Thankfully, another story started pushing its way out of my brain, and I decided to go with it. GrimFaerie will still be there when I'm ready to approach it again, and the scenes I was seeing were clamoring to be written, so I put GF aside and wrote just one scene. That scene turned into a chapter, which was followed by another and yet another. And now, I'm in familiar territory and having a blast writing a new book in the Jidaan series.
Set two decades after the events in the first trilogy, you'll find some old friends and make some new ones. I'm loving it so far, and I hope y'all will too. Here's an excerpt from the rough draft:
WIP - Current Title: "Reyanna's Destiny"
Through the red haze of agony, Reyanna saw a man. He
was of midling height, lean and strong, not old but not young, wearing a
battered old brown hat and a traveling cloak. Wind played with the folds of his
cloak, whipping it about. He had something long strapped to his back, its
wooden handle jutting over his right shoulder, a small leather bag tied on the
end as though to cover it.
Odd, she thought absently, the pain in her head keeping
her from examining it more thoroughly.
The stranger was standing on a grassy rise that
overlooked a meadow. In the distance, Reyanna could see the stark bluffs and
steep crags of an ancient mountain range. The man’s face was hidden in the
shadows of the hat’s brim, but when he turned to look past her, his eyes caught
the light, and they blazed a sapphire blue. She had seen those eyes before. But where? Through the pain in her head,
she could not focus, could not think. She dimly realized that she was on her
hands and knees in the grass, but that seemed less substantial than the vision
in which she was immersed.
She heard a terrifying howl, an animal, and finally
she saw a massive beast top the rise to stand next to the man in her vision. It
was a mastiff, but bigger than any she had ever seen. Its muscular body was
covered with scars, its face pulled into a permanent snarl that only widened as
the dog barked and howled at something that approached. Reyann felt a rumbling
deep in her bones, and saw the two figures stumble as they fought to keep their
balance. The dog barked louder as the man’s eyes were drawn upward. An enormous
shadow crawled over them as something blocked out the sun. Something
approached. Something big. The intensifying wind ripped off the man’s hat,
leaving it to dangle behind him by a thin leather thong that encircled his
throat, and Reyann saw his shock of bright blond hair buffeted by the wind. The
vicious scar tissue that covered the right side of his face was clearly
visible, and the shock of recognition hit her again, followed by confusion. She
knew him, but did not.
In her minds eye, the vision continued, and the man’s
face took on a ferocious, determined glare. Whatever was coming, it was evil
and he would fight it. In one smooth motion, he reached over his shoulder and
pulled the unknown weapon from his back, revealing a long-bladed spear that
gleamed in spite of the looming shadows. Reyanna felt the man’s power rise as
he brought the weapon into a fighting stance, and saw the leather bag suddenly
disintegrate as the emerald beneath it blazed brightly to life, burning the
covering away. He bellowed in defiance as the huge dog beside him howled its
own fury into the wind at the oncoming threat.
And just as suddenly as it had come upon her, the vision ended, leaving her slumped facefirst in the grass, her lungs heaving in relief. - Copyright Whit McClendon 2017
In other news, I've become the announcer for our local pro wrestling promotion, Domination Zone Wrestling, Inc. Loving every minute of it! Although it's not something I ever planned to do (I kind of fell into it. Well, volunteered to be choke-slammed into it.) I'm having a total blast. Local shows are just a few minutes from my house and my son loves going and cheering the wrestlers until he's hoarse. Definitely Father-Son bonding time at its finest.
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