7 Years In The Making

It was about seven and a half years ago that I started to re-work two of my short stories into a novel. Back then it was a simple stand alone story, but it didn’t take long for one story to turn into a trilogy and then into a pentalogy. It pulled in an old screenplay I wrote back in the early 1990s and a character languishing without a story at all, expanding the world into something that has become so much more than I could ever have envisioned at the start.

Juggling writing and work proved a challenge, taking three years just to finish the first draft, but after eleven drafts, feedback, revisions, rejections and challenges, Dream Weaver is finally released into the wild.

Cover of Dream Weaver Book. Young Girl with magical power holds a light in her hands

An explosion rips the heart out of Little Rock, leaving the city in ruins.

In the aftermath appear the Dream Weavers Vermilion and Argentis, magical creatures who have come to offer comfort amid the chaos. They soon discover the cause of the devastation—Starla, a young girl who has done the impossible and harnessed the power of magic.

Vermilion and Argentis must guide Starla to master the magic before she re-shapes reality and destroys more than just a city, or before darker, malevolent forces claim her power for themselves.

DREAM WEAVER is a dark urban fantasy that will take you on a thrilling journey through the world of magic. With vivid settings and intriguing characters, this first instalment in the Samsara Tula series introduces a world where magic and reality collide.

Paperback and eBook versions are available on Amazon.

The Ranga Model 3C Fountain Pen

It’s been a long time since I really used fountain pens in anger. Once upon a time I used to write a first draft with pen and paper and then type it up to create the second draft, but somewhere in the recent past I stopped writing with pen and ink and started doing everything on a laptop. Recently I’ve realised I spend far too many hours in front of a screen and it is time I started unplugging and spending more time in analogue pursuits.

I’ve long been a fan of fountain pens and they’ve been my preferred writing tool since I was a kid and so I dug out the last remnants of my greatly diminished collection. (There were only three survivors).

It was time to rebuild my collection and soon had a rather large wish-list. While watching review after review, one pen company stuck out more than others and that was an Indian company making hand made pens called Ranga. I’d heard of them before, but never paid much attention to them, until now. They have a large number of models, but the 3C was the one that appealed the most and the moment I saw the red, gold and blue Cracked Ice Acrylic, I knew that was the one for me. The ordering process was simple and not only was there a choice of acrylic, but the choice of clip and nib. Two weeks later it arrived – much quicker than expected.

The pen came boxed, wrapped in newspaper and then placed in a cloth bag and hand stitched, which I thought was a nice touch. Opening the box I was surprised by a cheap Jinhao 599A Lamy Safari clone which was included as a free extra (a very nice touch), along with an eyedropper. I can’t think of another pen company that treats the customer so well?

Of course, the packaging and the free pen are one thing, but if the main attraction is a disappointment then no amount of freebies is worth it. When I slid the pen from it’s plastic sleeve, I was very happy. My expectations were not only met, but exceeded, by a country mile. The resin is stunning with a not-quite-black base and flecks of red, amber gold and sky blue resin. Considering it is a handmade pen, the workmanship really shows. I believe the appropriate term is craftsmanship. The acrylic is well polished and brings out the colours. The top of the cap is a separate piece and you can just about feel the join. The clip is a nice design and has just the right amount of spring; not too stiff and not too light.

The pen has rounded ends, having a torpedo shape and is, what is now considered, a medium sized pen. Compared to something like a Parker Sonnet or Jotter, this is quite a substantial pen, however, it is lightweight and comfortable to write with. The grip is long enough that I can hold it without touching the threads, though the threads aren’t sharp. There is also no step down from the barrel to the section, which I prefer. At the end of the section is a flared end and the fingers sit nicely against it. Again, it’s just a well thought out design that adds to the writing comfort. The barrel and section threads are resin to resin with no metal parts, so the pen can be eye-droppered, and the section threads are already coated in silicon grease if you want to do that. The cap to section threads are also resin to resin, so no worries about the threads wearing out.

The pen comes with a huge choice of nibs and for this I went with a Jowo #6 steel nib in fine point, and being a German made nib it is true to a Western fine. The included Schmidt converter had water droplets in it – a sure sign the pen had been inked to test and tune the nib, which I like to see. Again, it shows a level of care for the final product that they do this and boy does it show when writing. The nib is silky smooth, probably the smoothest writing experience I’ve ever had. Really is a joy to write with, in fact it makes me want to pick it up and write. The nib is also wet, helping the nib glide across the paper. Being fitted with a Jowo nib, the available options are extensive and also makes nib swaps easy, though I probably won’t be touching this nib as it writes perfectly for me.

Gallery

Fountain pen on notepad with writing sample

Dimensions and Specs

Make: Ranga
Model: 3C
Colour: Red, Gold and Blue Cracked Ice (Very similar to Leonardo’s Millefiori resin)
Length with Cap: 150mm
Length without Cap: 138mm
Length Posted: 183mm
Weight (with inked converter): 27gm
Barrel Diameter: 14mm
Section Diameter: 11mm-8mm

Wrapping up

I honestly can’t say enough good things about the Ranga 3C. A beautiful hand-made pen that provides the best writing experience I’ve ever had with a fountain pen. My only complaint is that now I want another one. I suppose there are worse problems to have 😉.

The Necessary Evil

If I’ve learned one thing about myself over the years, it’s that I have a writer’s brain. It’s not quick off the mark and it needs time to think, frame and reframe. Writing is one of my favourite things to do and my favourite part of writing is when the ideas flow and you can’t write fast enough to capture them. I love it when characters become friends that you know and love as you follow them through the twists and turns they go through. I love escaping into a world of my own creation hoping that you will be able to share it with others some day.

There is, however, an aspect of writing I loathe, and that is the seemingly never ending road through the wastelands of the edit. Sometimes it feels good with the odd change here and there. The story feels like it flows from paragraph to paragraph and scene to scene. There are other times when everything is just bad and nothing flows and the situations you created now seem just plain dumb.

I see editing as the necessary evil. The process that sucks the joy out of your soul, but ultimately leaves you with something that is refined that is better to read.

Some edits are worse than others. I’ve just completed the fifth edit of Dream Weaver and it was a long hard slog. Previous changes I’d made were jarring and needed to be surgically removed while others needed completely re-writing. Berating myself for using this word or that word, or repeating passages and themes was a common occurrence.

So yes, a necessary evil, a drudge, a pain, a hard slog through wind and snow, uphill both ways. And yet I can see the progress with each draft. Each time I run through the story, it gains a new dimension – something I hadn’t thought about before. The characters become more fleshed out and more real. The edited story is like a photographic print in the developing fluid – slowly taking its final form and revealing the hidden details.

I’ve always been a fan of Lev Manovich’s treatise on Database as a Symbolic Form in which he discusses the difference between traditional media like books and movies (narrative) versus new media like video games (database). I’ve always thought of editing as the process of refining the database of all the story elements into the final narrative that sits on the page. It’s not exactly what he was getting at, but I like thinking of editing in that way.

Stephen King said, ‘To Write is human, to edit is divine.’

To me it will remain the necessary evil.