Prophecy Revealed by Ron Hartman [Blog Tour & Rafflecopter]

PROPHECY REVEALED

By

Ron Hartman

BLURB:   

Daniel Marten crossed the Burning Sea and convinced himself that he is the Prophesied One.  But what does that mean?  In this second installment of the Prophecy Chronicles trilogy, Daniel forges new alliances in his bid to save Naphthali from the Emperor.  He meets the Tene’breon, a magical race that has evolved to use the Weave as effortlessly as he breathes air.  The leaders of this race recognize him for what he is…but they also see something more.

Naphthali has been dramatically altered by the rule of a new governor, a man whose power is tied to Daniel in a horrifying way.    How far will Daniel go to save Naphthali?  And what is the secret that binds his destiny with his new allies?  Only time will tell in The Prophecy Chronicles: Prophecy Revealed.

Daniel gasped and pulled in a lungful of air, forcing down the agony. Still bent over at the waist, he snapped his eyes forward, to where another man just entered the room from the opposite side. He was at least six and a half feet tall, his head wreathed in wavy brown hair. He wore silk robes, beneath which muscles bulged and tensed as he studied Daniel, his bright eyes narrowing. It had to be Bertolli.

Daniel forced himself to stand upright. "I…" was all he got out before everyone reacted on reflexes alone.

The man cut him off, bellowing, "Guards!" He started to take a step forward, but then sensed movement to his right. He spun to his left just before Broken Bow's great sword made a low whistle as it sailed through the air where he'd been standing. Without even realizing he was doing it, Daniel pulled his throwing knife and let fly. The large man was too fast, though, prancing back the other way before the blade reached him. He reached around his waist and launched both throwing daggers in rapid succession, but the man merely knocked the small blades away with the backs of his hands.

Behind him, Daniel heard guards slam into the door, but Bastion was able to push it back and hold them out, at least momentarily. Bertolli spun away from another unseen attack by Broken Bow and froze, reversing course at the last moment. He ripped a dagger from his belt as he did so and whipped around again, aiming low. He led with the blade until it stopped, seemingly in midair. What Daniel heard next made his blood run cold.

Author Bio:  Ron Hartman has had a life-long passion for the written word and is an avid reader.  The Prophecy Chronicles are his first written works.  The first in the series, Prophecy Foretold, was released in October of 2012.  Prophecy Revealed is the second in the trilogy.  Ron graduated from the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy in 2000 and lives in Ottumwa, Iowa with his wife and three children.

Website link: www.prophecychronicles.com

Purchase link at Rogue Phoenix Press: http://shop.roguephoenixpress.ieasysite.com/category_v3.aspx?categoryid=96

Guest Post

The Writer’s Process

By Ron Hartman

So you’ve got a great idea for a book…now the hard part.  First you have to fully flesh out that great idea you have…now the really hard part.  You have to actually translate that idea in your head, that even if you’ve thought through everything, probably still has parts that are abstract at best, and put it on the page.  For me, the absolute hardest words to any story are the very first.  Even if you know exactly how you want the first sequence to look, how do you convey that?

Here’s where the writer’s process comes in.  Every writer is different, so this can’t really be a tell-you-the-secret kind of thing.  All I can do is tell you how I work through writing a novel.  Hopefully it will be of some help to you, or at least entertaining for a few minutes...

For me the process starts with the initial idea, which is usually just a random thought, rolling around in my head.  Once it’s rolled around enough, I will finally realize it’s there and wonder if there’s more to it than that.  If it’s something like, “I wonder why the Cleveland Browns always lose,” there’s probably nothing there.  If, on the other hand, it’s something along the lines of, “Look at that frozen pond.  I wonder what it would be like to crash through that fence, roll a car onto that pond, then see the ice cracking and breaking, plunging the car into darkness?”  There might be a story here!

Once I have the initial idea I write out an outline for the book, the more detailed the better.  Sometimes full sequences will come to mind, and I’ll add those to the outline, too.  I might not actually use them later, but better to have them and not use them than need them and have forgotten them.  I like to do all of this at my desk in my office.  It is cluttered and crowded, overflowing with textbooks, spent emails, grocery lists, and crafts from my kids, but hey, it’s my happy place.  I also like to do this when the house is quiet, which with three kids and a wife I adore, means most of my preliminary work is done in the middle of the night.

I do sometimes have a muse, as well.  This usually doesn’t happen when I’m working on the outline, but when I’m driving along thinking about specific sequences.  Most of the overall story of The Prophecy Chronicles trilogy came to me when I was listening to James Blunt.  There is one sequence in Prophecy Revealed, the current release, that was fully visualized when I was listening to the song “Wake Up Call” by Maroon Five.   If you get a chance, really listen to the lyrics of that song…that is one pissed off person.  It perfectly fit the mood of a climactic scene midway through Prophecy Revealed, and it really got me fired up to write it!  Thank you, Mr.’s Blunt and Five.

Invariably you’re going to run into some point in your story when you realize you don’t know enough about what you’re wanting to convey.  You have two choices here.  You can either research the topic, or bullshit your way through.  I don’t recommend the second option.  If you truly want the reader to get lost in your story, you can’t have a point where they say, “Wait a minute, that doesn’t make sense!”  You want to convince every reader, and to do that, you need to know what you’re talking about.

Usually for me most of the story is worked out ahead of time, so I will do research, usually while I’m outlining.  I find articles or images on line and save them in a file (all of them are titled “story 1, 2, 3, etc, until they have a name) along with my outline, for reference later.  If I come to a point where I don’t know what I want to say while writing, I’ll stop and research the point then, whether that means the internet, the library, interviewing someone with experience on the subject, whatever.  

Once the above is done, all that’s left is the most terrifying part:  just write, baby.  Let the story pass via osmosis through you and onto the page.  If you’re lucky, your process hasn’t led you astray, and the final product will be something people will  want to read!

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