Timothy Deal - - Page 2 ::

Looking Back, Looking Forward

A new year is nigh, so we at Children of the Wells wanted to collect some of the thoughts on our mind as 2015 approaches. Enjoy a little look into our end-of-year psyches.

Natasha:

The best book I read this year was, surprisingly, not a YA novel but the biography Unbroken, which I also saw in the theater when it came out on Christmas Day. Just FYI, the movie is not at all exaggerated and, in fact, tones down what Louis Zamperini went through, surviving weeks on a raft at sea only to end up tortured in a Japanese POW camp. It’s just such an incredible story. If you haven’t read it yet, I highly encourage you to do so.

I also recently rewatched the classic movie It’s a Wonderful Life. It had been a few years since my last viewing, and I’m not sure I’d ever been quite so touched as I was this time around. Maybe it’s that I now have kids, I don’t know. I definitely see the world differently than I used to. George Bailey’s feelings of failure really resonated with me (I’m ruining my children!) while, at the same time, I could see the bigger picture and the personal sacrifices he made to help others. It’s so interesting to think of how the world we live in might be different with the total absence of even just one of us. One life affects so many, and whether that’s positive or negative is up to us.

Put these two stories together, one theoretical and one actual but both resounding with truth, and you have a powerfully inspiring and hopeful message. It’s a good way to end one year, putting the mistakes of the past behind you, and find inspiration for another. (more…)

December 30, 2014 - Tags: christianity, Greg Meyer, holidays, Natasha Hayden, Nathan Marchand, Nick Hayden, personal, Timothy Deal Posted in: Blogs

Now that’s a Christmas Tree!

By Timothy Deal
December 5, 2014

This year, it felt like an important part of my family’s Christmas died before the season even began. For the first time, our parents bought a fake Christmas tree instead of a live one.

“Gee, do they still make little Christmas trees?”

Those who have grown up with an artificial tree can hardly understand the dismay my sisters and I felt by this betrayal. Our family is known for getting big, lush, beautiful, real Christmas trees that can occupy up to a quarter of the family room. For us, it wasn’t just about getting a tall tree; it also needed to be wide and bushy to accommodate all the ornaments five kids, two parents, and a grandmother can accumulate over the years. Visitors would stop in our family room, drink in the intoxicating pine aroma that candles and air fresheners can only wish to imitate, and gaze in wonder at its magnificent size and sparkling vision of lights, garland, glass balls, and tinsel. The experience would prompt many guests to say, “Now that is a Christmas tree.”

Yet nevertheless, in recent years our parents had warned us they intended to trade this wondrous experience for an artificial tree the first year our youngest sister went off to college. With their children either moved out of the house or increasingly preoccupied with significant others (or both), apparently Dad and Mom decided to sacrifice a longstanding tradition in the name of convenience and simplicity. (more…)

December 5, 2014 - Tags: christianity, culture, holidays, Timothy Deal Posted in: Blogs

Creating Jaysynn’s Merry Men (And Women)

by Timothy Deal
September 25, 2014

I am pleased to announce that the third book of the Jaysynn series, New Wells Rising, is now available! After the many delays this novella has experienced, it’s quite a relief for me as the author and for all of us as a team to finally get it published in ebook format for everyone to enjoy.

Believe it or not, the latest installment in Jaysynn’s story began about a year ago as work on The Rules Change was wrapping up. I still half-jokingly blame Nick for getting me involved with Jaysynn #3. He and I were talking about what the next Jaysynn novella should look like and I mentioned that it would be good for Jaysynn to begin attracting some followers, to build the base for his own small army to one day perhaps challenge series villain General Dracon. Nick agreed and commented that Jaysynn needed a core group of warriors to lead and inspire, much like the Biblical leader David had his band of “mighty men” or Robin Hood had his standout figures among his Merry Men.

That comparison fired my imagination since I’m a big fan of Robin Hood stories, especially the classic novel adaptation by Howard Pyle. There’s a series of chapters in that book where Robin first encounters such memorable characters as Little John, Friar Tuck, Will Scarlet, and Midge the Miller’s Son (okay, not as many people remember that guy). Several of these encounters have a rocky start given Robin’s penchant of teasing and antagonizing strangers in Sherwood, but each end with the new character becoming a sworn friend and member of the Merry Men. (more…)

September 25, 2014 - Tags: announcements, characters, inspiration, New Wells Rising, Timothy Deal Posted in: Blogs

Children of the Wells Round Table!

By Nick Hayden
July 17, 2014

At our last Children of the Wells meeting, we decided to record a special round-table discussion. It’s not very often we have so many of the writers, editors, and idea people behind Children of the Wells in one place, and we had a lot of fun discussing storytelling pet peeves, what kind of stories we gravitate toward, and our own views of the CotW characters.

Also, if you like what you hear, Timothy and Nick produce a monthly podcast on storytelling that you can find at derailedtrainsofthought.blogspot.com or on iTunes,

Listen in to Nick, Tim, Aaron, Nathan, Laura, and Greg below:

Children of the Wells Round Table Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

July 17, 2014 - Tags: Aaron Brosman, audio, Greg Meyer, Laura Fischer, Nathan Marchand, Nick Hayden, Timothy Deal Posted in: Blogs

The Noble, Burdensome Trek

By Timothy Deal
July 3, 2014

photo credit: c@rljones via photopin cc

It’s been several months since we last heard about Jaysynn Kyzer, the outcast emperor of Thyrion. Unfortunately, the blame for the delay rests mostly on myself. I’ve actually been working on the next book in the Jaysynn series since last fall, temporarily trading my behind-the-scenes role to write one of our premier novellas for reasons I’ll go into in a future blog. Even though my book is about the average size of a CotW novella, it’s still easily the longest piece of fiction I’ve ever written. That is part of the reason for the delay. (more…)

July 3, 2014 - Tags: creative process, New Wells Rising, Timothy Deal Posted in: Blogs

Forgetting the Bigger Picture

By Timothy Deal
January 10, 2013

Sometimes I worry our culture completely misses the point of some stories while fixating on some random quirk. The Lord of the Rings becomes about that cute elf Legolas. Insightful, dystopian YA fiction like The Hunger Games turns into the very media spectacle the book is critiquing.

Or even more recently, the wrong song in a musical gets all the attention. See, I’m a bit conflicted about “Let it Go” becoming the breakout hit song from Frozen. It’s receiving critical acclaim, early movie award buzz, and seems to be the most talked-about song from the movie around the interwebs. (Spoilers aplenty ahead.) (more…)

January 10, 2014 - Tags: culture, movies, Timothy Deal Posted in: Blogs

The Silver Lining

byMichael Kötter via Compfight

by Timothy Deal
August 16, 2013

Post-apocalyptic stories are big right now. As fellow CotW blogger and avid YA reader Natasha Hayden could tell you, the genre’s been big in YA fiction for years. Cultural commentators have recently pointed out that two of this year’s top-rated TV shows, Revolution and Under the Dome, both have post-apocalyptic themes. And of course, zombie apocalypses are still all the rage across virtually every form of media today.

It’d be silly to try to pin down one reason for the genre’s popularity since several valid possibilities spring readily to mind: general anxiety about our turbulent times; dissatisfaction with our technological state; a sense of moral decay visualized in decaying flesh; yearning to simplify things and revert to an earlier, perhaps even primeval, mode of civilization; or simply the enjoyment of a dark, dramatic setting for tense and suspenseful action stories.

But personally, one of the things I most enjoy about reading the post-apocalyptic stories coming from our wonderful Children of the Wells writers is their sense of hope. Even as the world of Lomara crumbles around our heroes, even as the citizens of Jalseion, Thyrion, and Averieom begin to grasp the extent of how their lives have changed, the characters find reasons to hope in their darkest hour. Bron wakes to find Calea miraculously alive. Calea miraculously doesn’t mind. Jaysynn realizes he has a new opportunity to help the citizens of Thyrion. Nyasha finds new purpose amidst the loss of her parents.

There will be plenty of struggles and dark times for our characters in the chapters and novellas to come. But hope will also continue to be one of the important features of Children of the Wells. Hope is the difference — especially in this genre — between an empty, nihilistic tale of despair and an uplifting, if bittersweet, tale of promise. We will work to provide many more of the latter stories in the months and years to come. At least, such is our hope.

August 16, 2013 - Tags: philosophy, Timothy Deal Posted in: Blogs

What Calea and Rumplestiltskin Have in Common

Not Calea

by Timothy Deal
May 3, 2013

Since we had a request for some spoiler-free insight into the world and magic of Children of the Wells, I will talk a bit about how we developed our system of magic for the series. Of course, if you’ve read the latest chapter, you may think the timing odd, but bear with me. After all, this discussion may shed some light on previous or upcoming flashbacks (hint, hint, tease, tease).

One of the trickiest things when it comes to fantasy world-building is setting up a system of magic. If your world is going to feature magic at all, the writer typically needs to establish some rules for how it will work. Even the TV show Once Upon a Time — which follows fairy tale convention where spells can or can’t do things according to the needs of the plot — always follows at least one underlying principle: in the Enchanted Forest, magic always comes with a price. The price varies according to the power of the spell (and again, the needs of the plot), but the price is always there. Consistently following this rule helps the writers keep the fairy tale magic a bit more grounded and believable within the context of their story. (more…)

May 3, 2013 - Tags: creative process, magic, The Select's Bodyguard, Timothy Deal Posted in: Blogs

Our Storytelling Philosophy

Timothy Deal

By Timothy Deal
April 5, 2013

If you’ve been exploring our new website (and if not, we certainly hope you will!), you may have read a bit about our philosophy and reason for creating Children of the Wells on our About Us page. The writer of that page — Nick Hayden, also author of The Select’s Bodyguard — eloquently describes the sort of stories we hope to share:

Not just fantastic and fantastical stories, but stories rooted in truth and goodness. Stories that are honest about how the world works, but written with the belief that stories are meant to make men better.

(more…)

April 5, 2013 - Tags: philosophy, Timothy Deal Posted in: Blogs