I just received the pencil sketch of the cover of A Flickering Light Called Fate, by Iho Grace from Amber Coubrough my cover illustrator today. She’s due with her third child, so the effort to get this sketch out is simply heroic. I’m so grateful that she has given me a glimpse of what the cover will look like. There is a chance she may get it to me before she goes into labour (wow…) but whatever happens, the timing for the cover will be perfect. The final tweaks (for concept) from me, have been made, now she can finalise and then digitise the sketch, and at some time, the book of relationship catharsis that is this small book of poetry will be published, and I will have given Iho Grace his first foray into the Oho Ake universe.
Remembering the thrill of seeing the first three books published all at the same time in 2010 was an achievement for me that allowed me to have the self-belief that I could accomplish this creative process. I had been one who started many projects and failed to finish them throughout my life. I felt immense satisfaction seeing the first editions of Entwined, The Light Guides the Way and The Darkness Holds Sway for sale on Amazon way back when. It wouldn’t be long before I would create my website, sell the books on there and then eventually pull them all down and re-edit/re-imagine all seven of the published books in 2016. I had been told I would write seven books in seven years in 2009 but scoffed at the idea when I had just crossed the line with three. I wrote those books, all seven within the seven years, with a year to spare.
Now writing my eleventh/twelfth books consequentially, and having two new characters writing through me, Iho Grace and Dick Swabb, I anticipate the release of another book with a serene sense of satisfaction and quiet pride that the Oho Ake universe continues to expand, burgeon and birth new creative wonders that make my heart sing. A Flickering Light Called Fate, will be the first book of poetry (exclusively poetry) that I will have published, though poetry has been a stalwart of my literary life. It’s the foundation on which all literary creations rise out of me and towards the soaring heights of imagination. My prose is poetic inflow and imagery, poems frame the stories, chapters, narrative breaks in my novels. So, my first ode is a deeply honest and revealing expose of two years of my life with someone who has become a phantom in my life now.
There are no imaginings in this book, it’s the realness of the real in my interpretations. I’m excited to publish it when I do, and long may I continue to write and birth tomes, odes, fables, and nightmares into the world for me first and foremost, then for those who venture into this beckoning dream where imagination illuminates truth.
