The very first cover. Yikes, what a snooze. Mountains? Really?
Who cares?
Episode I was not originally what it was called. Did I ever tell you that? The first book in my series (The Originality Series, at that time) carried the moniker of "The Beginning." I think at the time I felt by calling it something as elusive as "The Beginning," it implied the story was only the start of bigger and badder things to come.
Trouble was I didn't know what was to come. Like... at all.
In the original manuscript, the first two books were combined. "The Journey," or what would eventually be called Episode II, was supposed to just be the second part of a single book. I knew at some point there would be "The Adventure," or Episode III, though I didn't even know what was supposed to happen in the middle chapter of all this so how could I devise the plans for that one? I dunno. And I didn't.
In the first incarnation of the book, Banning and Bryna were best friends. When the first story ended, the second portion was to pick up five years later (which is still what happens) and both had gone to college and finished as Marine Biologists. Yep. Now keep in mind back then, this book dealt with certain Witch-like powers, with spells thrown into the mix as well. So "The Journey" picked up five years later and very quickly after an "incident" at a SeaWorld-esque place they worked at, Banning and Bryna decide to take a tropical vacation. Blah blah blah, the plane gets blown apart and they crash/wash up ashore an island.
And then it ended because I never finished it.
(Until now, and you can buy the book right here if ya want.)
So let's take a little trip back to the spring of 2005 when I started skipping college to go and write at Barnes & Noble, in a land called "Sean Used to be Super Irresponsible."
The college experience for me was one that I hated, and in the end one I didn't take seriously. I used to tell people that when I dropped out it was after talking to an English professor who said "College won't teach you how to tell a good story, only you can come up with an idea." Which I felt was very Smokey the Bear "only you can prevent forest fires" in its logic. The truth of the matter was that I missed my first English class and was subsequently bumped from it. I read that quote online somewhere and took it to heart and used it as an excuse to justify leaving school behind. So the spring of 2005 saw me getting my first laptop, a Dell, and as soon as I had it I installed Microsoft Word and started spending my days at the Starbucks in Barnes & Noble in Appleton.
The first few weeks were spent tinkering and not really making outlines but mostly writing down ideas and branching them out. I didn't know how helpful outlines would actually be at that point and though you can argue that's the same as an outline, it was different. It was just a series of disjointed ideas I was going to have to somehow string together cohesively. By April I had moved on to actually writing the second book, having made the decision to split this series out of "parts" and into "episodes." The original prologue is still dated in my computer as April 15th, 2005. It's also super bad to read and gives me a good chuckle to do so.
The story was written over the course of a few weeks, coming in at a total of eight chapters and 165 pages. At the time I thought that was pretty hot shit and it still kind of is because it's the bulk of a story "mostly" fleshed out. But it wasn't good. @klreynol can testify to the silly nature of it.
Let's begin with the basics:
The story took place on "The Island of Myth," which is a genius name, and it exists in the "Originality Domain." You heard it here first, folks. On Myth, five species of creatures ran the place: humans, elves, mermaids, fairies, and goblins. Yes! Banning gets there, he makes a few friends in the elves Saphrinity and her brother Cale, loses the ring Onyxus, becomes an enemy of Queen Selena of the humans, and then he leaves. That was pretty much it.
Subsequent rewrites changed all of this. As you can see by buying the book here.
First order of business, the "Island of Myth" became the "Island Dagrún," which means Day of Secret Lore in Old Norse. And it was moved out of the "Originality Domain" into the "Örjan Domain." The humans became the manu, elves became ailill, mermaids became enki, fairies the tien, and goblins the usha. By resolving the issue of using species people were familiar with already, I could move on to the characters. Queen Selena became Queen Themis Juniparius. Saphrinity survived the rewrite but her brother became Tristan, with the aforementioned "Cale" relegated to supporting-character status. Another character came to life as well, Aurora Genesis, the daughter of the tien (fairy) leader.
The book has always started the same and it has always ended the same, with several large plot points throughout remaining the same as well. It wasn't until the big "hold on to your butts, this bitch is getting a complete re-working" in 2011 that the story became what it is now. What was once 165 pages transformed into 685. Yes, you read that correctly.
The Onyxus Chronicles: Episode II sits at 685 pages. (Don't worry, it's only 456 pages in printed-book-form.)
As the book became what it now is, I had to again start thinking about a synopsis and it took me a while to get around to making one that was decent. Even then, I had to send it to @klreynol and my brother to polish and toss ideas back as to what should change. Because writing a synopsis sucks. But here she is:
When I started re-writing Episode II, I was going through a tremendous transitional period in my life. My relationship had failed with my ex right in the middle of it, which is interesting for one simple fact: the book feels like two stories that are split at Chapter Five. It used to bug me, but you know what? It makes sense now. In the context of the story, it makes sense why you the reader should feel such a shift in things, and I am totally fine with that.
The book starts in a very sad place, both dark and brooding and with little light at the end of the tunnel. But then it shifts around and transforms itself into something better. The characters we follow become something better than they once were. I can't help but see how this mirrored my life at the time.
When the relationship was over and I moved back in with my parents, it was a chance for me to rediscover who I was because at that point I was a shell. And damaged, and sad and a million other things I hope to never have to feel again. As the summer went on and time went on and I could start seeing the world in a different way, let alone myself, it came out in my writing. My best @markstyleme went through a breakup just a few months before I did and we spent a lot of time together because of it. I think when the world crumbles around you, it says a lot about you based on the people you turn to for support. And he was certainly one of them.
He ended up finding a new and better love that spring, and it was through their relationship that I could see a light at the end of my own tunnel. I wasn't ready to date anyone, certainly I wasn't ready to love, but it was a fantastic thing to see and think about. Hope.
I've known @markstyleme for a very long time, he being one of the first friends I made after high school had ended. One of the things that brought us together was our love for pop culture and cinema. Not just cinema, but television in particular. Will&Grace and The Simple Life more than anything else. The inside jokes, the little short sentences that eventually could send us into hysterics. You begin building a history and a camaraderie with a person through these things and he gently, and slowly, became the best guy friend I've ever had. Not to discount my friendships with any others, but he has just been there non-stop for the last 11 years and I still appreciate it to this day.
For his birthday in 2011, I decided to give him a gift and show my appreciation. I took him out one day in August and had a series of cards made out to him. On the front of each card was a line from a movie or television show, ones that we quoted all the time, and then the card would direct us where next to go. We started at the old Parker Family house, where I gave him the first-ever printed copy of Episode II (in a huge binder). We went to a movie and out to lunch and ice-cream and then finally drinks. Eventually the day wound down to a close and I took him home, where we went upstairs and I handed him the final gift of the day.
It was a large framed picture of the book cover, only it was slightly different from the cover the binder had because this one had the dedication.
The second version of the cover.
It's a hard thing to dedicate your work to someone. He and I had fights before the dedication, we've certainly had fights after the dedication, but do those matter in the end? The answer is no, they do not. I find that dedicating a book is something you do in the moment, thinking back on what was going on during the creation of the work and what it would be applicable to. And for Episode II it is @markstyleme. What was great about it was that he never ended up even reading the book, so now as I go to publish it, I'm sure there will be several of you who read it before he does despite his four-year head start.
I had to get that one dig in, Silly (c;
So when all's said and done, the pages are written and the stage is effectively set, you're left with the juicy meat of the Onyxus Chronicles. Episode II's job was to create the lore behind The Onyxus Chronicles, making Dagrún aptly named. A sense of history has been injected with this portion of the story and instead of becoming the weird bastard middle child of a trilogy, it stands quite effectively on its own. With a couple show-stopper battles that still get my blood pumping.
The final Episode II cover.
I'm so excited to release this book. So many people read Episode I before I had ever published it, but Episode II has only been read by five people. Five! That's it! So when you pick up your copy just know you are right with the rest of the world in finding out what happened in Quillsberg, what will happen on Dagrún, and eventually where all of this leads in Episode III.
Go ahead and buy it here.
Thank you all for being with me so far and especially thank you to the people that donated to my gofundme campaign to help offset the cost of publication. Remember, the launch party is Friday August 14th in Appleton, you can find the event here, and I want to see any and ALL of you!
I listened to this song over and over again when I was writing the book and I'm thrilled to remember that detail so that I can share it with you too. See you in a month (c:
