Protharious

Well, I told you there’d be fiction again! I figure after that doozy of a post, I should lighten stuff up. But I also want to stay on target somewhat. While thinking about what I wanted to write in the previous entry, a thought had occurred to me that I might have another outlet for expressing my anxiety, one that would also allow me to work on the well overdue The Priest of Smugglers’ Run. Of all my characters, the one that would absolutely struggle with anxiety — in fact, I think he does without me even having known about it — would be the titular priest, Protharious.

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Rereading The Elenium

When we moved back into our house, the chore of sorting through what seemed an endless tide of boxes of books fell to yours truly.  It was only fair. A good eighty to ninety percent of the books in this house are mine anyway.  And of course I didn’t mind, reconnecting with what I could consider friends, some of which have been with me since high school.  As I sorted and unpacked, I realized that I wanted to reread a vast number of them.  Now, some of these books I could probably rewrite from memory.  But I wanted to reread them none the less.  Like I just said, some of these books, they’re like friends.

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All Play and No Work…

There is a ski lodge high on Mount Hood that you may have seen before.  It’s Timberline Lodge; and while its story as a WPA project is worth a read, and its interior a marvel in American craftsmanship, you probably know it best from its short screen time as the framing shot for the fictional Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.  Now allow me to be upfront about this; Timberline Lodge is not the Overlook Hotel.  The hotel was a set piece, and the interior of the Timberline looks nothing like the faded glory of the Overlook.  However, there’s information about the movie proudly displayed in the hotel and the Lodge hosts the annual “Overlook Film Festival”; a bit of a perverse thrill in telling its guests that they are sleeping in closest thing to the Overlook.  (According to the Lodge’s website, room #217 — the original room in Stephen King’s book — is the most requested room.)

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Back to Work

It has been a while, hasn’t it?  Oh sure, there was that other site, and that took time.  And yes, there was a novel draft, which was finished literally as I returned to the states; somewhere above the Pacific.  That felt good, let me tell you.  So much so, that I immediately cashed in on the whole first class thing1thanks tiny Oregon shoe company and asked the flight attendant for two whiskeys on the rocks.  She brought me two of these fall-themed apple-infused Jack Daniel’s cocktails that actually were delicious.  So I asked for two more, and when auntie looked at me strange, I smiled and told her, “Hey, I just finished my book and I’m moving back to the States.”  Since we were still in the future, the looming nightmare of Trump was still visible and she took pity on me and brought me three and some ramen.

So passed draft three; with a toast as I hurdled towards the day before at 500km/h.

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Choosing My Religious Institution

I’ve been following with some great interest the path of Aaron Jacobs, once a friend of a friend and now a husband of a… y’know it’s not important.  What is important is said path has been mirroring mine to a considerable degree — he recently expatriated to Australia and has in the interim been working on his writing, specifically fantasy fiction.  I’ve yet to read his fiction, but judging from his blog and what he’s shared of his inspirations and research, it seems incredibly like my jam.

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The Writer Takes Time Off

So I made a big introductory post, spent many hours pouring over old posts and reformatting them, wrung my hands over how many words I’ve written about video games1oh my god I’m a dork and then…

silence.

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