There's a large landscape full of mountains and geyser fields as far as the naked eye can see. This place is called Geige. On a mountaintop that snows all year is a village called Munsinniss. A mile past the outskirts of the village and on the side of a cliff is the entrance to the mine; the one where each of these villagers works for the third decade of his or her life.(Oh yeah, and did I mention that the villagers are dwarves? Hmm. Must have missed that little detail)
BLADE RUST follows through the eyes of Arisad, a thirty-year-old [young by dwarf standards] graduate who has yet to grow his beard past stubble and whiskers the color of rust.
Now that his three decades are over, he can now choose to stay in the mines or leave and be assigned to a teacher. Though he is interested in the mines, he wants to be as far away from his physically abusive boss as possible. So he signs out of the mines, but because of his being a 'red dwarf', the leaders are prejudiced and do not assign him. Displeased, Arisad's defiant and [blonde-bearded] brave older brother Norice takes him as his apprentice, training him to be a warrior like him. Soon the two find themselves on the run from the law during which time Munsinniss seems to crumble.
It's kind of strange how the idea for this story came to mind. For one thing, I was watching the third STAR WARS prequel on the way to visit relatives in New York when I thought of it. [I know. Random, right?] Anyway, there was a book series I had previously been writing for a year and a half based on stuff from A Practical Guide to Dragon Magic, but thinking practically I thought, "I really don't think there's a future for it unless I get permission from that author." And as you might guess, there's probably less than a snowball's chance in hell of that happening.
But the thing is, the world it took place in was 100% my design. I'd made tactical and color-coded maps, the whole nine yards. Why waste it? So the idea was to create a sequel that has little to no references of the other books, and could act as if those events never occurred. So really, it can coexist but it doesn't have to for any reason.
I thought of dwarves and then did some digging. "Where do dwarves start out?" I asked myself. "They had to have been young once, to have grown their massive beards and turn old." Other questions I asked myself were things like "Why do they dig in mines all the time?" and "if dwarves dig/mine all the time, does that necessarily mean it works out for the better often?" Arisad, for example, loses his interest in working these particular mines near home because of his new boss who comes around a few years into his work period. The young dwarf gets kicked, hit and a bunch of other things as the others do [but more to him because he is a red dwarf and some don't trust the remaining few anymore].
The book has reached 250 pages and is being edited and proofread at various times. I hope at this point it will be easier to write the second and third books since I have the overall plot of book 2 mostly figured out. 'Cause now I have to figure out what happens between page 26 of COAL DUST and the stuff I already planned, and sort of link them together. Yes, I have gotten writers block on several occasions, and I still do a lot which really pisses me off.
Sometimes it lasts for days, but it doesn't stop me because so far I'm proud of this supposed masterpiece that started last July. There's brotherhood, loyalty, fear, courage, hardships, and the question that's puzzled people for generations- "What am I supposed to do?"
