Sunday, March 24, 2024

Update for Book III Of The Alban Saga: THE VORTEX

 



The Vortex is the third and final book of the fantasy series called The Alban Saga. Beatrice was Book I and Black Grotto  Book II. I'm almost done with Chapter 22 titled "Aran's Great Struggle".


The Vortex is going to be about 31 chapters long, with the final chapter being the "Epilogue". I'm hoping to complete and publish it sometime during the fall of 2024. Maybe sooner if everything goes well!


Fingers Crossed!


Below is a short excerpt from Chapter 22.

Over the last several days and nights, Aran had lain in the tall grass in two separate and distinct hells. In one, he was completely comatose, lying in a deep fog of unconsciousness - a black, empty hole of existence. In the other, he endured only partial awareness, just cognizant enough to comprehend something horrible that was causing him severe confusion, pain and suffering. In those moments, he could feel himself screaming out for help and sense his body struggling mightily against whatever was inside him.


Then, suddenly without warning, his existence was altered. He no longer felt utterly alone and desolate. Something or someone was there with him, providing a bit of solace and comfort. For the first time since entering this living nightmare, a calmness had begun washing over him. He could sense the light of reality far off in the distance, and in that moment, he felt the touch of another human being, first on his shoulder and then his face - a hand brushing across his forehead.


Aran desperately wanted to open his eyes and speak, but as of yet, that was impossible. He was still held in the grip of incongruity and confusion. He did the only thing he could, transforming his focus from what was going on inside to whomever it was that had touched him. The change was small but significant.


Then something else entered his awareness...  



Sunday, January 7, 2024

Chapter 18 Excerpt From Book III Of The Alban Saga: THE VORTEX

 



In this passage, Erin the Prophet is sleeping in the Cave of Dreams and has a vision. 


Chapter 18 Excerpt


It wasn’t until the fire waned and was reduced to embers that Erin the Prophet finally collapsed from exhaustion. He’d been thrashing from side to side most of the night - his subconscious awash in despair and guilt at being the one responsible for bringing Bea into his realm. He had brought her to help stop Una and Obsidian from altering Grandma Rose’s fate and had promised her his guidance and support. But he had failed, not only in that task, but in his promise to find Aran and bring him back to her. 


As Erin looked back on all that had happened, he did his best to understand his failures, but it was difficult for him. After all, he was the High Priest of his people and the ultimate Druid Prophet of his time. His connection with Earth’s magic had always been prodigious, and he could never recall a time when he felt helpless or unable to act on someone’s need. But now, not only had he failed Bea, he had become consumed with confusion and feelings of inadequacy. Something that had never happened before.


However, despite all of the upheaval within him, Erin never awakened. In fact, he sensed himself sinking deeper and deeper into a troubled slumber, even as other questions seethed up and pounded hard against his skull: How was he to reach out to Bea and help her with her current dilemma? How could he fulfill his promise to find and bring Aran back to her? How was he going to stop Una and Obsidian now?


His remorse grew and expanded into the early morning hours until he arrived at what he knew to be a significant juncture of this dreamscape. He felt his mind quiet somewhat, and he sensed that he would either be ushered back towards reality and find himself once again gazing into the soft embers of the fire inside the Cave of Dreams, or…he would sink ever-deeper into this hellish nightmare, caught between slumber and the plethora of difficulties boiling up within his subconscious.


 

 He did not have to wait long for an answer. He remained asleep, still carried along by dreams, but no longer fraught with anxiety and confusion. He was now enveloped in an all-embracing calm. His body eased its flailing movement, and the myriad questions firing within his mind fell away. It was as if he now lay upon a cushion of air, floating lazily on the soft waters of tranquility. Then, in whatever state this was, he was able to open his eyes. The sky above was ink-black and filled with bright pin-pricks of light - a billion stars set against the vastness of space. Whatever remained of his anxiety and guilt melted away, and without actually making a conscious decision to do so, he rolled over and gazed downward. Directly below, he saw on a massive orb. It hung, seemingly unsupported, against the backdrop of the night sky – a blue ball with various shades of colour brushed across its surface. He had never seen such a magnificent sight. It humbled him and took his breath away! Then he noticed a second smaller orb, hovering farther in the distance, awash in an effervescent, white light with patches of grey scattered across its surface. This he recognized. It was the moon – the same moon that he had gazed upon all of his life as it crossed the skies of Alba. Then it hit him: Could the other more massive orb be mother Earth?


With that astonishing thought, Erin then began to feel his body more concretely. He became heavier and no longer floated easily above the huge ball in the sky. He began moving downwards towards it. At first, his descent was imperceptibly slow, but as he progressed, his momentum increased. He began to panic. His arms and legs flailed for purchase where there was none, in an effort to somehow slow his progress, as his plunge downwards towards the huge orb persisted at an even wilder, mind-numbing pace. His heart pounded uncontrollably, and he gasped at the horror flying up towards him. Then he did the only thing left to him. He screamed and yelled over and over, venting his wide-eyed terror at the gargantuan sphere rising up to meet him!


Erin’s mind fought against the inevitability of his fate. He closed his eyes, knowing that only seconds remained before he would meet a horrible and violent end, but…the seconds passed, and he was still alive.


Erin opened his eyes. He lay, still frightened and trembling but unharmed, in the damp, tall grass of a meadow on a cold, cloudy day. He sat up, doing his best to grasp what had just happened. Was he still asleep in the same traumatic dreamscape, or was he now actually and truly awake? The truth…he simply had no idea.


He checked to make sure that he was still in one piece. It seemed he was, so he studied the area around where he’d landed. It seemed familiar, like he’d been there before. A small hill lay in front of him only a short distance away. He felt a need to see what was on the other side, so he stood and walked towards its crest.


  Once there, he looked down. The feeling he’d had of somehow knowing this place was confirmed. Sprawling out in front of him lay the city of Edinburgh. It was the Edinburgh, not of his time, when it had only been a small village, but of a time in the future when he had traveled there by Vortex, when it was a much larger, walled city with a castle at its center. He walked down the hill, weaving his way along its streets and narrow alleyways, as if he knew his destination. He ended up in front of an old inn. He read its name. It was called the Sheep’s Heid Inn. Walking through the front doors, he saw people sitting at rough-hewn tables eating, drinking, and talking. No one looked in his direction or paid him any mind. It was as if he was invisible. He ignored them as well and moved in the direction of a narrow stairway. Looking upwards, he felt the need to see what was at the top of the stairs. Reaching the landing, he walked straight ahead down a hallway, staring at several doors as he passed, wondering who might be within. Then he turned and looked back in the direction he had come. As he did, one of the doors opened. Voices could be heard emanating from inside the room. 

Thursday, December 21, 2023

As of Today My Blog is Being Read in 83 Countries

 


Readers Around the World

  

I want to say hello to everyone around the world who is reading my blog! Readers from Guinea are the latest. They are the 83rd country on the list! Welcome! 

Here's a complete list of the countries:
  • United States
  • Poland
  • Ukraine
  • France
  • Turkey
  • Germany
  • Denmark
  • China
  • Russia
  • United Kingdom
  • Spain
  • Netherlands
  • Belgium
  • Romania
  • Taiwan
  • Saudi Arabia
  • Italy
  • Canada
  • Brazil
  • Indonesia
  • Mexico
  • Vietnam
  • Thailand
  • Colombia
  • Austria
  • Macau
  • Ireland
  • India
  • Singapore
  • Moldova
  • Pakistan
  • Netherlands Antilles
  • South Africa
  • Philippines
  • Czech Republic
  • Finland
  • Malaysia
  • Kenya
  • Australia
  • Estonia
  • Japan
  • United Arab Emirates
  • Greece
  • Nepal
  • Bangladesh
  • Switzerland
  • Hungary
  • Portugal
  • Slovenia
  • Bulgaria
  • Israel
  • Mongolia
  • Puerto Rico
  • Iraq
  • Latvia
  • Serbia
  • Sweden
  • Georgia
  • Azerbaijan
  • Iceland
  • Croatia
  • Egypt
  • Algeria
  • Turkmenistan
  • Cypress
  • South Korea
  • Ecuador
  • Kenya
  • Ethiopia
  • Kazakhstan
  • Armenia
  • Morocco
  • Uzbekistan
  • Madagascar
  • Belarus
  • Mozambique
  • Albania
  • Haiti
  • Zimbabwe
  • Uruguay
  • Fiji
  • Afghanistan
  • Guinea

 

Tuesday, November 21, 2023

Book III of the Alban Saga: The Vortex - PROGRESS!


 



Just wanted to update you on the progress of my latest fantasy book, The Vortex. It's the third and final book of the Alban Saga trilogy - Beatrice being Book I and Black Grotto Book II.


I just finished Chapter 17, and the book is sitting at around 65,400 words. I'll begin Chapter 18 tomorrow. Chapter 17 was a long and complicated chapter. It had a lot of important pieces to put together as well as new information that needed to be introduced. It felt very much like a major turning point in the story.


I'm excited about how the book is coming together, where it will lead, and how it will wrap up. I love writing an exciting and surprising climax!

I'll be looking forward to releasing it to you sometime in the spring of 2024. Hopefully even earlier if everything goes well. I may even be in Scotland when I complete it - fingers crossed! 

Friday, October 27, 2023

Mary Oliver Poem: The Summer Day




Lover her poetry!


The Summer Day


Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down- who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?


—Mary Oliver



Saturday, October 14, 2023

The Alban Saga Trilogy: Making progress on Book III


 



Book III "The Vortex"

The Alban Saga is a fantasy trilogy made up of BEATRICEBLACK GROTTO, and the new book that I’m writing entitled THE VORTEX. All three books take place in current-day Scotland at real locations, but they also include actual Scottish history woven into their plot lines. 

Because of several factors, Book III, THE VORTEX, has taken quite awhile to write, but I can now say, for all of you who've been patiently waiting, that THE VORTEX is moving forward at a consistent clip. I just finished Chapter 16 and am confident that it will be completed and published sometime during the spring of 2024. Possibly even a bit earlier if everything goes well. I'll keep you updated!

Also, I have been publishing excerpts from some of the chapters that you can search for on my blog to get a feeling for the book.

For this trilogy and for all of my books, you can purchase them on Amazon all over the world in paperback or e-book editions for your Kindle. The easiest way to locate them, and all of my books, is to search Amazon by using my author name on the Amazon website for your country.