With weather, power outages, returning from a trip, I've been busy, but the newest novella did get started. It just stopped partly due to life interfering but also as I decide how to deal with spiritual evil. For me, it's not hard to write about human evil. It's easier to see-- but what about the other side? What about what some call Satan? If there are spirit guides and higher level spirit beings who aim to do good, then won't there also be those on the dark side? Mankind, in all religions, has wrestled with that question.
I might not be able to decide in my own life what I believe about this question of spiritual evil, but for this novella, I have to make it real or the first novella has no real meaning. But then how far do I want to take it for what the humans know, how they fight it, and what is actually out there... It's not as easy as writing a straight out romance although this one will have more romance.
Yes, I know-- fantasy is fantasy but I like to keep my stories grounded in what might be... and that is where the question lies-- What might be?
You might almost say it's not just love of Satan to fulfill various religions' needs, but a necessity as they are faced with what I am. If there is one-- there is the other. What is the other? How much can it really do?
Photo is of Devil's Tower in Wyoming.The Native American legend goes that the vertical claw marks are from giant bears. The legends vary, but my favorite is that three girls were out playing and giant bears came to get them. The girls ran to a rock and prayed to the Great Spirit to save them. The rock rose and as it did, the bears' claw marks created the grooves. When it reached its full height, the girls were turned into stars in Pleiades.
This place is considered sacred to many of the Plains tribes. When you walk around it, you find prayer cloths tied to branches. There is a Native American encampment nearby.
When we were there, we slept in our van in a National Park campground at its base. Despite its name (as you might imagine the Native American peoples have a different name for it that involves generally Bear in one form or another), I detected no sign of evil...
