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apotheosis, asura, author, book, cyclic nature, distorted, fantasy, folklore, horror, humor, myth, mythology, natural paradox, novel, paranormal, process, publishing, reading, rebecca lynch, rome, urban fantasy, writing
Apotheosis literally popped into my head one day while I was in the shower. I’m not normally one to actually get my ideas past the brainstorming sessions. mostly because I don’t have the patience for applying the details to paper. The compulsion I felt with this idea, however, was strong enough for me to take the time to write it out.
A large part of my drive to write this story revolved around two factors that I hold to be true in the world around me, and the universe at large: namely, a cyclic nature and natural paradox. Cyclic nature is represented in Apotheosis by the cycle between the characters, and the flow from fiction to truth as each character’s life is revealed. Dom writes fiction about Tessa, who sculpts the fictitious Tristan, who dreams of the long dead Aurelia. There is a bit more to it than that, but in the interest of anticipation and avoiding spoilers, I’ll leave it at that. Natural cycles are found all around us: the food chain, the change in seasons, the change between night and day, the spinning of the planets and solar systems. I could wax rhetoric about cycles all day long, but I’m sure you’d be bored to tears before my next paragraph, so I’ll move on. I felt the need to express my fascination with cycles and symbiotic relationships through the connection of creator and created. That’s how the story wound up with fiction and fact being married. This leads me to my next drive.
The second pressing urge to write Apotheosis is founded, for me, in natural paradox. Many of the examples I could give are the same as those for cyclic nature. Night and day, winter and summer, etc. But I find so much truth in paradox. You can’t appreciate beauty if nothing is ugly. All sunshine makes a desert. Life without death is meaningless. These form the cornerstones upon which my story is built. I chose to symbolize paradox not just among the characters themselves, but through historical and geographical fact and the fiction. Dom and his wife, Tessa and Olivia, Tristan and Drustan, Aurelia and the twins are all fictional characters of my own design. The layout of Manhattan, however, along with Treasure Island in Austin (my favorite bar), the MacDougall clan and their castle, the Vercovicium, Hadrian’s wall, the last Roman emperor and his family, the desertion of the Wall by the Roman Legion, all of these are fact and as accurate as I could make them to suit the story. I absolutely love fictional with strong roots in fact because it makes the story far richer than when the places, dates, and people are all creations of the writer and his or her imagination. My hope was to bring that richness to my readers, and hey, y’all just might learn something. Happy reading!
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