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