Celtic Bard: Blog

One of the things I have been working on over the last few weeks is a story that follows Enter the Darkness storyline. It is titled A Restful Holiday and is a little longer than I had intended when I started writing it. It was spawned by something I wrote in one of the opening chapters of the sequel to Enter the Darkness (In the Darkness Falling) that seemed to cry out for explanation, if only for myself. When I thought that, the urge to write this story hit me and I knew my Muse had received a new shipment of anvils that day. That was about three weeks or so ago and writing the bloody story was the quickest part of the process in bringing this story to you. Since I was working when I felt the whack from my Muse, it wound up being written in pencil on paper in my near-illegible chicken scratch. Deciphering said chicken scratch and then having someone edit it was what took so long. I know this comes on the heels of the last chapter of Future Distorted, but I have been pretty busy writing at work, so this was one of those things I promised would be forthcoming when I finally got everything in the computer.

So, here it is, enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

I have finally gotten the next chapter of Future Distorted transcribed onto the computer from my chicken-scratch. It is submitted and should be up sometime later tonight or tomorrow. It is on the short side but I got to a certain point in writing and realized that it was better to stop where I did than to run on and on and then try to figure out where to break things up. You will see what I mean when you read the chapter.

As for other stuff, I have so much handwritten (because most of my writing lately has been done at work without the benefit of a computer) that it may be a while before I figure out what I have and if any of it is postable or if it is just stuff I haven't figured out what to do with yet. Some of it is just background for things not yet postable while other stuff is things I don't want to post until I have more of it. Of the latter category is the sequel to Enter the Darkness, entitled In the Darkness Falling. I also have a short story that follows Enter the Darkness that I may post soon entitled A Restful Holiday.

Hopefully over the holiday this week I will be able to straighten out what I have written down and cobble together something postable for you all. With that, I will conclude and wish all of my fellow Americans a Happy Thanksgiving!

Quick update on things. I have gotten super busy at work, so posting may take some time. I am working on a short story sequel to Enter the Darkness (tentatively titled A Restful Holiday) to tide people over until I start posting chapters for the second Dark Wars novel, In the Darkness Falling. I also have been working on the next chapter for both Future Distorted and Anomaly of the Fates, so they may be done soon as well. I know I said that last update, but I did not expect to get as busy as I have been. It all depends on how real life goes and for right now it is too busy to transfer the hand-written work into the computer at anything other than a glacially slow pace. Sorry, writing does not make enough money to pay the bills yet.

I have been working on a few things all at the same time lately, which means it is all progressing . . . slowly. I will probably be posting the next chapter of Future Distorted soon but it will be a transition chapter and thusly a short one. I also have a good bit of the next chapter of Anomaly of the Fates done so that one may be posted soon as well. I am also slowly working on a few new things, some of which will probably not be posted but published.

Among those that will probably eventually be posted are a fantasy story I haven't decided whether it is going to be high or low fantasy about a Land of Exiles where the criminal class rules. It is called The Lord of Dirks (a dirk being a type of knife, FYI) and focuses on the man in charge of the Land's assassins' guild and is seen mainly through the eyes of his friend and colleague, the Lord of Daggers. I may post the first chapter of this soon with the warning that new chapters will dribble out at a slow rate until Future Distorted and Anomaly of the Fates is completed.

Another is a contemporary urban fantasy story about a man from the inner city of North Jersey who grows up to be a bouncer in a strip club frequented by mafia types in New York City. He has a condition that gives him almost-orgasmic rushes when he gets angry and so he is sort of a rage junkie, something which his job as a bouncer lets him indulge. He also uses that condition, and his massive size, to deal out a bit of street justice now and then. It is tentatively titled Rage and I am not too far into that one yet, so it is a long way off until I decide what to do with it.

And a third new story is another epic fantasy novel set in a world of many races, including dragons and wyverns. It concerns an empire run by highly religious humans who find out shapeshifted wyverns (though they mistakenly think it was shapeshifted dragons) have been mating with humans, creating a new race called Dragosians. This sets them on the path to war with the dragonkin and the "abomination" of a race they sired. This one if called The Shattering of Faith.

As for things like sequels and publishing, I am also working on those. Justice Resurrected and Death and Love in Marjah fans who keep writing me are going to be disappointed to learn that those storylines are not on the list. Anything having to do with those stories is on hold until I clear my plate a little. I am working on editing the third book in the Chronicles of The Samuelson quartet and that is going fairly quickly. I have also started writing the fourth and final book, though I haven't been working too diligently on it due to the amount of other stuff on my plate. I have also been working slowly but steadily on the sequel to Enter the Darkness, though I am going to wait on posting any of those chapters until I have a few more written.

For now, that is all folks. Hope this update either explained what is going on with your particular favorite or gave you hope for future satiation of your yearning for your particular favorite. I will probably be posting that next chapter of Future Distorted soon, so keep an eye out for that.

Those of you who have been writing me about Future Distorted should be happy to know that I have just submitted Chapter 5 of FD. It should be up sometime tomorrow, later tonight if the Webmaster is really rocking his magic. Now that Enter the Darkness is done, I am hoping to work more on some of the stuff that is unfinished, but that also now includes EtD's sequel, unfortunately. I am also starting the editing process for my third novel (Reign of Prophecy) in the Chronicles of The Samuelson books, so that may also take time away from working on FD and Anomaly of the Fates and other projects. In other words, I will try to post a little more regularly on the unfinished stuff, but I cannot guarantee that I will not get sidetracked, by my Muse's twisted sense of humor as well as real life.

So enjoy Chapter 5 of Future Distorted and hopefully I will be able to post a little more regularly than I have been now that Enter the Darkness is done and Reign of Havok is published.