I wasted yet another perfectly good afternoon devising a couple of more diagrams similar to the ones at the very beginning of the book. Once I get a few more of the kinks in these maps ironed out, they will be inserted into the manuscript as a visual lead-in to the second act, for all the vivacious editing I’ve been doing on the first act is currently nearing completion.
These diagrams represent a top and side view of ₪KLAVERIOS, the home island of a powerful warlock who becomes an important character in Act II. It’s cone-shaped with a lone point of entry on one end of it and a wall on the other. A steep hill in between. A hill that is certainly worth the considerable effort it takes to climb, for in the middle of that wall is a mysterious portal that leads to the Valhalla District. Where the warlock lives. He’s a member of the Society of Wheel Turners, a cybermagickal organization which has one Kent Fairholt on its payroll, among others. So Kent and the warlock go way back. When the next version of the ebook is published, I will leave it up to the aforementioned Mr. Fairholt to explain the Wheel Turners to you in detail.
The portal to the Valhalla District is entirely controlled by the warlock’s pet. He’s a serpent-formed security program named Sweetheart, but he’s a tad bit hard to make out on these maps.
Somebody brought up genre-bending on Twitter the other day. I tweeted something back at her which I think sums up the cybermagickal arts featured in Silver Brown quite nicely. I’ll just let the tweet speak for itself…
My former boss went insane and stabbed a dude. It made headlines throughout Canada during the annus horribilis that was 2016. I’ve elaborated on her insanity in excruciating detail elsewhere on this site, although at this point I can’t be arsed to dig up the link. [EDIT 4/23/2019 17:20 UTC-5 I guess I can be arsed now. Here it is.] In retrospect, it’s a good thing I abruptly quit my job and got the hell out of Toronto five months before the boss completely snapped. If I hadn’t, she probably would have stabbed me instead of the doorman. I had to get treatment from a shrink for a period of three years after quitting, but at least I made it out of there in one piece. More or less.
I couldn’t have done it alone, though. To all the people who lent me a helping hand along the way, I sincerely thank you. From the bottom of my heart. You know who you are. Even if said helping hand was not lent out of any particular concern for me, you still have my eternal gratitude for getting me out of a terrible jam.
Silver Brown is first and foremost an exercise in self-therapy. Like the writingcraft tends to be for a sizable portion of its practitioners. It’s just an added bonus that some people actually find this crazy yarn entertaining. There’s something exhilarating about taking a life experience that was beyond painful for me personally and turning it into something that makes people happy. Speaking of which, it’s only natural that my former boss (who has since become worm chow) would become the basis for at least one of the characters. There are actually bits and pieces of Ellis Kirkland splattered across several characters, but this blog post will focus on one in particular.
This could possibly be a visual representation of Ruby Lapp while she’s in the process of transubstantiating into her war-animal. However, I mostly decided to post it here because it’s psychedelic as fuck.
The chapter I’m editing now sees Florys being interrogated by a Sister who she considers to be her archnemesis. Ruby Lapp. Head page of the Executive Cabinet, and the obvious darling of the Lodge. Ruthless. Powerful. Ambitious. Destined to take over the Vizier-Queen’s job someday, with absolutely nothing standing in her way. Just ask her loyal and ever-honest toadies, The Lads…
“You will be our Vizier-Queen, My Precious Buttercup, if Your Dagdaic Majesty you ne’er will be.”
Snow White was always being followed around wherever she went by a retinue of woodland critters. I’m not really sure why. Because she was all pure and innocent? Some horseshit like that. A few drafts into the writing of this tome, I gave Ruby Lapp a woodland critter retinue of her own. Partly to be sarcastic. But The Lads don’t follow her around and kiss her ass because she’s pure and innocent. Hell, no. They do it because kissing her ass is their job and they’ll be permanently deleted if they refuse, for they are but worms and peons who only exist to serve their master.
It can be said Ruby Lapp is the opposite of a Snow White – an Acid Rain Black. Any musicians reading this are welcome to steal that for the name of their band.
Ruby Lapp can also be considered Draco Malfoyish. She considers herself a true Sister, because she comes from eleven generations of cybermagickal practitioners. Florys’ pedigree is nowhere near as impressive; her father (whose current whereabouts are unknown) was an Orycteropian pitchman who pimped the Aardvark’s wares to the masses every Lisasday morning. In the world according to Ruby Lapp, this makes Florys and her kind a lower form of life than the tardigrades who inhabit pond scum. Scum that most certainly will be wiped from the face of the Lodge when Ruby Lapp is enthroned as Vizier-Queen. That glorious day shall come to pass. Maybe not tomorrow or the day after, but someday.
