I’ve always been a poet. So it made sense when I decided to write a book, originally based on Dungeons and Dragons and nature, as suggested to to me by one of my brothers, that it be about a young man becoming a BARD.
When I asked if I could use D&D characters, I was told no. Undeterred, I reworked the story and removed anything that might be originally D&D. However, the main theme has always remained the same. A boy saves a girl who gives him a necklace with a gemstone that will lead him on a journey to find her when they are older. There’s much more to the story but that’s what the book is for.
Concept art for the original cover
We even tried to make a movie of the original version in the 80’s using a friend of the family, Dave Smith’s camcorder. Originally, George Lamprecht was to play the main character, we also had I believe, Graham Schneider, my grandfather, our neighbor then, Sam, and others play parts while my brother Andrew did the filming and directing. Unfortunately, we had a party and someone stole the large sheet of paper with everyone’s contact information. By the end of the summer, I realized, I had no idea how to make a movie. So at the beginning of the new school year I apologized to our very efficient and professional makeup artist, Rhonda Edgar.
As the years went by I kept expanding the story. Using my constantly upgraded knowledge to make a fantasy world seem more real.
The blacksmithing is as close as I can get it to being realistically medieval. And I have tried to stay true to the BARDs of yesterday and today. However, it is still a fiction book, and like historical fiction, liberties have been taken to keep the story flowing.
BARD started in high school, and I wanted to keep the main character’s perspective and attitude the same as one of that age. Bran is naive, hardworking, and observant. This is a coming of age story, a love story, a social commentary story, and a story about possible war.
The closest I’ve come to seeing someone who could pull off playing Bran is Brendan Fraser in School Ties.
Other characters were taken from real individuals as I wrote BARD. Master Kadar is based off of Mr. Brown (Gary) my high school gym teacher and junior football coach. I still haven’t figured out why he asked me to play considering he nicknamed me stone hands. R.I.P. Two people came to mind when I was writing Master Renell. The first was Robin Williams (see Dead Poets Society) R.I.P. or Bono of U2. When I saw the Australian cosplayer Nic the Pixie on FB, I immediately thought, that’s the Owner of the Gemstone. Without much hope, I contacted her. She agreed, and after a two year journey in which much of Australia burned, she got injured, and faced other obstacles, she sent wonderful pictures.
Original cover of BARD: Owner of the Gemstone portrayed by Nic the Pixie, background by Alex Watt, fonts and border by Ian Greener
Lyrics repeat and don’t always make sense until you hear them sung. I did my best to write lyrical poetry to represents songs. Poets will see them, others might skim over them.
As the book expanded it became impossible to write a realistic synopsis. Rowena Samuel, a friend, who read through the original said it needed to be split into two books. I followed her advice.
The first book is BARD: Bearer of the Gemstone. Fantasy_art_z.com, an artist I have been following for some time, created two covers. She is quite a remarkable talent, so with some alterations I may use the other cover for a different project. However, this is the cover have I decided to go with.
BARD: Bearer of the Gemstone is available on Amazon
Caedar Writing & Artwork 