Day in
Day out.
Trapped at a desk.
Trapped in a room.
In a basement.
Filtered light and filtered air.
Two screens hum and shine
Along with overhead fluorescent lights.
Sitting.
Sitting.
Sitting.
A wave of nausea presents itself.
The body is reminding you.
Go outside.
Breathe the air.
Soak up the sun.
Be alive.
Every character needs to go through some sort of event. It’s almost impossible to write a story where nothing happens to the characters unless that is the entire purpose of your story.
In Three Abandoned Kingdoms we know that war has been raging for hundreds of years. The main characters, Aldric and Brexton are survivors of a war camp where they have been child soldiers their entire lives. The escape at the age of 11/10 and enter into an underworld that is surprisingly kind to them. They have skills that other children their age do not and they exploit those skills to get what they want.
Life is not easy for our dear protagonists. They stumble as they mature and they falter as they face difficult decisions that hit close to home. But because they are who they are, they are invited to partake in an amazing adventure which is the core of Three Abandoned Kingdoms. This is not a YA adventure. There is nothing whimsical or lovely about this. They meet and befriend others who are as damaged and as dangerous as they are.
For our antagonists, our villains, life is also not easy for them. Also two men they both grew up in high pressure situations; a crown prince who is lame and disabled with a dark heart and the son of a duke who enacted terror from the shadows. Both men found a kindred soul in the other and they begin their work in the bowels of the Brynan castle.
War takes no prisoners. Distress comes to all. Disaster destroys everything. It is those who rise from the rubble: who climb from the depths of that despair and claw their way back into the light. Three Abandoned Kingdoms is a story of that. Of four men trying to release themselves from that darkness, their own darkness, and touch their own personal light.
This is the first time I’ve written anything where men are the main characters. In my ‘band’ of protagonists there are three other women and they are all strong women. However, the story itself focuses on Brexton and Aldric. It focuses on their individual and collective journeys.
I’m itching to write it now. Curses on you, work week!
If you’ve been listening to me complain for the last little bit, you know I’ve been waiting for some money to come in. My husband was supposed to get a deposit of a healthy sum as a pay-out from contributions to his pension from his last job.
We had been waiting for 6 months to find out when the funds were going to be released. All documentation told us it would take 10 weeks from the day he left the job to see the payment in his account. He filled out paper work that was supposed to allow them to direct deposit the funds into our account.
Long story short, we waiting, we contacted the numbers we were given, we tried to get a hold of someone who could just give us a general time frame because we had spent months just waiting to find out when they might possibly deposit the funds.
Finally, I could take no more. I went to my Member of Parliament. My MP here in Manitoba. This is the person who has a direct line to the Federal Government. Since I was dealing with a Federal issue, this was the person to talk to if I wanted shit done.
Within hours of contacting him via his online form on his website I had the Director of Pensions and Social Programs contacting me telling me she would look into the issue. That following Monday my husband was informed the cheques were in the mail.
The cheque for the mandatory RRSP deposit was received last week. It’s been deposited into the account and we cannot touch it. The cheque for the funds that are supposed to be deposited into our personal account have not been received. We have no idea what’s going on. We don’t know where the cheque is. We don’t know anything. Today my husband is going to call the number on the letter we received that confirmed the funds were sent out. We need to know what address it went to (it was going directly to the bank, not to our house), we need to know who it was addressed to and what the cheque number is. Then we can call the bank and hopefully get some more information on what the hell is going on.
I am so frustrated it hurts. I am down to my last $300 in my savings account. We have exhausted our line of credit. We are thisclose to being reduced to asking for help from family.
I hate borrowing money. My in-laws are amazing people and I know they wouldn’t be petty or anything about it, but there’s this piece of me that just can’t handle the fact that I am in debt to someone other than myself.
I’m angry. I’m frustrated. I’m stressed out. This is not helping my creativity at all. Unless I start writing about destruction and the like.
Yeah. I could get behind that.
Most of you know that I have a full time day job that I muddle through every day. Sometimes I feel like I’m doing really well and making a difference, and sometimes I feel like just another cog in the machine.
I work with a pretty awesome group of people though. There is the Super Boss, our Executive Director, my manager and the two special projects managers are the Power Rangers and my two co workers and I make up the Ninjas. I’ve talked about my office-mate before, the Brain Twin. She’s currently out sick and I hope she feels better soon. It gets quiet without her so I turn the music up a bit louder. We have a disco ball in our office and generally have twitter wars and dance parties.
At first, the idea of sharing an office was intimidating. I was so used to having my own space and not having to account for another human being within that space. We get along really well. Like, so well it can be creepy. She’s not my Brain Twin for nothing.
My other co worker is the Bespectacled Smarty Pants, or BSP for short. This kid. This kid I tells ya. He’s going to be 28 this year and has already accomplished so much it makes my green eyes even more green with jealousy. He got his Masters right after university, he teaches at the university where our office is based, he’s the front runner for one of our projects at work which lets him out of the dungeon. In all honesty, this kid has achieved a lot. For someone in their early thirties who is currently dreaming of things like a Masters degree and who is still searching for herself, it’s a bit maddening.
When I was your age…!
There are two other members of the team but they don’t have nicknames. I’ve just realized that. That needs to be rectified. One is our IT support guy. The tech wizard. But we can’t call him the Wizard because Super Boss already has that. He’s got two names because he’s so super. The other co worker is the Assistant to the Director. She is seriously the one who keeps this ship running smoothly and with little waves.
I do so enjoy my job, don’t get me wrong. Sometimes I fantasize about living in a remote location; some cabin in the woods or mountains somewhere where no one knows me. Where there is a little tiny village where everyone is nice to each other. Where we’re cut off from the annoyances of modern day. I am reading a manga right now where this exact situation is happening. It makes me long for a simpler life.
One of these days. I’ll have a cabin in the nothingness where I can retreat and write to my hearts content. Where the children can play outside without being afraid of getting kidnapped or run over by a car. Where my husband can relax and we can all go for family hikes or other outdoor excursions.
Some day.
Everything in life is a measurement. Your age, the ticking of the clock as time passes, the effort you put into your day. We exist here on this planet in this galaxy in this universe. What effort have you put in? What does it matter? Who are we trying to impress by bleeding and sweating our lives away? Are we trying to impress friends? Lovers? Parents? Ourselves?
I find that I am constantly and almost desperately trying to measure myself and my contribution on a regular basis. Have I done enough? Will I be remembered when I’m gone? Will people remember me when I’m gone?
I’m only 32 and yet I think like this on a regular basis. But who am I trying to impress? My kids will remember me. They have no choice. You don’t have an obnoxious mother like myself and then simply forget about her. Same with my poor sod of a husband. The guy will never forget me, even if he wants to.
It’s not like I’m ill and I’m going to die tomorrow. It’s not like I’m one of those people who expects to get crushed by the roof of the mall when I’m shopping (That has happened to people in my country before, though. It was devastating). Perhaps it’s because where I currently am in writing TAK.
There is a lot of death in this book. Some of it is symbolic death. Some of it is true, honest death. There is a lot of soul-searching as the characters try to figure out who they are and what they can offer. Granted, their world is tougher than ours. Well, tougher than the life I lead in my country. There are countries in our world right now who have been dealing with wars for longer than I’ve been alive.
Sometimes I wonder if that’s why I published Black & Red before I was certain it was ready. I was just so desperate to have something out there, in the world, for others to read and realize that I existed. That the story had been crafted by a human being and although the ending may leave much to be desired, it was still something that was agonized over.
Perhaps it is just too goddamn early on a Monday morning to be introspective. I shall end my ramblings here today and continue on with work. 6 minutes to go until I have to be ‘on’.
Happy Monday, suckers like I who are working. And screw you guys who are all at home without work or responsibilities 😉
Dance party in an empty office
Open invitation
The plastic disco ball spins in loneliness
While I dance with reckless abandon
The lights are off
And no one is home.
I creep through the halls
Towards my own box.
I flip the switch and the room is illuminated
I creep down darker halls
Towards a coffee machine that has yet to be started.
I don’t even drink coffee,
But I’ll start it for those sleepy people
Who are soon to follow me
Through these halls of darkness.
The Earth says hello!
Our administrative assistant/superwoman is out of the office today. She was out yesterday as well as the sickness has finally gripped her. I do feel a little bad about it because it seems like she’s got the version of the illness I had.
They’ve been calling my office-mate/brain-sharer and I the ‘Toxic Twins’ which is quite funny.
Since our Superwoman is out of the office I made coffee for everyone. I’m generally here first, and even though I don’t even drink coffee myself, I know my co-workers really enjoy being able to have a hot cup first thing in the morning. We have meetings this morning too that we need to get through. For some of them, being able to do that uncaffienated is frightening. But the pot is on the brew so there’s nothing to fear now.
I have my thermos of tea, as usual, so all is right in my world. It’s nice and warm and lovely.
It snowed last night which has made things interesting so early in the day. Even though I live in freaking Canada and we have snow like, 6 months out of the year, people will still forget how to drive and it will take ages to get anywhere. It’s pretty funny because I now live in a relatively small town so instead of 5 minutes to get somewhere it takes 10.
Not much work has been done on TAK while I’ve been sick. Since we got the notification that the money is on its way, I’ve been dreaming of redoing my office at home and getting things organized and set up the way I like. Since my husband wants a new computer that means I get his old one. My current laptop is less than wonderful. It’s died one too many times. I can’t even have it unplugged because the battery won’t hold a charge.
Hopefully this means that soon I will be able to give you all either another short, or an actual book!
Have a happy Wednesday! The Work Week is almost over! That is, if you work Monday-Friday.
It’s been a rough little bit lately! I’m recovering from having a wicked bout of the flu. Like, seriously. My joints were hurting so bad. I’m only 32, but it was either going to rain something fierce or I had become 100 years old when I wasn’t looking.
Life has been a bit touchy lately too. Last week I had had enough waiting for this money we were supposed to be getting from my husband’s last job. For a process that was supposed to take 10 weeks we had been waiting for 6 months. We had called the departments we were given (well, he did. I couldn’t because it’s not my name on the file) and instead of people actually telling us where the hell the file was, we were being told to ‘be patient’. I like to think we had been patient enough.
So I took matters into my own hands.
Now, I’m well known for having a big mouth but I generally don’t do much with it except let off steam. Last Thursday I contacted my MP (Member of Parliament) here in Manitoba. Every section of the province has a sort of representative to bring up concerns and issues to Parliament and get things going. My MP has a website with a web form so I went on there on Thursday around lunch time and wrote out this long two page letter about our circumstances. Why did I go to my MP? My husband is former military and if we wanted this done, we had to go to the top. So I wrote out a letter detailing my husband’s service and what he’s done for our country, how this waiting is affecting our quality of life and how we have been more than patient. I didn’t blame any one and didn’t speak poorly about the workers dealing with his file. I know it’s not entirely their fault that this issue is happening. The system is old and broken and will probably never be fixed.
So I write my letter and go about eating my lunch. I could barely talk last Thursday so when my phone rang I let it go to voicemail. Imagine my surprise when I listen to the voicemail only to hear the voice of my MP telling me he got my letter and was taking it to the Minister of Defence during Question Period! There had been about an hour between my letter and his phone call. Of course, he’s saying that he won’t hesitate to hold this ‘Liberal Government to account’ (He’s a Conservative) but as much as that bothered me I just let it go. The next day I had an e-mail from the Director of the Pension program. Monday we got a phone call saying our cheques were on the way to the bank.
Breathe a collective sigh of relief here.
I was very impressed that it was all dealt with in such a quick time frame. I honestly hadn’t even expected my MP to read my letter until Friday or Monday. They have staff members who deal with this stuff and I didn’t really think it was that important of an issue. Imagine my surprise when he tells me he’s going to the Minister of Defence directly! I was in awe. It was nuts.
So now our finish line is in sight. Now we know how to get there. We were told 10-15 business days before we would see the money (mailing etc) but that is a much better time frame than ‘beginning of February sometime’ which is what we got before. Now I don’t need to borrow money from family. Now I don’t need to stress too much about the ever climbing credit card balance. I know these things will be paid off shortly. That’s all I need right now.
Instead, on Saturday my furnace quit and we won’t get the part until today. We’ve been using space heaters so my electric bill is going to be madness. Plus I need to pay for the labour for the replacement and the work they tried yesterday when they were attempting to get it fixed.
And to seal the deal, last night our baby monitor broke hahahaha. My husband bought a new one after work.
Almost there!
Eyes closed
Music softly playing in the background
Lights are off
But the computer is on.
Relish these few moments of peace
In my empty office
Before the day begins.
Sarah Jayne Nantais 