I'm knackered just thinking of all that wood cutting. Just putting the electric fire on is enough for me these days. Bob Ross would turn in his grave if he were alive today if he saw my poor efforts. True, I was self medicating with whisky as I pushed the paint around. V E day will have my writing head on again. I'm sure my writing demon has something exciting lined up, bless him.
On my studio wall at the uni I've some home spun wisdom. 'A day without creativity is a day wasted' my favourite.
I'm over the moon to hear that you're enjoying some Bob Ross there, Gary! It's his show which I have to thank that gave me the interest and impetus to begin painting back in mid-2016.
I've never looked back, and now I can't envision a world where I don't paint.
As far as painting goes I'd almost rather paint than write, most days. As a matter of fact, if I had to choose but one hobby, that would probably be it, unless reading was on the table; ah that would be a tough choice!
But, I'm already planning the second volume in my new
Prehistoric Tales series, so the writing continues, albeit with less gusto perhaps than the early days.
Interestingly (at least to me), I got an idea of tying this new tale into Volume
II of my
Despair Series.
In that novel (set in the far future) the characters ultimately travel through time to arrive at a colony of a city full of refugees who have fled Atlantis.
They hadn't fled because of the sinking of the continent; the civilization and the land mass were in their heyday.
Instead, they had fled because they found their cities on the Atlantean continent under constant attack from barbarian hordes (think Germanic hordes of Visigoths descending on ancient Rome) and were sick of the warring.
They wished to settle somewhere unpopulated and leave strife behind.
Unfortunately, this doesn't pan out as hoped because they eventually come under attack at their new settlement on a new continent as well.
So, when they discover a space tunnel under their city that lets onto another, unpopulated planet orbiting another star, they don't have to ponder their decision long.
They decide to migrate, and leave the Earth behind.
That decision results in that novel, my
Cosmos of Despair and here is where I thought of doing a crossover between the two series. My thought is to develop a new story in my
Prehistoric Tales Series that begins in one of those Atlantean cities (on the coast, of course, for full, Atlantean effect) involving an old man, a former member of the Atlantean Guard (except I'll probably insert the name of some Atlantean city there), who befriends a young primitive tribal man that the old man's son had found almost dead after the youth's entire village had been wiped out by--you guessed it--another, warlike tribe.
So we have this young, primitive man who has no family or surviving people, and this old man who has become jaded like those who had fled a few years earlier (I will mention the exodus and do a namedrop of the the man who becomes the king in the new settlement to tie it to
Cosmos). As this primitive man slowly heals from his grievous wounds, he and the old man strike up a friendship, but the primitive man (a hunter/ gatherer type who co-exist with the Atlanteans, like we see today with indigenous tribes) is homesick for his own lands (he had been brought in an Atlantean flying ship from a different continent to the coastal city) and wishes to return to his former lands to seek the people of his mother, who had been captured in a raid by his father. He of course has no idea if they still exist or not. Tribes prey on other tribes.
Some random thoughts about primitives living in the Atlantean cities were that it is fairly common, sort of like Native Americans living in the white man's towns here in the US. Some have ended up there thru mishap and like it and have stayed. They aren't slaves, although many have come to be there where the Atlanteans have freed them from the warlike barbarians who constantly attack the Atlanteans. So it's not like this youth is the only of his kind there; just that where they are content to stay, he is not.
And therein lies the tale. These two take off to find the native's people (I'm thinking the old Atlantean still has an old flyer in the garage from his days in the guard--a quirky older model that frequently craps out on them). The old man's family are adamantly against his leaving to take this primitive youth home, especially the young warlike son who had brought the primitive gatherer there to begin with. He says, if the youth wants to leave, let him go, he's free to do so. But the journey involves crossing the sea, and the old man sees that his son will be of no help and that the journey for the youth is an impossible one with out help. So they end up sneaking off on their own in the old flyer, barely making it to the other continent (and this might not be as far distant as it sounds, like going from Africa to a close European shore, perhaps).
They'll have adventures, yes, and close calls, for sure. But the main thrust of the story is going to be these social divides between a civilization that is as far advanced as the continent of Atlantis, and will also focus on the small tribes of peaceful peoples who are hurt by all the warring taking place and in which they get caught up sometimes. It'll also involve the boy's mother's people, whether they will accept the youth or not, and eventually a reunion of the old man and his son. But whether the brash, young Atlantean warrior will grow to understand his father, or continue to support the expansion efforts of his sovereign nation or have an epiphany as to why the mass exodus of thousands took place a few years before (the Atlanteans who are encountered in my
Cosmos of Despair), who knows? I haven't decided if he will become understanding, or remain a butthole. I've still plenty of plot to develop and things to consider, obviously. But at least I have a goal for my next book. I'm looking forward to it.
Sorry for all the rambling! These are a bunch of disjointed thoughts at the moment as I've written none of this down until now.
Chris.
