My next novel in the fantasy novel series, Phantammeron Book Two, is slowly taking shape. I’m fully committed now to the next novel. There are too many fascinating events in the next two Phantammeron books I want to get down on paper. So I’m doing small pieces of the novel as time permits.

As I’ve mentioned, all 12 books have already been written as far as major plots and events are concerned. All that was completed in 1989 over 30 years ago in a series of notebooks I have kept. Years ago I was a more vibrant person, very intellectual, and a more trusting and imaginative young man when I wrote the stories.

Now I’m a bit more jaded, heavily schooled by the real world, a bit wiser, and more hopeful and more understanding of Humanity than I was back then, with a greater capacity for Love and acceptance of flaws in myself and in others.

I’m hoping by combining these two people, young and old, I’ll have some unique perspective in the books coming up most authors cannot experience.

The next 3 books are already copied into my computer, and fleshed out pretty thoroughly. However, as many writers know, its the final narrative that matters…..the actual character development, dialogue, and details that bring the story to life.

In Book Two’s outline and events, it is likely Ill go over my standard 500 page limit. I may go way beyond that limit. Trust me when I say I’ll never have writers block ever! There are too many new characters and creatures in the next two books to even list. Again, Nearly all are already fleshed out in the story. The problem I will have is condensing the book down. And so that’s why I am in the painful process of throwing out material….and its very painful.

Part of the problem is I’ve ended up actually adding a type of sub-section to book two – a preamble of sorts – that is called “The Dream”. I tried to add this section to make my books standalones (new readers not needing to read prior books). But it’s also added huge amounts of material. So I’ve got a lot of cutting to do. This section takes the reader through the rebirth of the world of Phantaia that occurred in Book One, then introduces the reader to the sleeping maiden Ana who perished in the first book. She in fact is dreaming in a tomb under the earth as the waters of the Sacred Pool pour forth from her into the garden’s above. In the second book she then goes on a dream to find her mother, and the story begins.

In part of that scene she will finally awaken from her tomb (a Christ-like symbolic idea) and enter the gardens above and there find her two babies in the Sacred Pool beside the One Tree. And her life with her young sons begins the story for Book Two.

Part of that scene involves a return of her love interest Ama who was slain in Book One by the Shadow. I enjoyed writing this sort of Hamlet-like scene where Ana talks to a ghost she cannot touch or embrace, but still loves and needs.

In that scene Ama tells Ana, when he perished, his spirit traveled to the underworld, or Land of the After Life called Avredd (“abreth”). I originally took this concept from ancient Celtic texts that describe a place called Annwm, or “anoon”, the fairyland where our English ancestors believed the dead would go in their pre-Christian belief system.

It was fun to write this scene as I introduce the reader to another mystical layer to the very large Phantammeron mytho-scape…..Avredd being a vast 3-tired shadowy landscae under the Dreaming Seas where the souls of the dead go to rest, but from which they are also reborn.

Ama’s ghost appears to Ana as she sits beside the pool in Abrea and describes to her his adventure. He tells her he has been lost in the lonesome woods of Phantaia, trapped in the mists between day and night, until he finds a grand stair leading to a beach whereupon rest “silver ships” waiting for him beside a silent sea. He then hears a calling from Ana and the woods, his spirit drawn back to the garden to meet Ana. He then describes a premonition he has that his spirit could not go to Avredd because he was destined to roam the woods as a half-life, his purpose to guide the souls of other who will surely die later from an evil that haunts the forest. But his real purpose is to still watch over Ana and her sons, which are also his own. And so he mourns the loss of Avredd, but also celebrates the fact he can watch over his children.

This sort of conflicting dichotomy fills all my books, btw, and is one of the the things Im exploring in various forms throughout the series…..the idea that we all live conflicted lives, filled with opposing pressures and beliefs. But its also the idea that it’s those dual-natures that makes Western people who we are….why our culture has such conflict and competition, sports, politics, and the cultural beliefs in holidays, relationships, and activities we cherish as modern Celts.

But the main story in Book Two will surround Ana’s two strange sons who are themselves polar opposites in both appearance and personality. One is positive, hopeful, joyful….the other dour, mistrusting, inquisitive. From their story will comes even greater wonders as I build up a new backstory for the forested paradise called Phantaia that will be the home of the Gods, the much-loved paradise if the Fay, and the source of their later plights.

One side hint about book two….the witch Anissa will return to the darker parts of the woods called Avaras introduced in Book One. In fact she is the polar opposite of Ana in the play….the Anti-Mother, or Dark Queen to Ana (the Good Mother). Anissa will re-explore the Dark Pool discovered by Ana in Book One. And another revelation concerining its strange purpose will be revealed to the reader, including Anissa’s origins.

The evil Shadow will also be reborn again in book two, the witch having discovered his dark spirit in the underworld. I’m taking the traditional good vs evil fairy tale plot here, with a few twists. But there is much much more strangeness to this book.

Why has Anissa given a new life to the Shadow? What is his purpose and how will he affect Ana’s children who live in the sunny paradise of Phantaia? And what of a mysterious third child born to Ana?

What happens to the Shadow will be something unexpected and very imaginative in Book Two (part of his fate was revealed in a vision the Shadow had in Book One). This will set up the truly wild Book Three of the Phantammeron which introduces a whole new cosmology of creatures and animals. From this comes the final events surrounding Phantaia and a new change that begins in Book Four.

But what still lies in the misty woods of Twilight Phantaia that all men and women still must seek in later books? Many new mysteries and creatures will be revealed in Book Two of the Phantammeron. So stay tuned!

– the Author

Created Mar 16, 2018, 10:28 PM