📜 Back to the Beginning 🖋
reinvigorating my love for Greek mythology & epic storytelling, changing my approach, & a general update about the future of my writerly content
Firstly, I’ll quickly address the small beasty in the room.
You may or may not have noticed there’s been no new chapter of The Belt of Souls this month. I have one prewritten chapter left that I had intended to share, but it’s one of those “once you know, there’s no going back” chapters, and after everything that’s happened to me creatively (and otherwise) in the last few months, I feel better leaving the story where it is.
But more on that at the end of this post.
What I really want to talk about is the renaissance of the need for classical, epic storytelling in my life, and how this nostalgic desire is changing my approach to writing.
The Moment of Excitement and Finger-Crossing
When I heard that Christopher Nolan has an adaptation of The Odyssey coming out next summer (2026), a spark was immediately sent to my inner child. I was beyond elated for this news, but also very cautious. I have faith in Christopher Nolan as a filmmaker, but also a long, tumultuous history of a mix of pleased and extremely disappointed emotions regarding previous film and television adaptations of ancient Greek stories.
You see, The Odyssey and all Greek mythology is very near and dear to me. I can’t pinpoint the exact beginning, though I know The Odyssey episode of Wishbone and the Hercules and Xena shows were solidifying factors, but I can tell you that by the age of 7 or 8, I knew every Greek myth forward and backward, could recite the names, attributes, and symbology of every god and goddess without pause, and Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates were heroes. And let me tell you, when I found out Plato himself wrote about Atlantis, I damn near lost my mind. Well, truthfully, I did. I lost my mind to the ancients and “sword and sandals” stories, and for the rest of my adolescence and young adulthood I didn’t look back.
This love of Greek mythology ran so deep that come high school, I was the only freshman to be admitted to the Greek literature class that was reserved exclusively for seniors, and let’s just say, I pleasantly shocked the shit out of my teacher and schooled all of my classmates. It was my one true, unabashedly “know-it-all” moment that I will be forever proud of. Frankly, now that I think about it, I can’t believe it never occurred to me to study Greek mythology as my major in college - though honestly I doubt it was even offered as an option.
So when I say I’m excitedly crossing my fingers about this new adaptation of The Odyssey, I mean that my inner child is going to be very judgmental while simultaneously squealing with joy that I get to go to the theatre to watch THE Greek heroic epic play out on the big screen.
Then I was Hit Very Badly in the Feels
As the news of The Odyssey adaptation has settled with me, and I’ve been doing my research on the cast and what moments Nolan might include, and I’ve reflected more and more, I’m incredibly sad to admit that I don’t remember even close to as much as I used to know. Only small bits, fragments, and pieces remain of my once encyclopedic ancient Greece brain, and even worse, I have no idea how or why I began to allow it to erode. Saying this loss hurts my soul somehow doesn’t even cover the despair I felt when this realization hit me. It hurts to even write these sentences.
Part of my pain comes from the secondary realization that my creative well has been consistently nearly bone dry. I do my best to try to refill it in the ways I can, but it doesn’t stay sustained, and I now know just how much Greek mythology was one of the foundational pools that I could always count on and draw from without a second thought.
But I do have renewed hope.
After letting the sorrow sink in, I also realized that the beautiful thing is, I can immediately remedy this. I of course still own all of my Greek mythology books, and all I need to do is reread them. More difficult will be not judging myself for what I don’t remember, but I’m trying to reframe this as “what a cool thing to be able to read these stories again, almost as though for the first time!”
The Lightbulb
All of this Odyssey stuff has had me rethinking (for the umpteenth time) about why I’ve been writing and drawing stories since I was a kid and what other things I can bring back into my life to get the creative well full again. This time though, a good conversation with my creative partner in crime A.N. Pineda illuminated in real time something that could and already in ways has literally changed everything for me.
I was telling her about my struggles and discussing why I love mythology, which led to really why I specifically love Tolkien, and why I come back to certain things such as James Cameron’s Avatar again and again. And the conversation all pointed to one big thing that was staring me so hugely in the face that I guess I couldn’t see the forest for the trees:
The worldbuilding and the lore.
And suddenly there it was. My pivot to refill my creative well and fall back in love with the things I’ve been working on for the vast portion of my life.
I already have the worldbuilding, so tell my stories in the style of lore.
Not a novel, novella, or short story, but something like a fancilly written history or the classic epics - not the form of an epic poem like The Odyssey or a straight history-book-like approach, but more akin to an oral legend that is being dictated and written down for the first time, something in the style of Beren and Luthien - less epic fantasy novel and more just flourished epic fantasy historical tale/narrative.
The Proposition
So here is what I’m proposing to myself. And really to all of you who subscribe or follow my content.
I’m going to pivot how I’ve been writing from a focus on an epic novel series to a lore style of writing.
To do this, I’m going to take myself back to mythology school in a sense. I’m going to read and reread epics like The Iliad, The Odyssey, Beowulf, and of course Tolkien’s first and second age stories, to teach myself how they are written and get a feel for how I want to stylistically change how I’m telling my stories.
The Future of the Dragonstone Duology on Substack
I’ll be leaving all of the chapters I’ve shared so far up for free for subscribers for the rest of April, and then on May 1st they’re going to be archived. I’m still very proud of everything I’ve written, and especially of the rough draft that I completed in 2020, so I’ll be by no means tossing anything - just reworking and reframing for this exciting new approach that I want to try.
The New Content to Expect
I do want to preface by saying this is all my “wishlist” of things I want to do, and I’m still working out how and what I want to share and when. As I settle in and figure things out, it could change a little or a lot - but that’s what makes it an adventure, right?
World of Quaison Field Guide
For starters, I’m going to entirely pivot to sharing all of the worldbuilding I’ve done for Quaison over the last 30 years. These will be like pages of a field guide, complete with maps and illustrations, and include everything from beasts and plants to location summaries and cultural snapshots.
It will take time for me to get each post organized as so much of what I have is scattered in snippets across a dozen notebooks and literally thousands of digital files, and I also want to create new artwork. But the good news is, this is a project I have been wanting to do for a long time, and a few years ago I had already started the process of reorganizing myself and I have quite of bit of information already separated out that just needs to be refined to make it ready for sharing.
Process Posts
These will be behind-the-scenes posts and notes about my worldbuilding and writing processes. The worldbuilding ones will be a mix of kind of general topics but also deep dives into those old notebooks and snapshots of what I’m figuring out on the go. The writing posts will be my reflections as I go about learning this new approach to storytelling and general progress updates. I’ll also share whatever resources I use like books, tools, equipment, programs, websites, etc.
I’m thinking that when I do my rereads of The Iliad and The Odyssey and other stories, I’ll write deep dive posts of how I’m breaking down the stories to teach myself what goes into an epic. They will be separate from my regular Cup of Tea monthly wrap-ups, which are more general, short-hand reviews.
I was also recently gifted a tripod for my phone, so I want to figure out some sort of video content like vlogs or something.
QuaisonLore
These posts will be all about the stories - the revised The Belt of Souls, its sequel The Heart of Hel, and other stories in the new lore style, but also poems, songs, and so many other things I’ve had in mind for decades. This will also possibly include character profiles/histories/backstories that the main tales might not cover - I’m still working that bit out though.
As Far As Free vs. Paid Content
I haven’t entirely worked this out yet, but there will be a good mix of both.
Okay that’s everything! It took me so long to organize my thoughts - I feel like my brain kept breaking, lol - and this was a long post, so thanks for making it all the way to the end! I‘m excited about this new path I’m setting myself on, and I hope you guys are excited to come along for the ride.
Until next time!
Other ways you can support me and my work 🤗
I am so excited for you! I know this is the right direction. I can't wait for this next chapter in your creative adventure. 🥰
ah I've taken a break from Substack for a little bit because of life things - so I'll have to quickly catch up on Dragonstone before it's gone!!! Exciting stuff - it's really nice to hear you've returned to the place where your creative well was built... I think it can be hard to find ways to share your work when the bulk of it is worldbuilding & behind-the-scenes, instead of completed drafts & more conventional storytelling. Looking forward to seeing what comes next here!!