It’s been way too long since I’ve updated this blog, and I truly apologize. It’s been … a heckuva last three years.

Even before I finished Prophecy, Book 3 of the Keeper of the Sphere trilogy, I’d been researching ancient Greece for my next project. See, back in August 2019 I woke up with a woman’s voice echoing in my head.

“Tell my story,” she’d demanded.

Somehow, in the way of these things, I just knew it was the Pythia, the most famous Oracle of Delphi.

So, while I finished revising Prophecy, I began purchasing books on Delphi. The very first was the gold standard: Delphi: A History of the Center of the World by Michael Scott (Princeton University Press, 2014).

For the next couple of months, I worked on Prophecy on weekdays, and on weekends I read about Delphi, taking notes in a spiral-bound notebook, thinking I’d tell the story of the famous priestess in a single book of historical fantasy.

After Prophecy was released into the world in October 2022, I devoted my time to learning about Delphi. After discovering Minoan artefacts had been uncovered in the excavation of the site, I then turned to learning about Minoan Crete, thinking of course I’d need to follow that thread.

Turns out, the Oracle of Delphi had an extremely long history, spanning from the Bronze Age to the Roman Period. Naturally, such a story could not be told in a single book. No, I now estimate it’ll take about eight books to do it justice.

Also naturally, I quickly discovered I needed much more information than two or three books could give me.

A lot more. To make a very long and probably not very interesting story short, I went on a book-buying spree that still hasn’t ended.

I estimate I’ve since purchased and read over 300 books on ancient Greece and Crete, covering the periods of the Neolithic, Bronze Age, Archaic Period, Classical Period, Hellenistic Period, and Roman Period. In addition, I’ve read thousands of academic papers on the same periods, from a variety of experts in the field.

These books and papers cover the gamut of subjects, from art and architecture to zoology. Clothing, economics, slavery, religion, writing and literature, drama and tragedy, mythology, warfare, transportation, climate, food, ceramics, jewelry, language, coinage … well, I could go on, but I think you get the point. I needed to know everything if I wanted to transport the reader to the ancient world in this story.

And, right around the purchase of the tenth notebook or so, I realized that this was going to be a monster of a project, far beyond what I had originally imagined.

Before I ever wrote a single word of the story, I ended up transferring all my handwritten notes into OneNote, with one notebook per subject; Crete got its own, as did Delphi and Akrotiri (Thera).

I’ll get into more details on how I connected the story dots in the next post. For this one, I wanted to apologize for the silence and explain where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing since Prophecy was released.

Just as a post script, here’s the current status of the project:
Book 1: 1450 BCE to 1420 BCE and is 113,176 words – draft complete
Book 2: 1210 BCE to 820 BCE and is 82,131 words – draft complete
Book 3: 770 BCE to 646 BCE and is 137,648 words – draft complete
Book 4: 595 BCE to 560 BCE and is 107,891 words – draft complete
Book 5: 550 to 506 BCE and is 85,165 words – draft complete
Book 6: 480 BCE to 337 BCE and is 96,461 words – draft complete
Book 7: 336 BCE to 30 BCE – outlining