Chris d'Lacey's Blog, page 12

This week's word is: DRAGONTONGUE

Hello dragon fans.  Several of you have written to the author lately expressing a desire to see what dragontongone, the language of dragons, looks like - hrrr!  I should say, by the way, that the 'hrrrs' you see in the books are a very simplified general version of the noises we make.  It would be impossible to write it out properly for you because the language is just too difficult for humans to grasp.  We, of course, being desperately clever, can speak (or understand) English to some extent.  So the grunts and snorts and huffs that the author records in the stories are always translated for you.  Occasionally, if we're being very expressive, we will ask him to write hrrr-rr-rrr! or something.  But this is rare.
Anyway, it surprised us to read your queries because there is an illustration of dragontongue at the beginning of Dark Fire - or at least there is in the UK edition.  We've now discovered that the confusion has arisen because the illustration does not appear in the US edition (we're not sure about Australia; perhaps one of you would like to write and tell the author whether you guys have it or not).  To be honest, we're not sure why it didn't appear in the US book, but at least we can show you what you missed, right here, on the blog.  Those of you who have read Dark Fire will know that evidence of dragontongue was first discovered by Anders Bergstrom in a cave on the Hella Glacier, in the High Arctic.  Bergstrom took photographs of it and was on his way back to his polar camp when he was stopped by a bear called Thoran.  Now Thoran was no ordinary bear.  He had been around for centuries and was the first white bear ever to walk the ice.  His fur had been turned from brown to white by the power of Gawain's fire tear, which, as you all now know, was how the polar ice cap came to be formed.  (Stop me if I'm getting ahead of you here!)  Because of the importance of Bergstrom's discovery, Thoran decided to give Bergstrom a little 'dragon power' of his own.  In effect, their auma commingled and Thoran was able to walk among men in Bergstrom's form (and vice versa) and hence spread the word about environmental problems in the Arctic - to among others David Rain.  Good innit?  Eventually, when natural dragons began to return to the Earth, it was decided that in order to ease understanding of their presence and lessen the shock of their appearance, it would be a good idea if I passed evidence of Bergstrom's cave discovery onto an academic called Rupert Steiner.  Steiner would then publish snippets of the writings, including Bergstrom's photographs, and world awareness of dragons (and their harmless intent) would begin to rise.  Phew!
Anyway, here's a slightly fuller version of the illustration you missed.  Don't ask me to translate it, it would take too long (readers of Dark Fire will know that it's a pointer to a place called Scuffenbury Hill).  There is no real alphabet because again it's far too complex to produce.  Can humans learn to speak dragontongue?  Yes.  People often say to us that it looks like musical notation.  This is because dragons have a very harmonic resonance to their voice.  The closest human language would probably be Welsh, which probably explains why Wales has adopted the red dragon as its national symbol.
So there you are.  A nice bit of history this week.  Happy reading (even though you can't understand it!)  Hrrr!

This week's word is: INTERVIEW

A nice treat for fans of the author this week - a link to a filmed interview.  This is one of the two that he did in Washington on the last day of his American tour.  It was filmed at WETA, the Washington TV network and was primarily intended for a brilliant website called Reading Rockets.  We have the lovely Rachael Walker and her team to thank for this, hrrr!  The dragons have watched it, and we all agree that the author comes across very well, though Gretel is annoyed that she wasn't there to sit on his shoulder and generally steal the show.  Have a look.  You'll hear him talking about all sorts of things to do with writing, reading - and dragons, of course. 
Here are the links.  Right now, he is featured on the Reading Rockets homepage (www.readingrockets.org) and the direct link to the interview is here: www.readingrockets.org/books/interviews/dlacey. It's also on a website that focuses on adolescent literacy: www.adlit.org/authors/d%27Lacey


Surprisingly, we still don't have the finished artwork for the FW cover, but then the whole publishing industry tends to go on holiday in August.  The author, likewise, is having a couple of weeks off.  He's not actually going anywhere, he just wants to chill out and strum his guitar, he says.  Meanwhile, I am turning my thoughts towards the final book of the Chronicles, particularly its title.  More on that in the coming weeks.  For now, happy reading.  Hrrr!

This week's word is: EDINBURGH

Hello dragon fans.  First, we have to apologise for the non-appearance of the blog over the last two weeks.  The first week it was due to the weather.  The rain was so appalling that Gwendolen couldn't get an Internet signal and after trying for several hours I gave up and the author fell asleep!  Last week, he was working flat out on FIRE WORLD.  Yes, I know we reported that he'd finished the book a couple of blog entries back, which he had.  We'll, he'd reached the end, anyway.  Then his editor, Catherine, asked him to reconsider rewriting the end of the book.  He had done it in 'epilogue' form.  In other words, he was tying up loose ends in a 'reported' fashion.  Catherine thought it might be done better as normal text.  But turning it round proved to be a lot trickier than he'd expected.  So I had to sit with him and be my usual inspirational self, rather than blogging the week's events.
As it was, not an awful lot was happening anyway.  He was practically glued to the laptop but he did complete the rewrite and send it off, phew. (In soccer playing terms, in time added on by the fourth official!)  So FW is DEFINITELY done and work will begin on the final book soon (gulp).  Hopefully, FW is still on track for January publication in the UK and Australia.  As soon as we have some American dates, we'll let you know.  Still no sign of a full cover run-out, which is a bit frustrating for you excited fans, sorry.  But rest assured, the moment the author is given the go-ahead to show it, I will post it here.
One interesting bit of news is that the Chronicles are going to be available as eBooks in October this year.  Yes, the digital age has come to Scrubbley.  They should appear on all the usual platforms.  Now the author wants to get an iPad (I've had one for years, of course) so he can have a little electronic library of his own books, as well as many others. Mrs Author simply thinks this is just an excuse for him to own a new piece of 'kit', but we do like them. He was playing with an iPad at Edinburgh airport this morning. "Look, Zookie," he said, "I can turn a page just by flicking a finger!" Erm, yeah...  eReaders are a rather interesting development because all authors are passionate about books and many regard the digital media with some suspicion.  But there's no denying the beauty of some of the devices and the manufacturers have gone to great trouble to at least give them a 'bookish' feel.  So is it wrong for an author to want to own an iPad or similar?  Is he betraying good old-fashioned print?  No.  Not at all.  We in the Crescent don't believe that 'paper' books will die out, certainly not in the immediate future anyway, but iPads and Kindles etc. are not going to go away and might even help some children on the road to reading.  It would be distressing if eBooks were being sold at such ludicrous prices that publishers felt they couldn't afford to print books anymore, but surely, in time, the two will sit happily aside one another in the market place.  Personally, I can't see me downloading any apps onto my pad, but you never know!
We were in Scotland for the day by the way because he was appearing at the Edinburgh Book Festival.  Edinburgh is one of our favourite places to be.  The buildings are mostly constructed of wonderfully dark, smoke-ingrained stone, which gives the whole city a real 'gothic' feel.  It's a very vibrant place when the festival is on and there's a lovely atmosphere on the streets.  If you've never been, we recommend it.  The author stayed at the Bonham Hotel, which is tucked away in the impossible to pronounce (but rather lovely for it) Drumsheugh Gardens.  He was checking in when the comedian, Alan Davies, appeared beside him.  He smiled at Mr Davies, but didn't speak.  It's impolite if you're moderately famous to recognise someone who clearly is.  A few years ago, the same thing happened when he was at a posh party in London.  He was handing in his coat at the cloakroom when the well-known author Terry Pratchett stepped up beside him.  Mr Pratchett didn't have a coat, he just handed in his hat.  That's what you call doing it in style.  The author didn't 'recognise' him, either.  In Edinburgh, our hero spoke for the first time about the four Dragons of Wayward Crescent books.  It was probably not the best talk he's ever done, but then he was feeling his way with it a bit.  And judging by the number of children who queued up afterwards to have their dragon novels signed he would probably have been better off talking about them.  Still, it was a great pleasure to be part of the festival.  It always is.  Hopefully we'll be back next year as FW will be coming out in paperback in the UK at just about the right time.  See you next week.  Happy reading.  Hrrr!

This week's word is: MOTHS

Hello, dragon fans.  As I write this the author is inside a wardrobe (that's an armoire or a closet, if you live in the USA).  I would love to be able to tell you that he's found a secret door in the back of it, which leads to a land of lions and witches.  Sadly, this is not the case.  He's installing some kind of moth deterrent, which seems to consist of him getting amongst the clothing and sticking a piece of paper onto the wardrobe back.  I asked if I should write 'MOTHS GO HOME' on it for him, but he didn't think that was very funny.  Then he banged his head and that just put him in a bad mood.  This all started when Mrs Author found that some fur had been chewed off one of her favourite teddy bears.  Now, there are a lot of things Mrs A will put up with, but foul play with the teds is not one.  So began a rigorous vaccuuming of all those areas one wouldn't normally go with a hoover, just to persuade the little chaps to think again about laying their eggs near a cuddly toy.  Gretel found some red cedarwood essence amongst her potions which we think will do the trick.  She also offered to hurr on any she saw flying about, but we thought that would be a bit cruel. 
No cover image.  Not yet.  Puh.  We have it, but we're not allowed to show it until its foiling and lettering and blurb is done.  Won't be long now.  We did unveil it briefly in some libraries in the lovely county of Dorset this week.  The children who saw it all seemed to like it and many of them said, "What's that in the dragon's eye...?"  A-ha.  It's become quite a thing now, deciding what we do with the eye and how subtle to make it.  This one isn't subtle (not like The Fire Eternal, for instance) but it is beautifully done.  We think you'll love it.  AND, big news.  For the first time ever in one of the novels we're going to have a proper illustrated frontispiece.  Remember the dragontongue at the front of Dark Fire?  Well, FW will have its own drawing, which will be a proper scene from the book AND (here's a bit of a teaser) that scene will also have been in Dark Fire too.  Work that one out!
If you've emailed the author recently and he hasn't got back to you, don't worry, he will.  He's been working very hard on the FW manuscript, picking up on some suggestions from his editor, Catherine, and a few other queries from Mrs A.  He also took time out, as you just read, for a day of talks.  We'd like to thank all the staff of the libraries in Weymouth, Dorchester and Ferndown for their help, particularly Nicola, who took us out to lunch. (Hrrr!)  We still don't understand the significance of 'Space Hop' their reading initiative, but the posters look good!  Sadly, we didn't have time for photographs.  This is very remiss in a lovely place like Dorset.  I was urging the author to stop the car and take a snap of a carving I spotted in one of the many chalk hills.  Sometimes you get giants.  Sometimes you get white horses (or even unicorns!).  I'm telling you, I saw an old boot!  LOL.  You had to be there to appreciate it.
Anyway, assuming our hero comes out of the wardrobe in time, we'll be back next week, hopefully with that brilliant cover.  If anyone has any natural moth remedies, don't hesitate to let us know.  Happy reading.  Hrrr!
PS. Here's a nice pic from a fan called Natasha.  Bit small, but you get the idea.

This week's word is: MIXED

Hello dragon fans.  What a strange week it's been.  A mixed one as people say.  We're a little bit late with the blog first of all because we've all been out to the cinema tonight.  This was Mrs Author's belated wedding anniversary treat.  She and the author have now been married for THIRTY ONE years.  That's over twice the average age of his readership!  He was supposed to take her out a week ago on the actual date, but he was too busy, he said.  This did not go down well with Mrs A who insisted he take her to the movies tonight or do the washing up for a month.  The movies won.  So what do you think we saw? The new Twilight film?  How To Train Your Dragon? (excuse me?!) Avatar? No. It was Toy Story 3. And very good it was too.  Mrs Author cried when the toys went safely to a new home (aah).  We liked the little aliens and 'the claw'.  Can't say too much or we'll spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it.
On the writing front, the author is still editing away at FIRE WORLD, sharpening up the dialogue and making general improvements etc.  He's on part three, which happens in a place called 'The Dead Lands'.  Sorry, no clues.  You just have to use your imagination for now.  He was fretting like mad this week when his laptop suffered a problem with a hinge, meaning it couldn't be closed.  Gollygosh was there with his toolbox right away to fix it.  It's useful having a healing dragon close at hand.  So that held the editing up for a couple of days, but he's caught up now and is still very happy with it all.  He's calling it 'the best' and that's saying something after Dark Fire.  Tomorrow we're expecting the finished artwork for the cover.  So if all goes well and everything is approved, it might appear on the blog next week.  Excitement!  FW will be dedicated to Angelo Rinaldi, the wonderful artist who created the covers.  It's the least we can do for a man who has done so much to create the 'brand' image of the series.
Elsewhere this week the house was full, thanks to a visit from the author's brother's family.  Marshall (the brother) is the creator of the Icefire website.  So it was good to see him, and fun to have some family around.  Marhall is a keen photographer.  He was clicking away all week.  So some of his shots might appear on the notepad soon as well.  In the midst of all this, the author received a message from his best friend, Terri, saying that her mother had died.  That was very sad.  All the dragons sent a great big hrrr!  Terri is an artist who helped develop the dragontongue you see at the front of Dark Fire. 
Anyway, it's officially Monday in England so we really ought to post this and go to bed - not that dragons ever really sleep, of course, we just go into different types of stasis.  Fingers crossed next week we'll have the cover.  Happy reading.  Hrrr!

This week's word is: OUTTAKE

Hello dragon fans.  With the author busily editing away and everyone in publishing seemingly going on holiday right now, things are pretty quiet in the Crescent.  So I thought I'd take this opportunity to show you a small outtake from Dark Fire.  It's very interesting when you look back at these things to think why they were rejected (usually because they're not good enough or they seem contrived) and how raw or unpolished they are.  If I showed this extract to the author he'd want to work on it for two days, knocking it into shape, which rather defeats the object.  So what you have below is the original piece he wrote when Gollygosh was trying to deal with the dark fire trapped inside the obsidian.  Note in this version the obsidian doesn't get smashed.  The version that finally went into the book was much more exciting.  An author has to do this sometimes: ask themselves if a particular piece of writing is a little dull, and if the answer is 'yes', to then improve on it.  Anyway, see what you think.
By the way, the result of the best jacket photo poll was the one of him fiddling with his ear!  Everyone seemed to think this looked the most natural.  No one voted for the one of him staring into the distance.  And though people liked the one of him sitting down, it was nowhere near as popular as the 'ear' shot. 
Very soon now we hope to be able to show you the cover of FW, which has just gone into full production after a couple of weeks of debate.  It's looking very good.  I'll say more about it when we have the OK to show it.
Okay.  Here's the outtake.  Happy reading.  Hrrr!
With the gentlest of clinks, the head of the hammer stopped dead against a flat face of the obsidian. Gollygosh and the other special dragons in the Den, with the single exception of G'reth, were frozen where they stood. Grace's fire tear slowed its vibration and turned into a snowflake nestling, stationary, on Groyne's paws. Even Liz and David were held in the stasis of Zanna's spell. Not so Alexa. Suddenly, the door burst open and the little girl streamed in with hair ribbons flying. Before Zanna could stop her she had run to her father and thumped her palm against his heart. With a gasp, he spluttered back to free movement. His eyes returned quickly from scalene to human and took in the scene around him. He swept Alexa into his arms and held her. Only then did Zanna lift her fingers from her scars.


What happened? hurred G'reth, dibbling his claws and finding that everything worked perfectly with him.

"Gwilanna?" asked David.

Zanna nodded. "Something exterior was taking a tug. So I chanced it and put out a blocking spell on the old witch. I saw her briefly in my mind. She was using Gawain's isoscele, reaching out to manipulate anything touched by his auma." She stepped forward and drew Gollygosh away from the obsidian.

Suddenly, there was a crash downstairs, sounding like a door had been forced open.

Zanna's hand went immediately to her arm again, but David raised a hand and whispered, "Wait!"

"Polar bear," Alexa said, and turned to the door.

None other than Tam Farrell burst in.

"What? Oh, now I've seen it all," said Zanna.

Tam acknowledged her briefly, looked around the room and settled his gaze on David. "I felt something. Are you all right?"

"Yeah," David said. "We are now."

"Lucy's in there," said Alexa, pointing towards the girl's room.

Tam nodded and backed away. He slipped next door to check.

Alexa quickly turned to Liz and revived her the same way she had with David.

"Welcome back," Zanna said. "We seem to have been attacked by our favourite aunty. But don't worry, the cavalry's here."

This week's word is: MUGSHOTS

Hello dragon fans.  We haven't seen much of the author this week.  He's had his head in the folds of his laptop, doing 'tweaks' as he puts it to the narrative of FIRE WORLD.  He's gone back to the beginning, which is like 'another country' he says as it's months, of course, since he started the book.  The official 'tweaking' won't begin until his editor, Catherine, has read the whole story and come back with any comments.  But I'm pleased to say he was walking around with a big smile on his face after he'd read the first ten chapters or so.  That means he's pretty happy with it.  Phew.
Talking of his face, Mrs Author has been doing one of her most important jobs and taking photographs of him for the hardback cover.  She has asked me to show you her favourite three to let you guys decide which we should pick.  Personally, we think they are all capable of cracking a dragon's glaze, but one must be chosen all the same.  Let us know.  Pics below.
Not much else to report, really.  Oh yes, remember the competition to win the chance to have your name in the book?  Sadly, that's not going to happen.  The publication schedule won't allow it.  But we might try to do it for the last book, cos it's a good idea.  Maybe we'll have two winners: a boy and a girl.  I'm told there will be a FIRE WORLD competition still, but to win a chance to have DINNER with the author.  Crikey, as David would say.  You'll have to be brave to enter THAT!  I've seen the way he spills stuff on his T-shirts.  I'd come in goggles and a bib if you win.  I imagine this will be limited to fans in the UK.  More info when we know.
Okay, that's it for this week.  Agent Ed is arriving tonight to spend a day with us.  So the hoover's coming out.  Ear plugs in everyone.  Happy reading.  Hrrr!