So...this is fun! I'm going to put up a full list of chapter titles for the story to see if it gets some curiosity flowing, for those of you that have been keeping up with my project. I'm still in the editing stage and should be finished in time to hand out manuscripts to my reading panel by January. Stay tuned!

Anyway, you will notice several different names thrown in. Every time you see a new name, it represents a change in point-of-view. Meaning each different name represents a different character that "takes over" the story to continue it. The purpose for me doing this will become very obvious when the manuscript is released. Long story short, it would be impossible to tell this story from a single point-of-view...so I'm telling it using 6 or 7! Here's the chapter list:

Chapter Outline:

Sir Walter Raleigh
Prologue Part I. The Conspiracy

Chief Manteo
Prologue Part II. The Conquest Begins

Cam Coleman
1. The Nightmare
2. The Abduction
3. The Secret Hiding Place
4. The Girl in the Dream

Raven Drake
5. The Escape Attempt

Sara North
6. The Gateway
7. The Wizard

Reed Bentman
8. The Familiar Face
9. The Rescue
10. The Lost Colony
11. The Mantoac

Cam Coleman
12. The Preparation
13. The Rogue Pilot

Skot Seymour
14. The Jet

Cam Coleman
15. The Flight
16. The Plan
17. The Cave

Reed Bentman
18. The Croatoan Gateway
19. The Demon Chief

Cam Coleman
20. The Return
21. The Rally
22. The Battle

Sara North
23. The Enemy's Champion

Cam Coleman
24. The Power Struggle
25. The Transfer

Raven Drake
26. The Impasse

Skot Seymour
27. The New Day

Cam Coleman
28. The Beasts of Tierri

Let me know what you think!

Hello again, and thanks to those of you who keep coming back to my blog to see what's up with this project. This post is actually going to give you all a chance to help me out. As you know, I'm in the editing stage of my first manuscript of this story right now.

The scene you are about to read comes right after the last passage I posted. This passage is one of the many dream sequences that Cam (the story's narrator) has throughout the course of the story.

My goal is to see basically if what I have here is good, or if I need to cut it down a little more. The original way that I wrote this sequence is SIGNIFICANTLY different from what you are about to read. I had to cut a lot of stuff out for two reasons: 1) in order to keep the book on a sort of "PG" level, some of the more graphic stuff that Cam sees in this dream had to be cut out or revised a bit. You have to understand these heroes are dealing with, I believe, one of the purest forms of evil--actual demons from hell. 2) I had to cut a lot of stuff out for length. It was just getting to be a drag to read it, although it was LOADS of fun to write.

So, here you have what I have cut down to. And, as always, I've included a picture at the end to go with one of the images in this excerpt. Please comment or message me and let me know what you think! I've included a paragraph or two at the beginning where Cam is still awake and hasn't begun his dream/nightmare yet.

So, where are we at this point in the story? Cam and his three teammates, Reed, Raven, and Sara, are on a reconnaissance (intelligence-gathering) mission to Roanoke Island in North Carolina. They are on board their super-modern jet, the SR-75 (see pics in previous blog post) with Skot, another friend and leader, piloting the aircraft. This scene comes after the team narrowly avoids being caught by the government and shot down over Flagstaff, Arizona en route to North Carolina. Cam is very tired and is about to fall asleep.

Be prepared: this passage may be a little disturbing or uncomfortable. It is one of the more ominous scenes in the book, and certainly one of Cam's most violent nightmares.

***THE FOLLOWING TEXT IS COPYRIGHT 2008 DUSTIN T. STREET. It may not be disseminated, re-written, broadcast, or otherwise distributed in any manner, for any reason, without written permission from the author.***

CHAPTER 19: "THE FLIGHT" (CONT)

So many questions without answers now swirled about the interior regions of my consciousness. My momentary happiness had all but turned back into an abysmal anxiety about our current mission. Sure, it had been dubbed a reconnaissance effort. We would travel to Roanoke Island, gather what intelligence we could, and seek out the other hidden entrance to Croatoan before returning to our base deep beneath the Papoose ridge. But I knew that if we found the gateway and made our way into enemy territory in the other world, there would be no turning back. We would fight—then and there. It was what we had been trained to do. It was the reason we were given our powers—to serve and protect the interests of Croatoan. We were to contain the evil of the Croatan tribe within the other world and destroy it there, which would in turn ensure the safety of our own dimension.

But our training was exactly that—just training. Never in the course of our preparation for the future to come were we able to practice our abilities on anything that remotely resembled the demonic tribe we would be attempting to destroy in the days and months to come. There was a good reason, too. No one knew. No one knew what those soldiers could do, how they fought, how many of them existed. It was precisely this absence of knowledge about our enemy that sunk my stomach every time I thought about doing battle in any sense.

There was something else lurking on the periphery—for all of us, I believe. None of us had ever killed before. It was one thing to know our foes were demon-possessed Indians and that would overthrow and slaughter the American way of life, and ultimately seek world conquest. It was something else entirely when it came to thoughts of the four of us using our powers and possibly even our bare hands to slaughter the enemies first. Perhaps for the others, it was disgust with the idea of taking a life. For me, it was much more. I knew that "demon-possessed" meant nothing more than living, breathing, potentially innocent and harmless human beings who had been overtaken by evil forces, straight out of the gates of hell. Killing the demons, though, meant killing the innocent people they decided to possess. It was this notion that sickened me to no end and that brought me to tears on many occasions.

I looked back down at the navigational display. Without even reading the plethoric mass of numbers and measurements, I succumbed to my dormant exhaustion. I don't even remember when consciousness turned into deep sleep. But I do remember that the nightmares I had been experiencing as of late had no intentions of letting up—even at 90,000 feet above the ground.

The visions that eventually came to me in the darkness were cheerful at first. I saw the smiling faces of my colleagues and friends. Reed was laughing and Skot seemed to be laughing right along with him. Raven was more beautiful than ever, her flowing brown hair rippled and turned about her face with unprecedented grace and elegance. Sara was radiantly amused as she laughed at some unheard comment from either Reed or Skot—I couldn't tell which. She sat with her arms crossed, much as Raven did.

It wasn't long until I realized that no one was looking at me. After a few moments of trying to get their attention, I attempting screaming at them to see if they could hear me. But they all just continued the same motions that they had been performing since the dream—or was it a nightmare—had begun.

Suddenly, I was vaguely aware that I could hear and process sound. It wasn't the ambience that I had expected once I realized that I was still in the cockpit of the jet—the same place I had been just before falling asleep. I found it strange that I could consciously remember the final moments that I had been awake before dozing off. I feared that I might actually be awake now. But why couldn't they hear me? Why were they caught in this never-ending loop of laughter and glee?

I stared at Reed as I pondered and, from the corner of my eye, I saw Sara break out of her loop into a new motion. When I turned, I saw that she had shifted her gaze to look at me. She was still smiling gleefully as she extended her arm to me. I grabbed it immediately, mostly to see if I was actually awake. Her hand was cold, but it was real, nevertheless. As she grasped my hand, I became aware of the fact that my other friends were now staring at me as well.

A few moments later, I became gradually privy to the eerie light of the cockpit. It wasn't the same dim atmosphere created by the stealth system. Rather, it had more of a yellow tint to it. The lights in the cabin almost made my teammates' eyes appear yellow themselves. Next, I could hear a low growl coming from somewhere in the cockpit. It was a primal noise—like the sound a rabid dog would make if he were being threatened. The grip that Sara exerted on my hand tightened suddenly and I focused again on her face. I immediately regretted doing so. An inexplicably malicious and sinister scowl now replaced the happy smile that had been there just seconds ago.

Her grip on my hand continued to tighten as she moved her own hand farther up to grasp my wrist. It was then clear where the growling sound was coming from. Sara was making the noise, which seemed to be growing louder from her chest as her evil facial expression grew more monstrous. Drool began to leak from the corners of her mouth and her nose snarled with hatred. Her features were contorted and the yellowish tint to her eyes was intensifying into a pure amber color. It hadn't been the lights in the cockpit that caused the color shift. Her eyes were naturally becoming yellow. Bright yellow—like the yellow of a recently bloomed dandelion.

I sensed my own fear throughout my entire body and I wanted to use my powers to force her away from me. Her grip was becoming so tight that I was sure she would break the bones in my wrist soon. I remembered that there were others in here with us. When I turned to Raven for help, I was horrified to see that her face was now contorting into the same malicious expression that Sara possessed.

Reed and Skot, too, had suddenly transformed. I tried to scream, but a demonic Reed clasped a raspy hand around my throat and began to squeeze. They were all growling now. Each sound was distinct and their eyes had all turned completely amber, except for the midnight black that made up their tiny pupils and the off-white that colorized their corneas. I struggled to breathe. When I found myself almost able to take a full breath, three loud and separated cracks that emanated from the shattering bones beneath Sara's grasp sent tidal waves of pain from my wrist that flowed throughout my whole body. Torturous as it was, Reed's grasp on my neck rendered me completely unable to scream or to vocalize my pain in any way.

I was drowning in the scene. My heartbeat grew faster and faster. Then, I felt myself being lifted from my seat, with seemingly all the pressure in the world concentrated on my neck and pulling downward due to gravity. Simultaneously, I heard a loud burst of air as one of my possessed friends opened the emergency hatch in the rear of the cockpit. I then realized that Reed was lifting me by the throat and the pain of it was splitting me apart. Sara had let go of my wrist, which I could neither feel nor move after she had broken it with only a squeeze of her bare hand. There was movement, then I knew that I was now being dangled above the open hatch—above almost twenty miles of air that separated me from the cold hardness of the earth below.

Even above the deafening sound of rushing air at my feet, I could hear the combined growls coming from all four of them. The sound was permeating every fiber of my perception and the only feeling I could recall was a grim sadness over whatever it was that had overtaken my team and caused them to turn on me. Now, I had to accept it: I was going to die. I closed my eyes, praying the fall would allow me to experience several minutes of absolute freedom and ecstasy just prior to my blacking out in death. Of course, it would also be the true test of whether or not I was dreaming, as I still wasn't sure.

While waiting for my fate to meet me in an upward rush of air, I realized that the hideous growling had stopped. All I could hear was the wind beneath me. Reed's grip on my throat, although still excruciatingly painful and suffocating, had loosened slightly. I opened my eyes to look directly into the face of my best friend. But instead of a grimacing, demonic countenance, it was just Reed. His lean, perfectly human face stared back at me with an unspeakable agony. Tears were pouring out of his eyes, which had been restored to their original hazel color. He was trembling, as if he were unable to control his monstrous actions. For the first time, I was able to speak in spite of his relentless grasp on my neck.

"Reed," I croaked, barely audible. "Don't do this!"

Two things happened at once, but so quickly that I could barely register either. Reed grimaced as I spoke and before he could have even had time to process my plea for mercy, he released my neck completely.

A fraction of a second later, I was falling fast. The dark, night air surrounding me and penetrating every pore of my skin, chilling me to the bone. It was pitch black. I couldn't have seen my hand in front of my face. I struggled to regain my bearings in what I suspected was an upright position. The sensation of freefall surpassed me and I took it all in for what it would be worth. If I was about to die, at least I could say I got to experience this. It almost made me want to smile just to spite the situation.

As soon as these thoughts began playing out in my head, I could see that the atmosphere surrounding me was beginning to lighten. But it wasn't the light, baby blue shade the sky appears to be during a beautiful, cloudless day. It was more of a green tint—sickly, almost. There was mist, too. As I fell farther, the mist became heavier, obscuring my vision.

A few moments later, I was shocked to discover that I was not freefalling over land, but over a vast ocean of water. This seemed strangely out of place in my mind, as Odyssey had not been traveling, nor would it need to travel, over any sizable bodies of water for our mission to Roanoke Island (save a very small stretch of the Atlantic separating the island from the mainland). Yet, somehow, the idea that I was merely having a dream seemed elusive to me, as if it were beyond the periphery of conscious understanding. What I was experiencing may not have been real. Yet, as I continued my freefall into the enormous body of water nearly a mile below me, I deduced that it wasn't completely a figment of my imagination either.

I had my gift of controlling water, I remembered. It was undoubtedly this gift, coupled with my inner gift of wisdom and foresight that allowed me to know I was descending into water. A tingling sensation in the back of my head seemed to trigger a thought that shed some hope on my dire situation.

Control the water below you. Allow it to act as a cushion to your fall. Let the water embrace you.

But this was absurd. I wasn't so in control of my powers as to manipulate the water in some abstract sort of way. The most I had done in my training was to empty a small creek of all its flowing water and freeze that water in midair. But this was entirely different.

Then, it dawned on me that I had nothing to lose and that I might as well give it a shot. I estimated that I had about another minute before I would slam into the boisterous waves of the mysterious, unknown ocean below me. With all of my effort and willpower, I looked into the inner reaches of my mind as Finian had instructed me and concentrated on the unseen element below me. The picture of the water became clear as day in my head, although I still could not see the surface of the ocean below me for all the fog and mist that had thickened in the atmosphere.

I extended my arms out and downward and willed my mind to attempt control over the water—to soften it somehow, and to make it welcome my presence without overcoming me. In the midst of my heavy concentration, I heard what sounded like flapping wings in the distance. They were slow at first, and approaching, coming closer and closer with every split second. But I didn't have time to investigate. I had to survive this fall. Somehow, I had to.

Soon, the flapping sound was right in front of my face and I had no choice but to open my eyes. When I did, my concentration was completely severed from the water below and a high, deafening shriek filled the entire sky with terror. My heart and stomach became acquainted with one another as I stared at the huge beast hovering in front of me as I continued to fall.

As his full body emerged from the thick mist to a place where I could see him and take his presence in, I realized I had seen the creature before. The blue scales, long jagged tail, and hypnotic white eyes of the water serpent confronted me with fear and unquestionable authority. The beast hovered closer and closer to me, letting out shorter shrieks as he approached.

I was not as fearful of the creature this time as I had been the first time I had seen him in a dream. But something was different about the way the creature approached me—the way he reacted to me, and the way he looked at me.

In one fluid motion, the water serpent opened his wings to their full majesty and made one final lunge in my direction. As he did so, I looked down just in time to see that the surface of the ocean below was rising up to meet me at mind-bending speed. At precisely the moment when the arms of the blue beast wrapped around me—the same moment that the water should have killed me on impact—everything went black in a rush and roar of deafening sound.

I had disappeared back into the realm of peaceful sleep, one more nightmare behind me. The last conscious thought I could remember before succumbing to my fatigue was that the jet lag I'd feel when we arrived in North Carolina was going to be hell.

**END TEXT**

Okay, and as promised, here is a picture to go along with one of the passages. This is the "water serpent" (it's actually a DRAGON that can swim in the water AND fly in the air) that meets Cam in his dream. It appears that the dragon RESCUES him, but at this point, it's unclear what its purpose in the story is (on purpose). Actually, it won't REALLY be revealed until the second book! I can only tell so many stories in a single volume!

Hey everyone.

So, it's been a while since I last posted a blog entry about the progress of my novel (currently titled "Project Finian," but alas, this is only a working title). Good news...the book is essentially finished! I am absolutely ecstatic and elated about this. I realize most people are probably thinking, "A novel? Seriously? Come on! Do something useful!"

But honestly, this is one of the greatest senses of accomplishment I've felt in a long time. Regardless of what anyone in my family or any of my friends think of my undertaking a project like this, I am proud of it. I am glad I did it. Whether or not it is ever published doesn't matter to me. What matters is that there is a considerable stack of papers that represent a work of art that I created...that I can hold in my hands and allow others to hold and to enjoy as well.

With that in mind, I want to extend a special thank-you to those that have agreed to be on my reading panel. So far, four people have volunteered to read the book and give me their thoughts and comments on it. If you are one of them and you're reading this, thank you in advance! If you are NOT one of them and would like to be, please message me!

Please note that it will be a few more months before I start distributing manuscripts out to people. Before I can do that, I am going to create a Web site for myself that will have information about this novel on there and I am also going to file the rights to the book itself with the Library of Congress before it leaves my possession.

In the meantime, I would like to post a small excerpt from the novel here for EVERYONE to enjoy. I would VERY MUCH love to hear from you guys on what you think about this little portion. Even though this specific part of the book deals with more of the sci-fi/action element of the story, rest assured that there is something in the novel for EVERYONE, including drama, suspense, sci-fi, action, romance, and even a tinge of horror/thriller. And, one of the biggest catches...for all you American history buffs out there, I think you will find a VERY pleasant surprise as the main plot element of the book itself, as it deals with one of the greatest American mysteries of all time...

Also, to give a little insight on characters so that you're not lost, we have our five primary protagonists in this particular scene: Reed, Cam, Sara, Raven, and Skot. The entire novel is told from Cam's point of view (if ever published, you will know why), so that is who is doing the talking.

So, without further ado, here are the first few paragraphs of Chapter 19 ("The Flight"). Be sure to scroll all the way down when you're done reading. I'm going to include a very nifty picture to go along with it!

***THE FOLLOWING TEXT IS COPYRIGHT 2008 DUSTIN T. STREET. It may not be disseminated, re-written, broadcast, or otherwise distributed in any manner, for any reason, without written permission from the author.***


CHAPTER 19: "THE FLIGHT"

Flying at Mach 3, it would take us just over an hour to cross the nearly three thousand miles that separated our terrestrial headquarters in the Papoose Mountains of southwestern Nevada and our destination on Roanoke Island. I still found it difficult to wrap my mind around the fact that such an obscure American legend was now the subject of our top-secret investigation. And I knew that I'd have to reflect on it now, in the quasi-tranquil moments as we prepared for the journey. There wouldn't be much quiet time as we outran the sound of our own aircraft three times over, let alone time to think.

Since I could first remember comprehending the importance of the Lost Colony's disappearance to the country's early history, I had been intrigued by the mystery of it all. How did one hundred fifteen men, women, and children all disappear without a trace after three years in the New World? Was it disease? Were they picked up by another vessel? Did they attempt to return to England and perish at sea? Did an enemy native tribe wipe them out? Or was the most widely accepted hypothesis true? Were the colonists, in fact, absorbed by one of the friendly, local tribes?

During my high school years, I had studied all of the theories concerning what happened, always keeping an open mind about the situation until the day when I could explore the mystery for myself. I found it almost absurd that I was now entertaining the notion that, sometime between August 18, 1587 and that same date exactly three years later, those colonists stumbled upon the gateway to another dimension, and subsequently vanished. And yet, when put in perspective with the fact that I myself traveled to this other world not even a week ago, the pieces seemed to fit together with an unsettling ease.

What I didn't yet understand was how the remarkable evidence that the colonists were absorbed by another local tribe fit in with the story of Croatoan, the other dimension. Reports of natives as far north as Chesapeake wearing English-style clothing, speaking the English language, and practicing some English customs had been recorded in numerous unrelated volumes by varying authors from several different decades following the actual disappearance in the colony in 1590. My working explanation up until now (and the only one that seemed credible to me at the time) had been that a small number of the colonists escaped to these other tribes in the north, in favor of security and support in a foreign land. Why not? They had been practically abandoned.

Reed had especially enjoyed that theory the night before when I had brought it up for group discussion. He had already cooked up a conspiracy theory of his own that followed in the same vein as mine.

"What if there was some kind of war that broke out between the local tribes and the ones up north?" he proposed. "They could have forced the colonists to pick sides and fight!"

"That still wouldn't explain how they found the gateway," Raven had responded. "Besides, we don't even know if the natives had anything to do with all this."

Sara, too, seemed to want to dismiss the warring notion. "They might have been caught in some sort of crossfire, but I think it's a little out there to say that a group that small would divide themselves by swearing allegiance to natives they didn't even know."

"It wouldn't have been the only time Americans fought their own brothers in battle," Reed had offered back. "I guess we'll never know what the circumstances were."

The discussion quickly receded after the truth of the last comment sank in. I found myself silently thinking of the plausibility of Reed's conjecture, weighing out the unspoken details in my mind, and mixing aspects of both our theories. While a tribal civil war where the Indians themselves divided the colonists did seem far-fetched, I had to admit it was not a bad theory. If even some of the colonists did, in fact, disappear into Croatoan, it might have been the only explanation for English presence in local Native American tribes, specifically those of the Chesapeake Indians, in the early seventeenth century.

Suddenly, I remembered something in my research. On the Internet, I had read that some of the newest evidence available on the centuries-old mystery pointed to the voluntary dividing of the colony into two factions. The article had mentioned that one group of the settlers had set out northward for Chesapeake, which had been their intended destination before Simon Fernandes, the Portuguese privateer, dropped them off at Roanoke Island so that he could hurry off to fight in Spain's war with England. Curiously, no solid evidence as to the fate of the other group had been uncovered.

Voluntarily. I remembered the word so clearly as it rested on my screen. So, perhaps Reed was right to assume their had been a tribal war, perhaps pitting the Croatan tribe against the Chesapeake. But contrary to his theory, it dawned on me that the colonists could have had a reason to willingly involve themselves in the struggle and, thus, a reason to pick sides.

Still, none of these ruminations furthered an explanation as to the discovery of the Croatoan gateway and, unfortunately, provided no insight as to how we were going to go about "discovering" it either.

I meditated on these ponderings in my head, which consequently began to ache at the realization of just how vast this old elementary school legend really was in the grand scheme. I was roused from my musing by the intensifying blare of the custom-built SR-75's engines coming to life all around us. Skot was speaking with someone at headquarters via a headset, muttering an assortment of checklist items and final preparations for the ship to which none of the rest of were paying much attention (we had been trained for our crew positions, but piloting was beyond any of us at this point).

It seemed that our friends inside the base were able to control the various panels and devices from outside the ship, because Skot never took his hands off his clipboard as a plethora of screens and buttons blinked to life with high-pitched beeps and chirps. He responded to each one with a different mark on the sheet before him. At last, he set the clipboard inside the console that divided his seat and mine, subsequently pulling a package of vomit bags.

"For the trip," he said haughtily, with a crooked smile. I glared at him narrowly, resenting his making fun of my being the only flight trainer to throw up in our practical exercises a few days prior.

I grabbed the package from him and threw it back into the console. As I did so, I noticed he was staring in the directions of the seat directly behind me, where Sara was sitting. He threw her a wink and continued his gaze just before Reed reached over me from his seat on my right. In an elaborately exaggerated movement, he grabbed the package that I had just replaced from inside the console.

"Well, I think I might need them before it's over with," he said with a glorious eye roll, undoubtedly intended for Skot. Skot seemed to get the message as he cleared his throat and straightened up in his seat.

"All right gang, listen carefully," he began, as always in that same cocky-yet-informative tone. "Thanks to our good friends, the energy and propulsion specialists at Project Finian, this aircraft has been specially re-designed from Lockheed-Martin's initial concept for the SR-75 to allow for minimal—and by minimal, I mean tolerable—G-force interference inside the cockpit."

"And, how does that work, exactly?" Raven chimed from behind Skot's seat.

Skot began with what I was sure would be a lavish account, but Reed had other things in mind.

"I am sure it is an interesting story, but we'll pick up the Air Force Digest and read all about it some other time!"

It was evident that Reed had become annoyed with Skot because of the airman's vigorously developing interest in Sara, which Skot made no special efforts to conceal from the rest of the team. For a moment, Skot looked crestfallen that he had been interrupted, but he quickly compensated with another wink to Sara, just before firing the vertical thrusters.

***NOTE: I put a gap in here because there is some pretty revealing text that comes next, and I don't want to give too much away about the other stuff. But I LOVE the nifty jet cockpit scenes, so I want to give you a little more. The next bit of text is from the same chapter. They've just completed a checklist and are leaving their base. Oh, and by the way, in the text that I've decided not to include here, they've just named their aircraft "Olympus" after the home of the gods in Greek mythology. There is a reason I could not include the scene where they name it, because it gives too much away. That is all I will say. Oh, and you'll notice a reference to "ten miles" by their control specialist that probably won't make sense because I didn't include that text either. Basically, they only have "official clearance" to enter airspace within a ten-mile radius of their headquarters. After that, they've got to go into stealth to fly across the country. Here is the rest of the text...***

Suddenly, the rumbling noise above us ceased and I could see that we had emerged from the Papoose ridge into the silvery moonlight that must have made Olympus look like a satin cloth billowing in the breeze, with its smooth, silvery metal surface glistening before our eyes.

I stared out the cockpit window at the nose of our ship with pride. Five or six days ago, I didn't know the first thing about military aircraft. Now, here I was—a ranking general and trained navigation engineer—about to make a maiden voyage in one of the most highly developed and customized jets ever built.

"Alright, control," Skot said with reservations. "We're out of here."

"Thank you, Commander. Remember, ten miles," came Fallon's reply. "Good luck, and Godspeed to you all."

And with that, the headsets beeped one last time to let us know that all communications with our base had been severed until such an emergency arose that we would need them again. They had been very clear about that in the training. We knew that because of the nature of Project Finian's operations, we were on our own; soldiers with highly specialized combat abilities, according to General Grisham. Sure, it was true—if by "special" he meant, "average kids with neat tricks that only work in La-La Land."

I wasn't sure if I felt the jolt of the speed jump before I saw Skot throttle up or not. Either way, my stomach quickly became acquainted with my chest muscles and the sudden thrill of traveling at the speed of sound encompassed me. A single loud clicking noise told me the airlock on the cockpit, as well as the gimbal system holding us in place and reducing the effect of traveling at Mach 3 on our bodies, had engaged.

"Get ready to pull some g's, folks," Skot said with ease.

**END TEXT**

And there you have it, folks! I hope you enjoyed reading that little snippet. And I hope that because I picked a chapter that's sort of smack dab in the middle of the book, you will want to know what happened before and what comes next! Tell your friends to read this, too! I'm trying to generate some interest!

By the way, for all you people that are nerds, or just love learning about and looking at aircraft like I do, I've included a picture that is a ROUGH idea of what the SR-75 in my book looks like. This picture is concept art of the Lockheed-Martin SR-75. This art was rendered by someone based on a DESCRIPTION given by a civilian who spotted the craft over the Nevada Test Site (excruciatingly near the proximity of Area 51...which ALSO plays a huge role in this book, by the way). Of course, MY SR-75 is a little different as far as the color, and there are few other little "toys" on mine. Also, the cockpit on a normal SR-75 is relatively small, and the craft can only carry two pilots. But in my story, the jet is MUCH larger and can house an entire crew. Here it is...





And here is another shot. Yes, there IS a separate aircraft attached to the top! And, why? Many believe the SR-75 is part of a secret project called Blackstar that is being tested at Area 51. The goal, as I understand it, is to create a "two-steps-to-launch" program that will allow a jet (the larger SR-75) to fly up to 100,000 feet in altitude and subsequently launch a smaller craft into low-earth orbit. As always, you'll find out MY reason for the second aircraft if the book is ever published! Here's the other shot:





And one more, this time just of the main SR-75 aircraft itself (and also closer to what the colors of "Olympus" are in my book...)

So, I am writing to you guys this second blog post on my newest original undertaking, wondering first of all why I didn't get any comments on my first post! Come on guys, help me out here! A little encouragement. Ha! Just kidding.

Anyway, I don't want to take too long here, because I desperately need to retire to bed so I can get up early for work tomorrow. But I wanted to check in with a second entry to let you guys know that I reached a milestone in the writing of Book 1 today. I finished the first act! The act consists of 15 total chapters that chronicle  events bringing the main protagonists of the story together, introducing the main antagonist, and a few other characters and important plot points along the way.

Finishing the first act puts my first draft manuscript OVER the halfway point. How can this be, you ask? Keep in mind, I have already written the ending to the book. The second half of the third act (chapters 24 through 26) has been written. So, all that remains is to write chapters 16 through 23.

So anyways, I'm off to bed, but just wanted to share the news! I've gotten the hardest part of the process over with, and now I can really delve into the "juice" of the story. For all you writing buffs out there, I know what you must be thinking about the structure: "Why did he devote 15 out of 26 chapters to the first act? Isn't the second act supposed to be the longest?"

Under normal circumstances, yes. The second act typically would be the longest. However, I have this particular story spanned over a three-book period. So, TECHNICALLY, Book 1 is, all by itself, the first act of the story. So, in theory, I've completed the first act OF the first act, if that makes sense. That's why my structure isn't following your typical fiction structure. Just in case you were wondering!

Anyway, good night! I'll check in soon! In the meantime, get those comments rolling in!

So, I've decided to begin a blog series on the novel (or rather, set of novels) that I am currently writing. I debated for some time whether or not I should do this and finally decided that I would. But don't expect any crucial details. I'm keeping the majority of this very lengthy project under protective wraps for the time being.

First, let me give you a little history about this project. The basic story (including some very vivid imagery and character descriptions) has been swimming around in my head for the better part of seven years. I wrote my first short treatment of the story the summer before my freshman year of high school. I still have that original, hand-written document; Although the plot and several characters have changed drastically, the basic story is still there.

I went for a long time without doing anything to the original draft I had written. I let the story fall by the wayside and decided in high school not to pursue for a long time, if ever again. Not long ago, I was going through some of my things after moving to my new place in Nashville. And guess what I found? That historic, first handwritten draft of this story. I couldn't believe it. It just popped up out of nowhere! So, at that moment, I decided to get serious about making this story come to life, even if only for my own enjoyment.

And so, that's where I am now. I'm going to start blogging about my experience writing this epic story. I will say that it is a fantasy story, and that it takes place in two different worlds: our own, and another, more mysterious and perplexing land. Sounds a lot like a Narnia or Lord of the Rings scenario, but I assure you, this couldn't be farther from the truth.

Actually, in an odd sort of way, my story draws its uniqueness from the fact that a large part of it is based on American history. It is set in the United States, present-day. It is a mysterious, haunting echo from the distant past that calls the story's main characters into this "other" world. Beyond that, I can't say anything. I will say that I have finished a pretty good chunk of Book 1. Yesterday, I completed Chapter 8 of the book.

So, I've written the prologue for the story, Chapters 1-8, and Chapter 26, the final chapter of the first volume. Also, it may surprise you to know that I have also completed the final chapter of Book 2, as well as the final chapter and the epilogue for Book 3. It definitely helps me to know where I'm going with each individual volume as well as where I'm going with the tale as a whole.

So there you have it...my first in a series of blog posts about this new endeavor. I will be revealing some secrets and spoilers about the story. But, as I said earlier, don't expect too much or you will be disappointed. Please realize that blogging about this project is simply an outlet...a way to relieve the built-up tension inside my mind from writing about something unreal all day long, meanwhile trying to convince myself it IS real so that the writing will be appealing, all the while trying to realize a dream and a goal. So please comment and tell me what you think! To give you some food for thought, I'm going to give you my teaser text for the first book. Here it is:

"His father secretly developed the most guarded technology in history before vanishing without a trace ten years ago…and Cam Coleman wants answers. What's more, Cam's father's most trusted scientific partner, the father of Cam's best friend Reed, also vanishes into thin air. A couple of mysterious travelers that arrive in Cam's ho-hum upstate New York neighborhood seem to know a lot more about the disappearances than they should. When Cam and Reed follow them to historical Roanoke Island, they stumble into an alternate dimension called "Croatoan"—a world that casts their own personal mysteries in a shroud of deceit and darkness.

The foursome learn that American history goes beyond the pages of textbooks when they discover an evil, centuries-old Native American chief, preserved by a dark curse upon his life many years ago, has sinister plans for the conquest of not only the peaceful, free lands of Croatoan, but for the slaughtering of the entire American population and the re-taking of the nation for his own people as well. And he's not working alone: someone from the real world is helping the chief smuggle modern combat technology into Croatoan, making his brainwashed soldiers a formidable foe to be reckoned with.

Meanwhile, in their quest to discover the link between their own world and Croatoan, and to solve the mysteries of their interconnected personal tragedies, the four unlikely heroes are aided by a team of real-world underground scientists, formed years ago by Cam's father, who know about the existence of the second dimension and operate a secret headquarters that contains one of the gateways leading into Croatoan. While traveling in Croatoan, they also befriend a wise old sage named Finian, who bestows legendary abilities upon them in exchange for their service in the fight to save the innocent inhabitants of Croatoan from being overrun by the natives and, in turn, to save the real world from the very same fate."

All text is copyrighted by Dustin Street (Year: 2008). All rights reserved.