For those of you who follow me on Twitter ( @MegasTeque ) will know that yesterday was the day I began the formatting work on the Paperback Editions of Episode One: The Utopian Dream. Of course, there is nothing else I’d rather be doing right now other than working on Episode Two: Rise of The Black Doves, I am almost finished with Volume Four but have a long way to go in terms of its overall structure and connection with what comes after, hoping to get started on Volume Five as soon as possible and already it is surpassing its prequel in every way, not only from a storytelling perspective but a world building, character and more importantly a written perspective. The only thing it does not do to top The Utopian Dream is the size and scale of its battle sequences, Episode One had massive battles involving a clash of armies, Episode Two from what I can tell does not escalate the battlefront but will definitely amp up everything else. You guys are in for something special and brace yourselves for an ending that will leave you speechless and utterly destroyed! I will not sit here and lie to you though, but after close examination of my work, there are things you start to notice, things that you feel like you could improve upon or describe differently, fortunately, I am in a position to iron out a few errors before I undertake my next task which I plan to do for my readers benefit and my own peace of mind, I’ll get to that in a bit. My writing ability has greatly improved since I began the sequel, it improves every time I immerse myself in this world which is showing no sign of cooling down, in fact, it is expanding growing all the more intricate and beautifully complex, this is both a blessing and a curse because I am forever in a state of perfecting everything I pump out. The reason as to why I have put a hold on its progress is because I am looking to make that great leap from an online presence to physical one, moving from digital copies to books that you can see on the shelves. Honestly, I am not sure why I have not worked on this sooner! It has been almost a year since the Hardback Edition was released (03/09/2017), I already have all the necessary boxes checked, the main one being an ISBN (International Standard Book Number, I have ten bought and paid for) so this has been a long time coming. However, if you’ve seen my Hardback Edition, you’d probably feel what I feel but fight to deny, it is bloody intimidating, I mean you can do weights on this thing. From a sellers point of view, I know this will turn even the most open-minded of reader off so instead of jumping straight in and throwing the Hardback in your face, I’ve decided to take this opportunity to give retailers and keen readers options, bite-sized options. Not only will you be able to find Volumes 1-3 of The Ancestral Odyssey – The Utopian Dream on Kindle which will be fully updated by the time this is all done, but you will have the option to purchase the Hardback Edition from the shelf AND Volumes 1-3 on Paperback, with a newly designed front cover complete with all those niggling little errors erased. There will be a lot of work involved between now and then but I am hoping to be working on it for about a month, maybe a little longer depending on if I can afford a Graphic Designer to re-do the covers.
With all that said it has been a long while since I updated this Blog, honestly, I’ve found it hard to pick a topic recently, there are so many to choose from. I’ve been struggling to find time to write, creativity cannot just be called upon when desired or when it is convenient at the time when you are off work for example or have an evening to yourself free from all distractions, it does not work that way, unfortunately. You can spend hours and hours sometimes just reading in the dark until the sun comes up, re-reading your work to refresh yourself on where you are at with each and every character, what has to come next, keeping track of all those plot points and ideas I’ve come up with at every other hour of the day, jotted down in notebooks or on scrap pieces of paper not to mention the research that needs doing, studying other concepts, glancing at other people’s work and of course you cannot help but adjust the material you’ve already thought was worthy (‘Stories are not written, they are re-written’), editing the content where it needs to be edited, ironing out pesky errors and those bastard inconsistencies. It has been weeks since I wrote anything new and substantial, anything worthy of what The Ancestral Odyssey has to offer, that heavy epic fantasy book containing another world that is dragging me all the way toward the finish line whereas before, when I was writing Episode One: The Utopian Dream, I was pulling it all the way to the end! And what an endeavour that was, just the thought of getting each volume formatted for Kindle through Microsoft Word, creating the front covers in Photoshop, setting up my Amazon and Ingramspark Pages, getting my YouTube Channel up and running for the promotional content, the Twitter account and generally building my platform while making sure I am giving audiences something they have never read before, something that is different, that redefines itself, standing out among the others, gives me a headache. As stated on my Author Page found under my hilarious picture on Amazon.co.uk ‘I am attempting to do the impossible.’ All this work is taking its toll, I won’t pretend that it is not, there are days where I am unable to function correctly because I am lost in my own head, muddling through thousands (yes, fucking thousands) of ideas, potential story arcs, character trends while flicking through beloved sequences which I’ve been itching to get to for a little over a decade, and generally figuring out how I can weave this project together under the law of my mythos. Even though my social life has taken a hit, my diet has degraded regardless of the fact I’ve gone pescatarian, it will be worth it, when that final sentence is written, when the story has come full circle and I am free to move onto Episode Three: Seeds of War, the only installment which title in the series has never changed, I know I will relive the greatest feeling I’ve come to experience so far in life, the feeling of winning! The feeling of carving out a piece of myself and presenting it to the world in the way I choose. It can get on top of you, it can bog you down and at the worst of times make you question the path you have chosen, this doesn’t have to be in the world of writing but in whatever profession you’re passionate about. I’ve caught myself laying awake at night at 4 in the morning, soaking in that claustrophobic feeling that drapes over you like a heavy blanket, the thoughts of never finishing, the thoughts of doubt and failure. This next book, Rise, is scheduled for release in 2019, some of you may be thinking that is plenty of time, but it really isn’t when you consider the work that has been poured into this thing, when you have a central storyline depending on so many others around it to really hammer home this ending I’ve been babbling on about. I’ve bitten off far more than I can chew, and I am not sure about this anymore, I need more time, I need more resources and the ability to focus like I used to. I am not pulling the book anymore, it is pulling me!
Of all the topics open to me right now, I am not entirely sure why I picked to write-up on this one, there are a handful of others that require my attention or perhaps would be more interesting to read, one of which I am a little hesitant to publish, a lot of people will find my position on the subject unpopular, but that will be addressed at a later date. I guess I am at that point now where the wheels are turning, the cogs are moving and I cannot stop this train unless I crash it, whereas before I had the option to jump off at any time and chalk all this up to experience. Maybe my sporadic loss of focus is due to the fact that I have started something, and leaving it unfinished is something I simply cannot do; Have you ever been involved with something that you wonder how you got by without it? Have you ever found your calling, something that you know you were born to do and that there is no way in hell you were going to quit? This book, this story is demanding and not in the physical sense, but in the psychological. I’ve deleted pages before, even gone as far to delete chapters I’ve worked on for weeks because they weren’t serving the overall outcome of the story, every time I write something new I always learn something different or a challenge presents itself that needs tackling, and it’s beating me, at this rate I will not be releasing in 2019 but perhaps maybe we are looking at a late 2020 launch. Jesus when you say 2020 it doesn’t seem real and it scares me; Why does it scare me? Well, let me tell you a short but true story, about failure and my greatest opponent; I hope you enjoy ‘My Villain and Reason.’
I used to run. I used to be an athlete and specialized in the one hundred meter sprint, the two hundred meters, hurdles, long jump and high jump and I used to win, I used to always win, it was what I lived for at the time. In my earlier days, no one could stop me, there was no one I couldn’t beat. I seem to remember going toe to toe with boys a few years older than I was, because that was the only way my coaches could find me a challenge, they were wrong because I defeated them too with ease, like it was nothing, like I wasn’t even trying, and having gone through school being constantly hassled, forever belittled, bullied by assholes who’ve now wasted their golden years to drink, drugs and crime, I was told how useless and how hopeless I was by these people and so so many others, running was my only way of showing everyone that I meant something, even if I wasn’t competing against those who gave me a hard time, I pretended I was, I used this avenue as my release, the anger was my fuel and it never failed. Every time I stepped out onto that red track when I set foot on that solid white line alongside boys far bigger than me, stronger than me, who saw me as a weakling upon first glance, that desire to wipe their confident smug away by hammering them at their own game. Honestly, there hasn’t been a better sensation, seeing their faces of disbelief, seeing them crushed as I jogged off the track, I’d give anything to relive those moments. In those moments, however, I felt invincible, I felt like a superstar, someone with special abilities and to this day, I still get twinges of that power, rushes of that same explosive energy that hasn’t gone anywhere, I’ve just put them in reserve. Of course, back then I was very young, over-confident, arrogant and foolish, no one was a challenge there was no one I couldn’t beat back then, I simply had some growing up to do. Yes, I was eventually defeated, not by the first man who ended up smashing me in that one hundred meter sprint, not by the man who out jumped me both on the high jump and long jump, but it was I who stopped myself from continuing on. I killed that path I had set myself on and it wasn’t until years later I found my ability to create and write, though I remember the passion I once had for competing on the track, the will to win is a powerful one.
Only I can kill this project, the responsibility is my own, I’ve let myself kill other dreams before and it would be foolish if I said it can’t happen again. The same weakness still exists, the same fears and doubts that were present when I was an athlete to the person I’ve become, and it is the voice in my head, the shadow that attempts to convince me that a different path, a different calling would be wiser to pursue. If he wins, then I will rationalize, I will argue against those who try to tell me otherwise and will generally feel I am in the right, that is what the conscience is good at, in believing its own non-sense and so the cycle repeats, it won’t be until years perhaps decades later when I look back and say ‘I would give anything to go back and make a different choice.’ That’s the danger, that’s my villain, he doesn’t exist in someone else, he is not a body or a group, my villain is myself and always has been. I’ve talked about my career as an athlete being stomped on, but there are more paths my villain has been responsible in crushing, I used to play the piano, I was very good at it at one point until the guy inside convinced me to stop. There was a time when I wanted to draw and I’ll admit that hasn’t been entirely snuffed out, but the last time I sat down to draw anything was in the year of 2015.
There is a flip side to all this, a sort of silver lining, and it is this; Maybe, I’ve not met my villain, maybe I’ve yet to meet him and it is actually the voice of reason, I mean, after all, he has brought me this far, he has guided me through my first book and is well on the way to seeing me through the next, I know that there is no way I could’ve been an athlete, a pianist, and an artist, maybe being a creative writer was the path I was meant to walk all along…Or I am talking absolute rubbish, I’ll let you decide. It’s been a pleasure to share, I wish you all the best of luck in your own journies and if you take anything away from this little article, I hope it’s a positive one, I hope it’s one that says that failure is not necessarily failure, but a nudge perhaps in the direction you truly are meant to be going in.
E-mail – taotome@outlook.com
Twitter – @MegasTegue
Author Page UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B01JMZ2BE6
Author Page US – https://www.amazon.com/default/e/B01JMZ2BE6?redirectedFromKindleDbs=true
YouTube Channel – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-nc_VEmC27AIz6pP51UVkQ
D.W.Gill