Kalagrim Handwriting Class

As I promised [1]  in the previous post it's handwriting class today.

The idea of writing that spirals is one that has been part of the storyworld from the early drafts but except for noting it in a few places nobody mentioned it much.

After all why would they? Everyone in Kalagrim knows that writing spirals outwards and it's likely that they would think our own habit of writing in straight rows to be very cumbersome.

To be totally honest I'm still uncertain about what role the kind of handwriting will play but needs must as the muse drives and this is why I sometimes get notes of epic battles and at other times you get handwriting notes. [2]


Keen eyed readers will already have noted that the symbols, when used in the proper order, form a rather loose representation of the holy crocodile [3]
The big reason for this is that the church, in curious parallel with our own world, has long taken the dual posts of educators and priests.  
Also the vast amount of books written for and by members of the church means that the symbols shown have filtered down to the common folk outside the organisation.

	Much like the treble cleff in our music this symbol, known as the tail, is used to denote the start of a piece or written work.  As the writing of Kalagrim sprials outwards this symbol is often illuminated in some way that is pleasing to the eye although this is by no means a hard and fast rule. It is essentially there to take up space until there is enough room in the spiral to include the script.
This symbol is known as the fin and it's purpose is to indicate a change in subject or to highlight a particular point of interest to the reader.  The bars in the middle of the symbol are, in these modern days, used as bullet points but have their origin in the uprising as part of a secret code which is now sadly lost to the mists of time [4] that was used to indicate a concealed message in the missive.
	A curious device here it is known as the mouth and it signals the end of the conversation. However if the recipient has a reply then the new section will start with a mouth and ending with the tail. Thus giving the impression that the two are speaking to each other. The new reciever repeats the process, which adds a third crocodile to the conversation.
Our final symbol is the closed mouth of the crocodile. It's presence signifies that the conversation is over and no further discussion shall be entered into about whatever subjects have been raised in the series of letters.  Variations of this symbol have shown it being depicted with fangs, teeth, tears and dripping blood although these methods of decoration are generally the province of the very young but are occasionally used by older writers in order to indicate the current mood. It is also worth noting that, in the many books that are written and available in Kalagrim it is very common to find this symbol at the end of a chapter.

We see here an example of Kalagrim script being used in a pair of wartime letters.  Although it is written in English the actual script more closely follows the hieroglyphics of Egypt.[5]

Notes:

1. or, rather more accurately, threatened
2. With any luck I'll strike loony theory next time. It's a bit of a crapshoot really
3. A divine beast that is slated to undergo drastic changes.  I'm leaning in the direction of the Sarcosuchus or similar prehistoric beastie.
4. Also because the secret code is not going to come up in the book no matter how much the muse begs.  It's bad enough that I'm making notes about writing!
5. and I don't have any Hieroglyphic fonts handy.  For those of you who are interested the font that I used is called 1610 Cancellaresca

Insecure Writers Support Group Post Day

Sometimes, sometimes you just don't feel like writing at all.  You've got no ideas and even if you do their either rubbish or totally stolen from somewhere else. [1]  

It's the season I suppose.  Work is piling up, everyone seems to either be on your back or in your face for no reason at all.  You can't escape it because no matter where you turn it's all mountains.

Eventually they all just run together into one big blob of negative and the only thing that you can do is to make soothing go away type noises in the vain hope that it will do any good.

Then they turn around and expect you to write something worth reading? [2]

But you start scribbling anyway and you aren't paying attention to what your doing, it's all just random.  Eventually you look it over and, sure it's rambling, angry, incoherrant and illegable but there's some good stuff in the mess as well.

What's my point?  It isn't enough to tell the reader that your main character is angry or sad or in love or whatever you've got to show them through their actions and their interactions with others.

Someone who's angry isn't going to listen to anyone else.  They'll rant to anyone within listening distance and if there is nobody in listening distance then they shout towards the heavens [3] or perhaps they won't, it might be that they are the type of person to keep things on a slow burn, staying silent and just turning it all over in their mind.  If they speak at all it will just be a repeating of a single word or phrase over and over. [4]

Think about the posture of a person as well.  No eye contact, not speaking, moving away when someone gets close are clear signs that they don't want to talk.

It won't always go the way you plan it.  I know the cast of Harts Change are becoming notorious for choosing option C when I could only see options A and B.

There was supposed to be more to this but I lost half my notes and work is killing me.

Also I'm listening to a really big fight that has flared up between the guy and his girlfriend who live in the house.

This is an epic level meltdown and by that I mean that they were a block away and we could clearly hear them in the kitchen [5].  Everyone went back to their rooms just now.  This is one of those fights that will stop for neither man nor beast.

Ok, she's just slammed the door in his face and he's gone around to shout at the window.  Hasn't tried to break anything yet.

He's walked round the house twice and now he's back inside inside and banging on the door.  Still shouting although it's pretty incoherent at the moment.  I'll let you know if anything comes of this [6]

Update:

10 minutes later:  There were some more door slams.  I think he did it twice for extra effect, now she's crying in the kitchen with his mum.  I don't know what the story is and I don't know them well enough to pry.  All I'm going to be doing is observing the actions of these two until they patch things up. [7]

Notes:

1. Very much like this post.  It's taken me days to get even this much down on paper
2. Although who exactly "they" are I'm sure I don't know
3. At which point the boss is looking down saying "Oh me!  Not this guy again"
4. It doesn't have to make sense except to them.
5. While part of me is hoping that they sort it out another part of me is doing the whole Jerry Springer experience
6. if anything comes of this....incredibly convenient fight that you have no way of verifying for those of us playing along at home.
7. which, of course, I hope that they do.  Greek tragedy is very much overrated.

Building a religion (is not as easy as they would have you believe and that's a good thing)

An interesting thing I've noticed about writing is that there is a sheer amount of research that goes into it. Lately I've found myself needing to search for more and more exotic subjects that, on their own, have little or nothing to do with the story but without them the world is flat.

Nothing interesting ever happened on a flat world.

What prompted this post was the fact that I suddenly needed to know how a world with one sun and two moons would operate celestially speaking and what elephant it would have on the world.

In the book itself the issue is a big one as before the Great Change there was only the one moon in the sky. My research took me into Astrology, Astronomy (1) and into Newtonian physics.

It was at this point that I went back to the the comics about Laika the Russian space dog and started claiming that it since it was the will of the Gods then they could sort it out (2)

The other problem that I had was the religion of Kalagrim, that green and verdant land in which Harts Change (3) is set:

Because they were a slave country to the Great Southern Empire the people were not permitted to worship their own Gods or the Empires which left them at a bit of a loose end, theologically speaking.

So I decided that they would snatch what they could from the big boys table and hope for the best.(4)

For the base of it all I pinched a lot of theology from the Aztec's and the Egyptians, threw in a touch of voodoo and a large load of bull mixed it all together and let it settle for a while.

The book takes place around 90 years since the slave uprising, great grandfathers might just remember their grandfathers talking about it, that won their freedom and Kalagrim now has a nice functioning religion of its very own. You can still see large chunks of the Empires teachings but these are slowly fading away.

An example:

I decided that everyone in the empire would wear a mask. I haven't had to justify this yet because the Empire doesn't enter into the picture until Book 2: Harts Blood.

People that don't wear masks are slaves, criminals or traitors or, gasp! Foreigners.

In marriage they have a crocodile, the symbol of long life, painted on their mask which they leave on until it fades away.

But since the slaves of Kalagrim were unable to have masks they took to tattooing the sacred crocodile across their hearts. Over time the actual design of the tattoo grew until the tail started at the heart, the body wrapped around the neck and the crocodiles mouth married up with their own. (5)

Now so far the Kalagrim Church was relatively benign but I decided that I wanted them to have a darker side. A lot of it steming from the natural resentment that they aren't the ones running the country when they totally should but due to ancient law that is, quite literally, written in stone, no priest can hold the seat of the Barons or the king.  (6)

Then it occurred to me that I had all these bodies just lying around (7) and I had no graveyards at all and the only reference had been the priests “Going down to the waters” which I had left intentionally vague at the time because back in that draft the church simply wasn't going to be all that important (8)

So I've taken the easy way out and turned the Church into cannibals and not the good kind either.

Over in the Empire they know how to do it properly since they invented it, for reasons I don't get paid enough to speculate about, The body is prepared for their journey to the next world and as they do so they take a small piece of the heart and the brain which is shared amongst the family in a private ceremony after much ritual fasting.

But in Kalagrim the ritual for dealing with the dead is slightly different:

1: The names of the dead are entered into the book and brought to the high priest. The books are burnt and the ashes are sprinkled over the holy waters in the temple itself.

2: Corpses are tightly wrapped in honeyed bandages and taken by the priests down to the waters. This is a secret area which is guarded jealously by the priesthood and exactly what they do with the bodies is unknown to anybody who isn't a priest.

3: The bodies are consecrated and butchered with the choicest parts going to the Holy animals. The rest is eaten by the priests attending and this is the major secret that every priest holds close to his heart at all times.

4: The remains are interred in a huge ossary that was originally an old silver mine before cave ins buried all traces of it. It has been widened and made stronger, the bones are ground into dust and mixed with the inks that are used for the tattoos of marriage and also integrated into the parchments and paper that is spread around the country.

Notes:

1. Once I learned the difference between the two!
2. Bonus points if you can find the fatal flaw in this argument.
3. As it is currently known.
4. No lightening so far. Fingers crossed everybody
5. Lets see De Beers match this!
6. This came about because in the days of Imperial rule those priests that were sent to Kalagrim were being punished and many of those priests stood firm with the overseers during the uprising. Because of this ancient law the more ambitious members of the priesthood have had to be content with being a power behind the throne but those in that position never last long. No because they are not suited for the role but rather because the type of person that aspires to this is always going to have at least three enemies that they know of and, to their misfortune, one that that they don't.
7. A sentence that I'm sure has suddenly made me the subject of more than a few watchlists. But on the plus side Hello new followers!
8. Still (4)