State of the Realm 2011, Part One

Welcome to a special series. I call it "State of the Realm". Over the next couple weeks I will share my SoTR report, a reflection over my actions and accomplishments in working with my Book of the Shadows series.

I began to formally write my reflections back towards the close of 2011. I had done a little bit of notation in 2009 and 2010, but 2011 was the first time I put it all down in one concise document. I parse through a number of details about the writing experience of the year before. I have targeted this exercise for the end of the year, quite obviously borrowing from the State of the Union address.

Over the next three days I will share my first SoTR report from 2011, which ended up being quite lengthy back then (which is why I had to cut it in three like this). Tuesday and Wednesday of next week I will share my 2012 report. That will leave the end of next week for the new 2013 report. So, without further ado, SoTR 2011.

Good year. Welcome to the State of the Realm for the year 2011. I’m glad you can join me this year. I hope it has treated you well and that you have been in good spirits, if not health and wealth.

It has been another good year for the Realm. At the end of the last State of the Realm address, I stated that I was working hard to finish Book IV. Unfortunately it looks like I will have to keep stating that, because I still haven’t finished it. Although I am much closer at this point, I still haven’t found the way I want to tell the last few chapters of that book. Nevertheless, I have full faith it will be completed sometime early in 2012.

Better news however is that I did finish Book VI. This was a surprise for me, particularly since I was able to finish it within the first four months of the year when in fact I don’t think I spent any significant time on it in the last six months of last year. To put what that means into perspective, in four months I finished six chapters, roughly half of the book. This is the kind of pace that was more common in the beginning of writing the Book of the Shadows, back when I was finishing about a book a year. It is also the first book I’ve finished in almost three years; two years and eight months to be exact. Thus, I am quite happy that I was able to do so. On a particularly happy point about it, that also means I am that much closer to reaching the real heart of the First Moon Saga.

With Book VI completed I immediately got to work writing Book VII. Book VII will be the conclusion of both the Anzu Soul Fragment Arc, as well as the Animus Blade Arc. It will be in this book that Sephiroth is ultimately killed. I would like to take a run of optimism and put a timestamp on when this book should be finished, but I already foresee some problems. That is, there are a couple chapters in this book that deal with the Shadow Duel tournament Runa had organized. I planned this part of the story nearly four years ago, so I already know who is facing who, and who will ultimately win. The problem is, four years ago I was much more in tune with the entire Yu-Gi-Oh franchise at that level. I kept much more up to date with the new cards that came out and changes to the rules and so forth. More importantly I had people to duel against, and/or recent games to try out strategies in. Neither has been the case for the last few years, thus my skills in dueling have rusted considerably. What that means is that I will probably have some trouble scripting duels the way I normally did, which was to play out at least a part of them. It shouldn’t be terribly difficult since the knowledge of cards I have now should suffice for the cards they would be using in my story anyway, but it will likely take some time.

Looking to the future a little bit, I would like to remind what is coming up, which is in part the reason moving forward through Book VII is so important. Book VIII will be the introduction of the Arenzai and Abh families. They predate the Rosencraft family, but very few recall them at this point. Book VIII will cover everything about them, from who they were, what they did, how they’ve survived, and so on. Book IX will follow with the beginning of the Tennyo Arc. The Tennyo Arc is another big one.

In the Tennyo Arc we will find out the reason behind the Commander of Spirit World, Dominic’s, actions in trying to interfere with the Rosencraft as he has been. We will also meet the being known as Tennyo, who will be the most serious threat the Rosencraft have ever faced. I’m expecting this Arc will spill over into Book X, in which the conflict with Tennyo will reach its climax and Tennyo will ultimately be defeated. In Book X, though possibly Book IX near the end, Dominic will also be destroyed. That will then spill into the Returning Tea Arc. Returning Tea will be the final Arc of the first part of the First Moon Saga. I won’t explain everything about what happens to Tea, but she and Yugi will go on a journey together in order to save Tea from having to be killed. At the end of the arc, there will be a wedding ceremony and the introduction of the new Commander of Spirit World, as well as the set up for Advancing Shadows.

So, as you can see, the first part of the First Moon Saga is winding down. I don’t think there will be need to go past Book XI, and I’m hoping to finish up with only Book X. The Abh/Arenzai mini saga is quite brief. I don’t expect it to take much more than half a book to tell. If that pans out, then all subsequent arcs would bump up a little bit and that’s how you get to ten books instead of eleven.

In looking at the bigger picture of the story, there has been a little movement there as well. When I initially began the Book of the Shadows, I looked to reconcile characters such as Wicked Lady, Runa Date, and concepts of “dark power” with concepts of good and right. I cast the heroes of my story under the daunting auspice of a very ominous backdrop, enveloped them in a cloud of darkness and evil, and said, “don’t worry about it, they’re just not evil”. While admittedly very far from perfect, the idea was originally to be very Lovecraftian. But, as you can probably plainly tell, I drifted very, very far from that idea right from the early going. Well, I’ve decided that I will try to get back onto that Lovecraft train a bit, though the train will go a slightly different route.

The Lovecraft influence in my story can be seen very early, aside from the stuff I mentioned a moment ago about evil good guys. Lovecraft’s Necronomicon is what I’m referring to. Similar to Lovecraft’s Necronomicon, I drew the idea of the Book of the Shadows from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. I then mixed in more of the Necronomicon ideas and that whole idea of it being a book that’s been lost to history, but being home to a number of rare and powerful spells so that it’s more of a spell book than a historical record. In Book V when Yugi comes across that unreadable book, which Michelle notes she has a similar but fake copy, this is a very direct allusion to the Lovecraft’s own stories depict the way copies were made of the Necronomicon, as well as the real-life way books claiming to be the Necronomicon were produced.