Dispatch #20: A Different Sort of Wizard
Introducing My Other Story Project, Plus A Brief Update On The 1st Story
[Estimated reading time: about 6-7 minutes]
Greetings!
Welcome to The Known World, where I post about my forthcoming book, The Other Side of the Sun, amongst other things.
Topic #1: Introducing Wizard of Quitman Park
Good day to all!
In Dispatch #19, recall that I mentioned a 2nd writing project that I was thinking about delving into, which had the working title Wizards of Houston.
It was the result of a recent writedown exercise I engaged in, which sort of asked the question: What if wizards inhabited the modern 21st century cityscapes instead of dwelling in fairy tales and blockbuster movie worlds?
Such a story goes into a different subgenre of fiction from what I’ve been working on in The Other Side of the Sun, known as Urban Fantasy. Urban fantasy basically brings mysterious and supernatural type things into today’s world. The subgenre has been around and there are plenty of books, movies and TV shows using its themes and tropes.
Probably the most famous urban fantasy story would be Mary Poppins by P. L. Travers. These days the biggest sellers tend to be vampire romance novels like Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series or police procedural stories like the Peter Grant/Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch. In television some examples of urban fantasy stories would include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Highlander, or The Night Stalker, an even older made for TV film and later TV series about a Las Vegas news reporter who investigates mysterious crimes with supernatural causes.
Rest assured, Dear Reader, I’m not going to write about vampires having sexy time or horror stories. I’ve never been interested in those themes, trust me.
Instead, my inspiration for the Wizards of Houston project comes from two sources:
From a book I read in the late 1980s called Wizard of the Pigeons, by Megan Lindholm. It was a story about a homeless man named Wizard trying to survive on the streets of 20th century Seattle.
From my own worklife experiences in the Medical Center region up until the arrival of the Covid 19 pandemic, when I had to stop commuting to work via light rail and commuter buses to avoid getting infected.
Wizard of the Pigeons was a very different sort of story that departs from the usual Merlin / Gandalf sorts of wizards. While the book was fresh and excellent to read, it is not the sort of book I would recommend to read if you want to read something uplifting or reach a happy ending.
But the book’s core premise did stick with me. I paired that with vignettes I’d seen of life in Houston out beyond the fringes of wealth and power and privilege, and thus I came to place my wizard in 21st century Houston.
Houston isn’t as sexy as Seattle or as mysterious as New Orleans, but for me that’s the point. I want to write something grittier and more “real” but not a downer story. That said, I didn’t like the original title Wizards of Houston. So I renamed it Wizard of Quitman Park, because to be honest Wizard of Hermann Park sort of sucked also. 😁
The Basic Story In 4 Paragraphs
Wizard of Quitman Park is set in modern day Houston, but its story goes back and forth across decades in time. Here’s the quick and dirty version…
As you will see below, there are actually at least 3 wizards in Houston. But the central character is a guy named Stoneking, a former Special Forces medic who saw lots of un-fun things while serving overseas during the late 1990s and early 2000s. He left the military in 2004 and came to Houston to work as a paramedic. He became sort of a hero twice during the 2005 series of storms, first in New Orleans while helping the city get through Hurricane Katrina, and again in Houston and vicinity during and after Hurricane Rita.
A particularly traumatic event that occurs during Hurricane Ike in September 2008 breaks Stoneking, sends him into a sort of human version of BSOD (blue screen of death for those unfamiliar with the term). He disappears then wakes up in Quitman Park as a homeless man… and discovers that he has suddenly acquired certain superpowers.
Through his early wanderings on the streets and in a local homeless shelter, Stoneking comes across Noah, an older homeless man who earns his money panhandling at area stoplights and annoying commuters and ranges between barely sane to suddenly becoming incredibly insightful and lucid; and Abuelita, who early on is also homeless but later runs a very humble food truck selling the most flavorful Tex-Mex food around. Noah and Abuelita are both urban wizards, they see that Stoneking has become one as well, and they intercede to help bring Stoneking back to a better sort of normal.
There’s also a 4th guy named Ezra, also known as The Sage, whose past is mostly unknown to others but he acts as a sort of mentor to all 3 wizards. Ezra is a former wizard who has since lost his superpowers, so he is now the director of De La Vega House, a small museum and library set in a two-story house in the Museum District. The museum is centered on the life and writings of a now-deceased anthropologist, writer and mystic kind of guy whose works and philosophy are subject to much academic and scientific skepticism - and Ezra actually agrees that it is all mostly BS. Still, the museum is nicely funded by a handful of wealthy followers, and Ezra can’t bring himself to cancel that meal ticket.
Behind The Story
Part of me wants to neutralize the setting by placing it in an unnamed southern metropolis, enough so that it could be Dallas, Houston, Atlanta etc.
Another part of me wants to not do that, and leave everything as is.
I’m currently working on it as being set in Houston, because I love the city’s diversity and its hidden features - to me that, along with its flaws and downsides, make for better storytelling than some antiseptic Anytown.
Regardless, Houstonians will see that the setting in which Stoneking, Noah and Abuelita live and/or roam about are in and around the Texas Medical Center, Midtown, Museum District, parts of Third Ward, and Hermann Park (aka Quitman Park). Sometimes EaDo, Montrose and University Place also get mentioned in the story.
There is one thing I’ll promise to all my former colleagues I used to work with: In the unlikely event I decide to use one of you in my storyline, I will use a different name to protect you, even if you weren’t very innocent.
In later Dispatches I’ll bring up some other things about the setting and characters.
Topic #2: The Other Side of the Sun
So… while I’ve been all lit up with creativity on the Wizard of Quitman Park project, I’m still deep in the weeds about where to actually start writing The Other Side of the Sun. That’s not to say I’m on the verge of dumping TOSOTS for WOQP (acronyms! I love them). I’ve only been trying to pick the perfect place to start.
However, a very wise amigo of mine recently pointed out that:
Done is better than perfect, because perfect is never done.
Their point was that I should be practicing the Japanese concept of Kaizen - 改善, meaning following a process of continuous improvement.
So now I’m no longer looking for a perfect place to start, just a good place to start. The struggle is still real but less onerous.
How To Write Dispatches About Each Story?
Good question!
As it happens, Substack lets you write multiple newsletters using the same site so you can let readers sign up for newsletters that focus on certain topics but ignore the ones that they aren’t as interested in. I’m looking into how to employ that strategy and whether that is worth doing in my situation.
In the meantime I’ll use the same newsletter for both story projects, and share bits about each of them under different headings.
Shared Ephemera
[A few side notes and thoughts…]
Frequency of Newsletters / Postings
I’ve settled into a pattern where posting about every 2 weeks seems to work for me. It gives me plenty of time to do all the things I like to do in retirement - which includes story writing of course, but also includes time with the Missus and my family, plus a hobby or two, and yet still be timely enough to make the newsletters/postings useful.
I will stop promising to post something “in a few days” or “later this week,” however. Instead, we’ll just say “in the next Dispatch” or “in another Dispatch,” which is more realistic. .
The Meldûn Borderlands Map (TOSOTS)
I’m making forward progress on it.
The Other Sight (TOSOTS) vs The Second Sight (WOQP)
The proverbial systems of “magic” in the two story projects will work in much the same way, but go by different names.
In The Other Side of the Sun it will be known as the Other Sight.
In Wizard of Quitman Park it will be known as the Second Sight.
There are reasons for naming them differently that are storyline related.
Theoretically anyone can figure out how to use the Other Sight, but some folks are more naturally inclined to control it than others. One way to look at it is, “if you believe it, you can achieve it” - at least up to a certain point.
But to use the Second Sight, one must meet certain particular conditions to access it. One can fail to meet those conditions without realizing it, and it’s possible to “forget” how to access it. Belief helps but with the Second Sight belief alone is not enough.
I will write some more about both systems in future Dispatches.
Conclusion
That’s it for today! I hope you have enjoyed reading this Dispatch.
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Until next time, thanks for reading!
— B.E. Turpin