Tag: The Ocean of Time

The Next ‘Ozias’ Book

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

6 Facts About King Arthur – Was He Real? What Happened To Lancelot And Guinevere? | HistoryExtra

All I know about this book is its title–Ozias, Prince Enthroned–and that it’s the second book of a trilogy. That’s all I’ve got so far, plus bits and pieces left undone in the first book, Ozias, Prince in Peril.

It’s been my custom, in writing the novels in my Bell Mountain series, to wait for the Lord to give me the story He wants me to tell. I can’t make it happen, can’t force it. And it hasn’t happened yet.

Ozias lived some 2,000 years before his descendant, King Ryons, and some 1,000 before the destruction of Obann’s Empire in the Day of Fire. He was the last king of Obann, for two thousand years, chosen by the grace of God; and his throne was ultimately taken from him by his enemies. Obann had to wait for two millenia before another king was anointed.

I’d very much like to get going on this, the days are flashing by; but I have to wait. Sometimes it’s a dream that gets me started. Or an idea or an image breaks into something else I’m doing at the time. A whole unwritten novel stands between now and the third book of the trilogy: Ozias, King Betrayed. I do have a better idea of what that one is about.

The Ocean of Time is waiting to be published–early next year, I hope.

So I wait. I have yet to wait in vain… but I’m still not used to it.

Reading My Own Book?

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Behold! (Bell Mountain, 14)

Our landlord saw me doing something yesterday which made him look twice.

“You’re reading your own book–that you wrote?” he marveled.

I could’ve said, “Oh, how about that! I thought there was something familiar about it!” But instead I just explained, “When you write a series of books, like I do, it’s so easy to forget details as you go on from book to book. You’d be amazed by the things I forget.”

That’s all true.

Now jump ahead to the next book, The Ocean of Time. For that book I tried something very challenging and only rarely seen–a double climax. In fact, I can’t think of any examples of one, just now. So part of the job of Behold! was to set the stage for events covered in the next book–

Which it does! And don’t ask me how, because when I was writing Behold!, the next book wasn’t even a half-formed thought. And yet the one book flows beautifully into the other. I really have no idea how that happens. Give God the glory.

(After Ocean of Time comes Ozias, Prince in Peril. That would be 2,000 years before the present time in Obann.)

A Writer’s Resource: Other Writers

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Tolkien and Lewis: A friendship | Angelus News

J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis

I was in a jam last year, trying to write The Ocean of Time. I knew it would require a double climax, but I didn’t know how to pull it off.

For no conscious reason, I began to reread Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Not that I was trying to follow him, or imitate him–but suddenly my own book got very much easier to write! I managed the double climax, and by the time I was done, I thought I’d written my best Bell Mountain book ever.

Now I’m writing Ozias, Prince in Peril–and it looks like the guide that has emerged is C.S. Lewis’ trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength). This conviction has been strongly reinforced by a study of the trilogy, Deeper Heaven by Christiana Hale. So while I’m writing my own book, I think I need to be reading these four books.

Not to copy them in any way–that’s not how it works. A writer who tries to do that will damage his art. Actually, I’m not quite sure how this works. Somehow Lewis’ stories are giving me a clearer vision of my own. Writing novels is kind of weird, that way. I sort of wanted to revisit Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Martian novels, but the pull of Lewis’ trilogy is too strong to resist. Something’s telling me just to go with it. I was temped to call it “my instinct,” but that gives me too much credit. I do ask God to guide me in my work; and I think my prayers are answered.