The Forest Bleeds

Hey there,

Yesterdays writing went pretty well. I managed to finish chapter 22 in which Alix and Sesame find their way through Peru to a magical portal that brings him into the Amazon rain forest. Simon and Maya have also found their way into the Amazon rain forest, although under more dire circumstances. Simon has been shot by the bad guys and Maya is without her magic. She'll need to nurse him back to health using the plants and herbs she can find. All four characters will meet up in order to seek out the magical city with the ancient groves of Brazil. But the rain forest and the city are under threat. Loggers using slash and burn techniques are decimating the rain forest, effectively bringing down the defenses of the magical city in the process.

They are a hard few chapters to write, if only because there's a thin line between the magical  fantasy aspect of the story and the serious moral aspect of the story. Not only is Simon shot (how many young teens come into contact with something as adult as that), but there is no magical escape clause. Basically it deals with the very serious consequences of being seriously wounded and what it entails. Maya, who is with him and comes originally from the rain forest, knows herbalism, but has difficulty finding the right ingredients because of course of the deforestation issue. And that brings us to the second serious real-life aspect of this part of the book.

What are the consequences of deforestation? I always wanted to examine this aspect of human greed and the cost towards plant and animal life, eradication of species, greenhouse effects and ultimate impact on planet Earth. I'm going to try and weave these aspects into the magical parts of the story to enhance the immediate threat to all involved, but it promises to be a hard balancing act. If I clog the narrative with real world facts then I run the risk of being preachy, yet if I play it too lightly I might as well not breach the topic at all. I want to leave the reader with a correlation between deforestation and excessive greed and that it ultimately leads to ones own destruction (or in this case the main bad guy).

So these are the two main difficult realities I'm going to have to incorporate into what otherwise would be a piece regular (if quite epic in its scope) young adult fantasy fiction. I hope by juggling the two worlds of pure magical fiction and real world topics I can offer something new to the reader's market. But first I've got to write it...