Writing Journey

Writing Through Illness Keeping the Flame Lit

/ Author Simon Phillips / Leave a comment

There’s a particular stillness to the house when one is unwell. The windows dim, the hours stretch thin, and even the simple act of sitting at a desk becomes a task weighed with strange solemnity. Over the past week, I’ve been writing through a heavy spell of illness, not the romantic sort that lends itself to poetic fever-dreams and sudden inspiration, but the ordinary kind. The draining, silent kind. Head fog, aching bones, and the slow drag of breath.

And still, the story asks to be told.

It hasn’t been easy. The rhythm of my chapters, those long, rolling sentences that mirror the breath of the world I’m building, do not come quickly when my mind is wrapped in cotton. Dialogue feels slower to surface, the flow of magic across a battlefield takes more effort to visualise, and Simion’s thoughts… his weariness starts to echo my own. Yet somehow, that makes the writing more honest. There’s no room for pretense when you are sick. What emerges on the page feels stripped back to truth.

There’s comfort in the discipline, too. Even a few hundred words become a kind of anchor. I’ve been working steadily through Chapter 31, part by part, and while I’ve not progressed at my usual pace, I’ve remained in the world. That matters more than anything. Staying inside the rhythm of the novel, no matter how slowly, prevents the silence from becoming distance. And when you are tired, truly tired, that distance grows fast.

This post is not a grand revelation, nor a triumphant declaration of productivity. It is simply a mark on the wall. A quiet signal that the story lives, even on days when the author does not feel particularly alive himself. If you are also working through something, whether a cold, a long week, or a deeper weariness, I hope you remember this: words written under strain are still worthy. They still carry weight. And sometimes, they carry more of you than you realise.

I’ll return to the cliff’s edge soon, where Simion waits beside those ancient stones. There is much still to tell.

Until then, rest, breathe, and if you can, keep the flame lit.

How I Plan Epic Conflicts Without Losing the Characters

/ Author Simon Phillips / Leave a comment

If there’s one question I return to again and again while writing The Veil of Kings and Gods, it’s this: how do you make war feel personal? Not just dramatic, not just explosive or large in scale, but real, rooted in the hearts of the people forced to live through it.

High fantasy is often filled with titanic clashes: gods levelling mountains, kings raising armies, ancient orders clashing across the centuries. But if I’m being honest, those scenes only truly work when they grow from something human. When a character you care about walks into the storm and you understand why.

I’ve spent the past year trying to balance these two worlds: the grand and the intimate. The arcane and the emotional. And nowhere has that balance been more important than in planning the major conflicts of this story, political, magical, divine. Today, I want to share how I approach that.

The Characters Always Come First

It sounds simple. Obvious, even. But when you’re building a vast world with kingdoms at the brink and gods whispering from beyond the veil, it’s shockingly easy to forget that someone still has to live through it.

For me, that’s Simion, Patrick, Týrnan. Each of them sees the oncoming storm from a different vantage point and each is wounded by it in ways that are quiet, personal, and rooted in character. Simion is a man caught between divine expectation and the fragile world of expectation. Patrick bears the weight of kingship while hiding parts of himself that would shatter his position. Týrnan fights not for conquest, but to keep his people from losing their soul.

The conflicts around them may escalate. But unless those conflicts are built on the foundation of who they are, their doubts, fears, loyalties, and flaws, the story would ring hollow.

Conflict as Mirror, Not Just Plot Device

One of my guiding principles is that every external conflict must reflect an internal one. If a battle breaks out between kingdoms, it needs to echo the unrest already stirring within the characters.

Take Patrick. His kingdom teeters on the edge of diplomatic collapse, but what drives that tension is not just geopolitics, it’s his own repression. His court senses weakness. His enemies sense distance. And Patrick, for all his strength, has no safe space to be fully himself. The war outside is the war inside.

Likewise with Simion, who is being slowly crushed by the power he once sought. The threats he faces aren’t always from enemies; sometimes they come from within, from his refusal to be the weapon the gods demands, from his fear of harming those he loves, from the ancient force he’s inherited that now forgets its own wisdom. These are personal wars. The divine and the magical are just the landscape they bleed into.

Intimacy in the Midst of Chaos

One of the joys and challenges of writing a large-scale fantasy series is finding the quiet in the chaos. There are scenes in Book 1 where cities are burning or armies are gathering, and yet the most important moment is a hand held too tightly, or a look that lingers a second too long. That’s what I strive for.

When Simion walks into battle, I don’t want the reader to think of fire and ruin. I want them to think of his challenges. Of the weight of the cloak he wears. These are the things that make his power mean something. Without them, he’s just another mage with too much fire in his hands.

And when Patrick makes a decision that could cost him the alliance of a kingdom, it’s not the politics that matter. It’s what he sacrifices to stand firm, the love he denies, the truth he cannot speak, the safety he’ll never truly have. These are the human costs, and they’re what I try never to lose sight of.

Final Thoughts

I love grand fantasy. I always will. But I believe its heart lies not in its spectacle, but in its people. In the ones who stumble through magic and war with bruised hearts and broken promises, doing their best to hold on.

So when I plan my conflicts, magical or mortal, I don’t begin with maps or power levels or ancient histories. I begin with the characters. With their wounds and their wants. And I try, as best I can, not to lose them in the storm.

Because the war may shape the world.
But it’s the people who shape the war.

When Characters Refuse to Obey A Quiet Update from the Writing Desk

/ Author Simon Phillips / Leave a comment

There are days when the words arrive with purpose, unfolding like the tide, steady, inevitable, drawn by unseen moons I never named. And then there are days like this past week, where a single scene becomes something else entirely. Not broken, nor wrong, simply… changed. Unexpected. Alive in a way I had not planned.

I was rewriting a chapter for The Veil of Kings and Gods, one that should have followed the arc I had carefully woven. The notes were there, the pacing mapped, the motivations aligned. Simion was meant to speak. A single line. Firm, measured, final. A rejection. It would have been a turning point of sorts, the moment he chooses distance over duty.

And yet, as I reached that moment, he waited.

Not in defiance. He was simply still. Listening. Watching. And when the words came, they were not rejection, but understanding. A softness I had not intended entered the scene, subtle, unexpected, entirely right. It changed the shape of the moment. It changed him. And through him, the shape of what follows.

This is not the first time a character has shifted beneath my hands. Patrick once delayed a speech for two chapters because his silence held more weight than I had imagined. Elana once turned back when I thought she would walk away. Even Týrnan, who so often walks the edge of fire and certainty, veered off course once to grant mercy where I had written none.

These are not dramatic revisions. They are the quiet revolts, the ones that happen deep in the bones of the work. You do not always see them coming. They’re not betrayals of plan or plot. They are corrections of truth. A character, fully formed, will sometimes remind you that they are no longer yours to shape so easily.

So this is where I am. Still within the final stretch of the book. Still rewriting, refining, listening. Not rushing. Letting the weight of each word find its proper place. Some chapters arrive like stone. Others like river. All must settle before the storm.

Thank you for reading and for walking this strange, shifting path with me.

Until the next.

The village doesn’t exist yet but I know it’s there

/ Author Simon Phillips / Leave a comment

It’s just past midnight.

A candle flickers beside me, catching the curl of parchment and the edge of an old teacup. I’m staring at a map no one’s ever seen. A blank patch of woodland sits untouched waiting. Not for a battle or a prophecy. Just a name.

Thronheim. Thornwynde. Djenhara.

Each one arrives with a different weight. A different feeling. As though I’ve stepped into a new season, a different wind stirring the trees. I try one, then another, letting the sound of it sit on the tongue.

Naming a place in a fantasy world isn’t just about the sound. It’s about the history you haven’t written yet. The lives you haven’t met. A name carries the mood of the land, its sorrow, its strength, its story.

And some nights, I can’t move forward until I find the one that fits.

Naming places is like uncovering them

Sometimes it feels less like creating and more like discovering. The name already exists somewhere, I’m just trying to hear it clearly. It might come from a half-remembered dream or an echo of another language. Often it arrives when I’m nowhere near the desk. Walking. Waiting. Listening.

Other times, I sit like this. Quiet. Focused. Letting the world grow through the stillness.

The right name shapes the path ahead. It tells me what kind of people might live there. What kind of secrets the soil might keep. A name like Sahmirra might belong to a place scarred by fire. Solvryn whispers of hidden things in the marsh.

And once I hear it, the true one, I know where to go next.

Behind the scenes of a quiet worldbuilder

This is what fantasy writing really looks like most days. Not sweeping battles or lightning storms of inspiration. Just quiet choices, made in the dark, that slowly build a world.

You don’t always need to rush. Some villages take longer to appear. Some names wait until you’re ready to find them.

If you’d like to see more of how I write these stories, how the world of Ældorra unfolds through maps, short stories, and strange midnight moments, you’re always welcome here.

Writing The Veil of Kings and Gods: Where the Story Began

/ Author Simon Phillips / Leave a comment

There was no single spark. The story came slowly, like a breath remembered from long ago, or a half-formed thought whispered through stone. A world shaped by old powers. A realm where kings fear magic, and magicians serve at the edge of thrones.

In the beginning, there was only a boy. He worked the castle kitchens in Bremyra, sweeping floors and scrubbing pans beneath the gaze of guards who barely noticed him. One day, something stirred. It broke through him, unseen, instinctive, and changed the course of his life. The Order of Magicians arrived, and the boy was taken.

He did not shine. While others rose through the ranks with ease, he struggled. There were no accolades, no whispered praises in candlelit halls. His tutors pushed him hard, and he endured. The hours were long. The silence longer. He studied while others excelled, remembered spells long after others had passed their trials.

In time, he left the Academy. There were no citadels calling his name. No grand appointments. His master in the Council intervened, and so he returned, back to the same castle where he once carried bread and carved meat. This time, he came as Advisor. The halls had changed. The faces had not.

That was where the story found its voice.

The world around him unfolded slowly. Whispered tensions in the council chamber. Glances that carried more weight than words. A kingdom balanced on memory and suspicion. Within those stone walls, something deeper began to stir, an echo, perhaps, or a remnant of something long buried.

As I wrote, I did not seek grand battles or sweeping prophecy. I sought something quieter. A man who carried more than others saw. A world that remembered what others had forgotten. Magic that did not burn with spectacle, but pulsed through the earth like a second heartbeat.

The Veil, once unseen, began to lift.

What lies beyond that veil remains hidden, for now. This story, like the world it inhabits, is still becoming. Yet its heart remains the same: a kitchen boy, a crown too close, and a voice that waits beneath the silence.

Magic in Ældorra: A Gift, a Curse, or Something More?

/ Author Simon Phillips / Leave a comment

In Ældorra, magic is not studied. It is claimed. A birthright, a spark born into the blood, seen by the Order, and seized before the world can lay its hands on you.

From the moment a child reveals the first hint of magic, whether by accident or fear, the Order of Magicians arrives. There are no family farewells. No second chances. The child is taken, their name entered into the record of the Academy, and whatever life they knew is quietly severed. To possess magic is to belong to the Order. Nothing else.

All magicians begin the same. They are taught the spoken forms, the written glyphs, the rigid cadence of incantation. Magic cannot be used without language. It must be spoken aloud, shaped by voice and carved by word. There are no silent spells, no intuitive gestures, no whispered charms in the night. If a magician forgets a word, the spell fails. If they twist its structure, the spell misfires, or worse.

Yet among those who speak the same spells, power is not equal.

Each magician draws from what the Order calls their well. Some wells are shallow, only able to fuel modest enchantments, brief illusions, momentary shields, small bursts of flame. Others are deep, vast, and enduring. Those who carry such wells rise quickly. These are the ones who bend flame to their will, who can speak a word and bring down the sky. They are the ones who ascend to the Council: The Order of Five, whose decisions shape the kingdoms more than any throne.

But even the greatest magician faces one immutable truth: they cannot heal.

It is not that healing magic is forbidden, it is simply beyond their reach. No spell, no incantation, no force of arcane will can mend the flesh or restore the spirit. That gift belongs solely to the Church of Christiana. Theirs is the divine touch, the holy word. It is a truth both sides know, yet seldom speak aloud: the Order commands the arcane, but it is the Church that claims the soul.

And though the world fears the Order, it is not without its own cruelty.

In Ældorra, only men may wield magic. Women, no matter how gifted, are forbidden by law. A woman who speaks a spell, whether for battle or for mercy, is declared a criminal. Even a healing incantation, performed in secret, may bring death. The punishment is absolute. The Order’s law is iron, and its reach does not falter.

So is magic a gift? A curse? Or something stranger still?

For those who carry the spark, there is no choice. Only the path set before them, the laws carved in stone, and the weight of a power they did not ask for, spoken word by spoken word, until their voice is no longer their own.

Editing, Rereading, and Rediscovering My Story

/ Author Simon Phillips / Leave a comment

Over the past few days, I’ve been deep in the process of proof-reading and editing three chapters of my novel, The Veil of Kings and Gods. It’s not the most glamorous part of writing, but this time, it felt different.

Something about reading the story with fresh eyes after a short break made the experience… enjoyable. Genuinely enjoyable.

I wasn’t just correcting grammar or trimming repetition, I was rediscovering the world I’d built. The tension in a particular scene, the rhythm of dialogue I’d forgotten writing, or that one line that landed exactly how I hoped it would months ago. These small victories reminded me that, yes, I’m actually telling a story worth reading.

There’s a strange kind of pride that comes with this phase. It’s less about ambition and more about affirmation. Not “Will this sell?” but “I’m glad I wrote this.”

Of course, I still tweak. I still cut. I still sigh when a sentence refuses to behave. But the difference now is that I’m refining something real, something that already exists, not chasing a blank page.

If you’ve ever written something long-form, be it a novel, a thesis, or even a personal journal, you might know the feeling: rereading your own words and thinking, This isn’t perfect… but it’s mine. And it’s good.

That’s the stage I’m in right now. And I wanted to share it, not just the technical process, but the strange joy of falling back into a world you created and realising you want to stay there a little longer.

Want to Hear the Behind-the-Scenes Version?

If you’d rather hear me talk through the editing process, I recorded a short face-to-camera video as well. You can watch it here:

Whether you’re a fellow writer, a reader waiting for the book, or just curious about the creative process, I hope this gives you a little window into what it means to edit with joy.

Let me know in the comments: Have you ever gone back to something you made and felt quietly proud of it?

Writing Between Worlds: How I Create Without a Dedicated Space

/ Author Simon Phillips / Leave a comment

There’s a romantic image of writers, sitting at a tidy desk by the window, sunlight pouring in, coffee steaming, and silence wrapping around them like a warm blanket. I admire that image. But my reality looks nothing like it.

I don’t have a designated writing space. Instead, I bounce between my school desk during quiet moments, the dining table when it’s free, and sometimes, my children’s study desk, usually after they’ve abandoned it for something more exciting. These places aren’t ideal, but they’ve become little writing islands where my story continues to grow.

As for my schedule, it’s a puzzle I solve day by day. I try to write in the afternoons between lessons, catching the quiet moments when the school slows down. Evenings are when I get the most done, once the family is asleep and the house slips into silence, that’s when I open the laptop and step back into Ældorra or whatever world I’m working on.

Weekends are unpredictable. If there’s time, after the housework, the errands, the family time, I write. Sometimes it’s just for twenty minutes, sometimes I surprise myself with a full hour of deep focus. But I’ve learned something valuable: consistency doesn’t always mean strict routines. Sometimes it just means showing up when you can, and making those small moments count.

I don’t write in perfect conditions. I write around life. And in a way, I think that gives my stories more life too.

If you’re a writer juggling your own chaos, I’d love to hear where and when you find your writing windows. Let’s build a space together, even if it’s scattered.

How I Stay Inspired While Writing the Same Story for Years

/ Author Simon Phillips / Leave a comment

Writing a novel isn’t always a straight path. For me, it’s been more like a winding mountain trail, sometimes clear and exciting, other times foggy and slow. I’ve been working on The Veil of Kings and Gods for years now. The world, the characters, and the themes have all evolved over time. And yet, somehow, I’ve never walked away from it.

So how do I stay inspired?

It’s not some mystical lightning bolt. It’s smaller than that, quieter. Sometimes it’s rediscovering an old scene I wrote months ago that still makes me smile. Other times it’s worldbuilding, filling in the map of Ældorra, thinking about what life is like in a ruined empire or how a long-forgotten piece of magic reshapes a character’s fate.

I also let the story grow with me. When I started this book, I was in a very different place in life. But I didn’t throw it out and start over. Instead, I’ve allowed my voice, my ideas, and my perspective to shift as the years have passed. I’ve rewritten, restructured, and reimagined, but never lost the heart of it.

What helps most, though, is this: I don’t pressure myself to rush.

This is a story I care about. I want it to be the best version of itself, not the fastest one. That mindset keeps the love alive. Some days I only manage a few lines. Other days I go deep. But each word brings me closer to the story I want to share.

If you’re writing something that’s taken years, you’re not alone. Let it take the time it needs. Let it change with you. The story will be stronger for it.

I’d love to hear about your long-term projects. What keeps you going? What has changed since you started?

Inside the Life of an Aspiring Author

/ Author Simon Phillips / Leave a comment

Most people imagine authors as curled up in quiet rooms, sipping tea and watching the words pour effortlessly onto the page. A kind of literary tranquillity, wrapped in books and warmed by candlelight.

I wish that were true.

The reality, at least for me, is far from romantic. It’s writing between real-life responsibilities, when the house is quiet and the world finally pauses. I’ve made a decision to pursue this dream fully, working extra hours not because I love the grind, but because that income, after family needs, goes straight into editing, proofreading, and eventually publishing. I’m investing in my own story, one sacrifice at a time.

My day is a patchwork of obligations. I run a small English school in Japan, manage creative routines around work and home life, and still find time to draw maps, script lore videos, and edit chapters that feel like they’ll never end. I’m not yet published. I’m not famous. But I’m building something, page by page, post by post.

There’s a mental weight to this work that few talk about. Some days, I stare at a sentence for an hour, unsure if it even belongs. Other days, it all flows so quickly I can barely keep up. The emotional shifts are real, self-doubt, exhaustion, the nagging feeling that I should be doing something more “practical.” But then a scene clicks. A piece of world-building locks into place. And for a moment, it feels like magic again.

So why do I keep going?

Because I believe in the stories I’m telling. The Veil of Kings and Gods is more than a novel, it’s a world I’ve carried for years. The short stories of Ældorra let me explore lost myths and haunted corners I’ve only glimpsed in dreams. And my sci-fi series, still in early development, pushes me to imagine a future I can barely articulate.

I don’t know when success will come, or even what it’ll look like when it does. But I know this: I want to create worlds that feel real, dangerous, and beautiful. Worlds where characters fight for something, where gods whisper from beyond, and where the weight of time never fully lifts.