Celtic Bard: Blog

I know it has been a while since I last posted something, and even longer since I last posted a new chapter in the stories that have gone unfinished, but I have been sick off and on with bronchitis since before Christmas. It has been very hard to feel creative while trying to cough enough mucus out of my lungs to be able to breathe. That spark of creativity I had on Christmas Eve was about all I have had since the beginning of December. Until recently. I am feeling better and I got hit with some inspiration from my muse recently. Unfortunately, it was for a new Rage story. Rage V: The Bloody Hand will be the next posting from me and then I hope to get back to In the Darkness Falling, Future Distorted, and the others I had been working on before the holidays. Rage V was hand-written so it will be a few days before I can transcribe the chicken scratch, but it will be forthcoming.

Again, sorry for the unscheduled and unexplained hiatus but my health (and my inspiration) failed to send me a memo about what was coming. Hopefully the weather here will dry out a little and I can keep my lungs mucus-free for the rest of the year. Look for Rage V in the coming week or so and thanks for the patience.

I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, or whatever holiday you happen to be celebrating, and hope you all have a wonderful last couple of weeks to 2015. I keeping with the holiday spirit, I finally did something I thought about doing last year but did not have the time or inspiration to do. I have submitted my take of the classic poem by Clement Clarke Moore, "A Visit from St. Nicholas." Most people know the poem as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas." The description pretty well tells what you can expect from it. Hopefully it will give your Christmas a little something fantastical. Enjoy and have a safe holiday.

A belated Happy Thanksgiving. I was trying to get the next chapter of In the Darkness Falling out to you for the holiday but the holiday itself sort of intruded so I did not get it edited and formatted until today. I just submitted Chapter 9 so it should be available later tonight or early tomorrow. This chapter continues the aftermath of the rather disastrous sorority party as well as the appearance of an old friend that will just add complications to an already complicated life that Alice is now leading. So enjoy.

On other fronts, I have the bulk of the next part in the Rage Series done but it is handwritten and will need to be transcribed into the computer, which will take some time. I may have already said here (or maybe it was in an answer to an e-mail, I forget exactly) but Rage V will be from Michael's father's point of view and will shed a little light on him and his activities. I am hoping to get that into the computer and finished soon, so those of you who have e-mailed me about Rage can look for that upcoming.

As for Anomaly of the Fates and Future Distorted, those will be a little longer in coming. I thought I had most of a chapter finished for FD but when I looked back on it I realized that the reason I have not been working on that one is that I have hit a bit of a wall on that one. I know where it is going from the last chapter but I am having trouble figuring out how I want to get there. In other words, until I work it out it looks like that one could be a while longer. The future scheduling of AotF is a little more nebulous. I know what I am doing with that one but I have not had the time to sit down and work on it. When I do, I am sure it will come fairly easily. We will see.

I am also hoping to wrap up a Magic at War story that I had been calling Chameleon's Prey but have recently had a change of heart on that title. A new plot twist that I have been working on has me thinking I might change it to Letters of Marque. I am trying to get that one over the finish line before the end of the year but it keeps getting longer and longer so I am not sure when it will wrap up and I can post it. Again, we will see.

That is all for now. Check out Chapter 9 of In that Darkness Falling and, as always, feel free to let me know what you think.

I know it is a few days late, but I have Chapter 8 of Anomaly of the Fates submitted for your reading pleasure. It has been a long time coming, longer than I realized, and for that I apologize. I never meant to let AotF languish so long but I was concentrating on other things and work got kind of hectic there for a while. I hope to make up for that with a chapter that is a little more steamy than usual for me as well as revealing more about Ixandarius' past. Chapter 8 also sees a deepening of the relationship between Kiernan and Melanie. I submitted the chapter already so it should be up later today or early tomorrow.

Now that that is done, I will try to get some work done on the languishing Future Distorted but the reason there has been no movement on that story is because I have had a decided lack of inspiration for it. My Muse seems to have abandoned me for that book, leaving me to my own devices. I will try to power through it but the writing is never as good when I do that as when I get help from my rather abusive and elusive Muse. The problem is that I know where I want to go with the story but I am having more than a little trouble figuring out how to get there. Oh well, I will soldier on and hopefully have something for you all soon. Many apologies to those who have written to me about that story in particular.

We are at the halfway mark on the three stories I have in progress. I have always envisioned In the Darkness Falling as being a 15 chapter book and it looks like I am on track for that. Anomaly of the Fates and Future Distorted might go a little over but probably not by much as they are both pretty much on track to where I was thinking of going with them both. My hope is to wrap up all three not long after the new year but my ability to judge time and schedules sucks, so I could be way off on that.

So, enjoy the new chapter of Anomaly of the Fates and feel free to let me know what you think.

I have just submitted Chapter 8 of In the Darkness Falling and it should be posted sometime later tonight or tomorrow. Sorry my posting schedule has slipped but work was very hectic for a couple of months and I needed more time to decompress than I thought I would. Unfortunately, writing brings in some money but not enough to do it full-time yet. Hopefully, now that I have gotten things flowing again, the posts will come a little more frequently. I will probably be posting a new chapter for Anomaly of the Fates within the week as well, as it is almost completed. I will try to get back to Future Distorted after that, since I have been getting mail asking about that and AotF. I will try to stave off the new ideas that keep poking me and try to concentrate on the In Progress stories until they are finished off.

That is all for now. Enjoy the new stuff coming your way and, as always, I welcome you thoughts.