Doorway to Amau Meru – Author’s Commentary

Thank you all for reading Doorway to Amaru Meru and for the many fun comments I received. I loved to see what you were thinking as you read the parts and what you thought might be coming in the next section. Often, when I read a story, I wonder what the author is thinking and why the plot unfolded as it did. I wanted to take a few moments to share some insights about the story.

Many of us grew up being influenced by our parents and the environment we lived in. Luke Williams was different from the very start. He was from Amaru Meru and not from Earth. I offered a few early hints in Part 1 that Luke had learned the language within a span of a couple of months, and of course, there were his dreams.

Luke struggled with his parent’s beliefs, but he recognized their faith made them good and caring people. His parents always gave of themselves sacrificially, but Luke couldn’t corelate that faith with the concept of a good and loving God when bad things happened in the world. This was the seed of doubt that allowed Vikold and Syette a chance to manipulate him.

In Part 2, Luke becomes Aila and his worldview is shattered. Not only does he have to adapt to being female, but she’s on a new world with customs, magic, culture, and technology that is all foreign to her. The seed of doubt from her parent’s beliefs grew. The concept of good and evil being fabrications resonated with her, even though she knew good and evil existed. She wanted to believe something new. When her worldview crumbled, her subconscious worked overtime to formulate a new worldview.

This new worldview included the lure of destructive magic and the touches of Syette that his parents would have frowned upon. Slowly, the core of who Aila was, began to surface as she began to understand this new world.

In Part 3, Aila really stated forming a new sense of herself and the world around her. She realized that Syette was manipulating her and she that she was somehow deeply connected to a man she barely could remember in her dreams. When Syette exposed herself as not truly loving Aila, it freed Aila up to focus on her real feelings and what she wanted in life.

Part 3 was all about Aila’s inner reflection. Part 4 began with her being bound to Beor. This gave Aila a tremendous amount of confidence. She was determined to make her own way and when she met Sharian by the river, she was conflicted once again. Was she really in love with this man, or was she angrier with him for his lies? By the time she and Sharian arrive in Falshema, she was already in love with him.

When I initially started writing the story, I had part 1 already figured out. Part 2 and 3 flowed easily, but Part 4 was a challenge. This was a critical time for Aila. Would the Twuilhe finally offer support and lead her correctly? At first, I was going to make the Twuilhe good, but I struggled with a core theme of the story. Good and evil. The reality is that there are good and evil in people everywhere. I wrote and rewrote Part 4 several times until it felt right to me. The Twuilhe leaders were just as manipulative as Vikold and his minions. This was made fully clear when Master Saurel wished to kill her and had beaten Sharian.

Disillusioned and disheartened, Aila turned her focus inward in Part 5. While her magic was there, she was uncertain about it and everything. Once again, her worldview had cracked. The Twuilhe were not the people she had hoped for. All she knew for certain was the pull on her heart for Sharian.

For a short while, Aila was self-absorbed. She didn’t care much about the Amaru Meru and didn’t know who, other than Sharian she could trust. It was only when they fully understood the meaning of the ring and necklace, did her thoughts turn outward again. She recognized Vikold as evil and she feared what damage he could do.

To protect Sharian and those people on Earth from Vikold, she risked her own life to retrieve the necklace. Even with all her power, which she was still unsure of herself, she was afraid. Syette’s magic could no longer do anything to her, but when she was bitten by Vikold, the blood curse took away everything she was.

I remember reading many comments at this point; that the dragon blood might kill Vikold or that Aila might be fine. Being a blood curse, it was uniquely different than Syette’s magic and Aila’s magic wouldn’t stabilize until her ascension meaning it could sway one direction or another. Vikold knew this and understood he was still safe when he bit Aila.

Part 6 was all about Aila’s internal fight against the darkness. In the end, it was love that prevailed. I tied together Luke’s mother’s prayer before she was killed. At the same time, she was ordered to kill Sharian. The combination of her mother’s words and Sharian’s love restored Aila to who she was. Ultimately, it was in making love to Sharian that introduced the extreme light magic into her body that balanced her.

I also wrote the vision Aila had of her Earthly and biological parents to give Aila a sense of belonging to something much greater than herself. The concept that a parent would know their child regardless of what they looked like (especially in the spirit world), is comforting.

By the end of part 6, Aila had ascended and she was magically balanced. Her mood had greatly changed. Her confidence and joy had returned, and her worldview had once again solidified.

Part 7 was both fun and challenging to write. Oftentimes, a TG transformation story is linear, meaning that the person is changed and continues to move forward without thought or having to deal with what they left behind. The re-introduction of Samantha and someone from Earth forced Aila to reevaluate her decisions and actions from the viewpoint of an Earthling. Suddenly, who Aila had become had to be revealed and assessed through another’s perspective. That hardest part for Aila was telling Samantha she was Luke and was now Aila and married to a man. By every Earthly standard, this would have been questioned and ridiculed.

Confronting Samantha with the truth took away lingering fears within Aila. This final mental conflict firmly grounded Aila in who she now was. When Aila discovered the news of the war between the factions, she was finally able to set herself aside and look outward towards others. She was now ready to lead.

I debated many times whether to have a major battle where Aila would use her magic to prevail but ultimately decided to never have Aila kill anyone in the story. To me it was a stronger statement to give Aila ultimate power and authority and yet choose to rely upon humility and compassion to bring people together.

Having Vikold eaten by Beor was a humorous way to be rid of the man but would allow Aila to not be tainted by the death of another person. In the end, Aila realized most people prefer unity and love and only a very few desired power and had evil intent. I believe this is reflects our reality today.

The final part was written to close the circle and wrap up those loose ends that occur in any story. The small failure of Aila to magically create a car showed humility and I wanted to leave the reader with the feeling Aila had much more to learn and grow with her abilities. The final scene with Aila before the graves of her parents is so true in all our lives. When we are young, we blindly follow our parent’s beliefs. As we get older, we begin to question them, and many times reject their beliefs. As we become older yet, we realize we miss their wisdom. They might not have always been correct, but that no longer mattered. We recognized their contribution to our lives and wish for one more moment with the people that molded us.

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About me – Casey Brooke

I was eleven or twelve when I first realized there was something different about me. It all started with a dream that I was someone else. In my dream, I was female, not transforming or transitioning, but 100% female as if I had been born that way. Since then I have had similar dreams several times per week throughout my life.

For many years, I struggled with the belief that my mental fixation on being female was a direct result of my unhappiness of being male; unhappiness that stemmed from bullying and general Neanderthal-like behavior from other boys. I was, by no means, gay. I loved women and adored them, even if I strongly desired to be one of them.

The bullying was pervasive and ongoing for years, giving me ulcers at a young age. In some ways, it drove me into my career in computers as I preferred dealing with computers rather than people. I’m quite introverted, but my day job gives me more socialization than I ever need.

Back in the day, no one EVER spoke about gender identity disorders. Such topics were taboo. Since I adored women, I had no problems marrying one and starting a family. I’m now in my 31^st year of marriage with one child in his mid-twenties. My family knows nothing about my issue nor do they know about my writing. I’ve kept my innermost secret from them as my wife has expressed deep disregard for those in the TG community. My unveiling my secret would do nothing but harm my relationship.

I’ve heard all the thoughts and suggestions that I’m hurting myself and my family by not sharing. Trust me in that I know my family and how much this would hurt them. I’d rather be miserable my entire life than to have them feel insecure in who I am. I have no desire to hurt them for the slight chance they would be open and accepting me as I truly am. It’s sad that I feel I must keep my writing from them as I am proud of what I’ve accomplished.

My writing stems from my desire for escape from myself. I put myself into every main character, feel every hurt and wound they feel, and yes, I do cry and have to take breaks when writing or re-reading key parts of a story.

Several years ago, I learned from my mother that she took Diethylstilbestrol (DES) when she was pregnant with me. DES is a synthetic estrogen and there is now scientific evidence to support much higher than normal gender identity issues for sons born influenced by DES. The way I feel, it’s as if my brain, bathed in DES while forming, became more female than male and it screams at me every minute of every day that I’m not what I’m supposed to be.

I grew up on the writings of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Michael Moorcock, and Isaac Asimov. These were authors that pulled me into their fantasy worlds with an emphasis on courage, honor, and loyalty. Even at a young age, I had a heightened sense of justice. You’ll see this in my writings.

One comment recently stated that ‘it’s a Casey Brooke story. It has to end happily ever after.’ I’m guilty as charged. What’s the use of escapism if you can’t come away with a renewed sense of hope? Maybe one day I’ll surprise you all with a somber and sad ending (but it’s not likely).

What are some of my favorite stories that I have written? I’m rather partial to Svala, Shalim IV, Thyria’s Bow, SLEP, The Farm, Chaos Theory, and book two of the Jupiter series A Slave of Jupiter (I put myself into the story and had fun with that one).

I have about forty more stories currently in the works. One coming (hopefully soon) called Blackfall. It’s a story about a prince that was trained all his life for the kingship, only to be cursed by the realm’s magician. This is a swashbuckling tale of the now beautiful female version of himself and her escape from the plot against her and her family. I also have a story about a modern-day Egyptian mummy’s curse coming.

So, that’s a little about me. Thanks for reading.

Casey