A New Direction – Atlas Rose

Updates

Hi all! I wanted to update you all on what I’ve been working on in the last few months and where I have chosen to take it. Atlas Rose is a new pen name for me, as some of you may know. I created it in response to a problem I’ve run into with converging audiences. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me first explain where the convergence started and what I’ve been up to that made a new pen name necessary.

Research Project

Maybe two months ago, I decided to start out on a journey to study all the effects of the socialist and communist philosophies on American culture, society, and current events. While the USSR collapsed long ago, Marx’s philosophies and the dangerous conditions they produce have not died. They are still enshrined in so many ways within societies around the world, in the “people’s” states such as Cuba or Venezuala, and–sadly–in the policies enacted by both sides of our government and the halls of learning that should have looked to history and known better.

All of this research, while interesting, is of course of no good if I keep it all to myself. I am still doing the research, still learning more and more each day. What I learn, what I see, leaves me with an immeasurable sense of disgust, anguish, horror, and fear. I see the ideals that were held by every dictator under the sun (both Communist and Fascist and otherwise affiliated) destroying the country I love, eating away at it from the inside out.

In the past, I have spoken up about issues I felt were of dire importance in the more personal segments of this blog, but the branding of this blog has been and always will be expertise on all things fantasy. As such, it is not really the platform or the forum for more than the occasional discussion of history, politics, and philosophy. I know readers do enjoy getting a glimpse at the mind and heart behind the work of authors they enjoy, and so I don’t want to entirely remove the personal aspects of this blog.

Solutions to my Problem

This left me in need of a solution, and that solution comes in the form of a new platform and a second pen name to allow for reaching those I might not otherwise reach. Fantasy readers and authors are not the only ones who can find some use from real world discussions, after all, and unfortunately, branding yourself as an expert in one field often leads to the assumption of others that you have no expertise in another area and therefore are not qualified to discuss it, whether that is true or not. So, Atlas Rose is the solution to this quandary.

To those who enjoy reading the more philosophical, historical, or political pieces I put out, you will find them in one of a few places. First, you can follow the Atlas Rose Facebook page to get notifications every time a new post comes out, just as you do with my current Facebook page for this pen name. (Note that I was unable to use AtlasRose as my username since someone else had it, so if you’re looking for the page under the username, it’ll be @AtlasIsland.) All posts will be shared to that page, so you can find them there. But, you can also find them over on Atlas’s Island, the new platform that will be hosting the blog associated with Atlas Rose.

Future Plans with Atlas Rose

Non-fiction

I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t plan ahead, sometimes years into the future. So, I do have plans for where I am headed with Atlas Rose. As I work through my research, I am learning a great deal about our Founding Fathers, the principles they built us on, the dangerous philosophies destroying our country, and the philosophies that would fix it if people dared to understand them and stand for them in any crowd. I plan to compile all of that research into a research paper or book.

However, because the project I began has so many implications and touches so many different topics, I feel that it would be best to split topics up where necessary and to build a series of books that will step people through from the Founding of our country and the principles behind it to the current day and the philosophies now destroying those principles and the country we proposed to protect. This will allow not only for a logical progression from one point to the next and more manageable, bite-sized chunks, but will also allow those who may already know some material to move to what topics they may not already know about.

Realistic Fiction

The other thing I would like to do with this new pen name is to place realistic fiction in the style of Ayn Rand, George Orwell, and Aldous Huxley underneath it. I have long wished to write some sort of story that would be more overtly philosophical in its tone while still telling a story. Unfortunately, while much of my fantasy does have a much more philosophical tone than you often find in other fantasy novels, speculative fiction does not easily provide for a non-convoluted presentation of a philosophical mentality or faith. The closest one can come to a clear presentation of any Earth-based faith such as Christianity is in allegory, and that is often poorly done because of the necessity of elements that may clash with those faiths.

As a Christian author, while fantasy is my first love, I would like the room to write fiction that is not under the speculative fiction branch and can deal directly with the world I see around me. Atlas Rose will allow me to do that. I hope that those of you here who find some interest in the Sunday Stories section of this blog will also join me on the other platform. Some of you who are not interested in fantasy much at all and solely read those sections might want to migrate entirely to Atlas’s Island. If that’s you, I would be delighted to have you!

The Challenges of a New Platform As Atlas Rose

Of course, the challenge most readily apparent is that I’m building mostly from the ground up here. The two audiences that the two blogs and pen names target are vastly different, particularly since both blogs operate on the philosophy of providing expertise and educational content in their respective fields. This makes it hard, at times, to mingle the audiences and is why I chose to separate them in the first place. But this means that I will be starting mostly from scratch. What little I do have comes in the way of those of you who are here and will now want to join me over there. 🙂

How You Can Help With This Challenge

If you are willing, I could use your help in simply spreading the word. If there are others you think would benefit from the kind of content I produce on the Sunday Stories here (which will now be on Atlas’s Island predominantly), I would greatly appreciate it if you shared the site with them. I’d like to share what I have learned and the information I have gathered with anyone who can appreciate it and wants it for the sake of what it is: knowledge.

If you or others appreciate it in that way, then that is all the further satisfaction I need. This is not–and never has been–about the money. Money is nice. It lets me continue to put out content and produce quality products for what I publish or to keep the websites running. But money is not the goal.

The goal is, and always has been, two-fold: to produce the best quality content I can for the simple joy of achievement in itself and to see others appreciate the art for the beauty and the truth it presents and no other reason. My audience, whether here or on Atlas’s Island, has always been intended to be the individual who can both appreciate the things produced for their value and who is interested in truth and the mind just as I am. Even when dealing in fiction, I believe these ideals cannot and must not be separated from what is being produced.

The Second Challenge

The second challenge is in producing content of equal quality for both blogs and pen names. Since Atlas’s Island deals with content of a much more academic and philosophical nature, the content requires more time and thought to produce. It requires more than just my word for it, though even here I do not ask anyone to simply take my word on it for anything. So the content produced for that might come at a bit slower rate.

To ensure I have time for both, the Sunday Stories section of the blog will lessen in frequency of posts. I’ll still post, but the topics will generally focus more on what I’m learning in the areas of my faith or in life where it is unrelated to politics, philosophy, or history directly. This means that I may not post every other week but only as I have something to share that I feel might be of value to fellow authors, readers, or other Christians.

In Summary

Thank you all of you for the tremendous support you’ve shown for me here as Ariel Paiement. I’m not going anywhere, and the new author’s name doesn’t mean that I will be dropping my role here or no longer writing fantasy novels. I adore writing and fantasy, and I couldn’t imagine no longer writing speculative fiction. I just felt stifled in having no outlet for the other areas of the mind and creativity that I wished to pursue, and Atlas Rose will be the solution for that.

If you’d like to join me and support me in that journey as well, give my page on Facebook a like and follow me over on Atlas’s Island. If I add on other social media for this new author’s name, I’ll include the links here and over on the new blog. I will also be taking content from this blog that fits with the new one and posting it there as well. So if you missed anything or want to read old articles again, you’ll be able to easily find them over there too.