May 17, 2013 · 11:18 am

Souvenirs du champ d’honneur

Entendu d’un jeune homo à propos de la gay pride de demain : “On n’est pas des manifestants.”

Si, connard. On est des putains de manifestants. Après le cinéma qu’on vient d’avoir en France, je me demande même comment toi tu peux dire ça. Ce n’est pas parce que la bataille se joue avec des couleurs et de la musique que ce n’est pas une bataille. Chaque année en Belgique, des pédés et des gouines crèvent sans autre raison que ce sont des pédés et des gouines. Alors petit con ignorant, ne va pas dire que tu n’es pas un manifestant. T’en es un, chaque jour de ta vie, que tu le réalises ou non, que tu le veuilles ou non. Bienvenue.

Et à tous les pédés et les gouines qui se sont fait taper, emprissonner et tuer, que ce soit dans les premières gay prides, dans des allées sombres, à la sortie d’un bar ou sur des places publiques ; à toutes celles et ceux qui se sont donnés la mort dans le silence et la honte : quelqu’un se souvient. Demain dans la foule de ceux qui ne croient pas être des manifestants, quelqu’un se souvient.

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April 27, 2013 · 3:25 pm

New Retailers

SW_Horz_Color

Howdy, folks! Just a quick notice to tell you I’ve ended my KDP Select enrolment, which means I am now no longer required to give Amazon exclusivity for my work. As a result you may now once more get Spacejet through this updated list of retailers:

Moreover, A Taste of Fire is also available through these stores:

Finally, as a way to celebrate my return to freedom, here’s a coupon: TX98T. Go to Smashwords (here) and use it at checkout to get a free copy of A Taste of Fire in epub format. Also note that I expressly asked that my books be DRM-free whenever possible and available for free to libraries (via Smashwords).

(May 1st 2013: updated to include Kobo and Diesel.)

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April 8, 2013 · 2:01 pm

Building Names for my Fantasy World: Sher Ashelon

Dragonmore Kindle MapIn my previous post I introduced the Nellish language (represented by English in the Dragonmore books) and talked a bit about creating the name “Arkenbrant” for the paladins’ fortress. Today we’re going to have a look at another language and another name: Assilith, the language of the elves, and Sher Ashelon, the city of the wizards.

In A Taste of Fire I explain that Sher Ashelon is the only city in Mainland where humans and elves still live side by side. It’s a place apart, something special, so I wanted a name that performed the following functions:

  • set the city aside;
  • identify its cultural origin;
  • still make it seem familiar.

To set the city apart, all I had to do was give it a name that was neither Nellish nor Ronnish (the languages represented by English and French in the books). The city of the wizards is not the only place associated with elves, so I had to come up with a coherent pattern, something that would henceforth be associated with elves, in short: a language.

That being said, I did not churn out a whole language with a full lexicon. I merely decided on the type of phonology I wanted—the flavour—and created names as I needed them. The language had to sound very different from English or French, but as I said earlier, I wanted it familiar too. Elves are not aliens from another planet, they are part of our world, intimately, and have been for a very long time.

Now I’m a big Tolkien nerd, so I had to be very careful not to inadvertently come up with something that would be nothing more than altered Quenya or Sindarin. Besides I had already used English and French, so I thought it would be nice to draw inspiration from other parts of our world. I had recently been to Israel and developed an interest in Hebrew, so I decided to use that one as the base for the elf language (that eventually came to be called Assilith). Hebrew is perfect, because it’s both familiar to our ears and utterly unintelligible to English speakers. It is both familiar and alien, like elves.

From there, the only thing I had to do is come up with names that sounded nice, that fit a Hebrew-inspired phonology, and that didn’t mean anything ridiculous or embarrassing in actual Hebrew. I have no idea if I succeeded at that last one, my knowledge of Hebrew being anecdotical, but I’m rather pleased with the sounds of the names themselves: Benesh, Gabroth, Enish Dana, Tara Sova, Sher Ashelon. I kept a few things that would fit in Sindarin/Welsh as well, like the cluster “th”, mixed a bit of Irish references in there (“Dana”, “Tara”, and “inis” that means “island”), but the rest, to me at least, evokes Israel and Biblical times, in contrast with the European feel of the rest of the cultures.

Based on the names I had created, I then assigned meaning and a bit of grammar. “Sher Ashelon” means “Home of the Dragons”, I decided—sher means “home” and ashel means “dragon”. That left me with a plural marker -on (think Hebrew -im) for later use, as well as a way to form “X of Y” phrases. That’s very little compared to an actual, full-fledged language, but as I said already, hints are all we need to make this look real—hints, and for me to not forget the rules I implicitly set next time I have to come up with an Assilith word or name.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little trip in the history of Dragonmore. Next time, we will continue to explore Trion with another name and other glimpses, both at the scene and beyond.

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March 18, 2013 · 5:12 pm

Building Names for my Fantasy World: Arkenbrant

Arken 01In my previous post, I talked about ways to make a fantasy world alive and hinted at languages being one such way. They are, but even Tolkien seldom used the languages directly in dialogues. The reason for this is simple, I think: the readers can’t read them, especially if they see them for the first time. But it’s okay, because we’ve got another tool: names. Names are a way to hint at the languages without hampering the reading.

In Dragonmore most of the action happens in the Kingdom of Trion, where people speak Nellish. In the books Nellish is represented by English, and it is the language of the Nellings, or Nales, much in the same way English is the language of the Angles. Many places in Trion have Nellish-names readily understandable by English readers: Whitewater, Dragonrest, Emberstorm, Wetfields, Laketowers. Others are slightly less modern-sounding: Waynemark, Harland, Ackley. We get the feeling they are part of the same culture, but their meaning is not so readily available.

Another prominent name in the series is Arkenbrant. It’s the name of the paladins’ fortress, guarding a pass in the mountain range that runs north-south along the eastern border of Trion. Now here, I wanted something that wouldn’t clash with Nellish/English phonology, but also something that rang a little more archaic, maybe nobler.

The first name I came up with (or at least, the oldest I could dig up in my notes) was Arken. (You can see it on the picture. The city north of it is what will eventually become Whitewater.) Early on, I wanted something closer to the Germanic roots of English, and therefore Nellish, but early on I felt that “Arken” was too short. I wanted three syllables, so I played around for a while with “Arkingburgh”. It didn’t sound too bad, but as the world-building progressed I got more and more ideas for cities with -borough, -burg, or other variations of that word. “Arkingburgh” was just one “burgh” too many.

I decided to drop the final element and came up with “Erkebrandt” instead. Now that’s a strong, Germanic name—maybe just a tad too all-fired Germanic, though, with the “dt” cluster at the end. Also, it might be hard for readers to figure out how to say “Erke-”. Frankly, two years later, I’m not too sure myself how I intended for it to be pronounced. So, best of the two worlds, I rehabilitated “Arken” and stuck “brant” at the end, dropping the “d”. Turns out brant is not uncommon in English place names, and it means “burnt”.

Arkenbrant is a story in itself, or to be fair, the echo of a story. Arken is obscure at best, but familiar sounding. It could be from a person’s name, Ark, Arke, or plainly Arken. Or maybe it’s the name of a village that stood there before the fortress. A village burned by invaders, the very reason why a fortress was built? It doesn’t matter. We’ll likely never know. I don’t know! But it makes me wonder, and that’s what’s important.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little trip in the history of Dragonmore. Next time, we will continue to explore Trion with another name and other glimpses, both at the scene and beyond.

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March 14, 2013 · 2:36 pm

The Land, Fantasy’s Main Character

Dragonmore Kindle MapWhen writing fantasy, one of the great challenges is building a compelling world. It’s paramount, because in this genre the land itself is a character. It must be a living entity, with a history and a personality.

The challenge, however, lies not so much with the world-building itself. Fantasy writers love to build worlds. I mean, I dunno about you, but I’ve read the damn Silmarillion about a thousand times. I live to build worlds. No, the real difficulty, as exemplified by the Silmarillion, is not to build the world, it’s to tell the readers about it without boring them to death. To do that, we fantasy writers have several tools at our disposal. Some of them are inside the story itself, others sort of frame it.

Examples of tools outside the story? Well, maps of course. A glance at a map and a world springs to life. Are there many cities or few, many countries or not? Is that an impact crater I espy over there? And above all we wonder: what lies beyond this map? What does it hide?

Well, maybe it’s just me. I fucking love maps. They transport me to a dream landscape. They make me care about the land. Seriously, I’d be sad if a giant meteor where to smash into Westoros and shatter the continent. I would be sad for the folks there, but also sad for the land itself. Hell, I’m sad just looking at the remnants of Valyria or at the place where Númenor used to be.

With the maps as with many other things, I think imprecision is key. Don’t make it look exactly like a satellite photo. It’s better if it’s crooked, if you can’t tell for sure if the distances are accurate. Think of the old maps of our own world! If you can manage it, make it look like it was drawn by someone, maybe someone in a hurry, maybe someone looking for a treasure.

Another tool outside of the story are annexes. I put some in Dragonmore. One in particular concerns the calendar of Trion. The months are called “bloods” (in reference to menstrual blood). Why is that? Well, the answer is in the etymology of the English word “month” and in the sky. Or rather, it is not in the sky. Impact craters and something missing in the heaven, you say? That’s a story of the land. Dragonmore comes alive, a little bit.

You could put in a chronology as well. I sort of did that in Dragonmore too, but I kept it short and not too specific. It’s a rough outline of which people founded which kingdom and what became of them. When doing that, I find it best not to go too much into details. Breathing life into a world is not about telling every damn thing. It’s a game of light and shadows.

Tolkien’s Silmarillion almost drove me insane, not because of the abundance of details, but because of the things Tolkien didn’t tell us. Who were the two Blue Wizards who came to Middle Earth with Gandalf, Saruman, and Radagast? What the fuck happened to them? I will most likely never know, but when I look at a map of Middle Earth, I cannot help glancing toward the East, toward the right edge of that map beyond which those two istari wandered without a word, never to be seen or heard from again. (And by the way “two istari” is probably not grammatically correct, because Quenya has a dual case, but let’s focus here, people!)

Those are a few ways to frame the story with nice little tools that give substance to the world, but what about the story itself? Obviously, the characters’ adventures within the world should do part of that job, but you know what I find most efficient at the end of day? Same things Tolkien did: the languages and names of people and places. That, more than anything else, is what infuses a fantasy world with life, deep and everlasting. Think of names like Shire, Baggins, Aragorn, Gondor, Rohan, Mordor, Valinor, or more recently, Winterfell, Old Valyria, and King’s Landing. Just take those last three names and you have a whole story, right there, the story of the land of A Song of Ice and Fire.

Tomorrow, I’ll make time to tell you a little bit more about the languages and the names in Dragonmore. And yes, I will keep it spoiler-free.

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March 12, 2013 · 4:38 pm

Forget Talent, Have Potential

ThunderI said it before and I’ll say it again, I hate the notion of “talent”. It’s just plain insulting. When you and I do good, we do good because we worked our arses off, not because we were handed some magical “talent”. Talent is bullshit. It’s the horseshite that folks smear on your beautiful art, because it makes them feel better to think you’re just a lucky dilettante. You’re not, and neither am I. We artists are craftsmen, not magicians.

The whole notion of talent is insulting because there’s no merit attached to it. Instead, I’d much rather think about an artist’s potential. Now that’s a beautiful notion.

I think of that potential as the sum of all the work and experiences an artist accumulates throughout his life, from day One till the day he dies. It’s accumulated and released through his work, his efforts, his life, and channeled through his imagination. It’s not handed to him; it’s earned by him. It’s like an electrical charge, a potential energy that builds up and needs to be released in the form of art. It’s beautiful, it’s intensely personal. It’s not bland, generic, undeserved talent.

The other day, I spoke a bit about etiquette when talking to writers. Well, this is applicable to all artists—to everyone in general, really. When you want to compliment someone on an achievement, do not tell him he has talent. That’d be like saying, “Yeah sure, that’s great. But it’s easy for you, you got talent.” No, praise him for the work itself, for the accomplishment. Then maybe tell him that’s a great expression of his potential and a well-earned success.

Because it is.

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February 22, 2013 · 2:29 pm

Writer Etiquette

file000213987933Or rather “Etiquette when talking to a writer”, but that made an awkward title.

It doesn’t matter who you or your circumstances are. If you are a writer and you’re neither J.K. Rowling nor Stephen King, you hear this all the time. You meet someone for the first time, and it goes something like this. They greet you. You greet them back. To be polite, you show interest and ask what it is they do. They tell you, and thinking they are returning the courtesy, they ask you the same question.

Now, it doesn’t matter if you have a day job or if you’re writing fulltime. If you really are a writer, that’s what you say. “I’m a writer.” Then they drop the question. “Are you published?” Or a variation thereof. It doesn’t matter, the idea is the same. They want to know if you are successful.

It does not matter that today everybody is published. A select few are published by publishing houses; the rest have taken it upon themselves. Truth is, making a book—even a print book—can be done just by anyone nowadays. The writing didn’t change, neither did the editing or the proofreading. But the making of the actual book—the printing or the compiling of the e-book—is a child’s play. (Don’t listen to publisher out there who tell you it’s hard work to build a book. It’s not. It’s an afternoon’s work, if you’ve never seen a computer in your life. The hard part is getting a story worth selling, editing and proofreading it, then designing the cover. The computer does the rest. People who say it’s hard are just trying to justified overpricing the stuff.)

What really baffles me, though, is not that the general public don’t know this. Why would they? It’s not their job. No, what knocks me on my arse is that people seem to think it’s OK to ask whether you are successful or not.

Say I meet a guy and asks what he does. “I’m an eye doctor,” says he. Do I follow with, “Oh, are you making any money with that?” No, I don’t. ‘Cos obviously that’s bloody rude. Maybe when I know him a little better, I’ll venture, “Eye-doctoring sounds really hard. Is there any real demand for it?” But I would never lead with, “Hey pal, you making any money with that shit?”

Next time you meet a writer, folks, please don’t ask if they are published. It’s rude. And if they’re not, even if they are self-published, it might make them feel uncomfortable, because the general public is rather candid about self-publishing, thinking it is still as it was, the last resort of those who failed. It’s not so any more, but it’s not gonna be pleasant for them to explain it to you.

So, what may you ask?

Well, why not show interest in our work? Ask if we are writing novels or non-fiction. Ask which genre. If it’s a genre you don’t like or don’t know, just smile politely and nod, or simply ask if we can explain it to you. Don’t smile at us as if we were a simpleton or a child showing you their drawing. Writing is our life. It’s more important to us than your rosy children are to you. We would without a moment’s hesitation slaughter your rosy little children on a demonic altar, if that would get us a few more readers or a positive review on Amazon.

And if you really want to know if we are serious about writing (I mean, why not, we’re all naturally a bit nosy, aren’t we?), ask, “How many books have you finished?” or even better, “How many stories have you finished writing?” That’s a pretty OK question to ask, because even if we have only written just the one, we’re damn proud of it. It’s our baby. Writing books is hard; it’s an achievement. So, even if it’s just one, we’ll be beaming with joy at the question.

Writing’s our job. It’s how we hope to, one day, pay the rent. But it’s also what we are, on a deep, personal level. When you ask, “Are you published?” what you are in fact asking is if we’re financially successful at it. We’re writers, chances are great we aren’t, even if we are published, one way or another. The names you see at the bookstores? They are struggling, most of them. But we love it. It’s who we are. But when you ask that question, you sort of equal the net worth of our very soul to that of our bank statement.

That is not us. Our souls are weighed in books written, not in units sold. Our souls are dragons and romance and the sweat of giving birth to them. Don’t be that rude guy at the party.

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