More From The Diary of Hamish El Tyrone

[RJM Corbet]

From the Diary of Hamish El Tyrone:

The older I get the more I learn to reject absolute statements. In equestrian circles a white horse is always called a ‘grey’ because no horse is completely white. There is seldom a clear line, especially between good and evil. The lion hunts the antelope. We all must die. Pain should never be embraced as a penance for guilt. He cannot be forgiven, who cannot forgive. It is the breakdown and the understanding, and the gift of spirit.

Lately I have little patience for ordinary conversation. There is no simple divide. Such thinking bores me now. Perhaps I'm becoming just a gloomy and cantankerous old man. I had always hoped to age into a sweet old fellow, patient and wise.

There’s an abbey near here, a monastery where in recent months I have started attending services at the abbey church. There amidst the incense and candles and the chanting of the monks I feel the presence of the Great Spirit Eloih and his angels, and when I leave I feel strengthened in the knowledge that this world of nature is just the shadow of the greater world of spirit.

The monks are the keepers of the flame. Smoke of the holy incense. Prayer chant of the timeless vespers. Through all the changing years of time, the words preserved in rhythmic structures which make them easier to remember: for once the structure of the verse is lost, the common man will soon end up revising the words to his own liking and so forget the truth preserved between the lines.

The monks know this.

Their prayers and chants are like the hard shell of the nut that protects and preserves the truth. The monks have kept the flame of truth alive for millennia by their unchanging ritual. You may want all your nuts cracked and shelled and ready for you on a plate, but one day you will have to learn to find the tree yourself in it's due season, and harvest and crack the nuts alone, with a rock in your hand.

A man kills tiny living creatures in the air with every breath he takes. We are born into a dimension of nature where all that lives must suffer. The merciful mirror of prayer echoes back and forth, reflecting everything forever, and it takes a giant to know where his own feet have fallen. I must bind hope to my heart, or this sadness will kill me. There is no cruelty in the land of the brave.

I hate this black mud, and this constant rain.

[Bowler1]

The older I get the more I learn to reject absolute statements. In equestrian circles a white horse is always called a ‘grey’ because no horse is completely white. There is seldom a clear line, especially between good and evil. The lion hunts the antelope. We all must die. Pain should never be embraced as a penance for guilt. He cannot be forgiven, who cannot forgive. It is the breakdown and the understanding, and the gift of spirit.
I liked the above, maybe one/two examples too many?

Lately I have little patience for ordinary conversation. There is no simple divide. Such thinking bores me now. Perhaps I'm becoming just a gloomy and cantankerous old man. I had always hoped to age into a sweet old fellow, patient and wise.
In red does not seem to add much for me as a reader, are these two sentences adding anything?

There’s an abbey near here, a monastery where in recent months I have started attending services at the abbey church. There amidst the incense and candles and the chanting of the monks I feel the presence of the Great Spirit Eloih and his angels, and when I leave I feel strengthened in the knowledge that this world of nature is just the shadow of the greater world of spirit.
This flowed nicely and I really liked it.

The monks are the keepers of the flame. Smoke of the holy incense. Prayer chant of the timeless vespers. Through all the changing years of time, the words preserved in rhythmic structures which make them easier to remember: for once the structure of the verse is lost, the common man will soon end up revising the words to his own liking and so forget the truth preserved between the lines.

The monks know this.

Their prayers and chants are like the hard shell of the nut that protects and preserves the truth. The monks have kept the flame of truth alive for millennia by their unchanging ritual. You may want all your nuts cracked and shelled and ready for you on a plate, but one day you will have to learn to find the tree yourself in it's due season, and harvest and crack the nuts alone, with a rock in your hand.
I’m not 100% sure as the imagery does not seem to arrive at a point, or at least not one clearly explained.

A man kills tiny living creatures in the air with every breath he takes. We are born into a dimension of nature where all that lives must suffer. The merciful mirror of prayer echoes back and forth, reflecting everything forever, and it takes a giant to know where his own feet have fallen. I must bind hope to my heart, or this sadness will kill me. There is no cruelty in the land of the brave.

I hate this black mud, and this constant rain.

Interesting, I’m not sure where to start critiquing, as I’m not 100% sure what is being said all the time. The religious feel is very strong here which you were clearly aiming for, the grumpy old man does come through and in general I’m interested enough to read on. I would want the plot/storyline to start very soon or I would stop reading. While I liked the imagery and it was good, there was no hook/story direction to grab my interest in this section to keep me turning pages.

I know you mix this up with normal sword play and you can do pace and plot, I think you need to be careful with the old man sections that they don’t turn the reader off. I feel that you’re pushing my boundaries as a reader, which is good, beware however - there is a line.

[Hex]

Just briefly, I think white horses are called 'grey' because their skin is normally black (though you can have 'properly' white horses).

[RJM Corbet]

Thanks for taking the trouble Bowler, and yes, I immediately regretted posting this section. I've already expanded it a bit, in the text.

These 'diary' sections are quite widely spaced in the text. Hamish El Tyrone is actually the teller of the tale (of the sub-plot) and his personal diary as an old man after he loses his wife, once the character is established, becomes essentially a vehicle for info dumping about the religion and philosophy of the old Aazyrian 'garden kingdoms', important to the meaning of the book.

He ends up becoming a monk himself, by the way. So the old fellow does find his peace eventually.

Thanks again for your thoughts on it, all of which I will definitely apply. Meantime, here is the rewrite of the last couple of paras starting:


... harvest and crack the nuts for yourself alone, with a stone.

A man kills tiny living creatures in the air with every breath he takes. We are born into a dimension of nature where all that lives must suffer. What’s it all for? All the myriad world of nature? It just goes to the grave. Why? I just want to be with her again. My mind is dead and tired. I am sick of heart. There are times when little things matter a lot: small gifts and mercies. We only miss them once they’re gone. The greatest possession is love. I don’t even want anything.

Dust motes dance in the light from the window.

The merciful mirror of prayer echoes back and forth, reflecting everything forever, and it takes a giant to know where his own feet fall. I don’t even think about happiness any more. What is happiness, anyway? I must bind hope to my heart, or this sadness will kill me. There is no cruelty in the land of the brave.

I hate this black mud, and this constant rain.

Edit: Hi Hex, missed your post. Hope you had a relaxing Easter weekend?

[Bowler1]

Now thats nice, just that section on its own, great feeling - that has a hook, missing his dead wife - a great BIG hook.

I can see how the old man sections would be great for info dumping, always a problem and more so if you're trying to write a religion into the storyline. I think I can see what you're trying to do, I think its brave. If you pull it off then good, very good, and orginial to me anyway, just take care not to lose the reader.

I'm trying breaks in storyline/plot myself but with odd aliens, I don't feel myself that I have got it to work right yet - so I appreciate the task ahead of you, good luck with it.

[RJM Corbet]

Originally Posted by Bowler1

... I'm trying breaks in storyline/plot myself but with odd aliens, I don't feel myself that I have got it to work right yet - so I appreciate the task ahead of you, good luck with it.

Thanks Bowler.

The way I'm tackling it is I'm writing 'The Diary of Hamish El Tyrone' separately and interspersing it with text, in bold so I can find it easily, and also keeping it as a separate document, marked with the page numbers where it appears in the text, so I can read it on it's own, then I can keep moving the sections around in the main text, trying to get it right ...

[Bowler1]

Oddly, a very similiar solution to mine. I plan to write the story with no 'alien' POV and then add them in after, so I can move sections around in the main text.

[RJM Corbet]

I have this thing about first person writing. I don't like doing it myself, for some reason. I just have a resistance you know? So the diary also opens that path