I’ve been away for quite a while.
The question, of course, is what have I been doing?
The answer is, writing. The much-threatened book “Martin
Chalk and the Quest Through Time” has just been published on Amazon, and it’s
quite a chonker, clocking in at almost exactly 200k words. I’d originally aimed
at 90k, which shows that my ability to estimate the length of a story, even
with an outline, needs fine-tuning.
Martin Chalk and the Quest Through Time is available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086J78K3Y
Nevertheless, the story needed that length to unfold
properly, and I think it’s a pretty decent yarn if I say so myself. It is a two
part book, the first part mainly concerned with Martin Chalk and his efforts to
get to the location of the next piece of the Wand of Lemual. In the second
part, the reader is re-introduced to the characters of Sir Kethvist, Susanna
and Bartak, who were first seen in the short story The Champion’s Prophecy
available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VJWPT8Y
Another ‘character’ who makes an appearance much to
everybody’s dismay, is Small-Paw, who was introduced in the short story The
Skelgar, available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0866D86WH
I’ve also written two other short stories available for free
through BookFunnel.
The first, which is free-free is The Hunger. This also ties
into the Martin Chalk story in ways we will come to see later on. It’s a story
of a werewolf apocalypse, and how a young man in its path deals with it. The
Hunger is found here: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/6yb1cw94hx
The second short story available on BookFunnel is Of Horses
and Pickled Fish. It’s a story about the ever-avaricious Regent of Fulldon and
his attempts at crooking a fish merchant. Messer Schlei, however, is far more
resourceful than the Regent anticipates, with unexpected results. I tried to
channel my inner Terry Pratchett for this one, and I’m rather pleased with how
it turned out. The forger Jen Naroth makes a cameo appearance, and the short
story explains the origin of Martin’s side quest in Sheona.
Of Horses and Pickled Fish is available here : https://dl.bookfunnel.com/2o7b9l4cmm
It requires mailing list sign-up, but I figure anybody that
doesn’t like it probably won’t like my other writing and can unsubscribe.