Gathering around the fire to tell stories

Another quote from Land of the Ever-Living Ones, about the value of fireside stories.

Moonset . . . the sadness of a thousand partings

I had awoken from the most magnificent dream

Another quote from LOTELO. Please feel free to download and share.

The magic of fire . . . a quote from Land of the Ever-Living Ones

To celebrate the fact that my new novella and first work of fiction, 'Land of the Ever-Living Ones', is now available to download on Amazon Kindle, here's another quote from the book. Feel free to download and distribute this free wallpaper.

The flaming globe: an inferno of hope that breaks the dawn . . .

Another quote from the forthcoming novella 'Land of the Ever-Living Ones'. I am glad to report that we are almost at the target for donations and are currently talking to a printer with a view to getting the book published within the next week or so. Thank you for all your support so far. 

The wind speaks vehemently of its lonely sojourn

Another quote from Land of the Ever-Living Ones. At this moment, one final proofreading is taking place, and the book is about 98% ready for print and eBook distribution. If you would like to donate towards the printing costs and to support me in getting this work out to the public, please click on the link below. Every donation helps. Thank you.

Working on the cover design for LOTELO

I have been referring to 'Land of the Ever-Living Ones' by its acronym, LOTELO, and I have become quite fond of its short name. I came up with three possible cover designs and asked people on my Facebook pages to vote for their favourite, and to rate them according to a list of key words relating to the book's themes. Here are the three cover designs:

I asked people to consider the following key words when they were choosing their favourite: air, wind, fire, water, earth, monuments, prehistory, Ireland, mythology, otherworld, heaven, stars, celestial, cosmic, mysticism, ancestors, transformation, learning, knowledge, wisdom, death, rebirth, solstice, night and day.

The middle cover was by far the most popular, with the votes working out at a ratio of 1:2:1. I ruled out the right-hand cover altogether because many people thought its colouring was similar to the cover of 'Island of the Setting Sun', even though it is a beautiful cover nonetheless. Several people thought the middle cover could do with a bit of colour punch and depth, so I decided that, in keeping with one of the central themes of the book, I would add some stars into the sky and darken it up a bit. What I ended up doing was taking the sky from the left-hand image (stars over Dowth) and pasting it into the middle image. Here is what I came up with:

A draft cover for LOTELO.

I continue to work on editing the book. One major edit was done last weekend, and a second major edit is now being completed. When that's done, hopefully in a day or two, I will give a copy of the manuscript to two proof-readers to ensure it's all okay. At that stage, I hope to select a printer and get it off to print. In the meantime, I will try to format it for Amazon Kindle, where it will be available as an eBook.

All going well, I will be launching the book in Drogheda in early November, to coincide with Samhain. Hope to see you there!