49: Fixed in Stone
3/9/2013
I finished a concept drawing last night in my sketchbook of the Temple of Mugasha, on Esil-nar. It’s a close-up study of two giant faces carved out of the stone blocks that make up the temple. It looks nice, and helps bring me a step closer to their world.
The reference I used was the Bayon towers of Angkor Thom, in Cambodia. But I changed the facial features from Cambodian to Negroid, and integrated faces from two different sites into one for my Mugasha temple. The drawing spans two pages in my sketchbook, and there’s something about it that makes me want to stare at it all day.
I think it’s because it’s evocative. It makes me ponder the people that built it, and why. It makes me rethink the Batu histories. It even makes me consider placing the temple beyond Kamaria where Mogai will find it in the third book after he passes through Kunama. He could then learn the true history of the Batu, as would the reader. I could even have Alena and the surviving band of Batu pass it on their exodus from Kamaria at the close of the series.
For the moment, however, I have it fixed as part of the ruins on the isle of Esil-Nar. Mogai, Broka, Dugal, and Topal are outlined to go there in the second book for their jawara bakumba ritual. Though I may use it earlier in the first book by having the temple faces be part of the entryway to the lava tube on Mt. Kunama in Chapter Sixteen: Revelations.
I have a rule of thumb that I don’t save really cool ideas for later on down the road. If I have an idea I really like and it works well within what I’m currently working on, then I use it now and let the future take care of itself. It’s sometimes tempting to hold on to an idea and save it for a key moment later in the story, but my overriding tactic is to make every step of the way the absolute best I can make it, and have faith that new gems will come to me along the way for those later moments. Possibly better gems.
Present-Day Reflection
7/13/2026
I still think that’s a good strategy – take care of the present moment and have faith that new and better ideas will take care of the future. This is, in part, how the story grows far beyond my original conceptions. Letting go of expectations and my scene outlines when something better occurs to me is key. So, I just try to stay generally open minded, and not looking upon any single element as fixed in stone. So to speak.
As it is, the stone faces I illustrated for the Temple of Mugasha on Esil-Nar got moved to the marshlands of Nagala-Nar for Diallo’s Ghost Frog quest in book one. It was a bold decision, and the right one. It’s precisely what was needed in that time and place in the series.
And I do have faith that the future regarding the isle of Esil-Nar will take care of itself.
