Announcement: My editor sent a round of emails last night concerning the back cover materials. That included the book teaser and the author bio. They looked good. They also sent the covers for the individual novels. I'll put up the covers when I can. The proposed 3 in1 cover and info can be found at www.ancientlight.com. I'll keep you updated. I should have three new books out soon.
Introduction: I wrote the novel Aksinya: Enchantment and the Daemon. This was my 21st novel and through this blog, I gave you the entire novel in installments that included commentary on the writing. In the commentary, in addition to other general information on writing, I explained, how the novel was constructed, the metaphors and symbols in it, the writing techniques and tricks I used, and the way I built the scenes. You can look back through this blog and read the entire novel beginning with http://www.pilotlion.blogspot.com/2010/10/new-novel-part-3-girl-and-demon.html.
I'm using this novel as an example of how I produce, market, and eventually (we hope) get a novel published. I'll keep you informed along the way.
The four plus one basic rules I employ when writing:
1. Don't confuse your readers.
2. Entertain your readers.
3. Ground your readers in the writing.
4. Don't show (or tell) everything.
5. Immerse yourself in the world of your writing.
All novels have five discrete parts:
1. The initial scene (the beginning)
2. The rising action
3. The climax
4. The falling action
5. The dénouement
The theme statement of my newest novel, Valeska, is this: An agent of the organization becomes involved with a vampire girl during a mission, she becomes dependent on the agent, and she is redeemed.
Here is my proposed cover for Valeska:
The purpose of a novel is to reveal the protagonist and usually the protagonist's helper, the author needs to place them in circumstance that allows them to reveal themselves. The means can be conversation, exploration, discovery, other's conversation, confession, accidental discovery.
There are three ways to know truth: the scientific method, the historical-witness method, and logic. The three tests used for all documentary evidence in history are: the bibliographical test, the internal test, and the external test. Let's see how we can use these tests.
The way people think about the world is rooted in their religious (spiritual) view of the world--no kidding. There are four stages in religious thinking (religions):
1. Animism - gods in everything, man is fated
2. Pantheonic Paganism - gods rule certain things and both man and god are fated
3. Mysterium - gods rule and man can know god through rituals and education
4. Gnosticism - god is there and man can be like him through knowledge
When a culture begins to realize that natural phenomena and not gods make things move and grow, there is a natural movement toward mysterium. A mysterium is a type of religion that is always characterized by secret ceremonies and an initiation. There are usually levels of initiation. The levels of initiation, especially the last, is characterized by a mystery that is revealed. The mystery of the Pythagoreans was the Pythagorean theorem in geometry. We are not certain today how they did this, but Greeks didn't have algebra, they had geometry. They showed the Pythagorean theorem as a geometric proof. This was the mystery of Pythagorus. The mystery of Osirus was Pi as a geometric proof. How they did it, we don't know, but that's what it was. The mystery of Dementer was a seed, a sword, and a phallic symbol in a box. We know this from eye witnesses. This is a very simple mystery.
Mysteries of a mysterium were always something real and usually something that was basic in science and the real world. The point of the mystery was to show that the mysterium proved a concept that had been once thought to be in the province of the gods--or that characterized a god or an idea. The mystery was something that could be explained by natural phenomena and not by the "gods." This is what I meant when I wrote yesterday that with philosophy comes the mysterium.
A mysterium is characterized by a mystery, a initiation ceremony, a level of initiation, a baptism, a confession, a meal with the deity, a revelation of the deity in the mystery. Notice that Christianity has many of these characteristics. Christianity is not a mysterium by definition because it has an open initiation ceremony. Further, Christianity took on many of its characteristic from the Hebrews and not as a Mystereum. In any case, mystereums are named for their leader or their god--thus the Greeks perceived Christianity (called teen hodos, the way in Greek) as a mystereum and called the members of teen hodos, Christians. There are many examples of mystereums in the ancient and modern world.
More tomorrow.
For more information, you can visit my author site http://www.ldalford.com/, and my individual novel websites:
http://www.aegyptnovel.com/
http://www.centurionnovel.com
http://www.thesecondmission.com/
http://www.theendofhonor.com/
http://www.thefoxshonor.com
http://www.aseasonofhonor.com
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