BLESS THE CHILD: This ones for the children

Few things feel as good as finishing a book. I'm talking as the one having written that book. You have accomplished something that so many others give up on. You have given birth to your own creativity and now its out there to share with the world.

One of the other things that feels so good in life is doing something for someone else. When I first heard about the G.A.N. Warriors I was floored. Here are some young little guys with a horribly rare disease, but they always smile and keep their chins up (good parents) and the whole community we lived in - in Montana and elsewhere, have rallied around them. So many people have donated to their cause and still are, this is an ongoing battle.
I was very tight on cash, tight on time away from home and so much other drama heaped on my shoulders, but I thought about a book that wasn't quite ready for anywhere else yet, a book that needed some polish and perhaps had just the right title to be a good donation toward their cause.

Bless The Child was begun in Primary Childrens hospital when my daughter Maddie was a month old. She had severe RSV and I truly thought I would lose her. I spent a lot of nights there, couldn't sleep, but I did start Bless The Child. The elements of loss were very real in my mind - I suspect you read the first few chapters and you'll know exactly what I was channeling for the Spartan.

Back to the ranch - this seemed like the right time and the right book to donate 100% of the proceeds toward Hannah's Hope Fund, the official arm of the G.A.N. Warriors and the handful of kids like them. GAN is an incredibly rare disease and these kids need all the help they can get.

So I am very pleased to release my sword and sandals historical epic: Bless The Child on their behalf. The kindle edition is available right now and I will have the print version up shortly as well.

The back cover description:
Impelled by a quest for redemption, the man known only as The Spartan finds unholy work in The Holy Land. And work is good, there is no end of service amongst kings and robber barons for a man who sells his sword so well. But blood won’t wash away blood and The Spartan finds himself compelled toward something greater than himself. 
Bless The Child is a romance of redemption and glory. Numerous historical personages cross paths with The Spartan, including Solon, Nebuchadnezzar, the prophets Lehi, Jeremiah and Daniel, King Zedekiah and the poetess Sappho. 
Come back to 586 B.C. when Jerusalem burned and the life of a prince rested in the hands of the exiled Spartan. Can a mercenary trained only for war become an instrument of peace?

In the Works...

Life has made my blogging this year incredibly erratic (did I completely miss February?)

But projects are coming along, The Mad Song in Artifacts & Relics shouldn't be too far off, and The Dogs of War in Thunder on the Battlefield will be shortly behind that I think, Rolling in the Deep in A Flame in the Dark: Monsters should be out anytime as will Make A Monkey Outta Me in Heavy Metal Horror and The Problem with Magick in Another 100 Horrors. Wish I knew something more on the Rogue Blades Entertainment Challenge antho = The Serpents Root and the rumored Sword & Sorcery League collection which supposedly has accepted Sailing to Valhalla, but alas I know nothing on either project.

I still need to format Whispers of the Goddess, so that delay is all on me and I did finally receive the edits on Bless the Child, so I will absolutely have a sword & sandals novel out this year - I'm hoping in the next few weeks but can't promise anything since I honestly don't know what I'm doing with formatting yet.

Bring the Fire (tentative title) for The Barbarian Coast is coming along nicely = almost done. And I have dreamt up my story for Space Eldritch 2 I just have to write it now.

Two more projects demand near immediate attention, one is a Sci-Fi sure thing, the other is a limited invitational Fantasy submission, best 10 out of 25 (good odds), and both MIGHT get published through Baen, so that's cool.

I'm also sitting on a half dozen finished spec tales that I need to just get off my butt and submit somewhere - and then there are the fifty plus starts to tales I need to finish...and then there are the books I need to finish, I wish I was half as prolific as I sound.

Part of the writing problem has been the busy family life and drama but it seems the Muse has returned ~

Storming the Gates of Troy

 

One thousand ships launched astern
For you, the flames they burn
Scarlet lips and hands to hold
Passion unfurled and courage bold
Swords are raised as bridges crossed
One thousand moments count and lost
Two for the neck, one for the heart
Hopes blaze that we may never part
All for you my queen, so regal
I shall be cloaked dark with eagle
Stricken in the heart and the heel
I write to forge what I feel
To be with you again I hope and pray
And win but a kiss today
No tears, no pain, no sorrow
All so I may win the war tomorrow
With sacred horse and a tour deforce
The gates will fall and I’ll tear down your wall
Chariots race and dooms embrace
Will open the path to proceed
And truly fulfill that primal need
To be as one and never ever come undone

Also, it seems I am getting 5 times the hits to this blog from Iran than I am from the usual suspects = The US of A, Canada, Germany and the UK - What the Hell? Can I be so interesting to the Persians? Or is it just the Spartan thing??? I've barely been posting this year - what's so interesting???

The Next Big Thing Blog Chain...

I was chained to this by Shelley Brown (author of The Fall of Cliff Castle (Book One in The Glass Slipper Chronicles)) and so I'm sharing a little bit about my WIP with you today.

So without further ado (because ado is seldom useful) my WIP:

What is the working title of your book? 

 Bless the Child

Where did the idea come from for the book? 

I was fascinated with the concept of mercenaries in the ancient world. The idea especially of Greeks, when they weren't fighting each other, would sell themselves out to the Egyptians, Babylonians, and other minor kings; and that brothers could potentially find themselves facing each other on opposite sides of a conflict very far from home.

I also wanted to utilize some Biblical old world references that I found interesting such as Elephantine Island on the Nile, the fall of Jerusalem thanks to Nebuchadnezzar, and a number of rumored aspects of that siege and destruction.

* the artwork for the cover has graciously been donated by Kris Cooper

What genre does your book fall under?

Historical Action/Adventure with a Sword & Sorcery flavor

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? 

I have given no real thought to this. Most of the characters (even while many are real historical personages-Solon, Psenophis, Jaush of Lachish, Nebuchadnezzar, Zedekiah, and Balthazar/Daniel are inspired by people I personally know)

While I do think this could be turned into a screenplay much easier than my other works. The protagonist, known as The Spartan would need to be an able bodied man in his mid twenties in the beginning of the book and it follows his story up to around forty or so.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? 

Never thought about this before but here goes...

To keep from getting wet, the bloody, drowning road to redemption for a Spartan mercenary is perhaps best traveled by boat.

another...

Saving oneself is most nobly done by saving another.

and (having too much fun with this)...

No country for sword-less men.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? 

This will be my first self-published novel. The greater motivation for such will be explained toward the end of this post.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? 

I think I finished the rough draft in about 5 months. 

This was also when I was offered my first publishing contract and decided to start this blog and hence the name Nephite Blood, Spartan Heart - a merger of sorts of my Heroes of the Fallen saga and this Spartan book, the only two things I was working on at the time.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? 

I really liked, Jezebel by Frank G. Slaughter, Lord of Samarcand by Robert E. Howard, Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield, Lion of Cairo by Scott Oden, and 300 by Frank Miller.

Who or What inspired you to write this book? 

I began the book when my daughter was in the hospital with a terrible case of RSV. She almost died. The frustration and heartache in the beginning of Bless the Child is from that pain of not knowing if she would make it or not. I wrote it at her crib-side in the Primary Children's Hospital in SLC.

I was also greatly inspired by a lot of my historical research reading related to my first novel(series) Heroes of the Fallen ipso facto - Hugh Nibley.

And lastly, when I was still doing construction to pay the bills, I was remodeling a basement at the home of an old woman and her daughter - a single mother whose toddler son kept calling me 'Daddy'. It broke my heart.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? 

I am going to donate 100% of the proceeds to The GAN Warriors a trio of young local boys with a terribly debilitating disease. I wanted to do something to help them and polishing and dusting off a trunk novel seemed the most viable thing I could do. It lets me get my work out to a greater audience and help someone(s) else at the same time.

There you go, that's all she wrote!

 

Now I have to chain people to this thing...so...

I'll stick to my regular blogger friends who I know are always working on something

Charles Gramilch

Paul McNamee

Angie Lofthouse

and

Adventures Fantastic Keith, I'd love to hear more about what you're working on, not that we don't all groove on your reviews.

Strange Sights of the Week

Preparing to Blitz

Beginning of the year and time to map and or lament on my goals. I always end up biting off more than I can chew. Still, the blitz is coming.

There are a half dozen short story anthologies I 'd love to be included in with deadlines looming shortly. Would love to do these but I probably ought to pick my battles with the ones I want the most and forget the rest rather than having the dozen beginnings and no endings I have sitting in the files right now. I always wondered why Robert E. Howard had so many great tales that weren't finished and now I understand that a little better.

I have my sequel to Heroes of the Fallen needing to be polished up- people even call my Mom wanting to know if they can get a rough draft-(not gonna happen) Really need to do that-I never, ever, meant to take so long finishing an already finished book.

I also need to polish and decide what I want to do with my exiled Spartan novel Bless the Child, I should have sent it to a copy editor friend months ago but I wanted to clean it up even more before I passed it on-still haven't done it. Really need to do that.

Recently submitted my second chapter of Midnight Sons to UGEEK Magazine-the story went an interesting direction that I never foresaw-but I am happy with it-I think the stuff I had planned on will be coming up in the next chapter-any E-friends who are interested drop me a line I'll send the pdf for the first issue-since it was a local Utah-centric mag. I moved away from Utah right as it went to print so I don't even have any copies of my pulpness-that and I saw that I missed the local CON where the premier issue debuted-with a few interesting guests like comic veteran Wendy Pini (of Elf Quest fame) In my mind she still looks like Red Sonja from Savage Sword of Conan in '76. 

My hopes and prayers for Jason Waltz at Rogue Blades Entertainment-that things will get sorted out and the magnificent books Roar of the Crowd and Challenge: Discovery  that are waiting in the wings will be released in 2012.

More of my weird western short stories with Porter Rockwell are coming, though I'm not sure on any release dates with those anthologies. Same with the Dagan Books antho of weird sci-fi IN-SITU my tale The Dig is coming some time soon this year.

I meant to get most of my S&S gangster fantasy Gods & Robbers done last year and I didn't-we'll go for this year on that account.

And finally a bit of non-fiction (that reads like very exciting/frightening fiction) is absolutely coming but I can't say more on that just yet. But you could check out my friend Douglas Dietrich's site. Just saying.

Strange Sights of the Week

 One of my wife's favorite movies, but I still prefer the David Lynch version.

I was surprised to find that my blog ranked highly in the Google search for Stormtrooper Babes, so I thought I ought to oblige. Disturbing as it is to the Force.

I guess the Batmobile lost a wheel and the Joker got away...you know the rest.

  For my wife who always comments on his crazy hair.

The Least Interesting Man in Westeros

                                                                 Happy Little Spartans