Who am I…really?

Mask

Truth is, a time long ago I loved the simpler things in life. To sit in green fields and watch the sun come up. To strut through the city and chase pretty girls. To spend endless summer days making mischief with my friends. I was young, foolish, and utterly full of myself. Those were good days.

Those days are done.

After my accident, nothing has been the same. I don’t feel like myself most of the time. I think perhaps I’m sick, very sick. I hear voices telling me to do terrible things. And after all these years, I find myself listening. And why not? Better to accept what I have become than spend lifetimes waging war against it.

It doesn’t matter what I look like. I’ll tell you anyway. I’m short for the modern age, only 5’11”. I have dusky  hair and grey eyes. I suppose I’m what you’d consider athletic. The girls used to say I was lean as a whip, but nowadays men look at my ropey muscles and cringe. I’m faster than they are. I’m stronger. I don’t ever get hurt. Ever. They think it’s unnatural. It so happens they’re right.

More than my body, people fear my mind. They think I’m crazy, but that term is so…vague. I have something inside me. It’s like poison, but it doesn’t kill me, not quickly anyway. No, I’m not insane. What some might call obsession is merely disclipline. I’m driven to do what I do. I’ve moved on to better things than happiness, relationships, or life. Religion, one might call my new way of thinking. Truth, I prefer to say.

I hardly feel human any longer. I can’t identify with people like I used to. It’s just that we’re all so damnedly fixated on staying alive, we’ve forgotten what it means to die.

* * * * *

I didn’t used to be this way. I swear. I was optimistic, ambitious, and faithful. Well…anymore I’m just not. I’ve been through so much. I’ve been kidnapped, imprisoned, threatened with death. My teachers have lied to me again and again. I’ve been walked on, hoodwinked, and abused. It’s a miracle I’m still alive.

So it’s high time I start living for myself. I was supposed to be married. It might’ve been wonderful, but the more I think about it, the more I know settling down isn’t for me. I want more from this world than a ring on my finger and a roof over my head. I want to live. I want to travel to the mountains, the forests, and every tiny little city in-between. I might be old and brittle before I do it all, but no matter. I won’t be kept. I’m in charge now. I and no other.

I know I don’t look the same as I used to. You probably wouldn’t even recognize me. I’m leaner, but stronger, if that makes any sense. My hair is black and my eyes…well…my friends tell me they’ve gone grey. I suppose it’s all the years on the road that’ve changed me. I’m no longer a child. I feel confident. I feel ready. The world is mine and yours, but mostly mine.

And yet, despite everything, all I want is to be loved.

 Faceless

Who am I…really?

Can’t say I know anymore. I’m the biggest actor on the world’s grandest stage, but in gaining my fame I’ve lost my sense of self. I’ve played kings, aristocrats, and knights, but I’ve also played soldiers, peasants, even women. I’m not a braggart. I’m not arrogant. But it’s true; I’m the best. Step outside your door and ask your neighbors. Chances are they’ve heard of me. Honestly, if you haven’t, where’ve you been living all this time?

 So it should come as no surprise that I’m looking for another role, another person to pretend to be. It was never about the show itself, but the applause at the end. And by applause, I mean you…yes you…standing there with your mouth open and your eyes wide. Maybe you’re in awe, but more likely you’re terrified. That’s good. That’s exactly the reaction I wanted. Because this isn’t really a play. It’s real life. And you never saw me coming.

I’ll be honest with you. Don’t take it as a sign that I care or that we’re going to be friends; we’re not. But the truth is it’s been so long since I’ve not worn a mask, I’m just as terrified as you are. I talk big and act bigger, but I’m not doing this show for myself anymore. I’m not the playwright or the director. I’m occupying the stage, but I’m not setting it. I’m working for someone else. The pay is awful, the hours never-ending. Doesn’t matter. I have to see this next act through to the end.

If I don’t, it’ll be my last.

 * * * * *

I’m so old I can taste the dust between my teeth. My bones pop when I walk and my body hurts all the time. When people tell you that growing old is like sailing gently into the twilight, they’re lying. At my age, pain is king. And with pain comes anger.

I couldn’t tell you when it was I began to feel my rage. One eve, I woke up from an impossibly long dream and knew my contentment was at its end. To see the world through my crusty eyes annoyed me. To ache with every damnable step filled me with frustration. Worse yet, whenever I saw another person, I just…I don’t know…felt the urge to end them.

And so it’s true. All I am is a husk of my former self. I’m tall and strong despite my brittle old body, but I’m so ugly no one will look at me. I’ve given up all sense of dignity. I don’t bathe or change my ragged clothes. I’ve not spoken to anyone in such a long time that my voice is but a creak and a whisper. Doesn’t much matter, I suppose. I don’t want to talk, not to you, not to anyone. My anger has become hatred. My loss of self fills me with loathing for everyone young, beautiful, and alive.

If I were you, I’d stay away.

* * * * *

No. I don’t have multiple personality disorder. Well…maybe sometimes.

Each of the above is a character sketch from Dark Moon Daughter, Book II in the Tyrants of the Dead trilogy.

With love,

J Edward Neill

How it all began…

Malog J Sketch

 

 

 

Quite by accident, this week’s blog…

 If not for a cup of chance, I’d have drowned Tessera in an entirely different ocean of bones. But an old friend stumbled upon a twenty year-old folder I thought I’d lost ages ago, and I found myself unable to resist writing about it. Not that twenty years is all that long, but to me, still a wee lad, two decades feels like an eon.

I haven’t always been a writer. Well…maybe a little, but not in the way I am today. Long ago, in the primeval soup of early creative-dom, I fancied myself an artist of a different kind. Not with quill, ink, and keyboard, but with markers, pencils, sketch books, and posterboards. I airbrushed T-shirts, made huge Slayer banners (signed by the band!) and silkscreened dark, crazy images onto every bit of cloth I could find. Those were different days. My stories lived on the tips of my fingers, not in the cavernous void inside my skull.

And then one day I started sketching.

I can’t remember the exact moment. It must’ve been cold outside, or rainy, or both. My mind wandered realms both dark and mysterious during those days. I’d already dreamed up the stories and characters which would later become haunt the pages of Down the Dark Path, but I’d gone no further. Lacking the skill or the means to write an epic fantasy, I likely locked myself in my room, climbed on my captain’s bed, and started drawing the images that’d been locked away in my mind’s dungeon. I wasn’t particularly good at it. I hadn’t attended but a few art classes, and while the teachers had taught class I’d never done anything but daydream. I was a novice, an oaf, a blunderbuss of smudgy pencil rubs and cheap not-meant-for-real-art pens. Even so…

So without further ado, I humbly offer my earliest fantasy scribblings. These are the images I first dreamt of when mortaring the bricks of my first epic novel in my mind. I beg only that you forgive their simplicity, and perhaps appreciate the strange glory of passion without talent:

Grae Knight J Sketch

 

My first try at a Graehelm knight. In retrospect, he needs a saddle, but what did I know? Ignore the tree and tower in the background. They were part of a different sketch crowded on the same page.

 

 

Wraith Sketch 2

 

 

– Look at this ghoulish guy. He’s one of my favorites. He never actually appears in any of my novels, but I like to think he could. He’s reaching out for you. He doesn’t want you dead. He wants you to join him.

 

Wraith Sketch 1

 

 

– Another dead dude. A precursor to the Furyon warlords. I always liked the head of his spiked flail. Imagine getting whacked by that thing…

 

 

Undead J Sketch

 

 

 

– Ok, so maybe one spiked flail head wasn’t enough. Here I sketched two. And if you couldn’t already tell, I really liked (ok, still like) imagery of undead warriors. This hasty little sketch is cartoony and anatomically goofy, but I still thought it belonged. Maybe he’s an undead guardian of the Furyon fortress of Malog. Or maybe he’s a Sarcophage, whom we don’t meet until Book II…

 

 

Grimwain J Sketch

 

– I drew this guy with but one villain in mind. Here lies Grimwain, the Sleeper, the mover of all the world’s pieces on the chessboard of doom. His hood should be deeper, but I feel I nailed his beard, his collar, and his white, starry, and soulless gaze. He doesn’t appear until Book II.

 

 

Ande J Sketch

 

– In the beginning, the heroine Andelusia Anderae inhabited a role far less ‘benevolent’ than who she eventually became. She was harder, grittier, more roguish and fantasy trope-like . This was my first conceptual sketch of her. Clumsy? Yes. Are her boobs too big? Probably. But something in my teenage mind saw a rare emotion in her eyes, and thus was born the Dark Moon Daughter.

 

 

 

Thank you for indulging me. I’ve a ton more sketches, some of which I might hurl up on Tessera should even a mild clamor arise. It’s strange to think that once, so many years ago, I wanted to be a painter, a sculpter, and a fantasy artist god. Thank goodness I kept my day job, right?

Until next time,

J Edward Neill

 

 

 

 

 

Making Monsters

Sarcophage

 

 

 

He was three-thousand winters dead, as deaf to Andelusia’s bleating as a coffin full of bones. His very presence was evil, his breaths curling like smoke from beneath his iron mask. As he dragged her through Midnon, his passing withered moths and turned bowlfuls of red apples to ash… – Reference to Mogru, Servant of the Warlock – Dark Moon Daughter

 

 

Few things in a writer’s life are as satisfying as creating a villain everyone can root against. Trust me. I know. While there’s plenty to be loved about the nuanced, tragic villain, (see here) sometimes a story calls for a simpler brand of evil. I’m looking at you, Zombies, Terminators, Orcs, and Godzillas. I’m inviting you to the dance, Nazgul, Octoroks, Balrogs, and all the skeletal guys from Evil Dead. Strip away elegance, reason, and humanity, and you’re left with bad guys worth despising. Authors need these kinds of monsters sometimes. Readers crave them. After all, the main antagonists require cannon fodder. They need spawn. They need an evil army with which to take over the world.  

The picture above is an Eileen Herron sketch of Mogru, one of many soulless villains in my latest fantasy novel. I can’t say I’ve ever had as much fun as I did when writing about this particular monster. For as much enjoyment as I gleaned from penning other villains, Mogru took the cake. He’s soulless. He’s indestructible. He’s a skeletal Terminator, only he prefers six foot-tall swords rather than machine guns. How can he be stopped? Well…he can’t be. Writing about every crackle of his bones and every hapless good guy he carves to tatters was pure pleasure. Every writer needs a Mogru. Every reader will find him easy to hate.

So how does one carve away just the right amount of personality to craft a wickedly good monster? It’s delicate work, to be sure. Take away too much, and you’re left with a cardboard, video-game cutout of a bad guy. Add too much flavor, and you’ll be stuck with a Jar Jar Binks or a BeBop and Rocksteady. What you’ll need, and what readers appreciate, is the just enough/not too much approach.  If the minion must talk, keep it brief and sharp. He’s a minion, after all; his master should do most of the talking. If it’s a monster you’re making (and it is; that’s why we’re here) describe it, but not too in-depth. Our imagination should make the horror in our minds, not two pages of extrapolation about whence he came. More than anything, focus on action. Use words as the monster’s weapons. The skeletal knight shouldn’t walk, he should shamble along, dragging his rusted sword through the muck. The dragon shouldn’t simply fly, but soar through halos of smoke belched from his foul gut. The maggoty goblins should slither and skulk, wandering the glooms in search of children to devour. See what I mean? Hell, just writing those three little sentences made me want to make a new monster.

Some of my favorite baddies in literature/film:

White Walker

 

 White Walkers (The Others) – Game of Thrones (The book and the show) – We don’t get much of them, but the tastes we do get leave us salivating for more. Raising the dead, living in the frozen wastes…you’ve got to love their deathy style.

 

 

Alien

The Xenomorph – Alien & Aliens – They’ve no personality, which makes them perfect. They’ve nothing to love, nothing to live for save to spread across the galaxy. Loathsome. Horrifying. Killing one is nothing, since there’re thousands more coming.

 

 

 

Nazgul

 

Nazgul – Lord of the Rings – Scaring the shit out of Middle-Earthlings everywhere. We know just enough about them to terrify us, but not so much as to burn away their mysteriousness. Definitely easy to root against, though I admit getting teary-eyed when Eowyn butchered the Witch King.

 

 

There you have it, my shout out to all the lesser evils of the world. What’s a master without a minion? What’s a wicked wizard to do without an undead host to serve him? If nothing else, monsters give the good guys something to do. And thank the stars for that, else their heroic lives would feel woefully boring.

It’s dark now. I’ve a rare moment alone to work. I think I’ll sculpt a new villain. You’ll see her soon enough.

J Edward Neill

Cover Reveal – Dark Moon Daughter

DMD Slider 1

 

 

 We will bend the Father and bury his children. We will curl the roots of every tree and strip the clouds from heaven. This is what we adore: the midnight, the bottom, the end.  – Excerpt from the Pages Black, lost text of the Ur

 If I’m extra happy this week, don’t blame me. Blame my cover artist, Eileen Herron, for rocking out the new cover art for Dark Moon Daughter. I’m thrilled with her vision of the next installment in the Tyrants of the Dead series. My dark little heart beats a little faster every time I see it. My underwear definitely needs changing.

So let’s break this down a bit. The first sliver of the cover (above) gives us a glimpse of Andelusia doing battle. The pale, multi-eyed, razors-for-fingers beast in the upper right is the Mortician, one of many wicked creeps our heroine (or villainess, depending) must contend with. In the upper left, we’ve an image of the moon, only not the moon you’re used to seeing. In Ande’s right hand, she wields the fabled Ur flame, an errant drop of which can melt a city…or the world. Look closely and you’ll see the Ur language on her forearm. This is why I love Eileen’s style. With so little room in which to work, she includes elements I’d have never thought of. Hell, in Down the Dark Path I even changed a chapter based on what she painted.

DMD Garrett v Sarcophage

 

 Our next slice of the painting gives us Rellen Gryphon doing battle with a Sarcophage. (What’s a Sarcophage, you ask? – You’ll have to read DMD when it comes out!) I like the classic, almost Dungeons and Dragons appeal to Rellen’s handsomeness, as well as the horror of the masked and armored monster he’s fighting. Not to be missed is Andelusia’s leg. What’s an all-powerful witch to do without showing a little skin, right?

 

 

DMD Warlock Image

 

 At the painting’s bottom we have one of the antagonists. It’s a great smirk he’s wearing, isn’t it? I happen to know the guy Eileen used as a model, and she really captured a part of his inner evil here. The shadows swirl around him, hiding the rest of his body. It’s appropriately mysterious. What’s this guy doing down here? Why’s he smiling so deviously? The reasons are many…

 

 

And now, the final product in all its glory. There’s tons going on here, from small story elements to hidden visuals only the keen reader will spot:

DMD Original Cover

 For any writer, cover art is key. For me, it’s doubly so. I wanted movie poster appeal. I wanted many story elements colliding. I wanted a sexy girl, a terrifying monster, and shadows galore. Eileen delivered. I hope you like it as much as I do.

If you like the cover, just wait ’til you read the book.  Dark Moon Daughter – Due out any day now… Forget about elves, dwarves, dragons, and vampires. Let’s go deeper. Let’s get darker. Let’s go all the way to the bottom.

Until next time,

J Edward Neill