Author Appleton

Writing. Fantasy. Sci-fi. Mystery

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My intention with “The Phantom’s Blade”

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I do not write stories simply to tell them. I do not look for the stories to merely entertain. I want them to have staying power and so they reflect the moments of my life. My next story explores the grim reality of loneliness and the hope of companionship. It shapes a future that is ever brighter because we must place our hope not in ourselves, but in the strength we find in doing good. Enter The Phantom’s Blade (The Sword of the Dragon book 4).

November 6th is the date! Finally it’s time to continue The Sword of the Dragon series and see what happens next with Ilfedo, Oganna, and Ombre.

I am so excited for this! It’s been a few years that I’ve been working on the material for this novel. The hardest part for me when writing Key of Living Fire was to leave a slew of newly-found characters in the underground city of Dresdyn. There are elements of the Hemmed Land’s history that have long hinted that they came from a land long lost. A history where technology was far in advance of what Ilfedo’s people currently understand as they exist in a near-medieval condition.

This book was written with sweat and tears… almost literally 😉 as I struggled to balance the many things going on in my life. Family, work, illness, moving to South Carolina, my fourth child being born, and now moving into our first house. It’s an exciting time as God has opened the doors so that now I can build a home business of writing, speaking, and editing. When your read my novels you are reading a reflection of what has happened and is happening in my life. My confusion, my revelations, my times of pain and of joy. The characters are put through much so that I can continue to evolve as a writer. So that my writing is not merely the telling of stories, but rather the sharing of visions striven for and attained.

Stories change hearts. Stories make a difference in our lives and in our culture.

So be sure to mark your calendar and warm a spot on your bookshelf for The Phantom’s Blade (The Sword of the Dragon book 4). Available on November 6th 2015.

Sneak preview! The Phantom’s Blade

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First draft of The Phantom’s Blade is done! Coming this Fall 2015 this novel is the highly anticipated fourth installment in The Sword of the Dragon series. I am pleased to present this sneak peak at the novel, its opening chapter. Enjoy!

ThePhantom'sBlade coverThe Phantom’s Blade (The Sword of the Dragon series) book 4

Chapter 1: Despair beyond the Sea

Caritha gazed out over the inlet’s deep blue water to the sea beyond, and she sank to her knees on the sand. Despite the clear sky on this cool afternoon, the sea boiled around the splintered hull of the Maiden Voyage. Sea serpents raised their heads as the coils of their slimy dark bodies squeezed the ship and foamed the water. Somewhere beneath the waves sank the bodies of the captain and the crew. Bravely they had fought to ensure that the last Warrioress made it to dry ground.

Sweat had dripped from the captain’s thick nose as salt water sprayed his face. He had driven a pike into one serpent’s body, drawing its attention away from her. “Get to land, lass! The ship is lost,” he had said.

“No! My sisters and I can fight with you.” She had aimed her sword at another of the creatures as it twisted its length around the ship’s bow. The sword glowed dull orange, but no matter how hard she tried she could throw no energy from it.

“No!” She knew then, knew all too well that her gift to Ombre had cost her more than she had imagined it would.

The deck had buckled, throwing her against the rail. Water had rushed beneath decks and the captain had braced himself, his large feet wide apart. “Fight? You cannot fight in the water. This ship is going down. You have only minutes to make up your mind.”

Another serpent had leaped out of the sea, smashing its length over the prow of the Maiden Voyage, and Caritha had glanced at the monster. But the captain had somehow moved across the splintering deck and grabbed her in his thick arms.

“When this ship goes down the serpents will make short work of all of us, my lady. With God as my witness I’ll not let you die when I could have saved your life.” He had heaved her over the ship’s side. When she had floundered from under the water and her head had broken the surface, a serpent had swum under her kicking feet. But it had ignored her and rammed the wooden ship. “Get to shore while there’s time,” the captain had yelled at her.

She had felt tears stinging her eyes as she, with difficulty, sheathed her sword and swam toward an inlet surrounded by mountains of ice. Her last glimpse of the captain, he and a member of his crew were desperately clubbing a serpent’s body as it coiled around the main mast and snapped it.

Now, standing on that unknown shore with her sisters, she felt hope sink with the Maiden Voyage. Not only had they failed to find a land suitable for relocation, until now they had found no land at all, and now that they had . . . They had landed in a place of apparent desolation and the cold wind whispered down the slopes of the sharp peaks that glistened like diamonds in Yimshi’s light. They were cut off from civilization, far from home without means of returning. It had been a long sea voyage. She couldn’t even guess how far they were from home.

Laura stepped up beside her and laid a hand on her shoulder. Rose’el trailed Levena and Evela as they too joined her.

Rose’el growled as she grabbed fistfuls of her dress and wrung water out the material. Her eyes narrowed as she glanced over her shoulder at the frozen world of white. “I don’t care what’s in that sea. I am going to swim back across, find a little house in the Hemmed Land, force a nice gentleman to marry me, and then settle down until I am old and very, very gray.”

“Be serious for once, Rose’el.” Caritha turned toward the ice mountain that rose a couple hundred feet away from the water. She studied its jagged form, the smooth polish of its surface, and she dropped to the ground and punched the sand.

Laura knelt beside her and rubbed her back. “It will be all right, Caritha. Do not fear. Remember what Father said to Evela when we started our mission to find Kesla?”

Caritha remembered. She recollected the powerful white dragon turning his pink eyes on her and her sisters, as they faced the portal to the Eiderveis River. She had been merely seventeen years old at the time. “I will be watching over you even when you cannot see me,” he had said.

She shook Laura off and rose. “Don’t you see? Things are different now.”

“No they are not!” Laura said.

“Look around, my sister. Better yet, take a look at the sea and tell me if you see anyone alive. Where are the captain and the crew of the Maiden Voyage? Do their lives matter to you? And what of Ilfedo, Oganna, and Ombre? They are waiting for our return before they set out to find the dragon Venom-fier. We have failed and they have no way of knowing.”

Laura and Evela hung their heads. Levena sniffed.

“Feel glad that we are alive,” Caritha said and covered her face with her hands. “But weep that so many have died on our account.”

She withdrew her hands from her face. Why hadn’t she noticed before that the shore on which she stood and the mountains of ice . . . they were familiar somehow? White clouds rose over the ice mountains, sailing over the peaks and filling the sky. A frigid wind caressed her arms, threatening to turn her wet dress into ice.

The sandy ground trembled and the mountains of ice crackled, sounding like miniature releases of thunder. Something living warbled in the distance. Between the mountains before them a long-necked creature slid into view. As it drew closer, Caritha caught her breath, for the creature was enormous with four flippers for limbs. It was as white as Albino, with a bulbous blubbery body.

From the creature’s nostrils water shot forth and struck her. Her sisters fell back and rolled into the inlet. But she drew her sword and closed her eyes, with all her might focusing on deflecting the water. The sword fed off her dragon blood, splitting the water to either side of her. The creature kept up its deluge until Rose’el and Levena stumbled to Caritha’s side and joined their blades with hers. Blue energy blasted from the united blades, knifed through the water and struck the creature’s head.

The creature warbled as the water ceased to flow from its nostrils. It lumbered back a hundred feet and warbled toward the mountains. Suddenly the mountains filled with innumerable warbles and another of the creature’s kind slid into view. Only, when it approached, it loomed even larger than its companion.

Its head rose far above them and it smiled down upon them. Needle-like teeth ringed its enormous mouth. It dwarfed even the great albino himself.

“Daughters of the great white dragon, how foolish of you to come to my lands. Do you not know that all who come here are never heard from again? Not even your dragon father could save you from the fate you have brought upon yourselves, for he dares not touch me. I am Cromlin, king of the water skeels, and today your lives are at an end.”

His nostrils cast water upon them and, as they threw their swords up to block the deluge, beams of light shot from his eyes. The beams cut through their defenses, and struck them to the ground.

They ran toward him, swords aimed for his thick body. They reached him and stabbed. The blades sank up to their hilts, yet drew no blood. Cromlin gazed down upon them and warbled, while his companion did the same. The sound rang into the mountains, into their ears, and built its intensity.

Pressure built in her ears. Caritha saw first Evela and then Rose’el drop to the ground, putting their hands to the sides of their heads. Soon she, too, succumbed.

Cromlin lumbered toward the inlet and smashed his fore-flippers together. A wave of sound struck Caritha’s chest, forcing air out of her lungs.

Addressing them in a voice that rang around them and into the ice mountains, Cromlin said, “You have fought worthy of a Water Skeel.” He lowered his neck, bringing his head within ten feet of their heads. “But you are no match for me!”

Caritha felt exhausted. She tried to summon her dragon blood. It warmed, then cooled inside her. She glanced at her sisters, but their faces froze in terror and tears formed in their eyes. Cromlin pulled back his head and a stream of water from his nostrils slammed into Caritha’s chest. The impact threw her and her back crushed against a boulder. The water continued to storm upon her, unending and unyielding. Every bone in her body conformed to the stone against which she was pressed, painfully stretching and bruising her body.

Beside her, Rose’el was pressed into the sand beside Levena, unable to move from under the water’s force. On Caritha’s other side Laura and Evela raised their swords into Cromlin’s onslaught.

Painfully raising her own sword, Caritha touched her sword tip to theirs. “Join with me, my sisters!” A wall of energy formed between the swords, a wall that surged against the water and turned it away.

Cromlin laughed and bore down upon her. His gargantuan body slammed into the beach. He slapped a flipper atop Rose’el and Levena, and struck Caritha, Laura, and Evela with the other. She might as well have attacked a wall as defend against so large a flipper. It rammed her against the boulder, and then withdrew.

“Your puny powers cannot compare to the might I wield!” Cromlin slid to the inlet and dug his flippers into the water. Five large cubes of ice formed between his flippers and he effortlessly plucked them out and chucked them at Caritha and her sisters.

Caritha glanced to either side, but her sisters had been separated too far from her to intercede. As a cube shot toward her, time seemed to slow. She watched it somersault through the air and felt, as it were, ice darts precede the object. Stabbing pain peppered the front of her body. She could barely move.

Tears that she longed to cry refused to come as she struggled with her sword. At last she managed to sheath it. She reached with a trembling hand into her pocket and untied the precious ring that Ombre had given her, slipping it onto her finger. Her body temperature dropped and icicles formed on her hair, hanging in front of her face—she was freezing alive!

But with her last moment of consciousness, as the end embraced her, she laid her hand against her chest and looked down at the engagement ring. The diamond glistened as ice covered it. She should have said yes to Ombre a long time ago. Now it was too late. “But I do love you,” she whispered. “And if God had allowed me to see you again, I would have been fully yours.”

The Ghost of A. Chantz and Clever fiction titles

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If you have read Key of Living Fire you will not be surprised that I enjoy spooky stories. One such story comes from none other than The Dick Van Dyke Show.

I love watching old television shows with my wife and kids. I’m a bit of a return-to-the-old-ways kind of guy. The Andy Griffith Show, Leave it to Beaver, I Love Lucy, and also The Dick Van Dyke Show. These shows are timeless, bringing us back to a simpler time when traditional family values were still pre-eminent in America. There is a lot to be learned on an artistic level by studying these episodes.

This week I wanted to do something different for you. I am going to recommend you watch a particular episode of Dick Van Dyke. If you don’t have the DVDs you can find it on Netflix. If you have already watched this episode please share what you thought of it

This episode was pure genius, showcasing one of the cast’s best performances. The title alone is such a clever play on words. When I am writing I often find the titles of chapters and of the book… come slow. When I see creative titles I study them in order to understand the process so that I can, hopefully, replicate that success in my own work. I want my readers to experience the same curiosity good titles have brought to me.

Dick Van Dyke: season 4 episode 2 “The Ghost of A. Chantz”

Question: What did you think of “The Ghost of A. Chantz”? (-:

A good first draft?

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I cannot tell you how many times I have heard an editor, a writer, or an agent make this absolute statement: “There is no such thing as a good first draft!” While I understand the point they are trying to make, I disagree with this all-inclusive judgment on all manuscripts we writers write.

When I wrote my first novel Swords of the Six it was far different from the final draft. I wrote the first draft, polished it, sent it to my editor, chopped it in two and rewrote large sections, etc. The process was long and arduous. By the time I was done I had no desire to touch a page of it again. Then, when I wrote my second novel I worked only a few drafts before sending it to my editor.

But when I wrote Key of Living Fire it was my first draft. Ignoring the don’t-send-your-first-draft rule-of-thumb I sent in the manuscript. The edits that came back were simple, occupying a mere couple pages.

What made the difference? I did not rush the writing of that manuscript. I let my creative flow lead me. If an element of the story did not move me emotionally I did not write it. If a plot element did not fire my imagination I paused to consider how to exchange that idea for another. Also, when it came to basic elements such as grammar I did not ignore a correction.

Hammering out the first draft quickly can sound appealing. But writers are artists, stories are the masterpieces. Think of it like a painting and get those brush strokes right the first time! In practice this is not always possible. Often your first draft will not be your last. But by aiming for quality over quantity we improve our first efforts. Do not underestimate what you can create with your first draft.

Question: What do you think of a writer’s first draft?

Finishing The Phantom’s Blade (in the midst of my busy life)

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For the past two years my readers have been asking, “When is the next book in The Sword of the Dragon series coming out?” This fourth installment is titled The Phantom’s Blade.

This writing project has been my most difficult yet. Why? Because I am juggling family, a full-time day job, and writing projects. This hasn’t been easy but at last I have found a “schedule” that is allowing me to get The Phantom’s Blade completed.

I work during the day, return home, and my kids are going to bed about 8 o’clock. Most nights I don’t get home until after 8 if not 9. I tried getting onto a morning schedule but so far without success. The challenge of that is that the kids can often get up in the middle of the night, so my level of energy and motivation in the morning varies greatly.

Up until I was seventeen I spent most nights stargazing with my telescopes (I’ve always loved astronomy). Often I stayed up until 3 or even 4 in the morning. The night hours have, ever since, remained my most productive time.

The Phantom’s Blade is passed 77,000-words now. I have been writing it late at night. Coffee has been the ticket to getting me passed midnight at which time my brain usually gets a second creative wind. The story has turned out really well. Many characters that readers of Swords of the Six, Offspring, and Key of Living Fire will recognize return for further development. I anticipate this book finishing at 90,000-words…

Expect The Phantom’s Blade to be available in paperback this Fall 2015.

What to do when a minor character shifts the spotlight

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Some writers outline their novels and somehow they strictly stick to those outlines. However, when I outline I stick to it only roughly. The story ends up taking the lead… instead of the other way around. That is what happened recently when I was working to wrap up the final arc in The Phantom’s Blade.

Following events in Key of Living Fire, The Phantom’s Blade is predominantly Ilfedo’s story. The city of Dresdyn is heavy on his mind and he sets forth on an expedition to lead the people out of that underground world and bring them to his homeland. But as we know from the previous novel the captain of the city guard has been possessed by some kind of ghost being (or as Ilfedo calls it, a demon). The story should pivot around Ilfedo and the captain as Ilfedo seeks to stop his enslaving the people of Dresdyn.

But as I wrote this portion of the story a minor character introduced herself. Neither hero nor villain she grabbed the reins and steered the story in a different direction than I had intended. Some writers would have taken the reins back in order to stick to the outline. From experience though, I have learned that a minor character can enrich the story world. I let the minor character shift the spotlight and the result was a better story… Which I look forward to sharing with you when the book comes out this Fall. 🙂

My humble recommendation is that the writing allow the minor personalities shine, thus allowing the story to evolve in unexpected ways. The results have always surprised me in a good way.

Question: What do you think of this “Seat of the Pants” approach to writing?

Cover reveal: The Phantom’s Blade (The Sword of the Dragon Book 4)

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In preparation for the release this Fall of The Phantom’s Blade (The Sword of the Dragon book 4) I commissioned the same artist who did the new edition for the Neverqueen cover. Here is the final cover:

Novel plot tease:

From across the sea the Maiden Voyage has failed to return to the Hemmed Land, leaving Ilfedo to wonder at the fate of his beloved Warrioresses . . .

The Hemmed Land is in political confusion thanks to Vortain’s dissidence. As mayor of Ilfedo’s chief city Vortain holds great political sway. He openly opposes Ilfedo’s proposal to form a rescue expedition to bring the people of Dresdyn to the Hemmed Land, and regards the young woman Ilfedo brought back from the Hidden Realm with deep suspicion. Even more strong is his opposition to Lord Ilfedo’s declaration that, as the albino long ago prophecied, the entire population must seek a new homeland.

Holding himself to a promise Ilfedo will not be swayed from seeking the people of Dresdyn. His allies are strong now. Few in the land hold the wisdom of Brother Hersis, and fewer still command the same respect in the military as Lord Ombre, and none have risen so high in the esteem of the people as Oganna.

An expedition launches to seek out the people beneath the desert sands, and only Ilfedo truly recognizes the nature of the enemy they face.

The Challenge of Writing Part-time

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There have been a few seasons in my writing life when I could devote one hundred percent of my working time to writing. The challenge for me now has been that I have various commitments that vastly limit my creative and writing time. Here is a glimpse into the challenge I face.

This is not a challenge that I take lightly. Time to devote to writing equals greater productivity because my mind is not under the same pressure that it is now. When I get up in the morning I want to give attention to my three wonderful children and to my wife. I want to sit down with them for breakfast, read the Bible with them, pray with them, go over the kids letters, help teach the kids to read. Then I head off to my day job. I work full-time in sales for one of the largest furniture store chains in the country. It is a good job. It pays well. I work under a good management team, and with some great colleagues. This job requires different disciplines than my home life. I must maintain a working list of potential and past clients, and generate new business. This job puts food on the table and the roof over our heads, and more. But it also requires working every weekend and most holidays and is straight commission, which equals higher stress because every week I must put the same drive into it that I have done in the weeks previous.

When I get home I am usually a bit tired. Not physically, for the most part, but mentally. I want to devote evening time again to family (though a few evenings per week I don’t get home until late).

I do not say this to complain, but rather to show you the challenge of being a writer. It requires commitment and vision. For now I chip away at big writing projects that before would have taken me a mere matter of months to complete. Often my writing time is after everyone is in bed. I should be sleeping now because I am tired, but if I don’t write, the books will never be written… and I love to write them. The stories are always building in my mind, urging me to share them.

For now I write part-time, out of necessity. But I am scheming to return to writing fulltime. It will happen again. I have faith that God has given me this drive for a reason and when the time is right He will open the necessary doors. For now my energies are divided in several directions… and it slows the process. The primary thing is to not lose sight of the dream, never give up on the goal, and always take the writing commitment seriously.

Question: What are your challenges in pursuing your dream?