Origins

It all started with a calendar.

Way back in college, I enjoyed realizing that 4 * 7 * 13 equals 364, almost a whole year. I related it to a deck of cards (four suits/seasons, seven days in a week, thirteen cards in a suit, 52 weeks in a year/cards in a deck). I further realized that 4, 7 and 13 are part of a number sequence where each number is (2n-1) of the preceding number. Thus the sequence continues with 25, 49 and 97.

I combined this number sequence into a cyclical calendar of four days in a fourday, seven fourdays in a month, thirteen months in a year (plus an intercalary day), 25 years in a Cycle (plus intercalary days) and 49 Cycles in a Great Cycle (plus intercalary days). For many years, I kept a physical version of this calendar and spun the dials every day.

In college, I also was interested in languages. During my senior year, I created a language where the phonemes were linked to the calendar. There were seven consonants and four vowels, forming 28 possible syllables. I created a process to transform English words (and names) into this language. I also designed a grammar, but that’s not important to the story.

Since the only person who could read the language was named Naraka (i.e. Mark), I called the language Narakan.

That February, I declared myself the king of all the counties on a straight line between Seattle and Houston (my childhood home and my college home). I even emailed the White House stating this and saying that silence on their part would be seen as acknowledgement. I never heard back.

It seemed natural to use that Narakan language for my new kingdom, and so I became King Sotosoroto of Naraka (utilizing my middle name, Stuart). I gave duchies to my roommates, and we distributed counties to our friends and family.

I wrote some laws (including a tax code—I only ever received a half-plate of chocolate chip cookies as taxes). The nobility voted on things such as a national anthem (“Too Much Time on My Hands” by Styx) and a national food (chips and salsa). I posted fliers for Narakan Awareness Week around my college cafeteria and made little ribbons of blue, green and gray for the nobles. I still have my ribbon on my laptop bag.

One of my classmates and my cousin both said they’d rather be knights instead of being a countess or count. One said she wanted to be a high priestess. Others said they’d rather be mercenaries.

When I said that I was handing out counties that included parts of Colorado, one young woman asked for Steamboat Springs. I said that it wasn’t part of Naraka, but I’d think about it. The next day, I agreed to invade the neighboring land and give her Steamboat Springs.

Another classmate asked for Breckenridge, and so I invaded another neighbor. War became too easy.

These events began to coalesce in my head as a story, and before long the first version of The Soldier, the Wizard, the Lady and the King was written. If it wasn’t for the creativity and whims of those friends, my book and my universe wouldn’t be what they are today.

Since my college days, the number of consonants and vowels have both increased in the Narakan language, to provide a wider variety of names and a greater separation between real and fictional people. Hence I still use the name Sotosoroto, but the king in the book is So‘osolopo.

Several years after college, I created a pantheon of deities and, of course, linked it to the calendar. The stories of these gods and goddesses became The Holy Book of the Gods, which I decided I needed to finish first, before resuming work on the novel. I wrote Chronicle of the Cosmos so I could understand the culture and religion of the neighboring lands, which Manío and the other soldiers only briefly mention.

I never did work the national anthem into the story, but the day I emailed the White House (as counted in the Narakan calendar) is immortalized as Founding Day. Fly your Narakan tricolor high!