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

I’ve been working on some “projects” instead of writing.  I’m not saying that they were critical, but they have cut into my writing time.  Among these was rereading a couple of novels because I thought that the next in the series MUST have been released.  I thought I actually saw that it was, but no.  Anyway, I had read my copy of George R. R. Martin’s Storm of Swords, but I had to rely on the library for A Feast for Crows.  I signed up for A Dance for Dragons, but it isn’t even released yet.  In fact, the last update from George was a couple years ago.

So. . .      . . . I’m about ready to get back to work.

My intention, as I’ve mentioned and as is indicated by the title of this site, is to write about Celtic people, as I imagine they may have been, as I imagine they could be.  It may be that this is what you seek as well.  See my Focus Page for what I’m working on currently.

If not, and if you are interested, rather, in the romance and intrigue of the Saxons after Harold was defeated at Hastings you might want to take a look at this: Lothere by Jenny.  This may keep you busy while you wait for me to write more that is Celtic and also rewrite what is merely Celtic into something good, or at least better than my first attempts.

I’ve also been thinking and doing some research and it is the thinking part that has led me to my topic today.

If you are reading this, it is likely that you are an English speaker.  I’d say that there is an even better chance that if you are reading this you are from the United States.  One of the main destinations for the Celtic Diaspora was the shores of the New World.

That being said, let me say that the spirit of the Celts lives in American rugged individualism.  This American ideal is being trained out of us, to be sure, but a focus on the individual owes much to immigrants who themselves were likely influenced by these values.  Individual Rights is a value that is codified in Celtic, Brehon Law, but that has had its full flowering in the New World, not the Old.

I planned to sprinkle this little post with several quotes about the flamboyant celtic spirit, their love of colors that some might term gaudy, a certain pride, but also extraordinary bravery.  Instead I think perhaps I’ll put together a page of that sort of thing.  The truth is that reading about CuChulain and Finn, Lugh and Nuada, the Dagda and the Morrigan, all of it makes me want to echo those old themes and bring them to another generation of readers, if I can.  .  .

.  .  . And so here we are.  If you’ve made it to this post you may have become disappointed once again.  I’m not very far along on this odyssey.  I’m not sure if I’m up to it.  But like my ancestors, it really isn’t about what I can do, it is much more about what I will do, and what I intend is large and gaudy and brightly colored, and of the same sort of beauty as the bagpipes.  Certainly it isn’t the kind of thing that is for everyone, but I hope it is for you.

Hopefully this rambling confessional ends my hiatus and I can get back to the business of yarn spinning in the celtic mode.

Sincerely,

LSO

Here are some beginnings:

• Jump right in to The Red Son of Concubar.
• Start reading about Lugh of the Long Journeys.
• Start to learn about Tir na Nua.
• Posts, including this one, about Celts.

I’m finding it hard to find the time to write.  I believe I mentioned before that my hours have changed from the optimal late night schedule with easy access to the Internet to this less helpful one.  Worse, while once I was left alone at the end of the night recently I’ve had company.  I believe when I mentioned this, I suggested that I might need to figure out how to work at home.  I regret to inform you, dear reader, that to this point I havehad no success in that endeavor.

Then too, I’m running up against the realization that I should put some effort into taking the raw ideas I have put out on these pages and posts and refine some of them.  I’ve spent time on organization here at L. Stephen O’Neill dot com, but I haven’t begun to polish.  I’m sure there are many other projects I could work on too, many that I haven’t even thought of, though there are many that I have and then realized that, though valuable, they were not top priorities.

So, what to do?  I believe that I am going to put my effort into two main areas that will lead to a third.  First, I am doing research that I hope will lead to more “Celtic Fiction.”  That is my original and most treasured goal.  Priority-wise, that is what I most want to present.  A reason that it hasn’t been most of what I have presented is really that it IS what I value the most and I don’t want to screw it up. 

So, to address the glaring lack of things Celtic in my fictional offerings, I began a novel that is going to present a group of people I want to resemble Irish Monastics with a little fictional leavening and of course their setting in the world of Tir na Nua.  I think the Abbott and the Djinn project will continue.  I need to put more effort into that project making it the first of the two priorities.

Truth to tell, its ponderous pace led me to realize that I need to present something good.  I mean, you can look at the Abbott and the Djinn, but with the exception of a few passages that I’m proud of I don’t think it is very good.  (not yet anyway)

I have promised Free Celtic Fiction.  It’s what I want to do.  So I think that the second thing leading to the third is to come up with more that can be directly called Celtic in outlook, presentation, topic, and flavor.  Along with continuing the Abbott and the Djinn I see this as a top priority.  That would make it the second priority which I hope will lead to the third.

When I’m able to produce some of this “Celtic Fiction” (in outlook, presentation, topic, and flavor) I will need to begin to polish.  Hopefully it won’t take a long long time.  Perhaps Child of Moss will serve, it certainly needs polishing.  Let me know if you have some ideas.  Producing more polished work, stories I can stop claiming I’ve put out raw and unedited, will be that third key priority.

But the problem still remains.  I have little to no time, so I very much need to prioritize and capitalize on the little that I have.

At least that’s how it seems from here.

LSO

Note: I’ve been sitting in a common area at work where I’ve had two co-workers jabber away about their weekends making it impossible for me to get anything done.  One of them is so irritating I am imagining a horror genre story involving the offender at least at the beginning of the story all in livid detail.<sigh> Such is life.

Tir na Nua

Primarily Tir na Nua is the setting for my Epic Celtic Fantasy.  This makes it your home for development ideas, short stories, and information about the world of Tir na Nua created ( or rather in the process of creation) by L. Stephen O’Neill.

But What is Tir na Nua Really?

Tir na Nua, the New Land, is a world far from the Earth we know.  Three stars light it, three moons circle it, and there are three worlds associated with it.  Tir na Nua might look like Earth, there are trees and rivers and seas, there are beasts, and monsters, and men, AND these all live together in varying degrees of harmony. 

Yet there are differences.  The South is warmed by the sullen glow of a brown dwarf star, Ember, that the planet of Tir na Nua cartwheels around.  Much of the weather of this world of necessity comes from that most important and close relationship. 

The north draws rain from the South, but it never sees Ember’s light save painted on the world’s satellites.  There is ghostly blue light that shines from blue/white dwarf, Spark, that dances closest to Ember, but the world’s most Earth-like light comes from distant Sol na Nua, it marks the day, sharing it in the North with Bright and brightening the South as well.

Tir na Nua is a world that is marked by cataclysm.  The violent genesis of the planet is painted on its moons as well.  Nearest is the Wanderer, a blasted lump that hurtles around Tir na Nua, racing across the sky.  The Stranger is next nearest, but it is not very reflective, making a ghostly shape in the night sky.  Farthest of Tir na Nua’s moons is Bright, truest reflector of the three suns of the world.

I have several stories, likely novel length, that I am in the process of writing.  Most if not all are set in the world of Tir na Nua.  This new world is a world apart from the Earth that we know and has been, there are names and situations that may seem familiar, but though they echo the world we know they are not from that world at all.

The People of Tir na Nua

Human habitation has diffused from the center of the Gaellic Plain, over the Western Mountains, across the seas, to the South and the East until it has met its opposite in isolated islands like the volcanic island group of the Losterlies.  Man exists on the top of the world, on the ice sheet above the Iron Mountains of the Rus and man also inhabits the misty hot forests of the South.  He lives on and in the mountains and he exists and even thrives on the islands of the seas.

Here are some of those peoples:

The Gaels of the Central Plain .  (A Story of these folk “The Red Son of Concubar“)

The Monsters who ravaged the Plain, The Gobli.

After the great hordes sweep the Gaelish Plain, the Norfolk, the people of Oatey Moss and of Jella, still live where the Great Ice Sheet ended and now on the Plains to the South the horse folk, the Scythians, rule unchallenged. (CPSL to continue these stories.)

In the Far North, The Rus and the Ice Folk.  For a bit about Ice Folk culture read an Anuniaq Tale.

In the Inner Sea, South of Sliebe na Gael, The Eirelanders.  In the scattered islands of the inner sea, the Fae Islanders.

East over the Saffron and driven down into the great isthmus and the mountains there called Scotia.

Above Scotia is a land of Slave camps and warring city states often called the Disputed Lands.  Before the Hordes of Gobli and Darklings ravaged it the land was controlled by Balor and his Slave Raiders who became the Fomor.

North of the Disputed Lands and East of the Norfolk are the Cold Forests of the Darklings.  The Sinoese live above them on the pinnacles of hard rock that stand after the lighter ash of that volcanic lowland was washed away and overgrown with rainforest.

The Great Mountains to the West of the Great Gaellic Plain are ruled by  the Lokians.  Some call these folk Dwarfs, they are dark and stocky in general, they are miners and workers of metal who live in the continental ridge that divides all the east from Umircea.

Across the Mountains to the Western Seas is Umircea, but in the North of that land is the Ribbon Wood, from whence come the Ui Uilsen, the Ribbonwood Elves.

What is the Purpose of Tir Na Nua

On lstephenoneill.com I plan to gather research material, scene drafts, character development studies, back stories and perhaps short stories that contribute to each novel or at least flesh out this new land, Tir na Nua.

I want to write, fantasy stories, sword and sorcery novels, epic fantasy, you know, the whole lot, and Tir na Nua makes this possible for me.  But having the place to write, having stories to tell, wanting to do it, none of these things mean that I can do it.  I can put it out there, but frankly, I was never that good a writer, so says my report cards. (Sad to say I thought I did much better in English than I actually did. This was a bit of an unwelcome surprise. Still, I have these stories. . .) I guess my point is that I really need to practice.  I need to try to write and see if I can do a good job.  Perhaps most of all I need to get faster.

The reality of my life is that there isn’t much time to develop. . .    . . . or write.  So I’m going to jump on in and do it.  As such, these pages are intentionally rough (not because I’m trying to make them bad, I’m trying the best I can as quickly as I can) so that I get the ideas out of my head and onto the page.  I think I’ve mentioned that I think of these pages as something of a writer’s notepad.

SO, What’s in the Works?

I’m trying to write an online novel right here in front of you, the reader.  Firstly I plan to write a first draft, and I’m not being very picky.  I can’t, I’m trying to do it by my birthday.  Wish me luck.  You can follow my progress here at my progress page for the novel: The Abbott and the Djinn.

I’ve started a story that involves one of Dana Bailey’s children, Lugh, and a young woman of the Norfolk, Oatey Moss.  The third main theme of this story is giants.  Start to read Child of Moss HERE.

Currently I am focusing on a novel set in a island archipelago, the Losterlies, that is effectively on the opposite side of the world from where humanity was first established and from where it diffused. The working title for this novel is “The Man Who Forgot Himself.”

On the Losterlies are a people known as wanderers or gypsies who are descendants of a particular Inuit by the name of Anuniaq.  “Anuniaq Goes to Sea… …Again” is a tale from his life as is Anuniaq and the Storm Tossed Sea.

People groups converge on the Losterlies and one of the cultures that has great impact are the Inuit peoples, known by the Rus as the Icefolk,  who leave with the Russians and are later enslaved by them.  I want to develop a tale about one of these people, a whale talker, who’s people are annihilated by the iron Rus and who in turn gets revenge and then must rebuild a life afterward.  The working title for this novel is “The Poet and the Ice Princess”.

I have a few stories developing in an area of the world, Northern Umircea, that involves or evolved the Ribbon Wood Elves or UiUilsen as they are known. “the Lost Prince”, “Sasha and Faolan”, and a trilogy of stories, “the UiUilsen Cycle” will develop and expand both the peoples of this part of Umircea, the land beyond the Western Mountains of the Gaelish Central Plain.

I love the movie “a Knights Tale” and would like to write my take on the idea of nobility. I also like the idea of warfare as sport presented in that story (I’m an American Football fan) and think it has application, especially in the gaming community of today, but also to the Celtic lifestyle or my perception of what the Gaelic people were about.  I want to set my knights tale in Umircea, but I may move the setting to the cities of the Disputed Lands though nobility is much less a factor in that wild land.

An important part of the development of my fantasy world are figures who make a huge impact by virtue of their many talents and even more because of their longevity. The children of Dana Bailey are intended by Dana herself to be a Celtic Pantheon. These genetically altered super Celts make contributions both by virtue of their leadership, and also in just being a tie and a memory to a technological past that is being lost and replaced by new progress informed by the past but not dependant on it.  Among the characters stories will touch on: Balor, originally Llyr, who was first born and most willing to serve Dana Baily’s purposes, but came to work hardest against those goals as the leader of the Fomorians; Lugh of the long reach, a wanderer and a philanderer at first, godlike in his self-absorption, his many talents are at last turned to good when he learns responsibility; Bridget, maternal in truth and in temperament, she must learn how to be good at her role; Epona, but more her most impressive daughter, Scythia, who’s leadership gives the freedom loving horse folk of the Gaellic plain a name, an identity, and a mother; Loki the miner and technical genius who’s folk live under the mountains, and many more.

In the Disputed Lands life is cheap.  Warlords carve out kingdoms among the fortified city states of the broken and war torn landscape in a section of the northern continent east of the Safron River that drains much of the Great Gaellic plain, north of Scotia and the fortified wall that splits off the Scots Highlands from the rest, west of the Great Sea that has become dominated by the Fomor, and South of the lands of the Sinoese and most notably the Darklings.  Several stories will be set or will touch this volitile region.  Among them are “Icarus Flight”, “Kitsuniko”, “Led from the Dark or the Blind Deaf Mute and the Idiot” (a story about overcoming disability, frustrated revenge, and simple peace), “Fitch in His Majesties Service”

I’m not as young as I used to be.  As obvious as that is, I feel it today.  I think there are several things that have conspired to put me in this mood. 

Football: Look, as an American male I am duty bound to love this game and I do.  I used to play in the halcyon days of high-school.  It is obvious now that I don’t anymore.  Also I went “oh-for” in my fantasy leagues.  I got to watch my beloved Cowboys, who I have suffered with since Stabauch and Golden Richards, loose to the Giants.  The pain of it.  And I went OH-FOR in fantasy football.

It seemed I had a good plan for this week.  I was favored in every game.  But the fates were cruel and I suffered from under-performance by far too many of my key players.  Under-performance, oh-for, pain, loss. . .

Literature: I am reading an interesting book, The Broken Kings.  It is the pre-story of Merlin mixed in with Jason and the Argo.  I’m about halfway through and Holdstock makes a point in character about Jason.  Jason is a greedy jealous rash horrible man who is trying to make his mark.  Merlin on the other-hand is more like me, he is cautious, careful, over-thinks.  My point is (and what I got from Holdstock) is that Jason makes his mark because he is obsessed with doing so.  I think later on in the book we will see how or when or why Merlin is finally driven to the sort of obsession that makes a mark.

Life: I’ve made no marks.  I think this (doing this blog thing) is very much a desperate attempt to make a mark.  And since I desire, and am selfish, and have had a bad week of fantasy football, and realize that I can not make a mark on the field if I ever could, didn’t.  I am feeling pressure to make a mark, to do.  I have a deep desire bordering on the obsessive to HAVE DONE.  It is not the writing it is the have written.  Horrible grammar but perhaps you take my meaning.

Therefore, needing to, I will begin the desperate attempt to complete a novel here on these pages.  I fully realize that this will make me no money as I’ve heard publication on the web is death, but frankly I’m not sure I’m that good.  I need to make a mark and improve.  Why hold back?

No reason I can think of now.  Tonight then, I will think about what to do about running backs in all my leagues, I will think about who to start at receiver and in one case quarterback, and I will decide what story will give voice to my obsession to have written.

LSO