BEYOND, AND BELOW … A SEARCH FOR WHO WE ARE … Imagine your entire world snatched away. Leaving you redundant, cold, and lost. No one can hear you. You’re receding. Caught like a fly on a spider’s web, muffled or choked on a dark trip that tugs you down through midnight water. Everything you took as tangible and normal pulled apart, revealing a gaping hole where the dark things creep out. How to fight back … ? Such is the [...]
Breaking dimensions with good intentions During the last eighteen months we've been lashed to the mast in a Force Niner, the wind howling and rain soaking. An exaggeration ... oh, sure. This geezer's a fantasy writer. Suffice to say, it's been a tad grim. :) But bad storms, like gallstones, pass. We're climbing back out into the sunshine like a blinking, yawning prairie dog who got lost in his own tunnels. It happens - ask my cat. All that dark [...]
Glancing back First up, apologies for the long gap! It's been over a year since last I scribbled random thoughts on this blog. There are reasons. 2022 was not kind to us, and I'll not delve into that here. But the power of positivity shines through if one allows. And as Mercury spins retro this New Year, it seems a good time to focus on inspirations looking forward and back. Love will always shine through, even in the darkest of [...]
How's your Christmas week been? Hope you had a good one! Not very yule like here in Georgia. Storms raging outside, rain drenching fields, lightning blazing silver through the gloom. Booming thunder, pets scurrying nervously under the bed. Ouch. A touch unseasonal, but hey - define normal during these tumultuous times. Here's a whimsical moment to lift you away from the hectic holidays whirl. A dream of snowflakes and swordplay. A ponder. Or a winter's wander, if you like. 'As [...]
As Autumn waxes and leaves change hue, lifting away, beginning the tumble and dance in their drifting journey down from the trees. This writer's mood shifts to reflection. Time readies those trees for their long cold rest before Spring. Time ... the silent watcher who marks us every hour. What if there was no time? You've somehow slipped beyond its lore? How would that feel? Like freedom? Terror? You can't age when there's no time, but neither can you rest. [...]
Have you ever walked past a dark space at midnight? A gaping hole in an empty building, or a shed or cattle store - the wind battering the steel roofs above, rain washing the cobwebby window panes? At such moments, it's easy to feel the darkness stir and manifest. As you pass, and pick up your pace, icy hands reach out hungrily. Your imagination senses someone waiting inside. But who's to say there isn't someone in there? Like the iceberg, [...]
https://videopress.com/v/g2tuD9wX?resizeToParent=true&controls=false&preloadContent=metadata "The prose drips with visceral imagery and descriptions, complimenting the deep world-building Webb has laid the foundations for in his eight previous Ansu novels. The creativity embedded in every aspect of Blood Feud is impossible to deny; even the basics of the world, its history and magical mechanisms have few parallels in the genre. Webb has developed an immersive world within this Ansu saga, and this first book in a fresh trilogy bodes very well for all that is still to [...]
An Author Interview By Hidden Gems HG: How would you describe yourself to somebody who isn’t familiar with your writing yet? JW: I’m a storyteller who learned to write. That took time – I drove big rigs for years. But as the decades rolled by the stories echoed louder in my head. I love the fantasy genre. The joyous release magical tales award the reader, helping them escape the norm – especially in a year like this one. New realms, magic, [...]
Reading Fantasy As An Antitode to 2020 ... It's good to write fantasy fiction during a turbulent year like 2020. It helps focus the mind, knowing, however crazy the plot you've weaved, it gets surpassed by the news that evening. What a year we're having! As a writer, I'm fortunate enough to squirrel away inside with the cat, penning tomes about nasty people cussing and hitting each other with sharp objects. I've got a few swords and swing them upon [...]
Do you believe in spirit animals? Many ancient cultures did. And why not? More's hidden than seen in this life. What if shapeshifters live amongst us still––individuals with the ability to change from person to beast, or bird, and then shift back again without detection? Useful, huh, if you could master without calamity or malfunction! Stressful, too, I would imagine. I've dabbled with this concept in my new novel, Blood Feud. I have three characters with these particular skills, which I'd like [...]
