Progress -- Beacon & Palaios

I nearly finished Beacon Burning back in March, but I just haven't been able to get going again. My mom's condition continues to deteriorate and being a sole caregiver is a 24-7-365 job.

I have done a little bit of work on Palaios, which is my pre-Casanarvan world, the place where the Tazaqwayn came from. It is a place of many gods and goddesses and fiery blood sacrifices.

From this world a priest, Licas, escapes with a few hundred followers, including several warriors who become his bodyguards and eventually form the original Velnar Knights.

I know little of this world and am just feeling my way along. Recently I saw a picture of a city by a sea and recognized it as the capital of Palaios. I had not known before if Palaios was a coastal city or not. Details will come to me and I will be able to See this place much better in time. Eventually what I see probably won't resemble the picture at all, but that doesn't matter.

Slow progress

Life keeps getting in the way, but I'm slowly making some progress on Beacon Burning.

I was really stalled out on chapter 3. I kept trying to weave in Catreena and Saray's story, and it wasn't working. Gradually I realized that a scene I was trying to avoid writing HAD to be written. It actually wasn't hard once I got into it. I just had to change my p.o.v. character. Now I think I'm back on the right trail.

I believe a lot of what we call writer's block is a resistance that builds in our minds when we try to convince ourselves we know a shortcut or a better way around in a story, and the story itself won't let us. You can call it your muse or say your characters are controlling the story, but whatever it is, it does form an impediment to continuing the story or even continuing to write the story.

Life may conspire to block our progress, but I've found that if I REALLY want to write, I will do so in spite of whatever problems I'm facing. In fact, my writing provides a release from stress and an escape from daily disasters. Rarely do my characters experience anything like what I'm going through, yet their "trials and tribulations" often make my problems seem trivial, so that I discover a double relief--that of escaping into their world for a while and that of escaping back into my own once more!