​Lethal Tracker began years ago after most of my healthcare team at the time suggested I write my story. Psychotherapists, neurologists, naturopath doctors, acupuncturists, pain specialists, and others that had been working with me knew enough of my history and had enough of my medical files to understand the complexity and sensitivity of my earlier life. They also told me how important it could be to get it out and write it down.

Since my early teens, I had kept a journal, so all the details of my life had already been recorded. All I had to do was turn the journal into a book. Of course, at the time I had no intention or wish to write my story down. There was no drive to document my life in a book for the world. Actually, I had a complete aversion to the suggestions to do so. The severity and chronic nature of trauma in my past had been so extreme, the last thing I wished to do was dredge it up and write it down, especially to turn it out to the world.

There was also the legality of writing my story. It was another reason running through my head to avoid the project altogether.

However, after much prompting for over a year, I decided to start writing. Originally I wrote with the notion of doing so for me and me alone. I wrote to get things out of my head, and perhaps gain some resolution to it all. At the end of the year, some of my medical team asked if they could read the book so far as I had written it. I agreed. They were all so moved by it that they began telling me the world should have access to such a story. I cringed and denied the suggestion.

Once again, time passed and my focus shifted. I returned to the project. However, having never written a book before, and not understanding how editors and everyone else worked, I stumbled the entire way. After sharing pieces of the manuscript with people through mainstream email, I was contacted by various parties about legal issues concerning what I was writing. If I wanted to continue and eventually publish, much had to be altered in ways I found absurd. Begrudgingly I made huge changes to the text that made me cringe. What I ended up putting out, though popular among many, was in my mind horribly written, and so much was seriously pulled away from facts. I also had issues with the editors by not understanding they only made suggestions and didn’t actually edit the book. So, the book went to press basically unedited. What a disaster. 

Time passed and I was so disgruntled, disturbed, and disappointed that I pulled the material from the shelves completely.  

More time passed and I became disabled with conditions related to the traumas and injuries of my past. I was diagnosed with neuroimmune diseases; encephalomyelitis, post-exertional malaise, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, Hyperadrenergic Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia, chronic pain, lung damage, compromised vision, dysautonomia, and cptsd.

Living with these conditions over some years, the disability became more severe. This ironically gave me the time to return to the book project. I saw it as an opportunity to set things straight and rewrite the story without pulling punches. Therefore, I began again.

I was told by a great many people that in order for the story be able to go public and remain factual, I would need to publish it as fiction. I could live with that. I was more comfortable with that avenue anyway. I could tell the facts of my history and simply call it fiction. More people I figured would be acclimated to taking in such a story from a fictional tag, rather than taken as stone-cold reality, though as most understand, the fact is many times wilder than fiction.

One might ask then why I’m bothering to write this blog post. The main reason is that I’ve been prompted as much to write another book, as were the suggestions and urges to write Lethal Tracker. Part of my healthcare team spans three continents and includes some of the top trauma therapists and medical specialists in the world. Between my own studies into trauma, my severe history, and my interactions with such therapists, they have urged me to write a book concerning trauma from a very personal view. Combined with this would be my many grueling trials with the medical field concerning my neuroimmune diseases, the historical facts leading up to the conditions, and what I’ve found to work and not work.

I finished the writing of Lethal Tracker while bedridden with my medical conditions from the autumn of 2021, through the winter of 2021-2022, and into spring. On many days my condition was so severe I couldn’t even sit up in bed or concentrate. But on the days that I could, I would sit there with a laptop typing while the world did its thing outside my windows.

Lethal Tracker was a huge accomplishment for me. I never, and still don’t consider myself a writer. With the intensity of my neuroimmune conditions, there are far too many days where just being awake is grueling. Therefore, finishing a book with 816 pages and 42 chapters was something hard to believe I accomplished at all. With my advancing conditions it may be the last book I manage to write. I hope not. I do have plans for others, but life will inevitably dictate what happens from here. Nevertheless, my entire healthcare team is reading Lethal Tracker, claimed they all love it so much they continue urging me to write more. Time will tell.

If you do end up reading Lethal Tracker, please take a few moments of your precious time and energy to leave a review for potential readers.  Many thanks!

Lethal Tracker has lots of great detail and stories from Lorcan’s upbringing under the tutelage of the Old Man, part Native American.  His time training in the forest and mountains in the old ways of the Scout added to and enhanced his training and skills in covert work.​

A short excerpt from Lorcan’s training days.

~~~~~

Taking my time and being very careful not to move too fast or make noise, I worked the mud onto my face and neck. Through my hair, I laced grasses with mud. All over my body, I bathed in mud and then mashed grasses into it so that I looked like a muddy clump of grass. When I was satisfied that I was well hidden, I began to feel my way through the landscape as carefully as I could.
The Old Man’s voice came back to me, “Be the land, be the plants and the very air everything breathes. Flow with the natural rhythms so you never disturb the flow around you. Control your breathing and silence your mind. Take your time and be fully aware of all layers of existence. Take nothing for granted and expect anything at every moment so surprise will not be able to affect you.”
The training, when I was young, opened up inside me, and I moved with it. I opened all my senses; and, as I did I could begin to smell humans. A slight breeze came from the west. The scent came from that direction. As I slowly moved forward, the smell became stronger.

Lethal Tracker brings up many examples of just how this world works.  Fair isn't among the natural workings of this planet.

I've been telling people the following for years, and I still stand by it today.

Fair - simply a word given to the human idea of how the world and life should be.  Fair is a dream, a perspective, and rare to find, because fair for one may not be for another.  Expecting "fair" isn't realistic.

If you're here than you know I’ve recently finished my autobiographical book, which I’ve been working on for some years. Unfortunately, I developed a neuroimmune disease that rendered me legally disabled, and I now have a minimum income. All the books I “read” today are listened to on the NLS BARD book reader for the blind and disabled. I realize just how vital audiobooks are for the disabled and wish to turn Lethal Tracker, my 816-page, 42-chapter book, into an audio format. I finished writing the book last winter while bedridden.

The neuroimmune disease has no known cure and is progressive in nature. I was saving money for quite some time to turn my book into an audiobook, but most of those savings have gone to paying medical bills.

Currently, I am going through Findaway Voices and seeking professional narrators to do the job. They seem to offer the best deal on audiobook production and global distribution. In addition, they give audiobooks “access to listeners in more than 170 countries, through all major audiobook sellers across retail, libraries, and K12 channels. That includes Audible and iTunes.”

The estimated cost to create my audiobook and make it available to the world is $9,000.00. I have enough to foot $1000.00, but that is my limit.
I’m asking for help to raise the rest of the money to complete this project.

Here is my Go Fund Me project page:
​

We sat in silence for a long time simply listening to the sounds around us in the early evening. We watched the death of the day, and the birth of the night that now consumed the sky with its darkness. Countless stars peered down upon us from places unknown and hung like ice crystals from the top of the cave. The Old Man said that he was told they were the campfires of our ancestors burning always to remind us deep in the night that they are still with us and still guide us. As I sat with my back to the tree and the fire to my front, I began to grow tired. We bid farewell to the night and crawled into our shelter. Nesting down into the thick mound of dry leaves that served as my bed, I closed my eyes and quickly fell asleep to the sound of my own heart.

The above is a paragraph taken from Lorcan Colborn’s childhood, described in Lethal Tracker. Though his origins are well explained in the book, as well as his experiences through severe trials across decades of his life, who is Lorcan inside? Where does he come from? As we all are, Lorcan is a product of his genetics and thus the history of his people.

One major aspect any reader of Lethal Tracker will denote of Lorcan’s life is that he is a fighter by nature. It is as though he was born to fight. Those who weave the threads of life seem to have woven a path where Lorcan has never had a choice not to fight. If he didn’t fight it would be his end, and he understands this.

He comes from a line of fighters and attitudes. His paternal great-grandfather was a wise guy. 5’ 9” in height, he was sinewy but as strong as a bull. He was well known for not taking any crap from anyone, nor did he tolerate people spinning lies before him. There are many stories of him hauling off and punching someone who looked at him the wrong way. But he also had a great sense of humor and loved animals, kids, and the land. He fought in the trench wars of World War 1 for America. Though at that time he was new to the country. He was Swiss/Helvetii-Teuton/German-Norwegan. After the war, he became a farmer and worked the land for the rest of his life.

Lorcan’s paternal grandfather took after his father. He was also known to be a wise guy and someone that didn’t suffer bullies, idiots, liars, or cheats. Standing 6’ he was also sinewy and strong as an ox. In boot camp, during World War 2 his bunk was on the second floor of the barracks. There was a guy twice his size who didn’t like Lorcan’s grandfather. One day he attacked him in the barracks. In a short time, the bully was literally beaten and thrown out the second-story window by Lorcan’s grandfather! Those were different times and so he wasn’t reprimanded or court marshaled. After graduating from boot camp he was sent to fight the war in Germany. Wounded by shrapnel he was honorably discharged with a purple heart after a very long recovery. After healing from the war he farmed a bit like his father, but most of his career was in construction. And like his father, he didn’t take crap from anyone, but also loved kids, animals, and working the land. He always had extensive gardens that occupied him when he wasn’t working.

Lorcan’s father too on that fighter mentality as well. When he was in his youth he was known to walk the streets carrying his boxing gloves around his neck. he would box anyone who wanted to. After a while, none of his friend's mothers would let their sons out to box when he came round, because they all had their noses broken too many times. He was in the military during Vietnam. There was an incident just before Lorcan was born where his father beat down a corrupt guy from the mob in his front yard who was trying to date his sister. Though Lorcan’s father maintains that fighter instinct and internal attitude his entire life, he is known to be able to brush things off far easier than his father and grandfather. He also has a great love for kids, animals, and wide open country.

Having a strong documented family tree, Lorcan can easily trace his ancestry back through the Helvetii of the Swiss Alps, the Teutons of ancient northern Germania, and the Norwegians back to the Iron Age and the age of Vikings, on both sides of his family.

Throughout Lethal Tracker the reader can easily see just how much of that fight and attitude Lorcan possesses. Nevertheless, Lorcan is a far more dynamic individual than just fight and attitude!

More on Lorcan's history to come.