New Novel in Progress-The Bowmen

I started writing a new novel this past weekend. I haven't done much writing since November, and January was just a complete loss due to multiple health issues. The origin of this novel is twofold. I love the Black King/White Queen series, have started writing several more sequels to that one, but then I had a dream, a magical dream and in this dream there were Bowmen, warriors of an elite class, and there was a young sorceress who was also a potions master and a bookseller. Thus, the idea came to me to write this novel as a companion novel to the previous series, but also a possible stand alone novel that meshes some of the characters from the series into this novel since Romney and Ivy Sharpe are the King and Queen of all the united practitioners of the dark arts and white arts.

In this novel young Mara Breton lives with her great-grandfather in Wichell, MA. It's a small city through which the Stanhope River flows. Mara runs the Breton Books. Her great-grandfather Mayhew Egerton is a much sought after potions master. Mara has been his apprentice since childhood. She has been kept rather isolated by her family, but she's lost the majority of her family members through the twenty-three years of her life, most recently her father and grandfather in the first major battle fought in Old Furnace and surrounding communities when Rayna Sharpe sent a demon to kill her father, the King, and her brother Romney who would be king upon his father's death. At the time of this story, that took place about six years ago when Mara was seventeen or eighteen (as she will be celebrating her twenty-fourth birthday in the present year.)

One day her great grandfather is lured out of the shop. Jeweler's son, Ardis Locke, arrives wanting a potion her great grandfather has prepared for him like NOW. Mara goes to the basement, which is under a strong spell that prevents anyone but her great grandfather and herself from descending into. But there is a powerful intruder who nearly kills her. She manages to kill him but a toxin invades her body due to a knife wound. When she manages to get back upstairs and give the potion to Ardis she witnesses something no one has ever seen before- she sees Ardis as a Bowman.

From there her life takes on complications. There is a sinister, cruel, and evil man named Dermit Sloan who wants to literally pick all the knowledge from Mara's brain in regards to the potions craft. Mara is not merely an apprentice potions master, she was actually born a master potions maker who has just been having her knowledge accessed by her great grandfather as he's been preparing her for her role in their magical world that co-exists with the real world. She is a valuable being that others want control of. But Sloan wants all her knowledge for himself and Mara dead and out of his way.

The Bowmen have been assigned to protect her-unseen.

That's what I'm working on at this time. I'm 25,000+ words into the novel and working on chapter eight. As usual I have no outline. The story is just flowing every time I sit down to write. That's how I always write- I let the story tell itself. Sometimes it changes direction and I have to go back to put everything back into alignment, but so be it. I'm almost to the point where I have to pause, read, jot down some notes, note any lost threads of connections I need to make- but so far I'm satisfied with the direction it's going.

Hoping to have this written and available at Articulture on May 1st and 2nd. Just need to keep my health on track. Fingers crossed on that!

Battling Brain Fog

I have an auto immune disease- rheumatoid arthritis. It's progressing, stealing from me fluid movement and what little grace I once possessed. Sometimes I feel like a disjointed marionette staggering and stumbling along. Walking on uneven surfaces is a jarring challenge.
   I can live with the joint pain and stiffness, the random muscle spasms and contractions, the tendinitis flare-ups, the feeling of being locked up inside my own body. I can deal with all that. What bothers me the most is the fatigue and brain fog that accompanies this disease. I miss the ability to have clear thoughts and remain focused. It has really made writing a challenge. I cannot concentrate and stay focused on what I am doing. I'm more easily distracted and discouraged. I have all these ideas in my head, but it can be exhausting trying to express them.
   Writing used to come so easy for me. I would sit down and the words would just flow out of me as if I was possessed by some spirit or other, a genie who'd escaped from a bottle and had so many stories to tell!
    I miss that. I find myself resenting what this disease has done to me.
    I've tried various medications but have had adverse reactions to them. I'm limited to one medication that I cannot quite tolerate at the max dose. I worry all the time about the time when my RA overwhelms the medication, stomps right over it and ravages an already war torn body and psyche.
   I am tired all the time. Everything I do requires a mind over body decision. The body wants to rest and not struggle and hurt. The mind wants to accomplish things, even though that means fighting through the fog and fatigue. I've never been one to sit and do nothing. RA is locking me down more and more. some days are worse than others. There are no good days anymore.
   There are so many things I want to do still...I'm just an awful lot slower at getting anything done these days.