This is my third blog entry in as many nights. I'm unsure of whether anyone will find these scribblings to be interesting or of any use, but hopefully, a record of my progress and thoughts will keep me focused and on track. This blog is as much for me as it is for my fans and readers. Writing is a solitary avocation which lends itself to straying from finishing stories in a timely manner. As a self-published indie author, losing my path forward is a constant reality. Procrastination, perfectionism, and marketing collude to distract and prevent me from doing what I love, creating works of dark fantasy that blow my mind and hopefully, in a good way, those of my readers.   

Tonight, I am in rare form. All thrusters are firing in unison. I have written a bounty of pages. At first blush, my new work appears to be quite decent, but only time will tell whether my first impression is accurate or merely wishful thinking. I have been writing long enough, over three years now, to know what gets written down in the first instance is only an inkling or shadow of what the finished product will ultimately look and feel like when I finally push the publish button on Amazon. 

I fleshed out more of the story that I mentioned last night about Blackie Tolstrom. Ten pages stormed from my gray matter and formed quite neatly on my pad of paper. That story is beginning to take shape. I think it will be a short story, but I've been wrong on that account more than once. Stories have a way of gathering their own momentum and have a tendency to go in unpredictable ways. Early on, I gave up trying to control what any given story will ultimately become. I let all of my children develop as they desire. You might think it strange I think of my stories as my children, but these tales are so much a part of me that any other relationship other than a parent-child relationship would miss the mark and fail to describe how I feel about them. 

My big book, THE SHADE'S TALE, is almost fully formatted and ready for publication. It is the first book of a trilogy and is shaping up quite nicely. I believe it's my best work yet, but time will tell. I'm sure my readers won't be shy and will fill me in as to the veracity of my first thoughts about that. In any event, this book has it all; action, magic, gobs of graphic violence and sex, monsters galore, and in essence, everything you could want from a dark, epic fantasy story. Hopefully, it's not too much, but then again, excess is what I peddle. 

I added another Passing Thought to Thought Train, a tidbit about madness. It came to me as I edited THE SHADE'S TALE. You might find the contemplation of interest. If you haven't already checked out Thought Train, you may find the little sketches about random concepts interesting and maybe even useful.   

Gotta let you go for now. Until we meet again, may great imaginings course through you, and may all your fantasies come true. May The Great Shadow keep the sun from burning your skin! 

This is my second blog entry, and another night of thinking and writing dark thoughts. And what a splendid night it is, cooler than the last and full of stars to boot. The heat is for the birds. Bring on the fall and the end of that stifling heat, so suffocating and constrictive of my creative juice!

When I think about shadows, coolness comes to mind. Not sure why, but it just does. The darkness delineates shapes with shades of black. Yes, I see black as a continuum of nuances that are perceptible, almost tangible to me. 

My current work in progress is a story set within a dark wood I call Dark Verdan. The main character is a sorcerer, who fancies himself to be a scientist. His name is Blackie Tolstrom, and he studies a phenomenon called The Lag.

Here's a bit of what I worked on earlier tonight: 

As I took a drink, I looked through the pinhole apparatus I had attached to a periscope. The sun appeared to be getting smaller, but not further away. That confused me. If our distance from the sun was increasing that would have explained my data, but that wasn't the case. Something else drove the curiosity I studied. This occurrence was getting more curious with each passing day and baffled me to no end.

Shifting on my stool, I took a sip and thumbed through my notebooks, looking for some tidbit to catch my eye. No matter how many times I had looked at the data, nothing jumped out at me. That was the frustrating part of this enigma. 

I did everything a scientist was supposed to do, and still, I had no clue as to what The Hell was going on. If I didn't get a handle on this phenomenon before it progressed any further, we would all be fucked in very uncomfortable places. The fate of The Gilded Earth depended upon me finding a solution. I needed to discover the nature of this damn problem. Calling it "The Lag" seemed thin, and a weak excuse for science. I knew better than to work backward from a conclusory statement, but what choice did I have? 

Time was not on my side. The pressure of finding a solution was getting to me. The magnitude of it all made me feel insignificant, and frankly, dumb. My years of study did nothing to prepare me for any of this. I needed to approach this problem from a fresh perspective. 

Attempting to clear my head so a novel path would come to me, I walked around the lab and sipped from my goblet. Rows of ironwood tables held systems of tubes and crucibles of my other experiments, which now seemed so unimportant. What was the point of searching for Cosmik Truths when life as we knew it was about to end? 

I stared aimlessly at the burbling matter that coursed through the tubes and tried in vain to lose myself within the gurgling I heard. I grasped for a spark of inspiration, something, anything to point the way. I paced for hours, forgetting each tick of the clock meant The Lag worsened. At wits end and on the precipice of giving up and smashing my goblet on the obsidian floor, I closed my eyes, took a few breaths, and removed myself to my inner place of solace - my Tower of Iron Will. 

***** 

I don't know what I'll keep of that piece or what I'll change, but there it is, flaws and all. That's how I write all of my stories. The real magic happens during the editing process. Well, I have to put my nose back to the grindstone. See you tomorrow night. 

As my first blog entry, it only seems right to say hello to my muse, darkness. I am PM Carron. I write dark fantasy stories with an epic bent. Dark, not because the main characters are evil or only exist for purposes of destruction, but because of the tone, nature, and texture about which I write. Darkness has nothing to do with morality, but is a state of mind that comes alive when an epic feel is added to the mix. Now, you see why darkness is my inspiration, don't you? If not, over time, you will come to understand my perspective, and maybe even come to appreciate it. 

A writer should never forget to pay homage to his or her muse. Those who do, pay the price by contracting the deadly disease, writer's block. Thankfully, I've never had the problem of looking at a blank page without a clue of how to fill it.

My literary problems flow in the opposite direction. So many ideas cascade through my mind every minute of the day, to the point of distraction, for which I have developed a system for capturing a few thoughts and letting the rest thunder around unimpeded and ignored. Capturing is probably not the best word for it. Corralling is more apt. 

As you can see, I am generally not at a loss for words. My stories connect within a framework I call The DANCES OF DELIVERANCE SAGA. These tales dance to the beat of a different drummer, meaning, they fall outside traditional definitions of fantasy. The nature of The Cosmos I write about is magical, but has elements of horror and science fiction as well. I never understood the arbitrary barriers writers have thrown up between fantasy, horror, and science fiction. I see all three of these elements as a unity, and thus, do not adhere to traditional definitions of fantasy. 

For the most part, my stories are dark because tales of peace are not of interest to me. I write what I know and love, and that involves darkness. In fact, my best writing occurs from dusk to dawn with a pen in one hand and a cigar in the other. Swirling smoke in the dim light of the moon, while I sit on my porch, gives me a sense of shadows dancing to and fro, spurring me to new heights of creativity. Time to go for now. See you tomorrow night.