Mist and Shadows

Thought I should do a post updating the various projects, where they currently stand and where they are hopefully headed.

The novel with the working title of Tears of the Mountain has been commenced, with 9K written of the first rough draft. Currently the rough draft is on a short pause as a proper plot and outline are worked on.

The prequel pilot novella, nominally called The Gift has been started, only around 4K done on it so far, but the story plot has been figured out. Aiming for 15-20K in length, it is intended to get a feel for the world, sort of like a pilot to a TV show does.

Pure Escapism is still coming along – need to finish off one draft and then edit it and a second draft to finish off the third volume. Hopefully this month, but certainly for next month.

For the contents of it, I have ideas for a number more short stories for a couple more volumes still. After that, while there will be plenty of one off stories, they will be fleshed out with ongoing series of stories which will, in theory, explore a number of different themes.

Cara’s Choice is going to be the only serial of them, an ongoing story told in episodes as they are released. It is an urban fantasy – nothing too out of the ordinary about it, except vampires will never ever be the good guys.

Of the core world of writing there are two main series, both from the earlier parts of history, but there will be other stories spread around in other time periods as well. I’ve had fun writing the myths of Aracan Hobgoblins in The Cahauc Cycle and so they will keep coming, and in time I may delve into myths of other cultures. The other series is planned to be The Book of Deeds, which relates the deeds of great Maedari Kings and Heroes during the bronze age of the world.

The series that I am calling The Primal Tales revolves around Braega and the lizardman Tudhala. There is plans for another character to join up soon. These stories aim to be wild and primal in nature, revolving around ruins, primeval creatures and the like. For these I have drawn inspiration in part from the Conan stories by Robert E Howard.

The other main series is those dealing with Nhaqosa the minotaur, which go by the name A Wanderer’s Tale. These are trending towards a more dark nature, and the world he finds himself in is more brutal and gritty in nature.

I have also been pondering on whether to write more about the sarcastic android Ray and his luckless master Brian in a sci-fi series, trying for a more humourous group of stories. May be fun to try something a bit more radical than the norm for me.

That is the plan at least – next step is to get it working.