Thought I'd take a few minutes to talk about the book I'm currently working on, titled Calliope.

There was a time when I was working on Nightmaria and decided "this is it, this is my one fantasy epic, and it will be my enormous final statement on the genre." Most of my work has fallen into horror, which is fine with me, although one needs to stretch their legs every once in a while.

I had never expected to try my hand at fantasy (although apparently a lot of people who know me did figure such) and when I conceived Nightmaria I thought a five-book epic fantasy series would be enough.

I was wrong.

It turns out I still have a few things to say about magic, and in particular about the magic of stories. Calliope is a very different kind of fantasy than most of what I've seen before, and most certainly a very different kind of fantasy from Nightmaria. In general, it's just a very different kind of book. I'd thought it to be an intriguing idea one day, and little more, but then I wrote the idea down. And, well, you know where it goes from there.

The basic storyline is this: a long time ago, in the early days of Ancient Greece, two sisters fell to earth. It was not their original home. They came from somewhere... else. Somewhere different. And they brought something with them. On entry to earth, one sister disappears, leaving only Calliope. Her presence brings something different to people... something new. A magic called storytelling, and those who use it well can become sorcerers. Over time, Calliope has tried to guide the truly special, the people who had become magicians of the word. Stories were the basics of magic, but from there, true magic could be learned. She tried to keep this secret. Tried to keep all of it secret, and those who knew how powerful this magic could become understood and create a secret society to protect this magic forever. They called it the Kalla Sho'El.

Now, so many centuries later, a darkness has come into the light. Prometheus, one of the first stories, older and scarred by burns, has decided to seek an end to his tortured existence. Bringing the end of magic is the only true way to destroy himself, and the power that created him. He has found others, kept alive by the same energy, who seek to bring the end as well. And the only way to destroy the magic of stories, is to find the light sister, Calliope, and kill her.

Three people, a struggling horror writer, a skinwalker--the lone survivor of an ages-old war between shapeshifters and werewolves-- and a homeless witch, have been appointed by the Kalla Sho'El to find Calliope. Find the source of the world's magic, and learn to use it, because soon--very soon--the time will come to fight. Stories, the very art of creation, must be kept alive. And these three people are the only hope they have left.

As one could probably guess, this is to be an enormous book. By the standards of my previous book, and by the standards of eyes. I have just turned and written the chapter title of the four-hundred-twentieth page.

There's a lot going on and a lot of characters to balance and I think any less than 600 pages would be a disservice to the story. And if I exist for anything, it's to service the story. There's a lot of backstory to cover in addition to everything going on, a lot of historical context as William Shakespeare, The Marquis de Sade, Cleopatra and John Milton are all characters.

As I said, it's a very strange book. But I think it can be a truly special book when all is said and done. I'm halfway through the writing of it, and eagerly looking forward to the other half. As it stands right now, I have sixteen books left finished (or at least drafted) so I can't say when this book will be out. If there was an interest in it, I would probably guess sooner rather than later.

Oh, but in addition to all the above weirdness, this book is technically a sequel to a novel I wrote titled The Seven Sisters.

So that should probably be published first.

Carry on, then. If you're interested in the idea, want to know anything more about it, about any other books, or about anything regarding writing in general, feel free to leave a comment.