My, How Things Have Changed

It's been more than a month since my last post, and while most of what I wrote in that post is still valid, "the times, they are a-changin' "as the saying goes.  I've been out of country on a two-week business trip and, while I thought I might have a little time to write, I was wrong.  You know, the old "write and wrong" thing.  Such passes for humor when you're jet-lagged.

I've actually started writing again, a bit sooner than I thought.  But the majority of the writing isn't on Book Five, but one of the Continuing Tales called Blades of Alliance: The Thirteen Swords of Power.  This book will be the "technical manual" of the key swords in The Ardwellian Chronicles; Calawen, Black Fire, Malenaglar, Aráto Caldrii, and many others.  Yes, a picture book, in a way, and will tell a brief story of each sword; it's origin, it's purpose, who wielded it, and what followed.  And a bit about the reasons behind its legend.

Why am I doing this?  Because I need to get away from my proverbial comfort zone, because in reality, it had become too easy to continue thinking along the same lines and doing the same thing.  Let's face it; the stories of Caladriil, Lahai, and Vincent are pretty much done, and what will follow in the last two novels will be decidedly different.  Oh yes, these families will have a part, and their influence will continue in Ardwel and beyond, but the spotlight now shifts to others we have met and some we have not.  

Archane, of course, will be there, and the dark elf girl once known as Reena, now become something... else;  and Mor'i'jil, the elder Drow priest, who is beset by nightmares too vivid to recount, lest they will drive him mad.

And in Ardwel itself, new faces, new names; Aren Grey, protege of the Baroness Audrey Vincent, Chitthra, dark elf renegade, a woman with some serious issues of loyalty, another Calidriil, though one like you've not seen before, and Kaul... ah, yes, Kaul.  Mongrel.  'Nuff said.

So while the plot and storyline are forming slowly, and Ardwel changes over fifteen years between the end of Kaanan's Way and the beginning of Blood Secret, I'll be working on my picture book of swords.  

And with a bit of luck, it will be out in time for the holidays.  Books make wonderful gifts, you know.