A Teaser About My New Project/Series

Cast of Characters

Sam – Female Cat. Gray. Captain of a Lobster-Class ship. Augmented Senses. Augmented Bone Structure (Including Claws). Formerly worked with Max (Captain of a Crab-Class ship), a Male Dog (Chihuahua). There was some romantic interest between them. They parted due to a difference of opinions regarding salvage ethics.

Gavin – Male Duck. Very gifted. He's a polyglot and acts as Science and Navigation on the ship. He's Sam's un/official first mate. He has an eidetic memory, a tendency to disagree with Cameron (Male Chameleon; Ship's Mechanic), and a love of Turkey Jerky.

Luci – Female Praying Mantis. She's the ship's Pilot. She controls the ship via a sensory HUD system. She is a self-taught street fighter and definitely does not know Kung Fu. She has an Enhanced Exoskeleton, and Augmented Claws that can discharge kinetic energy (shocks) and allows increased adhesive ability. She hates scorpions.

Cameron – Male Chameleon. He's the ship's Mechanic, and is at odds with Gavin about the “right” was to repair/maintain the ship. Gavin believes it is a Science, while Cameron believes it is an Art. Cameron's methods usually work out for the best. He has an Enhanced Chameleon Ability that allows him to affect objects other than just himself.

Max – Male Dog. Chihuahua. Captain of a Crab-Class ship. Formerly partners with Sam until they had a difference of opinions. Tends to bend the rules a little more than he should, almost to breaking point. He has a patch over his left eye. This eye is Augmented to pick-up wavelengths and frequencies that normal vision can't. He is currently romantically involved with Winona (Female Rat; Ship's Navigator and Mechanic.

Winona – Female Rat. She acts as the ship's Navigator and Mechanic. She is currently involved with Max. She has Enhanced and Augmented Senses that allow her to map and visualize things as if from an external viewpoint, for a real 360 degree view.

Dwayne – Male Scorpion. He acts as Security for the ship. He has an Augmented Carapace and his stinger can inject a variety of different chemicals. He's a very nasty piece of work.

Jess – Female Kiwi. She's the ship's Pilot. She is new to the crew. She is the quiet type. 

Short Stories

My new job sees me spending some time on the train to get to and from work. At first I filled the time by reading Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. I'd never read them before (it's a long and not very interesting story that basically boils down to me being stubborn in the face of someone telling constantly how awesome they were and why I should read them every day for an extended period of time - don't get me wrong, I like people suggesting new stuff for me to read - what I don't like is someone practically shoving something into my hands and wanting to sit by me to make sure I read it), so they are a new experience for me. I quite like them, but after the first few, I ran out of ones to read, unless I bought more, and moving house, car insurance, new internet set-up, among other things, has really made a dent in my finances. So, I thought I'd give writing on the train a go.

It's actually been working rather well. Even though I'm commuting around peak-hour, most of the time I have no one sitting next to me on the train, or, if I do, it's not for the whole trip, or I still have enough room to type a bit.

I started off by getting back to a short story I started just after I finished The Dragon's Spine. For anyone who has read Eria you'll probably remember Elrath's cat, Dren. Well, this story is all about Dren. It's the lead up to what Dren was up to before he came into Elrath's life. I've finished the first draft, and I'm going to put it to one side while I work on another short story. The second one is similar to the Dren short story, but it will focus on Baedyr. Once that one has reached the first draft stage, and after I make another pass of Dren, I'm going to get started on Zelton. For those with a good memory, Zelton was Elrath's master's master.

Ideally, I'm going to release them one at a time over the period of a couple of months. I've already got some cover art in the works for Dren, and once I'm happy with that, I'll do the same with the others.

It's good to be writing again, even if it is for short bursts before and after work. Hopefully once I get settled into my new job and my new house I'll be able to find the time to get some more writing done in the evenings and on the weekends. And to update this blog more often, too, to let you all know what I've been up to. Not having a reliable internet connection kinda hurts the whole being active online thing.

Anyway, that's where I'm at at the moment. Until next time!

Sequel Names and Other Stuff

I've really painted myself into a corner with this one. When I write a sequel to Eria what am I going to call it? Eria II just sounds awful. It really does, and it'll do no justice to the original. For now, it'll have to do, I suppose.

Of course, the questions that I'll have to answer will be "what's going to be in this novel?", "will it be better than the first one?", "will Dren be in this one?".

Great stuff, yes and yes are the answers to these questions.

I love the characters from Eria - I have so much more planned for them. Bethany has some growth, Elrath has a lot to do and Baedyr will feature pretty large in this novel.

And Dren. Well, that cat's something I can't contain...

The Dragon's Spine - Another Excerpt

When I was writing The Dragon's Spine I wrote three flashback scenes. I wanted to add a bit more to Krullus's back story and history, and I thought this was the best way to do it. Also, I rather like flashbacks - I'm not sure why, but I find them useful, interesting, and if used well (which I hope I have) they don't feel like you're shoving information down a reader's throat. I know I hate that feeling as a reader (and a consumer). So, this is the last of the flashback scenes, and the last of the excerpts from The Dragon's Spine that I'll be putting up here. I hope you enjoy.

“You know you don't have to go, my son,” his father said. The man was older now; weak with age and illness.

The young man was now just that – a man. His red hair was wild and long, down to his shoulders. His face sported the beginning of a fine beard.

“You remember I asked you a question a long time ago,” it was a statement from the young man, not a question.

“I remember, my son,” his father replied. “It was 'why do people kill other people?'. We spoke about it a couple of times.”

His son nodded, fastening his chain armor securely. He picked his sword off the table, testing the new blade's balance, before sheathing it in his scabbard.

“It was something I'd hoped to answer properly before a day like this came,” his father continued. “So you'd be ready.”

“I think you answered it as best you could, sir,” the young man said.

“But it wasn't really the answer you were looking for.”

The young man looked to his father, placed a strong but kind hand on the older man's shoulder.

“It taught me something, though,” he said. “You taught me something important.”

“And what is it you've learnt, my son?”

“Sometimes the answers we receive are not the ones we want to hear. But they are answers just the same.”

His father nodded, his gaze following his son as he picked his pack up, tested its weight, and slung it over his shoulders.

“The important thing is to ask the questions we need to ask, and to deal with the answers we receive as best we can,” the young man said. “And if we can, to find a truth we can live with.”

“Why do people kill other people, my son?” his father asked after a long pause.

“It doesn't matter what other people do,” the young man said. “I cannot control that. I can only control my own actions, and answer for them when asked.”

His father thought about this, as his son made his way to the door.

“Why will you kill other people?” his father asked at last.

“Because I must,” Krullus said as he left, closing the door behind him.

Krullus - A Short (?) Story

Firstly, there were no blog updates last week, but you probably noticed that - I could pretend that it was due to a lot of things - I was busy at work, I was writing, I was changing my ISP, my netbook crashed - but the real reason is that I went away for a few days to visit with family, and my netbook was left sitting at the end of the bed, all ready to go into the bag that it never went into.

With that out of the way, on with the topic at hand!

I started writing a short story the other day about one of the characters that is mentioned, albeit briefly, in Eria - Krullus. The only thing that anyone who has read Eria knows about Krullus is from the one line in the novel:

'Surely you recognize the Sword of Kings,' Bædyr said. 'The weapon wielded by my father, Zandor, and his father before him, bestowed by the ancient Kings of Eria, handed down to the first King, Krullus, by Pael himself!"

 It's not a lot to go on.

I know who Krullus is, and I thought I might write something so that everyone else could find out a bit more about him. So, I started writing a short story. And, as happens, Real Life reared its ugly head, and I had to put it on the shelf for a few days. At which point my subconscious decided that the story really needed another character added to it. I thought about it, and it made sense, so I thought about the implications of the re-write and what it'd do to the story, and it seemed okay, so I did what I normally do, and slept on it. The next day my subconscious decided that, instead of the one additional character, it really needed two. I thought about it some more, and realized that this was actually an even better idea. We'll see how it pans out, I suppose.

I love the way my subconscious does that - contributes to the writing process while I'm asleep. It keeps things fresh and flowing for me, even if it does result in several re-writes along the way.

So, the plan is for a short story, at the moment. I put it that way, because these things have a way of escalating - like going for "one beer" after work on a Friday sometimes results in you sneaking in at 6am on Saturday morning.

As to what to do with the short story, I'll throw it out onto Amazon for 99 cents, and see what happens. But I'll talk about that more on Friday!

Characters With A Mind Of Their Own

Developing good characters is an important part of the writing process. Without them, any novel is going to suffer. And, if it does, then people are going to have trouble reading what you've written, or, worse still, they won't bother reading it at all.

The 'down side' of having good, well-developed characters is that sometimes they won't do what they're told.

You have an idea, you have the characters, the locations, the obstacles, the plot, and everything else worked out, and things are looking great. Until your characters decide that they'd really rather not do what you want them to do.

I can hear people saying "but they're your characters, don't they just do what you want them to? It's not like they have a say!". If only it were that easy.

Sure, you can force characters to do your bidding, but you run the risk of it feeling forced. You risk the all important suspension of disbelief being broken, and the reader going "hang on a minute...". And that's bad. I've read many novels where I stop reading, and start thinking not about what the characters are doing, but why the hell they are doing it. Why they are acting so out of character. It leaves the over-all reading experience lacking. You want the reader to be immersed in the world, the characters, and so forth, not questioning things (unless, of course, that is the kind of novel you're writing, but that's not what I'm talking about here).

So, the best solution, is to let the characters do what they want. To hell with your best laid plans - let the characters be the characters that you created, not force them into some situation, or action, that they wouldn't do. They might get back to the track that you have waiting for them, or they might lead you on your own merry adventure, as they explore their options and your world the way a real person would.

At the end of the day, I think this can make for a better story.