On Publishing: The Longed Tales
This post is a follow up to On Writing, Part 1: Spears of Death
There is no hiding from the fact that I was—and still is—greatly influenced by Lord of the Rings. And out of all the characters I loved, Gimli stands as my ultimate favorite character. That sequence of the movie in the caves of Moria, as well as the in the books, to this day, remains the most fascinating of all. I keep returning back to it from time to time.
It was sometime in early 2005, in Dubai, that I began thinking of my next story. Right across from where we lived someone had a permit to build their house at night, not just during the day. The constant banging and pounding of steel and jack hammers didn't stop 24/7 for quite sometime. Through all that noise, with utter frustration, somehow I thought of Roargorth.
He was a blacksmith, and dwarf. I literally imagined him with a mallet, pounding on hot-red iron rings. I thought he had to be taller than most average fictional dwarves. Because that's who Roargorth shall be! But why not consider him a human? I asked. And the answer was: because he's a Mighty Dwarf, and Mighty Dwarves are slightly taller than classical dwarves. Simple.
And so, in tribute to Gimli, my Mighty dwarf, Roargorth, shall have the personality of someone who's hard to please. He will be cursed for life by a witch who'll trap him in a forgery, forcing him to craft an endless chain. As long as he sees the glow of her golden chain, nothing can break the spell.
But since Roargorth is cursed, I didn't want him to be my main character. I needed someone else. So, Grimdin Gor came to life. Another dwarf. He's not a Mighty one, though. After stumbling upon a troubling and mysterious letter written by his missing father, Gor, Grimdin goes on an adventure to locate Roargorth. In this letter, Gor talks about several things, and one of them is how in finding Roargorth, Grimdin might find his father.
And I thought, Good.
But, I can't make Grimdin my protagonist. It didn't feel right. I needed someone else to carry that weight. One who will stumble by Grimdin on his way to finding his father. So, I came up with Steven, who lives in a parallel universe not so different than our modern world. He'll be in his teens, and quite irritated by the 24/7 construction happening next door that won't let him focus on his studies. One way or another, Steven should end up in Grimdin's world. It will be a coming-of-age moment for Steven, and when his story ends, Grimdin's begin in the second book of The Longed Tales. This way, the first book is just an introduction to Grimdin, his world, and his upcoming adventures.
Alright, I thought. I've got this. Now, create other characters and write the bloody thing! I shall call it, The Longed Tales: The Chained King and the Castle of Mystery.
I started writing—this time without pausing to plot everything out, or dwell on a beat sheet, or play video games and whatnot. I also began reading within the genre. I can’t say I finished every book I began, but I finished most of them. I started drafting in late 2005 and finished in 2007. I was no longer working for the bank. I was in our family business, which was selling garments. And selling garments, I came to realize, is darn hard thing to do and not worth the risk.
Anyway, at one point, while pursuing a fruitless business trip in Singapore, I decided to extend my stay there for a few days to finish a sequence in the story that kept nagging on me. I needed total focus and disconnect from the world to do so. I knew if I returned home, I won't get that focus. So, I shut the windows blinds' in my room and started writing, literally winging it and letting spontaneity write this hard sequence (it's the part when Grimdin enters the witch's castle for the first time).
A knock came on my door sometime later. "Housekeeping!" a lady said.
I looked behind the blinds and the sun was already shining. When I began, it was shining, too. Did I just pull an all-nighter? I opened the door, still dazed, as I couldn't believe it was another day. The housekeeper was an elderly woman. She walked in and saw the room. I remember her peaceful eyes smiling at how tidy the room was. The toilet was clean, too, the bedsheets untouched. It's just my desk and some groceries that I nibbled on throughout my writing session.
"Didn't you sleep?" she said.
I shook my head.
"You're like my son, upside-down," she chuckled.
When I returned back to Dubai, I was done with the story.
I had no clue about the publishing process until I got the story line-edited and polished. Then I learned that I must send query letters to those creatures who call themselves literary agents. Then, I learnt about copyrights, royalties, marketing—it felt like stepping a messy landscape.
Dorthia by Cynthia Shepherd 
King Albert by Cynthia Shepherd
Dorthia and King Albert, by Cynthia Shepherd
I must have recieved forty rejections to my query letters before I thought, "who are those people who won't even answer to a query!" I won't let that stop me. I self-published.
It was a dream to work on the cover art with Daniel Craig (the illustrator, not the actor). I published the first edition using Daniel Craig’s cover. I found a printing house in Dubai willing to work with me, registered the story, secured an ISBN, and printed 1,000 copies.
By late 2008, the book was out. An embossed typography on Daniel Craig’s cover art gave it a fitting finish. This is going to be the start to a great adventure.
I sent off giveaway copies to fantasy readers and waited.
First Edition Cover Art by Daniel Craig 
Second Edition Cover Art by Mae Besam 
Third Edition Cover Art by Mark Zug
From left to right, Cover Art of 1st, 2nd, 3rd editions by Daniel Craig, Mae Besom, Mark Zug
About two weeks later, the first review came in. Three more readers weighed in afterwards. I’d managed to sell some copies at the local bookstores in the meantime. For a while, no new orders were coming and the reviews stopped. I didn't know what I did wrong.
I went back to the manuscript and revised it. For my Second Edition cover, I wanted a fairytale touch and worked with Mae Besom. I printed another 1,000 copies and sent out a few for genuine reviews. By the end of that month, new reviews started showing up. Almost everyone agreed that this was a slow burner, yet it dragged, and that I needed to study English again. Someone said that I had good ideas, but maybe I should consider a ghost writer.
I decided to fix all of that. I didn’t have more money, though, to fund another 1,000 copies and commission a premium cover art. I chose to invest in the latter. At the time, I was collecting Magic the Gathering playing cards, and did some research on who was the artist behind specific illustrations. He was Mark Zug. I was ecstatic when Mark accepted to work with me.
I published his cover art for the third edition of The Chained King, and because I couldn't afford to make a 1,000 paper print, I did it as a print-on-demand and an eBook.
Now, I thought this edition will lift things up. While waiting for reviews, I began working on The Longed Tales: Part Two. But then, after a few more reviews rolled in, I stopped checking to see if anyone had anything else to say. A few weeks later, I couldn't write again. I doubted every sentence, every choice of word, my spelling.
I can't tell how long later, but one day, I loaded all the leftover copies of the first and second into my car’s trunk and drove out to the desert. I put a flame in them, but the damn things wouldn’t catch on fire easily and burn fast so that I get on with my life. I had to stand there watching. Part of me felt sorry for the pages as they ruffled between flames and the occasional breeze. I took a few out and drove back home. I put them on my bookshelf where they still are.
Let it be a lesson learned!
I went back to the storage and opened some cardboard boxes I had sealed shut a few years back. My playstation was there, my video games, DVDs, PC. I had locked myself in a capsule, and it was as if a generation of a gaming world went past me unnoticed. The specs of my gaming PC were old, my Playstation dated. I waited several months and made some money, then I bought a new Playstation and a PC—the Ferrari of all gaming PCs. I installed World of Warcraft, and created three characters in that game: Grimdin, Binroiz and Roargorth.
And even then, after reconnecting with the gaming world, I couldn't get over writing, and that's when I decided to start slow and small by writing short stories.
