Almost done (by Stefan)

There is a tiny bit of tweaking left on the cover of "The Three Feathers" before the book goes into print. Thank you all so much for your support, your likes, and your encouraging comments. This has been a daunting task. Not so much the actual process of publishing but exposing the world to a part of myself to that extent and the little voice inside my head whispering, "Who do you think you are? You can't write. You can't publish a book. Come on!!" 

I have been thinking about a one-liner that would describe The Three Feathers and what it's about, in a sentence. I found it in Kimberly Llewellyn's review: "...where friendship and love can overcome the most devastating of enemies — doubt in yourself." I think that's it. It's that doubt. Almost never fully conscious and mostly hidden yet always present in one way or another. Are we worthy enough to reach for the stars? Are we good enough, strong enough, brave enough, to go beyond our little self and

 search for something more than what is in front of us each day and every day after this day?

Joshua's search for the three feathers is the search of each of us for this hidden potential that we can sense in ourselves but never really pursue. We get an inclination here and there that there must be more to us. For us. Not crumbs but the whole banquet. And not so much materially but spiritually. Joshua sees, in a dream, what he could be, and from that moment on he cannot but search for it. His is a race against time for he has to find it before the dream fades back into nothingness. But he has limitations. He's not a mighty warrior or an athlete or a rocket scientist. He can't really fly. He can't do anything yet. All he can do is jump out of his pen (barely) and begin the journey, trusting that whatever it is he needs to know will be given him on his quest. Once he leaves though, he can't go back. He has to go through with it, however hard it is.

There are a lot of times throughout the journey when Joshua and his friends are faced with two choices: push through or die. The often perilous quest moves them toward its inevitable destination where each of them has a chance to find what they were looking for. But they can only make it together. They have to hold each other's hopes and keep them safe, otherwise the journey itself, the environment they are in, will just break them down one by one and obliterate them completely. The opposing forces are the guardians of sleep, trying to stop us from awakening to our true potential. Hollow's Gate, the land Joshua and his friends must travel through, is in and of itself an opposing force, trying to stop them from ever reaching their goal. Such is life, be that a rooster's or a human's.


This should have been just a small update and here we are going deep into the story (of life).

Back to "reality" ;-),

Stefan