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12 July 2010, I finished Dana-ana with 20 chapters on 10 July 2010 and made the first run through yesterday.  I am very pleased with the work.  I think I will name it in the sequence of the "Enchantment of the ()" works that I started with the Hestia novel.  This work fits in that universe.  It is set in the modern era 2010, and follows the discovery, life, and love of Dana-ana Goewyn.  This is where everything gets good.  I will start working on the marketing materials today.  I don't know how long it is yet.  I'm guessing about 100,000 words.

7 July 2010, Dana-ana is up to chapter 17.  I know where the work is going.  I know what the climax will be and the dénouement.  Dana-ana has become a real force.  She has grown from nothing to a person with status.  She has confronted Byron and forced him to reveal his love.  She has made a blood oath to give her life for Byron and for his sister Gwen.  Mata Hainsworth wants Dana-ana's life.  He wants her to taste death. 

I introduced a couple of fun characters, Mariread and Nansaidh.  Mariread is a reformed magic user.  She is also a professor at King's College and a person Dana-ana was never supposed to contact again.  Nansaidh is the weak magic user, Mata left to watch over Dana-ana, Byron, and Gwen.  Dana-ana catches her and ruins her magic things.  Now, Nansaidh must physically follow Dana-ana around to keep an eye on her. 

24 June 2010, I updated the writing chart below with the data from Dana-ana.  I'll write more on the novel later.  I'm up to chapter 12.  Writing is going well.

19 June 2010, Has it been four days and I've only finished 2 chapters?  I'm about to start writing chapter 9 and I know where I'm going with this book.  I've found it is a really difficult book to explain.  I didn't want to give away too much, but I do want you to be excited about it.  With this book about Dana-ana, I'm returning to the excitement of Aegypt.  In Aegypt, you didn't know for certain if Lt. Bolong was right or if he was imagining everything.  I wanted this psychological tension to grab you immediately and not let you go until the revelation of Leora at the end with the dinner scene.  Even then, I wanted you to be like the archeologists--partially convinced, but not fully believing.

The same for this book.  I want the question in the readers mind to be the same as the Macintyres (Byron's family): just who is this girl, Dana-ana.  Is she a time traveler, a psychopath, a strange person, a charlatan, or perhaps a... (fill in the blank).  This is the tension of the story and the question I don't intend to answer fully.   

15 June 2010, This is what happens with inspiration--I'm up to chapter 7.  I decided to write about an Anglo-Saxon subject, and I was inspired by the question: what happens when a student stands up for the most hated and put upon kid in school.  The kid everyone hates is Dana-ana.  Since she doesn't speak to them, the students call her Diana.  The teachers don't even have her name right.  Dana-ana is low, but she is a good enough student to keep most of the teachers off her back.  Still, she won't speak.  She gets beat up routinely.  And no one has ever taken the time to get to know her.  She is the kid most parents would cringe to see in their house or even with their own children.  But, there is something special about Dana.

Then Dana finds her household, and things change for her.  That's just the beginning.  Byron and his family begin the transformation of Dana and are changed themselves.  They find that Dana lives by a strange and ancient code.  Conveniently, Dr. Macintyre, Byron's father is a professor of ancient English and identifies Dana's culture as Anglo-Saxon.  That makes things both easier and harder.  Dana is absolutely ignorant about the modern world.  She can do the work in school from the books, but she has no idea about the most basic concepts in America.  She learned how to use a sink and a toilet on her own, but before she came to the Macintyres, she never had a bath.  She didn't know you could get hot water from a tap.  She never used soap.  

11 June 2010, I'm up to chapter 4 and I've been writing for 2 days.  Is this too excessive.  Still no clear view to the direction, but I have energy and a growing story.  I already decided I would tie it loosely to "Ancient Light."  I may also tie it to Enchantment of the Hearth.

The novel is already fun.  Byron's dad is a university professor.  I haven't placed the university yet, but I'm using the deep south as the location.  Mr. Macintyre is a professor of Ancient English.  Dana-ana speaks Anglo-Saxon.  She has some inexplicable abilities.  She is dirty, and calls herself a theow (female servant).  If she has a psychosis, Dana's psychosis is a strange one.  Mr. Macintyre tells her, if she wants to live in an Anglo-Saxon fantasy, she should choose to be a cwen (free woman, head of a clan) or a folccwen (free woman, head of clans).  Or, he asks, why doesn't she pretend to be her namesake, a gyden (goddess).

10 June 2010, I lied.  Sorry.  I'm not writing on Draig Goch much at all.  I had an inspiration out of the blue for a new novel.  I'm not sure I can make this go, but the premise is that in the modern world an ostracized HS girl is befriended by a HS athlete in her class.  The girl is strange.  She dresses in the same clothing every day.  Isn't very clean.  Never talks.  Is obviously hungry, but won't ask for any help or anything else.  Everybody knows about her, but no one is her friend and no one has anything good to say about her.

Byron, the HS athlete, makes her acquaintance when he partially rescues her from a beating for "stealing" a lunch.  She was struck in the head and keeps losing consciousness.   He takes her to her house.  She lives in a single room tar house near the bayou.  She speaks to him, and he learns her name is Dana-ana Goeywn.  So it begins.  I'm not sure where this is going, but the trip seems fun.  You can tell this girl is different and special.  Obviously, I'm going in the direction of my current themes with deities incarnate.  I intend this to be a skill exploration novel with Byron as the main character.     

2 June 2010, I'm back and it is Wednesday.  Maybe I'll put an entry up on Thursday as well.  I finished reading and reviewing all the "Ancient Light" novels.  I really can't wait to have them in print.  I think you will really enjoy them.  The second two should come out this summer.  I was able to get www.ancientlight.net, www.theancientlight.com, and www.ancientlightnovel.com.  There is nothing on the sites yet, but I'll put up something soon.  I want to make a splash screen that flares for "ancient light."  I hope everyone likes the name. 

I am getting ready to write Draig Goch.  This has been my plan, but I'm not very motivated because I don't have a contract on the novels or the series.  My publisher has them, but they haven't read them yet.  Sister of Light and Sister of Darkness will come first.  Look forward to them.

20 May 2010, Okay, okay--I'm back to Thursday updates.  I put one for the blog on Amazon and here is this one.  Sorry, I've just been busy, and I might get busier.  My publisher wants some info on the rest of the Aegypt books.  Additionally, I think the name of the series will be "The Ancient Light" series.  Kind of cool--eh?  If you have other ideas send them to me.  I've been going through the whole series (yeah, I'm still going to write Ddraig Goch, but I'm reading the whole "Ancient Light" right now.  These are good enough to entertain me--that's saying a lot.

22 April 2010, I am writing on this progress page when I want to, but it seems that Thursday is a good day to write.  I'm updating the blog on my Amazon Author page too.  I wrote there about Ghost and the naming of the ships plus about what I'm reviewing.  I'm up to Ghost Regia Anglorum and going over the first chapter again. 

I finished going over Ghost: Twilight Lamb and made some great corrections and improvements to the work.  I was happy overall with the story.  It seems like such a fun adventure that drives the ultimate story along.  There is likely more I can do with it, but I'll wait a bit. That is the point about Ghost, it is supposed to be a grand adventure with a very thoughtful wrapper.  The wrapper is, of course, the return of the spirit that inhabits the mind of Den Protania and its purpose.  Everything centers around this point.  What is the purpose of Den Protania.  He draws in his wake those who will ultimately help resolve the problem posed in this future culture and government.

15 April 2010, It's really funny.  I think I've written this before, but whenever I edit a novel, it grows.  It always grows.  The things I find that I miss are descriptions and details.  Perhaps some of the details don't need to be noted or I could leave off some of the descriptions, but many times, I think I've left out information the reader would really like to have or clarifications.

This is what I'm finding with Twilight Lamb especially.  There seems to be many places where the writing should be clarified and descriptions added.  This will make it a much better novel, but I've been stuck in chapters 29 and 30 (that's chapter 7 and 8 out of 15).  The reason for the funny chapter numbering is that I started with the idea that Ghost would be a single novel--silly me.  It has turned into four completed and one planned novel.  I'm plowing through.  I don't really have any other information to pass on.  Working, working.

8 April 2010, I've been working slowly on Twilight Lamb, but I'm not making great progress.  The problem is that I've been busy with a play, taxes, a couple of classes, and finalizing my doctoral work.  Plus, I've been reading Manga and watching Anime for fun.  In addition...I'm not sure I like the transitions and some of the pieces in TL.  I have been helping it along, but I'd like to just get to DG.  I must be patient.  I also need to write a new piece for Wings over Kansas.  Wings over Kansas will be featuring me in an ad in In Flight magazine.  You'll get to see my face and my aircraft plus a quote about www.WingsoverKansas.com.

9 March 2010, I'm working on the edit of Ghost Twilight Lamb.  Kind of chomping at the bit to get to Ddraig Gnoch.  I really want to get to the Nikita parts of the story.  Den and Natana are appealing, but Nikita brings a strong freshness to the story.

3 March 2010, I finished the current run through on Ghost: Athelstan Cying.  The work isn't half bad.  I didn't add much to it, but fixed some small stuff.  I'm moving on to Ghost: Twilight Lamb next in the sequence.  One of my prepub readers doesn't like the prologs in the books that explain the previous story.  Not sure what to do with that.  I think I'll send a note around.

23 February 2010, I did begin writing on Ghost beginning with my earliest book.  So far, the writing doesn't seem too bad.  I've made small corrections and fixes.  Nothing too serious, yet.  I promise there will be more information in the future--I just have to get up to the next novel.

20 February 2010, I moved my notes to Warrior of Darkness secrets.  If you every want to see them again, just take a look.  I haven't been lazy all this time.  I've been editing and writing on other stuff.  I really need to get my stuff together for the printing of Sister of Light and Sister of Darkness.  I need to determine where the diagrams should go in the book etc.  In the mean time, I edited Antebellum.  This is a novel I wrote a long time ago.  It would be controversial if printed today because it is about the South in 1965 and 1865 and isn't very politically correct.  I mean by that, it is truthful and balanced about the historical relationships between the blacks and whites in the South.  The data come from first person accounts, mostly letters from that period.  If is a great suspense, mystery, coming of age novel.  No romance, but lots of excitement--some psychological underpinnings too.

I have been planning to work on the Ghost Ship Chronicles.  I'm going to make a major edit on the first four novels and spring into the fifth and planned final novel of the series.  If I get too long, I may make a sixth novel, but I plan to work out everything in the fifth.  So beginning tomorrow or Monday, I'll be in on the first four books.

Oh, I also went through Warrior of Darkness again and Enchantment of the Hearth--that's the new name of Goddess of the Hearth (it'll make my publisher happy).  I want to read Warrior of Darkness again.  It really has some themes and ideas that create awesome tension and power. 

7 December 09, I've already had feedback from one reader on Warrior of Darkness.  I made some additions and fixes.  I've been promised to get hard copy with notes on all the novels.  That will give me an excuse to go through them all again--I love that.  One of my other readers finished Shadowed Vale.  I want to Write Ddraig Gnoch next, but I will have to read all the Ghost novels again.  That will allow me to pull in all the elements.  I want Draig Gnoch to conclude the Ghost novels. 

The Dragon and the Fox

                   (Available now published by OakTara)

The End of Honor       The Fox’s Honor       A Season of Honor