she has her limits, and they’re certainly stretched to the limits in Chapter 16.

Fun times, indeed.

Chapter 17 (which is currently untitled) is on it’s way and is a pretty big turning point in moving the plot to the final endpoint. A new character is introduced who, along with his companion, is going to be a lot of fun to write about. Especially if I can get a certain scene to play out properly near the end of the novel (what would happen if a big fuckin’ Fey creature rampaged through contemporary Dublin?)

Ever onwards.

Well that was quick.

After so bloody long without updates, it seems like I’m on a roll again. Chapter 15 titled Here Be Dragons is done and dusted. Hell, Chapter 16 is almost done, too.

 Shawn Speakman (blog HERE) often speaks about hitting the homestretch of a novel, the point after the halfway mark and how it starts to feel like you’re going downhill from there and gaining momentum with every word. I beginning to understand what he means by that. After finishing off Chapter 14 and the interlude, that marked roughly the halfway point of the novel (about 46k words out of 90k) and also served as the climax for ‘Part One’ of the novel (despite what I said in the last post, this was actually the end of ‘Part One’ not ‘Part Two’…). It seems that since hitting that point, or even a few chapters earlier, when I finished off Chapter 12, the words have just been flowing out of me.

 I may not exactly be able to see the finish line at the moment, it’s still a ways off, but I know that there is less in front of me than behind and that’s an encouraging thought. I find that the second-half of a good book is almost always a faster read than the first half, and I think it’s a good sign when the writing’s the same way.

 Chapter 15 is a bit of a change of pace from 14 (which was balls to the wall), but it was challenging to write in its own part. Without giving too much away, the structure of the chapter jumps around a lot in time and answers some question posed at the end of 14 in (I think/hope) interesting ways. There’s also a lot of room for some neat imagery and it was a great way to explore some aspects of my version of the Fey lands.

One character in particular has really stepped out of the shadows and surprised me. He doesn’t appear in this chapter - in fact he doesn’t appear again for a few chapters - but I’m constantly surprised by how much he and his actions have rippled  through the story. He was originally going to be a bit of a bit character, no more than a plot device, but as the writing has moved on he’s affecting more and more of the story and it’s even getting to the point where he (and his parallels to Rowan) will have a defined effect on the end of the novel.

Now, who said writing isn’t bloody exciting?

I outline in a pretty organic manner, but at the end of the day I have a solid outline for the novel and the first 18 or so chapters. It’s nice to know that even with all that outlining, I can still be surprised by the twists and turns of the story.

Well, onward to writing. Chapter 16 should be done pretty soon!