The next part – part eight – of Cara’s Choice is coming along, with the first, rough draft done. Another very major reveal happens in the story, about the nature of someone and who – or what – they are. Two people actually.
Also coming along nicely are two other short stories, one dealing with Nhaqosa and the aftermath of Echoes of Dark Reflections, and the second a steampunk short story featuring Sir Richard Hammerman – gentlemen-adventurer – airships, sky pirates and more.
A couple of years back, when I first started this site (wow, has it been that long?) I also started jotting down short story ideas in various notepads.
That list just keeps getting longer despite some seventeen short stories and seven parts of the Cara’s Choice serial completed.
There are some fourteen ideas in the list, not counting ideas for novels of which dozens more exist.
1) Cara’s Choice; Ideas for the next couple of parts are written up, leading up to the finale of the first novella length story.
2) Nhaqosa; The idea for the next Nhaqosa story has been around for a while – I really need to get back to him, dealing with the aftermath of his injuries and the losses suffered in the last story.
3) Primal Tales III; How is Keturhi going to fit in with Braega and Tudhala now she has been released?
4) The Chariotess; Probably the oldest story on the list still – the idea is around two years old, coming at about the same time as The Bronze Man, but still hasn’t been written.
5) Cahuac; More adventures of the mythic ancestor-hero Cahauc are waiting to be told.
6) Heric’s Rose; This introduces three very important character in the setting; Heric Jennet, Eris Selanos and Remaia. The novels were initially going to be about them but now it seems they have taken a back set and are seen through mentions in other stories.
7) The Isandlwana Incident; A sci-fi story set in a particularly dark sci-fi setting about a first contact gone bad.
8.) The Gehenna Campaign; A follow up to The Isandlwana Incident, it is a series of shorts featuring Colonel Marcus Kalic fighting on a death world planet against a fearsome alien race.
9) The Sky Pirates; A short steampunk story introducing Sir Richard Hammerman, Gentleman Explorer, his colleagues, an airship under attack from sky pirates, coal powered biplanes and much more.
10) The Enchanted Sandcastle; A story I’ve been meaning to write for my young niece and nephew – and if it goes well, the first of a number.
11) Pacifica; A sci-fi story set on the planet Pacifica in a setting I helped develop. 95% water with 98 hour days and high G, it is barely inhabitable and never really developed due to factions that squabble over the constitution. Actually, there are two stories; one about a missing offworlder who goes missing fishing for a known man-eating species that looks like a nine foot prawn and another featuring a merchant ship that comes under attack by pirates.
12) Halir; Another story featuring Professor Halir who continues to crop up just in time for trouble.
13) Post Meltdown; A what-if world that takes place in the New Depression following a worst case economic meltdown. Old and new tech combine as a young man travels this brave new world.
14) Terran Alliance; An introduction to my space opera sci-fi setting which has been kicking around for many, many years.
Now to find the time to write it all.
Part Seven of Cara’s Choice has been finished and is now available on the website. Must write the next parts more regularly.
It can be found here.
As you will see things are getting interesting and a couple of major reveals have happened. They won’t be the last though.
Part Seven of the (slowly) ongoing serial Cara’s Choice is almost ready to go. The rough draft has been completed and now just needs some editing work.
Things are heating up in this part – we are getting to the pointy end and there are also some major revelations, though they won’t be the last.
Hopefully you will see it in a day or two.
I’ve just done something I’ve never managed in all my years as a writer before – write The End on a full length novel. Yup, after 90,012 words and a long time deciding just which novel to work on I have finally completed the first full draft of Tears of the Mountain. It’s a big step forward, helped out by doing the last 20,000 words in the last seven days.
Of course it still needs much work, such as organising into chapter, spell checking, polishing and correcting details in the early parts of the story that got changed in the later part.
And then once that is done there starts the look hunt for rejections, I mean an agent and the possibility of getting it in print.
Still its a big thrill just to have gotten it to where it is now.
Dragons are a ubiquitous element of fantasy. They are one of the first things most people would think about when the word fantasy is said to them and it is quicker to list fantasy series without dragons than it is to list those with them in it.
Dragons are also rather varied, with many authors putting their own take on it. TVTropes says it best in their Our Dragons Are Different entry – this trope deals with big (maybe) strong (possibly) scaly (sometimes) flying (perhaps) fire-breathing (at times) lizard (usually) monsters (traditionally).
Normally I’m one to buck typical fantasy elements but I have to admit that there are dragons in my setting, though as with others I’ve put my own spin on them. Dragons in Sharael are vast and powerful and ancient. And seldom seen. They also don’t have to deal with knights, their traditional foe, as knights never have (and never will) exist in my world. They also appear a little different than your standard dragons. While the fit the large scaly reptilian clause, they are based on a lizard native to Australia – the Thorny Devil, also sometimes called the Thorny Dragon. As the name suggested they are covered in thorns and coloured in shades that help camouflage them in the desert.
This is what one looks like.
Imagine one of them much, much larger and with wings and you have an idea what they look like. If only I was a decent artist I’d give one a go….
I’ve recently become aware that Smashwords, where most of my readers are, prefers not to support serial stories, such as Cara’s Choice. As such I’m going to have to make some changes.
Firstly, I will continue to serialise the story on this website for those seeking regular fixed. However, for Smashwords, that is going to have to change. Instead of serialised chapters, I am going to have to release it in compiled books. For the first step in this I need to finish off the first book of Cara’s Choice – though it will probably be more of a novella than a full blown novel. I’ve got bits of it mapped out so what I really need to do is sit down and finish it off as soon as possible, especially given it is my most popular download on Smashwords.
Hopefully that won’t take too long to do – is been a bit long since the last chapter was done.
As some may have noticed, I haven’t been posting as much on here of late – though that isn’t due to lack of want, just lack of time and topics.
But I do have news, of a type.
A few weeks back I went through an old novel I had started quite a long while back now – Tears of the Mountain – looking for some information that was in it I wanted for another story. In doing so I was surprised at just how much I had done. The synopsis/rough draft was around 44,000 words long and better than I remembered.
Long story short, I returned to it. The rewrite is now at 55,000 words and still plenty to go. That is just the main plot, which has another 5-10,000 words left in it. Then I have to go and do the secondary plot and weave them together. All up I reckon come the end it’ll be 90,000 words long, which is a good length for a novel.
Once the rewrite is done I can start on editing and polishing and then the long hunt for rejections, er an agent.
Just a quick recap on what the story is about. It features Halir the explorer, adventurer and historian who features in Gifts and Sacrifices and also Tomb of the Tagosa Kings. It takes place about twenty years after the first and ten before the second and is one of my gunpowder fantasy stories. It features deserts, lost cities, a treasure hunt using an old map (or in this case an old journal), monsters, magic and a war.
Here is the unedited, unpolished opening few paragraphs.
The sheet of lightning flared bright, rending apart the night’s sky with its intense brilliance. For a split second it illuminated white the city that huddled around the sheltered bay, weathering the wild storm. Then the light was gone and it its wake came booming peals of thunder that rolled on and on through the night.
The wild tempest that had raged through out the day and battered the city had eased as night had fallen, though constant drizzling rain was still being swept across the city, collecting in growing puddles along streets and rooftops. A breeze gusted, swirling the falling rain in billowing veils before it, splattering it across a cloaked man as he scampered on down a street. Droplets of water beaded across his hood and cloak, running down them in rivulets to fall to the already sodden ground. His sandalled feet and the lower portion of his baggy trousers which peeked out from beneath his cloak were already soaked through from having splashed through puddles of water.
Another raucous crack of thunder rumbled across the rooftops overhead. For the cloaked man it carried within it the ominous overtones of the executioner’s drumbeats as they ushered their victims to their final fate. A shiver ran through the man, and not from the cold for despite the storm the night’s air was fairly mild. Worry frayed at nerves tightly strung, and in each shadow he half expected lurking danger. What he was undertaking he did not see as treason. Ho could it be, supporting the rightful prince? There were many others that would not share that view, and foremost amongst them was the current prince. He knew that if he were to be apprehended then it would not be the thunder he heard but the drums themselves.
The rather silly little sequel to the rather silly little short story Ray and His Human has been completed and posted for your amusement.
Ray was meant to be a one off short story but I liked it enough to write a sequel – and maybe more will make an appearance in the future.
In this one Ray the snarky, sarcastic robot has his work cut out trying to keep his accident prone human master Brian out of danger, but it isn’t helped with stolen warships, crash landings and seven alien princesses – and yes, they are green skinned.
The PDF is available here.
Have finished off another rough draft, this time for a sequel to the rather silly little sci-fi short story Ray and his Human, called Ray and the Alien Princesses. And yes, they are green. As normal things go wrong for Brian and it is up to the snarky, sarcastic android Ray to save the day. The rewrite will be done at some stage, though not exactly sure when it will make its appearance.
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