The true Wondering Wanderer...
About Alan
So, yes I chose the title of my book to fit myself! Fair criticism I suppose.
I am almost 45 years old and originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland but I grew up in England and so it began! I have lived all over the world; from Spain, back to Ireland, back to Spain again, back to England, then Ireland again, around the US and back to Spain one last time!! Wow, now I am tired! I have spent 6 years in The Domincan Republic with my wife and children; eating platanos and yucca and loving the weather and lifestyle! I am a step father to three amazing young men and have recently became the full time father of two beautiful little baby girls who light my life and own my heart.
Returned to Spain where we will likely stay for a good few years yet. It's time to settle down and give the kids some stability though, in these very trying times, that is never easy to guarantee...
I write from my heart, from my passion and what takes my fancy. I love writing, whether it's a poem,a short or a full blown novel; even an email or a blog! I adore words, I love using them, finding meanings, synonyms and their counterparts in other languages! Words are my greatest passion!
I invented the language of Glòsta (or Là Glostèan Empyraen) for the Empyraeum Cycle partly for fun and partly to explore the process of linguistic evolution, to play with words, evolve them, and explore how their meanings and relevence became embedded in the culture.
I started writing what would become the Empyraeum Cycle back when I was 13, possibly younger even (memory is not as reliable as it once was), using a mechanical type writer to begin with (weighed more than a medium sized dog), then a single line screened electric typewriter, then on the venerable old BBC Master System computers at school during free periods. I still have the original manuscript somewhere and might frame the 5.25" floppy disk I saved the very first draft on one of these days!
The Empyraeum Cycle is a lesson and warning in one; my driving passion has always to make Alexander's Empyraeum a real place, even if I may not have always known that. Back in the late 90's I realised that the Empyraeum I was writing about bore a remarkable and unintenional resemblance to the universe of the Warhammer 40K table-top gaming, miniatures, and computer games (as well as some excellent fiction these days). I dropped what was then titled "Bloodstar" and wrote no more...for over 20 years. Then, one day, I started to think about the idea of Alexander the Great living on today; that he had not died in 323 B.C/BCE and had done a bit of a King Arthur, gone to return when needed. Over the following years, I took this nebulous concept and blended the Trinity Series - an idea and concept I'd dried up on - into my original idea, this new semi-formless beastie, and turned all those fragments into what you will recognise as the Empyraeum.
The Chronicles of Enoch came from the strangest of sources. I was helping out a fellow writer I began chatting with on Facebook and was teaching him what I call "Pass the Passage", I write a few lines of dialogue, he adds to it, and so on. The result created Asmodeus in my fragments and the idea of The Chronicles between us. Alas, Joe had other more pressing commitments and left The Chronicles in my hands, a fine place for them he assured me. We shall indeed see...
The Lesson? In the first instance, never throw away a good idea even if it does not seem like one at the time. In the second, let your passions guide you to the work hidden in your heart; they will often arrive at the most unexpected of moments!
Trust. Your. Instincts.
The main lesson I've learned on this more recent five year journey is this; the journey never ends.