New Adventure in Dark Fantasy!

I realize it has been a bit of time since I published a blog post, so I wanted to provide an update.

I’ve started yet another writing project, which means I am currently writing three separate books on top of blogging, marketing, and my day job! I know it’s crazy, but there is a method to my madness, as I will explain below. A good blog post, especially one for my Living in China series, takes me about a day to complete on top of my full-time work. That is a lot of time away from my fiction writing. The past week was a hectic workweek, then this past Friday, an idea popped into my head, and I had to get it down on paper. Thus there was a squeeze on my time, and something had to go.

Two of the books I’m working on are sequels- the book two’s of the Monuments of Stone and Tocharian Gospels series. Desert of Stone continues the story from the Island of Stone, but 15 years later. Its main character is young Alice from the first book (now 21). She is struggling to come to terms with the mysteries of the island. The Power of the Heliodromus continues Isa’s story as he searches for something significant in Medieval Baghdad, while Brother Humbert struggles as the new Master General of the Dominican Order. The pressure builds as substantial changes in both the Christian and Muslim worlds are on the horizon.

Although the stories are new territory, the characters, general setting, and feel are the same to align them with their series. The problem is, I’ve been working with these worlds for a very long time, and I needed to write something new and fresh! I found myself getting bogged down in research for both these books. For Isa’s story, I’m dealing with history and culture I know little about. Although I find the search for historical details fascinating, writing slows to a trickle as I spend time scouring the web, looking through history books, and reading journal articles dealing with 13th-century Islamic culture. For Deserts of Stone, everything was moving nicely, but the book takes place in California and Nevada’s deserts. I’m a New England boy and have only visited the area once. I know very little of desert life. So again, I found myself having to research more than I wanted, and once more, not writing.

As writers know, it’s stressful and depressing when you can’t get words on the page. It takes a bit of time to get into the flow of things, and if you spend all your time starting and stopping, it’s like being in traffic. I had been in traffic for ten plus years, and I wanted to drive, but I found myself at a complete stop. The culprit, a bit of writer’s block as Alice has her first confrontation with the darkness held within the Island of Stone. My remedy for “the block” is typically to shift gears and work on something else. But that day, I didn’t feel like reminiscing about my life in China, nor did I want to jump back into the 13th century. So I said, “the hell with it,” and I decided to leave the jammed highway and do a bit of off-roading.

My god, what a relief it was! Since Friday afternoon, I’ve written 15,000 words- that’s about 60 pages or about 3,000 words a day of brand new material. I had no plan, just a starting, and endpoint. I haven’t had such a pure flow of creative writing for more than a decade. I went from being at a full stop to speeding and what I was putting down on paper was good… I mean, just solid, action-filled story with complex characters that just popped out of the ether. Not just a whole book materialized, but an entire series!

So what is the genre that produced such magic? Medieval Dark Fantasy, a road I have not ventured down before. I’ve experimented with many stories over the years, trying to find something that truly resonated with my creativity, but the more I tried to stay in the lines, the more my impulse was to move out of the box. Surprisingly, as I started down this new path, it was almost like I found a home. Sure, there is a taste of fantasy in the Slaying of the Bull, and its sequel will have a smidge more, but they are primarily Historical Fiction works grounded in fact. Sure, the vagaries of 13th-century history allow me to play a bit creatively. Still, ultimately I can’t move too far outside the box without upsetting the genre’s audience (and getting horrid reviews). However, what writing the Slaying of the Bull provided me was plenty of experience in the medieval period. That acquired knowledge lends itself to an excellent writing skill set for the fantasy genre. The big bonus is that I don’t have to worry whether the period details are precisely correct. I can drift in and out of timelines with no worry that something wasn’t invented yet, or accurate to history. If I want a character in Norman-style chain mail fighting another in full-plate armor, technology that is hundreds of years apart, it doesn’t matter. There is also nothing but open fields for creativity with the world’s history, geography, physics, science, and everything in between.

As shown by the Island of Stone, I also enjoy horror and the paranormal. These themes may not always be the core of fantasy, but it certainly helps build the brooding mood and darkness that is a hallmark of the dark fantasy sub-genre. Ancient secrets, dark evils, vindictive politics, a good scare, flawed characters, epic battles, it has it all! I don’t know why I never experimented with the genre before!

Anyway, the story is far too young to provide details, but it moves fast, so stay tuned! The other books are still there, waiting and getting warm by the fire of this creative burst. If this drive suddenly comes to a halt, they remain eager and with open arms. As for my China blog series, I have an idea for the next installment and plan to get it out this weekend, so make sure to check back soon. A special group has invited me to read from the My Life in China series, and I need to get something extra special prepared!

Well, back to writing.

Cheers!