L.G. Surgeson's Blog, page 9

The Proof of The Story is in The Reading.

As I type this, my gorgeous girlfriend – and my toughest critic – is proof-reading The Freetown Bridge (again) so that I can submit it for publication with someone other than Amazon.  It’s a nerve-wracking process and I can’t imagine any other writer feels differently about that. Someone takes hold of your precious words and pokes at them. Not just reading them, and deciding if they like them or not but actively looking for flaws. It’ll come back covered in notes and highlights – this is daft it’ll say, or this makes no sense. Why have you written this? I wouldn’t have written it like that!  And I’ll take it all to heart and go away and push it around the page like a child with a cold sprig of broccoli. Some of it I will fight for, but most of what she picks out I will change. And then I’ll spend half an hour whining about how I’m a crap writer and she’ll tell me to shut up and point out that if she thought I was crap she wouldn’t waste her time proofing my work. She’ll also point out that I asked her if it was okay and if she said yes and didn’t mention all the errors and mis-types and stuff then she’d be lying. Honest to a fault – that’s my girl. 

She isn’t a writer. Well, she is but not to the extent I am – she writes the occasional story but nothing like the quantities I produce or with the same level of ambition. What she is is a reader – a stunningly prolific one. I don’t need a writer to tell me what’s wrong with my work (although some may disagree). I’m a writer. What I need is a reader – and she’s the best. Anyway, whilst I’ve been blogging away, she’s been covering my work with highlights and bracketed comments. I should probably see if I can still read any of the original text. 

 

Ground to a halt

For a change, this is not an excerpt from one of my stories. That’s mainly because I have, as the title of this post would suggested, ground to a halt. I have one group of adventurers kicking their heals on the Tartarian steppe, trying to negotiate a significant lack of  plot and another adventurer –  Tollie as it happens – just about to be drafted into guarding the slaves in a Frisian camp. It’s just not flowing – very frustrating as I’d cleared my whole weekend to write. Gods forbid I would only be working on two things at once – my third current project is a rewrite ofa book that I finished long ago and I’ve just realised what’s wrong with it. However, that’s not much fun as it’s basically editing in the extreme.  So, having got up early this morning I am forced to write a blog post as nothing else seems to want to come. *Holds hand to forehead in dramatic gesture*…. it’s so unfair!  Ho hum. I’m sure a few hours house work will fill in the time. 

 

Tal Daris wasn’t Panicking.

Tal Daris wasn’t given to panicking. When you had spent as long in the resistance as he had, panicking was something you were happy to forego, mainly because you became acutely aware that if you wanted to spend very long in the resistance then panicking was something you had better leave to other people who weren’t so fond of their mortality. Honestly, he wasn’t really panicking now, he was just concerned. Very concerned. At what point did deep and enthusiastic concern become panic anyway? No he definitely wasn’t panicking, and the reason he wasn’t panicking was that there was bound to be a perfectly simple explanation for why he couldn’t find Tollie or Sylas anywhere in the city. He had tried the Adventurers Guild, although he wasn’t entirely sure why he thought they would have any clue. They didn’t have much clue about much else. The chaos was pitiful when he had dropped by a couple of days previously, no one seemed entirely sure who the guild master was.  - From The Winter That Follows (prequel sequel) 

Green-skins of all shapes & sizes.

Extract from ‘The Winter Follows’ – in progress. 

Greery rolled his eyes. Don’t worry they said, everything’ll be back to normal they said. His captain had reassured him that his job would return to its previous, glorious monotony, so had his wife. Apparently they were both wrong. At least this lot were heading in the right direction he thought, as he cranked open the gate and let the gaggle of green-skins amble out of the city. He had no idea what they were playing at but this lot were the sixth, or possibly the seventh, group to leave the city through this gate in the last two days. The Tartars and pilgrims had been bad enough, but green-skins were something else. Not only were the bad-mannered and broke they also smelt unbelievable – particularly as they were over-excited. Another man would have been diverted by the sight of near on a hundred green-skins leaving the city – each one a unique harbinger of chaos and lunacy. Little ones with massive noses poking out from beneath massive helmets some of which, on closer inspection, were made from a range of cooking utensils including pans, kettles and colanders. There were big ones with crooked teeth and dozens of knives, alchemical grenades and other weapons criss-crossing their torsos in bandoleers. Orcs with back banners, front banners, side banners, strange leather masks, hand-bells, knee-bells and multicoloured top hats. Trolls with wheelbarrows or armed with tiny trebuchets and a goblin waving a feathered tricorn from a sedan chair being carried by two bewildered children. One entire batch were lavishly adorned with all sorts of spoons and singing. Greery didn’t care, he just counted the heads and opened the gate.

Grumpily, he watched as this latest crowd moved off, the smell of lamp oil and sweat lingering as they passed. Then he cranked the gate shut and went back to the office. He had just finished scribbling the words ‘another dozen or so green skins  in the ledger when his attention was caught by a movement. A pack of tiny, squeaky-type goblins that were hopping from foot to foot and pointing at the gate had materialised from somewhere. He cursed loudly, gazed longingly at his cold stewed tea and he went out to see to this next lot.

THE SUMMER OF FIRE

Coming Soon!! Series Prequel

Dawn of Darkness

The ‘new’ new cover

In Shadows, Waiting

You guessed it – new cover.

Dawn of Darkness

The new cover for Dawn of Darkness

The Freetown Bridge

The new cover for the Freetown Bridge.

No-one’s royal in Aberddu

Aberddu gained independence in 1093ac and within in months it’s reputation as a renegade free state had spread across the continent.  It was a cosmopolitan melting pot where the streets were paved with gold that turned to shit in the dark  Peasants were not chattel, they were free – free to live and work, free to starve and die.  The ruling High Council were prominent citizens not aristocracy. No-one was royal in Aberddu and the only nobility were on the run from somewhere else. The servile order that maintained the status quo in old nations like Paravel and Albion did not exist, if a prominent citizen turned out to be a louse then they would take a one-way walk to gallows hill, just like anyone else.  In fact they tended to meet a somewhat more ignominious end than most, because people tended to dig out the really rotten vegetables and other such sanitary articles to throw at them as they travelled. The idea of wearing half the content of the midden as you swung by your neck was enough to keep most of the ‘prominent’ citizens honest or at least close enough that no-one noticed. It worried Iona frequently.