GrailChase Update
January 11, 2016

a sneak peak as the journey unfolds...

I have been delighted to see the recent uptick in downloads of The Impossible Lover and Herald of the Dawn. I am pleased to announce that after many delays and rabbit-hole jumping, I am finally closing in on finishing Book III in the GrailChase Chronicles: The Finding Within. I have been making great progress and hope to be going live by then end of March.

It is in this volume that the story really takes off.
All the rest was just exposition...

The Finding Within ramps up the ante, when our protagonists Sophia and Haldane confront their own personal identities and evolution - as well as fend off the minions of the Dark Forces. Replete with sublime subjective reality events, conspiracy rabbit-holes and holographic universe flavor crystals!!

And as always, loaded with "Easter Eggs," geek jokes and multiple layers of meaning...

In this episode of the on-going saga, our wayward anti-hero, Haldane, finally gets his come-uppance. But in his darkest hour, he is granted a glimpse of eternal Truth. And Sophia travels to Egypt with Madame Blavatsky, to discover mysteries both ancient and new.  But Haldane and Sophia are not afforded any leisure to enjoy their new insights, as cunning agents of the Illuminati attack!

A brief background of the GrailChase Chronicles

Dara 5 weeks before her life-threatening bout with encephalitis and spinal meningitis. Here shown working at the Santa Fe Opera, 1990.

I began writing what I later came to call the GrailChase Chronicles in 1992, in the wake of a brush with death and an out-of-body experience (OBE). At my then-husband's suggestion, I began writing out this story which had been taking form in my head for a couple of years. I wrote with no intention to share my scribblings, as I used the story help me understand and integrate my own strange inner world and to play with my various interests.

I worked on the story in the original first draft through 1995, some 1,600 pages in length, divided into four books. At that time, I made a feeble attempt to find a publisher, but this was prior to The DaVinci Code by several years and the mainstream publishers didn't know how to pidgeon-hole my genre. It wasn't exactly a romance, and it wasn't exactly science fiction (this was before Steampunk had registered in mainstream culture). It wasn't history and it wasn't exactly erotica...

But my effort to market my opus was minimal and half-hearted, so my impact was negligible. Also, admittedly the writing was rather more florid and rough around the edges, as I was yet to study the art of writing.

In the near two decades that followed, I would intermittently work on the story, as well as my writing chops. I labored to clean up unclear passages, to "Show" instead of "Tell,"  weaving in new dimensions when something sparked my interest, or another bit of weirdness that I had experienced and was seeking to comprehend, as well as lots of personal jokes and wordplay.

Seeking to understand my own subjective experiences and my place in the fractal-cosmos, I ended up pursuing a doctorate in philosophy, once I realized that the likes of Plato and Descartes describes similar realities to that which I experienced in my OBE.

As I studied, my favorite philosophers and ideas (such as my fascination with the classics and spiritual beliefs) crept into the story, adding even more layers of meaning for those able to perceive it. All of this was primarily for my own amusement. I could foresee publishing in some vague far-off future, but I did not write for a mainstream readership.

Then, in 2011, in the final week of his life, my father (a full-fledged, pocket-protector nerd & devoted science fiction fan from way back) disclosed to me his one life-long regret: that he had always taken the safe route, instead of pursuing his dreams of being a science fiction author, along the lines of Arthur C. Clark or Isaac Asimov. His fear of failure was so great that he had never produced a single manuscript. Not a single story every got beyond outline and maybe a few pages.

My Dad and Obi-wan Ben Doggie

He knew of my on-going literary project and made me promise to publish, despite my reluctance. By this time, the field of online self-publishing was in its hey-day. So, I decided to take the plunge.

My first attempt was the publication of the whole of the original Book I, dubbed GrailChase! - An Impossible Lover's Touch. It included what is now The Impossible Lover and Herald of the Dawn in a single volume, and the steampunk elements were much more muted (although definitely there from the beginning).

It didn't take me long to realize that the book was not ready for prime time. I removed it from sale and undertook to re-write & spiff it up a bit. By this time, I had discovered steampunk, so I increased that aspect, as well as the metaphysical and subjective reality bits. This came at the suggestion of David Morrell, (author of First Blood and creator of Rambo). I met him at a writing conference, where he suggested that rather than bring in the inner stuff in what would be the third volume, to have it up front in Book I. Brilliant advice I immediate followed.

I have endeavored to publish at least one more volume per hear, but 2015 was a tough year that afforded me little time to work on the final edits. But finally, light is emerging from the end of the rabbit-hole and I don't think it's a flying saucer!

After Book III: The Finding Within, there are still another 2 of the original volumes to go! So strap on your goggles and fire up your steam-powered jet packs!

Soon the long-awaited GrailChase Chronicles Book III: The Finding Within will be out. Only a year overdue... But chocked full of the sexy subjective reality and metaphysical conspiracy weirdness we all love and crave!

Don't miss any of the metaphysical, multi-dimensional, quasi-transcendent fun!

Stay tuned for future updates!

Here's a taste of the music that has been inspiring me during this final edit.

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