Behind the door ...
I’m smarting a bit at the moment as the temperatures plunged today. Seems my eternal summer isn’t going to work out as planned.
Still! The good news is I’ve got sixteen tomato plants and a thousand tomatoes to harvest, so no time for smart comments.
Let’s just get straight into it.
Welcome to Vóg!
On the Home Front
When the social media nuts are raving and news channels offer little beyond the war in Ukraine, the genocide in Gaza, the worsening global climate and incompetent governments, you know its time to head for the hills.
Or, in my case, for the coast. A lot of those hills, well, they’re actually quite high.
Earlier this month, after a morning of depressing news reports and emails from outraged Facebook ‘mythology’ nutters, I headed for Wellington’s south coast and ended up at the remote Fort Opau with some of the best weather I’ve ever seen.
Fort Opau has an interesting contextual history, if a somewhat dull operational one. A military installation built in 1941 during the second world war, it was originally set up to counter a potential attack on Wellington by Japanese forces. Its location on the high Makara cliffs gave it a spectacular view over the Cook Strait (the treacherous slice of ocean separating the bottom of the north island from the top of the south island) and allowed its two 6-inch guns to cover the stretch of water that the 9.2 inch battery at Wrights Hill (another great walk) couldn't target entrance from the south.
Fortunately, the guns in Fort Opau were never fired (except for practice). The invasion didn’t eventuate and three years later the guns were removed, and the site abandoned. These days, there’s little left of the isolated outpost apart from the derelict gun emplacements (sectioned off from the public) and some supporting buildings in the valley behind the battery which have become a tagger’s wet dream.
There’s also a windfarm overlooking the nearby valleys but, really, the place is occupied almost predominantly by sheep with the occasional foray by a solitary tramper like me.
Standing alone in such isolated areas of beauty spots make me very conscious of how privileged I am. The internet means New Zealand gets stirred by the craziness of online political, commercial, and religious machinations but its physical isolation still protects it from the worst of international conflicts. Sitting here on the Makara cliffs, I can experience a peace that people in Ukraine, Gaza, and other hotspots can only dream of.
Which kinda puts the small stuff in perspective.
Production Notes:
Yesterday I sent the two additional chapters of FIONN: The Betrayal (soon to be renamed) to my editor Madame Blackwing. Tomorrow, I’ll start on the final two chapters and hope to have the initial draft of the book completed by the end of March.
At this stage, I’m pretty sure I’ll need at least another few weeks to carry out the final polish, which means the first digital copies won’t be going out to paid subscribers until the end of April. As compensation for the delay, I’ve added the third chapter in the ‘paid’ section of this newsletter (further down).
The plan, therefore, is to have aperbacks available in late May with digital versions of the books going to the wider ebookstores (Amazon/Kobo/Google/ etc.), in June.
This is the only project I’ll be working on over next month.
Meanwhile, here’s an initial rough draft for one of the new covers for Beara: Dark Legends which I’ll be splitting into two seperate books next month as the start of a separate new series. I’ll be increasing the price on the original next month as well.
Researching the Next Series
Last weekend I started the initial scoping process for a new trilogy I hope to write once I complete the Fionn mac Cumhaill Series (hopefully in 2025). I’ve mentioned this trilogy before, as well as the fact that it’s based on a little-known battle that took place in the heart of rural Ireland, way back in ancient times. Even today however, it still surprises me that, despite some relatively decent records, the battle and the post-neolithic structures around which it took place, are completely unknown outside of academic circles.
Given my interest in the battle (and the characters, sites, and structures associated with it), last year I managed to sneak a fleeting visit to the area with K, so that I could get a sense of the topographical context (something that makes scenes far easier to envision when I’m writing them).
Sadly, we didn’t have much luck during our visit. Working to a tight timeframe, we found our visit further constricted by heavy thunderstorms and unnatural swarms of flies that made it difficult to get out of the car for more than a few minutes at a time.
I’ll spare you the picture of the flies.
Even worse, traveling light, we didn’t have the necessary clothing or equipment for the tramp to the post-neolithic structures where the battle took place. Frustrated and disappointed by my own lack of planning, I figured it best to transfer my research to indoor activities instead.
One thing that struck me over my subsequent conversations, was how little the local people knew of their own history, of the tribal dynamics and the powerplay between competing chieftains that had led to the battle. None of those I spoke to had ever heard of the battle. Most, of course, were familiar with (and had visited) the post-neolithic structures but knew little of their history or purpose. When I visited the main library in the area (small and almost empty), the librarian had no idea what I was talking about and was unable to identify any reference material in their collection that made reference to the battle or any of the parties involved.
It was only as I was leaving that the librarian suddenly remembered a presentation “that might have something to do with it”. Pulling a heavy key from one of the reception drawers, she led me down a dark, sloping, and very long corridor that terminated in front of a thick hanging curtain (photo below).
As I stood there wondering what the hell she was doing, she pulled the curtain aside to reveal a hidden wooden door and used the key to unlock it.
The door led into a large underground room that initially looked like a disused storeroom, empty apart from a few pieces of disused furniture. When the librarian turned on the lights however, I realised that the walls were actually covered with panels, photographs, and images of the post-neolithic structures where the battle was believed to have taken place.
The librarian obviously couldn’t have cared less about the subject, but she was good enough to leave me to my own devices in that forgotten gallery. As I worked my way around the room and examined the panels on the walls, I realised that I was looking at a summary presentation of an excavation of the structural sites dating from some eight years earlier. Now, like the battle, that excavation and the accompanying presentation the academics provided to the local community, had also been forgotten.
In a way, that sums up the world I inhabit when I’m back home. In Ireland, I tend to work on different layers to other people, considering landscapes and contemporary social events from a broader cultural, historical and societal perspective. That’s not suggesting the way I work is anything special, that’s its better or even particularly useful, it’s simply how my mind works and where my interest lies. From my own perspective, the main benefit is that it allows me to identify patterns most people are too busy to see, patterns I can subsequently incorporate into my own writing and other intellectual work.
Until the Fionn mac Cumhaill Series is completed, I’m unable to commit time to writing this fascinating story and, for the moment, I’m keeping it close to my chest. Following the excavation of the post-neolithic sites some years back, I did feel a bit of pressure as the findings from those excavations were prompting plans for developing the area in a manner to rival Brú na Bóinne.
Fortunately, that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen any time soon.
‘Monoliths’ by Jonan Booth Remmers.
Obviously, we have many variations of these back home, particularly around the Cork-Kerry area where we tend ot call them ‘Standing Stones in English or ‘Galláin’ in Irish. People tend to forget however, that what we see today are little more than the ‘bones beneath the skin’.
Most of these structures are the remnants of something that existed thousands of years ago. They’ve endured over a thousand years of erosion (and the occasional human interaction). They don’t look the same today as they looked when they were first embedded into the land.
As a result, we need to reflect that in our thinking when we refer to them, for anything to make any kind of sense.
The End
That’s it from me for the month of February. Chapter Three of ‘FIONN: The Betrayal’ will follow in the ‘Paid’ section but I’ll hopefully be able to confirm availability on the final book next month.
Until then …
Slán go fóill.
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