Rooms Cover Illustration & Design Artist Chosen & Poem: A Moment in Time

Before reading the Poem, "A Moment in Time," you can learn more about what's happening with Rooms by reading below.

ROOMS

by Bob Stegner

(Trish Steele)

Rooms should be published within a month or so, and I'm working with Greg Opalinski who will be doing the cover design and artwork for the novel. I'm very excited to work with him and looking forward to the design that he will create. Greg is from Ridgewood, New York and is an illustrator and artist. His work is very creative and unique, and he was one of the winners in the L. Ron Hubbard International Illustrator's of the Future contest in Los Angeles in April of 2012. In that contest he was recognized as being one of science fiction's illustrators of the future.

Watch for Rooms on Amazon. I'll let you know on this blog when it happens.

Rooms' Teaser

Rooms' Excerpt: Chapters 1-2

Rooms' Chapter Titles

Wheatgrass: An Irish Fantasy published and for sale on Amazon.com

Paperback - $3.23

Kindle version - $0.99 

Wheatgrass' Teaser

Wheatgrass' Excerpt

Poem

A Moment in Time

A moment in time

Spent

And consumed by

A remembrance

Time passes

And yet

I can’t see

As much

As sense you

I can’t know

As much

As feel your heart

Haunted by

A desire for

Consumed by

The need to

Memorize

Your laughter

Your words

Your soft, cascading hair

Forever frozen

Are your eyes

As they shine

As if we still were

You’re gone

I’m here

We’ve   evaporated

From a snapshot

An opportunity

A risk

Not taken

In that miniscule,

Miserly,

Mystifying,

Singularly significant

Moment in time

We’re gone

Copyright © Bob Stegner 2006

Image of Door:

Trish Steel [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Rooms' Update & A Poem: "Lunar Magic"

Before reading the Poem, "Lunar Magic," you can learn more about what's happening with Rooms by reading below.

ROOMS

by Bob Stegner

(Trish Steele)

Well, the decision is made. I will be self-publishing my first full novel, Rooms, within a month or so on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. It will be published in paperback as well as a Kindle version and e-book.

During the last week or so, I have been editing it again. I looked carefully for everything that I could think of including the logic within scenes as well as across the story, character development, phrasing, grammar, punctuation, and conversation. I've worked especially hard on the first two chapters, as they were written a while ago, and I have learned a great deal about writing since then. I believe that they now both fit the writing style within the rest of the novel better, read more easily and are simply more fun. I am also working on hiring a professional illustrator to do the cover. I hope that works out.

I will let you know when it is published, but I would encourage you to read the teaser and the excerpt from chapters 1-2 below. Both of these have changed. Don't forget to check out Wheatgrass: An Irish Fantasy, too, if you haven't yet.

Rooms' Teaser

Rooms' Excerpt: Chapters 1-2

Rooms' Chapter Titles

Wheatgrass: An Irish Fantasy published and for sale on Amazon.com

Paperback - $3.23

Kindle version - $0.99 

Wheatgrass' Teaser

Wheatgrass' Excerpt

Poem

(Skogsoy)

Lunar Magic

A speck of luminescence

Spreading rays of calm

Across the dark earth

Across our eyes

A Soft radiance

Bouncing from leaf to leaf

Pushing shadows

Into the deep of night

A song of hope

A melody in the darkness

Causing eyes to gaze up

Causing lips to curl and smile

A grand dot

Punctuating a black canvas

Splashing quiet and white

From horizon to horizon

The sky’s pupil

Oscillating with the seasons

Grabbing earth’s oceans

Moving the tides

Lunar Magic

Playing tricks on our minds

Changing and creating
An enchanted, mythical night

Copyright © Bob Stegner 2008

Image of Door:

Trish Steel [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Image of Moonlight:
Skogsoy. Moonlight and the Sea. Digital image. Commons.wikimedia.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Aapr. 2014. <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/file:Skogsoy_moonlight.JPG>.

ROOMS UPDATE / NEW BOOK UPDATE / POEM: "Veiled"

Before reading about the New Book and the Poem, "Veiled", you can learn more about Rooms and Wheatgrass: An Irish Fantasy by reading below.

In this blog, I promised myself that I would share everything about becoming an author, and that includes the difficult times as well as any successes. So with that in mind, I'll tell you what happened to my entry into the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest.

I entered my first novel, Rooms, and was very happy to make it through to the second round of judging. There were about 10,000 entries and my book was in the top 2,000 in that round.  However, I didn't make it to the quarter-finals. I was disappointed, of course, but that's all part of the process, and I was very happy about my first novel going as far as it did.

I'm still going to continue to look for publishers and/or an agent, but I will probably also self-publish it at some point. I believe in the book and the story that it tells, and I want to share it with all those who would like to learn about the world of Rooms.

Rooms' Teaser

Rooms' Excerpt: Chapters 1-2

Rooms' Chapter Titles

Wheatgrass: An Irish Fantasy published and for sale on Amazon.com

Paperback - $3.23

Kindle version - $0.99 

Wheatgrass' Teaser

Wheatgrass' Excerpt

UPDATE: New Book

I also want to let you know a bit more about my new book. As I mentioned in another post, it is a Fantasy/Mystery/Thriller. I think I have the name for it now, but I'll wait to share that till later.

I just finished chapter 9 and have written about 23,000 words. This book is quite different than Rooms, but many of the lessons that I learned in writing Rooms are helping me as this book develops.

Rooms was definitely more grand in scale and covered a much larger stage of events, places and times than this new book, but I'm enjoying the local focus and detail that are part of the new one. Like Rooms, more than one plot line and more than one period of time are in the story, but the scope in the new book isn't as large, and I don't travel through time at all. The time element has more to do with flash-backs or flash-forwards.

Some important parts of the setting and characters are that it takes place in Scotland, and the Bauman estate and mansion figure heavily in the story. The main character is Ewan Bauman, but other characters have significant parts to play as well. I have done a lot of research for this book all ready, and I know that there will be more before I'm done. Some of the people in the book come from historical characters, but their names have changed, and they have been fictionalized to a certain extent. In addition, some places and events are real, but I apply fiction to most of those as well.

The weaving of the elements of mystery, fantasy, and thriller are providing many challenges, and I'm enjoying writing it immensely. Rooms had its puzzles to be solved, but this book is like a thousand-piece jigsaw that I have to get just right. As I've said before, I love telling stories, and I love this new story a lot!

Poem

Veiled

A placid, opaque haze

Hinders his view

Lays amongst his dreams

Encumbers his thoughts

Shades his visions

Of her

He embraces the veil

Pushes through it

Steps within it

To see

To recognize

Her

He senses a glimpse of

Dancing

Stirring

Laughing

Amidst the cloak

Which conceals

Her

A shroud

A cloud of smoky gauze

Masked within a gaping hole of black

Suppressing

Futures

Lives

A veil of darkness

A revelation of radiance

An anticipation of life

A blanket of truth

A cataract, altered vision

Of her

She’s there

Veiled

Cloaked

Blanketed

Shrouded

From him

He hears her song

Pictures her art

Loves her smile

Embraces her gaze

Envisions her caress

His love

There

Somewhere

Veiled and

Contained

By the soft azure curtains

Of time

Copyright © Bob Stegner 2004

ROOMS, WHEATGRASS & SIX HAIKUS

Before reading the Six Haikus, learn more about Rooms and Wheatgrass: An Irish Fantasy by reading below.

(Amazon)

Rooms has been entered in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest and has made it to the second round of judging. I'll find out on April 14th if I go on to the quarter-finals!

Rooms' Teaser

Rooms' Excerpt: Chapters 1-2

Rooms' Chapter Titles

Wheatgrass: An Irish Fantasy published and for sale on Amazon.com

Paperback - $3.23

Kindle version - $0.99 

Wheatgrass' Teaser

Wheatgrass' Excerpt

Six Haikus

Writing Haikus to me is more a feeling than following a set of rules.  Sometimes I pay attention to the 5/7/5 syllable rule; sometimes I don't. I always use three lines, though, as I believe that brevity is the quintessential element of a Haiku as well as creating images, which are sometimes in juxtaposition.

1

In blue-haze night dreams

Her form melds with mine

Close, warm, and calming

2

A wooden, solid, rocker

Glides and moves

A stationary meditation in progress

3 

He is not alone

He gazes out towards his life

Smiling his memories

4

Sitting picking grass

A bright tundra etched morning

Everything's alive

5

Spring appears in time

Popping blooms across green ground

Watering eyes laugh

6

Another yummy lunch
Comfort food warm and cozy
Let's do this again

Copyright © Bob Stegner 2014

Amazon Contest Logo image from:
http://www.amazon.com/b?node=332264011