Celtic Bard: Blog

Whilst moving things about in my room yesterday, I came across two stories I wrote/started quite a while back that I thought had been lost in between computer upgrades years ago. Hard copies, if you can believe that! Anyway, I was overjoyed because for one of the stories I had started a sequel but couldn't finish it due to lack of a story to consult regarding details and continuity. When I started There Be Dragons! years ago, it was in an attempt to write something aimed more at kids. So no swearing, no blood and gore, easier vocabulary and syntax, and a little bit of an adventure about a daydreaming orphan who loved his grandfather's stories.

That was the first story. The second story was an attempt to create an origin story for vampires in the first novel I ever wrote. It took me three years to finish the first novel (600 single-spaced pages in MS Word) after I graduated high school and when I was done I immediately started on the sequel. About halfway through the sequel I went back to reread the first novel and stopped. I stopped reading and stopped writing the sequel because my first novel was dreadful. Not the characters or the concept, just the actual writing. Bad syntax, simplistic vocabulary, wandering plotlines . . . just dreadful to read. So Books 1 and 2 of my writing career went on a proverbial shelf and everything connected to it was forgotten with the half-hearted hope that I might re-write them one day. Curse of the Vampyr, however, was still a good short story and I liked the concept behind it. I just didn't have a complete copy of it. Now I do.

So, sometime this week I will be getting them submitted after typing them into the computer, doing a little re-writing, and then editing them. There Be Dragons! will be first and that should be submitted sometime tomorrow barring real life intruding. Curse of the Vampyr will be later in the week.

So look for them this week and then this weekend or the beginning of next week will be Chapter 2 of In the Darkness Falling. That is all for now. Enjoy the new stuff coming your way soon!

I know some of you were rather irritated by the brevity of the first posting for In the Darkness Falling and for that I apologize but I posted the Prologue when it was available. Thusly, I have now submitted Chapter One of Enter the Darkness' sequel and it should be up some time later today or tomorrow. Fair warning, the next chapter will follow the posting schedule I laid out when I posted the Prologue, meaning next month around this time is when you can expect another chapter. If the writing on the story goes more smoothly than I anticipate then I may increase the frequency of new chapters, but don't count on it. I am hoping to wrap up the entire book this year and if that happens, fans of Alice/Alexa might get a mass posting as a Christmas or New Year's present. Until then, please be patient and enjoy In the Darkness Falling as it comes.

Since I was asked for them, the following are the translations of the German lines for the snippet of Reign of Prophesy.

“Wollen Sie flüchten?”-Do you wish to escape?

“Ja, ich muss sofort gehen!”-Yes, I must go now!

“Sie werden mit mir sicher sein, Fraulein Samuelson. Komm!”-You will be safe with me, Ms. Samuelson. Come!

Note that these are approximate translations because not everything translates directly between the two languages and my German is very, very rusty so I had to check myself with mechanical support. I want to thank the person who wrote to ask for these because I had not planned on supplying translations when I publish the book. I know I find it very annoying when reading or watching some thing and subtitles are not provided, so now my plans have changed on that score.

Since it is part of what I have been working on lately instead of new chapters of Anomaly of the Fates and Future Distorted, I decided to give you guys a taste of the new book I have been working on. This bit is the beginning of the Prologue, introducing a new character that plays a small but important part of the overall story. I hope to finish something for posting soon. Enjoy!

Reign of Prophesy
Prologue
The streets of Itzehoe, Germany were nearly deserted. Few Europeans dared walk the streets at night since the Federated States of the Americas invaded the Confederated European Union. FSA soldiers and members of the Paranormal Apprehension Squad used the night to conduct their searches and investigate the activities of the CEU’s resistance movement; a movement heavily supported by Europe’s shrinking “paranormal” community. Tonight in Itzehoe, however, the streets were silent. The small city at the base of the Jutland Peninsula seemed to be holding its breath, hoping against hope that for just one night the citizens of the broken municipality could go to sleep without being disturbed by their conquerors.

That was not to be, however. Itzehoe had been the last bastion of Confederate resistance in northern Europe, necessitating a large FSA occupation force to put down the flare-ups perpetrated by resistance fighters gone underground. That was not what tonight’s disturbance was, however. A lone woman ran through the narrow, cobblestoned streets of the old city districts, wheezing with the effort to stay ahead of the PAS agents pursuing her. Her name was Anika Samuelson-Niebuhr and she was in serious trouble.

Six days ago, she and her loving husband Volkmar, a prominent literature and philology professor at the University of Hamburg, were happily celebrating the sixth month of their twin daughters’ births. She had met Volkmar Niebuhr when they were students at the University of Stockholm. They were slowly falling in love when the FSA invaded Norway. Knowing that there were several practicing wizards and seers in the family and how the FSA viewed such people, Volkmar asked her to marry him and move with him back to Germany. With the wholehearted support of her parents living in Thörshammer, Sweden, Anika happily married the handsome academic, settling down to blissful domesticity in Hamburg. When the war came to Germany nearly two years ago, they quickly moved out of the big city and into the smaller town of Itzehoe, hoping Anika and the children she was carrying would be safer there. Shortly thereafter, word from New Philadelphia reached the Samuelson family in Sweden; the Samuelson branch that had gone to North America nearly two decades ago had been slaughtered, the last member disappearing after PAS agents chased him into a parking garage on Manhattan Island.

Eight days ago, PAS agents in Itzehoe began asking questions about her. Where was she from? How long had she lived in Itzehoe? Has anyone ever seen her do anything unusual? Are there any other Swedish nationals living in the district with the name Samuelson?

Anika had just brought out the twins’ cake when the front door of their old fashioned cottage was kicked in, red-and-black-garbed men with guns storming through, shooting indiscriminately. Tears flowed down Anika’s pale cheeks as she remembered the spray of red that filled her vision when she watched as her beautiful babies were killed right in front of her eyes. Volkmar tried to push her out the back door, but he went down as well, bellowing for her to run with his last breath, eyes glazing with death even as Anika fled.

And run was what she had been doing for two days now. Slowly but surely, Anika had made her way to this outlying district of Itzehoe, hoping against hope that she could find a way to escape her home and get back to her family in Thörshammer. But the PAS had spotted her running past a surveillance camera behind a bank. She led them on a merry chase through the twisted streets of the ancient cobblestoned district lined with the tall, narrow houses that had stood in Itzehoe for centuries; only to lead them back to where it all began hours ago. There was the blasted bank!

“Psst!”

Anika whirled, her heart in her throat, sweat drenching her skin despite the chill Autumn night. Out of the shadows of a butcher shop flared the end of a cigarette illuminating the dirty face of a frightening man. Anika cringed back as a meaty hand extended towards her.

“Wollen Sie flüchten?” a deep, harsh voice from the shadows asked.

“Ja, ich muss sofort gehen!” Anika gasped hopefully, tears welling in her eyes as she took the proffered hand and stepped into a shadowy alcove.

A dozen PAS troopers trotted by just then, causing Anika to hold her breath fearfully. “Sie werden mit mir sicher sein, Fraulein Samuelson. Komm!”

While it hasn't been as long between Chapter 6 & 7, it has been about three months since a new Future Distorted, but Chapter 8 is finally here. Our trio of survivors have finally escaped civilization's falling and find a sanctuary in the wilds of western Virginia. Will it be a true haven or will they find more trouble? Read the new chapter and find out.

I haven't started the next chapter of Anomaly of the Fates just yet and the end of this chapter of FD kind of used up my inspiration on that story, so it might be a while before the next chapters come for those stories. Between now and then, I will probably have a new story or two out assuming I can work my way through the two I have been working on for the past several weeks. Chameleon's Prey, another Magic at War story, seems to have gotten away from me and instead of an 8-10 page short story I thought it would be it has the feeling of something a bit longer, possibly around the length of Death and Love in Marjah.

The other new story I have been working on, God of Central Park West, I am hoping to keep in line with the 10-15 page story I had hoped to make it. It is still running along the path I had envisioned it, so I hope to get it done soon.

As for anything else I have been working on, I won't bother you with since none of it will be posted anytime soon with the possible exception of In the Darkness Falling. I am about four chapters in on that story and maybe if I get a little further in I will begin posting it.

That is all for now, so check out Chapter 8 of Future Distorted and let me know what you think. Enjoy!