Category: bell mountain series

Sunny Weather–Finally

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

Eryops, side profile. | Stocktrek Images

I’m glad I got some blog posts up this morning, because the sun is out again and I’ve got to write as much of The Witch Box as I can. No telling when it’ll get too cold to do that.

Today Helki the Rod has had an encounter with the creature depicted above. It’s called “Eryops,” a giant amphibian with huge jaws, lots and lots of teeth, and a third eye in the middle of its forehead–one of the first prehistoric animals I ever learned about, thanks to Bertha Morris Parker’s Golden Treasury of Natural History. You’re getting a better look at it than Helki got. He didn’t want to get too close. His Eryops lives in a cavern.

Well, I’d better get back outside now and try to tell some more of the story. See you in a bit.

 

The Thrill Is Back!

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

The Bell Mountain Series - Reformed Reviews

I’ll never get over the thrill I experience when a story I’m writing takes on a life of its own and pulls me along with it.

It’s going to be tricky, putting the book into a coherent whole, but I’m sure the Lord will guide me. Like, waddaya know! Suddenly I have a pre-climax that not only leads into the double climax of the story, but also ties the two together. I never expected that, although it’s not the first time it’s happened. The story unfolds and I just write it down! How cool is that?

I’m already working on a second chapter of the pre-climax, with another chapter waiting in the wings. It’s really going to mess up my legal pads–but once I’ve got all the pieces written, I’ll be able to put them together as they should be.

Meanwhile… who knew Wytt had a streak of clairvoyance in him?

Now I’ve Got to Bear Down

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

Tricks for Writing Under Pressure - Shut Up & Write!

Okay! Grocery shopping’s done, banking’s done. Time to get outside and write like a boat was sinking under me.

I reckon I’ve got two months, at most, to finish writing The Witch Box. It’s not so much fun trying to do that when it’s so cold, the ink won’t flow from the pen; but you can’t go indoors because it’s so blamed hard to concentrate when you’re getting nuisance robo-calls every ten minutes.

Gee–see that pen in the picture? I’ve got one just exactly like it. But you can tell it isn’t me up there because my thrifty soul would violently recoil from wasting so much paper.

I’m not going to stop blogging, but I’ll need your help, O reader, in bringing up interesting topics and starting conversations.

Well, as the feller once said, “Shut up and write!”

‘The Witch Box’–Now Comes the Hard Part

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

As I wait to see whether anyone buys The Wind from Heaven, I’ve finally arrived at that point where it’s do or die, writing The Witch Box.

This book has a double climax; and that means it’ll be very important to get the timing just so. And I’ve got to get to that double climax without padding the story, but without winding up with a book that’s too short.

Plus I’ve got to get it all done before the cold weather sets in and the ink stops flowing in my pen. I have to write these books outdoors. Indoors it’s nothing but nuisance phone calls.

Please pray for me, that the Lord might guide me in the work and make it fruitful in His service–and that I’ll be up to the challenge.

Now in Paperback, ‘The Wind from Heaven’

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

 

Finally, at last, hooray! My new book, The Wind from Heaven, is out in paperback.

At least, I think it’s out. We’ve had a lot of publication glitches, and the amazon.com page has it as “Book 11 in the Bell Mountain series” when it’s actually Book 13. We ran into so many glitches, we had to publish the Kindle book first.

But here it is, and I hope some of you will buy it and bless me with a customer review.

Will Ysbott the Snake succeed in finding a place in Lintum Forest inhabited by gnomes and giants? And what about those ships that have been sighted off the coast of Durmurot? Where did they come from, and what do they want?

The adventure continues…

 

Coming Un-Stuck

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

These past few days I’ve been stuck for a means to develop the plot of my current book, The Witch Box. I had the climax–two of them, in fact!–but I wasn’t getting there and I feared the story was bogging down. So I re-read the last 50 pages or so, and was greatly reassured by what I found: the story doesn’t suck.

But how to reach those climaxes? I could only read and think and pray over it.

And I think I’ve been shown the way.

This will require some pretty fancy stepping on my part. I run two risks: the book might turn out to be too short, or it might wind up getting padded–mustn’t let that happen!

So I think I’ll resort to a tactic used by both Cervantes and Sir Thomas Malory centuries ago–and pray it works for me.

Back in the saddle on Monday!

‘I Win an Award!’ (2013)

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

See the source image

It seems so long ago, 2013. Then again, in only eight years, twelve more of my Bell Mountain books have been published. But it all started with Bell Mountain itself; and imagine my surprise and delight when I learned I’d just won a major international book award!

I Win an Award!

The next year I won a silver medal for Book No. 2, The Cellar Beneath the Cellar. There were no more entries after that, so no more awards. Gotta be in it to win it. But I was in it twice and I won twice. How cool is that?

Now I’m struggling with the new book, The Witch Box–too much talkin’, not enough action. I have to solve this, somehow. Maybe if I throw in a lot of left-wing anti-American crap I can be nominated for a Pulitzer.

 

I’ve Got My Author’s Copies (Hooray!)

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

I’ve got to get out there toot-sweet if I want to work on The Witch Box before the flamin’ heat kicks in: I reckon I have about an hour and a half of breathable air.

But I did want to tell you I got my author’s copies of The Wind from Heaven yesterday. And I must ask–Is there anyone out there who won a contest here some months ago, and wanted to wait for The Wind from Heaven as the prize? I have a nagging feeling that there is. Well, whoever you are, I certainly want you to get your prize, so please come forward.

My wife never read this book as it was being written, so the whole story will be totally new to her. The author can never have that experience. But we do get to know things before the reader does.

And now, out the door for a while.

How Leftids Tried to Sink ‘Bell Mountain’: Part III

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

305,954 Victory Vector Images - Free & Royalty-free Victory Vectors | Depositphotos®

Well, now you know how to get an unfair, dishonest, non-review removed from amazon.com’s customer reviews page.

I was gratified when it took readers only a day to get amazon to delete the personal attack against me, disguised as a review of my book.

Ta-dah! Thank You, Readers

Remember: they’re always looking to stifle us. “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance” is no exaggeration.

Having said all this, I would like to re-assert my firm conviction that to burden a fantasy world with junk from the, ahem, real world is very bad fantasy. I mean, if the Elf turns to the Dwarf and says, “We must learn to celebrate diverse lifestyles,” that is lousy, rotten, unforgivable, stupid, howlingly awful fantasy.

And I take great care never to do it!

How Leftids Tried to Sink ‘Bell Mountain,’ Part II

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

Gollum reading Strange case Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Shimarina7 on DeviantArt

Some of you have asked to see the rest of the story today, not tomorrow–so why not? If nothing else, it reminds us what we’re up against.

Please bear in mind that my Bell Mountain novels are fantasies having nothing, but nothing, to do with political issues and controversies in our own world. Leftids wanted my novels sabotaged not for what they said, but for what I said elsewhere. They wanted me punished for criticizing Obama.

Reader Help Requested!

Their solution, they hoped, was to post one-star reviews of Bell Mountain on amazon.com to try to damage its sales.

This post has 20 comments attached: I appealed to my readers for help, and they began to try to see what they could do about it.

Part III coming right up.