Hooked on Linguistics: inspiration & spark

This post is Part 3 of a series to augment the Author's Manifesto available for free download. Start with Part 1 here.

This and other inspirations of mine are gathered in the Spark Directory for you to explore.

Find more linguistic content in my Language Directory.

In Part 1 of this series, I began my love affair with language. Before I finished high school, I'd grown to interpret both math and computer code as two other languages in my repertoire. I entered college burning to delve into a totally alien language, to broaden my horizons.

My first semester, I enrolled in the intro class to Sanskrit, the ancient language of India, and I took a linguistics class titled Constructed Languages: Klingon and Beyond. Though I loved learning the Hindi script used to write Sanskrit, I was disappointed to learn that Sanskrit was actually an Indo-European language related to Latin, French, Spanish, and English. But my constructed languages course sparked new interest in me, and I soon changed my major to linguistics.

Check out this Author's Manifesto for more of my inspirations!

Linguistics is the scientific study of language, and it parses all the complexities and nuance of human language into navigable categories. In my constructed languages class, we examined a multitude of different fictional languages invented by humans, from the Klingon and Vulcan of Star Trek to Tolkien's elvish and entish, and the unifying language Esperanto, which boasted over a million human speakers.

While learning the linguistic precepts for how languages are put together, I began ironing out my old concept of a language with no vowels. I found a place for such a language in my fantasy world as the language of daemons, some of which have no vocal cords. For my final in the constructed languages class, I developed the daemon language and translated their religious creation myth into a few pages of spiky runes.

I was off! The next language for my Tales of the Known World saga was Dyau, the melodic tongue of the dark elves from the Land Across the Sea. Their society suppressed magic in most of the population, so the dark elves developed more advanced technologies to enhance their lives. Envisioning printing presses and even typewriters for their medieval society, I developed a font for the Dyau language and typed out their creation myth after I finished translating it.

Then came Meri, the language of the merfolk. I envisioned the five races of the Known World speaking related languages, much like the Indo-European language family on Earth. I delineated Ryunic as the language of the deity Mother, the tongue of deep magic, and the ancestral language from which the five tongues developed. Since I never intended to document Ryunic, I started work on the merfolk tongue.


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The Gears of Fate: inspiration & spark

This post is Part 5 of a series to augment the Author's Manifesto available for free download. Start with Part 1 here.

This and other inspirations of mine are gathered in the Spark Directory for you to explore.

Find more prophetic poetry in my Portents Directory.

In Part 1 of this series, I triggered a shift in my perspective. Now I began mapping my fictional characters and events from a cosmic viewpoint. Each character was on a journey to enlightenment, interacting and engaging in events from their unique perspectives in place and time.

Events unfolded on two levels: the manifestations of those in physical form, and unexpected events that seemed to be external. From a cosmic viewpoint, however, these external events were integral to the progression of characters toward their ultimate enlightenment, triggered in their best interests, though the characters themselves couldn't know it at the time.

Check out this Author's Manifesto for more of my inspirations!

Usually interpreted as luck or chance, I appropriated these deus ex machina events into my cosmic paradigm, and I examined them through the mechanism of prophesy. Within the story, an entire race of merfolk can divine the future. In early stages, this was simply an interesting concept - what would a society be like, if every single person could know the future? But with my new insight into the universal story formula, I explored prophesy in a new way.

Even without prescience, real people correctly predict things about their future all the time. Technically, "I'll be hungry later" is a correct prediction about the future. We create our futures every day, by the things we believe and the way those beliefs inform our interpretations and reactions to events. In essence, we predict what will happen, and our predictions manipulate us into making them come true. In my Tales of the Known World saga, the prophetic merfolk do the same thing by interpreting their ambiguous riddles about the future.

It is the merfolk's vested belief in their interpretation that fulfills a prophesy, not the prophesy itself. The merfolk exacerbate this self-fulfillment by sharing their interpretations with the non-prophetic landfolk, purporting these interpretations as ultimate truth. They even meddle in the affairs of men and kings to cause these events to happen. All of this, as with we humans, is justified under the banner of unerring truth, when really it's nothing more than the blindness of conviction.


That's it for this post! Up Next: The five prophetic ages of the merfolk...

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From Real Magic to Fantasy Magic: inspiration & spark

This post is Part 4 of a series to augment the Author's Manifesto available for free download. Start with Part 1 here.

This and other inspirations of mine are gathered in the Spark Directory for you to explore.

Find more mystic content in my Magic Directory.

In Part 1 of this series, I began questioning my life's purpose. As I mulled through my divergent callings, I struck upon a fascinating idea. Instead of writing a book of truth, I could deliver that truth within my fiction. My knowledge of the ego and the true self already informed how I developed my characters. And I'd noticed the Law of Attraction at work, not just in real life, but also in the most compelling stories of all ages. It seems the human heart is hard-wired to yearn for just desserts - nice people manifest rewards, and mean people manifest trouble.

These cosmic principles feel so inherently right to us that we even require our myths and stories to reflect them in some way. We want the good guy to triumph, and we want the bad guy to suffer. The best stories feel so powerful to us because they embody these cosmic principles throughout many facets of the storyline. I'd discovered the formula for a great story, and it was grounded in the ultimate truth of the universe. It is the formula for all stories, both real and fictional.

Check out this Author's Manifesto for more of my inspirations!

Integrating this notion into my storytelling, I reviewed my fantasy tales and began noticing cosmic principles everywhere. The most obvious representation was the magic of the Known World. What better parallel could there be than a person setting forth the intention to cast a spell, and the manifestation of that spell? That was the crux of the Law of Attraction: decide, align, receive. The only difference between fact and fiction was that in the real world, magic is dismissed as fantasy, so it can be harder for the mind to allow for the possibility. In the Known World, magic is accepted as possible, so it manifests much more easily.

Beyond the normal magic of the Known World, there was also the idea of deep magic. Originally based on an elite magical language known only to a blessed few, deep magic transformed into the deliberate use of creative energy to manifest change in the physical world. The elite language was no longer a requirement, but rather an advanced tool to direct the creative energy, similar to the use of sacred chants and sutras in the real world.

Just as every person can attain enlightenment, all people of the Known World can potentially wield deep magic. But not all on Earth are called to awaken, and few in the Known World are called to transcend their mortal limitations to channel deep magic into the physical realm.

Real people tend to be powerful in certain areas of life, but flawed in others. Few of us are desperately evil or unerringly sanctified. Rather, most of us tread some sort of middle ground, where we do well in certain areas and less well in others. To mirror this in my Tales of the Known World saga, I reimagined the elite rosen who use their special language to wield deep magic.

This language awakens their inner power, but it's also a shortcut to wielding deep magic without attaining enlightenment first. They can create anything they desire, but only if they can believe in the magic they're casting. Just like all of us on Earth, their unlimited creative power is hampered only by their beliefs of what's possible and their expectations of the future.


That's it for this post! Up Next: The workings of our self-created futures...

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Portent XIII of Broken: a riddle in rhyme

In the novel Broken, there are 24 portents fortelling the events of the unfolding saga.

Start with Portent I here.

These and other riddles in rhyme are gathered in the Portents Directory for you to explore.

Enjoy!

The precious gift laconic grows
Adrift in royal's tortured throes
Through timeless mire, innate desire
Would deep unearth the future rose

Awakened depths in timeless jail
Of wisdom scholars all curtail
For truth inquire, and youth inspire
To humble high and herald hale.


Can you decode the future Tales of the Known World?

Share your interpretation!
Comment below with your take on this portent.

I love the rhymes of this prophesy! Though it comes to pass in Book 3, the portent contains a number of salient clues for readers of Broken. What are the tortured throes of this royal, and what do you think his timeless jail refers to?

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Download the Prophesy Appendix:

The merfolk culture is built on the prophetic Gift. Nearly all men produce a portent every twenty days, and they devote their lives to interpretation. For more about the role and inner workings of prophesy, check out the Prophesy Appendix above.

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Alongside every prophesy is an attribution block. This block contains a byline giving the name of the person who said the prophesy, and a dateline giving the day the prophesy was first said. Here is the attribution for this portent:

Kyelin Wandah Lohki XII
2:3:2:5/5, III:IX

The portent attributed here has not yet been interpreted. It was said recently, and it will be repeated every twenty days until either it is correctly interpreted, or it comes to pass.


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Life is an adventure.
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