Archive for the ‘Pure Escapism’ Category

Re-Editing Update

Posted: September 8, 2011 in Dawn of Wolves, fantasy, Pure Escapism, writing, writing update
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Just an update on the process of re-editing all the old stories – so far two have been done. The Tomb of the Tagosa Kings and The Adventures of Ray the Robot have now had a go over trying to fix any errors that fell through the cracks previous times. I also gave The Adventures of Ray the Robot a new and slightly improved cover.

The other stories will slowly get the same editing process.

Also, the next two Nhaqosa short stories are getting close to being finished, and after that it will be time to finish Dawn of Wolves.

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An Upcoming Shakeup

Posted: September 1, 2011 in General, Pure Escapism
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Shortly I am going to be starting a bit of a shake up of the site – and the stories. That’ll be starting with a thorough re-edit of all of them, the first being the short stories. I will also be de-linking a number of stories from this site, leaving it just for the stories from the Mist and Shadows setting. The rest (including those not yet written) I’ll be listing on another site at some stage.

There may be some construction work in the meantime in case you stumble across anything broken.

The Pit Reviewed

Posted: May 21, 2011 in fantasy, Pure Escapism
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Over on Book Brouhaha, a site dedicated to the short story, The Pit got reviewed, receiving 4/5 stars, which is high praise indeed given most short stories reviewed there seem to get a lower rating.

The Future of the White Bull

Posted: May 5, 2011 in fantasy, Pure Escapism, writing, writing update
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I’ve been doing some planning on the future of The Chronicles of the White Bull collection of stories and have come up with a bit of a outline.

In all, including the four stories written so far, there are going to be ten in total. The next four will be written and released in pairs, like the first four, and then I’ll read a prologue and epilogue story, the start and the end of Nhaqosa’s story, and release them all as an anthology, comparable in length to a full novel. Hopefully I’ll even be able to get some proper artwork for the cover. Of the remaining six I have plans or have started writing four of them.

While doing all that I’ll also be working on the Peregrine and Blade stories, but once the Nhaqosa series is done I’ll be starting on a new one – The Halir Ashford Expeditions. Halir Ashford, professor, explorer, historian and adventurer, was just meant to be a bit character to help the plot in a story that barely got started before it was set aside but Halir survived and thrived, and is a central character in two novelettes (The Tomb of the Tagosa Kings & Gifts and Sacrifices) and both novels (Tears of the Mountains & Winter Wolves), as well as being in an unfinished novellas (Dawn of Wolves). The collection he will be in will help flesh out the history, both past and present, of the world of Sharael.

Now just to get it all written…

Yes, I Am A Pulp Writer

Posted: April 10, 2011 in Pure Escapism, steampunk, sword and sorcery, writing
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I have written two novels of what I like to think as serious fantasy, and have plans for more, but I have come to the realisation that at the moment I am a pulp writer – and I like it.

Those big, epic, world changing bookstopper fantasy series – they aren’t me. It was hard enough to finish off the two novels at novel length. It was after doing so that I realised that I prefer the short versions of stories – shorts and novelettes and novellas – and more importantly, prefer writing stories in the pulp style; action, adventure, larger than life characters etc. Nothing too serious, nor high literature, but fun to read.

I find myself even preferring to read the shorter style stories – I haven’t read one of those mega series in a long time.

For the time being I am going to be concentrating on writing pulp style shorts, working on four series mainly; The Chronicles of the White Bull, Primal Tales, The Sir Richard Hammerman Adventures and Peregrine and Blade.

The Chronicles of the White Bull and Primal Tales both have stories already written and available in the Pure Escapism collection; Primal tales is fantasy set in a primeval, low-tech world, a place of wild forests and prehistoric creatures. The Chronicles of the White Bull follows the exploits of an escaped minotaur gladiator, travelling a dying world in the search for home.

The Sir Richard Hammerman is steampunk pulp; currently with a novella and novelette half-written. Sir Richard Hammerman is a gentleman adventurer who travels with his companions who travels an Earth similar, but not exactly, to our own, a place of weird science, of pterodactyl riding pygmies, airships and odd contraptions.

Peregrine and Blade is pure pulp, inspired by the likes of Robert E Howard, Fritz Leiber and their ilk. The first novelette has been written up in rough form – and can be read here – the first of many.

Pure Escapism Page Update

Posted: March 21, 2011 in Pure Escapism
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I am currently updating the Pure Escapism page, which means for the moment there are some broken links.

Try not to trip over them as I work on getting it all completed.

Meet Professor Halir, The Unexpected Character

Posted: January 3, 2011 in fantasy, Pure Escapism, Sharael, Tears of the Mountain, winter wolves, World Building, writing update
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Professor Halir Ashford. Historian, Explorer and Adventurer. One of the favourite characters I’ve written so far. And a character who really shouldn’t have existed beyond a minor mention. It happens from time to time; characters take on a life of their own and demand a bigger say in things.

His story starts back with a novel I was planning (but never got around to starting). I needed someone to introduce the main character (Heric ‘Harry’ Ban, likewise a character that came about unexpectedly) to the adventure, and so I came up with Halir. he had been a friend of Harry’s father back during a war and was now a professor and historian. The novel was abandoned and the character would have been forgotten except for another novel I started sometime later, Winter Wolves.

Winter Wolves was my first serious effort at plotting and then writing a novel, and was designed to be a showcase for the setting and for Harry Ban. I even managed to complete a round draft. There was a need for a character who would draw Harry into events, and for that I went back to Halir and brought him along.

Though I finished the rough draft, I never got around to fleshing it out, instead, as is my want, I moved onto other projects and suddenly Halir took over somewhat. He got himself two lengthy short stories, Gifts and Sacrifices, and The Tomb of the Tagosa Kings, and then he got himself a full novel in which to star – Tears of the Mountain – which is the first novel I’ve completely properly.

It won’t be the last that Professor Halir is seen either.

Looking Backwards, Looking Forwards

Posted: January 1, 2011 in fantasy, Pure Escapism, Tears of the Mountain, The Oncoming Storm, winter wolves, writing update
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I’m not going to look back at my resolutions for last year – I know that most of them never got done, which is why I normally don’t bother.

It is a good time, however, to look back over 2010 and to look forward to 2011.

2010 was a year of missed opportunities, both writing and otherwise.  While I did actually complete my first proper, full length novel, my writing output was way down on what it should have been and that single novel should have been more.  Moreover, it is still sitting there gathering dust and hasn’t been used yet, something that needs to be rectified.

2011 needs to see an improvement.  I’m not going to make any resolutions – because they will just be broken – but I want to see a lot more writing done, both novels and short stories.  I’ve got all these ideas floating around not being used.

I’m going to go over the Pure Escapism page and stories and clean it up, make it look more professional.  That includes new and improved covers.  I have a few that I’ve worked on and that I need to upgrade the rest to that level.

I’d like to try and add at least one new short story to the collection a month – more of the time permits – and of course to try and exchange the reader base. Cleaning up and polishing the pages here and at Smashwords, plus starting to join up on various forums should help with that a bit.

The big one is of course the novels. I’ve got one complete and two half complete. They need to get completed, polished and made ready as soon as I can. And then I have to make a big decision.

Do I try for an agent and publisher, a long and laborious process that has no guarantees of any success?

Or do I try and go independent? There is no success guaranteed there either but there will at least be something to show for it, which is more than would happen if I ended up with no agent. It would require a whole new skillset – that of self marketting – but there have been a number of successes to show it is not impossible.

A New Nhaqosa Story: Wisdom from the Ashes

Posted: December 3, 2010 in fantasy, Pure Escapism, writing update
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The next chapter in The Chronicles of the White Bull is now on the site, entitled Wisdom from The Ashes.

It follows on from the events of Echoes of Dark Reflections and Nhaqosa is not in a good state physically or mentally from the encounter in the dark crystalline tower. His band is starting to fray without his leadership, and worse are the dreams that haunt him both day and night.

A New Approach

Posted: December 2, 2010 in Pure Escapism, writing update
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I’d be the first to admit that I am not all that great at marketing myself – in fact I am terrible at it. I just don’t have the personality to push myself forward like some do.

But that has to change. I need to start doing so, to get my stories out there for people to read and hopefully take an interest in. Otherwise why write if no one is reading them?

Starting tomorrow I am going to look at ways to do so, finding forums and sites to share my work and get opinions, to push myself on twitter more and the like. After all I have some 24 stories on the site (plus 2 more to add) totalling around 110,000 words. That is a lot of effort.

I also hope to write a lot more than I have been – the aim being to add one new story a month from now on in.

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