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It's a... Gryphon?

9/27/2015

Birth Announcements

Heir, Gryphon – officially born (launched) Tuesday, September 22nd, 2015 shortly after 7 pm after a lengthy, not-uncomplicated gestation of roughly nine years, and a partially painless birthing process of nine months, facilitated by Friesen Press. Proud creator D.R. Ranshaw was in attendance at Owl’s Nest Books, along with an enthusiastic group of supporters and well-wishers. Owl’s Nest Books staff acted as midwives, providing flawless care and a most enjoyable time for all, complete with libations to toast the new infant’s success.

After a brief history of the new book’s conception, gestation and birth, a couple of readings were given by the author; the first reading was from the new book, while the second, from a new companion piece, formed part of the evening as a teaser of what is hopefully to come. Following the readings, a question and answer session concluded the formal part of the program. Like all proud parents, the author was only too glad to hold forth on his new progeny at great length, answering numerous queries about the book, its development, and the writing process in general. A suggestion for an audio book version of Gryphon’s Heir, to be read aloud by the author, met with great enthusiasm from the assemblage.

When asked about plans for a sibling for young Gryphon’s Heir, parent D.R. Ranshaw allowed as how one was already under development, to be titled Gryphon’s Awakening, but the wait for it was likely to be some time, as it is currently slightly less than half complete, and funding for its eventual, formal birth is lacking at this time. A humorous, half-serious suggestion was made by the author that the crowd might like to fund his living expenses for the next year so that he could focus on birthing the new book. Much hilarity ensued at the suggestion. Attendees were therefore encouraged to support this endeavour by spreading the word amongst all and sundry about the merits of the first book, and to galvanize the as-yet unconverted to purchase the book, either in hard copy or (author’s voice lowered to a whisper in light of the location) eBook format.

The evening concluded with numerous book purchases and signings, and enjoyment of the aforementioned refreshments.

Looking through the delivery room window

Waiting for eager new purchasers!

Proud poppa waiting for the delivery/launch to begin

Was there ever a parent who didn't want to chat at length about their offspring?

Sweet sight to an author's eyes: the faithful lining up to make their purchases

Thinking of clever things to say besides the tired old "best wishes"

Taking its rightful place under 'Fiction, author's last name letter R'

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Look up. Look waaay up.

9/19/2015

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As my book launch for Gryphon’s Heir looms large in a few days, I’ve been asked two questions lately: have I always loved reading? What sparked that love? The first is easy to answer: of course! The second involves a couple of things...

First, in the deeps of time, back in the Dark Ages when I was a child and before I could read... there was a morning CBC television program. It was a mere 15 minutes long, simple and mostly unscripted, featuring just one human actor (accompanied by puppets of very unsophisticated construction), with ‘special effects,’ such as they were, laughably primitive by today’s standards. And it moved at a very leisurely pace. But I adored it. Looking back, it was hugely influential in developing my love of reading.

That’s a strange, rather unlikely endorsement, isn’t it? Especially from a purist like me: a television program fostering love of reading? But it did.

Children of --- ahem --- a certain age can probably identify the program: The Friendly Giant. Played with gentle grace by actor Bob Homme, ‘Friendly’ usually began his show in the middle of a model village or landscape, discussing things related to that day’s episode, the camera advancing slowly through houses or fields before we came upon his giant boot. (“There’s that boot. Look up. Look waaay up!”) Then he invited us to join him in his castle, where we would ‘curl up’ in chairs around the fireplace and watch his interactions with Rusty the rooster and Jerome the giraffe. Sometimes there were concerts: Friendly played the recorder, Rusty the harp, and occasionally they were joined by a pair of mute cats on other instruments. Rusty lived in a book bag on the castle’s wall, and often brought out a book for Friendly to read. Usually the book was much larger than it had any right to be, given the size of Rusty’s bag.

I loved those stories. I couldn’t yet read --- this was before I began school, remember --- but they reinforced in my preschool mind that here was a means of assisting the imagination; here were whole worlds of tales of all different types. And just as Rhiss, the protagonist of Gryphon’s Heir, desires magic in his all-too-grittily prosaic life, here was a way to infuse that magic in my own little existence. (To which some of you are murmuring sceptically, “Really, Ranshaw? Your little four or five year old mind articulated such deep thoughts?” Well, not in so many words, no. But I maintain that the basic concepts were there, yes. I may have been a tad precocious as a youngster.)

The entire show was representative of a gentler, simpler time, and I adored all of it: stories, concerts, music, literature, scale model scenes. I think it all got bundled together in one very positive experience for a young child. If books were like this, then I wanted to read.

Second, my parents also did a very simple thing to foster my love of reading. It wasn’t complicated and didn’t come from any parenting manual --- not that there were many in those days, of course; down-to-earth, practical parents who didn’t spend huge amounts of time navel-gazing didn’t need them. (The only parenting books I recall on my mother’s bookshelf were a government publication called ‘Up the Years from One to Six’ and a work by Dr. Spock. No, no, no: not Mr. Spock of Star Trek; Dr. Benjamin Spock, a pediatrician and parenting guru who was at the height of his fame/influence in the 1960s. Although the irony of the similarity in names doesn’t escape me, rest assured.) I know, I know: I digress. What did my parents do?

They read to me. From a very early age. Daily. (And nightly. Both.) They got me hooked on reading. Right from simple picture books as a toddler on up through more complicated things as I got older, they read to me all the time. And later, after I was too old to be read to (a coming of age moment I still recall as bittersweet), there were frequent, regular family trips to the public library. Even there, my parents didn’t allow me to be banished/ghettoized solely to the children’s section, and I was encouraged to try all sorts of literature. Which I did. Later still, as I began roving the city on my own, there were bookstores to visit and make purchases in. (Calgary readers, again of a certain age, will recall Evelyn deMille’s independent two-storey bookstore on 3rd Street near Eaton’s as fondly as I do.)

So there you have it. The establishment of a life-long love affair that, decades later, resulted in me penning my own first novel.

By the way, my wife and I followed the same path with our own children. Not with Friendly Giant, regrettably; it went off the air in 1985, before our firstborn came along. But PBS had outstanding television programs promoting literature when our children were young: Reading Rainbow and Wishbone were two I particularly remember. And we took our kids to the library at least weekly, each child returning home with an armload of books.

Above all, we read to our children, even as babies and toddlers, read to them all the time, with expression and enthusiasm. Reading to our kids as part of their bedtime routine was one of my sacrosanct nightly jobs (until that bittersweet moment when they too wanted to start reading things for themselves), although they sometimes had to nudge me awake if I began dozing off after a particularly strenuous day.

It’s advice I would give to parents starting out today --- especially nowadays, before kids get hooked on the plethora of electronic gadgets out there threatening to destroy their attention spans, imaginations and desires to focus on books: read to your kids, regularly, with enthusiasm and expression. Begin as soon as you can.

Get them to look up... waaay up.

They won’t necessarily grow up to be novelists. But you will have given them an enormous, permanent edge in this sometimes drab and uncaring world.

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It Takes a Village...

9/13/2015

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Since starting this blog several months ago, I have tended to focus more on some of the various theoretical aspects of writing… but today I want to be a little more traditionally ‘bloggy’ and talk about a moment of upcoming celebration. There’s an exciting development in the Gryphon’s Heir story coming very soon: the official book launch. It will take place at Owl’s Nest Books (thanks to the good folks there for offering to host this momentous occasion) in Calgary on September 22 starting at 7 pm… and I’m hoping to see many friends there.

Why bother with a book launch at all? After all, many writers tend, I think, to be somewhat introverted by nature, so speaking to groups of people at public occasions can be very stressful for them. (Thank goodness my teaching career has always demanded I not regard that particular bugbear as a problem.) Well, I think an official launch is both necessary and desirable because books don’t just happen in isolation, despite the fact that Stephen King has said you write the first draft with the door closed (quite true), and I have said right here in this blog that writing is not a particularly social endeavor (also quite true). So will you indulge me for a moment while I paraphrase a couple of clichés we can contort into being relevant to writing? Thanks. (Only a couple. Promise.)

It takes a village to write a novel.

No writer is an island.

And despite the fact that we tend to roll our eyes and dismiss clichés, the weird thing about them is that they become so because they’re absolutely true. That’s why we use them to the point where they become clichéd.

While Gryphon’s Heir has been available since mid-June, it arrived just as classes were winding down; the students who were my initial audience were focused on final exams and the end of school, although sales have been steady. But 30 years in the teaching profession has led my personal calendar rhythms tending to mimic the school year, so following a quiet summer restoring physical and emotional strength that tends to get so horrendously depleted between September and June, it’s time to ramp up the Gryphon’s presence. What better way than with a proper book launch? This will, after all, be an event that truly marks the fact that the project I started more than nine years ago is moving fully out into the bright light of day, and it’s about celebration. When I first began writing what would eventually become Gryphon’s Heir, I had no idea it would become a novel. I just needed to write. There were times when the writing came swiftly and effortlessly, and times when the writing was slow and torturous… even a few times when it wouldn’t come at all (I’ve heard it said that writer’s block is when your imaginary friends won’t talk to you, and I think that, all joking aside, it’s largely true.) But the story gradually grew (in the telling, as Professor Tolkien famously said) until we reached a point late in the summer of 2014 when I realized that we had to either fish or cut bait, as the saying goes: it was time to stop endlessly tinkering and editing and either take the publishing plunge or just put the whole thing away in a dark drawer somewhere and try to forget about it. But that latter option wasn’t remotely a realistic possibility by then, of course, and I never entertained it. By that time, I’d invested so much of me into the project that I really wanted to see it put out there. So I stiffened my quaking spine and began preparing to take my baby out for the world to see.

So… let’s return to the idea of book launch as a group celebration. Because, as I began, no writer’s work ever really occurs in total isolation. We all live in community --- even troglodyte writers hunched over their word processors, dreaming of far-off worlds. So a book launch is an event to bring together and thank all the people who assisted along the way: those who read early drafts and made helpful comments and suggestions, those who provided encouragement and support, and of course, those who have already bought the book. (It will hopefully also bring those who haven’t, but might be willing to, perhaps drawn in through sheer curiosity!)

If this marks the dawn of a new career that turns out to be as successful, as fulfilling, as long and as fun as the one I have had for the last thirty years… I will count myself truly fortunate.

So I hope to see you at Owl’s Nest Books on the 22nd. It’s going to be a celebration for us all.

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...But When I'm Bad, I'm Better

9/5/2015

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Story hero? Check. Know what he/she needs to do? Check. Now you need someone/thing to oppose that hero. Someone/thing who doesn’t want the hero to succeed, for whatever reason. That’s where conflict begins, and for that, we need a villain. I’ve heard some actors say they prefer playing villains over heroes because they're more interesting as characters, and while that's not always necessarily true, evil characters do have interesting qualities.

When we talk about "evil," what are we really discussing? For the purpose of story villains, let's divide "evil" into three categories:
-evil, pure and simple --- conscious, pre-meditated, personified, malignant evil
-menace --- more of an inanimate evil, not conscious, involving the unknown and the primal fears that spring from it
-sophistication/corruption --- influence of the outside world
Today, I want to ruminate on the first, which is easiest to define and probably the most interesting as an author.

Let’s start with a definition. Evil can be supernatural --- the word definitely has that connotation --- but doesn’t need to be. It includes an unnatural desire --- some might say lust --- for any or all of three things: power, possessions, and control over other living things (sometimes, too, evil includes a desire to corrupt and bring others down to the same level as it has corrupted itself). Now, just about all of us want power, possessions and control to a certain degree at some time or another, but villains are really obsessed with them, usually on a massive scale. Why? That's a question people have agonized over for millennia. Trying to simultaneously rationalize and admonish, the Christian church has, through the centuries, presented us with its list of Seven Cardinal Sins (i.e. worst of the worst) as both explanation and warning: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride, which is usually considered the most awful. With due respect to the church, I’m not sure we have to go into all that detail, and I humbly submit that all villains, all sin, spawn as the result of one thing: unrestrained egoism. Or, more simply: I want, and my wants are paramount. To hell with you. (Sometimes literally.)

Now, everyone enters the world as an unrestrained egoist. That’s all a newborn knows (ask any parent!): I want changing… now! I want feeding… now! I want comforting… now! But what happens --- or should happen, because lamentably, not all parents do their job properly --- is as soon as that newborn displays glimmerings of sentience, we spend as long as it takes trying to educate the egoism out of the kid with dictums no egoist wants to hear: you need to wait your turn. You need to play fair. Other people have wants and needs too, darling, and theirs are just as valid. We all have to play nicely with each other and get along. And most damning to the egoist: you’re not always going to get your way or what you want.

Unrestrained egoists --- villains --- never understand or accept this. They bulldoze their way through stories (and life) trampling anyone they feel is in the way of their desires. Again, why? Because that’s what villains/egoists do: I don’t care about you, or what you want. I want this, and I’m getting it. End of discussion. My advice is, don’t spend too much time agonizing over it. Yes, it’s awful. Yes, the world would be a better place if we played nice with everyone. But I think we have to be pragmatic and accept that, unfortunately, such desires have been around a very long time and don’t seem to be waning; on an immediate level, our task is simply to deal with them, anyway. That’s where our stories come in.

One of the really interesting things about evil is the idea of choice. This is basic to the whole discussion, absolutely basic. We all --- heroes and villains and ordinary folk alike --- choose our actions for good or ill (i.e. villains, by and large, choose to be villains). We are --- theoretically, anyway --- rational beings, capable of abstract thought, clearly knowing what we do and the consequences of our actions. If you want to get right down to it, the issue of choice as regards good and evil goes right back in literature to the Original Sin in the Garden of Eden. And still on a Biblical note, John Milton has Lucifer in Paradise Lost making his choice, saying as he is cast into the Pit that it is "better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven." Now that's some choice! (But one made quite deliberately.)

Villains can be of two basic different temperaments --- purely evil, rejoicing, gloating and unrepentant in their awfulness (like Sauron in The Lord of the Rings, although he’s not exactly the most loquacious of characters), or essentially tragic figures who have fallen into evil ways, perhaps through poor choices and cannot bring themselves to return to good (due to pride, etc). LOTR’s Saruman is an example. That being said, my recommendation is to avoid making villains too one-dimensional. Sauron is Sauron, and we don’t necessarily have to know that he was bullied when he was little (just kidding, folks), but I think it helps if we can understand why villains are the way they are, at least to some extent. Plausibly, please. Because after all, even the most saintly among us experience egoist urgings. And we have an insatiable need to understand. Saruman is a perfect example, again. We understand his motivations --- and eventual regret --- much more in the book; while Christopher Lee was a great Saruman, I didn’t like what Peter Jackson did with the character. Film Saruman is far more one-dimensional, and while I know part of that was probably due to time constraints again (Saruman’s corruption of the Shire near book’s end is a hugely regrettable omission in the film), book Saruman is a much more sympathetic character, because Tolkien details why Saruman does what he does.

Strange, isn’t it? We don’t have to like villains --- shouldn’t, or they’re not really villains --- but boy, we sure want to understand them.

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D.R. RANSHAW

It's a... Gryphon?

Look up. Look waaay up.

It Takes a Village...

...But When I'm Bad, I'm Better

D.R. Ranshaw's Blog

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