Still, this is detracting from the point. It’s done!

It is the writing of this novel that is the reason I have been relatively quiet on the internets of late, especially on here. My last post told of the early stages of The Returners, and I haven’t posted since. You can find links to places where the book can be bought (as well as the free versions) here. I encourage you all to read it, even if you only download the free version, and give me feedback. Nobody get’s better at anything in an echo chamber.

So, what now?

Well, I tend to outline my future plans in public, as I’m about to do, because it allows certain people (you know who you are) to hold me accountable if I don’t follow through… which I often don’t. It may not change my habits, but I get flak for being lazy, which is probably a good thing.

The immediate future will probably contain a good deal of vocal recording. Other books of a similar length tend to run to about ten hours in audio, so, if I’m lucky, it’ll only take me twenty or so to record! Aside from that, I have some writing commitments on other websites, including resuming my almost-regular writing for GeekTime, who have made some big changes since my last piece. I’m also going to try and put something up on here regularly, by which I mean an article or opinion piece, rather than a rambling blog post like this one.

Looking beyond that, I’m deciding between two possibilities. Either attempting to write and sell a few short stories, or writing a new novella that would be an eBook only affair. Either way, it would be something short and fun to act as a kind of break after the constant slog of writing a novel, even if I did write it in a relatively short time.

After that? Well, the next novel, of course. There are no definite decisions as to what that novel will be as yet, or indeed how it will be put out. I may yet decide to throw it to the rejection happy publishers of old. At present, the novel looks likely to be one of two projects I’ve started; a children’s fantasy novel, or a science fiction that was my successful National Novel Writing Month 2010 entry.

And that’s that. In the meantime, I have a piece to write for amwriting.org.

Having deadlines makes me feel all professional.

Lucy wouldn’t be caught out this year, she was certain of that. Every year her parents were content to let a complete stranger climb down their chimney, eat their biscuits and drink their milk. The hypocrites.

How long had they spent drilling into her that strangers were to be avoided? “Don’t talk to strangers” they would say, “don’t get in a car with strangers”, “don’t accept sweets from stranger”. Sweets! But, evidently, it’s OK to accept presents.

Well, despite her parents, Lucy was a smart girl. She knew that the kind of person who would break into your house while you were sleeping for a good reason, was only one bad mood away from breaking into your house for a bad reason.

Best to put a stop to it now.

The fireplace had been the first on the list. It was a big, open fireplace; exactly the kind of fireplace, in fact, that Santa Claus preferred for his nefarious activities. There was a grill just inside the chimney for keeping birds and other large objects from getting into the house, but Lucy’s father always opened it on Christmas Eve. Worse still, he made a big show of it; making sure Lucy saw him doing it, and talking excitedly about the “visitor” that was sure to come that night, like he was proud of his stupidity. Lucy had crept downstairs and closed the grill shortly after her parents had gone to bed. Then, just to be sure, she’d carefully placed some kindling and firewood in the hearth and lit it.

It had taken her a while to check all the doors and windows, and was surprised to find them all locked. Not that she had a problem with that, but it seemed to put out conflicting messages. After half an hour, Lucy was confident that the only way Santa Claus could get in would be to break through a wall. Still, it couldn’t hurt to make certain.

If Santa did get into the house, Lucy intended to make sure he wouldn’t be back next year.

She padded across the living room floor in the warm glow of the gently burning fire, her slippers brushing across the thick carpet. She wasn’t entirely sure what the bottle in her hand did, but her father had taken some of the liquid once, and had spent most of that evening in the loo making most unpleasant noises. She only hoped Santa would leave shortly after drinking the milk!

She reached the table where the milk and cookies lay, and began struggling with the child proof cap on the bottle. As she strained, something caught her eye. Under the tree, glimmering softly in the fire light, were more presents than she had ever seen in all her six years. She was too late.

She slumped down against the table, nearly knocking the milk over in the process. She was sure that one of these days, letting this lunatic into their house would come back to bite them.

On the other hand, there was nothing she could do about it this year.

She crawled over to the tree and prodded one of the shiny packages gingerly. It crinkled as the paper yielded to her touch. Whatever was inside was soft. More industrious prodding – and a little squeezing – revealed the unmistakable shape of a teddy bear.

A very soft teddy bear.

Lucy got to her feet, fighting the urge to smile, and headed for the stairs and her bed.

Perhaps she would let Santa off next year.

I like the potential of this particular idea a lot, and I sincerely hope to expand on it in the future. Unfortunately, the proximity of that future to now is indeterminate; I have a lot of projects to finish before I even think about letting myself start a new one. Still, I really liked this idea and, with Halloween just around the corner, I thought I’d share it;

***

‘I’m sorry,’ Gerald said, waving a hand to halt proceedings, ‘but who are you?’

The man looked at Gerald with an appraising eye. When he spoke, his words were solemn.

‘I have been known by many names. Forseti. Van Helsing. Buffy. Meyers. In my present incarnation, I am known as Lord Trent, though you may simply call me Lord.’

‘You don’t look like a lord.’

‘I am not,’ Lord Trent admitted, ‘”Lord” is my first name.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Gerald said, ‘Van Helsing? As in the monster hunter?’

‘Exactly!’ Lord said gleefully, as though his favourite student had correctly answered a particularly difficult question. Something seemed to occur to Gerald.

‘When you say “Buffy”,’ he said slowly, ‘would you be talking about the vampire hunter?’

‘One in the same!’ Lord said, delighted.

‘The sexy vampire killing girl from the TV show?’

Lord’s face fell. ‘That TV show,’ he said, spitting the words, ‘was based on my exploits without, I might add, my consent. And they changed things.’

‘Your gender, for one,’ Gerald pointed out. ‘Who’s Meyers? I’ve never heard of that one.’

Lord let out a harsh laugh, ‘I did more for the destruction of vampires during my time as Meyers than in all my prior incarnations combined!’

***

If you follow my Twitter/Facebook, you’ll probably know that I am both working on a full length novel, and that I throw out short stories at fairly regular intervals. The thing about novels is, they take a long time to write. At least, to write well, which I hope I’m doing. The thing about short stories they don’t get put into book form (not by themselves, at least). The thing about me is that, ever since I began these foolish aspirations of authordom, I’ve wanted to hold a physical book with my name on the front and my writing inside.

I refuse to rush my novel. I intend to fool a traditional publishing house into selling it for me, and they won’t say yes to a rushed novel. So, I’m impatient. What are my options. Well, luckily, in this digital age, I could self-publish some of my work. I toyed with the idea of an anthology of all my short stories, but I the stories differ too much in genre to all go into one volume.

Enter this project.

At an estimated novella length, it would short enough to be done before Christmas (2011), but long enough to warrant it’s own paperback volume. I talked to a few people about the idea, and before I was 10,000 words into the first draft, I had three potential beta and possible (very talented) cover illustrator lined up! So this is happening. Although it may be a tad longer than a novella.

The point to this post? Unlike most of my writing, I’ve actually planned this story out (I usually make it up as I go along), so I know what’s going to happen. And, now that I’m about half way done, I’m fairly confident that the story isn’t going to stray much from the plan in my head. So, for those that are interested, and those that are kind enough to have agreed to help in some way, I thought I’d post this tentative blurb;

The last thing Tom Keighley remembered was nearly being hit by a car one grey, wet, Monday morning.

That was nearly a hundred years ago.

When he is plucked from a strange contraption in a mysterious building in the middle of nowhere, Tom is thrown into the tiny world of Charles Brook, the last beacon of humanity known to exist in the world. Tom must find his place in the Brook, a village where the streets are so narrow, your shoulders touch the walls. A place where only the well armed or foolish go outside at night.

A place where the high, thick wooden walls keep out the dead.

The plan for this novel/novella is that it will be self-published in paperback, published for a cheap, cheap price on as many eBook platforms as I can get it on, and made available for free through my own website. That way, if you want to give me money, you can, but you don’t have to. There are also plans for an audio version, but that’s not definite; I’ll be doing the reading, and I have a strong suspicion that I will get ten minutes in, hate my voice and decide against it, but we’ll see.

As mentioned above, three people (the only three I’ve asked so far, that’s a good return rate!) have agreed to beta read this work, and I thank them for that. If you are reading this (and are not one of the three), and would also like to beta read (which, if you’re not sure, means to read the story before it’s officially released and tell me what’s wrong with it!) then, by all means, let me know. Either in the comments here or @beagrie on twitter.

The plot points were; A flash flood from @Erynn. A princess who is actually a prince in drag from @LilDannyTaylor. And Irony from @tamiveldura.

I hoped to write it in under an hour… I missed that by about four minutes, but this also means the story is unedited and un-revised. You have been warned.

~~~

Prince Fillion surveyed his kingdom, and resisted the urge to put quotation marks around it. It was a hamlet, truth be told, but the Harpers had ruled as monarchs for hundreds of years, and, despite their kingdom being slowly stolen away from them bit by bit, nobody ever felt it necessary to actually take the crown. None of this history mattered to the prince, though, only that he stood to inherit a kingdom so small that he could walk across it in under an hour.

Of course, what Calgrens Keep lacked for in size, it completely failed to make up for in content. There were precisely three high points within Prince Fillion’s lands, one of which being his home, the small fortress that the surrounding lands were named for. The other two consisted of a lively structure that served the purposes of an inn, coach house and whore house all under one roof, and a dam. The dam was impressive in an “only interesting to dam-builders” kind of way, but it wasn’t the kind of thing you spent more than five minutes looking at before you decided you’d seen enough. The Pit, however, almost made up for the rest.

Calgrens Keep straddled the Great Road like an uneasy rider, and as a result, was often packed with travellers, messengers, passing adventurers and other wandering types. This, in turn, attracted musicians, performers and ladies of negotiable favour, seeking to ply their trade, and the presence of those attracted even more customers, who would go out of their way to visit the famous inn.

Prince Fillion Harper could not go to The Pit, however. Not for fun, at least. His father had sent him down with a small retinue of men to arrest a man accused of fondling the kings turnips once. Fillion had originally thought that “fondling the kings turnips” must be a euphemism for something, and resolved to put absolutely no effort into working out what. It wasn’t until he had arrived at the inn in all his regal glory that he found out that “fondling the kings turnips” meant exactly what it said, and that the king had conspired with the accused man as a jape to lighten the dull Calgren nights. Still, what Prince Fillion couldn’t do, Princess Gilly could!

~~~

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Master Eamon said, waving his tankard airily, and sloshing ale over all near in the process, ‘the dam is in need of repair. You see how much your precious gold is worth to you when the dam bursts and your hovel is underwater!’

Torman Calhide frowned. He didn’t like his house being referred to as a hovel, but he let it pass; the ale was on his friend again. Instead he said, ‘If the dam is in such dire need of repair, why not fix it for free?’

‘A splendid idea,’ Eamon said, ‘and my young ‘prentice and I would gladly do so, ‘sept we still need materials, and workers, and that doesn’t come for free.’

Torman sighed. The dam had once been a major water source for the entire kingdom, and, as such, had been maintained by the crown. These days, the kingdom was small enough to get by on a small well and a brace of buckets, and the dam was maintained by whosoever took it upon themselves to maintain it. It would have been more prudent to tear the damn dam down and let the river Eaght flow unhindered, but the one off cost of such a venture was enough to convince all and sundry that it would be better to just maintain it for a recurring but considerably smaller cost. The trouble was, as time went on, people began to baulk at paying even that cost.

Torman fidgeted uncomfortably, hoping the old mason would change the subject himself, when a tall, finely dressed woman stepped into the inn. Tonight will be the night, Torman vowed to himself. Focusing on Master Eamon he said, ‘I shall donate fifty silver to the maintenance of the dam,’ he said, ‘but now, if you’ll excuse me,’ and he swept away from Master Eamon’s protests.

He caught the princess by the arm, and felt a familiar rush as she gave a surprised squeak, and then girlish sigh when she realised who had grasped her. She was tall, and not beautiful in the traditional sense; handsome more than pretty, and had a slim, lean body and flowing golden locks. She dressed these assets in an emerald green dress, a dainty silver crown set with sapphires, and, despite her height, she wore high heeled shoes, the pointed heel of which had a reputation all of its own in The Pit.

‘Master Torman,’ said the princess, ‘you gave me a fright.’

‘There’s nothing to be afraid of, Gilly.’

‘Princess Gilly,’ she corrected with mock sternness.

‘My apologies, your highness,’ Torman said, bowing his head graciously. Princess Gilly was, in fact, Gilly Sanders, a common daughter of a farmer, Torman knew. Everyone had different ways of keeping the tedium at bay, and hers was to dress up in finery and visit The Pit as Princess Gilly. Men would often slip her a few coins to sit with them and, of course, drinks were provided. She could never have lived off her royal takings, but she generally earned enough to make it worth her while. The past month, however, almost all of her earnings had come from Torman.

‘Gilly,’ he said solemnly after placing a cup of wine in her hand, ‘will you accompany me on a short walk? I have something I wish to ask you.’

And inside his pocket, he fingered the wedding ring that he had had made earlier that day.

~~~

Prince Fillion cursed himself.

He’d known for some time that he was becoming too comfortable in Princess Gilly’s clothes, but he always told himself he’d stop soon. He knew what Torman wanted to ask him. Even if he hadn’t know the man for the better part of a month now, it wouldn’t have taken a mind reader to learn of the man’s intentions. Revealing himself was not an option, though, and a flat out refusal would seem out of character. Still, Fillion did have a small backup, though he had never intended to use it to escape a marriage proposal. He would miss Gilly, though.

‘Meet me at the dam,’ he breathed, effecting his most seductive girls voice, ‘we’ll talk there,’ and he drained his cup of wine and left.

Hidden in a small depression at the base of the dam was an emergency stash of princely clothes that Fillion had prepared, should he ever need to become a prince at short notice. The damn was little more than a minutes walk from The Pit, so it didn’t take Fillion long to reach it. The heels were the first things to go. Ripping them off, he hurled them upwards over the twelve feet high stone wall that was the dam. The dress would be difficult throw, and would raise questions when it was floating on the lake beyond, so he stuffed it back into the depression and resolved to deal with it later.

As laced up his boots, he reflected rather sadly that he was a man again, and that he would always be such, unless he was prepared to travel some distance to find an inn where he wouldn’t be recognised.

Something wet fell on the back of his neck.

He looked up, and saw a fine stream of water leaking from a small hole in the dam. Curiously, he put hie finger against it to stop the flow. He looked around for a stick or small, pointed stone that he might use to plug the hole, but saw nothing.

As a crack began to form out from his finger, a thought occurred to Fillion. The high heels. They would have fit that hole.

And then the crack spread. Damn, Prince Fillion thought.

The man behind the mask frightened Jenna. He always had. He had stood above the fireplace in her fathers study like sentinel for her entire childhood, but he’d never made her feel safe, only watched.

The mask was white and crimson and smooth, like a face of stone whose features had been gradually worn away by wind and water over a thousand years. It wasn’t the mask that frightened Jenna, though, it was the eyes. Sapphire blue, they seemed to shine out from behind the mask as though they were alive.

They were her fathers’ eyes, though the man in the painting was not her father. Harrad Morsella was her great, great grandfather. She had never met him, but she knew as much about him as any living person could. Her father had adored him, and that alone would have been enough to make Jenna hate him. Knowing that her father and his grandfather were kindred spirits only cemented her hatred.

Jenna had not seen the painting for nearly two decades, not since she had left this damned house. She had been sixteen, yet she could remember how hard she’d fought to not get her hopes up when she had stood in the hallway with her luggage, and how she’d had to resist the urge to run when the bus had arrived, for fear her mother might have changed her mind and made her stay.

Her mother was dead, now. Jenna hadn’t attended the funeral. Like her father’s today, the wake had been held in this house. The coming of Christ could not have made her come back to this house while her father still lived in it. But he was dead, now, just like her mother.

The man behind the mask continued to stare at Jenna, his blazing blue eyes boring into her soul with mocking disdain. For once, Jenna stared back, unflinching. The fear was still there, Jenna knew, but she realised it was a fear born of habit after years of being afraid. The man behind the mask was dead. He had been long in the ground before Jenna had even been born. Now, buried a few plots away from his grandfather, her abusive mockery of a father lie, equally as cold, equally as cruel, and equally as dead.

She felt less bile at the thought of her mother, who was buried beside her father, for she had never abused Jenna like her father had, but what Haley Morsella had lacked in abuse and mental torture, she had made up for in apathy and feigned ignorance, and Jenna did not miss her for it.

They were dead, now, and Jenna was truly free. She was also an only child, and the house was hers.

This damned house.

She resolved to sell it to first person who made an offer, whatever that offer might be. Walking out of her dead fathers study, she shut the door on the man behind the mask, and on her mother, and her father, and on this damned house.

I started out with every intention of scribbling a rough map out on a piece of paper, sufficient to jog my memory when needed. Of course, procrastination kicked in, and I got carried away;

Map of (tentatively titled) Western Terras

It was somewhere around the time I started thinking about making the map look as though it was drawn on old, crackling parchment that I realised I was going a bit far.

So, this is a preliminary map of the fantasy world my first novel is set in (click on the image to see a bigger version). A lot of place names may change before I deem this WiP done, so I didn’t put any on the map, but I will say that the world (all of it, like “Earth”) is tentatively called Terras. I haven’t really come up with good names for the main area (which I’ve been calling the Westerlands), or the area to the north (which I’ve been calling The North. Original, huh?).

The map probably looks a bit bare. That’s because, unlike Tolkien, I’m creating this world as I write, rather than creating a world and then writing stories in it. So the things on the map are things I have already written into the story, but I haven’t gone to the lengths of creating more world to fill the rest of the map… yet.

Now, procrastination time over, back to the writing!