I’ve just returned from Lake Tawakoni State Park after spending three hours investigating the arachnid wonder taking shape there.

I’m downloading images now (221 of them, although I can’t promise anything for reasons I’ll explain in a subsequent post).  I’m also going to grab some lunch before delving into the photos and putting together a post for you.

Let me say this: I have the answer to the question of whether this is a communal web or the result of a mass dispersal (i.e., the remnants from ballooning on a vast scale).  No hints now, but you will likely be as surprised with the answer as I was when I finally discovered the truth.

I also have pictures from the lake that have nothing to do with spiders or webs, so you can expect to see some of those in the future.  Now having been there once and knowing precisely how beautiful the park is, I think I’ll be adding Lake Tawakoni to my list of regular haunts.  It’s well worth the hour drive.

Tomorrow I take a jaunt an hour east of Dallas to indulge my inner geek in one of the rarest examples of arachnid capability: a spider web covering more than 200 yards (600 feet, or 180 meters).  The complex is so vast that it covers many trees and shrubs, not to mention the ground, and creates a rather Hallowe’en visage for those willing to venture near the structure at Lake Tawakoni State Park.

Even The New York Times got into the excitement of this natural wonder:

Most spiders are solitary creatures. So the discovery of a vast web crawling with millions of spiders that is spreading across several acres of a North Texas park is causing a stir among scientists, and park visitors.

Sheets of web have encased several mature oak trees and are thick enough in places to block out the sun along a nature trail at Lake Tawakoni State Park, near this town about 50 miles east of Dallas.

But what should I expect?

The gossamer strands, slowly overtaking a lakefront peninsula, emit a fetid odor, perhaps from the dead insects entwined in the silk. The web whines with the sound of countless mosquitoes and flies trapped in its folds.

That much I’d heard before.

More to the point, a spider expert at Texas A&M University, Allen Dean, joined a chorus of scientists now calling this a spectacular and unexpected event.

Mr. Dean and several other scientists said they had never seen a web of this size outside of the tropics, where the relatively few species of “social” spiders that build communal webs are most active.

Norman Horner, emeritus professor of biology at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Tex., was one of a number of spider experts to whom a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department biologist sent online photos of the web. “It is amazing, absolutely amazing,” said Dr. Horner, who at first thought it an e-mail hoax.

But what does it mean?  That question remains unanswered even after several weeks.  To wit:

The web may be a combined effort of social cobweb spiders. But their large communal webs generally take years to build, experts say, and this web was formed in just a few months.

Or it could be a striking example of what is known as ballooning, in which lightweight spiders throw out silk filaments to ride the air currents. Five years ago, in just that way, a mass dispersal of millions of tiny spiders covered 60 acres of clover field in British Columbia with thick webbing.

While both revulsion and intrigue beguile visitors and park employees alike, the science nerd within me has no question as to the appropriate response: I wanna see it!  I wanna photograph it!  I wanna stroll through its labyrinth as if I were a newborn child experiencing walking for the first time!

And so I shall do all those things and more.

I intend to be at the park when it opens tomorrow morning.  With camera and spare batteries in hand, I shall indulge every whim.

And don’t fret, poppets.  I’ll also amble around the area and enjoy what the nature refuge has to offer.  You can expect more than just photos of a massive spider web… although you should expect a great deal of focus on that.

First, let me say this post will not survive the transition to my post-publication blog—whatever form that ultimately takes.  I’m only sharing this now because it won’t be around later.

Next, let me tell you a little secret.

The Dreamdarkers manuscript is almost complete.  In perhaps a month to six weeks, I will begin the first major rewrite/edit of the tale, after which I will run it by a few friends who have graciously volunteered to proof it for me.  Following that will be the last rewrite before I proceed with locating an agent and getting the book published.

Work on End of the Warm Season will promptly follow.  I still am unsure as to whether or not that will be one or two volumes, but the story itself is already locked in place.

Centralia (or whatever it’s to be called) will likely follow, as will preliminary work on the first of several installments that will ultimately comprise the epoch The Breaking of Worlds.  Of course, there are other stories to be told and I can’t guarantee what order they will follow.  Keep in mind I’m already toying with an idea tentatively called Sentinels of Forever and another along the lines of Diaries of the Damned (neither of those titles is written in stone despite the stories themselves being solidly formed).

And now to the crux of the secret. . .

Kingswell, as I have said before, will play a major role in most of these stories.  That is by no means an accident or a way to alleviate the need to create new environments for each novel.

On the contrary, linking them all to this tiny East Texas town of my own making is an integral part of a much broader plan.  You see, Dave Lloyd, the author of what will be Dreamdarkers, is more than a single character in a single story.  In fact, you will find recurring characters throughout the whole of these tomes, and eventually you will begin piecing together the underlying chronicle of what I am tentatively calling The Kingswell Trials (that name is highly likely to change).

I’ve said before that End of the Warm Season will provide answers to questions left hanging in Dreamdarkers.  Not all the answers, mind you, and even more questions will be raised, but slowly over the expanse of narratives a broader story will begin to take shape.

Only I know what that story entails.  You, gentle readers, will be offered sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant clues as to the meaning of it all.  But don’t expect too much too quickly.  Each book must stand on its own, and the undercurrent directing events in Kingswell will not become clear until the final chapters of a vast digest fall into place.

[BTW, if you want to know what some of the other books will be called or about as I write them, you need look no further than Dave Lloyd’s works, for within his literary history as explained in Dreamdarkers can be found prophetic hints of what’s to come: Gifts From a Quantum God, Jason’s Tale, Sing Larentia’s Song, Evolution’s My Gig, Are You Taking Desperation’s Call?, When Kings Come Knocking, Introduction to Hell, and Compassion in Annihilation’s Caress; whether they be actual titles, ideas, or merely intimations as to the greater story I will leave to you to decide; oh, and for those who read the original “Darkness Comes to Kingswell” short story, you will be pleased to know that title is now in the running for the final episode of The Kingswell Trials. . .]