No one can linger in the land of Egypt … The time of deeds on earth is only the occurrence of a dream.
(Egyptian Harpist’s Song, XVIII Dynasty)
The Singing Mummies
Fiendish Yen Sin! I should have thought about Singing Mummies in AMARNA!
Tag Archives: AMARNA
Three ideas adding up
The idea of writing shorter fiction is not a bad one – there is a market out there that pays good money for stories under 2500 words. As I mentioned a few days back, I am a long-winded sort of writer, but I am working at my shorter fiction.
And then there is AMARNA, and the idea I posted a while back, about doing something with Fantomah, the Daughter of the Pharaohs.
And so I thought… Continue reading
Hanging Out with Apep
When in need of an evil Egyptian god for fiction, while Set certainly has a worse reputation, most authors go for Anubis. It makes sense: the Jackal God is popular, got a super-cool look, and I can find tons of visual references.
And then, hey, he’s the God of Death, right?
I can quote a lot of resources in that sense, from Roger Zelazny to Johnny Quest by way of Young Sherlock Holmes, Bram Stoker and Valerie Leon.
Fact is, it doesn’t work that way. Anubis, aka Anpu, aka Inpu, sometimes also known as Hermanubis, is the protector of the souls of the dead. He’s not the bad guy, he’s with the good guys! Let that sink in, and then tell me again why fanatics with daggers should serve him.
And really, apart from the philological elements, Anubis as the dark god of Egypt’s been done to death. Which is, I realize, somewhat ironic.
So, when outlining AMARNA, I looked up a few other Usual (Egyptian) Suspects.
And for my money, you want a bad guy in Egyptian myth? Go for Apophis. The Stargate SG1 guys got the snake right.
Continue reading
Introducing Tenn Ford
The joys of planning a serial: you can just chance upon a bit of fluff that suddenly turns your story around.
The sort of serendipity my friend Claire loves so much.
It went like this: I was laughing with my friend Lucy a while back and this quote from Sir Alec Guinness came up:
Can’t say I’m enjoying the film. … new rubbish dialogue reaches me every other day on wadges of pink paper—and none of it makes my character clear or even bearable. I just think, thankfully, of the lovely bread, which will help me keep going until next April even if Yahoo collapses in a week. … I must off to studio and work with a dwarf (very sweet—and he has to wash in a bidet) and your fellow countrymen Mark Hamill and Tennyson (that can’t be right) Ford. Ellison (?—No!)—well, a rangy, languid young man who is probably intelligent and amusing. But Oh, God, God, they make me feel ninety—and treat me as if I was 106.—Oh, Harrison Ford—ever heard of him?
And I said, damn, I need to have a character called Tennyson Ford!
Continue reading
Planning the Serial – part I
Be warned, what follows is a post on writing, so you might find it boring, uninteresting or basically a waste of time.
Forewarned is forearmed or something like that.
As I mentioned, my next big work will be called AMARNA and it will be a serial.
Not a series – like all the rest of the stuff I wrote so far – but a serial.
What’s the difference? Continue reading
Karavansara 