{"id":5077,"date":"2016-05-18T14:28:29","date_gmt":"2016-05-18T19:28:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/?p=5077"},"modified":"2016-05-18T14:28:29","modified_gmt":"2016-05-18T19:28:29","slug":"on-motives-to-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/general\/on-motives-to-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"on Motives to Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why do we do the things we do? Motivation to the apparently inexplicable is a theme throughout Malmaxa. Few things are ever done “for no reason”, but to comprehend the reasons for apparently inexplicable acts we need to understand the person who commits them. In Beltamar’s War<\/a> there are no characters, only people who sometimes don’t even understand themselves, yet long to be understood. But this post isn’t about Beltamar’s War,<\/em> it is about my motivations for writing.<\/p>\n

This post originally appeared on a blog named “The Story Behind the Book”. A couple of days ago pure chance, if you believe pure chance exists, brought me back to it and since such blogs have a way of vanishing overnight I’m re-posting it here. Like many writers, thought of my hardwrought words being lost distresses me. Anyway, here is the post \u2013 intact save the opening paragraph.\u00a0 I hope it tells you a little about my motives for writing the things I do, the way I do, when I do.<\/p>\n

The Story Behind the Book<\/a>…<\/h2>\n

At age six, I lost my father to a heart attack caused by a surgical blunder.\u00a0 With seven children to care for, circumstances forced my mother to enter the workplace as a self-taught bookkeeper.\u00a0 Though she has never expressed it, I can only imagine how desperate she must have been, and how difficult those times truly were.\u00a0 We had a home, food, hand-me-down clothes, and all the love any child could ever need.\u00a0 For our birthdays and Christmas, we\u2019d receive the necessities \u2013 to this day, the Christmas gifts I treasure most are new socks, and plain cotton handkerchiefs.\u00a0 In other words, we were destitute, yet didn\u2019t know.\u00a0 Though I was the fourth child of seven, I never doubted that I was my mother\u2019s favorite middle child.\u00a0 Each of us held a unique variation of the coveted title, \u201cfavorite\u201d, and none of us begrudged the others theirs.\u00a0 Hearts are strange things, their capacity for love is limitless, yet every iteration of love is unique.<\/p>\n

Shortly after my father\u2019s death, my Godfather assumed the role of father figure, for me.\u00a0 He was a bachelor, never married, and recently forced into early retirement for his political beliefs.\u00a0 He lived in a tiny, one roomed cottage a few miles from our house, and he read a great deal.\u00a0 His love let me escape to the companionable solitude of afternoons spent reading, or talking about all kinds of things.\u00a0 While he never directly mentioned his political views, which I later learnt were of social justice, he always held true to them.\u00a0 Although my Godfather had excellent vision, he was the first truly blind person I met \u2013 in a time of widespread discrimination, he never considered people in terms of race, gender, creed, or social status.\u00a0 To him, there were only individuals, their worth determined by nothing save their character.\u00a0 Where you and I look at someone, and see their physical characteristics, I know my Godfather looked at people, and saw their soul. \u00a0Circumstances shape character \u2013 in that crucible, a hard life results in the finest clay.\u00a0 I recall an incident when someone stole the radio out of his car.\u00a0 Outraged anyone could do such a shameful thing to such a decent person, I expounded on how harsher penalties were needed \u2013 this was the prevailing thought of the time (it seems to have remained prevalent).\u00a0 My Godfather astonished me by shrugging off the incident, and asking this question, \u201cWho is the guiltier person \u2013 the one stealing the radio, or the one who buys the stolen radio?\u201d\u00a0 I was about eight at the time, but I grasped his meaning.\u00a0 He never replaced the radio, and we never missed it, using its silence as an opportunity to talk instead.<\/p>\n

When I was around seventeen years old, my Godfather left Rhodesia and moved to southern Spain.\u00a0 This was during the height of the counter-insurgency war wracking that wonderful country.\u00a0 I think only the most unfortunate are capable of seeing their youth as they truly were.\u00a0 I don\u2019t count myself among those deprived of a splendid childhood, so to me Rhodesia was a wonderful place of liberty and dignity for all.\u00a0 In the decade I spent with him, my Godfather took me all over the country \u2013 we visited its wonders, and met many of its gentle people.\u00a0 After he left, I completed my matriculation and volunteered for National Service nearly a year ahead of my scheduled conscription.\u00a0 I firmly believing doing so was service to my country, and I held a great fear it would fall to the communist backed insurgents if I waited.\u00a0 Looking back, I feel great remorse \u2013 not for serving my country but for the actions of my distant forefathers.\u00a0 Europeans corrupted an honorable, ancient culture.\u00a0 Centuries past, they took their beliefs and imposed them on a spiritual, primitive people who had been entirely self-sufficient.\u00a0 Western values have little place in Africa.\u00a0 Is the right of conquest a right, or an immoral imposition?\u00a0 Yet that happened long before my birth, should I feel shame for the actions of my ancestors\u2019 ancestors?\u00a0 Although my heritage is European, I\u2019m fifth generation African, my soul is of the Dark Continent.\u00a0 This understanding is now a cornerstone of my philosophy \u2013 simply because someone holds different beliefs to you, does not make them wrong, it simply makes them different.\u00a0 Without diversity, is doom.<\/p>\n

By now, I\u2019m sure you\u2019re wondering what any of this has to do with my series, Malmaxa.\u00a0 The answer is a significant amount.\u00a0 I\u2019ve lived through hard times, held prosperity in my grasp, and seen hard times return.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been a combatant in an insurgency war, witnessed terrible deeds, and done shameful things.\u00a0 I\u2019ve remained silent, when I should have raised vocal objections.\u00a0 I\u2019ve lost a brother to cold-blooded murder, and lived to see the day of his killer\u2019s execution, though not the execution itself.\u00a0 Each of these things, and countless others, most better but some far worse, have shaped me into whom I will become.\u00a0 Of them all, I count the influence of my Godfather and mother highest.\u00a0 They revealed a better world than that in which we dwell.\u00a0 A world where character counts for more than dogma, material wealth, or inherited acclaim.<\/p>\n

Beltamar\u2019s War<\/a> introduces my literal world \u2013 a place stripped bare of most all that makes people behave as poorly as we do. \u00a0Malmaxa, is my metaphor of a world where character counts.\u00a0 Is it a perfect place, inhabited by imperfect people, or a world where insidious evil enslaves the innocent?\u00a0 It might be both of these \u2013 venture in, and find out.<\/p>\n

Join me in on my continuing journey through Malmaxa, where every deed or misdeed modifies perception, and perception is the ever-changing clay used to mold character.\u00a0 If you\u2019d prefer to travel alongside me in this world, follow me on Twitter, where you can find me as @CGAyling<\/a><\/p>\n

{P.S. If you’ve read this far I think you’ll understand why I chose to use my Godfather’s name<\/a> as my pseudonym. Sometimes motives are hard to comprehend, but sometimes they’re the simplest things in the world…}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why do we do the things we do? Motivation to the apparently inexplicable is a theme throughout Malmaxa. Few things are ever done “for no reason”, but to comprehend the reasons for apparently inexplicable acts we need to understand the person who commits them. In Beltamar’s War there are no characters, only people who sometimes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[44,69,244],"class_list":["post-5077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-beltamars-war","tag-c-g-ayling","tag-malmaxa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5077\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cgayling.com\/malmaxa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}