Chris d'Lacey's Blog, page 7

This week's word is: COVER

Hello dragon fans. This week's blog simply speaks for itself. Here is the image you've all been waiting for, the cover of THE FIRE ASCENDING. The little 'angel' you see in the dragon's eye is Alexa, of course. She's been kept a little 'misty' on purpose, just to add to the intrigue. The author's publisher was a little concerned that the book would not appeal to boys if the angel was too prominent, but we think it's a potent mix: angels and dragons. It made G'reth go hrrr! anyway. We'll keep you updated over the next few months with the progress of the story, but for now enjoy this. Show it to your friends. This is the last official cover of The Last Dragon Chronicles. And it's cool, don't you think? Until next time. Happy reading. Hrrr!

This week's word is: ROALD

That's Roald as in 'Dahl'. 'Why is he the subject of the blog?' you may ask. Well, no particular reason. He was one of the author's favourite writers and rumour has it he used to work in a shed with a tray across his lap. Are you getting the connection with the photograph now? This is the author working in his mother-in-law's summer house! He was sent to the bottom of the garden by Mrs Author when she went to her mum's to do some spring cleaning (erm, in the summer). You can just see a power supply cable running from the laptop across the WET grass back to the house!! Thankfully, he didn't explode while he was tapping away at the novel and I'm happy to report he's still on track with THE FIRE ASCENDING. This is a most unusual book because he's redrafting EVERYTHING he's written, ready for a big push to complete the story over the next six weeks. This doesn't mean you'll be able to read it at the end of September, sorry. Sadly, you'll have to wait until publication in April 2012. But it's shaping up nicely. And talking of favourite authors, we were clearing out an old wardrobe in our new house this week and found a copy of 'My Brother's Ghost' by Allan Ahlberg - the man who first persuaded the author to try his hand at children's books...

Unfortunately, this has to be a short post this week because we've been travelling a lot. However, any fans who are keen to hear the author speak (in the UK) might like to know that he's appearing at the Edinburgh Literary Festival on August 26th and he's also at the Bath Literary Festival on October 2nd. Bring your books along if you want them signed! Until next time. Happy reading. Hrrr!

This week's word is: THREE

Hello dragon fans. Any day now we expect to have the cover of THE FIRE ASCENDING ready to view. All the tweaks have been done and the blurb has been written. Alexa is in the eye! As for the book itself, progress has been slow over the past few weeks, largely because of moving house. So rather than hammer down lots of new text, the author has been going over the first half of the book, trying to get it spot on. The theory is that if you have a strong start (which he does, part one of TFA is GREAT) the rest will naturally follow. This is probably the hardest book he's had to write because he wants people new to the series to be able to read it as a standalone title, but he also needs to tie up all the loose ends. Tricky! He now has only THREE MONTHS to achieve that. We have 65,000 words written and will hope to reach 90-100,000 as before. But a story should only be as long as it needs to be. If it finishes at 75,000 so be it. (It won't.)

Someone else who'd like him to hurry up and finish is Mrs Author. She has been tweaking the RAIN AND FIRE companion book for the USA, but can't finish it until the author gives her a decent amount of TFA so that she can choose some passages to use. The pressure is definitely on. It's hard to believe that after ten years of scribbling inspirational notes on my pad, this will be my last few months working on the Chronicles. But all good things must come to an end eventually. Our minds are slowly beginning to turn to what comes next, but the most important thing right now is to get TFA wrapped up nicely. We know exactly how it's going to end. How to get there is the difficult bit. But we will - for our loyal fans. Until next time. Happy reading. Hrrr!

This week's word is: MOVED

Hello, dragon fans. A major announcement this week. The Dragons' Den has moved! After 32 years of living in Leicester, which is right in the middle of England, the author and Mrs Author have decided to move to Devon, in the south west of England. They have bought a lovely house by the sea. The dragons approve! The whole process has taken nearly a year to complete, but it has been worth it. The house is quite old-fashioned, with lots of features from what British people would call 'the Edwardian period'. We went into it for the first time this afternoon and staked our places. Gruffen settled on the wood burning stove (very warm - and messy) and G'reth headed straight for the 'Aga' cooker. I, of course, went to the room the author will work in and settled on the windowsill. Once it was greenery and squirrels outside my window, now it's boats! The author wanted me to thank you all for buying his books over the years, because without those sales he would never have been able to move in the first place. He's thrilled. And so are we. It's a wonderful adventure. We hope great things will come from the new house, including whatever we decide to work on next... Until next time. Happy reading. Hrrr!

This week's word is: GUFF

Surprisingly, that's not the name of a dragon...

Hello dragon fans. You may recall me telling you that most authors don't like the word 'synopsis'. Our author is one. He hates trying to describe his latest book in a page. However, now and then he will be asked by his publisher to do it. He always refuses, but promises to provide some 'guff' - a bit of waffle about what's happened in the story so far. Now, I'd love to be able to send you his actual 'guff', but it's not allowed, of course, because you'd all know what the story is prior to publication. However, he did say that if one of us could ... disguise it a bit he'd let it go out. So me, Gretel, Gwendolen and Gruffen (because he's got a book) had a go. Here's the result. Erm, enjoy. As best you can. Happy reading. Hrrr!

The early part of the book is to do with the pre-history of Gawain (the eponymous last dragon…) and traces the development of the mysterious character, Agawin, who was mentioned in Fire World. Agawin gets himself embroiled in a clash with a Norse-type villain. This is set at the time when the last remaining dragons on Earth have decided to give up their fire tears and die in isolation. One of them, Gsomething, settles on A Mountain and is tracked by the Norse-type villain, who wants to get a bit too close to Gsomething's fire tear. Agawin and Norse-type villain have a bit of a punch up. All a bit ugly. Lots of death. Agawin looks certain to lose (boo!). However, he is in possession of a thingy, which helps him escape! (hooray!) Strangely, this means he ends up milking goats with Guinevere (the woman who caught Gawain's fire tear in the original legend). Guinevere introduces Agawin to a cave woman, who is a bit smelly and not at all nice. At this time, a big bird turns up with a special egg. I'll give you a clue: it's not made of chocolate. Out pops a baby dragon. Nasty cave woman sends Agawin and Guinevere to the sea side to find a place for dragon baby to live. Along the way, they bump into two mysterious travellers. Traveler 1 explains that they have travelled across a time nexus to prevent nasty cave people messing around with time. Things turn sour when nasty cave woman puts the clocks back – and it's not even winter! She then joins forces with Norse villain and Agawin suffers a bit of an identity crisis (gosh, he's unlucky). Meanwhile, in the pre-history, the mysterious Travelers are trying to decide what's best to do. Traveler 1 is troubled because he can't understand why his thingy prefers nasty cave woman to him. He's getting some real grief from Traveler 2 as well. The answer, of course, comes when everyone examines the tapestry of Isenfier and they realise it's a stitch up! Traveler 1 comes to the conclusion he's been duped by a bunch of clay dragons. Tsk, wouldn't you know it? By the time Traveler 1 has figured it out, everyone he knew has gone on holiday to Co:pern:ica (the dead lands are lovely in the summer, apparently). There's a big dust-up and a lot of fire and some more, well, death. The true hero of the books is revealed! A-ha! The hero winds up the clocks till they're running nicely, everyone comes back from holiday and they all live happily ever after … with NO CLIFFHANGERS. Just a bit more death…

This week's word is: BLURB

Hello dragon fans. If there is one word that makes a writer crumble behind his desk it's 'SYNOPSIS'. This is basically a one page description of a novel. Publishers will often ask an author to provide a synopsis before they commission a book. It's a sort of 'try before you buy' option. Authors hate doing them, because as any good writing dragon knows, the story often changes as the book is being written. Sometimes, the finished story has no bearing on the synopsis at all. We have never had to do one for the Last Dragon Chronicles because the author's publisher has always taken it on trust that our hero (or his dragon) can produce a good tale. However, what they always want is a BLURB.

Blurbs are the second thing authors fret about. It's bad enough having to describe a book in one page. Writing a blurb-sized paragraph for the back cover can be very trying. To be fair, the author is quite reasonable at them, but even he had to gulp when his publisher asked if he could produce one for, erm, tomorrow. The problem is, how do you produce a good blurb when the book is only two-thirds complete? Thankfully, the publisher's request made the author focus his attention a bit. As a result he's finally worked out what The Fire Ascending, indeed the whole series, is actually about! You won't learn that from the blurb. That has to be kept a secret until you read the book. But we can at least share the blurb with you. It might get tweaked yet, but this is the gist of it. So here it is, exclusively for the notepad. The back cover copy for The Fire Ascending. Until next time. Happy reading. Hrrr!

A boy and his dragon are about to rise…

"But if Gwilanna's somewhere else in time…" Zanna argued, "…will Guinevere even catch Gawain's fire tear, let alone drop it into the ocean?"
"She has to," David said. "Or Scuffenbury is lost. We'll have no ice cap and we'll have no bears. No Liz, no Lucy, no dragons…no me."

On Earth, at the battle of Scuffenbury Hill, time has been suspended. Dragons and their natural enemies, darklings, are trapped in a bitter, unresolved conflict. But at the dawn of history, something is working to bring about an outcome. A mysterious force is rewriting the timelines, and turning legend into startling reality…

This week's word is: OUTTAKES

Hello, dragon fans. The author is busy trying to write a blurb for The Fire Ascending. Not easy, as the book is still unfinished. While he's puzzling over that, I thought you might like to see a few outtakes from Fire World. Some of you may not have read the book yet, but you'll get the flavour of it from these three extracts that didn't make it into the finished manuscript.

The first one takes place in the librarium, where Mr Henry is lecturing David about the nature of the universe and the world they live in. Notice he calls it Ki:mera. The author was halfway through the book when we decided that the society described in FW should be called something different. At that point, I wrote the word Co:pern:ica on my pad.
He circled the word KI:MERA. He then proceeded to draw several arrowed lines curving away from the circle. Each arrowhead he labelled with a word from the lecture he now began to give. It went something like this:
In the beginning, the nature of REALITY was a mystery… blah blah blah… scientists puzzled by ATOMIC STRUCTURE… blah blah blah… so much apparent SPACE in the physical world… blah blah blah… interest in DARK ENERGY… blah blah blah… unknown FORCES binding universe together… blah blah blah… controlled experiments with PARTICLE ACCELERATORS… blah blah blah… TIME VARIANCES coupled with heightened spatial AWARENESS… blah blah blah… disruption of PERSONAL SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM… blah blah blah… fundamental nature of MATTER explained… blah blah blah… relationship between THOUGHT and LIGHT identified in spin of 2 197… blah blah blah… rapid evolution in PERCEPTION… blah blah blah… ability to IMAGINEER… blah blah blah… MULTIDIMENSIONAL probabilities understood … blah blah blah… LIFE IS CONSCIOUSNESS… blah blah blah… and CONSCIOUSNESS is KI:MERA (underlined twice).
"Did you get all that, boy?"
"Umm?" went David, who'd practically fallen asleep.
Mr Henry pointed to the chart, which was nothing now but a mass of circles, lines and poorly-scrawled words. "Our shared consciousness binds the world together. All that we see is created by thought, except that which was created by the Higher."


And Counsellor Strømberg has some things to say about the firebirds, when he's showing Rosa The Book of Agawin:
"To understand what I'm talking about you have to know something of your past, Rosa." He put the glossy book aside and opened the other, though not at any particular page. When Rosa cast her gaze across it, all she saw was a pattern of ink marks. They made no sense to her. She saw the awe in Mr Henry's eyes however and knew she was on the cusp of great wisdom. So she placed her hands in her lap and waited. And this is what counsellor Strømberg said: "When our fain evolved, it was like an immense explosion, a sudden giant leap in the development of consciousness. The effect of it went three ways. First, within us. Those of us that kept our physical structure discovered the ability to imagineer, to create form from our thoughts and make all that we desired, even children, within a vast and virtually unlimited Design. Secondly, there was that part of us that no longer saw the need for physical form and became pure Fain. These beings are said to exist in a mode of elevated consciousness that we refer to as The Higher. Theirs is a deeply spiritual continuum which is said to be evolving even further and exploring the structural nature of the universe. Those with physical form can still reach this state. And then there is the third part of the equation, the puzzle that Mr Henry and I believe has its resolution in the librarium." He ran his hand over the pattern of marks. "The smallest part of the then-shared consciousness of Ki:mera evolved into firebirds. No one knows why this is, but I'm convinced it has something to do with the imprint of dragons I've observed in children. This book, we believe, holds the truth."


And finally, the author wrote several passages of bickering between the twin Aunts, Primrose and Petunia. The piece of dialogue below very nearly made it into the book. Until next time. Happy reading. Hrrr!
So it came to pass that as early as the fifth day of life without David, Rosa began to notice a change.
It started mildly enough. One morning Aunt Petunia was fastening her hair when she paused and said, "My dear, you have my clip." She was referring to the long, needle-like pin which the Aunts always used to hold their hair in a bun at their neck.
"I think not," said Aunt Primrose, who had finished her bun barely half a minute earlier, entirely without fuss.
"Then what is this?" said Petunia. And in a remarkable show of spite, she reached over to her twin and pulled out a pin.
Aunt Primrose gasped. Her cheek turned a delicate shade of maroon. "How dare you?" she screeched, making her (very) carefully prepared bun wobble. She immediately put her hands to her neck to support it. And there, would you believe it, she found there was a pin.
Aunt Petunia smirked in triumph. "There, I was right you see. You had two in, my dear. A strange mistake. But I will accept your apology."
Aunt Primrose narrowed her gaze. "Oh, so what is this?" she demanded. And she did no more than reach out and pull yet another pin from Aunt Petunia's bun.
"But that makes…three pins," Aunt Petunia said. "That can't be right. How can that be right?"
"Does it matter that you've got a spare?" asked Rosa. She'd been watching this develop from across the room. And now what a sight to see: two Aunts with their hair as ragged as hers.
"You," they said together, turning on her.
"What?" said Rosa, frightened by the anger rising in their eyes.
"You are playing a game," Aunt Primrose said.
"A game of pins," Petunia added.
"We can play pins," said Primrose darkly.
"Wait. You're forgetting something," Rosa said boldly, before either could turn their thoughts to motion. "I can't imagineer."
The twins twitched.
"That's right," said Petunia.
"Then where has the extra one come from?" said Primrose.
There was a pause. Then they cried, "Our boxes!" And both of them dived towards the trinket boxes in which they kept earrings and other forms of jewellery.
"Hhh!" gasped Primrose. "Gone! Stolen!"
Petunia's gasp was greater still. "Broken! My spare pin is broken!"
"What..." said Rosa. "...is going on?"

This week's word is: NESS

Hello dragon fans. Once again I've given Zookie some time off because he's working on a particularly difficult part of The Fire Ascending i.e. the bit about two thirds of the way through where I always get stuck and start to think this is the worst thing I've ever written in my life! I got to this stage last week. Don't worry, it always happens and he always gets me out of it. Then it's usually plain sailing to the end of the book. We'll keep you posted.

I've chosen 'Ness' as this week's word for three reasons. They're all to do with authorship in a strange way and I'll take them in the chronological order they occurred. The first Ness is Eliot Ness, the famous FBI man who was around during the prohibition era in America in the 1920s and 30s. Prohibition was all to do with the strict regulations on the manufacture and distribution of alcohol. Ness led a team of men known as 'The Untouchables' who enforced these regulations. He was most famous for bringing down the gangster Al Capone. I was fascinated by gangsters when I was a boy and did a project about Ness and his team for a school English assignment. My English teacher was stunned. No one in his classes had ever done a study on illegal alcohol distilleries, let alone talked about it for ten minutes solid! I was given top marks, even though my presentation wasn't very good. I never thought I'd be able to credit Al Capone with getting me an A* rating.

The second Ness is everybody's favourite Scottish monster. I've always wanted to go to Loch Ness because I have this faint hope that I might spot 'Nessie'. Not that I'd take a photo if I did. If she's there, I'd rather she stay there undisturbed. I like to think I'd just wave and smile and write about it in a fictional story. I did have to write about Nessie once. When I was a Biology undergraduate my supervisor set me a peculiar essay. I had to prove that the Loch Ness monster existed! Erm... He let me bluster and panic for about 10 minutes before telling me the way to go about it was to read up on the flora and fauna of the Loch and determine whether the ecosystem there could support a 'monster' of the size reported. I believe I came to the conclusion that it could. It was a long time ago now, but I never forgot that moment and used it, of course, as the basis for Icefire. Anyone remember Dr Bergstrom setting an essay for David about whether dragons existed or not...? That's where it came from.

And lastly, I'd like to offer my congratulations to the author Patrick Ness, who this week won the Carnegie Medal for his book 'Monsters of Men', the third part of his 'Chaos Walking' trilogy. I'm often asked by fans to recommend books and I usually point them in the direction of Philip Reeve's brilliant Mortal Engines series. Patrick Ness's is just as good, but more for young adults as it's quite violent in places. 'The Knife of Never Letting Go' was the first of the three, followed by 'The Ask and the Answer' and 'Monsters of Men'. Enjoy. Until next time, happy reading. Hrrr!

This week's word is: CORNWALL

Hello, dragon fans. The author hasn't done a JOT of writing this week. Instead he was told to leave his laptop at home, dig out his flip flops, pack up Mrs Author's vast suitcase of clothes, stash Mrs Author's 86 year old MOTHER in the back of the car, and trot off on holiday round the most south-westerly county of England, Cornwall. For those of you who don't know, Cornwall is one of the most historic and picturesque places in the UK. It's very green in the middle (lots of farmland) and most of the interesting stuff lies around its jagged coastlines. Cornwall was famous for three things back in the day: smugglers, tin mines and fishing. Oh, and pasties. Okay that's four things (but what have the Romans ever done for us???) Anyone who's seen Mrs Author's favourite TV series 'Poldark' will know what I mean. We stuck mainly to the south coast and the little fishing towns of Fowey, Polperro and Mevagissey, all places beloved by tourists. When the sun is out there's hardly room for a dragon to swing his isoscele down the winding cobbled streets, but if you do manage to squeeze through the crush of people the harboursides are very charming. Like seagulls and fishing trawlers? Cornwall is the place for you. Legend has it that King Arthur was born in Tintagel Castle on the north coast, but sadly we didn't get to see it - mainly because our car tried to break down (twice; we fixed it, bless) and the mother-in-law fell ill. The old dear is on the sofa right now catching up on her postcards - or rather she's asleep, leaning sideways like the Tower of Pisa. HRRR! There, that's woken her up.



Not a lot of news on the book front. While we were away I took the opportunity to muse a while and decided we'd taken a wrong turn - not something you want to do in Cornwall or you end up in the sea. I told the author that we need to rethink Part 4 of The Fire Ascending. You know, the bit where xxx gets captured and her father kills xxx by mistake...? Oops, sorry, you're not allowed to know about that yet! Anyway, the author agreed. Sometimes he complains that his writing is like 'trudging through mud'. This usually means the narrative has strayed up a dead end and though it feels like the right way for the story to go, inevitably it isn't. It's really then just a question of how long you take to admit it to yourself. He's fortunate, of course. He's got me to hrrr in his ear. I don't let him bumble around for long. This does affect the word count, however. So we'll be dropping back to around 50,000 from 60,000. But who cares, if it makes the story fly?

Some development on the cover. Angelo Rinaldi drew a new version of Alexa for the dragon's eye, which we all liked - but not as much as the original one he drew. Sometimes you have to try something different just to realise that what you saw first is perfect! Discussions will be held about the images this week. If the old design is approved, then we should be able to put the cover up very soon. Watch this space.

Finally, a big HRRR! to the author's American editor, Lisa, who has just given birth to a lovely daughter, Lily Bess. Apparently, the baby arrived on time - which is more than can be said for the author's manuscripts! We're working on it. Until next time. Happy reading. Hrrr!

This week's word is: LEGENDS

Hello dragon fans. The author here. It's a wet and miserable day in the Crescent, the kind of dull grey weather that wouldn't encourage anyone to sit down and write, though it's always a pleasure to be a 'guest' on Zookie's blog! No real news this week. The Fire Ascending is coming along fine. Not motoring along as I'd like, but progressing. I'm still working on Gwilanna's back story, but Gadzooks has wandered off somewhere to muse about the final part of the book. We know how we ultimately want it to end. How to get to that ending is the tricky part, but he's working on it.

Lately, we've been discussing the future as well. A lot of people ask me what I'll do when the dragon books are finished. The truth is, I don't really know, though I can't imagine leaving dragons aside entirely. Part of the fun of being a writer is putting these kinds of thoughts out to the universe and seeing what comes back. I was watching a new production of the King Arthur story on TV last night (Merlin, Excalibur, Camelot etc.) and it struck me that what I'd really like to do is invent a new legend. In effect, I've been experimenting with this in the early parts of The Fire Ascending. Agawin is not unlike a young King Arthur. He doesn't pull swords from stones, but he does get to fight a horrible villain and he does rise to become one of the most important characters in the whole series. I love the old Norse legends, too. I grew up on stories of Thor and the Vikings. And let's not forget the Greeks and the thrilling tales of Odysseus, Achilles etc. What makes these legends so memorable is the fact that they are all great, great stories. They stick in my head even though I can't remember reading them in my boyhood. Whatever comes next for me, I will be looking to emulate stories like that. I would love to write a book that people will still be reading one hundred or maybe one thousand years from now. Something even more memorable than the Chronicles. I know from the letters we get that my books are already fixed in a lot of people's consciousness. But it would be great to have something so compelling that just about EVERYONE has heard of it. Tough task, but I'm not in this business just to bash something out and take the money. I'm here to make a difference. Hand on heart, I don't think I've got to the bottom of dragons yet. So I reckon they will definitely feature in future books, it's really just a question of how. I once heard a writer friend say that he wouldn't want to write a vampire story unless he could come up with a decent twist on the genre. That's what I'm looking for, I guess, a twist. When I find it (when Zookie writes it on his pad) you guys will be the first to know about it. In the meantime, happy reading. And once again thanks for all your fantastic tweets and emails about Fire World, which is really making a mark with some of you. Hrrr!