This book is taking soooo long. 

It's bad when readers say that, but I feel it's worse when the author says that.

Brain: I have other things to write ya know.
Me: Yeah, totally, but like, I only have an hour to write everyday.
Brain:That's bullsh*t! 
Me: Yes. Bills are bullshit. 
Brain: Throw everything in the fire. Let's write!
Me: Want some food?
Brain: Squirrel... 

So, what's going on? Why is it taking me so long?

I've created worlds before, but this one is very interwoven. The things I've learned are meeting my wild imagination and like a morning glory against a brick wall, the world story is unfolding with every sentence. It's massive. I write things down. I have to make sure I'm not contradicting the original story, I'm finding ways to connect the dots all while thinking, what does the read need to know? 

Or, in other words, I'm having too much fun with this story. 

It happens. 

Authors get enamored with their stories. I've been writing PYROMAGE (working title) off and on for a while now. I wrote HANDLE WITH CARE and THE SILENT ROAD between it. Every time I see the end, I think of something wrong with a situation. I like for my stories to be able to suspend readers belief and the only way I can do that is with science. 

Even magic has to have rules. 

So, I work on it everyday, but it's a slow process. One that is worth it for me.

I've got another excerpt for ya...

As usual mistakes are my own. 
This isn't edited. 
Everyone's a critic and going to email me why I'm a horrible this that and the other. I don't care.  Blah, Blah, Blah...

Just know this. It's still copyright. 

Excerpt from WIP title: Pyromage

​No part of this story may be reproduced or transmitted without written prior permission from the publisher. This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, events, incidents and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

This is a totally unedited chapter. It may or may not stay the same after final edits and it may or may not remain in the story.

If you find any grammar, spelling or punctuation errors, please let know via the comments!! I may not get to them right away, but I will get to them. Thank you!

If you are totally lost & would like to start at the beginning of (working title) PYROMAGE, click the button below.

WARNING! PYROMAGE IS PART OF THE DARK HEART HEROES LINE AND CONTAINS NON-CONVENTIONAL RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN MEN.

Confusion spun my head into muddled thoughts and throwing emotion in the mix that summed up this whole situation in one-word. “Idiot.”

The lug of a Chintan bodyguard didn’t give me answers. But he was the perfect companion among the sheep. Even after saving everyone from drowning, my herd watching shift wasn’t over.

We kept vigil at the grotto’s entrance, dangling our feet over the opening’s ledge, watching the waves, searching for a miffed Hydragon. He was out there, probably plotting our demise. The Chintan didn’t seem to wonder how long he’d been out there. Or why Aleenia hadn’t told anyone about the other dragon.

“She didn’t seem to think he was the one Elddyn was talking about,” I said out loud but didn’t expect an answer. I dared not speak my concern. That maybe Aleenia kept us away from the one Elddyn foretold. The dragon that would, successfully, lead the drake’s home.

Maybe she didn’t want to be alone. Perhaps she knew he wasn’t the one. Or maybe she had another reason to reject him.

My Chintan laid his metal fingers on the back of my hand.

I jerked out of my thoughts, scanning the sea. “Do you see him?”

The Chintan cupped my face, turning my head towards him. He then placed the palm of his right hand over the back of his left digits, making the sign for Terragon.

“What about her?” I looked to Aleenia. She slept. Her breaths deep and slow sending a waxing and waning breeze through the grotto like an ocean tide.

He put both hands over his heart then brought them over to me as if holding water in his hands. Love.

“Aleenia loves us.” I nodded. “But what if…” I whispered.

The Chintan brought both hands up as a whole, inverting his palms down. Hoard. Love and hoard were the same gesture, only backwards.

“Yes.” I glanced nervous at her long neck form. “And it’s rude to talk about it.”

He huffed.

Thinking and speaking were not the same no matter what he insinuated. “I wasn’t talking about it.”

He shook his head. The metal mask looking less angry and more desperately gloomy these past three days. The cloak on his back played with the breeze. It’s red luster soaked in the sun giving the fabric a velvet appearance.

I scooted closer and leaned into him. “She said Elddyn didn’t choose him.”

“What if he isn’t? It doesn’t make his argument less true.” Vanfald walked up from the connecting cavern. “Shouldn’t we send word to Elddyn?” She stepped over to Aleenia and brushed a hand over the grand one’s jowl.

“How logical of you.” I twisted around and stood.

“As the servant of Air, one might assume you’d already thought of it.” She skated around the walls as the Earth Chintan stalked over to his brother.

Vanfald liked to dress suggestively female. Blond hair spilled out from a cowl shielding her face. The princess cut of her dress exposed her legs at the thigh. Water curled around her waist like a tail, whipping back and forth as if I were a bothersome fly. Her power over the element was indeed impressive, but she waved her rule over Water too often to make me believed she had any more skill than parlor tricks. Elddyn hadn’t needed to prove his mastery over his element.

​“As soon as his ship arrives, I’ll send word.”

Thank you for reading!

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If your new here, you're in for a treat!

This maybe the last of the FREE published stories that I've won an award for so pay attention! Below is CHAPTER 2 of "Dangerous Gamble". 

Also, because this is a free story it will be doled out in parts. All the parts will be connected so you can follow the completed story. ​

After I dropped off the suit and picked up my check, I had enough money to sit and drink two shots at the Star and Garter. No ship. No money. No one here to trust and I smelled like week-old trash. Felt that way, too. I took a shot of the potts-dim liquor—the cheapest crap you could buy that didn’t have the consistency of used oil. It would burn the nose hairs, though, which helped to keep from smelling myself.

“If it isn’t the pilot himself.”

That would be me. Apparently no one else who ever sailed into Trevithick had ever made a mistake.

I pulled up my shoulders to my ears and lowered my head, as if hiding my face would hide my shame.

An older gentleman with small, round, black-framed glasses sidled up to me. He wore a pilot suit under a deep red velvet robe with an Imperial insignia clasp at his collar bone.

“Yep.” I swallowed the last of my paycheck down my gullet and climbed off my stool. “If you’re looking for compensation then all I have is a sorry and the skin off my hand.”

“I was actually looking for a drinking partner.” He sat on the stool next to me and flagged the bartender.

Dalton, the barkeep, stepped up to the man, eager to take his order. “Yes, sir?”

“Bast snake gin?” the old Imperial asked hopefully.

The bartender frowned and shook his head in disappointment. “Still not here.”

The old Imperial sighed. “Then two rounds of what my friend here is having.” He smiled at me and clapped a hand on my shoulder.

I raised my hands. “I don’t have a way to pay for more.”

“It’s on me,” he said, and thrust a greeting hand forward. “The name is Felix Wulfhart.”

I shook his hand. “Corran Antilles.”

Dalton placed two shots of amber liquid in front of us and Felix downed his.

Unsure of the situation, I did the same. I didn’t want to piss off anyone else in this place.

“So why the long face?” he asked.

My eyebrows rose. “Have you seen pad thirty-eight?”

He laughed deep and hearty. “Yes, son. In fact, I was watching you from the Peterson building when you came in.”

“Great, so you got a front-and-center view of my humiliation.”

“Better than being shot to molecules by Trevithick guns.”

“Maybe,” I said. There wasn’t a place on this station that would put me up for free. Mom and dad didn’t have the money to get me back home. I’d have to find a way to get planet-side by myself.

“So, Corran, what’s next?”

Seriously? “Yeah, I thought I’d jet over to Fairbairn Station. See how well a half-baked hauler bounces around in their docks. Hell, maybe they have rubber walls.”

“Well, I suppose that’s your choice.” Felix assessed me. My impression was that he was taking my measure.

“Choice?” I said. “None of us has a choice.” I waved my hand at the other patrons. “It’s starve with a job or starve on welfare. Look around.”

He glanced at the people in the bar and returned his attention to me. “So you give up?”

“No,” I pouted. “But there’s only so much to go around.”

“Well, with that mentality there sure is.” Felix waved a goodbye to Dalton, turned around and left me looking at his long drape of a robe. Pompous prick. Just because you have money… Now it was a matter of pride. I chased after him down the metal hall of the station.

When I caught up, I demanded, “What do you mean by that?”

The biggest grin seemed to crack his face in two. “I mean, Corran Antilles, you reap what you sow.”

“So you do think it was my fault the ship broke down. Do you know how hard it is to steady a hauler with a stuck thruster with only rudders for steering?”

Felix stopped. “I thought it was only the control stick that malfunctioned.”

“Che, well, if you ask me, everything on that ship malfunctioned except for the cargo ramp.”

Felix wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me next to him like a mother bird would her chicks. “Ah, my dear boy, you are better than I expected.”

He led me down a corridor going to the landing pads.

“Better than you expected?”

“How would you like to fly for yourself?” Felix asked.

“Wait, are you offering me a job?” Was he crazy? What did he want me to haul? Probably something illegal.

“I’m offering you the break you always wanted.”

“Hey, um… I can’t ship illegal cargo. I have family.”

Felix laughed. “You can decide what you carry.”

We entered the port toward an orange Sidewinder with a racing stripe on the left side.

“Okay,” I said. “But I don’t have a ship.”

He gestured at the Sidewinder. “Yes you do.”

I stared at the box of a vessel. “That’s not mine.”

“It is now.” He stepped up to the cargo ramp and waved me inside.

The maneuverable wing of a ship looked like a tent, but if she was mine I didn’t give a flying flag. I raced up the ramp. “What do you mean it’s mine?” Mine as in mine?

“Corran, I’d like to be your benefactor.”

“Whoa, benefactor?” What the hell was a benefactor? “Wait,” I waved my hands and stepped back. “I’m not into guys.”

“No, Corran.” Felix took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “The ship—I’m giving it to you. Your pilot’s dues are paid. All you have to do is find cargo and get it to the destination.”

I still wasn’t convinced. “And what do you get?”

He put his thick bottle-caps back on. “Bragging rights and a pilot I can depend on every so often.”

“Nothing illegal?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it, and you should check the system you’re going into if you’re concerned about such things.”

Standing there bewildered, I tried to wrap my head around everything. My own ship? I could go anywhere?

“You’ll need a pilot’s suit, but the vessel is fully fueled.”

Felix added more confusion to the mix. Why was he giving me this? What was the catch?

“You’ll find credits in your account,” he said. “I suggest you take a shower first.”

I looked inside the cockpit in awe. “Shower first. Got it.”

Any moment now I’d wake up on the floor of the Star and Garter.

“Good luck, Corran.” Felix left me there standing inside the Sidewinder, trying to slap myself awake.

Mune was a film that took me a good fifteen minutes to adjust to the animation. The story was one either made up or that I'm not familiar with but I loved the concept. The creativity within this project needs a huge applause. 

The voices were perfect. I enjoyed each and every scene. I can't say enough about the imagination that went into this story. While it took me a while to realize Mune was a faun, I noticed the resemblance Sohone had to a lion straight away. Temples pulling the sun and moon were a new and fascinating concept for me. 

What threw me off further was the inanimate objects being sentient such as Glimer (Glim), who was made of candle wax, but she seemed to be the oddball. Most other creatures were representatives of real animals. But they were drawn more like people. 

Drawing animals as people is tight.

Each new scene brought with it a whimsical, fantastical world I will enjoy again and again. It felt new while also being the typical hero's journey. I fell into the world, the characters and the second time around I might be able to see more than just wondering what Glim was supposed to be. It took me a bit of watching until I finally "got" that she was a candle despite the obvious implications at the beginning of the movie. It was both a ahhh... duh... moment. Thankfully the awesome overshadowed my perplexity. 

In the end it gave a happy ending kiss that didn't seem all that necessary but sweet. After searching the internet for images, I know fujoshi fan's went in their own direction despite the implication of Glim and Mune coming together at the end. (No pun inteded)  :) Boys love forever! Sohone ♥ Mune.

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