Call of the Creator: Fantasy Writing from a Christian Worldview

In a few days, I will be diving back into the final few-thousand words that will wrap up the second book in The Risen Age archive. I admit, this book has been too long in coming, but due to a 6 week stint in set design for my husband's/kids' school, I took a little sabbatical from writing, which has kept this draft from being truly finished. (Oh, and I had to get the Realm Makers conference registration live, which wasn't a tiny task.) I hope to amend the book's unfinished nature by mid April.  In the meantime, I think I'll post a couple of sample chapters for your perusal. I heartily invite your comments. After all, this is the stage of the game where I can make things right if you think they're off to a bad start! Curse Reiver (working title) Book II of The Risen Age Archive Prologue (Yes, there's a prologue. The POV character and location are separate from the main action of the story, so I stand stalwartly by its necessity.) To be...

Yes, fantasy fans, here it is! If you aren't one of my facebook contacts, perhaps you haven't seen this yet: The cover for my book releasing October 2012! I have known what the cover painting for this book was for quite a few months, actually, since Christina Hess did such an awesome job of getting it to me so quickly. I even had a pretty clear idea how the text would play out. But still, when you see it attached to an email that says "This project is done and going to the printer in the morning..." that's still pretty exciting stuff. I don't know if that ever gets old, no matter how many books you write. So keep your eyes open for Curse Bearer at your favorite book etailer...I will be sure to post an announcement when I know the book is up for pre-order or regular sale. Thanks for dropping by!

Today, I got the official word that the adjustments to the series name on my novel releasing next month are locked down. The journey through titles on this coming book has been something like canoeing through rapids. I wrote two-thirds of the manuscript back in the rough-draft stages (wow, that seems like ages ago) calling it nothing but "Danae's Story." I have always had a deep an abiding loathing of titling my works. I never title my drawings. I always struggled to affix a title to my films in college, and then they usually turned out to maintain the name of the works I was adapting for film ("The Highwayman," based on the poem by Alfred Noyes, and "The Cat and the Fiddler," based on the short story by Lloyd Alexander, for example.) This title-phobia extended quite naturally into when I started writing fiction. I finally settled on a title of The Sword of the Patron for my novel, since I was going to start showing it to people and I figured I be...

Lately, I've been in the mode of producing art work for several projects while I wait for the copyedit back of Curse Bearer , my novel set to release from Other Sheep (an imprint of Written World Communications) this summer. What sorts of projects have I been working on? Well, related to Curse Bearer , I have been noodling some ideas for chapter heading art, which I'm thinking might take the form of three symbols represented in the book. You see, Curse Bearer is a book that will function in three parts. Part one of the book deals with Danae Baledric's conflicts in her home city of Dayelston, where an occupying army has a choke hold on the natives. For this section of the book, I'm thinking it would be appropriate for the header image to be that of the occupying Theocracy. The symbol? The gargoyle of Queldurik. The conflicts and issues in Part I drive Danae from her homeland, and it is within this section of the story she learns some unsettling truths ab...