Total Eclipse.

First off, a couple of weeks ago I had a scathing blog where I vented, I try not to do such things, my apologies. Times are rough at present, if any understand, thank you. If not, not my problem. You’re free to not do so.

Anywho…oh, thanks monkey minion. Yeah, I’m letting them wear minion costumes today, I suppose that today, November the 20th is a Monkey holiday, something to do with their trickster god and goddess and misfortune coming from on high and wearing costumes to disguise who you are from the trickster deities. I asked what they called this holiday and, oddly enough, they call it ‘politics’. Seems apt, I suppose. Anyway, my friend here, number 243, passed me my talking points. So let me begin.

There was one section that really stuck out at me and poked me in the eye from this piece. The site of a total eclipse and the crazed reactions people had to it standing out on the ridge overlooking the valley. I have no clue as to what the author was intending for the piece, because my mind was so focused on what his/her event from 1979 caused me to think of as I read it.

It made me think of the end of the world. He/she does mention the word cataclysm more than once so this might have prompted my rather dark musings.

As I’ve said before, times are tough as hell for me right now (no I won’t go into it…) so my thoughts, and my writing, tends to mirror my mood. I’m working on something for genuine publication. It’s a dark fantasy, sort of in the veins of George R.R. Martin in the sense that it’s a big, epic, political-military centric story but I am also throwing in an element that isn’t often visited in speculative fiction and that’s religion. I’m not writing with an agenda, not at all.

The overall idea is the encroachment of a type of Christianity (Christian analogue religion) and an Islam analogue religion upon a pagan culture and what that does to the society. Needless to say, seeing as how it’s not really worth writing about unless things go to hell in a hand-basket at some point, it leads to a murder of a King, a war and chaos. Really, bloody, awful bloody chaos. And the war is not single sided. In other words its not one versus one, no its far more complicated than that.

This piece, ‘Total Eclipse’ reminded me of a section I’ve got going. The pagans, pretty much a Norse culture, have launched a crusade of their own of sorts and they are in the process of ransacking a neighboring country. Now this isn’t a raid as in your typical Viking longship fare, no this is a total, hands down, bloody conquest with mal intent to do extreme harm. They’re plundering and torching a major city. One of the characters finds some orphaned children trying to flee with some nuns. Showing compassion he protects them from the predations of his comrades. The dialogue that occurs after the cities destruction shows my character that despite religious differences, that these are good people just trying to survive. Hell, I know it’s cliché, but it is worth mentioning as the cataclysmic scene of the eclipse talked about by the author of ‘Total Eclipse’ didn’t kill the world, they all survived. Life continued. Our whole world can burn down around us, but often times we pick ourselves up and find that life, does indeed move on. No matter our own trials and tribulations there is always life to be lived.

I have no idea if any publisher would be even remotely interested in what I have to offer, probably not, just steeling myself for the worst and I am realizing that I suck at blog writing and so I can’t convey what the writing is really like without showing some which negates it’s usage in bringing it to a publishing company…(deep breath, sigh)

SO there it is. Regardless, my mind is still filled with imagery that is dark and mystifying so I have to go now and work on a 40K story I’m posting on The Bolthole.org, it involved the Crimson Guard Chapter of Astartes, some daemons and a splinter group of Word Bearers, I think this calls for a bit of darkness.

Have fun, enjoy your day, happy reading, blessings to you.