I have come be nervous about January. Every year it seems to be “surprisingly” busy. This year was even more fun because I work five days a week, and the other two I’m trying to finish my degree so I can teach English. Perhaps it was a bad time to try a new writing style, or maybe I was just having a hard time in general. Who can say?

In any case, I’m glad I stuck with REWARDED WITH A CURSE. I probably never would have gone back to a 1st person story if I’d given up. I even think this turned out to be a pretty interesting idea. So, tomorrow we’re getting back into things with podcast story #9!

When the leader of a small group of wizards discovers the existence of an ancient ritual said to grant vast amounts of power, greed and darkness follow in the wake of its discovery. Roger Gardwhin, a middle-aged man trying to maintain a normal life outside of his Circle of wizards, is forced to take part against his will. As the day of the ritual approaches, he realizes just what he is getting himself into.

Check back tomorrow for part one!

Next Tuesday we’ll be starting the ninth podcast story. I’m challenging myself yet again with this one. I’ve never tried to write a 1st person story before so it seemed time. It’s not that I dislike them. It’s more that I think 3rd person limited is more fun when writing fantasy. I love having multiple characters telling a story, hiding certain things, revealing others. It’s a delicate game you have to play when writing them. 1st person is a bit more straight forward. Still, since I’ve never done it so I figured why not?

Next Tuesday will start REWARDED WITH A CURSE. This is the tale of a small group of wizards living in the modern world. When the leader of this group discovers the existence of an ancient ritual said to grant vast amounts of power, greed and darkness seem to follow in the wake of its discover. Roger Gardwhin, a middle-aged man who tries to maintain a normal life outside of his magical group, is forced to take part despite many misgivings. As the day of the ritual approaches, he’s realizing just what he is getting himself into.

I hope you join us next week to start the new story!

When you live in Texas, you get used to some crazy storms. When it started to rain on Christmas Eve I wasn’t all that worried about the drive I was going to be making in a few hours. But the rain didn’t stop, still I was only mildly concerned. The drive down south went smoothly enough, but it still rained the entire way.

Now, in our modern world, rain isn’t all that big of deal for drivers. Some go a bit slower, some STILL drive fast with their lights off surely trying to annoy anyone they can *rage*, but getting stuck in the rain is something we mostly don’t have to deal with. Well we spent Christmas at a lake house in south Texas. There are mostly paved roads, but certainly not once you get on to the property where we were staying.

I noticed it immediately. “Sam, I just pulled on to this road and I’m already sliding.” We look at each other nervously and both nod. “Let’s just go really slow.” So we decided to trudge through and keep going. That was when we saw my sister, soaked, barefoot, holding an umbrella, and crying. This does not bode well, I think. We pull up and roll down the window, saying she should get in, which she won’t do because she’s muddy. *sigh*

Her SUV is stuck about 1/4 mile up the road. She has four wheel drive. We do not.

The plan is to call our father to come pick them up, she was with her son and one of my other sisters. Then the waiting begins. We wait, and wait, and wait some more. Happily enjoying Christmas Eve in the middle of a muddy road… We finally get word. He is stuck too. By now we’ve decided we’re NOT continuing down this road (really I think we decided that when we saw the rain-drenched form of my sister in the road, but we said it out loud now).

I put the car into reverse and we slowly move back to the main road. It’s dark, it’s rainy, I can’t see a thing, but we keep moving. Then comes the big hill–which actually turned out to be a very small hill when I saw it the next day–and the tires start spinning. We can move forward, except we can’t, because 2 cars are now blocking the road that would surely get us stuck anyway, but we can’t go back any further. Five family members now line up in front of our car and attempt to push us up this hill. But no, the tires won’t do it. We pull over, and we abandon a 3rd car to the mud monster.

Out of sheer luck my teenage sister has a friend on the way to spend Christmas with her. Her father is bringing her, and he’s just down the road. Victory! We’ve all decided to go in the BACK way, which wasn’t dangerous at all. I didn’t even know there was a back way.

So he arrives while we’re waiting in the rain. My wife and my sister are barefoot because they didn’t have shoes they could wear in the mud, one had flip-flops and the other had suede boots. Samantha refused to wear my shoes, so I made her stay on my back for most of the walk and while we waited on the road.

Finally help arrives in the form of a big pickup truck. Cold wife and directions-giving father get in the front of the truck and the rest of us pile into the bed. And so our drama ends. What else did we have to do while shivering in the bed of a truck, so we sang Christmas carols all the way to the house. Christmas turned out to be pretty great after that questionable start. And hey, what a story to tell.

Here is the full version of Marked By The Dragon. I’m sick, so I’m going to keep this one pretty short. See previous posts for more information about what this story was about. And join us in 2 weeks for the start of a brand new story! Next week I’ll talk about what the story is going to be. Check here to read on the site, or here to read on Goodreads.

As always, I hope you enjoy the story.

I hope everyone has a fantastic Christmas. I feel like we haven’t stopped moving this entire holiday season, from Thanksgiving until now, but I expect (or maybe just hope) that things will be very different after this week. I’ll be out of classes until the second week in January or so and it will just be regular ‘ol working for me. That’ll be a nice change. It will also mean two solid weeks of some hardcore writing. Huzzah! I expect I’ll be able to finish The Forest Awakens during those two weeks. And also get a few new podcast episodes written. *fingers crossed*

Christmas has be FUN so far too though. We had my wife’s grandmother for our traditional pre-Christmas chicken enchiladas last night. Yum yum! We opened our presents and got to talk. I think it says a lot about me that my wife bought me a medieval lego set, I got her the new Donkey Kong Country Wii game. Hehe. Today we’re off to the family ranch to spend the remainder of the time with most of my family. That means there will be a whole lot of kids there. There is nothing like doing Christmas morning with a whole lot of little children.

I hope you guys all have a good Xmas too. Feel free to let me know what you’ll be up to! I always like a good Xmas story. And for fun, this is a trailer for the game. Cause it looks awesome and we can’t wait to play it!

The Lands of Draknor is something that has been rolling around in my head for a very long time. I still remember the very first short story I wrote in that world. Ashthranh, mercenary for the Gods, and a murderous task. It was a very simplistic tale back then, written by a 16-year-old Sophomore in high school, but it started something much bigger. Over time that simple plot changed a great deal, but the main protagonist, Ashthran the Dryth, never did. Working on these podcasts, many of them being set at various periods in time in the world of Draknor, has really made me want to get back into the creation of this world. And so I think I will. I am getting close to finishing the final draft of The Forest Awakens, so I believe my assassin novel will have to be put off yet again to make way for something much more significant to me.

Check back next Tuesday for the full audio of Marked By The Dragon!

Here is the second and last half of Marked By The Dragon. Renier has begun his initiation ritual, but hasn’t yet realized what a struggle it will be. Will he have the strength to stand up to Nyxor? Or will the dragon find him unworthy? This is the conclusion of story #8. I’ve enjoyed dabbling in the world of Draknor more lately. Many of these tales take place in the world itself, but this is the first that is aligned to the time line of the actual series.

It looks we’ll be starting a new episode at the start of the New Year! That’s always fun. As always, I hope you enjoy the story. If you’d rather read the story, read it here on the site, or on Goodreads.

Something I’ve wanted to do more lately is work on a little artwork to go along with each of my stories. I don’t know how successful this will be, I’m not a very good artist. But I have a lot of fun drawing. And I figure, like writing, practice can only make me better. I wanted Nyxor to be a little bigger I think, but I like how this came out.

This a one of the Draknor shields that might be found where Marked By The Dragon takes place, in the holy city of Alindrak. The symbol is of a dragon, Nyxor, eating her own tail. Based upon the oldest known symbol, the Uroborus. It’s one of my favorite symbols.

I’m looking forward to going back a bit and trying my hand at some artwork for older stories as well. Hopefully it all ends well. If nothing else, at least I’ll get to have some fun with it.