BACK TO GREECE AND MORE WRITING

I'm heading back to Greece for three week and while I'm there I am schedule to do three readings of SHADOW OF THE LION: THE FIELDS OF HADES at the American Community School, the Athens Centre and the Canadian Institute. I'll read segments from SHADOW OF THE LION: BLOOD ON THE MOON as well.

 KNOSSOS

This year I'm not staying for as long as usual, but I still plan some trips  -  a few days on Naxos and then on to Iraklion, Crete where I want to visit Knossos and spend some time visiting with a writer/mentor friend of mine, Jack Dempsey who writes about the Minoans.  The rest of the time I'll be in Athens and will make some short trips to Salamina and around Athens.

 Plaka Beach, NAXOS

It's been a hectic last year with problems at my old home and a move mid July. But I'm all settled again in a quiet, peaceful apartment in a lovely suburban neighbouhood.  During the past year I had little incentive work on my current novel DRAGONS IN THE SKY. Instead I spend almost a year writing an ebook on the Greek Islands for a US publisher, under contract. I was almost finished it and he suddenly abandoned me. So I have shelved the project and will finish and self-publish it later.

Now that I'm resettled, I have started back on DRAGONS after a year's break from it. A tricky project trying to get back into the cadence of the prose but I am forging ahead and after my trip I will dedicate all my time to it.

Be sure and order my SHADOW OF THE LION double volume novel.  A good place to get it (with no shopping costs) is the Book Depository.  But if you check prices you can sometimes get deals on Amazon including second-hand copies which are in almost new condition. One that I ordered had even been previously signed by me!

Meanwhile,  you can also get my travel guide ATHENS AND BEYOND on Kindle.

PLOTTING FICTION: Where to Next?

An Iron Age Celtic Village  (St. Fagans Heritage Park, Cardiff, Wales)

 

 

 

When I started writing Dragons in the Sky back in the early '80's, I had a pretty good idea of how the story began. It started with me hearing the voice of the girl, Olwen, telling me her story, as if I was channeling Olwen. She is a young Celtic girl, raised by the Druids to become  priestess and medicine woman. The first chapters of the story came easily as I wrote down Olwen's words, sometimes using Bardic verse instead of regular prose chapters. She lives in a village called Caer Gwyn, much like the one in the above photo, located below a hill fort at the site of what is now called Old Sarum, on the Salisbury Plain. I've made a number of trips there to research and conjure Olwen's spirit.

 

 

Something dreadful happens at the Midsummer when Olwen is soon to be sent to the Holy Isle for her initiation.  The ricon's (tribal chieftain) renegade son, Sholto, has arrived at Caer Gwyn with a woman, the wife of another chieftain and a young boy he has taken as hostage from a rival tribe.  At the Midsummer Ceremony at the Great Stones, the angry warriors of the opposing tribes attack Caer Gwyn.  In the chaos that ensues when the village is set on fire, Olwen runs to the woods to hide and witnesses Sholto killing his younger brother Ned. He takes her as a hostage and heads south to the Narrow Sea where they take a boat across the Channel to the lands of the Belgae tribes. Olwen tries to alert the ship's boy that she is being held captive, and he tries to help her escape, but Sholto kills him.

They head off toward the east on horseback, crossing the lands of various other Celtic tribes until they reach the Alps, the country inhabited by the Helvettis, and continue on their journey.

As they proceed they meet a young warrior/hunter who tells Sholto that a king to the south is recruiting warriors for his army. This interests Sholto so he heads south, keeping a close eye on Olwen as she is his 'luck piece' because nobody dares to harm a Druid.  I know what happens once they reach Illyria, but it was the in-between part of the journey that has puzzled me.  So I have taken time to write out a rough plot of the possible things that might happen along the way, including several more escape attempts by Olwen.

I've decided to put some of it into Bardic verse rather than describe things step-by-step. The story, as told by Olwen, is written in a poetic cadence. One thing I've decided is that, having been held a captive for so long (it would take them a couple of months to cover the territory), she likely developed what is known now as "the Stockholm syndrome" where a captive becomes somehow 'attached' to their captor.  I also can see her using magic and her skills with herbs and medicines, to help her survive the arduous and sometimes frightening journey. But it was Sholto that was causing me some concern. Although the story is in Olwen's voice, I still need to make it clear what his intention are, what is he hoping to achieve on this journey?  Hopefully I have that taken care of now with my ideas for the plot outline.  It has been quite a different writing journey for me after spending all that time writing Shadow of the Lion which was based on a historic plot.  Writing pure fiction is quite a lot trickier!

Celtic Warriors



THE END OF THE JOURNEY

The Macedonian Empire of Alexander the Great, 323 BC

Very soon my manuscript of "Shadow of the Lion" will begin is journey out into the world.  It's been a long adventure that has taken as many years to complete as it did for Alexander to conquer the world.  He had many victories, no defeats, until death took him unexpectedly and suspiciously at the age of 33 in Babylon.  That is where my journey began, and it retraced his footsteps all the way back to Macedon ending in the year 310 BC. 

I've enjoyed the journey.  Being a travel writer as well as a writer of historical fiction, I used some of my research trips as an opportunity to write travel stories as well.  And I have written journals full of the details of these adventures.  My acknowledgements in the front of the novel will include thanks to the many people who helped me with my research including the Greeks themselves: the Greek Ministry of Culture, and Ministry of Tourism (who provided me with a free ticket to Greece in 1993 to complete my research), and an interview granted at the Society of Macedonian Studies in Thessaloniki.  As well, I had help from the Finnish Institute, my friend Petra who was assistant director at the time who helped me get a museum pass,  and Margaret, a friend who worked at the British School Library who granted me permission to research in their archives.  I also got a chance to research at the Gennadius Library and had help from a great many other Classical scholars and friends in Greece who cheered me on and gave me so much encouragement.

During the long process of writing the novel I was helped by my Scribblers Writing Critique Group who did as always an expert job of helping me edit and improve the text.  Without their encouragement I may have given up on it a long time ago, expect that I had this burning need to tell the story of what happened after Alexander died.  Long ago I read Mary Renault's"Funeral Games" and always felt that it was lacking, somehow, compared to many of her other excellent novels, especially "Fire From Heaven".  I had been 'in love with' Alexander since the age of 16 and inspired to write about him.  My first Alexander themed novel was written when I was in my last year of high school and that got me started on pursuing the story of his life.  "Shadow of the Lion" is what happened to his only legal heir and all the others close to him after his death, ending with the fall of his dynasty. I was lucky to live in Greece for part of the time I was researching and able to visit all of the places there, and some in Asia Minor, where the story takes place.  The rest , Iraq (Babylon) Syria and Egypt (Alexandria) I had to rely on texts, videos and lots of research to set the stage. 

As I reach the end of the task, now polishing the synopsis, I am feeling this great sense of relief and the urge to set it free so I can move on to my next project, an half-finished novel that also has an Alexander theme, which I set aside in order to work on Shadow.  This one is a Celtic novel, told in the first person, "Dragons in the Sky".  And then I am planning to write another about Alexander's mother, Olympias. That one will be titled "The Black Dove".  

I'm not traveling to Greece this summer as I usually do because I invested my money in a professional editor who has done a magnificent job of helping me fine-tune the novel.  So now I send it on it's way I hope that a publisher will pick it up and give it the publicity it deserves.  If that fails, after a good try, I'll consider self-publishing.  I know Shadow of the Lion is an excellent novel and it is almost what you would call my 'life's work'.  So it deserves to be shown to a wide audience. 

PROGRESS REPORT #74: When You Reach the Finish Line



Silver coin,  Alexander the Great wearing the horns of Ammon

(I wear a ring made of a copy of this coin, and also have it as a medallion)

I compare the writing of this novel, "Shadow of the Lion", to a long and arduous journey.  Like running a marathon, though I've made some rest-stops along the way.  The story itself is a journey, beginning in Babylon in June, 323 BC and ending in Amphipolis, Macedonia in June 310 BC.  And that journey itself took years!

Just like a marathon runner, a writer must persevere if you want to reach the finish line.  Sometimes you might stumble and almost fall;  sometimes you get so tired you might want to quit; sometimes you lag behind and wonder if you're ever going to reach the finish line.  But you keep on persevering, in spite of discomfort, obstacle, discouragements.  And finally you see ahead of you,  your goal!

Before you set off on this long, long race, of course you need to prepare  yourself,  "get into shape", know what's in store.  Writing a novel is a long project and one that requires discipline if you want to achieve your goal and finish.  Before I began writing Shadow, I did months of research.  I already had a lot of knowledge and a great love of my subject (Alexander the Great) and I enjoy doing research  -- a kind of brain 'gym' work,  getting prepared for the big 'race'.  Sure, you sometimes make a false start and have to begin over.  I actually spent a year writing "Shadow" as a juvenile historical,  thinking it would be a short run and I'd be finished the project in no time.  Then, as I delved deeper into the history and saw how complicated the events were, I realized it was not going to work as a story for youngsters.  It was far to complex and political.  So I was advised to start over. (That first year was just a 'training run').  And so I did.  I started over and wrote it with a multiple point of view, complicating matters, but allowing me to really develop the characters and tell the story of the fall of Alexander's dynasty with all the political complexities and scheming that finally brought it to the end.  Certainly, once I established the theme: How blind ambition and greed brought down a world power, the way became clear and I was able to tell the story the way it needed to be told.

Yes, it has been a long, long journey.  But this week I finally came to the end of the final chapter.  And now, before this week is over, I should have the Epilogue finished with a bit of extra work on the Prologue, tying it all in together. 

Was I excited and emotional about reaching the finish line?  I actually had the final chapter written almost from the beginning, so I knew how it ended.  But I had to proceed slowly when I wrote the final chapter, making sure I kept the tension high and not giving away the ending.  I wanted it to have an emotional but satisfying ending and hope I have achieved that.  At least I know I have given it my personal best.  This, of course, is not the grand finale.  There will still be some edits, rewrites and cuts to make.  And I won't be completely 'finished' until I write THE END when I finish the Epilogue.  My goal is to finish it this week, before the New Year.  Can I do it?  Yes, I can!

A painting of Amphipolis with Mount Pangeion, the lake and the River Strymon

(in my research I have visited here twice)