Big White Beard Update 30 Dec 2017

30 December 2017

First and foremost... I send a sincere thank you to the many, many, people that have sent me notes of support and prayers.  All very appreciated and to be frank, humbling.  There was even a 'prayer group'  organised for me.  Thank you all from the bottom of my heart. 

Three months ago today, I had my stroke.  Three long months of recovery from a brain injury.  Not a lovely thing to have to do, but there was no avoiding it.  I am still recovering.  Some of the major symptoms have subsided.  The severe headaches have gone away and now I have only low grade versions of them, about a 2 on the pain scale.  I occasionally still have moments where my thinking feels 'fuzzy.'   That is not a medical term I know, but anyone that has had a brain injury knows of what I am speaking.  My vision has not recovered much at all.  This means I still can not drive.  I lost the peripheral vision in my right eye, which damn it, was my 'good' eye.  I have a largish blind spot on my right side and I have trouble syncing my two eyes.  The latter issue makes reading hard and fatiguing.

In December I started to work again, or try to do so.  When the stroke happened I was working on my third book.  I am trying to get back my writer's edge.  I want to make sure I can still write professionally.  The book I am working on is the third in a series on Irish history from the province of Ulster.  The first two books are The Laggan Redshanks and the second is Finding the McCains.  The book I am working on now is on Scots-Irish folklore and is about the Scots-Irish and the Faerie Faith.  The book was supposed to be finished by this time, but the strokes brought a sudden halt to the work.  I hope the book will be out by Spring and I will keep everyone informed of the release date.  

I have two more books scheduled for 2018.  It is a lot of work, one is a collection of Scots-Irish essays, some of them collected from my talks at the Ulster American History Symposiums, both in County Tyrone and in the USA, over the years.  If you like Irish history, Scots-Irish history, folklore, tales, etc., you will enjoy the book.  It does not have a working title yet.  

Book three on my work list will be my first fiction effort.  Being a non fiction writer is much different than being a fiction writer and I am looking forward to having a go at it.  For those of you not in the writing business, you see fiction books make more money.  It is a math issue and that is the long and short of it.  Fiction sells better, and, I like telling tales, so going into fiction is a natural progression to me.  Now I must decide on a genre, perhaps mixed genres.  Then to decide between contemporary or a historical fiction, etc. 

Ouachita Mountains in western Arkansas

I have been reading and researching the year 1835 in the old southwest, meaning Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, etc.  I am tempted to place a story in that location and time period.  I am reading journals, letters, newspapers, etc., from the mid 1830s, including the correspondence of David Crockett as he travelled through the Arkansas Territory to San Antonio, in Mexican Texas. There was a lot of Irish men in the area and an in-group preference among the Irish on the frontier.  This might provide an interesting canvas for a period fiction work.  Like all my work, there will be an Irish, Scottish, Celtic, connection.  But, I might get a wild hair and do a contemporary book, romance/mystery, and set it in the Ouachita Mountains.  You know that Jan Karon has a good gig going....!!!

The Big White Beard had a couple of inches trimmed off early December.  I did not want to do this, but during the worst days of my stroke recovery I had a difficult time grooming myself.  But, 2018, will be the Year of the Big White Beard.  I plan on letting it grow and flow the entire year. 

the 1978 version of the ole beard, Red as a Ferrari back then

That is my update; beginning to work at writing again, hoping and praying, my vision returns back to normal, and with luck will have out three books in 2018.  I hope all of y'all have a wonderful New Year and wish you all Peace and Prosperity.