Afterthoughts: Our Broken World

At long last, Our Broken World is out! It has been a long time coming for me but I am happy, I have spent so much time with John and Godwin that they feel like old friends now.

I poured a lot of myself into this story, I relate to John’s struggle and dread more than I would dare to admit here. The brotherhood of struggle is among many of the accidental subversions I made when writing Our Broken World. There will be no spoilers here, but during the course of my writing, I discovered another genre of fantasy I accidentally involved myself in. After exposing myself to some books within the genre, I can confidently say that Our Broken World should stand out against the slop.

I never set out to subvert a genre, I most certainly didn’t know about this particular genre when I set out to write a tale of a depressed knight and his friend fighting against the world. Our Broken World is an excellent showcase of my Nobledark philosophy, the darkness overwhelming the protagonists who struggle and suffer, but never give up hope entirely. John does struggle, the same with Godwin, they do slip into despair, but they push themselves forward, they fight every step of the way towards what could be their salvation.

When there is no hope, there is nothing worth fighting for, we will all just spiral into destruction and I can’t allow that. I dived deep into my feelings regarding religion and faith, my struggles with my lack of faith and desire to understand my own spiritual self. I am not done with this subject, it’s a twisted and confusing labyrinth of conflicted emotions, knowledge and life experience. There might never be a solution, but I want to try and find one. I will make no secret of the fact that Dark Souls and other entries in the Soulsborne genre inspired this book, including the religious themes included within Fromsoft’s work.

These themes resonated with me and I wanted to put my spin on them. John and Godwin both inherent fragments of me, they are parts of myself fleshed out into entirely different characters. The hope and despair, both fighting to stay burning during such times of strife and fear. They compliment each other, they can’t survive without the other. They save each other. I won’t lie and say that I wasn’t influenced by the fracturing reality our social media has perpetrated. While this is presented very literally in Our Broken World, I am interested in exploring this in a more realistic sense through my dystopian novel: ThoughtBubble.

Yes America falls, and no, there is no Canada to save you this time.

Anyway, I do fear the collapse of reality, and that fuels my motivation to continue writing, sometimes just out of pure spite for those willfully engaging in its collapse. I would like to thank the countless beta readers for invaluable feedback in the drafting process, I would like to thank Simone for her great job at making Our Broken World into a readable text. I want to thank my cover artist Ella Ahlers for her beautiful cover. I want to thank Conrad Altman for his wonderful fonts and texts.

I want to thank Jon, T.B. Thelwell, and Sarah for their invaluable feedback before the final edit took place. I hope you all enjoy Our Broken World, it’s been quite the journey but we have made it.

So, what’s next for me? Well, Crimson Dolphin has been processing steadily, with most of the stories approaching the editing stage. The only one that is the concept stage still is Berlin: A Farewell to Humanity Prologue. The Thing in the Costume is in the first draft and is enjoying the beta reading experience.

I have been working on Memories in the Haze, The Pocked Forest and Jewel of Broken Hearts. One and two are in most need of work, but I shall also be working on the planning document of A Farewell to Humanity: The fifth story in Eight Nightmares!

It’s going to be difficult, what with my writing, real estate and my BA in English. But I will find a way. There is always a way out. Let’s go and keep on reading great fiction!