Musings about Inner Peace and New Worlds

Like every other aspiring writer, I had a story rejected. One of many, as is the case oh so often. This one doesn’t bruise the ego, it was a summer challenge, and it only took the first one to realize it’s more a lottery than a contest. I figured that going in, of course, I decided the practice and exposure were the priorities.

My most recent rejection was the previous entry to this contest, Threading the Needle. Where we talk about an activity that brings peace of mind. Since world-building brings peace of mind, and it was 3 am, I wrote a piece to show my activity at work. And there was the problem, I showed, not told.

I showed the birth of my world, the formation of the solar system, and attempted to explain the origins of a mystic element which powered one form of “magic” in this world. I didn’t intend it for public consumption at first, but it seemed an excellent opportunity to see if a person or three might read it and let me know how much it sucked. I hold no illusions; it is a dry topic. It would also lead into the next story, describing the Old Gods and the creation of life on Myrmadon.

So, let’s talk about how world-building brings me peace of mind. The last paragraph started the answer, it keeps the mind focused and occupied. Writing the story was fun, with interesting visuals of entire planets colliding, dancing through my mind. Of course, drafting the story without some basic knowledge at the least would be just silly, So, Research!!!!

Write what you know. If you don’t know, learn. I already had the gist of it in my mind, but I wanted more details. That led me to documentaries, which I found on Curiosity Stream, Netflix, YouTube, pretty much all of them. I could provide links, but they’ve all become outdated in the last few months. Streaming services toss this stuff to each other constantly.

I also hit up various articles on wiki, space.com, NASA, etc. After spending some hours researching, I wrote it down. It played out visually in my head with clips from those documentaries, and lots of prose to make events that take millions of years more interesting.

During this entire process, the rest of the world was shut out. Escapism being productive. When I was done, I felt a sense of satisfaction. I knew this world, so I hoped future stories talking about it wouldn’t feel like an exposition dump. I had a better sense of how I wanted the next phase to play out.

Would I do this for every story and every world I write? To this extent? No, but as my skills improve and the stories progress, I think the experience will serve me well. Just as writing and submitting this piece for the lottery will serve me well. It’s like writing an entry in my personal journal but making it readable for the public, an unfamiliar experience.

In this fictional world, there are currently three pantheons of Gods, or vastly more powerful beings that can’t be defined so god will have to do. The Old Gods, who essentially created humanity. The New Gods, who were essentially created later BY humanity. And the Dark Gods, who are from another universe.

This leads to another reason world-building brings peace of mind. Engaging in activities I hate doing keeps my mind off the things I really hate, like bills! And I hate hate hate HATE coming up with names, or even picking names. Not just wacky names like you find in Fantasy and Science Fiction, your run-of-the-mill names too. It took far longer than I care to admit, picking the names Lucy and Susan for my other entries. And those are as run of the mill as it gets.

So, I settled on six major Old Gods. Which meant I needed six names. Names that could carry some weight and meaning. Or just plain sound cool. Let me start by sharing those names.

Danazule - God-Queen of the Firmament Above (the power of creation)

Ometaklon - God of Violence (the violence of creation)

Primus the Unknowable - Keeper of the Number (the knowledge of creation)

Prima Celestia - Goddess of the Nebula (the wisdom of creation)

Lauris the Lifegiver - Goddess of Life (the love of creation)

Enma Izanami the Lightblinder - God of Death (the death of creation

Again, coming up with these names took far longer than I care to admit. If I think on it, names will pop into my head, I will reject them, then get stressed, produce more names, more rejections, more stress, ad infinitum.

No no no, I had to teach myself to relax my thoughts, let them drift and see if anything comes up, and usually what bubbles up randomly is far more palatable. I also forwent selecting a particular “theme” for the pantheon, as each entity would be a “theme” unto itself. Each name would attempt to reflect what the god represented.

I went outside, sat down, brought up my music mix from YouTube on my phone, and let it play while my mind tried to produce names. I wasn’t having much luck, and even struggled with whining internally about it, it’s the only thing I whine about. Just, gah! I hate names!!!

Well, I spent a good while going nowhere and picked up my phone to stop the music and take a break. My thumb tapped something, and a clip of Ghostbusters pops up. Why I don’t know, and Sigourney Weaver’s character says in that demonic voice “there is no Dana only Zule” but I wasn’t really listening and only heard “DanaZule”

Ding! That definitely hit a bell! There was my God-Queen. Then I looked at my screen and saw an image of a Jem'hadar from Star Trek DS9 in the selection, and remembered a character from one episode, Ometaklon. I always liked that name, and a Jem'hadar was an appropriate god of violence. I was originally going to go with God of War, but “been there done that,” then I thought God of Rage. That was discarded too, because while creation is violent, there is no rage involved.

I then thought knowledge was ugly, but wisdom could be beautiful. So, Primus came from the Transformers comics, and the Unknowable pulled out of my rear. He is the Keeper of the Number, which no moral can compute, so he is Unknowable. Prima Celestia, Goddess of the Nebula, represents Wisdom and wonder. Nebulas are beautiful and tug at the heartstrings with the sheer wonder of the universe.

In a way, Lauris was both the easiest and the hardest. Goddess of Life, sister to Death. She is beauty. She is Love. The name Lauris is a play on the name of the woman “who got away”. We all have one. The Lifegiver is the name humanity gave her for her gift. It’s symbolic on many personal levels.

Only one more to go! I did a google search for the names of death gods throughout history, to see if I could find inspiration. Scrolling through a list, I saw to Japanese names for the god of death. Enma was one, Inzanami the other. I mulled them over and finally thought they actually just sounded pretty cool mashed together.

Boom! I had my Old Gods. I also had a headache from thinking so much!! No, not really, but my brain WAS tired!! Peace of mind. Oh, I didn’t make my 500 word daily minimum for writing, but I didn’t mind this time.

It’s like that whenever I must come up with a name other than Goon #4. Anyone who sees these names know they all come from me, and that I will think they are all a lot cooler than they actually are, because I agonized over every damned one.

Why build a world? Why not use our own round earth and all the wonders already here to weave a new tapestry? Well, let me first apologize to any flat earthers who were offended by my previous comment, the last thing I would want to do is trigger them and push them over the edge.

And there’s the answer. In this day and age, I can’t get it right, none of us can. Escapism is no longer an option in the current entertainment landscape. I can get it bland, sure. But I like spice, I want people to try that spice. Hopefully, they’ll like it. If they don’t, and many won’t, I still hope they get something positive out of it. Even if it’s only a chuckle.

I am a funny guy; I know this because I laugh at my own jokes. I make those jokes to make ME laugh because I like to laugh. I hope others share the humor and laugh with me. Most do, some don’t. I’ll make jokes I think others might like, for sure, but in the end, I want to laugh.

It’s the same with entertainment today. I want to laugh, and there is no humor. So, I shall make my own, from the ground up. All are welcome, but if you can’t laugh, then learn or go suck the daylight elsewhere. I want to be successful, so I will find an audience to write for, and hope when I laugh, they laugh too.

And cry too, and everything else in between. I have to cry once in a while, to remind myself why I need to laugh. And with writing this, I now have peace of mind, and told you about it.

I now have peace of mind.

Until I go to work in three hours.