Haven’t updated

Eli has been out of school with a cold since last Friday (which is only actually two days: Friday and today), which means that my ability to get anything done is hampered by various mommy duties. The cold is getting better, finally…it was one of those that gets into the eyes and makes them produce copious amounts of green gunk. I did a lot of nighttime eye un-gluing this weekend. I think he’ll be able to go back to school Wednesday.

Then of course, there’s the “I’m still recovering from the hard drive crash” excuse, but at this point, I think I’ve exhausted that one. I did a once-over of the first book of Shades, and did a little writing today.

Mostly, I’ve not updated because I really haven’t felt like it. Not from a lack of exciting or interesting things to report…in fact, I think it might be due to too many things to talk about. I’ve read several books since Wednesday, all of which were good enough to merit a blog-nod, at least. But…meh. I don’t feel so much like reviewing anything right now.

I’ve actually felt like sitting down and writing some erotic Shades fanfiction. (I suppose I can hope Shades will be enough of a hit someday to merit fanfiction…and it can be fun to anticipate what people are going to come up with. Dear gods, the slash will probably be awful).

One, to see if I can actually bring myself to write an erotic scene…what words I can/cannot get on the page, where evocative turns into gross/cheesy/unrealistic/just plain bad, etc. Shades does not need such scenes, and won’t contain any, but I can think of a couple of places in my Tindaari epic that might. (Celeste is a whore, by profession. Nuatha’s relationship with her is intimately *cough* tied to both his own sexual awakening and to his character arc. Some of that growth is going to take place in the bedroom…and I’m just going to have to get over it.)

Two, Saeli and Raphel’s relationship is grating on me right now. Not on a writerly level…I’ve just reread the whole manuscript so far, and I think I’ve got the level of sexual/antagonistic/partnership tension about where it needs to be. But I think it’s safe to say that I’m more emotionally attached to these characters than anyone else could possibly be. I want them to get together because I like Raphel and I’m a lot like Saeli, in some ways. Pure wish fulfillment. Something I know I can’t do in the story itself without destroying it, but something I *want*, nonetheless. (Hey, that’s what fanfiction is for, IMO. Pairing off characters just because the fans want it, not because it’s in any way hinted at in the canon.) This is actually a sign to me that I’ve Saeli’s and Raphel’s relationship right in the story, because part of the tension lies in the fact that they are, in some ways, perfect for each other…and yet, it just can’t work. I want the reader to hate that. I know this probably sounds ridiculous, but I want the reader to fall in love with Raphel and despair. It’s the major underlying problem Saeli has to overcome.

So, but okay, writer-me is satisfied, but fan-me is still grinding her teeth.

I may do it, just because. Maybe in between the actual finishing of the last chapters, in that time when I’d normally be checking Facebook or something. This is not something I’d be posting here, by the way. I know too many people that read this that I probably wouldn’t be able to face again, if I did. ;D No erotica on Nightphoenix’s blog, sorry.

I’ve decided I need to go back and read The Society of S by Susan Hubbard. I think, out of all the YA books I’ve read recently, that story’s pacing most closely resembles mine; a bit less action, bam-bam-wham, a bit more literary. (This is only compared to today’s popular YA, which tends to read very, very fast.) Since I enjoyed Society of S, despite its slower pace (or maybe because of it), I should go back and pay attention to how that was done.

Not much else to report. The spring forward thing is killing me. We didn’t eat supper tonight until like 8:30, ’cause I just couldn’t get my act together. Now it’s nearly midnight, and we have to go to bed soon. *sigh*

Tags: life, Raphel, Saeli, Shades

Reluctance

Getting back into the writing groove is, well…mostly not really happening this week. I’ve been irritated at myself, which doesn’t help my productivity level at all. But I think I’ve finally put my finger on what the problem is.

I’m reluctant to produce any new writing right now, because I think I’m afraid of it disappearing in another drive crash, or some other technical crisis I haven’t thought of. Part of my mind is sitting there going, “What’s the point if you’re just going to lose it again, and have to rewrite it over and over?” Then there’s another part of my mind that is still hoping there’s a chance of rescuing the stuff I lost. I feel like I’m stuck in stasis, unable to mentally move on because I’m still hoping for a computer miracle. Moving on in my writing would be tantamount to officially declaring that hard drive as a loss…and I just don’t want to do that. But I really need to, because the chances of coming up with an affordable way to save that drive are next to nil.

I discovered that among the stuff that hadn’t been backed up was all my conference notes. Including the names given to me as potential agents and editors that might be interested in my stuff, once I’m ready to query. That’s probably the biggest overall loss I’m looking at right now, and it bothers me more than the missing chapter. There’s no way I can get all those notes back, and there was a lot of good information. Also all my GMC work I’d done on the Mask of Eldarmarch is gone, though honestly I’ll probably be able to put that back together without much difficulty. It’s still a pain, though, you know? To redo something you know you’ve already done.

So I’ve been doing what I tend to do when I can’t write, which is read. I picked up several YA books and have proceeded to gobble my way through them in a matter of days. Yeah, I can tell myself that’s at least semi-productive, but it’s not what I need to be doing right now.

It is times like these when I wonder if I’m really cut out to be a professional writer. I don’t deal with setbacks very well, for one thing. Also, I cannot seem to keep my nose to the grindstone for more than a few weeks at a time. After that, I will inevitably hit a point where I just cannot work on my current writing project for several days. I haven’t found a working rhythm yet, because inevitably once I do start to establish one, something happens and I am thrown off. And I know that once I have editorial deadlines to contend with, I won’t be able to take days and weeks to get back on track. I need to figure out something that works for me, NOW, while I still have the luxury of flexible time.

The hubby and I discussed this a little during supper. I decided that I needed to find some sort of ritual, something I can do when disruptions happen, that will allow my mind to get past the setback and move on. The “just get over it” school of coping obviously doesn’t work very well on its own, as I’ve been trying to “get over it” for a week now. The hubby suggested that maybe what I’m dealing with here is a kind of grief, and that going through the stages of grieving would benefit me.

I think he’s right. My stories are my babies; even losing a chapter is hard for me. I cannot even begin to imagine what my reaction would be if I lost all of Shades, for example. *shudder* At least I know I have the ability to recreate what I lose. I guess the next step for me, at this point, is to do a little research on the stages of grieving, and see if I can find some tips on how to get my creativity back on track.

Tags: business of writing, Shades

Unruly characters

Brendan kissed Saeli today.

And there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop him.

I think the only reason he didn’t do it in the first draft is because Scisaxar was borrowing his body, and then he was preoccupied with Geris and then Raphel. Well, I moved Scisaxar over to the HP’s body…a necessary consequence of leaving her alive…and moved Brendan onto the scene earlier. Of course the first thing he did was run up and hug Saeli, and I didn’t anticipate that, either. I was going to have him interrogate her about the portal, about why she’s working with Raphel…but when he actually got there, he didn’t give a rip about any of that. The only thing in his head was throwing his arms around the girl he loved and assuring himself that she was really, truly there. I mean, she’s been with the enemy for a month, leaving him stewing over the fact that she may or may not be in love with her captor. Then he survives the attack on Aschamon, and hears that she’s the one who betrayed the school. And then he sees her on the balcony, alone.

I should have known.

I actually did not want him to kiss her, because of some lofty thematic reasons and because it makes his downfall more tragic if he never gets the chance to even touch Saeli. But, unfortunately, I gave him the opportunity and he ran with it. He had to kiss her, once, not because he thinks that will change her mind, but actually because he knows she doesn’t love him like that. He isn’t going to get another chance, no matter what goes down, and he knows that. (If Saeli had displayed any spark of romantic interest in that first moment when she spotted him, he wouldn’t have done it.) It’s quite possibly the most selfish action Brendan ever takes in the story, and I can’t say I didn’t push him to it.

And I can’t say I’m sorry for it. I’ve actually been in Brendan’s place, in that same moment…gods, with that same opportunity…and I never had the courage to do what he did. Maybe his character needed that brief show of strength, because Brendan has to be at least a semi-legitimate rival for Saeli’s affection. He can’t compete with Raphel (hell, nobody can), but I have to make him strong enough and sympathetic enough that the reader knows he would have been worthy of Saeli’s love, had Raphel never entered the picture. I think that’s what makes his character tragic…not because he never took the chance, but because he never stood a chance against someone like Raphel. He deserved a fair shot and circumstance took it away from him.

Also, Saeli should have chosen Brendan and she didn’t. She couldn’t have chosen him, else there’d be no story…but she should have. Brendan plays the part of the Wrong Guy in this particular dark romance…but Raphel is the Wrong Guy for Saeli, personally, and for any gal, in general. He doesn’t know how to love…doesn’t know how to even deal with the possibility. And by the end of the story, Saeli knows it.

Tags: Brendan, Shades

Brandon Sanderson…and a divine problem

Brandon Sanderson has officially impressed me. I just finished Warbreaker, which I grabbed because the library had it sitting on their new book shelf. I said, “Oh, that’s the guy that’s finishing the Wheel of Time series, and does Writing Excuses (my favorite writing podcast).” And the inside cover blurb actually looked interesting, in a genre where very little catches my eye anymore.

Honestly, it wasn’t the most impressive or enthralling piece of fiction I’ve ever read, but it was good. I never had the urge to put it down and go do something else. The magic premise, BioChroma, was fascinating, and one I’m tempted to steal from. And he managed to successfully fool me into thinking the good guys were the bad guys and vice versa, which I enjoyed. I’ve seen funnier snark…but not much funnier, and not in the adult genre. YA tends to have more snark, and characters who snip at each other. Sanderson’s snark is sophisticated (which you won’t really find in YA), and I like that.

I picked up his debut, Elantris, from the library the other day, and also I finally got my hands on a copy of The Gathering Storm, which is the next Wheel of Time book. I’ll be reading those over the next couple of days.

Shades is coming along…slowly. Last night I went through the whole second draft, formatting it to send to my critique group. Well, of course, I can’t go through my writing without editing, and thus it took a lot longer than it should have. But I made some good changes…mostly tightening scenes, making them as clear as I can. I’ve been a little stuck at my current spot because I’m about to introduce Scisaxar as a character for the first time, and I really don’t know him very well.

The problem is, I haven’t found a way to relate Scisaxar directly to Raphel, or even to Saeli. He’s still drifting around on the periphery of my main characters, and is thus distant to me. Yuril is much easier to write now because she’s had some stage time, and she’s in love with Raphel. I don’t know how Scisaxar feels about Raphel, or Saeli, or any of the main characters. I’m going to drop him into the scene just after Yuril breaks Raphel’s fingers, and I know that Scisaxar is going to be pissed that Yuril has been blasting holes in his Temple. We’ll start with that, and see where he takes it.

Another thing that I’ve been pondering, and something that might help me with Scisaxar’s character, is that I’ve been trying to determine what the “inciting incident” between the two gods was. Why do they hate each other? What started the war in the first place?

Things I know: 1) On a much deeper level, the war has to do with Yuril’s and Scisaxar’s frustration over the Oath. They pit their followers against each other when in truth, both of them would prefer a direct confrontation. It frustrates them to have to work through mortals, and thus each blames the other even more for forcing them to sacrifice followers. This leads them both to be cruel and distant with their peoples. Cruel, because they don’t understand the source of their anger, and thus they take it out on their people. Distant, because they cannot afford to get emotionally attached to people they are sending out to die for them.

2) Both gods helped curse the Midplains. Raphel is right about that. What Raphel doesn’t know is that they did it as a desperate measure, to stop a certain secret society of people. These were the original gray mages, who knew how to build inter-world portals, who could summon both light and dark angelics, and who were delving into angelic and spirit lore that would have been better left alone. These experiments actually drew the attention of the Keeper of the Oath, who paid a short visit to Verre just before the Cursing. Well, that scared the you-know-what out of Yuril and Scisaxar. The Cursing was both a desperate measure and a panic reaction, and was perhaps overdone.

Now, I have a choice to make. Was the Cursing itself the two gods’ inciting incident, leading them to go to war for more than a hundred years…or did the disagreement start before that, and the gods temporarily put it aside for the Cursing?

If the Cursing was the inciting incident, then the resulting war is genuine. Both gods think that the other handled their part of the Cursing badly, or they blame the other for having to do such a thing, or whatever. They have a legitimate, relatively recent grievance against one another. However, if the gods put aside their conflict temporarily for the Cursing, then the resulting war would have to be a farce. In fact, it’s even possible that the gods were never truly at war in the first place, and their “hatred” is a cover-up to keep the world from discovering the truth.

I honestly like the second option better, because it makes the ending to Shades more plausible. Having Saeli single-handedly convince two gods who genuinely hate each other to stop a war they’ve been at for over a hundred years seems unlikely. But if their conflict isn’t real, her job is much easier. However, it dangerously reduces any empathy one might have for these gods…because that means they’ve been sacrificing their followers for a lie. It makes it look like Raphel was right about them, which will make it difficult for the readers to empathize with them towards the end. It works for the overall story of Verre, because the gods really were preventing something that would be ultimately worse than a hundred year war. But Raphel doesn’t know that, and Saeli doesn’t know that, and so the gods are, to them, going to look like monsters. And the only way I can prove that they aren’t monsters is to reveal a whole lot of information and backstory that I don’t want to cover in this trilogy. That’s what the sequel is for.

Perhaps the war began as a farce, but then got personal for the gods. Scisaxar is winning, after all, when the story opens. Maybe he started to press his military advantage and broke the unspoken understanding between him and Yuril. But why would he do that? I have to pull this back to the Cursing somehow. He would have to have some sort of grudge, if not against Yuril herself, then against her followers. Several possibilities present themselves. The most obvious is that Yuril attracts more followers and Scisaxar is jealous. Or he honestly feels that her followers are degenerates, and despises/feels sorry for them. Or they did something that got a lot of his people killed. No, that’s too general. They did something that got one certain person that Scisaxar really cared about killed. That would be a very strong motivation for wanting to win a farcical war.

Ah, an idea. Scisaxar loved a pre-Cursing gray mage, one of the ones in the thick of the angel experiments. The gods decided, together, that the order of gray mages had to be destroyed and the knowledge buried. They devised the Curse between them and set it loose on the Midplains. Afraid for his love, Scisaxar pursued her and pursued her, and finally brought her around to his point of view. He made her a White Mantle, and thus thought she’d be protected. Then, while the Curse was still spreading, she and a whole mess of her cohorts got caught by Cowls. Both gods’ followers had orders to kill or convert any gray mage. Scisaxar’s love refused to become a Cowl, so they killed her. Scisaxar demanded retribution, but Yuril refused, saying that even though the girl had repented of what she’d done, she still had the knowledge. The knowledge had to die. Scisaxar’s grief leaked into the still-spreading Curse, and it devoured the land as well. Once they contained it, followers from both sides were shocked and confused over why the gods would do such a thing. Yuril suggested that they stage a war, and let each side blame the other. The true reason for the Cursing would surely be buried. Scisaxar, afraid of losing all his followers, agreed. The war began, both as a farce and as revenge, on the white god’s part.

That’s very vague, and I can probably tweak it. But it could have a number of ramifications. One, Scisaxar is going to hold a severe grudge against Cowls, and against Yuril for letting them do what they did. It’s not really her fault; Yuril probably wouldn’t have sanctioned killing the girl, but the Cowls didn’t ask beforehand. Scisaxar is going to make sure his own people follow a strict hierarchy that leads directly to him, and he’s going to make sure they never act outside of his jurisdiction. He’s going to be jealous that Yuril manages to attract more followers, but at the same time, he’s not going to take any pains to make himself likable. Something like how a grieving widower would feel about a sibling who gets a lot of attention…jealous, but unwilling to compete. That jealousy is going to be manifested specifically in how he feels about the Raphel problem…because he can see that Yuril loves Raphel the way he loved ____. But Scisaxar’s also the one who will be suffering the most remorse over the Cursing, because he essentially screwed it up. He’ll possibly be the one who is more willing to listen to Saeli in the end.

So the war is both a farce, and personal, but more personal on Scisaxar’s end. Scisaxar’s pain amuses Yuril, but she doesn’t allow herself to think about it too deeply…lest she be reminded of how she really feels about Raphel. And worse, Raphel is exactly the kind of Cowl the white god hates, because he’s a wild card. He does what he wants, and the gods can go screw themselves. It was those kind of Cowls who killed Scisaxar’s love. He’ll hate Raphel, and hate that a Cowl managed to steal yet another follower away from him (first Kaladan, then Saeli), and he’ll hate Yuril for wanting to spare Raphel, and he’ll hate that were the tides turned, he would do exactly the same thing as his sister. No wonder the gods have to abandon the scene…neither of them can act. Their hands are tied by their pasts, and by the Oath. And we’re back to the Oath again.

I think I have a handle on the white god now. Enough to start writing him, anyway.

Wow. Scisaxar is walking into this conflict with some seriously complicated crap in his past.

Tags: authors, books, GMC, Reviews, Scisaxar, Shades, Yuril

All fun and games until someone gets hurt

Sorry, all you over on Facebook, but this is going under the user-only cut. Go visit the actual blog if you’re really interested. http://nightphoenix.com

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Tags: Raphel, Saeli, Shades, Yuril

Today

Today I managed to write a pretty good chunk of Shades. I got Saeli started in the portal form, and brought the first of my obstacles, Geris, onto the scene. Today I almost managed to write myself into a corner, when the established rules of magic in my world prevented me from doing something the simple way. Please Login or Register to view this.

Anyway, that’s why we’ve taken a break from our regular schedule of bloggish activities. I’ve actually been, you know, productive.

And the apartment is clean! It’s great! I can actually concentrate on clearing up some areas that always get ignored because I’m too busy trying to catch up with a backload of dishes and laundry.

Tags: editing, Kaladan, Mora, Raphel, revisions, Saeli, Shades, worldbuilding

An update, and some art

Well, I never did get around to posting something in here yesterday. Alas, alas. However, I’ve been pretty productive with my writing, so I say that makes up for it. I finished the chapter that was bogging me down, and am a good ways into the next one. I find myself making Raphel much nicer this time around, in the way he says things..which is interesting, because I’ve apparently also been making him meaner, too. There is a definite disconnect between his words and his actions, and the gulf is growing as the story goes on. He will do something awful to Saeli, but then he will list all his reasonable, unavoidable reasons for doing so, and show himself to be as worried and frustrated and human as she are, and he doesn’t like doing stuff like that, but…and Saeli finds herself nodding her head in agreement without a clear idea of how she got there. It’s all very underhanded. He knows if he’s outright mean, he’ll scare her off for good.

I’ve also been working on a book cover idea. It’s a scene that doesn’t actually appear anywhere in the story, but is rather a nod to the initial dream I had that inspired the story in the first place. I was with some dark-clad people, and we were hiding in a big city from a group of cold, white-robed people marching down the street, chanting like monks. I wasn’t one of the dark people, though, and I had the impression that I was actually supposed to be with the white-robed ones. But I wasn’t really one of them, either, though I was more like them than I was like the dark ones. But the dark ones weren’t really so bad, I found. (Thus, Saeli’s unique position in the world was born). Originally I had called the two groups the Blacks and the Whites, but it was suggested to me that those names were much too un-politically correct, and I agreed.
 
Scan:

This is the scan of the original drawing I did. It’s cobbled together from a bunch of different sources, which I put together in Photoshop and printed out. I then did what many might consider cheating, and traced straight from that composition using a lightbox. I would torn my hair out trying to get that architecture right otherwise. I’ve had to tweak the image sufficiently that I no longer feel guilty about it. (Wait…no. I never felt guilty about it. Oh well.) It looks weird at the bottom because the drawing is bigger than the scanner, and so I had to scan it in two pieces. The drawing isn’t going to show up on the finished piece; it’s only a guide for my Photoshopping. The figures in the foreground are Raphel and Saeli (if that wasn’t obvious). That is the High Priestess leading the line of professors; I haven’t decided who the others are (if anyone). That’s supposed to be the city Temple in the background.
 
Value sketch:

I learned about the concept of an underpainting in one of my Stetson classes, but I think this is the first time I’ve ever actually *needed* to do one. The purpose of the underpainting is to figure out where all the lights and darks will be. Because my source images came from so many places, my source composition had no consistant value scale whatsoever. (Plus, they were all daytime images, and this is a nighttime picture). The final image won’t be sepia-toned.
 
Where I’m at now:

Here’s where I’m at in the coloring process. I made the scene take place in the purple hour, Saeli’s favorite time of day. Right now I’m just filling in the flat colors; I will go back in different layers to put in the shadows and highlights. White buildings at night are interesting, to say the least. Black and white clothing isn’t much better. I’m trying to make it so that the grays on the left side of the image are made from purples, and the grays on the right are made from yellows, so that I have a warm gray/cool gray contrast. Saeli is pretty dead neutral.

The amount of work I can get done when I’m not at home is astronomical compared to what I do at my desk. I wish Books-a-Million opened earlier than 10AM. Places like Panera Bread and various coffee shops open early, but you really aren’t supposed to just sit in there without buying something (some places have a policy), and that could very quickly get expensive. I suppose I could sit outside and work (maybe when it gets a little warmer, heh). I got a lot of writing done Monday…if I can do that on all the days when Eli is at school, I can have the first book of Shades done by the end of March, which is my goal.

Tags: artwork, Raphel, revisions, Shades

Dismantle. Repair.

In light of the things I’ve been working on, I think today’s song will have to be Dismantle. Repair. by Anberlin. If the first book of Shades is to have a theme song, this is probably it. Raphel has a definite propensity to cut Saeli to ribbons, turn around, and put her back together again. It’s even a play on words, in a sense: Dis-Mantle.

one last glance from a taxi cab
images scar my mind
for weeks have felt like years
since your full attention was all mine
the night was young and so were we
talked about life, God, death, and your family
didn’t want any promises,
just my undivided honesty, and you said

hands, like secrets, are the hardest thing to keep from you
lines and phrases, like knives, your words can cut me through
dismantle me down
repair
you dismantle me
you dismantle me

Tags: music, Shades

Progress today

Last Friday I used the last of my Barnes & Noble gift card money (you know, the cards that my New Years thief didn’t steal because thieves apparently don’t read…), and bought myself a book entitled: First Draft in 30 Days, by Karen S. Wiesner. I initially picked up the book because the title intrigued me. “30 days? Yeah, right. Maybe if you don’t have a life.”

Well, the book is actually a very comprehensive system for outlining a story before you start writing it. This is something I could use. I immediately saw how one could combine the system with the principles of GMC that I learned at the conference, and do most of the legwork beforehand. Well, there’s a section for outlining a manuscript that’s already in progress, so I’ve spend most of today working the first book of Shades into an outline form. The reason for this is that I’ve reached a point in the rewrite where I feel like I’m running the story into the ground trying to get from point A to point B. I need to reestablish the whole picture in my head.

I’ve really been concentrating on turning what was the first section of the story into a complete book…determining the logical order of escalating stakes, figuring out where the downtime is, where the black moment is, where the resolution is. The good news is, there really aren’t any gaping holes…maybe little minor potholes. I haven’t even had to change the order of any scenes…I’ve just had to occasionally clarify what’s going on. There are a few places where I’m going to tweak little things, and make character motivation more clear, but other than that, outlining has been relatively easy.

Which proves that I have a pretty intuitive grasp of story arc, and I can apparently do GMC without knowing what the heck that is. Good for me! Now with my half a stick and my highly evolved brain *pokes self in the eye with the stick* ouch, I shall make fi-yah! Oh wait, wrong movie. Now I have the tools to do these things deliberately, without it taking several years per story. *cough*

The goal is still to finish the first book of Shades by the end of March. Mid-March, if I must.

I did a little agent research tonight…looking up some of the names I was given at the conference and adding them to my list of possibilities. Added another blog to the blogroll as well…an agent named Jennifer Jackson.

Tags: books, business of writing, revisions, Shades

Art!

It’s Thursday! Here’s a drawing I did a while ago of my main characters from Shades.

 
And, perhaps a couple of maps. It’s funny, I actually didn’t draw these until the first draft of the story was almost done, when I finally needed to know exactly where things were.
 

 
Here’s the world as a whole. You can see Aschera and Chisge in the upper center area. The village where Raphel was born is almost due west of Aschera, on the other side of the Midplains. The red area is the cursed Midplains, top-left pointing stripes represent Mantle territory, top-right pointing stripes are Cowl territory, and crosshatching is disputed territory. (You may notice that there is quite a bit of disputed territory, and that the Cowls have much less undisputed territory than the Mantles. The Mantles are winning the war when the story opens). Iadnah and Lanschport are both southern Cowl cities. Iadnah is nominally under Mantle control, while Lanschport is purely Cowl. Lanschport has a rather unsavory reputation even among Cowls, which is probably why the Mantles don’t want it (people on Verre have odd superstitions about the ocean); both Geris and Teja hail from that city. The battle of Iadnah plays an important role in all three of my major Cowls’ pasts: Mora lost her husband, infant daughter, and father; Kaladan lost his faith in the Mantle cause and turned Cowl; and I haven’t yet decided how Raphel was involved (but I have decided that he needs to be).
 

 
Here is Aschamon. A great deal of the action in the first and third books takes place on Aschamon’s campus, so I needed to know exactly where each building was in relation to the others.

It sits on a hill in the western quadrant of Aschera (Aschera I have not mapped yet. Not sure if I need to). The Temple and the main sorarc tower are the hub of the school, both physically and spiritually. The small triangular buildings are the dormitories: one for the youngest (gray) students, three for the various ages of Mantle students, and one for the cleric students. Saeli lives in a Mantle dormitory, even though she is not a Mantle; she and Cara got special permission to be roommates, and since Cara is a Mantle, the school allowed it.

Tags: artwork, Kaladan, maps, Mora, Raphel, Saeli, Shades