bell mountain series by lee duigon – Page 52

New Comment Contest! Hooray!

leeduigon(patty)March 31, 2016

I wish I’d posted this sooner, but better late than never–it’s time for a new comment contest.

We have just over 5,700 comments now, so whoever posts comment No. 6,000 will win an autographed copy of one of my books. The contest is open to all, and there’s no entrance fee. (Note: If you’ve already won, I hope you don’t mind if I pass you over and award the prize to someone who hasn’t won before. I don’t have a limitless supply of books.)

If you’re new to this blog and you don’t know what I’m talking about, just click “Books” at the top of the page. All eight of my Bell Mountain series are displayed here, with covers, blurbs, and sample chapters. If you’re really motivated, check out the Customer Reviews on amazon.com.

How do you leave a comment? Just scroll down to the bottom of any post and click “Leave a Comment,” and you’re in business.

I do disqualify any comments that are abusive to me or to another reader, make use of the f-bomb, are commercials thinly disguised as comments, or simply too inane to bother with.

Share Me on Your Social Media (Please)

leeduigon(patty)March 28, 2016

I am likely to come to a parting of the ways, soon, with Newswithviews.com, which means I will be an even more obscure writer than I am already.

Looking back, I find a suggestion from reader Jaroc Swift that I ask readers to share bits of this blog on the assorted social media, like Facebook and Twitter.

Well, now, that was a good idea that Jaroc had, and I’m here to ask you all again: please share me on your social media. I need the exposure and can’t afford to pay for it. And anyway I’d rather be mentioned by real people who really like my word than by some publicist who’d say Poems About Bunions was good if someone paid him.

I know, I know–not many of you have read my Bell Mountain books. But if you like the political commentary, the hymns, the satire, or any of the other stuff I post here, please share it with your friends.

It’s what Wytt the Omah would tell you to do, if he cared one iota for such things.

How One of My Characters Grew: Old Uduqu

leeduigon(patty)March 27, 2016

One of the delights of writing fiction is, when you introduce a character, you really don’t know where he’s going to wind up.

Uduqu, the old Abnak sub-chief with a scar from a stone axe on his forehead, walked onto the stage early in Book No. 2, The Cellar Beneath the Cellar, and is still here, seven books later. He was just a walk-on, but soon began to fill a major role in the stories.

Once or twice the story put him in such peril that both my wife and my editor were convinced I’d killed him off–and were they mad at me for that! But I’ve come to have such an affection for this hard-fisted old man that I don’t see how I can carry on the tale without him.

He befriends King Ryons and comes to look on him as a kind of grandson. He discovers God and comes to love Him, always striving to know Him better. He rescues Helki from a charging army, and wins a giant’s sword as a trophy, becoming the king’s personal champion. And as his overworked legs begin to fail him, Uduqu discovers reading and writing–the very first Abnak ever to make a serious go of literacy.

He has been within sight of the great sea in the West, crossed the mountains in the East, and marched all the way out to the Thunder King’s fortress in Kara Karram. Along the way he fights a desperate duel that avoids a bloody battle and makes peace between enemies.

What he’ll do next, I have no idea.

But I can hardly wait to find out!

Not bad for a walk-on character.

Has Anybody Seen My Sanity?

leeduigon(patty)March 25, 2016

We bought a blood pressure monitor this week, and it tells us that my pressure is through the roof, be prepared to pop a gasket… So I’ll be going back to the doctor for that.

Phone rings. It’s the nursing home. My aunt has been packed off to the hospital. Just a precaution.

Other family members, heard from today, are not much better off.

At some point this afternoon I will withdraw to my bedroom and read five chapters of the Bible. Not a bad idea for anyone.

In the meantime, I’ll get outside with the birds and continue reading Bell Mountain No. 7, The Glass Bridge. It’s how I make myself ready to receive the next book, if God will give me one.

I read a bit last night–I can’t tell you what it was because that would be a spoiler and I would really, truly appreciate it if more of you would buy these books–that struck me as very fine indeed. I don’t mean that to sound like I’m boasting, because I’m not. I know the good stuff never came from me. I just write down what the Lord gives me, and to Him be the glory. If I deserve any credit, it’s for working hard over many years to learn how to write it down.

One more sanity saver, by far the most important of them all:

Christ the Lord is risen. He is risen indeed.

Revisiting ‘The Palace’

leeduigon(patty)March 22, 2016

As I try to prepare myself to write another book, when my Lord makes a new story available to me, I re-read the previous books in my Bell Mountain series. I’m now more than halfway through Book No. 6, The Palace.

Two of my favorite scenes are in here: King Ryons’ pursuit of the White Doe, which leads him into an encounter with the ancient kings of Obann, and the Battle of the Brickbats, in which the king’s army fights to recapture Silvertown from the Heathen–a battle whose outcome is decided in a most unusual way.

I love these, and I give God the glory for the finished work. It’s like He shows me the story and I just write it down.

I’m sure the next book will surprise me. I have no idea, yet, what form it will take.

Those of you who are new to this blog, and enjoy it–well, give my books a look-see, will you? Click “Books” at the top of the page for covers, blurbs, and sample chapters.

How ‘The Last Banquet’ Was Born

leeduigon(patty)March 16, 2016

As I try to prepare myself to write another book, once the Lord provides me with a beginning of some kind, by re-reading all the previous books in my Bell Mountain series, I’ve just about finished Book No. 4, The Last Banquet.

That book had its genesis in a most unusual and vivid dream that I had, one night.

I dreamed of a teenage girl living in Iceland, a thousand years ago, who one fine morning had a desire to go fishing. She took her father’s boat and went out on the water. She caught a couple of nice cod, but then something very big and very strong bit down on her hook and made a fight of it. She needed all her strength and all her skill just to keep it on the line, and was concentrating so hard on doing it that she never noticed the sky filling up with storm clouds.

Finally her line broke, and so did the storm. Darkness and heavy rain blinded her. Ferocious winds seized the boat and made it race across the waves. There was nothing she could do to turn it. At any moment she expected to be sunk and drowned.

How long the storm held her, I couldn’t say. But just when it seemed it was going to go on forever, it stopped. The sea grew still as glass. Thick fog covered everything. The boat was full of water, having sprung several leaks. She fought to bail out the water, but it was a losing battle.

And then the fog was whisked away, and the sun came out.

And the girl stood up in her boat and looked on wonders that she never could have imagined–great, towering buildings all along the shore.

Modern buildings.

***

And that dream, with very few details of it modified, became the first chapter of The Last Banquet; and the girl, Gurun, is featured on the cover of Book No. 7, The Glass Bridge.

I just absolutely love this aspect of my work!

Jandra’s Nasty Toothed Bird

leeduigon(patty)March 12, 2016

I have been asked to provide an image that will give readers some idea of that nasty, hissing toothed bird that follows Jandra wherever she goes. Jandra is the toddler prophetess in my Bell Mountain books–just a little girl who from time to time speaks words given to her by God. Words way too complicated for her to understand, or even remember.

The “flying dinosaur” in this video is a pretty close approximation to what Jandra’s toothed bird looks like. Please feel free to totally dismiss the Darwinian fairy tale that accompanies the video.

The dirty little secret is that birds appear in the fossil record simultaneously with the early dinosaurs, providing the dinos little or no opportunity to magically evolve into birds.

The critter that is in my mind when I write about Jandra’s bird is Archeopteryx, long considered “the first bird,” really because it was the first bird discovered living at the same time as dinosaurs. I couldn’t find a satisfactory Archeopteryx video, but this “Microraptor” thingummy will do.

This hideous creature is devoted to Jandra. Well, birds are like that, aren’t they?

The Great Beast from ‘The Thunder King’

leeduigon(patty)March 12, 2016

As long as I’m reading The Thunder King, I thought I’d treat you to this video clip from Walking With Prehistoric Beasts, featuring the mountain-sized animal that rescued Ryons from the “death dog,” aka hyaenodon.

Don’t mind them calling it “Indricotherium.” They’re always changing the name. I stick with the old name that it had when I was a boy, “Baluchitherium.” Whatever we call it, this baby was the largest land mammal that ever lived–and the one that Ryons met was the biggest of them all.

Marvel at the work of God’s hands, and rejoice in it.

Reading My Own Books

leeduigon(patty)March 12, 2016

Come spring, and nice weather, I hope to be sitting outside again, writing a new book. I have to wait until God gives me the germ of something to work with–a scene, a new character, a piece of story-line–but in the meantime, I want to make ready for it when it comes.

So I re-read, in order, all the earlier books in my Bell Mountain series. There being eight of them in print so far, it’s going to take me a while. I’m about halfway through No. 3, The Thunder King.

Now, what kind of nut sits there reading his own books? The kind who has a series to write and doesn’t want to contradict anything he said in the previous books. And really, at least for me, it’s just so easy to forget!

This blog was created to drum up interest in my books, and hopefully inspire folks to read them. That’s another thing that’s easy for me to forget. And, with a shock, I remember it and then I have to do something about it.

Obviously I can’t sit here reviewing my own books, “I give myself five stars for this one!”–but I think I can at least say that reading them is a pleasurable experience. I often find myself wondering, “Did I write that?”

And the answer is, To God be the glory–because I ask Him to give me these stories, and He does, along with the ability and the passion to write them. I had to work hard to acquire such skills as I have–but the whole thing is God’s gift. I am a steward of the resources which He has assigned to me–in this case, the ability to write well, and the desire to write: I find it hard to stop, and if I were prevented from doing it, it would go hard with me–and it’s my job to put them to work for Him.

It’s a little cold this morning, but at least the sun is out. Let me get myself some exercise, and then it’s back to The Thunder King.