Update: Still Alive

Hopefully this song adequately sums up my past week.


Actually, this song is pretty contrary to my past week. I haven't quite succeeded in anything.

While I've been taking an unplanned and unannounced break from writing, I've been reading books for my final school year.

Since I haven't blogged for about a week, I thought I'd give you a little idea of what's going on currently in Aundes Aura.

Eoin, Saera, Faine and Athrù have stopped at a forest village called Falii (pr. fell-i-eye) on their way to the capital of Meira. The purpose of this visit is to get an extra seal from the village Council so they can get in contact with the Queen.

But Athrù's letter isn't going to the Queen. It's going to the "Thief-King", who, strangely enough, is one of the Queen's closest contacts. Athrù has decided against sending a letter to the Queen because amongst the politics she would never read it, and the situation is dire. The army of Duthonne plans to invade and attack the capital.

The letter requests that the Thief-King find them an audience with the Queen as soon as possible.

I have introduced a love interest for the main character. Her name is Kahla. And that is to say, I have had the two characters meet, and he knows he likes her, and he doesn't want to leave her but he must. She will come back into the story in Part II, and besides being a love interest, she will play a VERY important role.

Some of you who have read chapters of the story will probably remember a certain "heart-shaped" leaf that fell from the trees in the first chapter. I've decided that:

1. I can't take it seriously enough.

2. There are too many elements to bring in to make the concept work -- why doesn't it dry up? (which brought on a pointless scene with an alchemist)

3. It's too hard to explain it the way I see it. This would just confuse readers.

As such, I've decided to change the concept a little (please note: I will not be doing any of the above or the following until my first draft is complete -- well, not much of it, anyway). The "leaf" will now instead be a gold locket. The scene with the leaf will be similarly written, but instead of the leaf falling, Eoin will find the gold locket inside the hollow of a log. This is a log on which Eoin and his father used to sit and talk about everything. It was their place.

Whether it was put there by godly powers or by his father, I haven't yet decided. Apart from all this, and the desriptions of the locket, the interactions will remain the same: Eoin will hear his father's voice through the locket; he will become mentally connected with it; it will help him meet others with Auras through the mysterious ringing noise.

I'm also very excited about a new beginning I've come up with. I like to think part of it was inspired by Bryce Courtenay's The Power of One.

The teenage brother and sister, Eoin and Saera, are living in deperate circumstances after their father's sudden death in the forest one day (bitten by a lethal snake). The first few lines will involve Eoin, the POV character, stealing a loaf of bread from the cooking area of an old man's house. At the sound of creaking stairs Eoin takes the bread and runs. Outside Saera has been waiting anxiously and he pulls her along. They run to where they've been settling a new home, in a tree overlooking the village.

I imagine I will introduce Saera's Aura fairly early in the chapter. Most definitely the first few pages. If not through an event, then through dialogue. Perhaps Eoin could see a flash of light outside (from Saera's uncontrollable Aura) that he knows will have woken up a number of people before he hears the creaking stairs. This would raise the tension as people would suddenly be looking for the "tainted one", but Eoin's still inside the old man's house and the man's been awoken.

Obviously, this new beginning is still in the brainstorming stage, but I feel I've got a solid foundation to build on.
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In the next post I will give you some idea of the things that will happen in Part II of Aundes Aura. The characters will take on challenges and burdens that will affect the world politically and socially in a very big way. Since this will be the last chronologically in The Válkia Chronicles, it needs a big resolution.

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Welcome to The Dark Corner of the Mind. My name is Ryan Sullivan and my aim with this blog is to help others with their own writing, as well as to make note of some of my own writing endeavours.

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