Larry Paris on Let’s Chat

Welcome, everyone.

 

Larry Paris is our honored guest author this week. Larry was reared in Cedar Hill, a little town south of Dallas, population 6K. Now it’s grown to almost 100K. When he was fifteen, God called him to the ministry, and he was licensed as a minister. He attended Dallas Baptist College starting in 1975 and married the love of his life in 1978, ending his college career for the time being. 

Larry is giving away one signed copy of his novel, The Darkened Land.

Larry Paris: Beginnings

When I started college I began writing a book that would form the basis for The Darkened Land many years later. Married life ended my work on that project. We added three beautiful children to our family in the next years. My first, my daughter, was named after the heroine of my unfinished book. My two boys were born two and four years later. We followed the Lord’s leading through the next twenty years moving from one place and one job to another.

About 1995 I began writing again. That is when The Darkened Land began. In my college days, I wrote an allegory similar to Pilgrim’s Progress, but the names were Greek words that gave the allegory its meaning while allowing the book to be just a fun story for those who did not want to delve deeper. The new book utilizes the same format, but takes the names from many languages. Many like Aidan are actual names. Over the next couple of years the book grew to 30,000 words, before events brought my progress to a halt.

Larry Paris: Change and New Beginnings

With the kids going off to college and work difficult to find, I went back to school. Dallas Baptist College had become Dallas Baptist University in the intervening years. I worked at the University as a computer tech. Then in 2004, I was disabled and no longer able to work though I continued classes. I graduated in 2010. In the meantime our first grandchildren had arrived and we moved to be close to them. My last classes were finished online.

In 2017 we divorced, and I began life alone. It was at this point that God stepped in and started making changes.

I had been on many medications and was living life from a recliner where I ate, slept, and played the computer and little else. When I moved into my apartment I was just shy of three hundred pounds. I fasted for 40 days. By the end of the fast I had lost seventy pounds and was off all medication but one.

I had begun writing again and in those first six weeks the book went from those 30,000 words, that had taken years to write, to 90,000 words. God was in it every step of the way. I had written 60,000 words in six weeks. After a false start in 2018, the second edition was published in 2019. It was then that I began the second in this series of eight books entitled The Basaners and the Man Who Would Not Die although the title on the cover is simply The Basaners. It is in the editing process and I hope to have it on the market in the spring or summer of this year.

The Darkened Land by Larry Paris

In a land of perpetual darkness the city of Agapay stands as a beacon in the midst of a raging war…

Lachlaniel has never known the light until a man with one of the King’s light-giving stones passes by. Dazzled by the wonders, beauty, and gifts it bestows, Lachlaniel leaves Fairvale to find a stone.

Accompanied by a friend and aided by some of the King’s finest warriors, Lachlaniel makes his way to Agapay pursued by the creatures of darkness. His quest has roused the enemy unleashing a flood of terror and destruction. The great city is in peril. Can Lachlaniel obtain a stone before the forces of evil engulf the city? Can he and his friends turn the tide of destruction or will the light fail and the defenders succumb to the legions of darkness?

A Snippet From The Darkened Land

As the forest closed in, a sound in the distance froze them in their tracks. It was the low guttural call of the wolf leader calling the pack to the hunt. Lachlaniel and Ewald ran. The call of the leader made their blood run cold and summoned their last reserves of strength. They couldn’t go far. If there were no shelter just ahead … Then, ahead of them, a light loomed. They ran with renewed vigor; the sounds of the pack became distinct a short distance behind them. The light ahead was strange, not at all like the light from Kesniel’s stone.

As they drew closer, they could see the fork in the road and the Black Tower beyond. So little light reflected from its surface that its features could not be discerned. In spite of this, it gave the appearance of a welcome shelter set down at the meeting of the ways in a land where there was no real shelter. The light of a fire within flickered welcomingly from the doorway. There was a man at the threshold. He held some strange object from which the light came. They were in agony as they crossed the last yards. The wolves rapidly closed the gap between them. The man was shouting.

“Hurry, hurry! Don’t look back! You can make it!”

He stood by the open door of the tower, urging them onward. The wolves were incredibly close now. Ewald caught the sound of the swiftest as it made a final leap toward him. He swung his axe wildly and blindly behind him striking the wolf in the neck with the head of the axe instead of the blade. The wolf was momentarily stunned, but the others continued to close the ground. Lachlaniel had already crossed the threshold into the tower. The man with the light held the door ready to slam shut as soon as Ewald was safe.

The next closest wolf leaped as Ewald crossed the threshold and the door closed with a whump. There was a tremendous thud, and the oak planks of the door moved visibly with the impact. Outside, the wolves circled and howled with anger at losing their prey. Inside, Lachlaniel and Ewald lay sprawled on the floor, breathing too heavily to speak. They were too weary to move, but they were safe – inside the Black Tower.

Larry Paris Links:

Website: http://larryparisbooks.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Larry-Paris-Books-377140173072048

Discussion Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/3179278412156116

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Darkened-Land-Seven-Towers/dp/1092736999/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1598335725&sr=8-1 (Print, Kindle, and Kindle Unlimited)

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Dear Lord, please bless each word Larry writes for You.
~ For Jesus’ sake ~