In Freeing My Story, I Freed My Life

I never intended for The MoonQuest to be such a powerful metaphor both for my creative journey and for creative blocks and the creative process. But that's what it turned out to be...through my act of surrender to the story that wanted to be told through me.

In the book excerpt I share on this video, the main character is visited by a Muse-like being who insists he tell his story.

Na’an says it is my story. Perhaps she is right. Is that why the words come so reluctantly? So many seasons of storytelling and still I hesitate. Of all the stories to stick in my throat, how ironic that it should be The MoonQuest, a tale of the freeing of story itself...

• Look for The MoonQuest and its two Q'ntana Trilogy sequels (The StarQuest and The SunQuest) 

• For more about the personal and creative journey that led to The MoonQuest, pick up Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir.

All my books are available in paperback or ebook from your favorite online bookseller or signed by my to you from my website.

Why Are Americans Afraid of Dragons?

It's December 2008 and I'm in the video section of Target, Christmas shopping for my daughter. As I'm browsing through the movie racks, I overhear an older and younger woman discussing which DVD to buy a child on their list.

"What about Eragon?" the younger woman asks. "I hear it's good."

"Does it have magic in it? I don't want a movie with magic," the older one – her mother? – responds sternly.

They move out of earshot and I'm too stunned to follow.

Are we truly living in some version of The MoonQuest's mythical setting? This land where vision is outlawed and visionaries put to death, where myth and magic are forbidden, where "once upon a time" is a forbidden phrase, and where fact is the only legal tender was a creation of my imagination... Or was it?

What kind of culture have we created where children are denied magic, where fantasy is suspect and where dragons are relegated to dustbins?

More than 30 years ago in an essay, author Ursula K. Le Guin asked, "Why are Americans afraid of dragons?" She concluded that most technological cultures dismiss works of the imagination because they lack measurable utility, an outlook only exacerbated in this country by our Puritan heritage.

If 30 years ago dragons were not fit for adults, are they now unfit for children, too?

While the Harry Potter books and movies broadened the reach of imaginative fiction for kids (and adults), it also expanded our hysterical suspicion and suppression of it.

The fact is, imaginative fiction opens our hearts, expands our spirit and broadens our minds in ways that nonfiction never can, and that magical/fantastical fiction can carry more truth in its castles, dragons and trolls than many pieces of so-called literature.

That's why I called the original, pre-Q'ntana Trilogy edition of The MoonQuest a "true fantasy." There is nothing factual about it. But as those two women in Target have proven, it's decidedly true.

Look for The MoonQuest and its StarQuest and SunQuest sequels in paperback or ebook from your favorite online bookseller or signed by me to you from my website. 

The Q'ntana Trilogy: Soon to be a Trio of Epic Motion Pictures!

All That Matters Is That I'm Writing

There's a scene in the film Becoming Jane where a fictionalized Jane Austen is considering eloping, a scandalous action at that time, with irredeemable repercussions for a woman's reputation and her ability to function in "decent" society.

"If you do this thing, how will you write?" her sister asks.

Jane shrugs and continues her preparations.

Even though the reasons Jane ultimately changes her mind have nothing to with her writing, the scene touched a nerve for me. Would the Jane Austen of Becoming Jane ever have fulfilled her destiny had she been forced to live the pariah life she nearly chose? Would those six gems of English literature ever have been written?

Later in the film, when Jane turns down a marriage proposal from a wealthy man she does not love, she is asked how she will support herself. "Through my pen," she replies, an outrageously radical notion for a woman of her times.

There's a third scene, earlier in Becoming Jane, where Jane rudely dashes off mid-conversation to jot something down in her notebook.

"What is she doing?" Maggie Smith as the imperious Lady Gresham asks.

"Writing," her nephew replies.

"Can anything be done about it?" Lady Gresham retorts.

Nothing. Not for Jane. And, apparently, not for me.

Those three scenes reminded me of a scene of my own, from my novel The StarQuest (The Q'ntana Trilogy, Book II). In it, the main character must pass through The Coil, a serpentine tunnel in which she will be forced to face her deepest fears. To her surprise, and to mine the moment I wrote the words, her greatest fear is the loss of her storytelling ability.

"How can losing my stories be my nightmare?" she asks. "How can I put my stories before Ben [her son]? What kind of mother am I?"

In the moment of Q'nta's greatest despair, the moment when she realizes that she lost her stories years earlier, she has a painful epiphany.

"Now with increasing despair, I realized that stories had lost their place in my heart a long time ago, when I first lost Ben. Perhaps they might have returned once he did. But he was gone again before I could find out. The void I felt in the center of my chest, I was unnerved to discover, was from much more than Ben’s absence. It was from Story’s absence, an absence I had barely noticed and now grieved far more than I could bear."

Even so, Q'nta is not convinced. Stories may have reignited the moon's light back in her father's time, with The MoonQuest, but they won't bring her son back.

"Are you so sure?" the voice in her heart asks.

Like the Q’nta of my story, I found it inconceivable that writing could be the only thing that mattered to me. Like Q’nta, I have felt parental guilt over my choices. Unlike Q'nta, whose experiences in The Coil offer resolution, it's a question I continue to ask myself. I explored it several times in Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir and many times since. I have been exploring it again since watching Becoming Jane.

In the end, though, as many times as I ask the question, the answer is always the same. It's the same answer Q'nta receives in The StarQuest:

"Your stories are your legacy...to your son, to your companions...to your people...to your land. Your stories are your hands and feet...your bones and skin...your heart and lungs. Your stories are the blood and air that course through you, giving you life. Your stories are life. Without them you are barely alive. Without them you have barely been alive. You were alive, once upon a time, Q’nta. You can be once more...if that is your choice. Is that your choice?"

It was, in the end, for Q'nta. It must be for me, too.

"Whatever’s scaring you now," one of Q'nta's companions urges, "you have to push through it, so we can face whatever’s next. You can’t let it destroy you. If it destroys you, it will destroy us, too." 

I sighed, then inhaled deeply. It felt as though I was breathing in all of the Coil, all of what had brought me here and all of whatever would be next. With a noisy wheeze, I let it all go and focused on those four words that underlay so much of my life and so much of who and what I was. 

"Once upon a time," I began haltingly. My throat closed. My chest tightened. I shut my eyes and continued. "Once upon a time, there was a bard named Q’nta who arrived in M’ranna from a far-distant place. Once upon a time there was an Elderbard named Q’nta. This is her story."

Q'nta's story is also my story. Whatever else is going on in my life, my stories must always come first. All that truly matters, today and every day, is that I'm writing.

• Follow Q'nta's journey in The StarQuest (The Q'ntana Trilogy, Book II), or start your Q'ntana journey with The MoonQuest: The Q'ntana Trilogy, Book I, winner of 6 literary awards and soon to be the first film in a trio of epic motion pictures.

• Follow my story in Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir

The three Q'ntana books (The MoonQuest, The StarQuest, The SunQuest), my Acts of Surrender memoir and all my books, including my five for writers, are available on most Amazon sites, from select other online booksellers, from my website and from all major ebook stores.

Photo: Anne Hathaway as Jane Austen in Becoming Jane

A Dream Come True...Literally!

It's 3:30am on December 6 and I have just woken up from a terrific dream. In it, a friend calls me to tell me that I have just won a "Canada Book Award" for The MoonQuest: my first book and the first installment in my Q'ntana Trilogy of fantasy novels.

In my dream, the award is to be presented by Peter Gzowski, whose daily Morningside program on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's radio network was for 15 years a national institution.

As I reflect back on the dream in those pre-dawn hours, I figure that it must have been symbolic. After all, Gzowski has been dead for over a decade, and I haven't been in touch with the friend who alerts me to the award for even longer.

I have had prescient dreams in the past, but they're rare...and they have generally predicted bad news. In one, I dreamt that a friend called to tell me her husband had died. A few months later, he did. In another, I dreamt that my wife had left me. Very soon after, she did. (I tell both stories in Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir.) 

But most of my dreams have been more metaphor than fact. So I have no reason to treat this one as literal. Besides, there's no such thing as the Canada Book Awards. Right?

Still, I'm grateful. I'm going through powerful shifts, changes and "upgrades" these days, and the dream suggests a positive outcome. On top of that, my dream mind is remarkably considerate: To make sure I see the dream as representing current success, The MoonQuest is displayed with its new cover.

In fact, I'm so pleased with the dream that I write about it on Facebook: "There's no such thing as the Canada Book Award," I write, "but it was still a pretty cool dream to wake up to. BTW," I conclude, "had it been real, the award would have been The MoonQuest's sixth!" Then I go back to sleep with visions of Pulitzers dancing in my head.

Cut to this morning, nine days after the dream, when I receive an email from...The Canada Book Awards!

"Congratulations!" it begins. "Your book (The MoonQuest: The Q'ntana Trilogy, Book I) has been chosen as a Canada Book Award-winner!

Huh?

It turns out there is a Canada Book Award...and I really did win it!! Just like the dream said! And to return for a moment to last week's Facebook post, this Canada Book Award, being real, is The MoonQuest's sixth literary prize!

Wow!!

While I'm grateful for all my books' awards, this one is particularly sweet: The MoonQuest was birthed in Canada – just as I was!

• Find out for yourself why The MoonQuest has won, now, six awards and garnered more than 30 five-star reviews on Amazon! Get your copy today – on most Amazon sites, from select other online booksellers, from my website or from your favorite ebook store. And watch for The MoonQuest Movie, coming soon to a theater near you!

Photo of Peter Gzowski: CBC Archives

Watching My Life Flash Before My Eyes

Unlike with The MoonQuest and The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, I didn't cry when I held my first printed copy of Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir on Thursday. But I was emotional, even if I wasn't at first sure why. Then, this insightful comment from a wise friend revealed what I had failed to see on my own. "I just realized," he said, "how much of your work hasn't yet made it the tangible or physical plane."

It's true: Before Thursday, only two of my seven books had found their way into paperback and none more recently than five years ago with the publication of The Voice of the Muse. Holding the print edition of Acts of Surrender was powerful evidence for me of a revolutionary shift into the physical from what had previously been strictly etheric in my life. No wonder I was emotional!

The journey to that shift began a few weeks ago when I felt a sudden, urgent and incompressible imperative to get my remaining five ebook-only editions into print, along with an updated version of The MoonQuest. Through that process, work that existed only electronically has started to become manifest in my physical world -- and with mind-spinning speed: At this rate, all my ebooks will boast paperback editions by the end of January.

I'd like to think that the "manifestation exercise" I'm experiencing right now with my books is a staging ground for what's waiting for me in 2014. I'd like to think that it's a sort of dress rehearsal...that with 2014, many of my long-held dreams will finally begin to take physical form.

It is said that just before we die, our lives flash before our eyes. We can also experience some version of that "replay" when we are about to die into a new phase of our lives. Is that what's happening to me on the cusp of a new year, as my current republishing venture forces me to relive many of my lives by rereading all my books?

As a memoir, Acts of Surrender is an obvious blast from my various pasts. But my Q'ntana fantasy trilogy, two writing books and Book of Messages are just as autobiographical, if not quite so obviously. To my surprise, they remain as personally relevant to me as I revisit them today as they were when I originally wrote them. That includes The MoonQuest, which is four months to the day away from celebrating the 20th anniversary of its (conscious) conception.

Of course, I can't know what 2014 will bring. So, for now, even as I ponder the metaphorical meaning of this unexpected publishing enterprise, I continue to surrender to it by rereading all my work and by making minor content tweaks and creating new covers for the new editions.

The first fruits of this flurry of publishing activity showed up on Thursday with the new paperback edition of Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir -- available right now by clicking on this link and coming to Amazon stores worldwide by the end of next week (a great portal into the new year for me!). Writer's Block Unblocked will follow soon after, with all three Q'ntana books and The Book of Messages following soon after that. (All my titles, of course, continue to be available as ebooks in the Kindle, Nook, iBook and Kobo stores.)

Meantime, I can't get this quote from Acts of Surrender out of my head -- and not just because I read and reread it multiple times over the past few weeks...

"My life, as you will discover, has been rocky, on-the-edge and unconventional. It has been scary, disrupted and a distant remove from what most people still cling to as 'security.' 

"It has also been creative, exhilarating, passion-filled, vibrant, exciting, adventurous and enriching. It has pushed me beyond the boundaries of what I believe and what I believe I want, and it has propelled me beyond the frontiers of the conventionally possible. 

"In every moment, it steers me on a course that I could never consciously chart for myself. In every breath, it reminds me that the story knows best -- the story I'm living as much as the story I'm writing."

Yes, the story knows best. All I can do, in this and every moment -- to the best of my imperfect ability -- is to trust that.

• Get  the paperback edition of Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir today at https://www.createspace.com/4535620. Get the ebook edition in the Kindle, iBook, Nook and Kobo stores. You can also check your local Amazon store late next week for the book, and keep checking it through January for paperback editions of all my books.

Please "like" these Facebook pages...

• The Q'ntana Trilogy Books

• Acts of Surrender book

• The Q'ntana Trilogy Movies

• The Voice of the Muse book + Writing Inspiration

• Mark David Gerson

Please follow me on Pinterest and Google+

"The Incurable Disease of Writing"

"Many suffer from the incurable disease of writing, and it becomes chronic in their sick minds." 
~ Juvenal

This is a story about how I attempted to "cure" myself from the "incurable disease of writing"...and failed.

If you follow this blog or my social-media posts, you will know that I spent the early part of the fall writing stage-musical adaptations of my three Q'ntana Trilogy stories. My plan had been to write at least two drafts of each script before tackling the next, with a suitable break between stories. What I felt called to do instead was to work straight through all three first drafts, back-to-back-to-back, with only a day off between The MoonQuest and The StarQuest and another one between The StarQuest and The SunQuest.

Unlike in my early years as a freelance journalist where my writing was skilled and craftsmanlike but written from the surface, my current creations rise up from profound, gut-wrenching inner places that challenge me as little else in my life ever has. In metaphysical terms, they are "energy activations" that force me to face my deepest fears and impel me to trust more fully and surrender more completely than I sometimes believe to be possible.

All my work now comes from that place -- fiction, memoir and books on writing alike. Yet nothing has ever activated me more intensely than The MoonQuest, The StarQuest and The SunQuest. And no writing experience has ever been more intense than working nonstop through all three stories, something I had never done before launching into my Q'ntana Trilogy Stage Musical Marathon.

When I finished first drafts of the three scripts a few weeks ago, I swore I would never write again. I wasn't kidding. I was physically and emotionally exhausted. I was depressed. And, in moments, I was despairing. I was also broke. And I couldn't help but question the purpose of an enterprise that had left me so depleted in so many ways.

Days passed and I grew no less adamant. I would hang up my quill and keyboard and try my hand at something different, even though I couldn't imagine what that might be. As more days passed, I moved from hopeless to helpless to anger to resignation, traveling my own version of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's stages of grieving.

Then two things happened, almost simultaneously.

The first occurred as I was editing an interview I had done in August with mystery writer Ellen Hart for my "One-on-One Conversations with Creatives" series. As Ellen and I talked about her work, her characters and her craft, I began to feel myself pulled back into the writer's identity I had so recently pushed away.

A few hours later, a favorite story about Wrinkle in Time author Madeleine L'Engle popped into my head and wouldn't leave. The story, which I recount in Writer's Block Unblocked: 7 Surefire Ways to Free Up Your Writing and Creative Flow, talks about how the already-published L'Engle nearly quit writing after receiving repeated Wrinkle in Time rejections (including one from her then-publisher).

She tried to quit...but found that she couldn't. Here's the story, excerpted from Writer's Block Unblocked:

Toward the end of that two-year period [of rejections], L'Engle covered up her typewriter and decided to give up -- on A Wrinkle in Time and on writing. ... 

[Her] decision to throw in the towel was short-lived. Or, perhaps, a determined Muse caught L'Engle's towel and tossed it back at her: On her way downstairs to the kitchen, L'Engle had an epiphany -- an idea for a novel about failure. In a flash, she was back at her typewriter.

"That night," as she explained 30 years later in a PBS documentary, "I wrote in my journal, 'I'm a writer. That's who I am. That's what I am. That's what I have to do -- even if I'm never, ever published again.' And I had to take seriously the fact that I might never, ever be published again. ... It's easy to say I'm a writer now, but I said it when it was hard to say. And I meant it.”

L'Engle's words haunted me for days.  

I'm a writer. 

That's who I am. 

That's what I am. 

That's what I have to do. 

Wide awake or drifting off to sleep, reading a book or watching a movie, out for a walk or out in the car: No matter where I was or what I was doing, those four short sentences played over and over in my head. I couldn't escape them.

I'm a writer. 

That's who I am. 

That's what I am. 

That's what I have to do. 

In Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir, I share stories of how I resisted becoming a writer (in school, I hated writing and everything creative) and of how, once I finally surrendered to it, my writerly identity never completely left me. This time, for the first time, I willfully turned my back on it and said, "No more!"

In the end, though, like Madeleine L'Engle, I couldn't do it.

There's a scene in The SunQuest, The Q'ntana Trilogy's final book, where the main character tries to shrug off his destiny.

"That is your path," Yzythq'a insisted. "That is your destiny."
"No."
"You speak as though you believe you have a choice."
"Of course I have a choice," I countered with more certainty than I felt.
"You made your choice already," he said. “The moment you chose to return to Q’ntana, you made this choice, too."

How could I have thought my path would differ from Ben's when everything I write, however fantastical, is also autobiographical? In this world filled with an infinity of choices, I have no choice. As I write in The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write (and encourage others to read aloud for themselves), 

I am a writer.

I am a writer.

I am a writer.

Only in the past few days, have I finally surrendered again to something that is far from a disease. It is a way of being, a way of breathing, a way of moving through the world, a second skin...possibly even a first skin. I know that now, not from the intellectual place I have stated my surrender in the past, but from that same deep inner place my writing comes from. I know that, too, because it's in writing this piece that I feel it more deeply than I ever have before.

I am a writer. And, yes, it's incurable. 

What's your relationship with your writing? Has it changed over time? How? 

Remember that whether you're published or not, if the Muse calls and you're writing, you are a writer. Do you need some help believing that? Watch the video meditation, "You Are A Writer." Are you feeling judgmental about your writing? Watch the video meditation, "Let Judgment Go." The audio for both was drawn from my recording The Voice of the Muse Companion: Guided Meditations for Writers

Find all the books mentioned in this post in the Kindle, Nook, iBook and Kobo stores, readable on your e-reader, tablet, computer and smartphone:
• The Q'ntana Trilogy (The MoonQuest, The StarQuest, The SunQuest; The MoonQuest is also available in paperback at Amazon.com)
• Writer's Block Unblocked: 7 Surefire Ways to Free Up Your Writing and Creative Flow
• The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write (also available in paperback at Amazon.com)
• Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir

Get The Voice of the Muse Companion on CD at Amazon.com
or as an MP3 download from iTunes, Amazon, Google Play or CD Baby

• • •

Please "like" these Facebook pages...

• The Q'ntana Trilogy Books

• Acts of Surrender book

• The Q'ntana Trilogy Movies

• The Voice of the Muse book + Writing Inspiration

• Mark David Gerson

Please follow me on Pinterest and Google+

Who's Who in Q'ntana: A Guide to the People, Places & Creatures of The Q'ntana Trilogy

I always insist that the unusual people, place and creature names in The MoonQuest, The StarQuest and The SunQuest are pronounced exactly as they look....but no one ever believes me! So, for the unbelievers and terminally confused, here's Who's Who & Pronunciation Guide to the world of Q'ntana.

The Place 

Much of trilogy is set in the mythical land of Q'ntana [kin-TAH-nah], a land where two suns shine in the sky. The larger sun, Aygra, rises in the east and sets in the west. The smaller sun, B'na [bih-NA], rises in the west and sets in the east. They meet at noon in what's known as "suns-merge." The moon is called M'nor [mih-NOR]. 

In The StarQuest, there is only one sun (Aygra), and land is knowns as M'ranna [mer-AN-ah].

The MoonQuesters 

• Toshar [TOE-shar] ~ Reluctant hero of The MoonQuest and, in his late teens, the youngest surviving bard (storyteller) in Q'ntana.

• Yhoshi [YOE-shee] ~ One of TosharOne of Tosharʼs three MoonQuest companions, along with Fynda and Garan. In his late teens.

• Fynda [FIN-da] ~ One of Tosharʼs three MoonQuest companions, along with Yhoshi and Garan. In her late teens. 

• Garan [GA-rren, rhymes with Darren] ~ One of Tosharʼs three MoonQuest companions, along with Fynda and Yhoshi. His full name is Ryolan Ó Garan [RY-o-lin o GA-rren].

The StarQuesters & The SunQuesters

• Q'nta [KIN-tah] ~ Toshar's daughter

• Ben ~ A young man in his late teens when we first meet him in The StarQuest

• Tom Dirqs [Tom Durks] ~ A humanoid of indeterminate age but childlike energy. One of Q'nta's companions on The StarQuest.

• Mariah [ma-RY-ah] ~ A country girl in her early teens. One of Q'nta's companions on The StarQuest.

• Panesh [pa-NESH] ~ An "angarusha," one who walks between the dream and waking worlds. One of Ben's companions in The SunQuest.

• Janq'a [JAN-ka] ~ A dwarf-like man and one of Ben's companions in The SunQuest.

• My'leen [my-LEEN] ~ A woman in her early 20s and one of Ben's companions in The SunQuest.

Other Principal Q'ntana Characters 

• BoʼRaʼKʼn [bo-RAH-kin] ~ The evil force behind all three stories in The Q'ntana Trilogy.

• Eulisha [you-LEE-sha] ~ Toshar's grandmother and Elderbard, one of the most honored positions in the land before the present tyranny.    
• Na'an [NAWN, rhymes with "fawn] ~ A Tikkan Dreamwalker. She weaves dreams and sometimes appears in them. Itʼs rare for her to appear to someone who is awake.

• O'ric [OH-rick] ~ An oracle, old yet ageless.

• Reesa Kam'ana [REE-sa ka-MAN-ah] ~ The Star Chantress.

• S'kryssna S'kyaga [sk-RISS-na skee-YA-ga] ~ Evil sorceress.

Everyone Else in Q'ntana (listed alphabetically)

• Ama'ray [AHM-ah-ray] ~ Villager in The SunQuest.

• Ana [AH-nah] ~ Ethereal being in The SunQuest.

• An'Coro [an-CO-ro] ~ Kyri's general.

• Artos [AR-tos] ~ Court page.

• Bonda'ar [BONN-dar] ~ Character in one of Ben's stories and king of Hana Mar O Q'inaya [HA-na mar oh ki-NAY-ah].

• Co'anra [ko-AN-rah] ~ Twin brother to Co'anri.

• Co'anri [ko-AN-re] ~ Twin sister to Co'anri.

• Coriann [CO-ree-un] ~ Appears in one of Toshar's stories.

• Cormal [COR-mal] ~ One of S'kryssna S'kyaga's guardsmen (aka Ka-Rey: kah-RAY).

• Crozon [CRO-zun] ~ Innkeeper. Fynda's father. Mean, slovenly and abusive.

• Dadu [da-DU] - Garan's father.

• Dafna [DAF-na] ~ Kyri's younger sister.

• Fara [FA-rah] ~ Tough warrior queen of the Vilda'aa [vil-DAH] people.

• Forq'ad [FOR'kad] ~ One of the King's Men in The SunQuest (see Holgg).

• Fvorag [FOR-ag] ~ Cruel king of Q'ntana.

• Gorkat [GOR-kat] ~ One of S'kryssna S'kyaga's guardsmen (aka Ka-Tika: kah-TEE-kah). See also Holgg.

• Grandmother Dirqs (The Grandmother) [Durks] ~ Tom Dirqs's grandmother.

• Gravel [gra-VEL] ~ King of Q'ntana in The SunQuest.

• Grizz'm [GRIZ-em] ~ Gravel's first minister. 

• Gwil'm [GWILL-im] ~ Leader of the Tena'aa [ten-AH], a diminutive people with a reputation for fierceness, who give Eulisha and her bards sanctuary.

• Gwna [guin-AH] ~ Ethereal being who appears to Toshar, Yoshi, Fynda and Garan in the Table of Prophecy, also known as Kol Kolai [kohl ko-LYE].

• Holgg [WHOLG, rhyme it with “bold,” but as though it had a “g” at the end] ~ Captain of the King's Men, the brutal army whose soldiers ride black stallions and dress identically in black shirts, pants, boots and masks.

• Kor'da [KOR-dah-] ~ Villager in The SunQuest.

• Kronan [KRO-nun] ~ Retired soldier.

• Kyri [KEE-ree] ~ Crown prince and, later, King of Alanda [ah-LAHN-da], Q'ntana's ancient and never-conquered capital.

• Leq [LECK] ~ One of Micah M'renna's farmhands.

• Lanaya [la-NYE-ah] ~ A female scribe.

• Magritta [ma-GREET-ah] ~ Micah M'renna's housekeeper.

• Manu [ma-NOO] ~ Appears in one of Toshar's stories.

• Marq'o [MARK-oh] ~ Villager in The SunQuest.

• Maysha [MAY-sha] ~ Villager in The SunQuest and wife of Rolo'en [ROH-low-en].

• Micah M'renna [MI-cah mer-REYN-na] ~ Mariah's uncle in The StarQuest.

• Miknos [MEEK-nos] ~ Court page
• M'naben [mi-NAH-bin] ~ A female scribe.

• Myrrym [MEER-im] ~ Zakk's wife.

• No'An'o [no-AHN-no] ~ guardian of the Do'Am portal in The StarQuest.

• Prak'ka [pra-KAH] ~ Captain of the King's Guard under Gravel (see Holgg).

• Ra'ina ~ [ra'EE-nah] ~ Friend of Panesh and wife of Yeer'ga [YEAR-gah].

• Rolo'en [ROH-low-en] ~ Villager in The SunQuest and husband of Maysha [MAY-sha].

• Ro'an [ROW-un] ~ Toshar's cousin.

• Simeon [SIM-ee-an] ~ Court page in Q'nta's Castle Rose.

• Tyanna [TEE-ya-nah] ~ Toshar's mother.

• Yeer'ga [YEAR-gah] ~  Friend of Panesh and husband of Ra'ina [ra-EE-nah].

• Yzythq'a [iz-ITH-kah] ~ Otherworldy oracle in The SunQuest.

• Zakk [ZACH] ~ Toshar's uncle and Eulisha's younger son, a sly, mean and abusive man who took over Tosharʼs schooling when Garan went missing.

Q'ntana's Creatures 

• Arukka [a-roo-KAH] ~ A tartaruca [tar-TAR-u-kah].

• Da'nay [dah-NAY] ~ Large, leopard-like creature.

• Freya [FRAY-ah] ~ A whale-like baleya [bah-LAY-ah].

• Fynn'Qya [fin-KEY-ah] ~ A giant, fish-like thor'qya [thor-KEY-ah].

• Kep'cha [KEP-cha] ~ A giant, black bird-like creature piloted by a thorag [THOH-rag].

• Meya [MAY-ah] ~ A whale-like baleya [bah-LAY-ah].

• Mishak [MEE-shahk] ~ A kyrrel [KEE-rul]. Appears in one of Toshar's stories.

• Nayla [NAY-lah] ~ A black, menacing coyote/wolf-like creature with a bloodcurdling howl.

• Parika [pa-REE-kah] ~ A multicolored bird.

• Pryma [PREE-mah] ~ A tartaruca [tar-TAR-u-kah].

• Rykka [REE-kah] ~ One of Oric's magical horses, the pale blue of the dawn sky.

• S'kala [sih-KA-la] ~ A two-headed serpent.

• Ta'ar [TAR] ~ One of Oric's magical horses, the smoky plum of dusk.

• Tashek [TAH-shek] ~ A creature that morphs between bird of fire and lion.

• The Q'ophar [KO-far] ~ Half man, half dragon.

• Thorag [THO-rag] ~ A one-eye, troll-like drone that pilots a kep'cha [KEP-cha].

• Treya [TRAY-ah] ~ A whale-like baleya [bah-LAY-ah].

• Get all three Q'ntana books in the Kindle, Nook, Kobo or iBook/iTunes stores, readable on your e-reader, tablet, computer and smart phone. A limited number of copies of the legacy paperback edition of The MoonQuest are available at Amazon.com.


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The MoonQuest: The Stage Musical?

When I began writing The MoonQuest book (Book I of my Q'ntana Trilogy), I always saw it as a movie...though I never imagined that I would be the one to write the screenplay. Then, when I found myself writing The MoonQuest screenplay a dozen years later, I began to see the story's potential as a large-scale stage musical.

Now that I have written all three of the Trilogy's books and screenplays (Book III, The SunQuest, will be released in a few weeks), my muse has started nudging me toward that MoonQuest musical.

She began her campaign a few evenings ago, when, after it had languished for many, many months at the bottom of my Netflix queue, a filmed stage presentation of The Phantom of the Opera suddenly demanded my attention.

I was walking to the store the morning after having watched Act I of this 25th anniversary production (staged brilliantly at the Royal Albert Hall) when she whispered to me, my muse did. "It's time," she crooned."

Tonight, as I sobbed through the musical's final curtain calls, she whispered again, louder this time: "Now. It's time. Now..."

To be clear, I wasn't crying because of the story or its production. I was crying because those curtain calls brought me back to a time in my life when I went to the theater religiously, wrote about the theater regularly and fantasized about writing stage plays. This was a decade before the creative and spiritual awakening that would ultimately birth The MoonQuest.

"Perhaps," Toshar ponders as he prepares to tell the story of his MoonQuest on the first page of the book, "it is time to allow the boy I was to touch the man I have become."

I was no longer a boy when my theater dreams first ignited. I was a teenager in my junior year at Montreal's Mount Royal High School, working on a school production of the musical Mame --  a time I write about in Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir. My experiences of the past few days suggest that those long-ago theater dreams never died, even if they were overtaken for many years by other imperatives.

On Sunday I wrote here about the surprising (to me) rediscovery, reclaiming and reintegration of my artist-self. Today, it seems, those three R's have found another target: my theater self.

In the next days, I will allow that part of me to reignite as I welcome back my long-dormant, never-realized playwriting self. And once again, the mythical tale of a land stripped of its visions and stories will live out in my life in a new form.

I know no more about crafting large-scale stage musicals than I did about writing novels when I began The MoonQuest or screenplays when I launched into its film adaptation. What I do know is The MoonQuest story. I know it intimately because, in so many ways, it continues to be my story, a story that, as always, begins once upon a time...

While you're waiting for The Q'ntana Movies and stage musicals to show up in your neighborhood, pick up The MoonQuest and StarQuest books in the Kindle, Nook, Kobo or iBook stores -- for your e-reader, tablet, computer and smartphone. And watch for The SunQuest...coming soon!

Please "like" these Facebook pages...

• The Q'ntana Trilogy Books
• Acts of Surrender book

• The Q'ntana Trilogy Movies

• The Voice of the Muse book + Writing Inspiration

• Mark David Gerson

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Now Available: The StarQuest - The Long Awaited Sequel to The MoonQuest!

Journey to the time before time...

when the stars lost their mooring
and the constellations unraveled, 
when chaos was king and evil reigned unchecked 

This is the Q'ntana before The MoonQuest 

Here, in the midst of brutal tyranny,
a legend would not die:
of the Heart of the Star
and of the Fair One who would rekindle it
to bring peace to the land.

The StarQuest (The Q'ntana Trilogy, Book II)

The Long Awaited Second Installment in
The Q'ntana Trilogy

To celebrate the launch of The StarQuest 

all my Kindle ebooks are on sale for $2.99 each through July 2
• The MoonQuest (The Q'ntana Trilogy, Book I)
• The StarQuest (The Q'ntana Trilogy, Book II)

• The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write

• Writer's Block Unblocked: 7 Surefire Ways to Free Up Your Writing and Creative Flow
• Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir
• The Book of Messages: Writings Inspired by Melchizedek

• The StarQuest (The Q'ntana Trilogy, Book II) is currently available exclusively for Kindle apps and readers. Versions for Nook, Kobo and iBooks will be available June 29.


Please "like" these Facebook pages...

• The Q'ntana Trilogy Books
• Acts of Surrender book

• The Q'ntana Trilogy Movies

• The Voice of the Muse book + Writing Inspiration

• Mark David Gerson

Please follow Mark David on Pinterest and Google+