TIL TIME: An Intro to History's Greatest Adventures

In 2022, I started writing for real. Ever since I was a kid, I loved reading, and that evolved into a desire to tell stories to others that propelled me into a new career. My favourite books were always very fictional: fantasy adventures like The Name of the Wind, Mistborn, The Witcher, Skulduggery Pleasant, Percy Jackson, Rowan of Rin, and Ranger's Apprentice, science fiction epics like Star Wars and A Confusion of Princes, and espionage thrillers like CHERUB and Jack Reacher. When I turned to writing, I had loads of ideas, but I settled on a series that combined exciting adventures, exploration, and history, which I've always loved.

Til Time is that series. These books are more novellas than novels, readable in a single day if you have the time. They follow Imogen and Ashton, two high school best friends separated during university only to reunite, making a shocking discovery when they do: together, they can time travel. The series explores their adventures in history, visiting a variety of times and places through a different kind of story in each book.

First in the series is The Sultan's Siege. When Imogen and Ashton first fall unexpectedly back in time, they arrive in what is now Jordan during the late 12th century, at the time on the border between the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Sultanate of Egypt and Syria. Amidst the scrubby desert, the town of Tafilah offers a safe haven to find out how on earth they accidentally time travelled. With the aid of an Islamic imam and a Jewish scholar, they stand a chance at getting home together. But with the army of Saladin, Sultan of Egypt and Syria, in the process of invading Crusader territory to take out the vicious Raynald of Chatillon, the situation is dangerous and volatile. When the two are separated by war, they'll need the help of some unlikely allies to return home alive.

The market at Tafilah is filled to the brim with people and goods from all over the known world.

Next up in the series is The Frankish Fille, the first intentional time travelling adventure by our heroes. Finding themselves in vibrant Burgundy in south-eastern France during the mysterious Dark Ages of the 9th century, they expect to spend a few days wandering the countryside, tasting the fine wines of the region and getting to know the culture of a world halfway between the ancient Romans and the medieval French. A quick rescue mission throws their plans out the window, and they set off across Francia alongside the mysterious and confident Melisende, a 17 year old spy working for Lothar II, one of the many kings of the Frankish Empire. Cathedral heists, murder investigations, and parleys with bloodthirsty Vikings await them. History itself is at stake here, but does the road they walk carry too high a toll?

Young and mysterious: Frankish spy Melisende is on a mission.

Lastly - for now - is A Song of Sorrow, the third instalment in the series. Imogen and Ashton take their historical holidays to China during the Golden Age of the Tang Dynasty in the 8th century. Alas, the gold is melting away from this era, as the country is consumed by civil war. At the heart of it is one woman, an ex-empress made into a scapegoat by the imperial court and hunted through the province of Sichuan. As she loses heart in her desperate plight, along come two heroes willing to save her, and their journey to the sea begins. With the country aflame, there are many others who need their aid as well, but betrayal and slaughter stand in their way. All they can do is hold tight to each other as a storm of fire and blood threaten to overwhelm them.

Civil war engulfs China, and no one is safe from its flames.

More novels from Til Time are coming, and I'll announce them here and on my social media when they arrive. Until then, if these sound like something you'd like to read, you can buy them over on my online store at https://mattryanwrites.myshopify.com/. If you prefer your books made of pixels rather than paper, you can also find them on the major ebook platforms: Kindle, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Google, and Apple. To follow me on social media, you can search up Matt Ryan Writes on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, or find them directly here: https://linktr.ee/mattryanwrites. Happy reading!

A Cup of Eyelids

    Tea. One of the most pervasive drinks in modern society, alongside water, coffee, alcohol, milk, and juice. It's shocking, then, that it really only existed outside of China, Korea, and Japan following the establishment of 16th century trade routes between East Asia and Europe. And yes, that includes India and the Middle East. No accounts of this drink, or the leaves used to make it, can be found in Indian, Arab, Persian, or Ottoman society. Its cultivation appears to have been a closely guarded secret, and no foreign cultures came to like the drinking of tea before then, keeping exports negligible. The one place which appears to have imported tea prior to Portugal's arrival in China in 1513 is the Ajuran Empire in Somalia, which gained large numbers of tea imports in the 13th century.

    When I began researching the history of tea for a book, I was surprised to find that tea never made it any further west than China for so long. This is despite the 2000 year old trade route known as the Silk Road that passed through the Tarim Basin, the ancient homelands of the Turkish people, Bactria, Persia, and finally the Roman Empire. Even after several collapses of the Chinese state and their subsequent reconstitution, which naturally affected the export industry greatly, no one thought to buy the dried brown leaves that Chinese traders steeped in water and drank. However, upon diving further into this surprising piece of history, my shock only grew. Here's where this rabbit hole leads.

    The leaves used to make tea, coming from the Camellia sinensis plant, originated in the provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan in China and northern Myanmar, a place where several ancient and medieval cultures merged. The oldest reference to tea drinking comes in the form of medicinal concoctions in the time of the Shang Dynasty, which ruled China between 1600 and 1046 BCE. On its own, tea was definitively drunk as early as the Han Dynasty, in the 2nd century BCE. Samples of tea leaves were found in a mausoleum in Xi'an, known as Chang'an in ancient China, though it was certainly drunk earlier than that.

    By the time of the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE), tea drinking had become an integral part of Chinese culture, evidenced by The Classics of Tea, a treatise written by the tea nerd Lu Yu. This book provides details on the origins, cultivation, preparation, and drinking customs of Chinese tea. Lu Yu relates a myth about the origin of tea, in which the legendary Yan Emperor, Shennong, was drinking boiled water in 2737 BCE. Some tea leaves fell from a nearby tree into the water, changing the colour and taste. Surprised, yet nonetheless pleased by the change, he adopted the new drink and encouraged his subjects to do the same.

    Another legend, originating in the Tang Dynasty, was that the founder of Chan Buddhism, Bodhidharma, created the first tea tree with his eyelids. I will back up. Bodhidharma once spent nine years meditating in front of a wall. Why was he meditating in front of a wall? Why did he spend nine years doing this? Did he eat? I don't know. But after nine years of meditating, he apparently fell asleep. I honestly don't blame him. However, upon waking up, he was enraged by his weakness in falling asleep. To punish himself and prevent any further naps, he cut off his own eyelids. Where they fell to the ground, tea bushes sprang up. Think about that next time you enjoy a nice cuppa.

    The last interesting story I'd like to relate regarding the history of tea is that of Lapsang Souchong Tea. There are a few different versions of the story surrounding its creation in 1646 CE, all involving the speedy drying of the leaves over a pine fire, giving the tea its characteristic pine-smoke flavour. One version has a group of bandits raid a tea farm in the Wuyi Mountains, in south-eastern China, where they steal a load of tea leaves. However, the leaves hadn't been dried, so the bandits had a bunch of heavy, useless, wet leaves. The bandits weren't the smartest bunch, and they chose to dry it before trying to sell it. Rather than use a normal fire, they made a bonfire out of pine logs and all but dumped the leaves onto the fire. Now they had a load of smoky, burnt leaves, so they sold it as quick as they could to a Dutch trader. The other version involves some tea farmers hiding their newly picked tea crop from Qing soldiers in the area. To prevent the leaves' spoilage, they quickly dried them, then hid them underground. When they dug them back up, they realised the leaves smelt very different, and similarly sold the load ASAP. In both versions, the Dutch trader loved the taste of the tea, and demand for Lapsang Souchong began. I've had a cup of this tea, or a few mouthfuls anyway. I don't see the appeal.

    So, tea has a weird story to it. Despite the massive appeal that it has throughout China, Korea, Japan, India, and various places in western culture, it has a remarkably long and remarkably short history. The fact that people drink hot leaf juice at all is honestly baffling.

 No Such Thing as Writer's Block

As a writer, one of the most dreaded things that no amount of experience or any creative writing degree can prepare you for is the moment when you have no idea what to write next. Writer's block is a bit like forgetting why you walked into a room, except you can't leave the room and it takes several days to remember what you were doing. It's similar to planning a holiday in Melbourne, only you don't have a car or airplane tickets to get there, no travel snacks, and you think Melbourne is north of Sydney (for anyone unfamiliar with Australian geography, it's not).
    So, how do you get past it?
    The quick answer is that you don't.
    If you jumped onto this page expecting a way to defeat writer's block, then I'm sorry to disappoint you. What you can do, however, is ignore the invading army that is writer's block and go build a chateau until it gets bored and leaves. Once that's over, you'll have no writer's block and a chateau. Good results all around.
    Basically, writer's block prevents you from writing more of your novel. But anyone who has written a book knows that there is always stuff to do after the book's written. So why not just do that stuff now?
    Go put together a post on social media to advertise your writing, both past and future, so that people will know what you're doing.
    Consider what your book's cover art is going to look like. Examine other books to see what elements work well with your genre and your story. Maybe draw up a sketch. If you're your own cover artist, just go and do the cover art.
    Plan out future titles. No, I don't mean write it, I mean put together a structure for the story that you've written down only a vague description for. Maybe come up with future characters. If your characters only have brief, poorly detailed descriptions, expand on them.
    Do some research. Wherever and whenever your story is set, there's always going to be something you can draw from the real world into it. If your book is set in a fantasy land, even just understanding how our world came to be the way it is can provide you with the potential for worldbuilding that will give your story so much greater depth. If it's a crime thriller, then looking at how real world criminal enterprises work can give you a good basis to build your story of dark intrigue on. And science fiction has the word science in it for a reason. How do your characters travel faster than the speed of light? What is the journey they take to understanding how to reanimate a dead body? So much of what we write comes from our imagination, but the reader won't enjoy or believe it if none of it makes sense.
    Employing beta readers is also an important aspect of writing, if it's the kind of thing you want to use. So arrange some readers ahead of time and think about useful questions you can ask to get the best feedback possible.
    If you're a self-publisher, there's always some boring business stuff you can do. Tax forms, distribution networking, marketing campaigns. They're awful, but they have to be done at some point.
    Also, don't leave writing your blurb to the last minute. Work on it early. I can tell you this from personal experience.
    And lastly, if there's nothing else to do ahead of time, go and read a book. It can provide inspiration to help bypass that writer's block, and you can learn how to improve your own writing style by studying that of your favourite authors.
    That being said, there are ways to rid yourself of writer's block. Probably the most effective technique is something akin to journaling. If you know where in the story you were focused yesterday, you can keep up the flow and prevent the story fading like mist in the morning. Each day, write down what you have to do, whether you're focusing on a particular narrative thread or a subplot or you have writing-adjacent things to do. That way, when you start the next day, you can follow on from yesterday. This should - most of the time - keep away that dastardly writer's block.
    Organisation and flexibility can be powerful tools for writers to prevent distractions and avoid delays in your writing journey, keeping you on schedule even when you don't know what to do next. Writer's block can be your friend if you let it.