Just a quick update of what is in the works – besides the work on the website.
Secondly, and possibly more importantly, I need to complete Wisdom from the Ashes, the forth story in the Nhaqosa series, The Chronicles of the White Bull. The sooner the better, so that I can update the compilation for Smashwords and make it premium.
I also need once last look over Tears of the Mountain and to start approaching agents to see if I get any interest.
Since I started this blog almost two years ago I have made some 300 posts. Of them one post – simply entitled The Minotaur – has been responsible for more hits from search engines than any other. By a massive amount. Minotaur has resulted in almost 7 times as many hits as the next highest term, which is ‘fantasy clichés’. In fact seven of the top 10 hits from search engines have to do with minotaurs, and even the Cyrillic spelling of minotaur rates a mention on the list.
Maybe most of my posts haven’t been interesting or maybe there is a bigger pool of Minotaur fans than I realised.
I’d like to think it is the second, and if it is so then it would seem a good idea to expand on the stories of Nhaqosa the Minotaur, of which three have been written so far.
So with that in mind I shall work hard on completing the next in the series and ponder further stories beyond that.
Its been a bit since I last posted on here – got kind of sidetracked with others things.
I’ve got a couple of things planned to do soon ™.
First is to get The Tears of the Mountain tidied up enough and start shopping it around.
The other, and bigger, project is to do a revamp of all the short stories completed to date and collated them into single volumes and give them proper covers. This is mostly for Smashwords purposes, to clean up all the stories over there and maybe give people a reason to purchase them, though a number of stand alone stories will remain by themselves (and free).
The four collations will be Cara’s Choice, The Cahuac Cycle, Primal Tales and Nhaqosa’s stories.
I’m midway through the rough draft for the new Nhaqosa the minotaur short story, untitled as yet. The very first story I put on this website – The Pit – was about him (though it wasn’t initially meant to be so) and is still one of my favourites.
I’ve just rewatched Gladiator, and doing so reminded me of what it was the inspired The Pit – that and the D&D Dark Sun setting (which at the time hadn’t even been announced as being re-released.)
It got me thinking about Nhaqosa and his story and a few ideas sprung to mind, mostly to do with how he ended up a gladiator to start with, and his life – and fights – in the world, especially about how he came to command such respect amongst the other gladiators. So at some stage I plan to write about that, and explore more the grim nature of the setting he is in.
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.
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.
I decided to do a word count on all the stories I have made available and discovered that it totalled up to around 121,000 words in 22 stories. That is slightly larger than your average novel and more than I had expected. And it is not done with yet. Another is getting close to completion and there are plenty more on the books to come.
So now I’ve got a new short story finished, what is next on the agenda of writing?
In addition to that I will also be trying to finish off the second story of non-serious sci-fi setting featuring the the slightly sarcastic android Ray and his somewhat naive master – and a bevy of green alien princesses. I did mention it was not serious, right?
I found, in the recess of my old computer, another sci-fi short story from some years back – and not light hearted at all like Ray’s one is. It will require some tidying up and adapting to some new ideas I’ve had before it is ready.
And then there is the next story for Nhaqosa the minotaur, a steampunk short story introducing Sir Richard Hammerman – gentleman adventure – and his friends, another tale of the mythical hero Cahuac, a children’s story I’m working on for my niece and nephews, a new one with Professor Halir and Harry Ban in the gunpowder fantasy setting and various other ideas. Oh, and somewhere in that working on the novel.
It is a full time job – just with no pay.
It has been a while since I last added a short story to the collection, but the next one is finally done and now available.
The Painted Ones is the sequel to The Hall of Black Trees , set in a savage and primal world and following the story of the human hunter Braega, his marsupial lion companion Alia and the the small lizardman Tudhala. Braega has not yet recovered from the events of the previous story and during their travels they meet the a mysterious woman with some dark secrets and the savage inhuman Painted Ones.
Got a couple more short stories in the works that I hope to have up soon as well.
We are a few days into the year already and time for a brief update on what is in the immediate works. So far I am off to a slow but steady start, having hit the 1K minimum daily goal each day. Once the ball gets rolling that will pick up to better figures.
Right now the goal is to finish off three stories that are in the works for the Pure Escapism range of short stories.
Also the rough drafts are coming along for two as yet unnamed stories. The first is in the Primal Tales setting, the sequel to The Hall of Black Trees, and picks up on the story of Braega, Tudhala and Alia. The other is a follow up story to Ray and his Human, which I never expected to write more about, but another idea came to me, featuring the rather common SF trope of green alien princesses. Of course, this being a rather non-serious setting, things don’t go as expected.
There are a couple of ideas floating about for the next part of the story of Nhaqosa the Minotaur, but they are waiting until the other three are done before they get a look at.
And then there is the novel. I have come down to a decision at last – it’ll be the as yet unnamed Australiana fantasy setting mentioned previous but most likely with a lot of steampunk elements thrown in as well. Rather over the top, but it should be fun. Trying to finalise details and then it’ll be off with the first rough draft.
Mist and Shadows 