An Excerpt From The WIP

This is the opening for the first chapter for Verron, a young initiate of the Sun God in A Friend To The Watch. His character provides the innocent's perspective for the work...

There came a knocking, heavy and hard, on the thick ferulwood gate of the temple. The sound echoed down high stone passages and returned, a faint mockery of the original, before Verron could unlock from his surprise and move to answer. While not asleep, he had been deep in meditation, and hadn’t heard a thing before the crashing thumps on the gate drew him from contemplation. Throwing the trailing edge of his initiate’s robes over his shoulder, he rose from the prayer mat.

It is coming slowly, but it is coming.

Recent Writing...

With all the adjustments to how the court is run, things have been inordinately busy at work of late. So much so I have been a bit tired and distracted when I get home, so the blogging has suffered a bit. So, here's what I've been up to...

I have been ideating quite a bit on A Friend To The Watch, and laid down the prologue over the last few days. I continue to tweak it, wanting to get it just right.

You see, seven years ago I had an image enter and refuse to leave my head: A man and a boy are talking over a winter grave, each refusing to understand the other. Both are equally sure they knew the wishes of the dead woman at their feet better than the other.

A year later I started writing A Friend To The Watch. I finished it two years later. My agent shopped it. It failed, a flawed but promising first effort. I put it aside and concentrated on The Last Captain. That's done, and the sequel is also nearing completion, but I can't get the kid and the man over the grave out of my head until I write it...

I am not doing a re-write. At least, not as I understand re-writes. I am not referring at all to the original novel (150,ooo words or so), just using the situations and characters in my head to formulate an entirely new, and hopefully successful tale.

So, to it I go.