Tag: Tormay

Fen Gawinn

I’ve been slowly writing a book that takes place after my Tormay trilogy. Several years after the end of The Wicked Day. Judging from how the plot is going and what the characters are demanding of me, I’d say I’m about 3/4 of the way done with the first draft.

The main character is Fen Gawinn, the adopted daughter of Owain and Sib Gawinn. She’s about seventeen in this story and, as luck would have it, she’s forced to leave the city of Hearne and deal with some rather dark characters. If you remember, there’s a certain individual towards the end of The Wicked Day who ends up… entranced, or perhaps frozen is the right word after picking up a very unusual book. That individual also figures in this story.

Anyway, here’s a concept art piece of Fen. Worried, unsure of herself, but determined. I’m going to do some more concept art for a few of the other characters in the story. Helps to wrap my mind around who they actually are.

Little Zombies

Little ZombiesLatest tune, courtesy of me, my guitar, Garageband, some midi and a little time. Time. That’s the most valuable part. Time. I’ve been realizing more and more that we have limited time. Hardly any at all. And we don’t know how much.

Time is kind of like a wrapped Christmas present that we don’t get to open until the millisecond before our death. We get whacked by the drunk in his car and–bam–we open the present as we sail through the air, check inside the box and think, “Hmm. Okay. I get 48 years, 3 months, 16 days, 2 hours and 37 seconds. This is the last second.” And then we hit the pavement.

Or we open the box while in bed at the cancer center. Tubes and monitors hooked up everywhere. The monsignor or pastor or rabbi just gave you the last rites. Your heart monitor begins to flatline as your disease has the last say, and…we get to open the box, peer inside and remark “Aha. I get 82 years, 5 months, 29 days, 1 hour and 12 seconds. And this is the last second.” Flatline.

So where am I going with this? Nowhere, really. Just that…well, be careful with your time. Don’t presume.

Speaking of presumption, this song, Little Zombies, is about the presumption of life. Some people feel entitled to it. Some don’t even get to be part of the discussion, whether they’re alive and enslaved somehow (sex trade, human trafficking out of Africa and into Muslim countries, kids in sweatshops, little baby humans who haven’t been born yet, whatever and whomever). This one is for all the little zombies who never really got a shot at life.

A Different Turn of Events: when Jute and the Hawk returned to Hearne

I dug up another portion of the Tormay Trilogy that didn’t make it into the published version. This section (rather long) is intriguing for me to look back on because the events it describes morphed into something entirely different when I finished writing the book. The hunt for the Harlech soldiers was one of the areas that changed almost completely in rewrite. There were quite a few of those, but this one had a lot of reverberating ramifications. Always a fragile thing to deal with when editing…