I Am Not Dead

Well...I'm not.

It sounds a little harsh, but the truth is that when you don't post a blog on a particular forum that you have been known to post on previously, people assume the worst. Let me assure you, I am not dead. Instead, life has just...moved on.

Blogger never really got me the audience I was looking for, and only until recently, when I decided to hook up my GoodReads account to my Patreon account did I realize I still had a Blogger account. Heh. When I posted my last blog entry (more than 15 months ago) I was still re-editing my 1st book, still living in Illinois, USA and fresh off a job as a graphic designer, looking for new projects.

Now I live in Switzerland as a full-time UX and Graphic Design consultant, wrapping up a reworking of my first book, now complete with illustrations, a new cover, a terminology list and secret code and promoting this all on Patreon, the platform where I consolidate all of my global health, social issues and prejudice reduction efforts combine under the umbrella initiative Arcubal Design. Yes, Ælemental, the YA series is now officially rolled up into my focus on helping communities become healthier, physically, mentally and emotionally.

But that is beside the point for now. All you need to know, for the moment, is that life takes weird turns and it has moved me into different, but always interesting, territories. Ælemental Journey - Book 1: Wood - The Life Tree Discovery will be released in paperback this October and if you want sneak previews of behind the scenes conceptual work, illustrations and excerpts of Book 2: Earth, follow me on my Facebook Page, Twitter or support me on Patreon.

Shift+Blame -> Not OK

A very short entry this time as I want to spend every minute trying to get a hard copy version of Ӕlemental Journey: The Life Tree Discovery in bookstores this summer.

One thing occurred to be the other day as I was editing the many punctuation errors in my book. It was a flaw in the big picture of my environmental YA fantasy: ownership of blame. I don't feel blame serves any other purpose then being a learning moment. Yet, I realized that most of the causes behind environmental disasters happening in my book could be subscribed to 'evil' Ӕlementals (the fantastical species who live outside of humanity). That is wrong, because I firmly believe in the responsibility of humanity in taking care and neglecting our environment. And if that's the message of my series (especially to Earth's next generation of caretakers) then I should build upon our role, rather than say it was some fantasy creature's fault.

I am now rewriting various parts to bring home the message that bad things happen to humans when they fail to take care of their environment...

...and that Ӕlementals only intensify and extend our care or abuse to their own agenda's. Hopefully, this will make my readers more empowered in their 'ownership' of Earth as it makes my story a better mirror for them.

What Does Young Adult Fiction Mean in 2016?

 Is young adult fiction a forest cut down of all of it's riches? Have writers mined every idea in each genre? Are audiences saturated with all the romantically undead characters, magical plots and dystopian worlds one can possibly envision? Has Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey been taken so many times it has become the treadmill of entertainment?

Ever since the reinvention of young adult fiction with J.K.Rowling's Harry Potter the literary landscape that is enjoyed by children and adults alike has been plundered for every idea under the sun. From magical child heroes, through legions of Abercrombie & Fitch vampires and werewolves to the far reaches of dystopian futures and back again to play the strings of the heart, stories that tap into the metaphors of our time and what it means to be a single voice in a ever-shrinking, and increasingly crowded global village are now like so much white noise.

Sure, there are always the random gems among the thousands of copycats, which truly entice readers to restore their faith in innovative storytelling once more, but they are few and far in between. Even the sudden appearance of a movie quartet (based on a book trilogy) or a TV show no longer holds the same guarantee that the original material was anything but a slight variation on themes formerly explored.

So, what does it take to become noticed as an author? Do we strive for gimmicks, a catch on familiar concepts no one has properly explored yet? Or perhaps, we view familiar worlds and plots through an R-rated lens or a filter woven in equal parts of sarcasm and cliche-aware humor? Can we rope in a celebrity to co-author our novel or at least praise it as 'the next [fill in the most recent story success]?'

I have no answers.

The belief that one should not try and write towards the next big thing or what audiences might want to read still rings true to me, although the temptation is always there to jump on the trend bandwagon. I enjoy writing, not just because I like storytelling but also because it reveals a lot about who I am as a person. No matter what genre you write, autobiographical elements always sneak into the story. However, I love plotting even more. Currently I have ideas for two dozen stories, all of them flirting with-what I think are-original and interesting elements of storytelling. I love mixing up symbology and metaphors into my plots. I like to lay with my characters in ways I wished other writers did. Above all, I don't want to play it safe.

But what are your ideas? Where should young adult fiction focus on next? Is there room for the wild and imaginative? Or instead of spreading our wings wide and exploring new concepts, should we delve deeper into characters and ignore the world dressing?

Where is YA fiction going next?

Plot versus Character... versus World

One of the reasons that got me to start writing fiction was my dissatisfaction with the way that magic in Harry Potter was never properly described or explained. The promise of it being dissected into fine details of exotic ingredients, carefully balanced measures and dramatic incantations and movements was there with the premise of a school of wizards and witches. Alas it was not to be. Harry Potter was still an excellent story, smartly written with plenty going for it and managed to still do quite well for itself at the end of the day. It also motivated me to create my own fantasy, one where details were just as important as the events in which they took place and the people responsible for them.

In essence I love world building.

Jeff Gerke, author of "Plot versus Character" claims early on that: '[people who tell him that they are setting-first novelists] are 1) really thinking of plot ideas triggered by a location or 2) really thinking of the setting as a character. Which means they're still in [his] two groups.' I find a certain fault to this reasoning.

One could argue that any good story, whether it be a book, movie, play or other form relies on a balance of certain elements to be deemed 'good' in the first place. There is a natural gut-feeling if you will that every audience has when witnessing a story that feels unbalanced. And in order to put labels to these feelings, one only has to look at the common elements all stories share. Characters are certainly one of those core elements. Plot or events is definitely another one. The first is a subject who is shaped by or shapes the second in order to create movement. It's like going from one dimension to two dimensions. One dimension is a dot. Nothing happens. But when the dot moves, it forms a line. Two dimensions.

But to say that every story only has two dimensions or two elements that shape it is simply too simplistic.

And when you look at very popular stories, one could argue that neither characters or plot drives the story forward. Star Wars and Lord of the Rings certainly follow that reasoning. But what do both sagas have in common? Mythology or world. The setting in which characters are plotted. The third dimension in which a dot not only creates a line, but does so with direction (up, down, sideways and all around).

Now what about Jeff? According to him 1) a location creates plot (which indicates that there is still an element responsible for establishing the plot element) or 2) a location is really just another character. If the latter is the case than what about the truest quality of a character, the measure by which we judge a story to be a great character piece or not: character development? A location cannot evolve. Not by its own volition. It's not a sentient being and decisions and motivations are beyond it's realm of capabilities.

My theory is that every story rests on three pillars: Character, Plot and World. With all of its exotic locales, both Star Wars and Lord of the Rings are World dominant. Twilight is Character dominant. Indiana Jones and James Bond? Plot dominant. And Harry Potter? There's a little magic of all three, but as great as it was what I felt was missing was not that the characters barely grew over the course of seven years, or that the main events of every book basically boiled down to a who-dunnit, while gradually working towards a Voldemort climax. No it was the element I value most: there was a lot of promise, but too little delivery on the World element. Like Philip Pullman's excellent 'His Dark Materials' or the late Robert Jordan's engaging 'Wheel of Time' in the end the loose strings of mythology, of what could have been, were never resolved in a satisfying way.

As a little sidestep into wishful thinking: I like to think that Harry Dresden of the namesake series delivers on the promise of: what if Harry Potter grew up, fully developed into a richer tapestry of events and settings?

I may not be anywhere as good as a storyteller as any one of the fine creators of the works mentioned above, but I do like to think that I have a keen eye for the mechanics of what makes a story tick, and the World element is one of them. When a story is told well, characters will grow in ways you can't predict, buffeted by events both surprising and insightful in a world, lush with colorful history and settings of contrast. This is my aim for my Aelemental Journey series and the passionate engine behind my writing. And if that all fails, well, perhaps I can bring out a book not unlike Jeff Gerke's about Plot versus Character versus World.

Summers Are For Fun, Falls Are For Writing

Just a quick update to say we have moved into our new home in the land of Lincoln, unpacked my typewriter and East-Indian ink and burnt the midnight oil for my work (don't give up your dayjob!) I am ready to run the final sprint to the finish flag that is the book publishing of the Life Tree Discovery. The trailer edition has been floating around too long on Amazon and for those few, who have wondered if the final, official version would ever reach the digital and physical bookshelves I say this: nothing is going to stop me now.

Simon, Sally, Alix, Maya, Karl and of course Sesame the monkey will be released upon you once again.

M.R.Claxton,
Author of The Aelemental Journey.

From South to North

The road of a traveler and explorer never ends. 

As it was, so it shall continue to be. Home from a journey south into Hemingway land (or coral island in this case) we are again packing up to move north. And this time it's permanent. For two and a half years now my wife, son and I have made our home in the warm embrace of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, walking its forests and enjoying the long summers with sweet tea. It was a good life. For the first time in a decade we could call the Americas home again. It was a much needed return, for friendships and family left behind in the pursuit of adventures overseas were fading and the heart grows lonely after a while.

Yet even the beautiful forests and rolling hills of the Triangle would not suffice in the end. Three states of separation can still be a challenge to some and so with our eyes set on the horizon and our writing materials packed in boxes, we once again are about to resettle. We will not cross oceans deep or mountains high this time, and should be comfortable in our new home by mid-August, but my final editing efforts will (once again) take a hit.

The trailer version of Aelemental Journey: The Life Tree Discovery remains for sale on Amazon while I fold my editors' comments into the official edition and finish the last of the illustrations. Follow the work on Twitter and Facebook for updates on these and in the meantime, enjoy the warm embrace of summer (and that sweet tea if you're lucky enough to be served one) and we'll catch up towards the end of it.

From Trailer to Official Edition

As the Florida sun battles the overhead fan for dominance of my outer condition, little does it do to soothe the fever that is raging within me, courtesy of my Muses.

Courage is grace under pressure.

I am currently in Key West, trying to make sense of the tasks ahead of me. The trailer version of The Life Tree Discovery is currently available on Amazon Kindle, while I am looking at the changes my three editors sent back to me. And then there's the illustrations that need wrapping up. I brought all the work with me and by the ghost of Ernest Hemingway I am going to get it done before I travel back home.

Never mistake motion for action.

The trailer version was never meant to be the definitive version of my young adult eco-fantasy. In order to beat my drive for perfection with a healthy dose of "ship-it-when-it's-good-enough" I figured it's good to have something out there, while I work on the final touches. The pressure of knowing that people are buying a raw version of my story is enough to get me back in the seat to polish it, without overdoing it.

We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master

Armed now with three documents I am integrating grammar, spelling and style corrections. So in the old fashioned style of doubling down and shutting oneself off from the world, my Twitter and Facebook updates have come to a temporary standstill as I concentrate on putting the final touches on words and art. Then, a new and official edition will replace the current trailer edition on Amazon, while I contract the hard copies out to a print-by-demand publisher (or perhaps a traditional one?)

For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.

Thanks to my Muses Maureen, Steve and Sandra for all their hard work, but especially my biggest fan and first target reader of the Ælemental Journey series, my son Alex. After nights of reading to him in bed he turned out to be the best test audience one could wish for. Engaged in both the story itself and how it was told, he may be the one critic to rule them all.

Thanks monkey.