Celtic Bard: Blog

I have a couple of corrections for my last entry due to some back and forth with the Webmaster and some of your e-mails.

1. The Cast file I submitted did not stike the WM as being fair to post and make readers "waste" a download on it. To be fair to him, I saw what he meant and, to be honest, I was not really thinking about that at the time I was working on it and submitting it. I had just gotten so many e-mails asking for pronunciation help as well as a few asking for a cast list that I was concentrated on getting one out to those of you requesting one. It was not difficult to do, as I already had one that I use for myself when writing. I merely had to work up the pronunciations for the names. The Webmaster and I decided that the best place for it, without making you non-premium members "waste" a download, was before Chapter 1. So if you look between the Introduction and Chapter 1 of Justice Resurrected, you will now find Cast and it has the names in alphabetical order by last name (if they have one) and in order of the country in which they first appear. There is also some minor biographical information there that I use when writing that I decided not to delete. At the end there are also five or six character profiles that I included, simply because they were in the file I had and thought you might find them useful/interesting.

2. Chapter 13 is NOT the last chapter of Justice Resurrected!!! I want to thank those of you who wrote me to let me know there was a SNAFU in the submission process. I have resubmitted it and it should soon read "To Be Continued," as it should. The next chapter of Justice should be ready on Friday, as usual.

Hopefully that covers everything. Sorry for the screw ups and thanks for pointing them out!

Because I received more than one e-mail about pronunciation and I got some about a cast list, I have submitted Cast of Justice Resurrected. The description is self-explanitory. Use it if you want, otherwise, don't bother. It is more to help those who wrote me about character names and wanted something to refer back to when reading Justice. I know epic fantasy can sometimes be hard to keep track of who is who so I hope it helps!

I have a little something new for you all to enjoy and while it is not the other projects I have been blogging about lately, it is new. Unlike Justice Resurrected, Enter the Darkness is not already written so the posting schedule will depend entirely on how the writing comes along. This could mean really rapid posting of new chapters, or it could be weeks between postings. It is all up to the vagarities of the sometimes abusive relationship I have with the Muses.

Enter the Darkness is a first person story about a young girl who witnesses her mother's murder by means supernatural and then is made to forget. The murder is a trigger point that sets her on the path of destiny. Like Death and Love in Marjah, there is some military life in there as well as magic and Roman Catholic mythos (I grew up very Catholic and have a degree in history so the liberties I take with that are fully justified and, in some cases, heavily researched). Enter the Darkness, however, follows the daughter of a Sergeant in Military Intelligence as she grows up and her destiny unfolds. The Introduction and first chapter are submitted. Enjoy and let me know how you like it. Suggestions may or may not influence the rest of the story. I am possessive enough about my writing to dislike changing how I think a story should go, but good enough suggestions can penetrate that from time to time.

Chapter 13 of Justice Resurrected is submitted and should be up soon. As the entry title suggests, I have a warning about Chapter 13 which will apply to several of the chapters from here on out. This is a blanket warning about the rest of the story, so I won't have to post for each chapter. Chapter 13 has an implied sexual scene. There is nothing explicit about it but this is to warn anyone who has been reading this story who does not read my stories for that type of content. The only thing that is explicitly shown in the scenes is a little bit of kissing and waist up nudity. Beyond that, everything else is implied. There will be a few chapters that have similar scenes where there is kissing and implied sexual content of a slightly irregular nature (i. e. "underaged" and non-traditional partnering). I am posting this so I don't get flooded with outraged e-mails about this. This is also the reason the story is age limited on Finestories.

That out of the way, I want to thank all of you who responded to last week's post. I was gratified by the responses and appreciate how much you all appreciate what I do.

Also, I got another e-mail about character and location name pronounciation so I will try to find time to work up a pronounciation guide for Justice's Universe. It might be a week or so before that gets done but I will have it out shortly.

And finally, I think I may have broken through my block on the sequel/prequel to Death and Love in Marjah. Hopefully that will be upcoming as well.

That is all for now. Enjoy the latest installment of Justice and as always, I appreciate constructive responses anyone wants to send my way.

I am trying to keep with a once a week (hopefully on Fridays) posting schedule for the rest of Justice Resurrected. With that in mind, Chapter 12 is submitted. Things are beginning to quicken, as far as the story line goes and this chapter and the next one head us towards the final rise in the plot.

On that note, however, I do want to share a rather odd e-mail I got from a reader this week. The reader wrote to me saying something to the effect that Justice is too complicated, has too many side trips, and that due to this, the reader will not be continuing to read the story and will be taking it off his favorite story list. This was a first for me, so I will take them one at a time.

1. Complicated. Hmm. I have read complicated stories, even liked most of them, but I would never to presume to put myself on a list of writers who write complicated stories. Such luminaries as Frank Herbert, Robert Jordan, R. A. Salvatore, Tom Clancy, and David Weber write complicated, involved stories that often require a dictionary, background knowledge of astrophysics, history, geopolitics, military science, and/or magical theory just to read them. Justice Resurrected is a nice little fantasy adventure story, I think. I can only assume the writer of the e-mail does not read such very often.

2. Too many side trips. Again, hmm. This is pretty much covered by the whole fantasy adventure line of #1. The whole point of an adventure story is the quest that is central to the plot. As a slight nod towards the complicated comment, I will admit that the true object of the quest is partially obscured in the chapters posted thus far. I say partially, because the object is talked about and I have had one or two readers see the foreshadowing early on and have the "Ah-ha!" moment. Quests, by their very nature, require you to go through the steps requisite to achieving the ultimate goal. Hence the side trips.

3. As for the stopping-of-the-reading and the taking-me-off-of-the-favorites-list parts, that was really the least disturbing part of the e-mail. I hate to sound . . . hmm, callous is too harsh a word but it comes the closest. Anyway, I hate to sound callous, but I don't really pay that much attention to that part of the writer's and stories' stats. Am I gratified people take the time to include me on their list of favorites? Of course! I am honored people take time out of their own lives to bother. But again, that was not really the part the stuck with me to the point I had to write about it.

So, I really would like some other opinions about whether Justice Resurrected is too complicated a story. Responses probably won't do much to change it, as it has already been written, but I found the e-mail curious and wondered if my writing style was truly so complex as to turn people off. These things are good to know for a writer and I guess I should thank the e-mailer for being honest in his/her opinion and letting me know. It might help adjust things for future works. Then again, maybe not. I am a little set in my ways.

So anyway, that is my venting for this time. Enjoy the new installment of Justice Resurrected and I really do appreciate the constructive criticism and the support of you readers. Thank you.