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

The girl hammered a stake into the ground with practiced grace and quickly tied her goat to it.  With that task complete she marched directly toward Lugh where he sat beneath the tree. 

Lugh felt certain she hadn’t seen him, but perhaps the shade of the tree was as inviting to her as it had been to him, she marched straight as an arrow toward him.  He began to wonder how he should greet her as it was quite certain that she was heading right toward his resting place.

Suddenly there was a rumbling.  The tree shook and he was so surprised that he let out a yelp of alarm.  Almost as soon as it began the quaking stopped.  When he looked back it was clear that the girl had heard his outburst and was now aware of him in the shadows.

“Who is that sitting on my giant?” yelled the girl.

Lugh got to his feet and reached up to pull down his pack and then down to gather his things.  “So this tree is yours is it?” offered Lugh.

The girl snorted, “Not the tree, its the Giant ‘neath that I’m hunting.  You’re not from around here then are you?”

“Pardon me, my dear little giant hunter, I had no idea.”

“Don’t believe I’m hunting a giant or that a woman can, huh?  That just shows what you know.  You’ve been sitting on one and I bet you didn’t know that either.  So who are you?”

“People call me many things,” began Lugh.

The girl laughed, “I’ll just bet.”

“You know, I think I’d sooner believe that you are hunting giants than that you are a woman.” Lugh answered the girl in her own tone as he stepped out of the shade.

“Blind too, good thing I ran into you or you wouldn’t stand a chance out here, especially with a giant fix’n to wake.”  The girl shrugged a bed roll off her shoulder and tossed it on the ground.  Then with a twitch and grab she took hold of her shift and dragged it off over her head, dumping it in a pile with her bedroll.  “Better get away from that giant if you know what’s good for you.”

She was bare to the waist before Lugh realized what she was doing.  He couldn’t help but notice that she wasn’t exagerating her claim to womanhood.  She turned as if he wasn’t even there and untied what he’d taken for a bed roll.  She was sun brown on her torso and her legs and Lugh noticed what the shift had hidden, that she had the generous curves of a lovely woman. With a flip of the wrist she unrolled a small mat that held in it what looked like a threshing tool.  She grabbed it with practice hands and turned back to face Lugh.

“I’ve been called Fionn,” He said.

“Uh, huh”  said the young woman nonchalantly despite standing naked except for a beaded loincloth and her split staff. “Well, I’ve been called Oatey because of my hair.  Only difference is that it’s my name.  What’s your real name?” 

Lugh’s jaw probably dropped at her impertinence but with her dark brown eyes staring straight into his he answered though it wasn’t his intent, “It’s Lugh.”

“Lugh.” She seemed to roll the name around on her tongue to get the taste of it.”  Well, stand back, Lugh.  I’ve got work to do.”  And with out another word she began to dance, whirling the staff around her and smashing it rhythmically against the ground.  Lugh was forced to step back as the wooden links whirled very near his head hissing through the air as it passed him.

He stepped away to watch her dance.  The sun and her effort had put the sheen of sweat on her lithe form, she glowed, Lugh thought to himself.  He could not tear his eyes away from her and was totally unprepared for the earthquake that rocked him off his feet. Stunned, he looked over at the little hill and saw the old oak tree bending at an odd angle.  He looked back over at the girl, she was crouching and looking at the hill.  The quaking stopped and the girl stood up and gazed at the hill appraising. 

She began her dance again.  Faster and faster she stepped, her threshing staff raised a thin curtain of dust around her as she spun and leaped and thrashed the ground.  At the first sound of rumbling the girl smashed the staff once more against the ground and crouched, looking at the hill.

Lugh turned and looked at the hill,  the ground shaking was coming from the hill itself.  The tree bent even further, tipping toward them so that the lower branches nearest them already rested on the ground.  Lugh saw that parts of the hill were actually rising.

“Lugh!”  The girl shouted, “It’s time to go, now”

Lugh turned back and saw that the girl had grabbed up her things and, with only a glance to make sure he had heard, she ran back toward the goat that she’d staked out at the edge of the meadow.

Free CELTIC Fiction

My hope is to create fiction that speaks to the Celtic Heart.  So, 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.

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Here is the novel beginnings: Intro to and Beginning of The Abbot and the Djinn.  Follow my progress HERE.

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Using a sort of “just start writing and see where it goes” technique I’ve completed the first draft of a short story.  In the end, Concerning The Deer Riders wandered a bit farther than I had anticipated.  Legendary wanderings?  You can read Concerning the Deer Riders yourself and see what you think.

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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>)

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Other Stuff

I am in the process of writing several novels, but on the way to that I offer these thoughts, insights, resources, and diversions of interest to me and, I hope, to you.  Here I hope to gather legends and lore, notes on antiquity, and present day reality.  Have a look HERE

For now, welcome, and please tell me what you like or you don’t.  I value your insights.

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LSO

PS. HERE are some authors I have read and admire by way of giving you hints about where I’m aiming