Virtual Book Tour & Giveaway for Through the Oracle's Mist by Aedan Byrnes

Join author Aedan Byrnes on his Virtual Book Tour for Through the Oracle’s Mist, presented by Goddess Fish Promotions, from January 13 – February 7, 2014.  Please leave a comment or question to let Aedan know you stopped by.  Please be sure to leave your email address with your comment as Aedan will be awarding to one randomly drawn commenter a journal from his CafePress storefront, a charm and leather bracelet made for the story and a custom cover shepherd hook style bookmark made by Stone Soup Designs for Through the Oracle's Mist.  The bracelet leather colors and the journal cover may differ from the photo.  You can follow the rest of Aedan’s tour here, the more stops you visit, the better your odds of winning.

A Rock Climbers Journey to Becoming A Fantasy Writer by Aedan Byrnes

First off, let me say, great topic! I love that your topics were personal to my life and/or journey as a writer. I am most pleased to get to post here and hopefully inspire others.

Rock Climbing and writing are similar experiences for me. While you can climb in a group, often it is a solo adventure, just as writing is generally an individual undertaking. In climbing, you are looking for the footholds or the places to grab onto to keep to the rock face and not fall. In writing, you are looking for the toeholds and the spots to tie your work together and keep the adventure from dying.

Both endeavors are also outstanding for dreaming a bit. With fantasy writing, it is creation. With climbing it is usually the summit or the next rock face. Both are steeped with longing for the pinnacle…the better tale, the higher climb; looking back at the obstacles and grinning with accomplishment upon completion. They are enmeshed with opportunities that require the participant to seize the challenge and push through adversities when things are not simple.

A good climb starts with a plan, but ends with successful navigation of the unknown. A good tale starts with a plan and ends with a new world to navigate and enjoy that you didn’t know as well as you thought when you began. Neither writing nor climbing follows a single path, nor do they always end where we expect them too...and that is the joy of them. Predictability negates the need to climb, just as it prevents the enjoyment of writing, at least for me.

In both journeys I want to have moments that make my heart race with trepidation to let me know I am alive and seeing the adventure square and head on. Be it the experience of a plot twist, or the not quite solid grasp of the next step up. I want to have moments too that seize my soul to take in what is happening, be it a sorrow in the writing, or a view that could only be seen holding fast to the sheer rock face looking out and away with nothing to catch me. Both activities are adventures to be seized and appreciated for the potential to fly or fall.

So how does a rock climber become a fantasy writer? The short answer is I never knew I wasn’t both. I’ve written for as long as I can remember, and my father taught me to love climbing from the time I could stand. I don’t use the equipment from so long ago anymore as it needs to be maintained and replaced from time to time, but I have it, and will keep it always. His jumar is a treasure. I will also be keeping the notepads, composition books and scoured over, edited first drafts of everything I’ve ever written. They are part of the journey and a reminder that the assent is never simple, but the adventure is worth the trip and to enjoy the climb.

Thank you so much for letting me guest post. I look forward to hearing more from you.  Find me and say hello…

To connect with me you can find me at:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AedanByrnes

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/#!/aedan.byrnes.7?fref=ts

https://www.facebook.com/#!/AedanByrnes

You can purchase book I, Through the Oracle’s Mist through these sources:

Amazon   Smashwords    Barnes & Noble

Through the Oracle’s Mist

By Aedan Byrnes

The Vengelys Series

Publisher: Drake Valley Press

Release Date: November 21, 2013

Genre: Fantasy

Length: 215 Pages

ISBN:  978-1935970187

ASIN:  B00GUVY9Q4

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About the book: 

In the blackest night, with the moon and stars to guide him, she would always be there waiting…

Cyrenna thought she died the day she watched Tynan and his brothers jump through the banishment portal in an act of solidarity with Rigor. Little did she know, it would be the first of many deaths she would experience in her quest to claim his heart. She would surrender not only her immortal soul, but a mortal one repeatedly. Through a deal with the great Oracle, she has multiple mortal lifetimes to change the direction of her future and have a chance with Tynan.

Her journey spans the ages from the GenPei War in Japan and the Silk Road west, to Cromwell, the Three Kingdoms and modern times, bringing her one step closer to forever until she makes a misstep. Then, the burden falls to Tynan. The only thing that is absolute is her fervent hope that he will come, but there’s one big problem.

Through it all, he doesn’t so much as know her name.

How many times can a man be broken? How many times can a man die and never have it be final? How many lost loves or lost chances at love will it take to undo any chance of ever becoming whole? In the purest sense…only one. Nothing I could imagine or ever endure would compete for the absolute punishing agony of her folding me into her arms to comfort me and hearing her whisper…

“I know.”

Two words. Who knew that two words would be all that it would take to loose the storm? Hardly two words really, only five letters. Five little letters with extreme power. Five little letters to rob Zeus of his most lethal bolt, focus the strike, and rend me in pieces. The surge had pushed past my pride and leaves me sobbing for the loss I had yet to experience. A loss I knew would take my breath, but I cannot die. How cruelly ironic that death has become my sole wish now?

My internal emotional upheaval is a flash storm out of place beneath the cloudless sky. The cacophony of my noisy tears and transition scatter the small creatures for miles. I have no control and shift without grace. Rage and pain coalesce to an explosion, angst roaring as the internal battle is waged and the war lost before the call to arms is done sounding. My thunderous eruption screaming against the fading light, with a rising silvery moon and shimmering stars to bear witness to my destruction. The metamorphosis from man to beast is abrupt. I shift, not with the flexing of bone and the stretching of skin, but with the crack of a gun blast and a single pull to form. It is razor wire across my senses and I am bloodied raw without a trace to be found.

A testament to her, she stands still. Not frozen, but placated to let me render the fury that must come out as I cannot hold it in. The beast from within is enormous, but not big enough to hold so much. I warned her. I told her. I had made her aware almost cruelly that first time I let my inner wild out that this day might come…could come…would come and that it would be ushered in on an unseen tide that would sweep our perfect world away. I had wanted her to be afraid. She wasn’t. She had believed, but had also naively assured me that the day would be long into the future and we would enjoy the time until then.

She had been wrong. There was nothing to say now. ‘I’m sorry’ would be a hollow sentiment and ‘I was wrong’ would do nothing as the last thing I would want to hear and know about this was that I had been right.

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

There is no simple description for Aedan Byrnes. Obsessive, dreamer, reclusive, compulsive, outdoorsman and wordsmith would be among the list if one were started. The displaced Gael lives in the upper Midwest with family between jaunts wherever the road takes him. A frequent traveler, he is as likely to be found rock climbing or spelunking as sitting fireside dreaming or aimlessly floating away.

A lifelong lover of words and writing, he claims a diverse reading appetite and his writing reflects the myriad influences. A self-proclaimed 'reader's writer', he looks for the emotional and the sensory in word combinations, not just the visceral comprehension of phrases in the stories he crafts and his love of all things literary shines through.

 

https://www.facebook.com/#!/AedanByrnes

Twitter   AedanByrnes

fan made video trailer: http://youtu.be/wdW5BBP6wcs

http://www.cafepress.com/AuthorAedanByrnes

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/Lilas_Taha

Facebook page for the book: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Shadows-of-Damascus

Don’t forget to leave a comment or question to let Aedan know you stopped by.  Please be sure to leave your email address with your comment as Aedan will be awarding to one randomly drawn commenter a journal from his CafePress storefront, a charm and leather bracelet made for the story and a custom cover shepherd hook style bookmark made by Stone Soup Designs for Through the Oracle's Mist.  The bracelet leather colors and the journal cover may differ from the photo.  You can follow the rest of Aedan’s tour here, the more stops you visit, the better your odds of winning.