I ought to be writing, but instead I’ve been playing around.  I love games, I can’t help it, I would sit around all weekend and play RISK if I could find any takers.  I try to get my kids to play UNO, anything, but no. . . 

I ought to be writing, but instead I’ve been playing.  One thing I’ve been doing with my very limited computer time is creating my own Celtic Utopia in the war torn world of Terra Bellica.  It operates in your browser and you can sign up with a little questionaire. 

If you decide to give it a go, do look me up.  I am called Red_Hand and I’ve joined the Knights Templar.  (You can find my own little Tir Na Nua on Continent 28.)  I’d love to see you.  Use this LINK and I get in game gold to lavish on my friends and allies.  But seriously, give it a try and tell me what you think.

Anyway, Terra Bellica is sort’a like Risk online with limits on growth and a little bit of help starting out so you aren’t so far behind if you come later than others.  It’s something that sort’a scratches my RISK itch.

Another geeky diversion I’ve fallen prey to is Magic The Gathering.  I know, I know, you feel a little something in the back of your throat, but a housebound friend and people who I actually interact with at work are all playing this card game and I had cards from who knows when which I THINK I was using as sort’a a writer’s crutch to randomize geography.

Magic the Gathering is a fascinating and somewhat more involved game than it would appear at first blush.  (Can you believe they won a Mensa Award in 1994?) You can just throw some creature cards and some buffs with some lands and wing it.  You’ll probably loose horribly and humiliatingly as I have.  Good clean fun. 

But that’s only the most basic level of complexity.  Why there are critical decisions to be made regarding mana production and card probability.  What is your mana curve look like, and is there are better than even chance of your finishing strategy coming off or are you likely to get blocked at a critical juncture?  How do you deal with mana burn?  What if it’s an infect deck?  How do you deal with Flying? With Vampires? With Slivers? What about. . .

 . . .  Well, I’ve sort’a fallen into wanting to play a lot more than actually play, but my kids won’t even play UNO with me.  Magic has the advantage (disadvantage) of being a trading card/strategy game that takes some thought and research and pondering and deck building to do before you ever get to play anyway sooooo. . .

. . . I’ll get back to writing.

LSO

OH!  8-3 in my Fantasy league. YEAH! If I can make it past next week I think I’m probably a lock for the play-offs. . . sorry, writing.

Yes, well the words “Epic Failure” are ringing in my head, bouncing back and forth across the void between my ears.  This relates to why I have posted so infrequently and why the excellent writing projects that I’ve begun and even committed to have gone begging.

Now calling them excellent may be a bit of a hopeful valuation, but if you are reading this perhaps you feel as I do.  I’ve got to say that I love my world of Tir na Nua, I want to paint my world of Tir na Nua, I want to share my world of Tir na Nua. 

So I feel like a complete idiot for being seduced by Writing dot Com.  I’ve so little time to write, so reviewing and doing contests is clearly not what I aught to do, it disipates me.  Beyond even the tasks of writing is the research that leads to what I want to write.  Instead I’ve spent time trying to gather information to write stories that I don’t actually care about.

I have a lot of illusions (had planned to say I don’t have any illusions but I realize that I am probably rife with them) but a claim to writing excellence is not currently one of them.  I know I need to work on my craft, my story-telling skill, my clarity. 

That is part of what I wanted to do at Writing dot Com.  I think my instincts, my realization of need, was correct.  At times I really suck as a writer.   Unfortunately, sometimes I don’t even realize when I’m sucking and when I might be tickling something that is of actual value.  Sometimes I discover how truly vomitous my writing can be while re-reading something that I thought was pretty good.

It is all part of what this blog is supposed to be, my process, my development, my journey.  Have I drifted into the vomitous?  I think perhaps I have.  But I need to get back to what I want to do with the little time I have to do it.  That includes writing on the projects I’ve begun.  I do think that I should re-work some of what I wrote that stinks.

So this is my confession.  I’m an idiot.  I hope to be more focused.  I’ve known I needed that for a month and yet failed to effect the proper changes.  Maybe now I can.  I’ve just finished George R. R. Martin’s latest and though it only left me wanting more it did help me realize that I really want to write on my projects.  The world of Tir na Nua should not wait.

I’ve been struggling.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it can tend to move me toward the philosophical.  I’ve been struggling to find the time to write and the limited time I have garnered has been unproductive.  Perhaps it is time for me to think about why I write.  Contemplating that may spur me to greater, more consistent, and perhaps goal achieveing efforts.

To the philosophizing: Stories can be lies.  I don’t want to be that sort of story-teller.  A story may contain a lesson.  It would be nice if I had wisdom to impart.  Stories can entertain, they can motivate, they can inspire.  Stories are simple enough that they can be truer, or at very least, clearer than regular life. 

Almost anything is clearer than regular life.  Indeed clarity is, for me, a rare thing.  It is valued in diamonds and minds and for good reason, clarity is precious.  I certainly think I could do with more clarity in my writing. 

I begin this project, this writing, in hopes of speaking truth, Lord give me truth.  I wish to impart more than entertain, but a good tale can draw an enthusiastic audience, God give me listening ears.  I would hear your voice and spread it to those who need it as I do, Lord breath on me breath of life.

I have been encouraged to focus on this writing and not be distracted.  I always hear echoes and I wonder who is speaking behind the speaker behind the next.  I should not be distracted.

Give glory to God.  May I not be distracted from what is my clear duty. 

God make clear to me what will give you glory.

At least that’s how I feel at the moment.  Life is complex and simple.  There is not enough of it, and more to do than time allows.  I’m failing to use it as well as I might.  That’s why I like fiction, it is clear, fantasy is clean, stories can be an escape or salvation.

Escape or salvation.  I imagine those are two among the many things stories can be.

LSO

I’ve been away, though I’m not sure anyone has noticed.  (poor me : (. . . )  My writing time is pretty limited and I’ve spent it on Writing.com instead of here on my own blog.  We shall see if it was profitable.

Here is a link to my WDC Portfolio which contains some stuff from this site.  What I have spent most of my time doing, so far, is reviewing other writers.  I am chagrined at how my own work has suffered, or perhaps languished is a better word.  Hopefully I can rectify that.

By the way, another milestone is fast approaching and I will not complete my first draft online novel, the Abbot and the Djinn in time for my birthday.  This is a fact, cold and hard and depressing.  I wouldn’t have finished it if I hadn’t spent time on WDC but I am depressed at . . .

. . . growing old and having grown old.  There is no undoing it.  I have felt that I am writing to the wind here and though people seem to appreciate my reviews on WDC it has not translated as I’d hoped.  The wind still blows, yes, the wind blows.

I guess that’s enough.  I’ve taken to exhorting in my reviews “Keep writing.  Don’t stop writing.”  And so, having stopped in my quest to create Tir na Nua, I will begin again.  I will not stop, though it blows.  The wind, I mean.

LSO

Tir na Nua means the new land.  That is appropriate, as I work out both detail and the craft of writing here on these pages.  New can mean rough and unrefined, but it can also mean fresh.  I hope, more than the former, that my take on Celtic myth and legend and in particular Irish lore, is a fresh take on a fascinating people and time.  The why and how of what I’m doing on these pages are on my Author’s page: HERE

I have in mind several novels, but I had made little progress putting them on paper in a traditional manner.  A friend encouraged me to write a blog and I decided to do it when I realized that I could write fiction in a blog format instead of engaging in the usual navel gazing that populates my conception of what a blog is (in particular one that I might write.)

SO, to begin writing, I have taken breaks and lunches at my current J.O.B. to fictionalize.  I think of these stories as my writer’s note-book, writing exercises, process, and I confess that they are rough because they are not well thought out AND because it has been a pretty long time since I’ve done much more than think about writing.

Anyway, here is a page that gives access to some of these Stories.

                          .

Free CELTIC Fiction

My hope is to create fiction that speaks to the Celtic Heart.  I have enjoyed the journey of discovery that I’ve taken starting with the name of an ancient Irish King, Niall Noigillach. 

I’m a little nervous that my current skill does not do it justice, nervous to present what I have done so far.  I found myself writing about Eskimos and Ismaelites and the Elven instead of what I really intend to present.  Well, that should not be.  Warts and all here is a new story that I rip from Celtic legend and set in my new world, Tir na Nua, the Red Son of Concubar.

     .

   Rough Draft Fiction Free Online

After all, I’m a man with a story. Even my name, O’Neill, has tales attached to it (like this one of the Hand Gules that is prominent in our heraldry,) but don’t we all? I love old tales, tales of heroes, tales of real people in strange times and strange people in real times. I have wanted to write such tales and, prodded by my friend, Jeffery, I have.

                            .

My Polished Stones

Since this is my process, a good deal of it is rough here as I begin.  My hope is to get better and better at writing Celtic Fiction so that reading it free will become a bargain and not a chore.  I plan to work on a few of my stories to make works of fiction closer to my potential.  That is, I plan to polish them by rewriting them for your reading pleasure and in particular the reading pleasure of those who might come across this sight and have little patience for my early fumblings unfiltered from my imagination?

Recently I’ve realized that I should not.  My first goal was to get something, anything here, secondly I NEEDED to write because it had been a long time since I had.  I have courted your opinion to no effect, but then why should I expect it?  Do I read other’s work and offer up my opinion, my help?  Not recently and can I help? 

So, I intend to polish up a few of the stories that have accumulated.  The raw novelization of the Abbott and the Djinn will continue, undoubtedly I’ll put up more unfiltered imaginings like the Deer Riders and Child of Moss.  Then, in a section before those unpolished stones, I will begin to offer some that have had my attention and effort so that you can judge me or at least have a better chance of being reliably entertained.  Some may read on to the raw.  HERE is the page that will list the more polished work. (it is currently empty <sigh>)

I hope this explains some of the why of me.  For now, welcome, and please tell me what you like or you don’t.  I value your insights.

LSO