The Nectar Trilogy

Just one more week until release! Here’s the cover art.

The projected launch date for Pleroma is March 1st.  We are on track to make that deadline.  Be on the lookout for the big announcement.

In the meantime, you can view the first five chapters in their formatted version right here.  Enjoy.

On Saturday morning I received an email from Amazon informing me about a novel competition they are holding.  The call for entries ran from Jan. 25 – Feb. 7 at 11:59 Eastern Standard Time.  That’s right, I received the notification the day before the deadline and on a weekend packed with activities.  The manuscript was at the editor and I knew she was just about finished, so I sent her an email and asked if I could get her edits on Saturday.  I received them on Sunday afternoon.  At 5:30 I sat down and feverishly worked through her edits, wrote my pitch (a 300 word sales pitch that will be the first round of elimination in the competition), filled out my entry forms, and entered the contest.  I got it in with 15 minutes to spare before the deadline.

The cool thing about this contest is that it is open to both unpublished and self-published novels.  That was further confirmation that the publishing industry is starting to recognize self publishing as a valid means for new authors to break into the publishing world.  I’ll know by Feb. 23 if I make it into the top 1,000 entries.

The finalists of the competition get reviewed in Publisher’s Weekly, and the winner gets a contract with Penguin.  We’ll see what happens!

This post is an invitation to anyone who is currently writing a manuscript or is in the manuscript submission process and would like to enter into a public discussion about it.  Perhaps someone reading these posts could benefit from the conversation.

The final draft is getting its last proof read by a professional editor.  Hopefully that will be done by Feb. 15.  The goal is to have the book finished and published by March 1st.  Stay tuned for a big announcement!  We’re working on the cover design right now.

Also, we have decided to create a new imprint for the publishing of fiction.  ShastaCor Press is becoming a reality.  Again, stay tuned…

This morning I completed the 2nd Draft.  Red ink splattered like blood across most of the pages.  It was painful, but necessary!  I’m going to have my wife run through it one more time for clean-up and then it will be ready for submission.  This marks another important milestone in the process.

Now I am faced with a very important decision.  Do I:

a)  follow the traditional path and seek a literary agent, hoping to be picked up by an established publishing house? or

b)  continue my trek in the ever-flattening world and publish it through my Vibble Books imprint.

I have another consult with the Book Architects coming up.  I hope to glean great wisdom from them.

As promised, here is the revised passage where Lane encounters the skuli.  This is chapter 14 of Nectar 1: Pleroma.

The sound woke Lane.  His eyes opened, but his body lay stiff in alarm.  Something scraped through the rocks on the bottom of the crevice, opposite from where they were sleeping.  Thin wisps of smoke lifted from the remnants of the fire and filled the entrance to their alcove, clouding his vision.  He quietly breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that it was only a small rodent of some kind.  It had the ears and the hind legs of a Jack Rabbit, but its face was wide and squared off and it had a long tail.

Just as Lane was about to sit up and try to greet the furry creature, it shot straight up on its hind legs in alert.  Sizzling cracks, like the sound of electric sparks, popped on top of the ridge.  The rodent’s long ears swiveled like little radar dishes, scanning for possible intruders.  It became agitated and its head jerked to the right.  A dark figure appeared on top of the crevice wall, a black cut-out against the pale morning sky.  It walked on four legs, but its silhouetted shape was unrecognizable.

For a split second the hunter and the prey made eye contact in a frozen gaze.  Then, in a flash, the rodent ran and the dark creature plunged down the wall and across the crevice floor.  The chase was on.

The features of the mysterious creature were visible.  Blue, scaly spines covered the majority of its body.  They shimmered in iridescent  waves with every move of its long, slender, but muscled form.  It was difficult to tell if this creature was mammal, reptile, or bird.  A long tail flowed behind it, accentuating its elegant lines.  Razor teeth flashed and purple saliva frothed from its gaping mouth and splattered through the air as it ran.

Directly ahead of the terrified rodent grew a small cluster of plants.  Most were small bushes, but off to the edge of the cluster two tall bushes grew side by side.  Their branches shot up from a center stalk and arched outwards.  One branch from each bush bent toward the other and joined to form an arch-shaped opening.

The rodent sped toward the arch.  The creature pursued, hot on its heels and gaining quickly.  Just as the rodent passed through the arch and the creature’s jaws were about to snap down on its hind quarters…the rodent disappeared.  Vanished.  The creature chomped down onto nothing. Its momentum sent it into a summersault, its head pounded into the gravel and its back legs flipped over the top, tail whipping through the air.  It was stunned.

It shook its head.  Three flaps on each side of its face opened and closed quickly, like the gills of a fish when it is deprived of oxygen.  Regaining its senses, the beast sniffed furiously around the base of the bush.  It went in front, it sniffed in back, it looped back and forth through the arch.  The rodent was gone.

Lane blinked. What just happened?  He sat up and his movement caught the creature’s attention.  Several eyes blinked in staggered cadence on its thin head.  Lane froze, wondering if human flesh was on its preferred diet, and how willing it would be to attack someone his size.  He stood slowly, keeping a confident stare fixed on the set of eyes.

Lane took a few steps toward it and the gills flared wide. The bottom row of eyes narrowed.  Snarling teeth dripped purple ooze.   Lane stopped and tried not to breath.  The air around the creature distorted, like heat waves rising from hot desert sand.  Electric sparks flashed around its head and startled the beast.  It turned, clawed its way up the side of the crevice, and disappeared over the edge.

I hope he’s not going to find some of his friends.

With the creature gone, Lane was now free to approach the bush and investigate the missing rodent.  The top of the bushes reached the height of his head.  Three long, straight branches grew from a central spot at the base of each one.  The branches flared out in different directions like a palm tree.  Each one sprouted smaller branches covered with small leaves rimmed with pointy, scalloped edges.  Spread evenly throughout the bush were clusters of tiny, green berries.

An archway formed where two of the branches, one from each bush, came together and twisted around one another, as if the two bushes were shaking hands. It was tall enough that, with a slight bend at the waist and a tuck of the head, Lane could easily walk through it.

At the base of the bush and around all the clusters of vegetation the ground was covered with soft sand that revealed the footprints of the animals.  On the front side of the arch there were clearly two sets of prints; the smaller set of the rodent and the larger of the creature.  Lane crouched down on his heels and looked closely at the threshold of the arch.  Just where the arch formed, the rabbit’s prints stopped and the blue creature’s continued.

What is this?  What happened to that furry little guy?

He stood up and looked closer at the berries, reaching out to touch one.

“Don’t touch that!”  Jethro’s voice made him jump.  “Move away from that bush.  Now!”

Jethro was dead serious. Lane obeyed and slowly backed away from the bush.

“What’s going on, Jethro?  Did you see what happened?  That little rabbit-thing just vanished into thin air when it ran through this arch.”

“Numa,” Jethro spoke the words with a dark, mysterious tone.

“Numa?” Lane repeated.

“Yes.  I had hoped we wouldn’t see one. I didn’t notice the Bitter Bush when we camped last night.”

“The Bitter Bush? Do you mean this thing?”  Lane pointed at the bush with the berries.

“Yes.  The Numa love to eat the Bitter Berry.  They’re the only creature that does.  Strange and troublesome little pests.”

“Not as strange as that blue spider-eyed, bird-dog, lizard thing.” Lane said.

The blood drained from Jethro’s face.  He stood motionless and stared at Lane.

“What,” Lane asked, “what’s the matter?”

“Did you say blue?” the words barely escaped Jethro’s tight lips.

“Yeah, it had bluish feathers all over its body, a long tail, nasty teeth with purple spit everywhere.  And all those eyes really freaked me out.”

Jethro staggered backwards and fell to a sitting position on the ground.

“Jethro!” Lane reached to catch him, but was too late.  “What is it?  What was that thing?”

“It’s not possible,” Jethro muttered to himself, “they’ve never been seen in the daytime before.”

Lane shook Jethro’s shoulders and yelled, “Tell me what you’re talking about!”

Jethro looked up at Lane, “Skuli.  What you described is a skuli.”

“That night crawler beast you told me about?”

“Yes.  Up until this moment, there has never been a sighting during the daylight.”

Lane dropped to the ground next to Jethro.  ”So, what does that mean?”

“I honestly don’t know.”  Jethro stared up at the sky where the top of the earthen wall met it.  ”The only defense we’ve ever known against the skuli is light.  If that didn’t stop this one, then I have no idea what will.

“Did you see any others?”

“No, it was all alone.  Something weird flashed around its head that seemed to scare it.  Then it ran off over the wall that way.”  Lane pointed to the top of the ridge in the direction from which they had come the night before.

“At least we will be traveling the other direction,” Jethro said.  He stood up.  “We need to gather our things and move right away.”

They returned to the camp site and gathered their bags.  Jethro raised his water flask to his mouth.  Nothing came out.  He tipped it higher and craned his neck as far back as he could, but only a small dribble remained.  Panic tinged his eyes.  He shook the flask and searched the outside.  At the base of the flask there was a small hole that looked like it had been chewed out.

“Numa!” Jethro slapped the flask.  “Lane, check yours.”

Lane shook his.  Nothing. It had been chewed through as well.

“This is not good.” Jethro rubbed the back of his neck.  “Without water it will be very difficult to make the journey.  We can’t turn back, especially if the skuli went that direction.  We are closer to the Upper Mountains than we are to the Lower at this point.”

He looked up at Lane with grave eyes.  “We have no choice.  We must continue, and quickly.  Are you ready?”

“Like you said, we have no choice, right?  Let’s go.”

They started walking along the base of the crevice, past the Bitter Bush.  As they passed, Jethro gave it a menacing, sideways glance.  “Numa,” He muttered under his breath.

“OK,” Lane said, “you have to tell me what’s going on. What is it with these numa and skuli?”

“Yes, the Numa.  Cursed creatures in a cursed land. Do you remember I told you that Amo cursed this valley and destroyed an entire tribe?  The Numa are the spirits of those tribesmen.  The skuli are Amo’s dark minion, sent to hunt and torture them forever.  The numa are cursed to walk between the worlds for eternity, hunted by the skuli,  always foraging for water, always eating the Bitter Berry.”

After a moment of soaking in this tale, Lane said, “So, the little rabbit-thing is really a tortured spirit that bounces back and forth between this world and the afterlife, right?  And the skuli are night creatures, sent by Amo, to torment them?”

Jethro shrugged his shoulders.  “You asked.  That is the truth.  This is a cursed and wretched place.  Is that any harder to believe than mountains that reach up and grab water from the sky?”  Jethro lifted his eyebrows and looked at Lane with an “I got you on that one” expression.

“Right.”  Lane rolled his eyes.

“Oh, by the way,” Jethro continued, “What is a rabbit-thing?”

“Never mind.”

The conversation ended and the long, hot, dry journey began.

As the sun rose in the sky, so did the temperature.  Lane’s dry tongue stuck to the top of his mouth.

The crevice turned a corner and opened up to reveal the Upper Mountains.  They were much larger on the horizon now and their red and yellow rocks shone brightly in the morning sun.  The front range that sat along the base of the desert floor looked like a pile of rocks with red and yellow stripes angled across it.

There were three distinct levels of mountains.  The highest level loomed misty and purple above the more rocky two below it.  It appeared to be covered with trees.

The mountains bobbed up and down along the horizon with each step that Lane took.  He and Jethro were too tired and parched to talk.  They simply trudged on, trying to strike the right balance between the speed they needed to make it to the mountains by nightfall and the efficiency needed to not overheat and pass out.  Every sound they heard from the desert floor above alerted them to the possibility of the skuli.  Heat, fatigue, and fear was an exhausting combination.

The heat swirled the air as it rose from the rocky ground, creating distortions that looked like dancing specters.  Tiny pools of imaginary water formed and vanished, lasting only long enough to remind Lane of how thirsty he was.  They vanished with mocking laughter.  This truly was a cursed place.

The rhythmic walking and the pulsing heat lulled Lane into a trance-like state.  His body clicked into auto-pilot and his mind turned inward.  What’s happening to me?  Let’s be logical about this.  What does a desert represent?  Lack of water.  Desperation.  Dehydration. A time of testing.  Maybe my mind is getting discouraged and my hope is drying up.

But what about those Numa?  Where did those come from?  I don’t remember reading about anything like that or hearing them in any of the stories Mom read to me.  Well, I guess rabbits are often used in stories.  Alice followed a rabbit, didn’t she?  But why would the rabbit steal my water?  Why am I so thirsty?  And, what are the skuli?

It seems my only hope is that mountain in front of me — that mountain that is crawling with Altanians.  I have to keep going.  If I lie down and die right here…maybe I’ll really be dead out there.

Josh!  What’s happening to Josh right now?  How long have I been unconscious?  I have to wake up and be there for him.

Several popping sounds startled him from the trance.  They came from the top of the ridge.  A few more sparks popped.  Jethro looked, wild-eyed at the top of the wall.

“Skuli.  Run!” Jethro shouted, then sprinted ahead, sending dust and gravel spitting from his wide feet.

Lane turned to look down the river bed.  About 150 yards away, five dark figures appeared on the top of the ridge.  The now distinctive form left no doubt.  Skuli.  A pack of them.  As Lane turned, the pack alerted to his presence.  They paused for a moment, and then, as one body, broke into a full run toward him.

Jethro was already several paces ahead of Lane when he turned back around and began to run.  Within a few strides Lane closed the gap between them.  There was no way Jethro could match Lane’s pace in a full-on run.  Lane glanced back over his shoulder.  The pack pursued with great speed, closing the distance between them.

Slowing only slightly, Lane reached down and scooped Jethro up and threw him onto his back.  The dense body weighed more than he expected and the weight threw him off balance.  He stumbled sideways and nearly lost his footing.

“Go, go!” Jethro shouted in his ear, like a little jockey urging his thoroughbred from the mount.

The riverbed took a turn and widened out. Not far ahead, clusters of large rock formations formed a jagged wall.  One gap in the rocky wall led to a flat bed of rocks.

“There,” Jethro shouted, his voice surging with the pounding of Lane’s gallop, “that is the entrance to the mountains!”

Lane accelerated.  He stole a glance over his shoulder.  The skuli rounded the corner, much closer now.  It was a dead sprint to the rocks.

Loose gravel, peppered with larger stones, made running difficult.  Every third step turned an ankle or shot a painful rock edge into the sole of his foot.  Jethro’s body weight slammed into his back, making each stride an awkward maneuver.

Raspy snarls filled Lane’s ears.  The skuli were almost upon them.

“Run, Lane!”  Jethro beat Lane’s shoulder.

They passed the first rock cluster and Lane’s foot caught on a larger stone.  He lurched forward, stumbled, and sent Jethro flying over his shoulder.  They both skidded along the rocks.

Lane instantly turned on his back and clawed in retreat, expecting to see a skuli clamping down on his neck.  When he turned he did see the skuli, but they were not on top of him.  Less than five feet from him, the entire pack darted back and forth along an invisible line that ran between the rocks that formed the gap.  Their gill flaps flared and all the sets of eyes narrowed and expanded wildly.  Purple froth flung from their mouths as they wagged their heads in protest.

“What just happened?” Lane asked.

Jethro stepped up next to him, blood dripping from scrapes on his hands and arms.  ”I’m not sure.  I know this gap marks the beginning of the Upper Mountains.  The skuli must be confined to the Waste, somehow.”

Lane lay his head back against the rocks and started to laugh, chest still heaving from the sprint.

“Oh man,” Lane said, inbetween laughs, “I thought that was it.”

“As did I,” Jethro agreed, “although, I don’t see the humor in it.  We need to get as much distance between us and those creatures as possible.”

“You’re right.”  Lane stood and took a long look at the pacing, frothing pack.  “Not today, boys.  Better luck next time.”

He turned and walked with Jethro toward the mountain.  Each step revealed a new sensation.  First was the stinging in his hands and arms.  Like Jethro, the fall into the rocks had torn into his flesh.  The bright blood glistened in the sunlight.  Next it was the stinging in his throat.  The foot race had sapped every last ounce of moisture that may had been left in his already parched mouth.  Then the weight.  Every muscle in his leg revolted against the involuntary sprint, dragging each step down with added weight.

All they could do was press on.

The dry river bed wound its way into the hills.  They followed it between walls of coarse sandstone.  Along the its edge, new kinds of bushes appeared.

They kept walking.  The bed made another turn and as they cleared the large cliff wall they saw it.  Lane couldn’t believe it.  As soon as it registered his body reacted automatically and he ran straight toward it.  Water.  In the middle of the rocky riverbed, surrounded by a cluster of bushes, a small spring bubbled down into a pool of clear water.

They plunged their faces and let its life-giving power run over their tongues and down their throats.  Lane drank and drank, until he felt full.

With water dribbling down his beard, and leaning down on hands and feet, Jethro looked like a strange child to Lane.  The cold water sent an impish impulse through Lane and he reached down and splashed Jethro in the face.  At first Jethro looked up in shock.  After a brief hesitation his countenance changed as he became infected with the impish impulse. Jethro stood and kicked a wave of water at Lane.  Before long the two of them were running, splashing, and laughing like a couple of children in the back yard sprinklers on a hot summer afternoon.

When they had run and splashed the impulse out of their system, they stood side by side, with their hands on their knees, panting to catch their breath.  They looked at each other and laughed.  It was good to be alive.  They had crossed the desert without water and survived.

With thirsts quenched and a quick bite of bread and cheese in their bellies, both travelers lay down under one of the larger bushes. Lane’s legs felt like they were made from lead and his feet throbbed.  His entire body was being pulled into the ground with the weight of his exhaustion.  Although he was physically spent, his mind was now at ease.  The Skuli were behind him.  Their water was replenished.  He would not die today.  Now, he would sleep.

I am so excited about this Christmas break.  Yes, I’m excited for all the right reasons — celebrating Jesus’ birth, family and friends, good food — but, what really excites me is that the kids get to sleep in every morning!  What does that mean?  I get to work on the novel every day of this break!!!  I polished up chapter 17 this morning.

If you’re wondering about the title to this post, let me explain.  In the original manuscript there were creatures called Ghost Cats that got chased around the Waste by Desert Dogs.  I’ve changed that scenario a little bit.  Now the little rodents are called Numa.  The Deltorians believe they are the tortured spirits of the lost tribe, condemned to wander back and forth between this world and the next for eternity.  Their predators took a step toward the wild side.  No longer are they common desert dogs.  Now they are the Skuli, a night prowler covered with iridescent blue scales, multiple eyes, and fangs covered in purple, frothing saliva.  They’re viscious and they now play a bigger part in the trilogy.  You’ll have to read it to find out how.

In the next few days I will post an excerpt from the newly revised passage where Lane first encounters the Numa and the Skuli.  Stay tuned…

The fine-tune editing of Pleroma is coming along nicely.  One of the biggest critiques of the story, from all the readers, was that the journey from the village to the mountain, found in chapters 11-16, was too long.  It had nice descriptive language, but it dragged on with no action.  Coming back to the story after a few months, I can’t agree more.  I hit chapter 11 and felt like I was stuck in a bog of superfluous prose.  I am happy to announce that I have found great enjoyment in paring this passage down to an efficient and, hopefully, effective piece of literature.

While brainstorming on how to spice up this corridor of monotony, I decided to enhance the role and nature of the desert dog.  For one thing, I’m changing the name.  They are now the skuli.  You can hear them coming before they appear.  A cluster of sparks in the air precede them, just above the ground, emitting a static crackle, and then POP, they appear out of thin air. These beasts are like nothing on earth.  I’m still developing their physical appearance, but one thing I know is that they have slits along each side of their head that look like gills.  They only appear at night, that is, until Lane shows up.  When Lane and Jethro move through the Waste, they are no longer simply traveling, they are chased by a pack of skuli.  How will they escape these creatures?  Wait and see.

If anyone reads this blog, and has thoughts about the skuli, I welcome your comments.

This past week I spent time refining the website, specifically the new user registration interface.  Notice, on the right side of the page, you can log in with your user name and password.  It’s pretty slick.  If you haven’t registered yet, I invite you to do so and join us on this great adventure called Nectar.