Here are Jack and Ellayne with their donkey, Ham, meeting Obst, the hermit of Lintum Forest. I love these pictures by Katheleen and Kerolyn, our girls from Brazil… and I wonder if we could ever get them into the book someday. But first we’d have to sell out the current edition of Bell Mountain!
I don’t have much to show in the way of sales; but I do have gifted young readers who’ve done honor to my work. I’ll try to live up to it.
It took Patty a while to figure out how to get it done, but she finally solved the mystery and I am now able to present these original Bell Mountain illustrations by Katheleen and Kerolyn, in Brazil. They’ve sent me a bunch of them. But I think I’ll post just one a day.
Here we have Jack and Ellayne before they set out on their epic journey.
I wonder if we’ll ever have a Bell Mountain edition that features these illustrations inside. We’ve had Joshua in Japan translating the book into Japanese, and Katheleen wants to translate the whole series into Portuguese–well, who knows?
To know that I have readers who love my books so much–and children, no less (Joshua was still a teen when he started his project)–well, it’s quite a feeling for me, and I don’t know how to describe it.
P.S.–I stumbled over this, yesterday. An amazon.com customer review on the whole Bell Mountain series. I quote: “Best series EVER!”
Good Lord…
I’ve wanted to post this little video for a long time, and it’s finally available–a brief visit with extinct mammals called Chalicotheres–or “knuckle bears,” if you’re already acquainted with them via Bell Mountain.
Is it a kind of horse? A gorilla? A grounded tree sloth? Or some weird combination of the three? Their fossils have been found in North America, Africa, Europe, and Asia.
Anyway, I thought this might provide a welcome break from nooze. God’s creative work knows no bounds. Let’s appreciate it!
If you’re writing a novel, you might want to have the whole thing planned out in advance before you start to write it. But I don’t do it that way.
Ask yourself this: Are you a “minor character”? Your book will be full of them. Maybe it’s someone who comes onstage for just a moment to say “Here are the gum boots that you ordered, madam,” and then exits, never to be heard from again. It’s a minor character, and you don’t even need to provide him with a name.
But he has one. He has a life. In his own way, which may never show up in your novel, he has importance.
And if it turns out that you’ll need him again–well, there he is.
This happens a lot for me, in my books. A character has a walk-on, but it turns out to be much more than that: he may even develop into a major character. Orth started out as just a henchman of Lord Reesh; but now he’s Lord Orth, the First Prester. Duke Esdras, confined to a wheelchair, will produce the climax of my current book, Ozias, Prince in Peril. I needed someone to do that, and there he was. Most of your minor characters will remain minor–but you never know. Don’t be too quick to dismiss them!
[And yes, I still have no access to my stats page, no idea of how many views I’ve got today, and heaping piles of frustration.]
This is an article about how my Bell Mountain novels came to be written. Hopefully it will ignite an irresistible desire to buy them–and read them.
https://chalcedon.edu/resources/articles/when-you-hear-the-bell-come-out-writing
I was hoping Behold! (No. 12 in the series) would be published in time for Christmas, but it doesn’t look like that will happen. Well, by the time you finish reading the others, it should be ready.
Come on, now–isn’t it time you met Jack and Ellayne, and squirrel-sized Wytt, who climbed the mountain? Obst the hermit, and Martis the assassin-turned-protector; Helki the Rod, the personification of the forest; Lord Reesh the villain (boooo! hiss!); King Ryons, born a slave; Gurun the queen, who came to Obann on a raft–they’re all waiting to do their stuff for you.
I mean, if you want to watch Law and Order reruns, that’s your business and you’re welcome to it…
If wonder what kind of response I’d get if I asked readers who’s their favorite Bell Mountain character. I just hit the wrong key and the whole screen went black for a moment. I wonder what that means.
When I sit down to work on a novel, it’s usually with no preconceptions for that day. I start with a prayer asking the Lord to give me the story and to help me tell it. There’s much to be said for mapping out everything in advance; but I don’t do it that way.
I reckoned I needed, oh, five more chapters to finish Ozias, Prince in Peril; but I didn’t know how to end the book. I had only the faintest wisps of an idea for that. And I needed someone to perform the climactic act.
That would be Chapter Set No. 7. Bowing to the cold weather, I stepped back from No. 7 and thought I’d better type up, edit, and polish sets 5 and 6.
So there I am, typing up the first chapter of the 5th set–and bam! I run smack-dab into the very man I need to shape the climax and carry it out. There he was, written up two months ago, just waiting for me to call on him.
What was he doing in the book, in the first place? Well, he was a very minor character and I was using him as an observer, so that the reader could see things that he sees. An old duke whose battling days are far behind him. He’s in a kind of wheelchair.
And he’s just perfect for the part that it turns out I need him to play!
I mean, how cool is that? How does that even happen? I create these minor characters and the next thing I know, I’m giving them big jobs. They’re not so minor, after all.
It’s one of those things that makes my books fun to write. I hope they’re just as much fun to read.
I had fun writing this today!
Ozias, still a boy, has emerged from Lintum Forest with a band of 21 picked men. Their mission is to elude Maressa the usurper’s forces while proving to the people of Obann that they have a rightful king.
My model for this chapter was 2 Samuel 23: 8-38, the roster of King David’s “mighty men of valor.” (Thanks to Heidi for suggesting this, back in the summer.) Two of Ozias’ mighty men, brothers, are clever thieves who once stole a comrade’s shadow (but gave it back, once they’d shown that they could do it). But it would spoil the fun to list them all here.
I’m racing the seasons again, trying to finish Ozias, Prince in Peril before winter sets in. As yet I have no idea where or how to bring this story to a close. All I know is that Ozias will have to grow to young manhood before I launch the second book, Ozias, Prince Enthroned. The villains I’ve created–or, let me say, that God gave me–will not easily be parted from their power.
But at least the people of Obann won’t have to rely on an election.
It’s sunny out today, but with a cold wind: I froze my onions off, working outside to write the latest chapter of Ozias, Prince in Peril. Still a boy, Ozias will have to grow up fast, what with the villains combing Lintum Forest for him, looking to take him out. I don’t know if I’ll have enough good weather to finish the book this year, but I promise you I’ll try as hard as I can.
I think the book is going very well. The story keeps surprising me. I know I don’t have to secure Ozias’ throne until the next book, but I don’t know how old he’ll be by the time that happens. I just count on the Lord to give me the story… which He already knows.
Oh! Just in time for Christmas! Behold!–Book No. 14 in my Bell Mountain series.
I should have a contest. Can you identify the little old lady on the cover? If you’re a real Bell Mountain fan, with strong intuitions, you just might be able to do it. Identify the lady and win a pack of plastic army men. (You can’t win the book because they haven’t printed it yet. But that shouldn’t take too long.)
That leaves No. 15, The Ocean of Time, for next Christmas. And meanwhile I’m working hard on Ozias, Prince in Peril… which will break from the story line and carry us back 2,000 years to King Ozias’ time. I pray we’ll all be still here to enjoy it.
Well, the sun is out this morning, so I should be out, too, scrawling away–25 chapters written so far. Will I finish before cold weather shuts me down?
Not entirely up to me, is it?
I’ve written 15 books in my Bell Mountain series so far (two still awaiting publication), and it troubles me a little that some readers have already said “That’s enough!” Like they were being forced to read ’em and couldn’t take anymore. The one that really hurt was the reader who said he loved this series when it first came out but now it was (*sigh!*) boring.
Two dozen Tarzan books. I don’t know how many for the Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, Hercule Poirot, Freddy the Pig, Rick Brant, Nancy Drew, et al, et al. Those series are all a lot longer than mine. Readers must have liked them!
Nevertheless, I did feel it was time for a change. So I turned my fantasy world’s clock back 2,000 years to write about King Ozias. It’s going to be a trilogy, I even have the titles for it: Ozias, Prince in Peril and Ozias, Prince Enthroned and Ozias, King Betrayed.
Point is, everything’s going to be different except for some of the geography (There’s no bell, no cloud, on Bell Mountain yet). Different kind of civilization, different characters–oh, yes, above all, different characters. They’ve all been waiting for their cues to come on stage. Which is very cool, and suggests to me that I’m on the right track.
Of course, it’ll be several years between now and the first reader reactions to the first Ozias book. I pray we’re all still here for that. Meanwhile I’m working as hard as I can.