Friday, April 27, 2012

My Mission Statement



Mission Statement

            I have for many years now been on a quest for Truth.

            In my youth, this took the form of a journey: I packed a bag and hit the road. I left school, gave up everything. Assuming another name, I lived abroad where no one I knew could find me. I put my hand out, and it was filled; the Truth came to me.

            I did not want to live a life that had no direction. I did not want to quake and quail before that which terrified me. I sought the ways of becoming strong and honourable, and found them in only one place: in stories.

            Who among us hasn’t been caught up in the magic of a well-told tale? Or who hasn’t been inspired to achieve their goals, once they’ve read the real-life stories of people who’ve done exactly that?

After reading Fight Club, I burned down a house.
After reading Neverwhere, I leapt off the Sellwood Bridge.
            After reading Jitterbug Perfume, I hitch-hiked to New Orleans.

I believe that my life is a story, and I intend to tell it well. I expect to struggle and suffer, but also to rejoice - as does every hero, in all the myths that were crafted to guide us and instruct us. I endeavor to become the best version of myself that I can be.

My novels are attempts to create real mythic literature; by writing of faraway, make-believe worlds that are filled with wonder and mysterious powers, I’m able to share the insights that I’ve gained, by giving them also to my characters.

In Last Knight, I explore the desire of a young man to become a knight in the modern world, searching for Excalibur in our own time. What makes a man noble? How does he learn to be courageous? Without any role models, without exemplars, how can any of us find ourselves, lost as we are?

The Sylvan Song was written in a blaze of wit and rum: I gave myself the exercise to write ten pages a day, to complete a novel of a hundred pages in a mere ten days. Each day I feared writer’s block; and each day I marveled as the story emerged, speaking to me of Love, and Destiny.
            
             I have a vision of a world filled with people who are uplifted by the Truth. I invite you to share what I have learned in my travels, both literal and literary. My stories are bound to my own story, and to know them is also to know me.
            
              That is why I write.



First Entry

This is the first entry of a new blog.

I'm hoping I will find more motivation with this blog than I have in the past. It seems that inspiration for such things is short-lived, and one has to come to rely on diligence after an initial period of prolific posting.

My name is Phin Scardaw. Recently I have self-published two fantasy novels with a company based in Raleigh, North Carolina, called Lulu. The purpose of this blog is to advance my career as an author and to promote my work with sophisticated readers.

Here I shall be posting news about my progress as a publisher of my own writing, reviews of work that impresses me including films and books both contemporary and classical, and some of the compositions of opinion and wit that I feel the need to share.


Phin