To preface this with a small caveat, I know this might spur some confusion, but I (Zy Marquiez) write under two pen names, Zy Marquiez, and Noctis Blackburn. I lead off with that fact so individuals realize that I am one and the same, Noctis Blackburn and Zy Marquiez. As I continue to release books, the deliberate dichotomy will be incredibly significant, but that will be touched upon in the future. One pen name (Blackburn) will focus strictly on poetry and fiction, while the other (Marquiez) will focus on poetry, fiction, and research based books with significant source material. This dichotomy will be more evident in the future, but I mention it because that’s my plan with each pen name.
With that out of the way, Amor Vincit Omnia – Love Conquers All means a lot to me for myriad reasons, much more than I could probably ever convey in words. The fact that this book begins with an 11 page introduction shows how serious this book is to me, and how much I wanted to set a proper foundation for the argument that Love does in fact conquer all.
Moreover, the fact that this book is triple the size than my previous book Halcyon Days (word–count wise), also shows the significant extent I was willing to go to in order to extend the argument of Lover Conquering All as precise as possible under the intricate circumstances of such a broad topic. This isn’t filler content at all however. Not even close. The book features dozens of notations, not unlike most of my previous books, examining various different circumstances of how Love does in fact hold the power to change society through all strata, and not simply from a romantic point of view.
Yes, many of the poems in the book are written from a couple’s point of view, or a romantic point of view, but the poems are often metaphors operating on multiples tiers, not unlike life operates physically and metaphysically simultaneously, and those metaphors are extrapolated upon in the notations with key poems in mind, and crucial concepts in mind like kindness, goodness, appreciation, and so on.
Now, at its core, the book features two different arguments of how Love Conquers All. The first argument is the one that is covered through most of the book given its complexity, which is explained in the introduction. The second argument is simple, very simple. I happen to believe both are true. That said, what I myself believe is irrelevant, as I make it a point to explain in the book, I share these thoughts for consideration purposes only, examining of how Love could hypothetically not only “conquer all”, but could also create resounding change in the world.
Of course, the book is written with a very broad point of view in mind, sampling many subjective and objective points as well. The point is life, Love, and the paths that each individual take, happen in so many complex ways, to try and explain away such a concept and emotion as Love in a “one–size–fits–all” type of way would be very ignorant, or perhaps, shortsighted. Life is, and always will be much more complicated than that, particularly when emotions are involved. Even so, I do think the topic of Love isn’t explored with as much depth and care as it should be, which is one of the vanguard reasons why I chose to write this book.
Ultimately, what you believe about Love is your business, and you have every right to believe what you do because the life that you live is yours and yours alone, and the path that you are on is yours alone as well. I simply hope that this book offers something of substance that will help you consider not only Life and Love in a kaleidoscope of circumstances and how those ultimately help you grow as a person, but also how Love can help create that type of resonance that in fact does ultimately help change the world.
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BreakawayIndividual.com
Noctis Blackburn | Zy Marquiez
August 16, 2019
This is my formal announcement for a book that I’ve been working on for nigh two months. Given Zy Marquiez is my other pen name besides Noctis Blackburn, I am choosing to make an announcement here because of how much it means to me and because of how genuinely excited to I am to share this book.
As the above picture shows, the books name is Amor Vincit Omnia – Love Conquers All, which is a poetry book that I’ve put a lot of work and thought into for myriad reasons.
Now, the first point of the book is why I chose a color that’s mostly blue, with highlights of purple and so on, rather than something red? That’s a fantastic question that those that have known about the cover and have given me feedback have asked. One of the reasons for this is because this book is about Love Conquering All through all circumstances, and not just matters between two lovers. More importantly, though Love is usually ascribed the color red for obvious reasons, Love truly knows no boundaries, no colors.
As such, I thought it fitting to go with a more bluish/purple color scheme, rather than a reddish/purple/pink. Concurrently with that, red as Love is emblematic of Valentine’s Day, couples, romance, and such. And while Love between lovers is a part of this book, it’s not the only part of the book. I thought if I wrote the book from only that direction, it would leave a lot to be desired since Love affects all of us, no matter who we are, no matter whether we are in relationships or not, and so on. That said, nigh all the poems take a two person structure since I find it easier to write from that aspect, and I find it more beautiful as well. In conjunction with that, this book features the most amount of notations following well more than half the poems go extend the notion in many directions since human emotion is embedded deep within everyone and just leaving some poems without adding notations from them felt also incomplete since a romantic couple that seeks to do the right thing (or one person even) can still serve as a metaphor for a much more extensive view on Love.
Because of this, I opted to keep this color scheme because I like it a lot and everyone did as well, though they certainly wondered why bluish-purple rather than red/purple/pink and so on. Now, another vanguard consideration in this color scheme which is just as important as anything else is because a follow up to this book is already in the works, and given that that book is about love in the traditional sense with couples, romance, and so on, it’s going to follow a traditional Valentine’s Day-type color scheme, though I still have no conceptualized the cover or anything.
Likewise, I didn’t want to publish two books on Love with very similar color schemes because although Love is traditionally seen in red, as mentioned before, Love truly knows no boundaries nor colors. I would also like to make this part of a Trilogy, given that the first two books are covering important topics, although I believe the first one’s a lot more ‘objective’, while the second one is more ‘subjective’, I would still like to make it three books, although honestly I’m uncertain if I will be able to figure that out any time soon, so no promise there.
The final key consideration I want to discuss is why I chose the cover for this book. If you look at it carefully, you can see that the background is a heart that’s creation an explosion of resonance out of Love, which is essentially the reverse of a blackhole. Whereas a blackhole absorbs everything in sight leaving nothing left essentially, unconditional love is unconditional because it never stops, which I thought an incisive antithesis to something like a black-hole, which could mirror things that stem out of fear, hatred, and so on, which are important topics in the book. I put a lot of thought into all aspects of this book, and am still continuing to make sure to add some tidbits, but on the whole, the book is nigh complete and it’s almost ready to go. That said, it’s going to be around 2-3 weeks before it’s available to the public since I want to make sure that the book’s hardcover versions come out okay given that Lulu has some serious glitches when you uploading files
With everything previously discussed in mind, I would like to leave all of you with one final thought.
No matter where you are, who you are, what you do, and what you are going through, don’t ever forget that Love creates resonance, incredible resonance, and ultimately helps create the world you and all of us live in. The world truly becomes what we collectively create it to be and the power to do that should never be underestimated because each of us has way more power to change things than we often realize.
I could go on and on, but that’s the gist of it. I appreciate all of you taking time out of your day and reading this far.
Hope you all have a fantastic evening, and a phenomenal weekend! Take care of yourselves and be safe. Talk to you soon.
Sometimes, you have certain goals, and everything you try to do to carry out those goals seems to work against you. Other times, you seem to care not for those goals, and somehow someway everything flows into place like water settling down from a river into an ocean becoming part of something more.
This last week or so, I’ve been deep in thought considering many things in life. Some thoughts are in respect to personal goals, some are passion projects, some of it regards health, so on and so forth. Irrespective of that however, I find myself venturing in a thousand directions unable to pick and choose whether to continue tackling things on an instinctual level, or whether to take a laser-like focus approached into a particular goal or project. Time will tell on that front.
With that in mind, one of the projects that is officially complete, although it has been for nigh two weeks, is the book A Kaleidoscope Of Possibilities which was published on May 29th.
The poetry book A Kaleidoscope Of Possibilities is incredibly significant to me for countless reasons, not the least of which is because this book is in essence an overarching view into many of the struggles I have personally faced, or have seen others face, along with many other noteworthy issues. Also, unlike most other poetry books which feature only poems, this one features personal notations through and through of varying length as insights or personal notes. These can be as short as a couple of lines, or as extensive as a few paragraphs. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and might do something similar in the future.
Most of the poems featured in the book have been shared on many social media platforms, whether it was on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., as well as quite a few websites as well. Some of these poems go back to what was written when I was a teenager, up until early this year.
While most poets that I’ve seen usually wait until their best work is published to start off, I thought I would take a different approach. I don’t want people only to see ‘the finished product’ of what my writing entails as I wait for more polished pieces. If that is what you seek, I would suggest waiting for Halcyon Days, or another other book thereafter.
What I want everyone to keep in mind with this particular book, including myself, is how my writing has grown over time, so I can go back and reflect on that. I simply want people to read that and say, “Hey, I can’ do that too!” This type of can-do mindset is much easier to impart into others when they see your ‘skill’ in its most basic form, from the ground up. I say ‘skill’ loosely, for I am only an amateur writer, but no other words come to mind that seem to fit.
Many times, in life, society as a whole sees the finished product of someone. They see the movie star, the athlete, the Olympian, et al., in their latest form. What people don’t see is where they came from, how they started, how they struggled and so on. Autobiographies cover this to a great extent, but that is usually after individuals have considerable experience in particular field, which does a great disservice to people who want to learn from others to the utmost degree.
Excerpt from A Kaleidoscope Of Possibilities.
That said, some of the topics featured within the book that can help with an individual’s growth include love, pain, suffering, fear, abuse, mistakes, addictions, life lessons, mistakes in poker that translate to life, and much more. Almost none of the notations in A Kaleidoscope Of Possibilities delve into incredible depth unless absolutely necessary (as can be seen above), given that this is primarily a poetry book, but the insights that are there are included for those seeking deeper rumination of such a full spectrum of subjects. A handful of the notations really seep into more mindful depths, but in the full totality, there’s a little bit of everything [1].
In other words, the notations in this poetry book, which encompass nearly 3/4th of the substance of the book, are just as important, if not more important than the poems themselves. This is because the insights that may be drawn from these for me personally, or for others as well, are just as important as the finished product, those being the poems, which is exactly what I was getting at earlier.
Either way, this information is shared so it can serve as a baseline for some of my future works, so I can see, and others as well, where I have come from so others can take a “Can Do” attitude from it if at all possible.
No matter where you are from, what you have gone through, what goals you have or what you wish to ultimately get in life, you always have options, there is always a choice. These choices encompass the full breadth and scope, the veritable kaleidoscope of possibilities that life offers every single day.
These possibilities that exist every single day, and the choices that may stem from them, are what life is all about. Good choices, bad choices, it matters not, for individuals will always have choices, whether to start something great, or rectify past mistakes. What matters most is that we DO have a choice to live a better life, a more meaningful life, a life of possibilities.
That’s what A Kaleidoscope Of Possibilities is all about; it is about gazing into the abyss of life, sifting through the deeper levels of your being and life itself for the significance of every single choice you make, no matter how big or small, and how that couples directly into the lifestream.
You, the individual, are a microcosm of that lifestream, and ultimately significant component of life itself. And as you make your choices on your path, life itself changes accordingly, your life, as well as those of others, contributing to the larger tapestry of wonder that the world holds.
This tapestry, this timeless art piece called life, is intimately woven within you. Don’t ever underestimate the power in your ability within this grand tapestry.
But to contribute to this grand tapestry, your grand tapestry, choices have to be made. These choices start with you.
You – The Individual – are the key to the kaleidoscope of possibilities, and will always be.
[1] While that notation might seem obvious at first blush, and even simplistic, much of the advice in self-help books can be seen just as such, and still manages to help millions of people. Given that, one should never underestimate the power that an insight, not matter how seemingly ‘obvious’ it is, can do to help others on their path.
Today I (finally!) received a hardcopy of my first book ever, The Twin Flame, published under a different pen name, Noctis Blackburn. This poetry book features 111 poems. I couldn’t hesitate and showed my Mom first and she loved it. I really love the glossy cover and how the book turned out.
I decided to publish under a different pen name than Zy Marquiez because although I do plan on publishing poetry under this name (more on that in a second), I plan on keeping different themes under different pen names, not unlike what Nora Roberts does when she publishes under J.D. Robb. Many other authors do this as well.
Moreover, under Zy Marquiez I plan on (hopefully) publishing non-fiction research books about a few different topics in the future, all of which will be thoroughly researched and footnoted to the hilt, but will have non-mainstream topics not unlike what is covered in this blog. These topics will certainly make people incredibly judgmental. This is the vanguard reason why I will employ different pen names.
That said, if people find out, it matters not too much since it is me either way. I am merely doing this to simplify given how many people can judge you by merely knowing one component in life without knowing you at all, especially nowadays with the internet being what it is. This is the very example of judging a book by its cover, or judging a person by one circumstance.
Now, the above book is a collection of poetry as the subtitle alludes. I’m incredibly thrilled because I’ve been hoping to publish a book for years now, but due to health issues and myriad circumstances, I never got around to it. At least now that first step is officially done. Now for more.
Within a week or so I am going to be doing a giveaway for paperbacks of this book for those interested. I first needed to double check the hardcopy and make sure that everything was fine and ready to go. That said, if you are interested in the book, Lulu does have a discount of 15% at this very moment, though it is only good for one more day or so. And for heaven’s sake, don’t order the Hardcover because of the price! That’s just Lulu fleecing people. The link provided is of the softcover because it’s 60% less than the hardcover. I only decided to publish a hardcover for me personally, as I love hardcovers, and because it wasn’t going to add too much to the publishing process once I got the hang of it. Now for future projects.
Within a week or so I am going to publish another poetry book called A Kaleidoscope Of Possibilities published under Zy Marquiez. This book will be poetry mostly published in the past on various websites and social media platforms, sprinkled with a heavy dose of notations throughout. The book is essentially complete and just needs some touch ups and the final stamp. This book will not follow a single topic but will be a collation of poetry that’s as old as 20 years old, and as new as poems written the last 12 months and so on. This poetry book is a book about considering deeper aspects of life, obstacles, fear, love, and all topics written about therein of which there are many. This book does not follow any single theme whatsoever. This is why I chose to go with ‘Kaleidoscope’ as the first word, while using ‘Possibilities’ as the anchor because possibilities are what life is all about.
Another book which is nigh a complete, which I will publish under either Tristen Troy or Zy Marquiez (with an alias of Halcyon Halo) is Halcyon Days. A time table of two weeks should not be out of the realm of possibility. It really depends on what other things fall on my lap. This book will follow a positive theme throughout, be it romance, life, time, etc. I’m undecided if the book will be 100% unpublished content, or if a fraction of it will have already been featured in the concurrent Instagram account. I can’t wait to get this one out as I’ve had most of it complete for almost 3 weeks, I just needed to iron out The Twin Flame and finish the touch ups of Kaleidoscope of Possibilities. This book will feature 111 poems total.
Now, something else that I’ve recently begun, but is probably at least a month off which will be published under the moniker Noctis Blackburn is A Heart Of Darkness. This book will feature an in-depth view of many of my fears, be them love, life, darkness, general fears, the pain of dealing with my grandmother’s passing recently, fears of losing my mom, and many other themes. Some of the poems could be positive, just really depends on what one gets from it. Notations might be added to this one, like Kaleidoscope of Possibilities, but I am still undecided. This book will also feature 111 poems as well.
The final book that’s slated to be published for now under Zy Marquiez/ The Lightning Baron is a book tentatively called Lightning & Thunder Bring Frightening Wonder. This book will feature lightning, storms, and many other darker themes, mostly as metaphors for fear, pain, suffering and more. I was going to publish this book sooner but I am undecided whether I want to do 111 poems, or many more. The vanguard reason for this is because many of these poems have already been shared on this blog, but they are short. This is why I changed from 77 to 111, but I might increase that a lot more, though I am still uncertain to how many. I would really love to feature photos with this book, but I’m not sure how much that will add to the price. I will probably keep it simple for now.
There are other projects that I have in mind, but that’s the lions share for now. I just wanted to give you guys an update as to why I haven’t been as active on this blog with reviews, posts, quotes, and the like. That said, stay tuned because there will be a lot more coming!
Hope you guys have an amazing day. And more than anything, don’t forget to take at least one step every day towards making your dreams continue.
Note: This echoes my sentiments at the moment perfectly. If I write, my mind is engaged, thinking. But if when I take breaks its a sinking feeling of mental quicksand.
Lastly, the picture is a metaphor for my mind at the moment.
