Shadow of the Storm ~ Missing Chapters & New Ending

Not long after Rob passed away, his brother, David, who’d served as liaison during Rob’s last days, mailed to me the notes Rob had made regarding overall plot and the new ending. I already had the novel’s first draft except for the missing final three chapters. The task ahead would be to reconstruct those lost

An excerpt from Rob's final notes regarding the novel's ending.

chapters and direct the plot to the new ending Rob had envisioned in his last hours.

Rather than tackling reconstruction of the chapters immediately, I revised what I had in hand, paring down the existing draft from 140,000+ words to a more manageable and publisher-preferred word count for novels. By the time I finished revising the existing chapters, I was fully refreshed on where the plot was headed and how to steer it to Rob’s new ending. To my delight, crafting the new chapters went rather quickly. Throughout writing the first draft, Rob and I debated various plot and character aspects, fully establishing his point of view and voice in my psyche. It was not surprising as I reconstructed the missing chapters to hear him in my mind, either objecting to or approving the direction the story was taking. In the end, we landed exactly where he’d indicated in his final notes the book should end.

Shortly before he lost his voice during hospice care, Rob assured me that he’d found peace with his life—the good, the bad, the in-between. “Sure,” he said one of the last times we talked, “I’d change some things if I could, but we don’t get to do that. And we don’t get to change whatever may lie ahead. We can influence the future, but what’s gonna happen’s gonna happen.” He sighed. “I won’t be going home, Chris. But let me tell you, I’ve had a good life—good friends, great family. Now I have cancer. Everyone dies. It is what it is.” He chuckled softly. “Piss on it.” 

No self-pity. No remorse. Only acceptance and truth. The past is gone. The future is something that may or may not occur. We control neither. All we have is the moment. Rob learned how to use the moment to its potential right up to the end. One result is Shadow of the Storm, a darn good story with meaning.

Societal fear and unrest on Earth have skyrocketed due to increasingly bizarre and destructive events around the globe. A team of the world’s top physicists, working for America’s ruling corporation, Nattech Inc., has determined that future-based “time ripples” are triggering the events. Nattech enlists Cheyenne Native Americans Wolfshadow and Sarah Boone to track down and eliminate the source of those ripples, an other-dimensional, megalomaniacal, narcissistic entity known as Mahu, whose twisted goal is to rule a gutted Earth.

Shadow of the Storm is slated for publication mid-October 2026 from Foolscap & Quill. Stop by Foolscap at https://www.foolscap-quill.com/ for an array of exceptional novels in various genres. Upcoming posts will explore other characters and the novel’s long journey to publication. Receive posts automatically by visiting https://windpoemcreative.blogspot.com to subscribe via the RSS feed. For more information about my work, especially the latest novel, The Crosses ~ A Baker Street Irregulars Mystery, written with my late spouse, Bonnie Del Aguila, available from MX Publishing and most bookstores, please visit https://csfuqua.com.

  

 

James Pleasant Wolfshadow

Whether Rob planned it or not, I’ll never know, but James Pleasant Wolfshadow came to embody many of his creator’s qualities even in the first draft—determination, loyalty, duty, humility, forgiveness, acceptance, and compassion. By the time he pitched the idea to cowrite a science fantasy novel featuring a Native American protagonist, set in a dystopian future that our present resembles more each day, Rob Graham had worked out most plot and character details that would guide first-draft writing. 

Jim Wolfshadow is a former special ops agent who retired to apply his clandestine abilities for America’s ruling corporation, Nattech. After his wife dies in a terrorist attack most likely designed to take him out, Wolfshadow retires into seclusion, guilt-ridden and struggling to find redemption, confiding in only one person, his lifelong friend and occasional lover, Sarah Little Bird Boone.

Wolfshadow’s guilt over his wife’s death is based on a love so deep and primal that he cannot forgive himself even though he had no control over events. Wolfshadow’s devotion is a reflection of Rob’s deep love for his former wife, Teri. To honor her, he named Wolfshadow’s wife Teri. As Rob’s alcohol addiction worsened, his relationship with Teri deteriorated to the point she could no longer remain with him. They divorced, and his addiction and decline continued until he hit bottom, losing everything, ending up on the street, scrounging from garbage bins to stay alive until that morning when an especially awe-inspiring sunrise provided the epiphany and clarity he needed to change his life. The moment proved one of Rob’s most spiritual, if not the most, and he dedicated himself to kicking alcohol and rebuilding his life. He began to explore his spiritual side, reflected in the meditative practices employed by Wolfshadow and Little Bird. His affection for his former wife never waned as he harbored the unlikely hope that he would one day reunite with her.

Rob lived in Texas, and I in Alabama. He didn’t like computers, instead writing detailed outlines in longhand, which he would then flesh out via hunt-and-peck typing on an old typewriter. He’d mail the first-draft chapters to me to revise. I’d then send them back. Chapter by chapter, back and forth. It proved time-consuming, of course, but it also enabled us to consider more closely the plot and characters, especially as he explored the mythologies of religions from around the world, something that affected his personal outlook and beliefs as well as Wolfshadow’s. 

To support himself, Rob worked as a server for a family steakhouse, earning about $2.50 an hour plus tips. He busted his ass for a pittance on which he could barely survive. The job included no benefits, certainly no health insurance. When Rob developed worsening pain in his throat, he delayed a medical checkup until he could no longer bear it. It turned out to be cancer. He began to decline somewhat physically, but continued to work even as he struggled to pay for treatment, eventually securing some assistance from the state. The cancer appeared to go into remission, but that was short-lived. Eventually, he lost his job and ability to pay for treatment. The cancer spread. The pain increased. He could not afford the exorbitant costs of medication, but he could afford a bottle of cheap alcohol, and that helped deaden the pain. It also rekindled his addiction. 

Progress on the novel slowed until it stopped completely. We’d finished the first draft and had begun the second, but the last three chapters of the first draft and all of the second draft, for whatever reason, went missing. The cancer worsened, along with his consumption of alcohol, until Rob finally arranged a deal with a teaching university to provide palliative care in exchange for the donation of his body for study upon his death. In care, he again kicked alcohol, but his physical decline continued at an increasing rate as the cancer spread. 

Nevertheless, he expressed a desire to get back to the novel, but the missing chapters were an issue. We talked at least once a week, his growing weakness evident in his voice. I encouraged him to write what he could recall of the chapters, that I would flesh them out. He promised he would, but he simply didn’t have the energy.

Near the end, he grew too weak to communicate with me via letter or phone. His brother David became our go-between, urging Rob to scribble whatever he could about the chapters, which would then be passed on to me. David’s encouragement had two purposes—to press Rob to complete his final creative dream, and to distract him from the painful decline he was experiencing. Two days before he passed away, Rob wrote several lines on the yellow notepad, tapped it with the pencil, and told David that I would understand what he’d written was the end, that he’d leave me to fill in the missing chapters leading up to this new ending. Over the next two years, that’s what I did, along with revising the novel numerous times until it  eventually became the completed Shadow of the Storm in which Wolfshadow seeks self-forgiveness and understanding regarding the death of his wife, much like Rob had in life. 

Soon after entering the palliative care facility, Rob contacted Teri. They had the conversation he had imagined many times before, deep, reflective, and affirming, affording him some peace despite his regret that life had not been different. But isn’t that the way we all end up, wishing we had been better, had made different choices, that we had shaped ourselves in a far more constructive, compassionate way, that the life we live actually has meaning? Thing is, Rob’s life did have meaning. And much of that truly meaningful life is reflected in the character of James Pleasant Wolfshadow.

Upcoming posts will explore other characters, revisions based on Rob’s final directions, and the novel’s long journey to publication. Receive posts automatically by visiting https://windpoemcreative.blogspot.com to subscribe via the RSS feed. In the meantime, please stop by Foolscap at https://www.foolscap-quill.com/ for an array of exceptional novels in various genres. For more information about my work, especially the latest novel, The Crosses ~ A Baker Street Irregulars Mystery, written with my late spouse, Bonnie Del Aguila, available from MX Publishing and most bookstores, please visit https://csfuqua.com.

Piss on It ~ Shadow of the Storm’s Genesis

    Optimism defined Robert Edward Graham. He’d greet the day with the conviction that, no matter what it threw at him, it would place him closer to goals he was determined to reach. I don’t know if he’d always been such a man, but it was certainly the man who’d overcome alcohol addiction and homelessness, who’d found his strength in a soul-moving sunrise to rebuild his life.

    Born in 1945 in Corsicana, Texas, Rob became an all-state tackle in high school during his team’s 1963 winning season and post-season state football championship victory. While many of his classmates entered college after graduation, Rob took off in an artistic direction with an eye on the big time. As he did with every endeavor, he prepared relentlessly until he felt he was ready. Then he went for the primary goal, not a hundred smaller goals that might or might not lead to the big one.

    He ventured first into music as a founding member of the Penthouse 5, a rock garage band that became a regional sensation in the mid-1960s. Rob served as primary songwriter and vocalist. Penthouse 5 quickly became known for blending vocal harmonies with increasingly heavier music to create something new and exciting. The band cut several singles for regional labels, one reaching number one in the Dallas market, bringing the group to the cusp of national success. (The band’s album, The WordD is Love, is on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehElqibg0TE&list=RDehElqibg0TE&start_radio=1.) But rifts developed between several of the members, and the group split in 1967. Due to copyright ownership shenanigans by one of the members, Rob never received any royalties for the songs he wrote.

    “Piss on it.”

    That phrase became his trademark. Whenever life didn’t go quite the way he wanted or landed wide of his target, he’d shrug it off with a hearty “piss on it.” He’d laugh and move on—sometimes to better things, sometimes to worse.

    After Penthouse 5 split, Rob pursued acting, appearing in commercials and regional stage productions. To supplement his income and further expose himself to potential acting opportunities, he relied on his rugged good looks to become a popular male model, remaining in high demand for several years. Such demand provided ample opportunities to indulge in various vices, and Rob chose alcohol. At first, he limited consumption to social engagements, but then he began to drink heavily and regularly in private as well, developing a strong alcohol dependency that destroyed several close relationships. Job offers dried up. His wife left him. Eventually, he wound up on the street, surviving on what he could scrounge from restaurant garbage bins.

  “Then one morning,” he confided, “I woke beside a dumpster with my face in a puddle of vomit. The sky was on fire with the rising sun. At that moment, I had an epiphany. I had two choices—die or get sober. Piss on it.” 

    He checked himself into a detox center and spent the next desperate months getting straight. He’d been clean for a couple of years when he enrolled in Writer’s Digest School’s short fiction course, and the school assigned him to me. For whatever reason, he found it easy to work with and confide in me, and we developed a deep friendship that led to the creation of James Pleasant Wolfshadow, Sarah Little Bird Boone, and the odyssey that culminates this October with Foolscap & Quill’s publication of Shadow of the Storm. 

    Upcoming posts will explore the development of the novel’s plot and characters, Rob’s final tragedy, and the eventual realization of his dream to become a published author. You can receive posts automatically by visiting https://windpoemcreative.blogspot.com to subscribe via the RSS feed. In the meantime, please stop by Foolscap at https://www.foolscap-quill.com/ for an array of exceptional novels in various genres. For more information about my work, especially the latest novel, The Crosses ~ A Baker Street Irregulars Mystery, written with my late spouse, Bonnie Del Aguila, please visit https://csfuqua.com.

 

The Crosses: From Notes to Novel

As mentioned in earlier posts, Bonnie proposed in the late-2000s that we write a Holmes-universe-based novel. As her retirement from federal service approached, she diligently documented various possibilities, characters, historical events, and more, meticulously organizing them in a compact blue notebook. Following her retirement, she continued compiling notes even as she dealt with recurring cancer that ultimately claimed her life in 2022.

In previous posts, I have alluded to certain aspects of characters and plot based on her notes. Today, I’m including images of actual samples from her notebook. Upon reading the novel, you will likely realize connections between the notes and how they shaped the plot and character development.

Weeks after her passing, I began reading the notes, and I could hear her voice distinctly, brimming with excitement and anticipation. It was time to begin. I felt a profound sense of connection to her by engaging in the very endeavor we had envisioned—writing that book together. In April of this year, a little more than three years after her passing, The Crosses ~ A Baker Street Irregulars Mystery was a reality, and I began the submission process. I anticipated the customary fluctuations in consideration and rejection that can persist for months and even years. However, consideration of The Crosses proved exceptional—the swiftest book acceptance in my career and by the most suitable publisher, MX Publishing, the global leader in Sherlock Holmes-related literature.

Set in 1925 Las Cruces, New Mexico, The Crosses delves into the investigation of the murders of three tribal councilors, which has stalled due to accusations of racial bias. When newspaper publisher Bessie de la Paz seeks guidance to revive the investigation, former Baker Street Irregular Ben Irwin arrives to assist her and the investigating deputy sheriff in tracking down the perpetrator. The investigation culminates in a fourth death that leads to the killer but erodes Bessie’s trust in those once closest to her as she increasingly relies on Ben for more than she anticipated.

The Crosses is a fitting memorial to Bonnie, a novel she coauthored in honor of one of her literary heroes and the genre she cherished most. I am grateful to MX Publishing for bringing her vision to a worldwide audience. Additionally, I extend deep gratitude to you and every reader for your interest. The Crosses is available in hardcover, paperback, and digital formats from MX Publishing, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and other book retailers.

            

The Seed for Shadow of the Storm

Posts leading up to Foolscap & Quill’s mid-October publication of Shadow of the Storm will explore the novel’s genesis and introduce co-writer Rob Graham, whose idea became an extraordinary tale of greed, hate, cruelty, compassion, and selflessness. A big thank you to Foolscap & Quill for enabling Rob’s dream finally to be realized. I’m certain he’s grinning with delight and satisfaction as he strolls his idea of heaven, the Elysian Fields.

The Seed for Shadow of the Storm

During the mid-1990s, I was an instructor for Writer’s Digest School’s short-fiction writing course. The mail order course comprised several lessons that covered idea generation, plot development, setting, and character creation and development. The majority of students were hobbyists while the more serious were beginning their writing journey. One of the students in the latter group was Robert Edward Graham.

Through our correspondence, Rob and I gradually developed a friendship. When he requested a phone call, that he had a proposal to make, I explained we’d have to wait until after he’d completed the course due to school regulations regarding student-teacher contact. When we connected after the course, I discovered him to be an intriguing, optimistic, compassionate, and deeply introspective individual with a wickedly funny sense of humor. We solidified the friendship swiftly and became entangled in each other’s lives as friends do.

He shared with me his experiences growing up in Texas, playing high school football for the state championship team, foregoing college to form a regionally popular band, pursue acting and modeling careers, marry the woman he’d love his entire life, and become immersed in the destructive glamor of his life — until he lost everything to alcoholism, resulting in divorce and eventual homelessness. These experiences will be detailed in a later post. 

After a sunrise epiphany as he awoke in a gutter and vomit, he entered rehabilitation, got himself clean, secured a job as a restaurant server, and began rebuilding his life. Now he wanted to explore his potential as a writer, demonstrating a talent uncommon among most students who enrolled in the course. I urged him to
revise some of the stories he’d written for the course and submit them to magazines to learn the industry and establish himself. 

“I don’t have the time for that,” he scoffed with a laugh. Neither of us realized the gravity of those words. “I have an idea for a novel. But I need some help, someone who knows the ins-and-outs, someone I can trust as a co-writer. You’re that person. Together, I think we can write a winner.”

Thus commenced our collaboration, the creation of James Pleasant Wolfshadow and the odyssey that culminates this October with the the publication of Shadow of the Storm from Foolscap & Quill. What an extraordinary journey it has been, a journey subsequent posts will explore. In the meantime, please stop by Foolscap at https://www.foolscap-quill.com/ for an array of excellent fiction in various genres. For more information about my work, especially the latest novel The Crosses ~ A Baker Street Irregulars Mystery, written with my late spouse, Bonnie, please visit https://csfuqua.com.

The Crosses’ Easter Eggs

 

If you haven’t followed the Kickstarter, please consider doing so at the link below. It will end in five days, so take advantage now to get the signed edition and other rewards that include:

• Paperback, PDF, and Hardcover Editions
• Signed paperbacks and hardcovers for USA fans
• BSI Bundle that pairs The Crosses with Kim Krisco’s novel, Irregular Lives: The Untold Story of Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars.

The Crosses’ Easter Eggs

Authors often insert subtle references known as literary Easter eggs into their stories for a number of reasons — to enrich the tale with hidden references or symbols; to add depth by alluding to works of literature, music, culture, or personal experience; to connect to broader themes; and, sometimes, to engage in a game between author and reader. We intentionally included several Easter eggs in The Crosses.

One reference involves the Baker Street Irregular. Bonnie decided his initials should be the same as his former gang’s acronym, BSI. Researching popular names of the time, we decided on Benjamin Scott Irwin, choosing “Benjamin" also to honor Bonnie’s father, Edward Benjamin Del Aguila, a former Navy pilot, who died in 1972 when wind shear slammed his jet into the tarmac during an Air National Guard training flight.

Bessie de la Paz, the novel’s heroine, is the object of several references. Bess’s mother is of European descent, while her father is indigenous Mexican, that background mirroring Bonnie’s own genealogical history. Bonnie’s maternal line is European. Her paternal line includes the indigenous Mexican Zecatecas people. And, yes, Bessie resembles Bonnie physically — small in stature but formidable. Similarities don’t end there. Bess’s determination, honesty, dedication, optimism, humor — all inspired by Bonnie. Bess and Bonnie are linked loosely by careers as well. Bess is a former agent for Pinkerton. Bonnie spent nearly three decades as a federal special agent. Both are experts in law-and-order and are guided by high ethical and moral standards. Further, they have the same initials, BLD — Bessie Laine de la Paz, Bonnie Lynne Del Aguila.

Bonnie’s love of mysteries — especially her devotion to Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s characters, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple — is legend among those who know her. The book pays tribute to that love of mystery when Bess remarks to Ben that Holmes’s methods are similar to Hercule Poirot’s. Ben quips, “Yes, but Poirot is fiction. Mr. Holmes is real,” a remark that would generate a roll of the eyes from both Bess and Bonnie. Other Easter eggs link Bess and Bon as well, but I’ll leave those for you to find.

One reference involves the secondary character, Teri Johns. Teri’s family claims her death is suicide, but circumstantial evidence suggests otherwise. Her death and circumstances were inspired by the purported suicide of one of Bonnie’s colleagues. Though suspicious — from the method, to the person’s excited anticipation of specific future events, to the known animosity between her and her immediate relatives, especially her mother — Bonnie’s friend’s death was never investigated beyond the assumption of suicide.

We titled the book The Crosses for several reasons. Las Cruces, the novel’s setting, translates from the Spanish as “The Crosses,” the name based on a legend that’s recounted in the book. The cover itself is based on a photo that Bess shoots to illustrate an article on the murders. A tribal cemetery is maintained beside the dilapidated tribal council hall. Crosses have been erected over the murdered councillors’ graves. The framed shot features the crosses and council building in silhouette against a sky illuminated by the setting sun, a symbol for the approaching end of life. 

Before the publisher completed the book’s cover design, I posted a photo of a desert cardinal in connection with the story. Birds are referenced several times in the book, each symbolic. The first reference comes in the prologue when the young girl who discovers the bodies arrives at the tribal council hall. A burrowing owl is perched on the roof above the door. Burrowing owls in some Southwestern native cultures are often associated with wisdom and protection but are considered a bad omen if witnessed during daylight hours. The girl spots it at dusk, a time when its mystical meaning is murky at best. 

A desert cardinal appears twice in the novel, at the beginning with the owl and near the end, described at one point as having blue and orange plumage, although most have blue and red plumage. The colors are so rich and vibrant, that the red sometimes appears orange. Their plumage symbolizes life, energy, and a connection to the spiritual realm. The photo I posted with earlier announcements is one I shot of the only desert cardinal I’ve seen in the twelve years I’ve lived in southern New Mexico. On Bonnie’s birthday following her passing, I hiked a canyon that she and I had planned to hike together. As I started out, I heard a beautiful birdsong and spotted the cardinal in a small, spare tree about thirty yards away. I was afraid that readying my camera would scare it away, but it simply looked at me and kept singing.

I later learned that the desert cardinal has significant spiritual meaning within many indigenous cultures. I had never seen one before that day. I haven’t seen one since. Near the end of the novel, in a letter to John Watson, Ben writes, “A bird on the windowsill across the room is singing the most beautiful song. I have learned that it is a desert cardinal. Native people believe these birds embody deceased loved ones who return briefly to reassure those left behind that all is well. It’s a comforting myth, one I wish I could accept. Alas, a bird is a bird.”

These are a few of the primary Easter eggs scattered throughout the novel. There are more, but I’ll leave them for you to find.

Now that you know some of the background on writing The Crosses, we hope you enjoy the story. Thank you much for coming along with us. The Crosses will soon be available through Amazon, B&N, other booksellers, and directly from the publisher, MX Publishing.

Plotting According to History

This is the fifth post on The Crosses. The sixth will be posted in a couple of days, detailing many of the literary easter eggs that appear throughout the novel, including an explanation of the desert cardinal photo I’ve posted previously in connection with the novel. Receive posts automatically by visiting https://windpoemcreative.blogspot.com to subscribe to the RSS feed.

If you haven’t followed the Kickstarter, please consider doing so at the link below. It ends this week, so take advantage now to get the signed edition and other rewards that include:

• Paperback, PDF, and Hardcover Editions
• Signed paperbacks and hardcovers for USA fans
• BSI Bundle that pairs The Crosses with Kim Krisco’s novel, Irregular Lives: The Untold Story of Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars.

Plotting According to History

The Crosses is an historical mystery, requiring attention to the smallest of historical details, including use of electricity, proliferation of automobiles, changing methods of communication, state of medicine, social evolution, forensic methodology, language use, and idiomatic expressions no longer in use, to name only a few. The novel opens with the discovery of three local tribal councilors, shot to death, no one around except the young girl who finds them. The tribal council building is remotely located near the Rio Grande, southeast of Las Cruces, New Mexico. After the initial investigation by the county’s deputy, Orren Stokes, the inquiry stagnates due to the lack of witnesses and physical clues.

The technological aspects of the period heavily influenced the plot, but the most influential factors were racial and cultural. Bessie de la Paz, newspaper publisher and former Pinkerton agent, has been assisting Stokes in the investigation as best she can. Although her father had been a tribal member, her mother’s white. The tribe scorns her because she is mixed-race, which makes her investigative attempts even more challenging. Frustrated, she writes in request of advice to the former Baker Street Irregular, Ben Irwin, who has become a renowned detective, following in the footsteps of his mentor, Sherlock Holmes.

Dr. John Watson notifies her that he has forwarded her letter to Irwin, already in the U.S. on another matter involving a former BSI leader now engaged in international crime. With plans to travel to the Southwest regarding the former BSI leader, Irwin arrives in Las Cruces to offer whatever assistance he can. Amid accusations of racial prejudice in the murders and the failure to solve them, the investigating trio uncovers new clues while Ben and Bess grow emotionally close as Bess confronts the biggest challenge of her life.

Although the story’s native tribe is fictional, elements are based on area tribal life in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Racism of the time affected every aspect of life, especially when events crossed cultural lines. The potential for racial conflict escalates when tribal councillors, who’ve been at odds with the area’s white farmers, are murdered. While the investigation must deal with racial prejudice against indigenous and black Americans, the investigators nevertheless focus on solving the crime, no matter where it leads.

Bonnie and I intended The Crosses to honor the Holmes tradition, but we wanted to take it beyond Holmes and the typical British setting by featuring a character directly influenced by the celebrated detective, a character who brings Holmes’s methods to America. Above all, we wanted to write an entertaining story of intrigue and humanity, one that readers will enjoy.

The final post will explore the literary easter eggs scattered through novel. Blog entries appear on https://windpoemcreative.blogspot.com, https://csfuqua.com/blog, Goodreads, and Facebook. Thank you much for reading. The Crosses is available from Amazon, B&N, other booksellers, and directly from the publisher, MX Publishing.