Do you love trance as much as I do?
Odds are, that after reading this, you felt an urge of twirling your finger near the temple, which I completely approve, as a matter of fact. Healthy skepticism and critical thinking are some of my favorite qualities in people. However, the sheer fact that the world of Land of Amun was created in a state of trance by as many as half, speaks for itself. Both about the trance and the author, and specifically about the world itself. But first things first.
From early childhood, the abundance of boring and tedious chores left me no choice but to withdraw into myself. At some point, I ceased to apprehend the natural flow of time during routine work, resorting to daydreaming, and coming to my senses once the job was done — the state of trance at its finest.
Moving forward, it kind of took off from there, and at some point I ended up realizing that I even needed some kind of routine activity in order to effectively contemplate over something. School essays were especially easy to come up with during such a state of mind, and all that was left for me to do was simply embody my reflections in black and white. Over time, routine activities were seamlessly replaced by listening to music or strolling. In addition, I began to enjoy significant bonuses of my intellectual activities.
***
One of the main goals I set for myself when embarking on a mission to bring the world of Land of Amun to life was realism. Both the magic system and the guild skill sets had to be not only clearly declared, but also rigorously substantiated. Numerous failed attempts to fit the whole world into one coherent brainteaser were supposed to persuade me to compromise with myself, but... I could hardly afford to give in to weakness in a project that I wanted to be proud of. Once game mechanics with hundreds of formulas was finally getting balanced and it was possible to proceed with its implementation, it ended up in a trash bin, having failed to meet my internal quality control standards, and this happened several times over the course of six months.
Given the scale of the task at hand and the number of challenges faced, it was necessary to drastically alter the approach to the creative process itself — situational trance was no longer enough — and I would hardly have succeeded without all the experience accumulated over my life, especially in osteopathy. I was able to change myself and learn to think differently only when I understood what the morphology of consciousness is and mastered the techniques of gaining neutrality and centering. As a result, what most creators consider inspiration, divine spark or creative godsend, for which they have to patiently wait while fruitlessly staining sheets of paper, has become a completely tangible, quite achievable state of mind for me.
After a couple of months of a “scientifically based” approach to the process of creativity itself, I managed to come up with a comprehensive substantiation for the entire magic system, guild skill sets, and the guilds themselves. Thus, having decided to bring the substantiated reality of my world to completion, I proceeded to writing game lore, which was not a walk in the park, either...
***
At some point, when the game mechanics in the form of formulas and lore were finished, and the main quest line acquired its final shape, I realized that the quests would last me a month, two at most, and then... emptiness. Because I would not be able to handle game development on my own, but something had to be done. The answer came to me on its own and, of course, in a state of trance. When I was dozing before going to bed, catching the remnants of thoughts, which were lazily swirling around, the main quest line suddenly morphed into a completely new plot that wasn’t even planned, and off it went…
It's worth saying that initially I didn't even consider writing a book, simply because I didn't have the time. Full time work, plus family, plus the need to adapt to a new place after immigration, but unexpectedly a loophole was found. I'm accustomed to going to sleep at midnight, while my kids go to bed at 9 pm, but the sound of my PC and the clicking of the keyboard prevented them from sleeping, so I had to go to bed at 9 pm as well. However, during those few hours before sleep, and not at all on my initiative, thoughts were spinning and swarming around the plot of the book, as it if was writing itself. All I had to do was transcribe them at a crazy pace in the morning, having an hour before work, and later compile it all into a more or less decent form during the weekend.
At some point, I came to realize why this trance-cendent book, which was actually a direct projection of my subconscious, took up permanent residence in my mind. In incredibly difficult circumstances, it became a kind of therapy for me. All the good and bad in me manifested itself through this prism, or several of them, thus balancing my own self, allowing me to remain “normal”. Therefore, both the question “How much of this book is the author’s doing?” and the answer to it are quite intriguing. It’s both everything and nothing, and all the things in between at the same time.
It is precisely because of the way this tetralogy was written that it is full of unorthodoxy, philosophy, esotericism and its own particular realism.