Writing Rienspel (Warning! *Contains Spoilers*)

Writing Rienspel

Thanks to my wife Steph's urging, I might try to start writing the much anticipated follow up to Rienspel: The Grey King. I'm not sure how to do it, though... Writing Rienspel was magical. It was personal and real - it throbbed and beat with exactly what I needed at the time.

How do you just start again? Sure, I've grown as a writer since then, both in style and technique... but there's something which neither finesse or skill have... and I don't know what it is... but it's something. Writing Rienspel took what I think many new, young writers do - put a version of themselves into a new literary world - and go on adventures. I traveled alongside Rien from Nyrgen to Firehall. I faced the undead and examined my own past. I came to grips with what it means to grow up - to both put childish ways aside, all the while become more childlike. I watched part of who I was die, and be reborn.

In the movie Gladiator, in the end the question is asked, Is Rome worth one good man's life? This morning, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was on, and we talked about how because Lily sacrificed herself for her son, Harry, that by taking his place, a powerful spell of protection was placed on him. Evil (initially, anyways) couldn't touch him. I want The Grey King to be about Death and Life... all so often, I think many stories cheapen Death, by either simply resurrecting the character or by misunderstanding what Death is.

One of my favorite fantasy authors of all time, George MacDonald, was wrote that 'Death is simply more Life'.  And in fact that we often misunderstand what Life is because we do not die because of Death, we die because of lack of Life. Life is more than what your heart and lungs do - it's more than an ability to articulate higher brain function... It hints on what CS Lewis wrote, "You don't have a soul, you are a soul: you have a body."

One of the things I do with my fantasy writing, is actually use it as a vehicle to explore real questions I have about life, the universe, and everything. What sort of realms untold lay waiting just beyond the Pale for us? Who/what are we, really? What if our existence is much more than we scarcely can imagine, even at our best?

Now, I'm no Great mind. I'm no Lewis or MacDonald... or anyone else for that matter. I'm just me. When it comes to writing well, I still feel like a lost beggar wandering on the fringe of Faerie... with Rienspel, I was given by luck, chance, or design, the faintest of glimpses inside its depths - and for that, I'm extremely grateful. While writing Rienspel, I learned the hard way just how much obsession can cost you... I've seen the Shadow on the wall, and done my best to not horde the writer's manna lest it rot. I've learned to accept what you are given, take what is needful for today only...

I know, I know... I'm probably going off on tangents here. I let me mind wander and this is where it leads me... I worry about being good enough - writing enchanting stories which slip inside the back doors of your minds and hearts. Life goes on... I get farther away from The Great Forest as the years crawl on. But I don't forget. I can't. Part of me is still there - wandering the woods... Except now I've found myself outside, wondering how to get back in... and at the same time, worrying about how I also need to continue going, too.

How does one continue going?

I remember those long silent Saturdays I would spend, tucked away in the Library at Central Christian College... as the snows fell... and I would dream and write... I remember the dorms - with our laptops and coffee... writing on - invincible in our ignorance, impetuous in our youth. There is this place I have inside, from which my stories flow. It's my heart, I think... because I feel my best writing is when I sit down and bleed - and it comes out as words on the page. I've read books on disciplining one's love for writing into a honed craft... I've read Stephen King and Ursula LeGuin. There's this simplicity and purity to writing - just like there is this equally simple and pure way of living which springs from it. We write from our Living. We take what has been filtered through our hearts like a french press brews rich coffee - and then we pour it out onto our pages and screens, and wonder if it's good enough.

Maybe what makes it 'good enough' isn't an arbitrary list of marks to hit... but if our stories in turn are worked again into the good earth of others' lives? That's it. And in season, we allow ourselves to see the garden of light and color flourish around us.

I'm still not sure how to keep writing The Grey King... but I'm sure it'll come when it does.

(Thanks for listening)

- Ryan 

Rolling With the Unexpected

The flashing cursor. Just sitting there, taunting me.


As a writer, the only thing worse than flashing cursors is the sudden ADD impulse to get up from my laptop and go do anything else BUT write. Recently, I finished Rienspel and am toying, exploring, doing-battle-with, its sequel The Grey King. At first, of course, I continued with what I had written for Rienspel... because even as it's author, I HAD to know what happened next.

As I've continued this relentless writing adventure, I've learned a bit about my own writing style- and among other things (besides serially over using the em-dash ----), I've learned I don't like to plan things out ahead of time. I don't like it. It's against my nature, and I'll fight you street-brawl-style if you try and make me. I like to just sit down and keep writing- so I get to explore and feel the way out right along with the tale's own characters. Their excitement or terror is my own. I strive for immersive story-telling... plots and people which leap out of the page at you... scenes you can feel and move you... forests where you can smell the trees and land where you can feel the grass under your toes.

With this being said, I also nearly insist on writing with music on... especially if the emotional crecendoes are in-tune with the current scene or characters. When I eventually hit my first creative block by simply trying to continue writing where I had left off after Rienspel I was annoyed, but not surprised. I've learned by now about these pesky writer's block creatures, and I know a few tips and tricks to keep moving after encountering them. One such trick is one I call 'jumping tracks'. To perform Jumping Tracks, you need to identify the specific emotional style, or mood- the type of music or the generally predictable genre pattern you're in, and... Jump Tracks. For example - I obviously write in a specific fantasy-style (in case you haven't noticed from the theme and word usage of my posts here and on Facebook), recently, I decided to listen to classic rock instead of classical or instrumental game music... I opened up a different story stub I had begun and had abandoned some time ago, and started writing it again. And with what I knew needed to happen, generally, in The Grey King, I slowly realized this random story, with this completely different Western-High-Noon-style character gave me a brand new, fresh take on my story- simply by completely changing my ground-level point of view.

Jumping Tracks isn't just for clawing your way out of writer's block pits, though. You can use it while going to a particularly dreaded day at a boring, unfulfilling job, too! (and believe you me, I've had a couple of those before) See, I believe we are all actually characters in The Story. And so, if we are, we just have to Jump Tracks in our current story. The emotional humdrum mood we adopt when heading back into the daily grind is a sneaky version of the writer's block. We're 'stuck' from continuing our own story for an entire shift... or ARE we? Jump Tracks. Use your imagination to refresh yourself and take your situation from a brand new perspective and then go with it... and see where it takes you. You'll often find hidden magic along the way you would have probably never have otherwise even dreamed of.

I used to work at a gas station - and I hated it. That is, until I started trying to jump tracks, at least in my mental frame of mind... but, trying is half the battle in this case. I realized that working for long spells at the gas station made me assume everything was horrible in the world. And of course, anyone can discover with a few days off how simply untrue this is. So, if how I was feeling while working there did not mean what I thought it meant, then it could mean anything... anything! I started trying to identify vampires and revenants hiding in plain sight disguised as regulars! Once, as a joke, I anointed the doors with holy water and, I kid you not, some customers began literally being able to cross the threshold.... I guess my point is, there's a whole wide world we're living in. It REALLY IS magical. And more than a few of the old tales still hold true. We're apart of it, and if we want to continue discovering where our own stories lead, we have to get the ring to Rivendell- we have to seek out Yoda ourselves, we have to try and stop the Nazis from recovering the Ark of the Covenant.

We have to roll with the unexpected, and see our own story through.

-Ryan

thanks for reading!

Serial Tragedy- A Response

So they killed off another Game of Thrones character in a tragic, gruesome, terrible way. As the show goes on, and the books are generally devoured by the public, I've heard more and more reasons why this serial tragedy is a good thing- an accurate thing- even a more realistic thing. The sheer amount of psychoanalyzing is staggering, if you think about it. If you've watched the show or read the books already, I'm sure you already have an opinion on serial tragedy. Do bad things always happen? Is it inevitable? I think this is a vital topic, especially for Americans who are transitioning into a different zeitgeist (Spirit of the Age). It deals with truth and the tone of which the stories we believe in actually structure our everyday lives.

I actually hope the despairing challenge we often find ourselves faced with makes us think. I hope it makes us hold up our presuppositions against others' and makes us scratch our head. Makes us actually wonder, think, feel out our positions on the matter. Honestly, this ends up being a bit of a vast topic, so I won't scientifically notate each RNA strain... but I will drop a few breadcrumbs to hopefully help you get back home.

And so, in no particular order, here they are:

1) What IS truth? Truth exists independently of human beings, thank God. Trees which fall, alone, in forests still actually makes sounds, because the notion of sound does not depend on people hearing them (I mean, that's being a bit full of ourselves to say we are the ultimate standard when it comes to defining Truth, right?).

2) Bad things happen. But so do good things. Again, the nature of evil is a bit of a large topic, but the most helpful advice I've found come from Tolkien's writings on Eucatastrophe. For more in depth notations- read On Fairy Stories and/or the good 'ol Wikipedia page on it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucatastrophe. This one is important because it delves into our own base assumption about how the world (both real and imaginary) work, how they ought to work, and why there ought to be happy endings at all.

3) Practicality. What you do and say and write actually DO matter. You affect people. You will continue to affect people. What you expose yourself to affects you, and in turn, affects others as well. Be aware of what you consume and crave when it comes to stories. And dare to wonder why? Why is it you happen to crave specific types of stories? It probably, ultimately, has to do with you dealing with your past and your own personal and unique identity: your character. (and yes, oh yes, are we characters) - And also, as a side note- what do people who really love you say about you?


As I was writing Rienspel, the moments where I felt I had the most authority, or power as an author, was when I thought about all the brutalized people I've met and known. I wrote what I wrote for them, because as fun as stories like Game of Thrones are, and as heartwarmingly cheesy as all the Disney-fied endings can be, people need to know there is Truth, they are in a Good story (the best, actually), and that they matter and have their own integral role to play in life. I honestly believe this, and as the legendary visionary George MacDonald once said, "Imagination is the backdoor to the soul" - and I intend to use it.

-Ryan

How to Write an -Awesome- Story

How to Write an Awesome Story

 _Ryan Freeman

The blinking cursor of death is the bane of my existence.

Seriously.

How do you start when all you see around you are the great, professionally finished products of the masters? It can really get you pumped... and then get you down. You're just one person... you probably dont have a killer editing team, lounging around in your PJ's sipping Starbucks in some otherworldly location... with interns and the like (ok, maybe I'm fantasizing here a bit, but hey... it's what I do, right?)

What about the regular people, like you and I? How do we start?

Here's the secret I figured out. (ready?)

You're already in it.

Bam.

There.

You're already in it. You're apart of it.
 You are already a character (probably in more ways than one). You are living in a story, and you are apart of it. What you do and say every day matters. You save lives by what you do and say. You make or break your world by who you are, what you mean, and how you act. You are the hero, or the villain. You are the wise old sage or the wicked step-parent. You are the manliest legend or the most spell-binding beauty- or the coward and the witch.

You probably just blazed through that last paragraph. I know I did. But it's super important. Right now you're reading an old tome from a grizzled adventurer. You're here on common purpose because you're searching- hunting- exploring a perilous realm of life itself.

Take time to breathe in this new world you are apart of. Feel your place in it. Understand who you are and what you really, truly mean to yourself, others and the world at large.

Then... when you're feeling particularly whimsy and painfully honest... find yourself an excellent imagining/creating spot (mine was a quiet dorm room in Missouri), and start drawing- writing- playing music... from your world. The one you always go to when you close your eyes and dream. I realized all the places I go to in my mind are really a vast, continuous extension of the same world.

Start your journey and see where the path takes you. Start and don't forget about or quit until you get there. Don't worry about being perfect- just take a single step out of your proverbial front door and keep journeying. Take with you only what is mindful. Use who you are- your own strength of character and personal powers of being. If you're in a weird mood, use it. Write weird scenes or moments in your story where your characters probably are feeling similarly.

I'm excited to see where your own story takes you...


For more on Rienspel, check out http://www.facebook.com/Rienspel
or help make it real- donate @ http://www.gofundme.com/Rienspel
Thanks