New Image

South African Wine Country at Dusk (taken from the Seidelberg Winery)

I moved to Minnesota in 1997. Prior to that time while actively writing volumes I-III, I developed the habit of sketching scenes that I was trying to understand how to represent in words, or that just tugged at me. I had no particular drawing talent but managed to pencil a collection of images with the help of many erasers. After moving to Minnesota I picked up Photoshop and a pretty good scanner. The learning curve for Photoshop was tough but one by one I learned to add color to the sketches and smooth out many problems. Then disaster struck. My computer failed.

The computer would not boot no matter what I tried and no matter the advice from experts. Fortunately I had backed up the images to an external drive and once the computer was re-formatted reloaded the images only to find that a software glitch had corrupted every image.

Managed to reconstruct all of them except one. Couldn't even find what was left of it. I cannot begin to count the hours I had spent drawing in each tree individually and working to get the mountains just right. All I had left was one hard copy printed by an early Epson dot matrix.

To come to the point here, scanning it in I worked on it off and on for over five years to bring it back to even a semblance of the original. After this last effort I think it's there and is better than the original in many ways. It's called Bora Mountains in Winter and can be downloaded at ardentpublishing.com either as an HD Pdf or smaller jpg file.

The Alarai Chronicles series has been a labor of love and worth every hour. What a trip.

Summertime

Dawn over the Namibian Desert

Can't say how it's going to turn out, but just for the fun of it I'm going to set up a booth at the Riverwalk Market Fair in Northfield on at least a couple of Saturdays. Nothing fancy, just a canopy, two or three BIG posters, and a nice display of volumes I and II, Exile to the Stars and Songs of Deep Green. It will be fun just to kick back and meet people. Might even sell a few books, but that's only part of the story. This is for fun. Should have some dates and place information to post in a few weeks. Hope you will drop by if possible.

Formatting

Capetown South Africa at dusk

Recently, maybe over the last month or so, an unease has been steadily building. I find my thoughts drifting off into plot scenarios and dialogue streams. The other day it was a major digression from the task at hand to review images related to later volumes in the series. Is it about writing or, perhaps more accurately, getting ready to resume writing? Don't know. Maybe it's just Spring... Time will tell. Whatever the case, something is brewing and although this internal and growing sense of urgency is unsettling, I like it.

The frist review

This was quick. I received the first review of Songs of Deep Green in the mail today. I like it!

Volume VI

Cape of Good Hope, South Africa
Indian Ocean to your left, Atlantic Ocean to your right

Increasingly, my thoughts are turning back to Volume VI in The Alarai Chronicles series. I quit writing at about the mid-point well over a year ago now. I like the writing, I think it was some of my best, but I was losing my way. I'm sure it had to do with the way the first book was hanging fire as I wrestled with how to get the word out on a broad basis. I can't speak for other authors, but it's so hard for me to write creatively in a publishing vacuum. This is all about writing for people not an intellectual exercise.

Still haven't solved the publicity problem at this writing but I am convinced it will be solved before the end of the year. Things are about to break in favor of Songs of Deep Green, Exile to the Stars and thus the series - big-time. Now that gets the creative juices to flowing.

Namibia

Namibia - Sussuflei National Park as seen at sunrise from a balloon

My son worked in South Africa for some time and had been urging me to travel with him in that area for several years. There was always something that prevented the trip until this year I ignored all the obstacles and simply did it. I mention the trip here (got back in April) because it was such a varied, spectacular, and moving experience. I know that life is different now, and I am changed - how can that not affect what springs from the mind and finds expression in writing?

Our travels took us through South Africa, south and north, Namibia, and Mozambique. I posted nearly 80 images on my Facebook wall (http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=100000529275197) and will also post a few here.

I am looking forward to the outcome when writing resumes on Volume VI in The Alarai Chronicles series.