Published!

Wow. I almost don't believe it (and neither do my friends), but I've finally shipped my young adult novel The Tree of Life. Only that's not what it's called anymore. There have actually been quite a few changes over the last, oh... 3103 days since I started plotting the story.

Back on the 29th of October 2006 in beautiful, but rainy, Galway, Ireland, my wife, me and our baby son had just come back from a vacation to Kenya. Previously that year we had visited family in the U.S.A. and the Netherlands as well as made trips to Prague and Estonia (you can say with a safe heart that we like to travel). All these cultures and beautiful experiences infused me with inspiration. The magical Emerald Isle certainly helped as well.

So when I had finished reading the latest Artemis Fowl, Harry Potter and Series of Unfortunate Events I thought: 'Why can't I write a story like this?' I was quite enchanted with these wonderful works, but equally frustrated by the boundaries the writers had set for themselves. For example, Harry lived in a wonderful part of the world with fantastic magical items, spells and mysteries. But what about the world outside of England? Artemis certainly traveled more, but his problem was that he was always bound to the faerie realms. How very Irish. Finally the Baudelaire Triplets seemed to always be on the move, but their world was one of simple symmetry. Villains appeared and disappeared like clockwork and story lines followed the same pattern and although charming in prose and imagination, it lacked a base of the real world. And that was what I was interested in: the real world in all of its glorious rich locales and exotic cultures. One where magical creatures of all sorts (not just fairy tales or faeries or elves and dwarves) roamed.

And so Aelemental was born. A 5 part series, steeped in the rich lore of cultural myths and legends (Mike Mignola's loves to delve here for Hellboy) where Indiana Jones meets James Bond. Worlds which Harry might find himself traveling to and Artemis would discover races beyond the faerie kingdom. I wove a rich tapestry of mythological races, history, languages and motives, all working behind the veil of Charms, away from humanity's curious eyes.

The first book was initially called Simon and Sally's Storybook Sojourn, then became Simon Spangenberg and the Tree of Life, and finally the Life Tree Discovery. The funny thing is that even though it took me about 8 and a half years to finally wrap the book up and publish it, the very first three days and the very last three days were marked by a whirlwind energy, courtesy of my Muses. Sure I've had many days where I loved working on the plot, characters and locations of the book, many more doing research, drafting and redrafting, but these were all slow and steady waves. I had a day job and a family after all. Besides, we ended up moving from Ireland to Sri Lanka to Thailand to the Netherlands to the U.S. in the span of those years. Still, those first three days were magically powerful as were the final three.

And now Book 1 of the Aelemental Journey series, the Life Tree Discovery is available on Amazon Kindle. It's what I call the trailer version, which has provisional artwork and is still under review by my editors, but it's also available at a discount price of $1.99. Somewhere down the road (as I write Book 2) I'll release the full version with its proper artwork, grammar corrections and some extras, and I'm even thinking of setting up print to order hard copies down the road with a whole bunch of source materials and annotations (like a Blu-Ray disc).

Let's hope it doesn't take another 8 and a half years to get that done.

Real Time, Real Places, Real Me

Top of the Morning to ya,

Writing this blog is a good exercise I've decided. It is like a mirror that reflects back to me who I am and what I'm doing. More often than not I feel I need a little readjustment in the way I do things. I don't think I'm overly critical, but maybe I do have the tendency to examine where I am today in life. Don't we all at one point or another? Is this blog reflecting the real writer in me? Or is it just another ego-trip of which I think all blogs are suspect of? Is this just the new generation's way of saying: I need therapy, but I'm too cheap/self-aware/egotistic to get professional help? I like to think about these things every now and then to test myself. How else am I going to examine the packaging so to speak of the box by being on the inside of it?

So what is my conclusion thus far? I think I'm too preachy, maybe talking in too many general statements than actually saying anything about what I really am up to writing this book series. Trying too hard to examine top-down the great art of writing instead of bottom-up handling the issue of the day. What do you think? Should I give up my siren's call to become a writer and become a priest instead? That wouldn't work, cuz they work with simple examples and personal situations too. Maybe a politician? They speak in general broad statements. Nah, too many mind games and actual politics. I'm, way too sensitive - and still have that issue with abuse of authority.

I think I'll leave the examination for what it is for now - even if it's just to get away from the self aimed microscope and actually do some 'being me'.

These are the things that are happening around me now: I'm starting to have dreams about the very things I'm writing about. Weird mash-ups of fantastical fictive events mixed in with actual friends and situations. Maybe I'm getting too involved with the material. I am reading Joseph Cambell's 'Hero with the Thousand Faces' at the moment as well as the Hellboy trade paperbacks, so there is a lot of heavy epic and mythical stuff going on there. To top it off I went to see 'Solomon Kane' last night and boy was that ever the heavily psychadelic type of action adventure flick. I have more books I'm reading all over the house: 'God is not Great', 'Empowered', '2012: The Return of Quetzacotl', 'Smoke and Mirrors' and 'Fairy Tails' - so influences galore.

I'm struggling with getting a regular diet & exercise. I find I'm sacrificing mindfulness on what I eat and how much I exercise (including meditation, which lays the very foundation for mindfulness) in order to spend more time writing. So this is leading to weight issues (currently an unhealthy 200 lbs/93 kg) for a 5'11''/1,79m tall guy. I know, I know, I'm also almost 40 yrs, so I shouldn't be too upset, but still: I'd still like to be able to climb 4 flights of stairs from the kitchen to my writing room without breathing heavily. I mean, I'm not sacrificing time watching movies or TV-shows at night.

So that's just a little about my life right now. The fictional life of Simon & Sally (there, I've given you the names of our heroes) continues on in chapter 19, where they are now in Mexico City. They are trying to stay out of the clutches of a corporate villain, while also having to find a magical portal that will transport them south to an endangered fairy tale city. Like I stated before, the heroes and their friends are split up all over the place trying to find each other again and I've included a map just to give you a visual.

All right, I'm off writing again, but that depends on the Internet, as I need to do the necessary research while writing and our Internet connection is spotty this week.