Updates, and testing my new dictation software.

(Forgot to add – Fantastic Schools 6 is out, with a whole new Schooled in Magic novella. Please review!)

Hi, everyone.

This is the first blog post I have written with my new Dragon software. The software is still getting used to me, so I apologise in advance any mistakes you might see in the text. I had a bit of a health crisis last week and occurred to me that I should try to learn how to use dictation software before something worse happened. This is a bit of a learning curve so I’m going to keep trying. If nothing else, I can watch in the kitchen while talking and hopefully the software will let me get into something reasonably close to what I intended to write. So far, it has been tricky. I have made seven edits so far in this text.

The good news is that I am currently 19 chapters into The Demon’s Design.  I hope to have it finished by the first week in February. Brad is currently finishing the cover and I think you will agree it looks spectacular. I will share it on Facebook as soon as I get the final version.

The bad news is that I will be going into surgery on Thursday (hopefully). My sinuses had been a major problem, as you know, and I have finally been offered surgery to correct the problem. The doctor thinks I will be able to go home on the same day, and that I should be able to continue as normal, but obviously there’s a slight chance I won’t be able to return to normal for a while.  If that is the case, I will pick up the story as soon as possible.

By popular demand, I have decided that the next book I’ll write will be set in the learning experience universe. This is a prequel, set between A Learning Experience and Hard Lessons, with a provisional title of The Firelighters. I also have a stand-alone idea for The Empire’s Corps, but that one will take longer to mature. I do intend to write the sequel to The Stranded soon enough, but I have done a lot of fantasy lately. I wrote two fantastic schools novellas is about starting a new Schooled in Magic story.  I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

I also had a rough idea for a handful of other schooled in magic stories. One would follow the story of the first witch in Whitehall school.  (The software is having problems here-it rendered witch as something you can properly guess.) Another would follow a blademaster learning how to master the blade, either through forging her own or bonding to someone else’s sword. I haven’t decided which way to go yet. I kind of like the idea of sending someone to Stronghold, is that school hasn’t yet been featured. What would you like to see?

(Just to remind you, we are looking for more submissions to Fantastic Schools.)

The lone world is still being edited but I will post it as soon as possible.

You can also purchase, now, The Prince’s Alliance in paperback.

In other news, we just got back from visiting Manchester and Leeds. We dropped in at the Imperial War Museum in Manchester, which was smaller than the one in London but still very interesting to visit (particularly if you’re interested in old Manchester as well). It was quite some time since I visited Leeds and it was very interesting to see how the town has changed in the last two decades. We also visited the Lego Discovery Centre in Manchester and the kids had a great deal of fun. The adults were rather less impressed. The centre is just not very big.

Writing this was something of a challenge. The software is learning to follow me, or so I am assured, but it has a habit of missing words or putting down a word that is so blatantly wrong it is hard to recall what it should be. My editor is going to demand more money, I am sure, if I start writing books using this software. Looking back at this page reminds me of when I first started, when paragraphs would often be completely incomprehensible and in hindsight I could not tell what I meant to say. I think I will be spending an hour a day trying to train the software before I can rely on it anything other than letters, or blog posts or things that I can write in a format, rather than a stream of consciousness. I have made quite a few more edits to this document. And actually that line got messed up too.

This could take some getting used to. I don’t know how David Weber does it.

If you see it any errors in this document, please be kind (grin).

(Now please excuse me while I go bash my head against the wall (grin)).

More updates will come as events warrant.

Chris.