A "True" Fantasy That's Disturbingly Relevant
It’s Thursday morning, and I’m staring at an empty Zoom screen waiting for the podcaster who wants to interview me about my books and writing school. He’s late, and I’m growing impatient. Have I been stood up?
As I often do when I’m being interviewed, I have copies of a few of my books on hand. Absentmindedly, I reach for the volume at the top of today’s stack and open it to a random page. Sometimes, this can be like pulling an oracle card from a divination deck, revealing a relevant message wherever my eyes land. Still, I’m not seeking a message today; I’m simply killing time.
Nonetheless, there is a message.
The book is The MoonQuest, and the first word I notice is “despot.” It falls toward the end of this paragraph…
“Ah,” the Stranger replied, “I never said loves rules all. You’re right, Garan. If love were king and queen, we would need no quests. Once, when love did rule…” The Stranger’s voice dropped off as a light of wistful wonder filled his face, until a crow’s screeching caw wrenched him to the moment. “But, no. That crow is right, as are you. Love is all but rules little here. Instead, you are ruled by a despot whose fear has banished love from his heart. But love will return. You saw it this night. You see it in each other.”
If you’ve read any of my books for writers or attended any of my classes or workshops, you’ll know that I often talk about how much smarter my stories are than I am. More prescient, too, in some cases.
More prescient, definitely, in this case.
The MoonQuest takes place in a mythical land where stories have been banned and storytellers have been executed or exiled. It’s a land without wisdom or discernment…a land where visions, dreams and imagination are prohibited…a land where even the phrase “once upon a time” is forbidden. And it’s a land ruled by a despot, a tyrannical king who is in thrall to a force even darker than he is.
“Oh,” people exclaim these days when they hear my synopsis, “you wrote a story about now!”
Yes and no.
It was 31 years ago today when the first scene of what would become The MoonQuest hijacked me in a Toronto writing workshop I was facilitating. The scene excerpted above showed up in the book’s second draft, which I wrote the following year in rural Nova Scotia.
I had no political agenda with The MoonQuest, none related to my native Canada nor to what, two years later, would become my adopted country. I had no agenda at all. How could I when I didn’t even know the story, except as it tumbled onto the page from one day’s writing to the next?
That’s right: I had no plan, no plot and no outline for the book. All I had was my Muse Stream writing technique, which, for the first time, I put to work on something longer than a poem or vignette. Writing on the Muse Stream is about writing without stopping. It’s about always moving forward from one word, sentence or paragraph to the next. It’s about not editing as you write, not thinking about what you’re writing and not judging, second-guessing or censoring what you’re writing. It’s less about writing what you know and more about writing to discover what you know. And, as it did for me, it can also be about discovering your story as you go.
Even once The MoonQuest was published in 2007, I didn’t see any political relevance to it. Its only relevance to me was personal: a metaphor for the freeing up of my own long-blocked creativity, because the quest in The MoonQuest is about bringing story back to a silenced land. (In that land, legend has it that the moon, M’nor, is so saddened by the silence that she cries tears that extinguish her light. Once the people are free to tell their stories, M’nor is again visible.)
I may not have seen The MoonQuest’s political relevance, but readers certainly did. Almost from the moment The MoonQuest hit bookstore shelves, readers and interviewers (and not only in the U.S.) asked me about the story’s parallels with current events. And today, 31 years from its unplanned and unintended conception, readers and interviewers are even more stunned by its alarming relevance.
Frankly, so am I…as I was reminded when I opened the book, seemingly at random, on the eve of today’s anniversary.
I shouldn’t be stunned…not because I’m a brilliant, prescient writer, but because I’m smart enough to know that I’m not as smart as my stories. I’m also smart enough to know that when I get out of their way to let them tell themselves through me, the results are always beyond anything my conscious imagination could conjure up. How else could I have conceived a story as disturbingly current as this one…31 years ago?
The MoonQuest is a dark story set in a dystopian time. Yet I take comfort from the final words of that not-so-random excerpt: Love will return. I take equal comfort from a line in The SunQuest, third book in the Legend of Q’ntana series initiated by The MoonQuest: “The sun always prevails in a contest between sun and storm.” We may feel ourselves in the midst of the darkest of storms right now. But no storm lasts forever. The sun will reemerge.
In the meantime, as the protagonists of The MoonQuest are continually reminded, we must not let ourselves be silenced.
“Unless we tell our stories, unless we share our stories, the land will not heal and M’nor will be lost to Q’ntana forever. This is your story, Yhoshi — one of your stories. Telling it as you did is part of The MoonQuest, part of The Return. It is The Return. Sharing your dreams — remembering your dreams and sharing them, sharing them as you did, as Fynda and Garan did — that’s what will carry us to M’nor, that’s what will restore her light, to us as to all Q’ntana. Do you understand now?”
Yhoshi nodded. Tears trickled down his face. He wiped them away with the back of his hand. “Thank you,” he whispered through a weak smile. “Thank you.”
And I thank you — for each story you tell…for each time you refuse to be silenced…for each time you refuse to hide…for each time you challenge fear…for each time you embrace your courage. It’s your stories that will carry us through this real-life MoonQuest we’re living…and it’s your voice that will ultimately flood the darkness with light.
As you live this real-life MoonQuest, read the fictional version and be reassured by its message of hope and redemption. Get a copy of The MoonQuest and its Q’ntana sequels signed to you from this website, or look for them in paperback or ebook from online booksellers worldwide. If you prefer to hear me read The MoonQuest, the audiobook is available on Audible and Apple Books.
Need help telling your stories? My Spring Writes workshop series will not only introduce you to my Muse Stream writing technique but will get you writing, with guided meditations and visualizations designed to get your stories out of you and onto the page — the stories you know…but also the stories you don’t yet know you know. Space is limited, so don’t wait to sign up!
Can’t work Spring Writes into your schedule? The Mark David Gerson School of Writing has many resources — books, recordings, downloadable courses and more — that you can experience on your own time and at your own pace, as well as breakthrough coaching programs tailored to your individual needs.
However you do it, with my help or on your own, let your voice be heard. It has never been more important to tell your stories.
That Zoom interview? It did eventually get going! Once it’s released, I’ll share the link on my Press page.