A Biennial Review

I began conceiving the world of Eldwan as a vast work of synthesis, a creative platform for me to wrestle with the twin giants of Biblical record and modern scientific knowledge. These past two years have afforded me the time to reflect, acquire information, and weave ever more of what I have learnt into the fabric of my sub-creation. I am glad for them, for I doubt that I will have such leisurely temporal abundance when my education resumes in eight short months.

It has come a long way, though I suppose in retrospect, many of my earlier posts seem juvenile and poorly informed. In particular, the ones on language, for which I was certainly inadequately versed in the vernacular of grammar and linguistics. As such, the development of Tas Eldwaraj is suspended until I have studied a few more languages; a checklist of which now includes Hebrew, French, Chinese and Greek, and perhaps German and Japanese. Just as how one must play and familarise oneself with pre-existing music before innovating with compositions of one's own, it seems sensible to me to immerse my mental faculties in ablutions of existing languages before returning to construct my own.

The history of Eldwan has been greatly enriched through my readings of non-fiction history, a newfound love of which is making me question my former myopic academic affinity with the natural sciences. I never imagined what it would spiral into when I first began to carry those central characters in my idle thoughts.

My writing encountered quite an obstacle with the influx of new information received from the faith bible institute creationism class. In particular, the relationship between continental drift, extinction and the deluge. I had constructed the movement of Eldwan's elves around the idea that continental drift occurred at the time of the fall of humankind, while the flood was a local event occurring between the ages of light and water. This is not in alignment with the suggested interpretation of the Noahic flood from the creationism class, and so I was caught in a dilemma between abandoning what I had developed for Eldwan, or accurately representing what could approximate the Biblical account in an alternate universe. I have resolved, as of the writing of this post, to remain with my original ideas. This does risk misrepresentation and confusion with regard to the literal creationism and flood account, which I feel sorely, for I would hate to add another poorly supported idea to the general confusion surrounding this topic. However, I also feel the need to write something distinct, something apart from what has happened in this universe. I find myself prone to mixing what I would like to be true with what actually is, and in writing something so similar to the development of this world has admittedly, been confusing for me. 

Eldwan is not the universe we live in, it takes elements of reality, but not all of it, and that is one of the quintessential charms of fantasy. I hope you'll have patience with me, dear reader, as the metamorphosis of Eldwan from inconsistent ideas and pre-fabricated characters to a coherent mythos continues this solar revolution.