trilogy

Bears, oh my!

Janet Fisher2 Comments

UPDATE November 12: It’s been a week since the trapper took away the empty bear trap for the bear seen on camera looking in my window and the bear has not shown up again. I guess the trapper was right. The bear moved on. I’m still watchful but the cooler the days get, the more likely the bear has started its long winter nap.

I love living in the beauty of nature in the country. But sometimes it gets a little unnerving. There are always critters in the back country. Here’s one my son-in-law Robin Loznak met in the hills of the family farm a long way from my house.

Black bear photo by Robin Loznak. He assures me he used a long lens so the bear wasn’t all that close. But I think it would feel too close for me.

A couple of years ago I looked out my front windows and saw a cougar–a mountain lion–waltzing down the hill road where I was planning to take a walk. I postponed my walk.

But I have lived in my house on the farm for almost 20 years and have never been visited by a bear. That all changed last week.

One morning I noticed garbage strewn across my yard and went outside to find that the garbage can was tipped over with the lid off. I cleaned it up and that afternoon went into town for groceries. When I returned, more garbage was strewn over the yard. Whatever made that mess had come out in broad daylight.

At that point Robin set up trail cams to see what was doing it. He got the next two pictures:

“There must be a way in this one. I got into the other one just fine.”
“Is anybody home?”

So, yes, now it’s lions and bears, oh my. No tigers.

In the second picture above, the bear is looking into the window on my back door. That’s when we got serious. And Robin set up more trail cams around the house. They showed nothing for a few days and then there was this:

“So, what’s on TV tonight? Could I maybe join you for dinner?”

The lights are on in the living room, the TV running. I’m in that room, either watching TV or fixing dinner. It’s a great room, all one big space.

The photo directly above is a clip from the video with sound that shows the bear watching for a while, moving to the next window where he presses his nose to the window. Sniffing the flowers just inside? He appears to be a little perplexed about the window glass. Then he shuffles off.

I did not know about this appearance outside my living room window, where he must have been watching me, until the next morning when Robin checked the trail cams. That’s when I decided I wouldn’t cook or sleep in that house until we could get the trapper out to take the bear away. I spent several nights with my kids, Robin and my daughter Carisa who live down the hill from me.

The trapper came. He put up a humongous trap. First night nothing. Next night nothing. Three nights and the trapper took the trap away, confident that the bear had moved on. The trapper did promise to have his phone by his bed and would hurry over if I called in the night. So I stayed the night in my house. Still have big chairs in front of the doors. But I slept. And went back to my normal walks.

Maybe the bear gave up because I gave him nothing more to eat. Maybe he didn’t like what I was watching on TV. Maybe he’s tired and decided it was time for his long winter sleep.

Meanwhile I’ve been putting the finishing touches on my third novel of a trilogy in which the protagonist meets a few fearsome predatory critters. I would definitely rather write about those exciting encounters than have one myself.

Green to Gold

Janet Fisher

The setting for my upcoming books in Ireland sometimes reminds me of home. But while the hills of Ireland generally stay green all summer long, the hills of my home turn gold by June. Now near the end of July they’re a somewhat drab gold. Here’s the hill I matched with Ireland’s a few months ago.

When I took this photo this afternoon I was just going for the dry look, not expecting company. Look low center and you’ll see a big elk browsing on this warm summer afternoon. My camera isn’t sharp enough to bring her close, but she was a pleasant surprise.

The match in May was more like this:

Home, same hill as above
Ireland, setting for my upcoming stories

Which brings me to my writing. In the next few days I’ll embark on the actual writing of book three in my trilogy, the story of Ainne, who walked onto the screen on a Summer Solstice Day awhile back. She appears as a child in book two, but now she’s a young woman of twenty years. In her story she’ll be drawn from the green of Ireland to another island with golden hills such as she has never seen before–the island of Crete.

And so it begins. My favorite part of what I do, the immersion into a world of imagination and history and enchanting lands, whether green or gold. Also a few challenging critters. Not elk, but boars and–well, I won’t give it away now. But challenging for sure.

Until then . . .

For the Love of Ireland – It’s a Trilogy

Janet Fisher

One of the most exciting things for a writer is when the ideas flood in. I’m thrilled to say that I’ve been having that kind of creative fever with one more story set in ancient Ireland. This one will make a trilogy.

I took the photo above when I had just stepped away from the heart of my trilogy, the Bohonagh Stone Circle in southern Ireland near the small town of Rosscarbery. It’s the sacred Golden Eagle Circle for my fictional clan. I glanced back to see it one more time before I left on my last visit, wondering if I would ever see it again. This image with the powerful clouds nearly took my breath away.

I’ve been living virtually in ancient Ireland for some time now as I set my stories in that enchanting place. Why do I love Ireland so much? Because it’s like home but with cool ancient stuff? I recently posted comparative pictures on Facebook, posing that question.

There’s this, below, one of Ireland’s back roads, a short walk from the wonderful Rosalithir B&B where I stay. The stone circle on the skyline isn’t quite visible in the shot.

And next, below, the hill above my house. Someone mentioned that I simply had to imagine the castles and ruins on my hill.

So maybe there’s some inspiration right outside my door.

I sent book two to my agent last week. She has book one already. Yesterday I wrote the first four pages of the third in the trilogy to see how my new thoughts looked on the page. I’ll stop now and follow my usual process. I’m an outliner, so I’ll outline. I already have the storyline, the list of scenes I use to track it, and I’ve organized my many notes in the order of that storyline. So from that I’ll do the outline, which for book two took three weeks. And from the outline I’ll write the first draft.

Things will shift. New ideas will come. That always happens. But it’s real now. I feel the distress of my protagonist, her hopes, her fears. I’m beginning to know the other players. It’ll be pure delight for me to step back into her world, that enchantment of Ireland. I call it Éire, an older name for Ireland, if not as old as my story, which begins in 713 B.C.

Then with the conclusion of the third in the trilogy I’ll turn my focus to the rest of the collection, which will be a saga of prequels about the ancestors of my characters in the trilogy.

In the photo below, it’s their sacred circle close-up, where they come to dance and bring the sky and earth together, or to find quiet and connection. And more.

And below, from the southern stone to the sea. Note how the slant of the stone’s top echoes the slant of the gap to the blue water.

And down to the sea below their village, where my new protagonist was shocked as a child by how cold the water was.

Another Book Abloom

Janet Fisher3 Comments

I just finished the rough draft of a new novel, a historical to conclude my trilogy set in ancient Ireland. Spring always puts me in mind of things coming to life, so it seems fitting that this book has come to life for me now as my daffodils bloom.

It seems doubly fitting, given the fertile nature of the island of Ireland–or Éire, as I call it in the book.

My friend Tilly Engholm and I visited Ireland a few years ago when I was researching the first in the trilogy. We spent the month of May there, a glorious time. Scenes I came to know then reappear in this new book–and the stones.

The stone circles of the island hold a special place for the clanspeople in my stories, and I needed to visit many circles on our visit. As Tilly and I headed out one day in our rental car, she glanced at me. “We’re going to look at more rocks, aren’t we?”

I laughed. “Yes, we are.”

She took it in good stride, though.

In this book the characters also travel to Iberia, now Portugal, and to Crete and Thera (Santorini), with other stops along the Mediterranean, places of beauty and wonder and peril.

It has been a great ride and I look forward to sharing it with readers.

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