Creating Worlds - Tales of Anieth

What I do is create worlds. I wanted to do this ever since I read The Lord of Rings when I was nine. I decided at the ripe ol' age of twelve, that my greatest fear in writing was that some artist would get to interpret the characters and the world visually. Since I wanted to create a WORLD and not a novel, I decided that I had to draw my own pictures. This meant drawing people.

At that time, the art world was in love with abstract art and impressionist art. Realism was out. So I had to flounder around for a long time. I had to teach myself until I got a couple of lessons at the Boulder Academy of Art with Elvie Davis, a student of a student of John Singer Sargent who was still teaching in the classical style. I eagerly absorbed much of what he could teach and he must have thought I was a bit bonkers!

It is only now that I am getting competent enough at art to be able to draw my characters and the scenes from this particular world to the degree of realism that I want. Being a long time fan of the Romantic school of art and writing, and a fan of Ayn Rand and Victor Hugo, I wanted to write fantasy that would mean something. I also wanted to write "fan" fantasy, or fantasy that would have a world attached to it. This required an enormous amount of work, for I was not satisfied with the stereotyped Medieval world for a fantasy background. I backed my world up twice: first to Classical times to get out of the witch/Christian thing, and then to 2000 BCE on an alternative Earth. I took some liberties in that my world's people are from about 1000 BCE, proto-Celts and Persians. My world is as if Darius the Great had conquered Europe and was getting ready to invade Britain for tin and gold. My Zelosians (Persians) had already destroyed Gallicia in Northern Spain for the tin there.

The reason I wanted to write about the Celts was that they were a large, stable confederation that had a high degree of development, similar to the Mongols, the Vikings, or the Lakota, all of whom were too late for my purposes. I learned many eye-opening things as the world learned them: that the world of ancient Europe was not a world of barbarians living in skins, but maybe more highly developed than Classical Greece. The level of technology uncovered rocked the world of anthropology and lent pathos to my world. I came to understand that the world of 2000 BCE was of a greater level of "tech" than the Medieval world and that there had been a long "Dark Ages" as the greedy empires of the Mid-East and then the Mediterranean destroyed much of what had been learned. What a rich background for a world!

But, before I go on (and on) my celebration today is of the creation of the entry book for The Tales of Anieth. I have written (cover to cover) and even published some of the books of this world, none of which worked as "entry" books or first books into the series. There are ten other books written, but none of them worked as first books; all of them were too complex or too late in the history of the series to stand alone without too much back story.

I'm allowing myself the luxury of being proud. This is a new one for me, for I'm NEVER satisfied with my work. But the creation of Raol Aveldonacc as a young man has worked extremely well and I've written the best book I have ever written and I think it works. Pause. I've said this over the years, but this time, I may be right. Why? Because the story works. Usually my stories were good, certainly good enough, but they had some flaw. This story is a small story, a story of passion and tragedy, a story about a single man that takes place over the space of about a month.

But, more than this, I cannot express to you the joy I feel in walking in this world. The creation of a proto-Celt language was enjoyable; the discovery and extrapolation of archeoastonomy was delightful; the creation of a complete world that was real, yet also magical was fulfilling in a way that most projects are not.

And the creation of the characters has been wonderful. Here is Raol again. Just as a note: Anieth is from the Gaelic "an Aiath" which means "the land" and is pronounced "AWN-ya" or a pun on my name, which is pronounced the same way in Gaelic. It would also be correct to say "an-YA". Raol could mean many things in Gaelic or Welsh, depending on how it is pronounced, reel, rile or rail. His name could mean "sustained effort" "stellar" "ruler" and etc. Aveldonacc means "son of Veldonacc" and Veldonacc is a morph of Faol Daoine which means "people of the wolf."

I had to create a different picture of Raol for the cover to keep consistent with the eye look. (See below)

Raol was a difficult character. He began as a bad guy, the key man in the Invasion. In much of history, there was a chieftain or a king who "sold out" or made a pact with the devil (an empire) to attack his neighbors. Raol started there. A long journey!



I am very happy with what is happening in this world. I'll keep sharing as I get time.