The fifth ring is the final destination of any set of energy.

Creating fire? Going to Hell? First ring.
Traversing a continent? Going to Purgatory? Second ring.
Crossing an ocean? Being alive? Third ring.
Flying? Projecting to the Astral plane? Fourth ring.
Launching into space? Going to Heaven? Fifth ring.

So the fifth ring represents our ideals; those destinations which we most hope to reach someday. Read the rest of this entry »

…and one giant leap back.
Every time it feels like I’m making progress on my novel, something happens that forces me to reevaluate major plot points.

Like recently, I connected together the scenes I would need to bridge the middle of the book to the end, but a crucial question crept up: ‘Is it really necessary for my cities to be so far apart?’ …

That is something I’m going to have to seriously think about. Is what happens in each city something that could only happen in that respective city? Could the cities just as easily be villages? Could the continent also be shrunken down into just a few countries? Is it a NOOB writer mistake to include a journey just for the sake of having a journey, or because I need time to develop my characters before they get to the end? And I’m sure I still don’t know what it feels like to truly bleed words. Read the rest of this entry »

Elementally speaking, the fourth ring is simply ‘the atmosphere’, which is easy enough to visualize: the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, and ionosphere. It is also our state of mind, our intellect, our subconscious, our instincts, and the scales that balance good and evil.

But metaphysically speaking, there’s a lot more to it. Read the rest of this entry »

The third ring is our physical reality. It is also the classical element of water; what makes up the oceans, lakes, rain, and reservoirs—the water cycle. It is what living organisms are made of. It is the soul.

While it may seem destructive due to phenomenon like floods, lava flows, monsoons, corrosion, and landslides, it is ultimately an element of purity. It sustains life and transports sediments and seeds. It is a natural lubricant, helping rocks go deep beneath the earth into extreme temperatures to melt down and, ultimately, come back as new, larger rocks. It is the basis of all natural cycles, including the ones within the cells of our body that take very little energy and multiply it into larger amounts of energy.

Read the rest of this entry »