Rewriting Radiance - The Lower Temple

Welcome to another behind the scenes look at Rewriting Radiance, in which I show you some of the thought processes going into revising my kabbalistic fantasy novel.

I love the scene from the fifth section of Radiance, Tiferet/Adornment, in which Asher and Virgo descend to the Lower Temple, the synagogue of the demons, but I felt that it wasn't quite living up to its potential. While I loved showing how frum (religiously scrupulous) Jewish demons are portrayed, the setting just wasn't rich enough.

Cont. after the jump

Rewriting Radiance - Yesod/Foundation

    "They sat below Grand Central, in seats arranged to resemble a train carriage, passing through every major destination at once. This was the gate to everywhere."




Welcome to the 2nd installment of Rewriting Radiance, in which I delve deeper into my editing thoughts and processes. For this installment we're going to take a look at chapter 6, the first part of Yesod/Foundation, in which Virgo and Asher chat in Grand Central.

My most frequent comment, as I explained in part 1 of Rewriting, is to add more detail and depth. My style tends towards being overly terse and I often feel that passages need to be extended. Originals will be in italics major changes in bold.

See what I changed to these opening lines after the jump:

Radiance 35 - Epilogue - Ein Sof/Without End

     Dan Black stood in his Manhattan-sized kitchen, and for the third time that evening, waited for the kettle to boil.
    ‘A watched pot never boils’, his mother would have said, but he didn’t like to leave the kitchen when the gas was on, not with Jonny wandering around and playing with everything he could get his fingers on.
    And if he was being honest, some of his guests in the living room were a little… unsettling.
    After that Saturday afternoon, he hadn’t expected Asher to show up again, not really. Five years without much of a word had felt like an eternity, even with the all-present Facebook keeping them in touch.
    But then a text message from nowhere - ‘can we meet up? I’ll buy us some beers -Ash.’
    And so they had met in a bar downtown, and, a little cautiously, renewed their friendship.
    There had been something different about Asher in that meeting, and not just the missing hand that Dan hadn’t dared ask about - something deep and dark, lurking beneath his eyes, a greater seriousness than he had ever seen before.
    “The daughter became the mother,” was all Asher would say about it, and laughed a little hollowly.
    Not that Dan himself had been fully present in the conversation. Since the day of the ‘earthquake’, nothing had been quite right in his mind. He could have sworn that he remembered witnessing a sanity-defying serpent rise up from the Hudson, serrated teeth like swords, black poisonous spines, mile-long coils spreading and wrapping themselves around the city, people screaming and dying as the world crumbled around them.
    But no one said a word about it - no one seemed to remember but him, and then only in the dark of night, when nightmares would find their way into his dreams.
    No, Dan hadn’t been himself for a while.

Radiance 32 - He gave the sea its boundary

    “What’s the plan?” Li asked, flexing every muscle in her hand, sending tiny flames into the air.
    The Leviathan roared and lashed its tail - the ground shook violently, sending lampposts and traffic lights crashing to the asphalt. The last three of the Seven barely kept their feet.
    “The Leviathan can’t be killed,” said Virgo, as she tossed the Staff of Moses from hand to hand, “the best we can hope is to contain it.”
    “The Palace has restored much of my energy, but even with a full Seven I don’t know if we would have the strength,” said Li with a frown.
    “There isn’t any choice,” said Asher. The mere presence of the Leviathan was playing havoc with his restored powers, the creature seemed to transcend all boundaries, overrun all borders. “Virgo, it’s up to you to weave the verses together to send this creature back to the pit, Li and I will keep it busy, try to keep it from going too far.”
    Virgo looked at him quizzically for a moment, as if she didn’t quite recognise him, but swiftly nodded. “I have some verses in mind,” she said, “but I will need both of you to help. Perhaps the three of us in concert have enough power from the left side to contain the waters.”
    “We’ll do what we can,” Asher said, Li nodded her assent.
    Slamming her staff deep into the ground, anchoring herself in the crumbling cement, Virgo began to shout the words of scripture, sending them forth from her lips like arrows:
    “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in days of old, in the generations of old. Are you not he who cut Rahab in pieces and wounded the dragon?"
    This seemed to catch the attention of the Leviathan, as a titanic head snaked down towards Virgo, oily teeth gnashing and chomping. Li jumped into the air on a pillar of flames, raising a wall of fire and hurling it at their enemy.
    Asher felt the power deep within himself once more, the feeling of peace and oneness he had known his whole life, the feeling he had no come to call God. He touched this power and gave it a channel, reaching out into the surrounding city to find the edges, as Mercury had taught him so long ago. At the push of his mind, the divide between the molecules in the air strengthened and hardened, turning the air itself thick like mire. The Leviathan sluggishly crashed against the fire and recoiled, shaking its snake-like head.
    “Are you not he who dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; who made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over?”
    It wasn’t exactly a victory, but they had slowed the creature’s assault, and forced it to take notice. Asher’s heart began to swell - they could really do this.
    The earth shook all around them, bricks fell from nearby buildings - Asher pushed them aside - but the tremor did not subside. Huge cracks appeared in the earth as the land tore itself to pieces. Two heads of the Leviathan, snaking at the end of mile long scaled necks, twisted away from the water and smashed into Manhattan. Turning to watch, Asher saw a tail, or a tentacle, suddenly join the skyline, bursting out of the earth what must be several miles away. Screams reached his ears once more as the reach of the Leviathan spread across the city.
    “We have a problem,” muttered Li.

Radiance 17 - The wicked spring up like grass

From http://exquisite--corpse.deviantart.com

    It wasn’t until half-way through the torah reading that Virgo first noticed anything was wrong.
    She had found herself praying harder than usual, focussing on each word closely, as waves of meanings washed over her, cleansing her troubled mind. Nothing was proceeding according to plan - Li was supposed to have been in Netanya watching the store but somehow she had disappeared right when they had been busy fighting the dybbuk. Ostar and Mercury could look after themselves but if they had been up against some of the more powerful forces that the Sitra Achra could muster Virgo was right to be concerned. And now they had vanished. Virgo had been listening to the cantor, allowing the letters to rearrange themselves in her head but got very little - they were still alive, she was sure of that, but where they were or who held them she could not make out. Perhaps her mind was still too troubled; or perhaps they were being hidden from her. Either way, once shabbat was out she was going to call Rahko, Li and Asher to the Palace of Understanding and come up with a new plan of attack. Together they could surely free Ostar and Mercury.
    But then she noticed that Asher was missing. She had no idea when he had left but it could have been up to twenty five minutes when she had last cast her eyes in his direction. She waited another fifteen minutes while the Torah service finished before she was sure that Asher wasn’t coming back. Virgo needed a new plan.
    This was incredibly frustrating - Asher was so wilful, so impetuous, always acting before thinking. If he didn’t seem to have such a grip on the power of Malchut Virgo could almost have sworn that he was the wrong guy for the job altogether. It had taken years of trying before they had even met properly, and by then it had almost been too late - already years of bad habits and neglect of the tradition had begun to corrupt his soul. And now he had run off in the middle of the shabbat morning service - it was unacceptable, it was inexplicable, it was… so like his father.
    Okay, this wasn’t helping. Where would he have gone? To their rooms, perhaps, though it depended on why he had left - but knowing Asher it could have been anything - even just to get a drink. Still, she had to be sure he was okay. The demons wouldn’t touch him on shabbat of course but he still wasn’t fully recovered and shouldn’t overexert himself.
    Virgo quickly prayed the additional service for the sabbath, gathered her siddur and left the synagogue. That was when she knew something was really wrong.

Radiance 4 - I opened for my beloved

15th Shevat 5776
    Asher sat in Starbucks, and vaguely stirred his double shot cappuccino with a wooden spoon. He didn’t bother to drink it. It was too hot. No, more than that. It simply wasn’t fun anymore - coffee just didn’t taste right. He still drank it every morning, not to mention several times during the afternoon - it was, after all, something to do - but all the flavour had somehow left it. And so he sat here, more for a change of scenery than anything else, flicking through web pages, and stirring his coffee.
    And it wasn’t just the coffee. Mechanically, Asher found himself eating toast and jam every day for breakfast, a tuna salad for lunch, bolognese for dinner. He drank water and coffee, sometimes eating an apple around 4pm. Sitting on the sofa, letting daytime TV drift over him, cycling through Reddit, Facebook and the BBC. Somehow he was stuck in this same rhythm, following the dirge beat every day. He hadn’t spoken to any of his friends.
    It was six months ago that his father had died. Six months since Asher had that strange waking dream of devils and warriors. Sometimes he caught himself about to call his Dad for advice - he would have known what to make of the king of the demons, the symbolism of the gold and silver figures. But Dad was gone, and his mother would be no help at all.
    They had spoken just yesterday, early afternoon for him, late at night for her. His mother had shared some gossip from her synagogue in Netanya, talked about their young rabbi and repeatedly asked him if he was okay. Asher had said that he was fine, and perhaps he was.
    He sipped at the drink, scanning monotonous job sites that all promised his dream job faster, easier, cheaper. Sign up now! Asher had already signed up but it wasn’t getting him anywhere. The night of the dream he had quit his job with the Midnight Astrological Hotline. It was a student job, really, not something to do with bills to pay and a life to lead. It was time to grow up and get serious - he heard this in his mother’s voice, not exactly scolding him but still difficult to hear. He had no real experience, no plan.
    And so Asher sat in Starbucks, and stirred his coffee.
    His phone rang. Asher ignored it. It was probably his mother, checking up on him again. Asking when he would start work. It could wait.
    It stopped for a minute then rang again. A glimmer of irritation appeared.
    Asher got out the mobile but the number was unknown. Strange.
    “Hello?”
    “Do you believe in fate, Asher?” A familiar voice asked him. “Because destiny is knocking.”

Radiance 3 - My head is drenched with dew

So we've reached the third chapter of Radiance, in which we meet our second main character - Virgo. 


Do you like the first three chapters? Have they grabbed your attention? Do they do a good job of introducing the characters? What could I have done instead/as well to improve them?


All comments gratefully received!


9th Av 5775

    It was a fitting night to be in Jerusalem.
    Five thousand, seven hundred and five years ago to the day, Roman soldiers had been standing on this very spot, while the blood of Jewish zealots had stained the ground red. The sky turned a shade of crimson as the holy temple, God’s seat on earth, was consumed by flame.
    Still we mourn, thought Virgo, as she hurried through the winding streets of the Old City. But for how much longer?
    It was heavy, hot and dry in Jerusalem, though that was nothing strange in the heart of the summer. Still, there was something unusual in the air, an electricity, a strange sort of energy. In New York, Virgo might have said that a storm was coming - but this was Jerusalem, and the rainy season, if you could really call it that, was still two months away. No, this was something else. This was the reason why Virgo had come, why she had persuaded the Seven to leave Asher where he was and deal with a more imminent situation.
    And so Virgo was in Jerusalem on the ninth of Av, observing the strictures of the fast day, and hunting a creature of the Other Side.