Tara Maya's Tales

It's not unreasonable to assume that anything which has taken too long already will never be completed at all. This is certainly the point of view of my children regarding my progress on my main series The Unfinished Song. I can see their point of view; after all, I've been working on this story for longer than they've been alive. They have cheerfully told me that they expect the completion of my epic around the same year we establish a colony on Mars. A colleague of mine also used me as an example of what NOT to do as a writer. She explained that I'd taken so long to finish my series, that although I'd had an audience once, it had frittered away and no one was interested any more. Despite that, the greatest journey is finished only step after step, whether the steps are slow or not, and whether or not the traveller becomes frequently lost or lodged for a long time elsewhere. So although I've also started (and yes, even completed) other series since I started Th...

  Shadow, his unhorse, galloped across the field of blood and snow, into the forest, where rain battled the fire that wanted to devour the trees. Any colder and the rain would have turned to sleet. The girl trembled in Umbral’s arms. She felt good there, soft and tiny and clinging to him like a child. Her hair, brightly dyed red, held the fragrance of henna and dried flowers. She clutched at his chest as if she trusted him to protect her; though, more likely, she was just afraid that if she didn’t hang on, he would let her drop and break her neck. He sheltered her from the rain as best he could. As if a few drops of water were the main danger to her. Deep in the forest, he reached the Deathsworn menhir, large and looming, black and crowned with bones. Here he tapped his horse with his obsidian-beaded hoop, and the shadow beast halted. The forest fire had burnt out here, but it had done its damage. The skeletons of trees around the megalith stuck up from ash, raw black claws. At the...

 I've been going through the comments left on the blog to delete spam and moderate everything else. It's quite humbling to see the number of remarks that amount to, "When is the next book out?" "You disappeared," "I looked for information and it seemed you fell off the face of the Earth." Um. Sorry. I wish I had a good excuse, like, "Yeah, I went to the beach on Beltane Eve, when the veil between the worlds was thin, accidentally fell through a Gate Between the Worlds and landed in a mystic Sphere, where I had to battle Ice Giants and Winter Elves..." But no. The truth is, that, cat-like, I became distracted by random things, like red spots on the wall, ladybugs, bits of string and my own tail. Homeschooling the kids, studying philosophy and writing my own starting from the metaphysics on up, gardening, researching biology and physics for a hard science fiction series set a billion years in the future, writing STRAT Book II, designing the...

  The Unfinished Song Epic Fantasy Series An ancient war between humans and fae brought a terrible Curse to the land. Now the only two who can end the Curse are an untried young woman and an exiled warrior. They must battle High Fae, Deathsworn, and an immortal evil that threatens to devour the whole world… The Windwheel, created long ago by the Aelfae, just may hold the magic Dindi needs to honor her pledge to resurrect them. Unfortunately, the Windwheel is secreted deep in the Labyrinth, guarded by a terrible monster.  Mirror Dindi is going to need a weapon—the Looking Bowl—to fight the beast. And she’s not the only one searching for a way into the Labyrinth. Several other Aspirants, young women who want to be Vaedi, pledge to help her find the Looking Bowl. Among them are Dindi’s bitterest rivals and her best friends—but even if the women can recover the Looking Bowl, can she trust any of them? Kavio and his rival, Zumo embark on a quest of their own. The two rivals agre...