Dark Garret

Hello everyone!

Some book news to start off with. I managed to order a copy of the complete Averoigne series of stories by Clark Ashton Smith ordered, it 'should' arrive tomorrow. Hopefully, couriers won't wally around too much and it'll actually arrive. The Post Office are still in the midst of strike actions. All the best to them, it's just screwed up deliveries a bit. Hey ho.

I am still working my way through the big stack of books I showed pictures of in a previous post, and I do still intend to do review posts as I finish them. I still have to do review posts of the first issue of New Edge Sword and Sorcery, which I thoroughly enjoyed and will hopefully go on leaps and bounds.

I also want to try and do posts on the Tales from the Magician's Skull magazines, even if I will be operating an issue behind. I most recently received the 7th issue and the 8th is already becoming available in the USA - I live in the UK.

Volume 5 of Swords and Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy has recently come out. I intent to get a copy soon and add it to the pile of 'must reads'. You can get a copy for yourself here.

Swords and Sorceries:
Tales of Heroic Fantasy,
Volume 5

Also, as a surprise, I received My copy of The Beast of Borgenwold by Harry Menear this morning. It was a OSE RPG supplement that I backed on Kickstarter. I wasn't expecting it for a while yet, so that was a nice surprise. I've had little more than a flick through so far so can only say that the artwork in it is great. I'll try and do a review on it soon. But there is a PDF version already available if you link the OSR stuff and have the OSE rules. It should be a fun RPG, I wouldn't have backed it if there wasn't an appeal. But here is a link to DrivethruRPG if you would like a copy of the PDF.

The Beast of Borgenwold,
by Henry Menear
for OSE RPG

Now for some social media stuff. I can now be found on Mastadon at @dancoghlan@mstdn.party and you should be able to use that as a link.

I had also tried to sign up to Hive, because that seems popular for literary types too, but it only seems to have a mobile version and I'm mostly going to be using my laptop for social media uses until I can get a new phone.

I'm also on Facebook with a page you can visit. There is some stuff up there already and I'm intending to update it regularly, like with my twitter and on here. The Facebook page is here. And just as a reminder, here's a link to my Twitter.

Just keep an eye out for the Celtic Elf.

Gwaeloch Irisgarth,
fantasy elf barbarian

Anyway, my writing is probably why you are here. There have been a few ups and downs with settling in with a story. As you have possibly seen if you've followed these posts, I needed a break from writing a fantasy novella that just seemed to grow and grow in size. Now, it's basically looking like it'll become a short novel, weighing in at about fifty thousand words, or there abouts.

I then needed to have a break from it to freshen up the synapses a bit so had wanted to try out Lester Dent's Master Plot Formula. It worked for him and looked like a fun way to write a story. I wanted to see what I could produce using it, so wanted to do a story based on Anglo-Saxon history.

I thought I was very confident with the period after helping out with a YouTube channel homing in on that period, but there where some very specific things I knew little about, so had to go through a research period to iron things out so that I felt confident know what I was talking about.

I was planning to set things just after the Norman Conquest when the aristocracy changed over, but I hadn't quite realised how things had changed during the years building up to the Conquest, how many leaders swapped over, changed sides and lost their loyalties. Even in the village I was planning on basing the story in had three lords holding lands there, all of whom changed three times in the forty years leading up to the Conquest. So there was a lot to take in.

All in all, it felt a bit like a distraction from a distraction from a distraction. I managed to get a third of the way into the story and realised that the research itself was the distraction I needed from the original series of stories.

So, I'm back to that now. There is a short, short story that I'm starting that I've planned out before. I've mentioned it before. It'll act as a way of me getting back into the swing of writing this series after such a long break from it. So soon, I should have a story based on what would happen during a bar-room brawl, if the participants are all wizards. Chaos ensues, I think that will be for sure.

By the end of the week, I should be back to the novella, Gwaeloch the Barbarian Elf should be making his way by sea to a Fomorian village and sorting out a break in the material between universes that fuels magick.

After that, I still want to get in another novella and a short story or two before moving onto editing and that whole process. I realise that I'm sort of doing all this the long way around and having a story published will take a while - I already have a novella and three short stories completed in first draft form that I will be getting around to.

Regardless of this, I still have a good layout for a set of Anglo-Saxon sword and Sorcery stories, though I am still puzzling over whether I should add a Lovecraftian element to them. But I have the ground work laid for that to return to. 

Anyway, that's pretty much all I have to say for this week, my Anglo-Saxon stuff is on hold while I return to the original stories I was writing, so hopefully, something will be finished soon.

All that remains to be said is to wish you all a fond farewell, good bye everyone.