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.

A Story that Grows in the Telling

Everything that happens, if it involves more than one person, will have two or more opinions about what actually happened.  The truth, if there is such a thing, will be somewhere among the opinions.  I think a legend at its base is a story that grows in the telling, resonating more and more with the audience, while it grows less and less true to its origin. 

A legend, to a storyteller, is too good to pass up.  In fact it is opportunity after opportunity to tell it plain, but instead, the bard, or skald, or elder decides to tell it so they see eyes grow wide, eyes that are rivetted on the storyteller. 

Fables provide lessons (and often talking animals), Myths explain gods and their interactions with people, Epics follow a series of critical events.  Epic Fable?  Mythological Epic?  Lore applies to the collected stories of a people, perhaps it is their stories that make them a people.  All these names for stories are words to describe stories of different flavors, but all of them, in someway, provide cultural cohesion.  Don’t you think?

J. R. R. Tolkien set out to provide what he felt his people lacked, a mythos for the British people.  It was Epic, it was Mythical, it spoke to me and continues to, as a reader, I hated to see it end.  Really, I hated the end, it seemed to me that Grey Havens was one of the sadest personal tragedies that I’ve endured.  Fine for Frodo and Bilbo, I’m sure Merry and Pippin and of course Sam all got on fine, but for me that world just ended.  There is a hole.

The nearest thing to the feeling of exploration and discovery that I got with LOTR is the discovery of Irish Mythology.  It is not in a neat package like LOTR.  It doesn’t have just one imaginer.  But it is an exciting and involving subject.  The hole is partly filled.

But I want more.  Sometimes you have to supply your own needs, like almost all the time you do so, 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.

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

A Story Told (and told and told)

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. 

I’ve just 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.

I’ve begun a novel.  I am offering my unedited first draft as I write it.  When Jeffery first convinced me to try this format I realized that the first job was to get some content up and quick.  As such, my first use has been something of an artist’s sketchbook, an author’s notepad.  I do believe there is value in this.  Eventually it may be of use to other struggling writers to see the story of my struggle and see process as positive or negative example or even to provide encouragement by comparison.

Dear reader, I am a new novelist and at present I believe that my best chance of developing is getting something out there.  If you disagree please tell me, perhaps I will progress on several tracks. putting out raw very rough drafts and going back through past stories to sharpen and polish them.  Here is the novel beginnings: Intro to and  Beginning of The Abbot and the Djinn. Follow my progress HERE.

Of late I feel that I’ve put quite a bit of ore on these pages.  It is probably time to refine, to polish, to hammer some of these tales into something better than they were.  So now, we begin the  “. . . and told and told and told” part of the writers craft.  Find my polished stones here.

Tir na Nua

I have imagined a world apart.  A land out of time.  Now, on Earth, there is little doubt about some things which have happened, have passed into history.  These things are written.  Before and between the stone of what is written are legends of things not written, but perhaps true none-the-less. 

Tir na Nua is neither and both.  Have you wished that there was a land where the Celtic world did not fall beneath the Roman?  Have you wondered what that world might have been?  Such things have happened in the new land and we have word of it, remembered by bards, lineage by rote, History in mind and on their lips.  I bring these stories.

At one time folk we identify now as Celtic dominated much of Europe. Except for ruins, and votive offerings, and the words of enemies, and a very few scratchings on stones we have nothing left of these people.  To imagine a Celtic world like insular Ireland one must imagine the real, because there is little enough to instruct us as to what that real, Earthly world was like.  Enter the legend maker, the storyteller, the bard. 

I have had an interest in the real Celts, Gauls, Britons, Welsh, all the diverse tribes of a people who shared a way of life and an asthetic sense and language if not blood.  I want to gather material, post what I find, and get your reactions to topics of Antiquity, Celts in general, Insular Ireland, and of course my stories.

Sometimes I wish I dwelled in Tir na Nua, but instead I live in a much less misty, more pedestrian, and I would say, far less noble world.  Some things that come to my attention must not pass without comment.  I will comment on current events. (sorry if this is a buzz kill, please feel free to ignore all political rants of the author and return to escapist literature.) 

Content

I am working to put some of my scratchings, secreted away in numerous notebooks, into a form more conducive to your perusal and consumption.  These first draft stories and bits of back story are available at blog topics.

Here is a bit of that ever expanding effort? work? uh, drekk? Hopefully fascinating fiction.

I have in mind to collect many things here, but I want to produce for you stories of places outside of your experience (or anyones) and yet true and recognizable. You are welcome to browse as it accretes (I think this may be another Steveism. I should really look for it in some authoritative Dictionary.*) I will update metatags and such to reflect the sites altered state. It will never be done…

I pray I have not taxed your resources too much. Enjoy! Comment! Dispute! Encourage! Correct! Guide! Request!

Welcome to this,

LSO

PS. * ac·crete (-krt)

2. To grow or increase gradually, as by addition.

source

A Story that Grows in the Telling

A legend, at its base, is a true story that has grown in the telling, resonating more and more with the audience, while it grows less and less true to its origin.  A legend, to a storyteller, is a tale too good to pass up.  In fact it is opportunity after opportunity to tell a story as you heard it, but instead, the bard, or skald, or elder decides to tell it so they see eyes grow wide, eyes that are rivetted on the storyteller. 

Fables are lessons often presented by talking animals, Myths report the deeds of gods and their interactions with people, Epics detail a series of critical events.  But can you really catagorize a story so easily? Epic Fable?  Mythological Epic?  Legendary Myth?  What are they?  What is it?

Could it be Lore?

One might say that the word Lore applies to the collected stories of a people, perhaps they are the stories that make them a people.  All these words for stories describe tales of different flavors, but all of these provide cultural cohesion.  They are a shared heritage.  And there is another word to add to our growing list, heritage.  Don’t you think?  

J. R. R. Tolkien set out to provide what he felt his people lacked, a mythos for the British people.  It was Epic, it was Mythical, it spoke to me and continues to speak.  As a reader, I hated to see it end, but it did.  There is a small enough corpus of polished Tolkien fiction.  I have to say that I have felt the lack, but then Tolkien himself is a legend. 

I think Dennis L. McKiernan expressed a similar sentiment.  I’m no JRR Tolkien and neither is Dennis.  Personally I much prefer Morgan Llywelyn to McKiernan,  or Parke Godwin or George Martin (George’s Website) or. . . almost anyone, (sorry Dennis, in fairness I need to read something more recent of yours because I think I read your first high fantasy book and felt it was derivative, but then you said right up front what I’ve always felt, that there needs to be more high fantasy like JRR’s and you tried to fill that massive void.  Good for you.)

And since Dennis has ventured forth into Heroic, Epic, High Fantasy I feel that I may too.  Perhaps I will meet with even less success.  But this is my wee bit flung into the void.  It is to that end, the filling of the void, that I have conceived of Tir na Nua.

Welcome to Tir na Nua

I am in the process of writing stories, short and long and 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. 

I hope to gather legends and lore, notes on antiquity, and present day reality. You see, a legend is changed by its times, a story is shaped by the telling.  Present reality makes an impression both on how a tale is told and how it is heard.   For now, welcome and please tell me what you like or you don’t.  I value your insights; I value your eyes, riveted, grown wide.

A Story Told (and told and told)

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. 

I’ve just 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.

I’ve also begun a novel.  At least that is my intent.  Considering changes to my schedule I think I may progress differently than I did for the Deer Riders.  I intend to get it done before my birthday.  A bit of a gift to me.  But we shall see.  As such, considering the time, with my available time, without a history of being able to work that quickly expect IF I DO that it will be very raw.  Dear reader, I am a new novelist and at present I believe that my best chance of developing is getting something out there.  If you disagree please tell me, perhaps I will progress on several tracks. putting out raw very rough drafts and going back through past stories to sharpen and polish them.  Here is the novel beginnings: Intro to and  Beginning of The Abbot and the Djinn. Follow my progress HERE.

Tir na Nua

I have imagined a world apart.  A land out of time.  Now, on Earth, there is little doubt about some things which have happened, have passed into history.  These things are written.  Before and between the stone of what is written are legends of things not written, but perhaps true none-the-less. 

Tir na Nua is neither and both.  Have you wished that there was a land where the Celtic world did not fall beneath the Roman?  Have you wondered what that world might have been?  Such things have happened in the new land and we have word of it, remembered by bards, lineage by rote, History in mind and on their lips.  I bring these stories.

At one time folk we identify now as Celtic dominated much of Europe. Except for ruins, and votive offerings, and the words of enemies, and a very few scratchings on stones we have nothing left of these people.  To imagine a Celtic world like insular Ireland one must imagine the real, because there is little enough to instruct us as to what that real, Earthly world was like.  Enter the legend maker, the storyteller, the bard. 

I have had an interest in the real Celts, Gauls, Britons, Welsh, all the diverse tribes of a people who shared a way of life and an asthetic sense and language if not blood.  I want to gather material, post what I find, and get your reactions to topics of Antiquity, Celts in general, Insular Ireland, and of course my stories.

Sometimes I wish I dwelled in Tir na Nua, but instead I live in a much less misty, more pedestrian, and I would say, far less noble world.  Some things that come to my attention must not pass without comment.  I will comment on current events. (sorry if this is a buzz kill, please feel free to ignore all political rants of the author and return to escapist literature.) 

Content

I am working to put some of my scratchings, secreted away in numerous notebooks, into a form more conducive to your perusal and consumption.

Here is a bit of that ever expanding effort? work? uh, drekk? Hopefully fascinating fiction.

I have in mind to collect many things here, but I want to produce for you stories of places outside of your experience (or anyones) and yet true and recognizable. You are welcome to browse as it accretes (I think this may be another Steveism. I should really look for it in some authoritative Dictionary.*) I will update metatags and such to reflect the sites altered state. It will never be done…

I pray I have not taxed your resources too much. Enjoy! Comment! Dispute! Encourage! Correct! Guide! Request!

Welcome to this,

LSO

PS. * ac·crete (-krt)

2. To grow or increase gradually, as by addition.

source

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”

L. Stephen O’Neill, is a guy who always intended to write novels, but never got around to it.  All that has changed now that I’m using his weBLOG format to begin to write stories and even work on the first draft of a novel, The Abbott and the Djinn.  I always thought I could do it, let’s see if I can. 

I have been swept away by fiction before and would like to be able to do that for someone else.  These stumbling first steps are a sort of writer’s notebook where I stretch my literary muscles and hopefully entertain you.

So, it would seem, that calling myself “the author” is a bit of a fiction to start.  Yet for me, personally, beginning something like this, something I always meant to do, is rejuvenating.  I feel younger for it. . .      . . . also a bit lame.

My mother tried to read “the Hobbit” by J. R. R. Tolkien to me.  It invariably put her to sleep, or perhaps my insistence that she continue to read chapter after chapter taxed her.  Whatever the true reason, my mother slept and I read on.  After “the Hobbit” I read “the Lord of the Rings” and the “Silmarillion,” devoured them really.  But, at the Grey Havens, Middle Earth ends. . .

. . . which bring me to Tir na Nua and the Epic Fantasy that I hope to bring to you, a bit at a time here, but hopefully polished and fully one day.

First Steps

I intend to begin several topics of interest to me and hopefully you.  This will provide the afore mentioned content, at least initially.  In truth, I’ve already piled up quite a bit of this and that, dig into it all through the blog topics, OR take a look at what I’m doing with my Current Primary Storylines. These not only provide you with what I’m focusing on, but also put them in an order which allows you to follow the story from beginning to. . . uh. . . well. . . Hopefully I’ll finish something up at some point.

Here are some selected posts that might give you some insite to me:

Here are authors that I like.  I call it my jump page. When you find out that you can’t get their stuff for FREE, you might jump back.

1. I wrote this on Finn McCool.  Finn is one of the biggest legends in Irish lore.
2. If you haven’t run across a reference to Tir na Nua. . .     . . .Well I just don’t know.
3. I need to do this: Something New Every Day.
4. And FINALLY, a story.  The Red Hand of Courage.
5. Here is a bit of a Novel about Hunter Wilde and the Ui Uilsen.

I pray I have not taxed your resources too much. Enjoy! Comment! Dispute! Encourage! Correct! Guide! Request!

Welcome to this,

LSO