The Seasons Change, Novel Work

-

 

The air here in central Utah has a crisp bite to it these days, just a hint of chill and freshets of breeze heralding cooler air ahead. Autumn is definitely promising to arrive soon. And here in my home in Utah the Provo Canyon’s leaves are turning brilliant shades of yellow, red, and rust. And I continue to make progress on the final edits of Contrition. 

The development of two nearly supernatural characters, I hope, bring an other-worldly flavor, where Hyrum is literally visited by an angel and a demon. Not in the stereotypical way. But both of these antagonistic characters speak to the struggle within him as a thinking, feeling spiritual man. My religion believes, like many Christian faiths, that men and women have an animal nature that keeps them bound to earthly impulses, and a more elevated self draws them closer to God and more brotherly love.

This book concerns itself also with how to deal within a world where bloodlust is ritually encouraged and charity is an afterthought tacked on to the conclusions of political speeches. The 20 th century was, to my knowledge, the bloodiest century of all world history. And so far, the 21 st is faring no better. Hyrum is concerned with his own soul, personal redemption, to be re-united with his creator and his family when he passes through the veil to the other world beyond the shadow of death. Can one get right with God after seriously harming and killing his other children?

This question and others are what I raise in this novel…


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Where History Comes Alive!!

-
Image
Explore the Great Cataclysms of the 20th Century! Any day, it seems, America will go to war with the rest of the Axis powers, and Mack worries what will happen to Inga, his love.  This summer, the last summer of peace for a long time, the couple make the most of their time together.  Soon enough, Inga's father is suspected of espionage for the Nazis and Inga and her family must flee.   Meanwhile, Mack and his high school friends get caught up in the faceless machinery of warfare.  Hot swing music and slow romance, men and women hurriedly marry before all is lost.  Find out what fate has for Mack and Inga's families in the celebrated novel:  In Love and War It is the summer of 1941, in central Florida, and Mack has found himself in a dilemma.  He has fallen hopelessly in love with Inga, his classmate, and she is set to move back to Germany with her family because the US government believes her father is a Nazi spy.  As the second world war unf...
Read more

Current projects and a poem

-
This summer I have been working on two book projects concurrently.  One is the upcoming novel you all are already getting familiar with through my earlier posts on this blog.  The other I have not spoken publically of before now.  That second project is a small book of poetry, a chapbook if you will, of poems mostly on the theme of my moving out West from the East coast and all the changes those things have worked deeply inside me.  The title of the poetry book is Come West: Secular and Sacred Poems, and it has a kind of "Cowboy Poet" flavor to it in many places. One published work that has already been on the internet is a poem that first appeared in The Beatnik Cowboy last year.  It is called "Hot Sand" and the poem below is just as it first appeared in Beatnik Cowboy last August. Hot Sand   The gusts blast like furnace-fire In this desert land, And never does the heat seem more oppressive Than now, An oven-blast and a scorched-earth policy. Such an arid ...
Read more

Introducing Chris McClelland's New Poetry Collection--Come West

-
Image
When the author of this new chapbook of poetry moved from Florida to central Utah in 2011, he had no idea how deeply he would be changed by the culture and the religion of the Latter Day Saints, a culture and faith that continues to move him strongly today. This experience led to a lot of measured prayer and pondering, and the result was, among other things, establishing his family in Utah, his new-found relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus, and this small book of poems addressed to friends and family left behind in Florida, as well as everyone else, particularly lovers of the Western United States and landscape poetry. A long-time award winning writer of short fiction, Chris McClelland has more recently garnered notice for his poetry, including awards and praise from the Veteran’s Administration and appearances in many respected publications, such as Irreantum (a Mormon literary magazine), Adelaide Literary Magazine, Veteran Voices, and The Beatnik Cowboy.  His most recent ...
Read more