57: Choices That Define
5/21/2013
Well, I’ve been busy, but not on The Wounded at all. I’ve been hustling to get the Kanar breakdowns done by Martha’s birthday on the 24th, but once I reached #33 – thanaka – I ran into a brick wall in terms of not being able to fit the pieces together. I wasted a couple days then going through and organizing my Kanar lexicon, looking for help as I went back over the breakdowns I had finished. I discovered several major problems that forced me to realize the entire Kanar language I’d been piecing together is fundamentally flawed. In both concept and approach. So, I decided to throw it all out and start over.
This time I started with Swahili as a baseline, which is itself a pastiche of African languages mixed with Arabic. It’s worked out the problems of consistency for me, though I’m altering and adapting the Swahili as needed. Then it took me all day yesterday from the moment I woke up until midnight to get a new Kanar alphabet table made, with massive rearrangements thematically so the groupings of each set of glyphs makes much more sense and are more appropriately associated with the proper gods and symbols.
Due to my rearrangements of the gods and symbols my rewrite of all of them will be quite different as well, not just rearranged. Everything has changed. But I had no choice, and the payoff will be much more satisfying than going ahead with the faulty system I had in place.
Also, and I don’t know why, I woke up this morning thinking about Alena and Diallo’s relationship in the next chapter – Dissolutions. It occurred to me that Beryl could end up being Mogai’s daughter. If Alena is pregnant with Diallo’s child – though not showing any external signs of it – this could be an additional reason Siona sends her off immediately to be married. Perhaps the only reason, if I decide to keep Alena’s association to Diallo a secret from Siona.
Beryl being Diallo’s daughter could create all sorts of interesting drama. Not just now, but also in the future when Mogai meets Beryl. This could also provide the foundation for the abusive behavior of Alena’s husband, if he even suspects that Beryl is not his daughter.
I need to research the genetic problems of consanguinity between Alena and Diallo though and find out what sort of abnormalities could be found in a child from parents who share the same father but different mothers. If research allows for an innocuous result from such a union, I might even be able to let the Fa Hawara prophecy fall to Beryl, not Alena. I’m not sure yet how that would be better, but it’s an option… possibly.
Present-Day Reflection
7/21/2026
The most difficult part of my choice regarding the changes to Kanar was deciding to use Swahili as a baseline. This robbed me of my sense of creativity in the naming of the glyphs, despite my altering them significantly in many cases. It solved a lot of my problems, but it bruised my ego by having to abandon my own system to rely on the essence of another not of my creation.
However, my decision was based on the quality of the result, leaving my ego out of it. I’m not Tolkien, and philology was more of a hobby than a passion back then. Ultimately, I couldn’t justify the time I was spending on working out a completely original foundation that worked. I had to get back to the main narrative of my books.
As for the question of Beryl’s parentage I’d been toying with, that too was a dead end leading nowhere I want to go. Not just because it feels trashy in a Jerry Springer or Maury Povich sort of way, but I’m simply not interested in the sensationalism of Soap Opera plot lines like I was back then.
I want less cheese and more meat.
