Salamander - two chapters down...

A belated 'Merry Christmas!' to one and all reading the blog. I had a fairly quiet one this year, with the 25th spent in Nottingham with my good lady, Louise, and resident house rabbit, Shakespeare. A few hours of Guitar Hero World Tour certainly took its toll on my voice, though. Boxing Day I drove up north to my mum's, where the rest of the family got together for a few beverages, some Christmas nosh and a bit of Wii bashing (a term I use to describe playing said console, not actually destroying it).

I gave myself two days off in total, and come the 26th I was back at the laptop thrashing out more words for Salamander. Challenging though it's been so far, I am thoroughly enjoying writing this book. I'll confess, I found it exceptionally tough as first but I put this down to a short break in writing (I was fairly exhausted after the marathon that was Fires of War) and the fact that I was starting again from fresh. (Personally, I think it takes about 10,000 - 20,000 words to break the seal, so to speak, before the narrative really starts to flow in your head.)

As indicated then, I'm just over 20,000 words in and a couple of chapters almost down (and yes, your mathematical acumen does not deceive you, that's about 10,000 words a chapter - it is a lot, but I've decided to maintain chapter integrity, rather than impose a lot of false thematic breaks, and break them up into parts instead, an approach which is working rather well at present). By the end of my writing stint today I hope to have reached the 25,000 word mark, which I think is reasonable given I'm researching and planning as I go along (to add to all the researching and planning I had already done for the book - phew!).

On average, I get through about 2,000 - 5,000 words each session, depending on if I've been at work or if there's a lot of dialogue (which seems to fill up the word count real fast). I am a little behind, but then I started slightly later given that I've been run off my feet with my day job. Still, all is progressing very well now (fingers crossed), so I thought it best that I provide a short update highlighting this very fact.

I'll be back in the New Year (or possibly, New Year's Eve, tomorrow with some other gubbins).

Until then...

Witness the Warp?

Wow - just been trawling through some news stories on MSN and came across this image from 'this week in pictures'.


Is it just me, or does it look like there's a figure amidst all those stellar gases and cosmic particles. Kind of makes me think of the warp.

Spooky...

Stray Dog Swordsman on Redemption Road, by Steve Parker - a review

'I have staunched the flow from my belly as well as I am able.'

Whoah. What an opening line. It says it all really, and yet poses so many questions. A man (woman?) watches his life blood flow from his body, unable to safe enough to save themselves. It has a fatalistic edge, this one line that I love. It's dark and conveys much in just fourteen little words. Who is this individual? Victim? Slayer? Avenger?

If you've not visited the website of fellow author and good friend of mine, Steve Parker then shame on you. The line above is from one of his excellent short stories Stray Dog Swordsman on Redemption Road. What's more, it's free on his website. So stop reading this and get over there right now and read it...

You're back? Read it? Good. Mind if I share some thoughts on it with you? Well, I'm going to anyway.

Whenever I read Steve's fiction I am taken over by the spirit and the atmosphere of his settings. This one was no different, and much like Starfish (another superb story, also for free), I loved it.

It's a personal story, of Iwata Shinosuke, a former samurai who has lost his honour and become a ronin - a sword for hire. Steeped in the milieu of feudal Japan and eastern myth, it's a tale of one's redemption, of his eyes being opened to a wider purpose and the sins of his largess and failing spirit.

I won't spoil the story for those who haven't read it (get over to red-stevie.com right now you fools!), but suffice it so say, I found this a moving and chilling tale. I rejoiced as Iwata rediscovered his purpose and regained his honour; I was frozen in place inside the frost-bitten woods as he was confronted by the wraith of the girl (easily one of my favourite scenes, and genuinely eerie - I felt the temperature change just as Iwata came to the realisation that what he confronted in those benighted woods was not entirely of this world); I was reviled by the hideous kappa and distraught at the story's bleak denouement.

Any tale that elicits such an emotive response is well crafted. Let it be said: Steve has crafted a great story here, so beautifully written that I had goosebumps. Believe me, as an author and editor myself, it is always a genuine pleasure to read something of this quality. Such control and careful weighting of words, too. Everything felt just right as I was transported back hundreds of years into feudal Japan and the plight of a samurai who had lost everything, little more than a ghost himself, but found succour and release in the travail of a young girl-spirit.

Truly stirring stuff.