The Dragon Sword Histories

How to hand-sell 1000 books Part II

2011-10-11T17:01:00.000-07:00

So you've done all your preparation work and arrived at the book store with pens in pocket and water bottle in hand.
After meeting as many of the staff as you can, you MUST get your table set up out the front of the store. Anything inside the store is a killer. And don't use a chair. If you sit down, you'll be lucky to get two sales, let alone 20.
Chat to the owners and see if they'll do a deal.
The ideal scenario (with a trilogy) is for them to knock a dollar or two off the price of the first book (to get the mildly interested and tyre-kickers over the line) and then a decent discount for them to take the entire trilogy.
Price points are vital. My trilogy has a rrp of $67. If you can offer it for $59 or better, I have a much better rate of success than $60 or above.
Dymocks Nowra offered all three for $55 and I sold five trilogies in 45 minutes, on a quiet Thursday afternoon when about 10 people walked past!
With that negotiated, get started!
If you're lucky, there are a few people waiting for you. You can use Facebook and Twitter to alert people - and don't disregard local newspapers. They're always looking for stories and even a couple of pars will give your name plenty of attention. They may not come in on the day but if they later see a poster up, or a signed copy on the shelf, then you've got a real chance of a purchase.
If there's no one there for you, no problem. There are dozens of book-lovers walking past the store each hour. You just need to talk to them.
You have to turn yourself into a cold-caller or spruiker - but a nice one!
My opening line is: ``Do you like reading?'
It forces people to stop and think - they can't just say ``No'' because it makes them look silly.
Having said that, there is a proportion of people who hate reading and will be quick to tell you!
Generally, they seem to prefer eating and getting themselves tattooed!
If they stop, or at least pause, I say: ``I'm an author and these are my books''.
They can either brush me or come over and talk.
You'd be surprised how many want to talk but if they don't, you have to still smile and give them a wave.
You are on show - you have to keep putting out positivity. Smile, be pleased to see people. You're asking them to pay money and buy your books. The least you can do is look happy about it!
Often I'll see someone walking briskly towards me, trying to hustle past this pushy bloke who's obviously trying to sell something. I'll give them a big smile and a cheery greeting and, quite often, they'll slow down enough for me to ask if they like reading - and go from there. But toss a question at them too early and they just brush you.
So now you have them talking. I have my pitch all worked out, tailored to whether the potential buyer is male, female or teenager (yes, a different species sometimes!)
Seriously, I give them a quick rundown of the book, point out a few reviews, number of reprints and bestseller status, then give them the special offer.
If all is good, then they say yes and I sign immediately before sending them inside to pay.
I sign at this stage for two reasons - one, they can't have a rethink while wandering around the store and just put the book down on a shelf and two, you're free to keep selling, instead of waiting for someone to pay and then come back to have it signed.
Now, if they are still wavering there are a few things to do. Offer them the back of the book to read. Ask them their favourite authors to see if you can draw a connection with your books.
Sometimes, however, they decide not to buy. Don't show any disappointment. Instead, encourage them to recommend you to friends/family who might like it better. Or to put it down on their wish list. Wave them off with a smile, so they have a positive memory of you.
The whole point of this is to sell yourself for two hours. Don't sell yourself short. People won't always want to buy your books on the day. But if you give them time and a smile, then it may well pay off.
Likewise if people tell you they love to read but don't like fantasy. Suggest your name to friends/family but don't make them feel bad.
Every person you talk to should remember you in a positive light.
When it comes to who to talk to, always pick women over men, as women are 70% of fantasy buyers.
Ideally you ask everyone, which means quieter foot traffic can mean better results. But, if faced with a choice of two, I always ask the woman!
Keep track of sales, if you wish, but always remember it's about speaking to people first, selling second. Get the first right and the sales will follow.
People want to meet authors. They want to buy books. You just have to reach out to them.
Next, I'll take you through in-depth tips and tricks to help convert talks into sales.

How to hand-sell 1000 books a month - Part I

2011-10-05T17:43:00.000-07:00

I've managed to turn bookstore appearances into something of an art, averaging 20 sales per store, often topping 30 sales and twice hitting 49 books sold in two hours.
Of course this does not count extra books left signed at the stores, people who don't want to buy that day but will ``keep you in mind'' and those who will pass on your name to their relative/friend who loves fantasy.
Plus there is the store feel-good factor, where store owners and staff are impressed by your efforts on their behalf and will not only have you back for your next book, but will also recommend your books to customers over the coming weeks and months.
It's a strategy I used to hand-sell 1032 books in a month and certainly helped my third book, The Radiant Child, spend the entire month on the Dymocks fantasy/sci-fi Bestseller list, with two weeks at number four, where it was the top-selling title by an Australian author.
I can't promise you will get those results but, if you are willing to put in the work, you will do well. And here's how:

STAGE ONE: PREPARATION
You can't just walk out there and expect to do well. You have to be ready. The hard work begins long before you walk into a bookstore.
First step is the mental preparation. You will get ignored, brushed off and sneered at. It will happen. Be prepared to take it and move on. In two hours I will expect to ask more than 100 people to speak to me. About 30-40 will listen and 15-20 will then buy. That's a good day. If you can't handle rejection, then you shouldn't be a writer. If you can't handle being rejected 50-60 times in a couple of hours, then don't try these store appearances.
I did some acting when I was younger and try a couple of techniques. Firstly I see myself as Duncan Lay The Author for these appearances, which puts some space between the rejection and myself.
Secondly, experience tells me if I ask enough people, I will find buyers. I just have to shrug off the sneers and meet them with an ever wider smile. If you put out positive energy, eventually it comes back to you.
Next you need to know what to say. You have to sound confident. Work at what you will say until you are ready. You can offer people the back of the book to read but I have worked out a little spiel of my own. I also have variations to appeal to families with teenagers, to women and to men.
Obviously you are going to get the odd question that comes from left field - once I was asked how long was the longest battle scene and had to hurriedly flick through Risen Queen to find the answer.
But you can anticipate most of the questions - How long have you been writing, what was your inspiration, how long did it take to write this book, do you have any advice for budding writers, is this your full-time job (oh, if only they knew!) etc, etc.
Have a little think about these common questions, so you sound like you're on top of your game when they do get asked.
Arrive with a bottle of water and a pen, so you look prepared. Make sure the store has posters etc at least a week or so before you arrive.
Lunchtime is the best time for these appearances, so make sure you had a good breakfast.
If you have bookmarks or business cards, take enough so you can hand them out to as many people as possible.
Next, and this is VITAL. Insist you get a table out the front of the store (NOT inside) and NO CHAIR.
Sitting down breaks the eye contact with people. Sitting behind a desk creates a barrier between you and potential buyers. Going inside a store means you don't get to talk to passers-by.
Any of these things will destroy your chances at a successful store appearance.
Above all, prepare yourself so that the number of sales is not the be-all and end-all. You have two hours to promote yourself as best you can. Do that and sales will follow. Obsess about numbers and you will struggle.
So now you're ready to go ... next time I'll discuss how to talk to people, then go into some finer points of selling.
And, if I get enough forwards and re-tweets, I will put up a short video, to show you how I put it all together!

Conflux Part Two

2011-10-04T19:21:00.000-07:00

If Friday of Conflux was mainly bookstores with a little panel work thrown in, Saturday was more about the panel.
It kicked off with a Starting The Journey panel, about the steps you need to take to get yourself published.
My fellow panellists were Voyager author Nicole Murphy, Angry Robot author Jo Anderton and ex-Harper Collins editor and online guru Natalie Costa Bir.
Nicole, as moderator, pointed out just how many people in the audience wanted to be published with a quick straw poll. Given there would be hundreds more across Australia, it brought home the enormity of the challenge.
I guess the message I tried to convey was simple.
Out of every 100 submissions an agent is sent, they will ask for perhaps five full manuscripts. Out of that five, perhaps one will be selected. maybe even one out of 120. It's that tough.
So it's up to you to do everything possible to make sure you are that one. Because if you don't, then you can be sure someone else is.
If that means thinking about the commercial possibilities of your work at the earliest stage, then so be it. Obviously don't try to slavishly follow what you think is the latest trend - you have to write something from the heart - but it makes sense to appeal to as many people as possible.
That was an enjoyable panel - and funny in that you could see the audience tweeting furiously as the advice came out!
After the panel, it was off to Dymocks Tuggeranong, where the long weekend rain had brought the shoppers out in hordes. As usual, they were happy to buy books from an author and I sold plenty of trilogies and also swiftly sold out of Wounded Guardians, leaving behind a happy bookstore!
An author-in-residence spot came next, and a great chat with the delightful Natalie, my copy editor extraordinaire and tweeting expert Abigail Nathan (Bothersome Words) and author-to-be Zena Shapter. They kept me company before it was time for a panel on Writing With Dinosaurs, about common themes or motifs in writing.
My panellists here were fellow Voyager author KJ Taylor and sci-fi author Simon Petrie.
I met KJ at my last Conflux in 2009; our books were and are on a similar time frame for release. More, I like the way she thinks - and she's always entertaining as a fellow panellist!
Our panel ranged across ideas and similarities within writing and I revealed a couple of recurring motifs within my own work ... a donkey and a bedtime song!
Once again, at the mass book signing, we sat together and chatted ... very necessary as we didn't have books to sell and sign!
The Sunday saw my final panel - Fantasy Accoutrements - the things every fantasy character needs.
I kicked off with the Goblinator 6000 Mark II ... it slices, it dices and it also has a handy attachment for cleaning the blood out from underneath the fingernails.
It's better than the Mark I, which had a tool for clipping nose hairs, except the button for that was too close to the slicer, which had several unfortunate incidents ...
In all seriousness, I highlighted the need for logic - as well as Hollywood's distressing habit of breaking rules of history and sense in its portrayal.
Basically, you can do whatever you want, but have it make sense. You can't sleep out for several nights without getting dirty and needing to carry plenty of food. Swords and other weapons lose their sharpness. Quivers mean you drop arrows everywhere.
I like to use history as a guide. Humans living in those environments coped as best they could and seeing how they did gives you a perfect start.
If you want to get creative, then that's fine as well - but have it make sense.
And as KJ Taylor pointed out, think things through to their logical conclusion!
I had a fun kaffeeklatsche afterwards but then called off my reading with my voice struggling due to all the bookstore appearances.
All in all, a fun Conflux. I met plenty of wonderful people and hope I said a few things that helped people, a little!

Conflux day one

2011-09-30T03:57:00.000-07:00

It was a big day, although not a big day spent at the conference!
Just getting down to Canberra was nearly four hours in the car - and four hours of dealing with crazy drivers.
A couple of things I noticed:
If your 4WD is too big to stay in one lane, then you probably have some major body compensation issues.
And what part of ``Keep Left Unless Overtaking'' do people not understand? When you've got caravans doing 90km/h in the fast lane and dozens of people queued behind, you would think they might notice.
The HarperCollins rep for Canberra and South Coast, Jodi, told me today she reckons it's the theory of ``If my name isn't on it, then it doesn't apply to me''. I think she's right!
When I hit Canberra, I hit the bookstores. Sadly, the local bookstore scene is much reduced since the last time I was down here, with the Borders and A+R stores all gone.
Luckily the three Dymocks are still alive and well and truly kicking - I did Belconnen at lunchtime and then Canberra Central in the afternoon.
Canberrans love their books and I talked to a great many fascinating people - including several authors and people who want to be authors.
One of the most memorable was actually a bloke called Henry.
He didn't buy the whole trilogy, just book one, but he stood out.
You see, I always ask people, ``Do you like reading?'' and then if they stop, I then talk to them about the books and go from there.
He gave me the reply - ``I don't read''.
Usually I just smile and then turn away, but Henry wanted to talk. After chatting, he decided to buy the first book.
For a writer, that's a huge responsibility. If he doesn't get into this, then he might be turned off reading.
I hope, I really hope, that he gets into it and develops a love of reading.
I sold, I think, getting on for 50 books at the two stores (I'll have to go back into Twitter to check!)
Then I checked into the hotel before rushing off to check into Conflux.
I have the nasty feeling the hotel may be a big mistake. With Floriade, there was nothing available for two nights in the mid-range price. I'm in the Formule 1. It's cheap. For a reason. Still, there's always the hope the bed might be comfortable ...
The first panel at Conflux was on media franchises and while it was an interesting discussion, I wasn't able to make the point I had been thinking about when I signed up for it.
I see the development of spin-offs and fan fiction etc around TV shows and films as a demonstration of pure imagination, the imagination that speculative fiction fans need.
That's imagination being used for a positive thing.
Of course everyone has imagination but, sadly, too many people use it for purposes such as:
1) Imagining their bum does look good in those pants
2) Imagining that calling their kid Britney - but with two `i's, three `t's and four `e's is creative
3) Imagining that footballers with the morals of an alley cat and the sexual appetite of a randy goat make good role models for little Brittteeneei and her brother Cooper (spelt with a K, two `p's and two `h's)

Anyway, plenty of panels and one more bookstore tomorrow!
And the strange room at Formule 1 awaits ...

Conflux Schedule

2011-09-21T21:35:00.000-07:00

Here's my plans for Conflux this October long weekend.
If you're going to be at Conflux then these are the places you can catch me; if not, then there's still plenty of chances to say hello or get books signed as I go out to Dymocks stores!
If you aren't going to be in Canberra this long weekend, then why not follow things on Twitter? I'm going to be Twittering live at bookstore appearances and, if it's true to form, will have plenty of amusing tales from the shopping centres!
Look for @DuncanLay if you're not already following me.
Not on Twitter?I'll also be updating things on the blog and Facebook, so jump on there if you like.

Friday September 30
11.30am - Dymocks Belconnen
1.45pm - Dymocks Central Canberra
5.30pm - Media franchise panel

Saturday October 1
10am: Starting The Journey panel
11.30am: Dymocks Tuggeranong
2.30pm: Author-in-residence at Conflux
3.30pm: Writing With Dinosaurs panel
4.30pm: Mass Signing at Conflux (perfect for a chat as there'll probably be far more authors than readers!)

Sunday October 2
10am: Fantasy Accoutrements panel (where I'll be unveiling my new Goblinator 6000 Mark II ... )
11am: Kaffeeklatsche
12.30pm: A reading of The Radiant Child

Hope to say hello to as many people as possible!

Darth Vader strikes back at George Lucas

2011-09-14T16:15:00.000-07:00

Twenty years ago, I interviewed Dave Prowse, who played the body of Darth Vader in the three original Star Wars movies.
To a newspaper cadet who had grown up on Star Wars (it was the first movie I had seen), this was an absolute thrill - not least because he demonstrated on me the classic scene where he picks up a Rebel officer and holds him two foot off the ground. Luckily he didn't do it by my neck! More on that later ...
But one of the things that surprised me was the way he spoke about Lucas, and what Lucas had done to the films after the actors had walked off the set.
Bear in mind this was in 1991, long before The Phantom Menace hit the screens and introduced Star Wars fans to a character hated more than Vader and the Emperor combined - Jar Jar Binks.
This week, George Lucas released all six of his Star Wars movies in Blu-ray - and the controversy reminded me vividly of what Dave Prowse was saying, 20 years ago.
For those who haven't been following it, or have been living underground in a small farming settlement on Tatooine, Lucas has taken the opportunity of fiddling with the movies for Blu-ray. Now, he's done this before - the Special Edition films tidied up many of the - admittedly - primitive special effects and sound, as well as reinstating scenes that had been cut from the original for budget and/or technology reasons (such as Han Solo meeting Jabba the Hutt in A New Hope).
But, to many fans, Lucas has gone too far now.
His biggest ``crime'' is to play with the climax of the original trilogy - some could say the climax to the entire saga.
Luke Skywalker, having defeated his father (Vader) refuses to take his place and turn to the dark side. The Emperor is shooting lightning bolts into the hapless Luke while Vader watches. Finally he can take no more and silently changes back to his former self, to Anakin Skywalker, destroys the Emperor, saves Luke - and sacrifices himself in the process.
In the new version, Vader now screams ``Nooooo!' as he acts, infuriating fans across the world.
But, 20 years ago, he had already infuriated Darth Vader.
Dave Prowse was out in Australia for a convention and visited Woy Woy to thank one of the organisers. I went to a small, fibro-style home to meet this giant of a man. He was struggling with arthritis (well, he was about 56 then) but a massive presence.
He told me Lucas spotted him in A Clockwork Orange and offered him a choice - either Chewbacca or Darth Vader. He said he chose Vader because ``everyone remembers the baddie''.
Obviously he and the other actors had no idea how big Star Wars was going to be - but he said he also had a huge shock when he watched the film for the first time. Having spoken all the lines himself, he told me he was surprised - and disappointed - to hear not his Bristol accent but the dulcet tones of James Earl Jones.
Frankly, this was a great choice by Lucas as Prowse's voice is not a patch on Jones - but Prowse was most disappointed that Lucas never told him, that the first time he learned of it was at the premiere.
Of course Lucas may have a different recollection of this; I haven't interviewed him.
Prowse was most proud of his work in The Empire Strikes Back, with what he called ``the thinking man's Vader'' but, by the time Return Of The Jedi came around, he had fallen out with Lucas.
He admits he was not happy on the set and he was deeply saddened he never got to show his face as Darth Vader, not even as the ``scarred'' Darth Vader in Return Of The Jedi. This role went to Sebastian Shaw - although Shaw was later edited out of the sequence where Anakin Skywalker appears as a Jedi spirit with Yoda and Ben Kenobi. Hayden Christensen was morphed into this - although why Anakin would be a young spirit when Kenobi stayed as Alec Guinness and not Ewan McGregor made no sense ...
Prowse was certainly a charming man to interview, dropping such tidbits as how he was Christopher Reeve's personal trainer for the original Superman, helping the skinny Reeve stack on 5kg of muscle for the role.
Still, he's huge and if I was Lucas, perhaps I wouldn't tell him bad news personally!
He also demonstrated the famous scene from A New Hope where he lifts up a Rebel officer by the throat. It was done in two parts - he held the actor around the throat while the man stood on a chair. For the second part he simply lifted the man in the air by his shoulders. To demonstrate this, he simply reached out, clamped his massive hands around my upper arms and lifted me a foot off the ground. Back then I was about 80kg but I might as well have been a feather.
As I hung there, feet dangling, it was a perfect moment.
Now I hear about the changes to the pivotal Vader moment and feel sad. Sad for Prowse, sad for such a wonderful character and sad for every child that watches the `new' print and misses out on a little bit of movie magic.

In praise of beta readers

2011-09-10T04:24:00.000-07:00

It's a fine line between your manuscript getting published - and it getting rejected.
There are any number of great ideas for books out there, and plenty of people with a talent for writing.
So what does make the difference?
For me, it is the quality of the advice you get - especially from beta readers - and of course what you do with that advice.
I've written before how a gust of wind was the difference between my first book, The Wounded Guardian, being published or not.
Of course it was the advice I was given, because of that gust of wind.
Beta readers make a huge difference to a book - but how do you find them?
They've got to be people you can trust to be honest, people able to find the flaws in your writing and also able to offer constructive criticism.
It's a fine line. You don't want to have too many people reading early drafts, because you can get too much conflicting advice.
But there's always the danger of not being able to see the big picture - the wood for the trees.
I am very lucky to have a couple of beta readers whose judgment I trust.
It was their suggestions that led me to a massive rewrite of the first book of the new series.
Of course you can't write a book by committee, but beta readers make all the difference.
I have no doubt there are many wonderful books languishing in dusty drawers or forgotten folders deep in the bowels of computers, all for the lack of beta readers.
If you don't have one (or two) then begin searching.
Most people know the value of a publishing editor, a copy editor and proof readers. I've been lucky enough to work with fantastic ones.
But I wouldn't have had a chance without a beta reader.
Truly, they are a vital part of the process.

New dates for the new series

2011-08-30T22:30:00.000-07:00

HarperCollins has let me know the new publishing dates for the upcoming series:
Book 1 (currently called The Cursed Tears but may well become Bridge Of Swords or indeed something else entirely!) will be out in August 2012.
Book 2 (now The Grieving Son but hopefully Pass Of Arrows) will be out February 2013
Book 3 (now The Raging Night but perhaps Hill Of Shields) will be out August 2013.
Now this means it will be fully two years between The Radiant Child (July 2010) and the first of the new series.
That's my fault!
HC pushed my dates back partly because of overseas releases but mainly because I have rewritten the first book so dramatically - and taken a long time about it.
Part of that was the injury to my index finger, which stopped me writing for the best part of a month but it was mostly the sheer scale of the rewrite.
Basically I took the main character, Sendatsu, and changed him completely. This means about 25% of the rewrite is all new and 50% is substantially changed - not a task you can finish in a few days.
The other issue was book two, which I had written about 80,000 words. Now Sendatsu had changed, about 70,000 words of this had to change. Basically I was back to the beginning with book two - and had to deliver that by the end of the year because of the old deadline.
I took the decision because of the feedback I was getting from my beta readers. The bottom line was the original character was too polarising - a real love/hate character. Hanging an entire trilogy on someone like that is too much to ask. The danger was readers would turn off him before he was redeemed.
It's a classic trap of a trilogy ... your character's arc is designed over three books, so you begin with an unsympathetic character who wins over the reader (ideally). The problem is, you can end up with one who turns off the reader, so they don't read on to find out what happens!
I've written before about David Gemmell, one of my inspirations for writing fantasy. He managed to do something similar with Sigarni in Ironhand's Daughter. His follow-up book, The Hawk Eternal, relegated her to a minor character and put someone more sympathetic front and centre.
Of course Gemmell had, by then, a large and dedicated readership who stuck with him.
I don't have that luxury!
I have many other stories I want to write - and want the opportunity to see them in print.
It was a big call to rip up a main character, change them utterly and go again. But the alternative was worse.
Honestly, it was a scary call but I've always been of the opinion you should do things that scare you!
The good news is, I'm sure it was the right decision.
Of my two beta readers, one said the new opening was ``100 times better'' and the other said they ``love, love, loved it'' and was ``instantly sympathetic to Sendatsu''.
Infinitas Bookshop, which has been a wonderful supporter of The Dragon Sword Histories, once said to me that fantasy was ``all about the characters''.
That's absolutely correct.
I had to get the characters right. I think they are now ... but it has taken longer than I thought.
Hopefully the wait will prove worthwhile!

World Building

2011-03-08T15:03:00.000-08:00

One of the ways in which my second series will differ from the first is in the world the characters inhabit.
At first glance this might not seem to be so, for they are actually in the same world ... the same rules of magic apply, the same theology and the same lack of woodland pixies and other ``magical'' folk.
But where my desire in the first series was to throw readers into the story and the characters' problems, in this series there was more of a need to develop the world.
This was for two reasons: the culture and development of each country becomes a vital plot point as the series moves on and, secondly, part of the story is about an "elf'' banished into the human world, so the contrast between what he knows and how the other humans live is a vital part.
In The Dragon Sword Histories, most countries had a similar level of technology and I concentrated more on the differences in attitude among the people. Thus the Norstalines took some inspiration from America between the two world wars; insular, arrogant and certain that they were the only place of importance. The Berellians took some inspiration from Nazi Germany and the indeed other totalitarian regimes. The Tenochs were a rough mix of Aztec and Mayan.
But in the new series, I needed a different approach.
Each country has its own culture - but a culture muddied and often forgotten thanks to what the "elves" (really Elfarans - humans who think they are the elves of legend) did to them centuries ago.
So what they have is a ghost of a culture, memories or fragments really, which are not important to them but become so as the series moves on.
The Velsh, from The Vales, are - perhaps obviously - based loosely on the Welsh.
Part of my fascination with this comes from the battle of Pilleth, one of the major inspirations for The Dragon Sword Histories. Popular culture has made much of the Scottish struggle for independence - there have been many books and movies, most famously Braveheart.
But the Welsh are the Britons, driven west by the Saxon invasions, and their story has not had the same prominence. Yet it is the story of Arthur, the - supposed - historical British warleader who stopped the Saxons.
I also found it fascinating for they lived among the faded glories left them by the retreating Romans. The idea of seeing technology far beyond your own, buildings you could never hope to make and the effect that would have on a people really resonated with me and, by substituting my "elves" for Romans, adapted this.
Research into my Velsh meant going into Celtic history and daily life. Obviously the Internet makes this much easier but books such as Horrible Histories also throw up some fascinating, quirky insights into life then.
Huw, the bard, is Velsh and his journey unlocks the hidden secrets of the Velsh/Welsh culture.
Next come the Forlish, loosely based on the Saxons. Their leader wants to return Men to the glory he sees around him every day in the "elven" ruins - by uniting every country under the one flag and pooling their knowledge. He just chooses to do this by the sword.
Rhiannon, the dancer, is Forlish and her journey includes discovering that humans can do magic, not just elves, a discovery that will change everyone's future and fate.
And the elves. Theirs is a bastard culture, partly the Elfaran culture we met back in the Dragon Sword Histories, which was loosely based on the Roman culture, and partly the culture their forebears adopted when they left the dragons' service and found themselves wives, and families among a people called the Nippon (loosely based on the Japanese).
Sendatsu, the "elf" has been banished for not having magic and he is the key to unlocking these mysteries, as he knows some of the secrets of the elves, as well as the story of the humans.
So we have a series of cultures, all bastardised by the "elves" at first wanting to help the humans and then in fact stealing their culture, their magic and religion, leaving them nothing more than hollow memories.
The search for the truth behind these memories is a vital part of the story.
Obviously there is much more to it - the journeys of my three main characters, as well as the underlying heart of the books - but in this series, far more than my first, world building plays an important part.
Even the placenames, based on real names, tell a story.
All through the first book, particularly, are little clues and fragments that hint towards future revelations and, while they may not seem like much at first, will prove to be vital.
I look forward to sharing it with you!

The new series - what title do you want?

2011-03-06T18:52:00.000-08:00

I am over the moon to be able to say HarperCollins has signed me up for a second trilogy, which will be published in April 2012, October 2012 and April 2013 ... so still 12 months to the first book being on the shelves but then not long to wait between them!
Now, despite being asked, this trilogy will NOT be featuring Martil, Karia and Merren.
I do have a second trilogy planned for them, taking place about 10 years after the events of Radiant Child but I'm not quite ready to write that one yet.
I sincerely hope I do have the opportunity, however!
Anyway, to the new series:
It is set in the same world, although on a completely different continent. However, there is the same rules of magic and the same theology - and one common thread with The Dragon Sword Histories.
It features descendants of the Elfarans, who truly believe they are the elves of legend and saga - and what that mistaken belief means for the humans living around them.
It features Sendatsu, an elf (Elfaran) banished from his kind because he cannot do magic, and exiled to a brutal human world, where he discovers his knowledge and skills make him a wild card in a people's battle for freedom.
It is also the story of Huw, a bard, whose hopes of a better world and courage to stand up for his beliefs - courage that came with a bitter price - could change history.
And the story of Rhiannon, a dancer who dreams of performing for the elves but whose ability to use magic will destroy what everyone believes to be true about elves, humans and their places in the world ...
At the heart of the story is a dilemma that we all face; the decision we must make at some point in our lives where we can either follow our parents' beliefs, and the path they want us to take - or we we try and find our own way ...
There is a fair bit of humour in here, as well as action.
Book one is essentially written, and will be ready to hand to HC by the end of March 2010.
One thing I am still working on, however, is the titles for the series.
I originally planned to call it Empire Of Bones - however, that has been taken.
At the moment I have a few ideas, of which my current favourites are as follows:
1) The first set of titles is loosely inspired by the Mabinogion, Welsh fairy tales or legends contained in several ancient books. Foremost among these are the Red Book of Hergest and the White Book of Rhydderch. Adapting these, we get a trilogy called:
The Black Book Of Elves
The White Book Of Forland
The Red Book Of Vales

However, explaining these titles may take too much time ...!

2) As much of the books are set in Vales, among the Velsh, with a recurring theme of the impact our parents have on us, I was drawn to the Dylan Thomas poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, which is arguably written for his father and certainly about his father dying.
From it comes these three titles:

The Grieving Sun
The Cursed Tears
The Raging Night

What do you think? What appeals to you? I'd love to hear!

Radiant Child DVD extra

2011-01-19T21:41:00.000-08:00

One of the struggles I had with The Radiant Child was fitting everything in! You might think a 180,000-word limit seems pretty generous but I found it pretty difficult to strike the right balance and kep everything in that were essential to the story.
For those who have read Radiant Child (and I would encourage anyone who hasn't read the book to finish to before going any further, as it both contains spoilers and requires a certain knowledge of the storyline), here is a short novella if you like that I was forced to cut.
It concerns Kesbury, the former Ralloran sergeant who helps Martil and eventually redeems his deeds at Bellic to become a priest of Aroaril.
I did want to show a different path to redemption, and explore a character I liked further but, after the first draft, it became very clear that I had to jettison quite a few sub-plots. This was one of them.
Bear in mind that you are reading a first draft quality - although some of these scenes made their way into the final draft, albeit considerably changed.
Anyway, I'd be interested to hear what you think ... does this add anything to the overall story or was it better indeed that it was cut!

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Writing around the Christmas Tree

2011-01-01T03:10:00.000-08:00

It's the holiday season and, like many other families, we try to make a special occasion out of decorating the Christmas Tree.
But, while doing so, I was struck by the similarities between the rewriting process and dressing the Christmas Tree.
I should say at this point that I have become even more of a fan of the rewriting process than I was before. There are some writers who can punch out a book in one sitting - I remember reading that Enid Blyton used to knock out a 50,000-word Famous Five book in one weekend (and still have time for a cracking tea with lashings of strawberry jam). I'm not one of them.
My first draft is when I get to know the characters - and then I start to play with them, to add texture and richness and sub-plots and detail.
Each subsequent draft adds a little something more, each draft not necessarily making radical changes but constant, subtle ones, until the finished product is drastically different from the first draft.
Not unlike the Christmas Tree.
First of all you have the bare foliage - the bare bones, if you will.
Next comes the lights, which have to be positioned just right. Following them the tinsel is draped around the tree, spaced evenly and given due weight.
Next comes the special ornaments, the ones that have particular meaning. These are spaced properly, placed to give them the prime position.
Then come the Christmas balls; next the ribbons, then the other assorted ornaments and finally the candy canes.
After each stage, we stand back and look at the tree, consider it from several different angles, and possible reposition things. A precious ornament might be in just the right place - but it means the tinsel, or possible a light, need to be moved.
It's an organic process, which takes time, until all are in agreement that it is looking the best it possible can be - even better, in fact. It is perfect.
All of this is not unlike the writing - and re-writing - process.
Each layer adds something new, works in with what is already there and adds to the whole.
At the end, far from the bare bones, you have something that is a pleasure to the eye and inspires comment from others.
If you can do that with a book, then it's been a good Christmas indeed!

Christmas signings

2010-11-02T16:53:00.000-07:00

I've had a few stores ask me to come back out for a Christmas signing ... so if you want a book signed, feel free to bring it along and say hello!
Here's the dates:
Sunday December 5: A+R Kotara - from about 11.30am
Tuesday December 7: A+R Newcastle Mall
Sunday December 12: A+R Miranda Fair - from about 12pm
Thursday December 16: A+R Town Hall Square - from about 12pm
Sunday December 19: Borders Tuggerah - from about 1.30pm
I don't have any time off through December (I even have to work Christmas Day!) so have had to keep it a bit limited; just the stores that specifically asked me back for Christmas but I'd be happy to see anyone at any of those locations!

First draft of a first book

2010-10-26T21:08:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me the other day that writing the first draft of a first book can be compared to many things - but I like to compare it to a stumble across a darkened room.
But not just any room.
I like to check on my kids just before I go to bed and, as I was trying to sneak quietly out of my daughter's room the other night, decided that this trip was not unlike writing the first draft of the first book in a new series.
Let me explain.
You know the starting point (the bedside). You can see where you have got to get to (the lit hallway outside). But the route you take to get there can end up very different, even if you have envisaged it clearly in your mind beforehand.
There's a night light in the room, which changes colour four times in a cycle, from quite a bright blue light to a dim red glow. At any moment, your path forward can be plunged into darkness, or revealed in a burst of dazzling light.
There are any number of pitfalls waiting for your uncertain step. Obstacles that must be avoided, or stepped over, or even moved to one side to enable you to go forwards. Some feel soft, and safe - but could make a terrible noise. Others are sharp and will cause you lingering discomfort.
Sometimes the best route is to take a few steps sideways, even one step back - but always you must press on forwards. Head for the light.
But don't rush. Often, when you are striding forwards confidently, a sudden plunge into darkness can throw you off balance. An obstacle you were sure you could avoid is suddenly somewhere underfoot. A wrong step could be disastrous at this point.
Occasionally you must pause, wait for a little extra illumination to be thrown on the subject, to see your way forward.
Naturally reaching the end is a relief.
But take time to look back and see where you mis-stepped, or over-stepped, or perhaps could have strode out a little stronger. There is always a better route to take. Hindsight allows you to examine your progress critically, see where you might do better next time.
But never forget, you have safely reached your goal.
Anything is possible from here.

AussieCon 4

2010-09-07T22:25:00.000-07:00

Just back from AussieCon4, the world fantasy convention held in Melbourne and it was truly an amazing experience.
I found it a bit strange just because I am not a big fantasy reader! It is ironic that I enjoy writing fantasy but have not read the genre as widely as many people - and certainly not to the degree that many of the fans had.
It's almost embarrassing - and I certainly got some funny looks from volunteers at a book signing - when you admit you've never heard of another ``famous'' author in the genre you write in.
But there were so many wonderful people, both fellow panellists and particularly the other attendees.
I spent three days at AussieCon, which itself went for five. Sadly I couldn't get more time off from work, especially as I missed out on a Star Wars panel on the Monday that I really wanted to be part of!
It was also a bit of a sacrifice - the Sunday was Fathers' Day and I missed out on seeing my kids ... best I could do was get up early to Skype them and watch them open my presents for me!
Of course, me being me, I also arranged a bunch of bookstore appearances in Melbourne!
Friday began with me flying down to Melbourne, with a hectic schedule planned to the minute. of course JetStar was more than 30 minutes late, which had me chasing my tail all day.
I had arranged a stint at Borders in central Melbourne and planned to drop my bags at the hotel before catching a tram there. Running late, and not in the mood to decipher tram timetables, I decided to walk with a 6kg bag over the shoulder. It was a mere 1.7km (according to Google maps) and I was sweating lightly when I lobbed, late, at Borders.
They kept me in water and I sold a bunch of books (mainly Wounded Guardian) before racing off to Dymocks central Melbourne. There I discovered, to my horror, that I was only in for an hour before more fantasy authors were due to arrive - and I was 20 minutes late! Luckily Fiona McIntosh didn't want to do the hands-on selling that I specialise in (basically she doesn't need to!) and I could keep going until 3.30pm.
Then it was finally time to check in and change, to sign in for AussieCon and get ready for my panel on Lost, the television show.
Of course then I had to sprint over to the Crown, for the Voyager 15th birthday party!
That meant I had to leave Lost at 4.55pm, while it was still going.
It was an interesting panel, with me being the only Aussie on it! The audience was pretty strongly American as well ... in fact there were US accents everywhere at AussieCon - plenty made the trip across for this fantasy extravaganza.
I should have made a few more points, but got a little swamped by this UK TV critic!
One of the things that I wanted to say - and annoyed myself by not getting it across - was the death of Jin and Sun.
(Lost geek alert!)
Not only did it devalue Sayyid's self-sacrifice, but Sun would never have let Jin stay with her without telling him to save himself for their child. It should have at least made Jin choose between the woman he had sworn never to leave and the child he wanted but had never seen. Even better, they should have escaped, validating Sayyid, then been killed by Jack stupidly attacking Dead Locke in his hero complex, thus making him more interesting ... basically I like to put characters through the wringer and this didn't...
(Back to normal!)
The Voyager party was great, although I managed to walk right around and through Crown Towers before finding it! I met and chatted to Ian Irvine and a bunch of others ... unfortunately didn't catch up with as many as I'd hoped but I (foolishly as it happened) thought I'd have plenty of time...
Saturday began with a signing ... wasn't expecting many to turn up but I had five people come and chat, including Tarran Jones (A+R Edwardstown) and Lynette who I'd met at Infinitas.
Then I raced around trying to find people for a story for the Sunday Herald Sun (which didn't run that Sunday but is apparently due up on September 12) before racing off to Dymocks Southland and then back to Borders Central.
Those both went very well, with the Dymocks boss demanding my return and Borders offering me a job!
Sunday was my big day, beginning with a kaffeeklatch (coffee meeting) then a reading and then three panels, back to back.
I met and chatted with some great people - some of whom went out and bought my books! - and then kicked off with a great panel about Adams and Pratchett and comedy writing.
This was my best panel of the Con and a lot of fun.
With plenty of humour in my books, it was kind of a perfect fit for me.
Next was Crowns And Monarchy, which didn't go so well. I realised afterwards that I hadn't planned for it properly - and then let myself get intimidated a little by the glittering array of other panellists - Australian fantasy royalty!
They were talking about their Russian covers - I was tempted to remark that I didn't have Russian covers but I had once had a problem with Rushin' undies (you know, the ones that try to give you a wedgie whenever you sit down) but had fixed that by switching to boxers ...
Anyway, I did point out that I too have been published in wonderfully exotic places. Like Dubbo.
I wanted to talk about the way I treat royalty, with the succession, with a Queen in a country ruled by men ... but bottled it.
Still, all valuable knowledge and I'd have a much better idea for next time.
My last panel was about elves ... and I was the moderator! It was a case of the blind leading the blind there but we kept things going in the face of plenty of questions ... and decided that we'd rather read books about orcs, not elves!
It was amazing to see so many people so passionate about fantasy and sci-fi (and steampunk and others).
Perhaps the US and UK attendees will go home and want to read my work, after hearing me at a panel.
Perhaps not - but it was still a real experience!

AussieCon/WorldCon

2010-08-23T18:06:00.001-07:00

Like many other fantasy fans and authors, I shall be attending WorldCon, or AussieCon 4, in Melbourne from September 3-5.
If anyone is also going along, and is interested in catching one of the panels I am on, or attending a reading, a signing or a kaffeeklatsche (a small group chatting over coffee), here is my itinerary:
Friday Sept 3 at 5pm, Room 213: Six Years On An Island: Discussing the TV show Lost.
(Earlier this year I interviewed Jorge Garcia - Hurley - for The Sunday Telegraph TV Guide, s have some interesting information about this one)
Saturday September 4 at 10am, room 201 - book signing.
Sunday September 5: (this is the big day)
11am- Kaffeeklatsche
1pm - reading
2pm - Writing in the shadows of Adams and Pratchett
3pm - Crowns and swords, the worlds of fantasy and monarchy
4m - Where do elves come from? (Note, my next series, among other things, is a gentle send-up of elves in fantasy, so there might be some information revealed here - assuming, of course, that HarperCollins wants to publish it!)
I shall also be doing a few bookstore appearances around Melbourne on Friday and Saturday ... I'll post places and times later!

The Big July - finished at last!

2010-07-29T17:19:00.000-07:00

I can barely believe it - my madcap month of planes, trains and automobiles to get me around to so many bookstores is actually over.
In the end, I only visited 49 bookstores in the 31 days I set aside ... although I do have Number Fifty, A+R Town Hall, set aside for Thursday August 5 lunchtime, although I won't call it truly part of The Big July.
But, and here's the fantastic bit - I sold 1016 books to wonderful people across three states and the ACT!
Along the way, The Radiant Child hit the Dymocks Top 10 Fantasy Bestseller List at number 9, climbed to 4 and stayed there for two weeks, then finished the month at No. 6.
That was amazing, particularly as I think only about nine of my stores were Dymocks - the rest were Borders, A+R or independents (who don't do a bestseller list).
Still, The Radiant Child was THE best-selling book, of ANY book, for Erina A+R, two weeks after I visited there, while also being the top-seller for the month at Umina's Book Bazaar and a big seller for Infinitas at Parramatta as well.
My last four days of store appearances were a whirlwind ... Roselands and Miranda on Thursday, Newcastle on Friday, Parramatta on Saturday and then Hornsby and Macquarie on Sunday.
Thursday was a long day ... Roselands proved to be a tricky one as it was swamped with mums and screaming kids because Target (just around the corner from the A+R) has launched its big toy sale. That was a solid one and then I had Miranda Fair for late-night shopping.
That went really well and I met some great people, including Belinda Every, who bought the entire trilogy and is trying to start a fan page for me on Facebook! I also met a top bloke called Kurtis, who wanted me to write a character with his name and appearance into my next book: ``Just say he's got a beard like a lion!'' he suggested. You'll have to wait and see...
Friday was a fantastic day - although I got a massive shock when I arrived in Newcastle to see the A+R store boarded up, with posters saying it had closed the day before! As my heart slowed, I saw that it had, in fact, just moved down the road.
Despite it being in a worse location, the people were great, both there and at Borders Kotara down the road, and I sold about 55 books on the day, leaving me hugely confident I could crack the magic 1000 over the weekend.
I kicked off Saturday at Infinitas, which has been a wonderful supporter of mine. Waiting for me were a bunch of pre-bought books, ready to sign, including an entire trilogy for a US fan, Jan Barlow. This guy is a real fantasy expert, and I have to admit to being a little nervous sending my trilogy off to him ... he's gone to a great deal of trouble and I hope they live up to it!
Parramatta Dymocks is another favourite but, this time, I realised all my fears about Saturdays at big shopping centres were realised! It was just too busy, too loud and I couldn't get people to stop and listen. That's the biggest lesson I'm taking away - shops may like Saturdays but I don't!
This left me 20 books short of the 1000 target, with two Borders stores on Sunday to visit.
I was super-confident, as both Hornsby and Macquarie are great stores, plus I used to be the editor of the Hornsby Advocate, and Hornsby Borders is where I interviewed Raymond E Feist and began this whole adventure!
There were people waiting for me at Hornsby, including an old work experience girl, now a uni student and a budding writer herself! It was great to talk to them and sign some books but those didn't count as sales so I hurried off to Macquarie with six books still to sell to hit my target.
By now I was starting to feel some pressure - stupid, I know, and unnecessary but I habitually put myself under pressure - just one of many character flaws!
As time ticked on and people only bought book one, it began to feel less like a monkey on my back, more like an obese gorilla!
Then a lovely couple bought the entire trilogy to hit the magic 1000 mark and all the pressure was off ... no matter what the ``score'' for the month was, it was still a success, but it was still a real relief to reach the goal I had set myself!
There was no gold glitter falling from the ceiling, no balloons and streamers - perhaps I should have brought along a few friends to supply something like that - would have been a nice touch!
After that, it was easy to kick on until things really quietened around 4pm and I went back to friends at Turramurra for a quiet beer and a big sigh of relief!
Galaxy Books in my lunch hour, by comparison, was easy enough, although I sold few books I handed out plenty of bookmarks and chatted to what seemed like a lot of would-be writers!
So The Big July is over ... and what have I learned?
Well, I learned not to do anything quite as big as that again - I'll need to stretch things out!
I also learned there are wonderful people who love books, and fantasy, all across Australia. You just have to get out there and find them.
And I couldn't have done it without the help and support of the wonderful people at HarperCollins and, especially, my friends and family.
Thanks to everyone I met ... you have helped create a memory that will stay with me forever.
This was a massive challenge for me and I couldn't have done it without you all!

The Big July - back home

2010-07-20T18:07:00.000-07:00

With a glorious three days off so close that I could taste them, I just had two more days of store appearances to go.
After arriving back home at 10.30pm from Adelaide, it was up early the next day to see my son's soccer team fight out a thrilling 3-3 draw before hading up the road to Leading Edge Books, Lakehaven.
This is a fantastic store, run by two lovely people, Sue and Howard, and they are always well prepared for me coming up there. They've been great supporters and it is the fourth time I have been to their store, which is always a pleasure.
There were people waiting for me there, which is always nice to see, including Prema and Tyce, who have had me sign all three of their books now!
It's funny though - when I talk to bookstores, they always want me out there on a Saturday. But, to be honest, I find Saturday one of the hardest days. Everyone is in a rush and it's hard to get them to stop and talk.
So it proved at my second stop for the day, at Erina Dymocks. This store is in a great location and had set up a fantastic window display for me.
There was a small queue of people waiting there, including Max, who is the only person to have contacted me on MySpace so far!
My older sister Julia was also there to get a couple of books signed for a friend and it was great to see so many friendly faces.
Sadly, it was a struggle to get anyone to stop and talk that afternoon, although I still sold more than 20 books there.
Contrast that with Sunday, when I headed up to A+R Kotara. This is in a major shopping centre in Newcastle and was my third visit to that store.
On the Sunday, people were willing to stop and talk and I racked up 26 books sold ... I sold out of WGs and was about to go, only for them to rush off to the storeroom and return with more!
But the break seemed to have triggered a shift in the rush of people outside and I was only able to sell one more book after that.
It strange - sometimes you just get on a roll and feel that every person who walks by is a fantasy reader, ready and eager to talk to you and, perhaps, pick up a copy. Then the feeling goes and nobody is interested.
Whether all that is in my mind or not is another matter.
During the month, I have experimented with combinations of shirts and pants, as well as seeing if wearing a particular pair of undies provides more luck than others!
It's not a particularly scientific experiment and seems to have proved that no pair of undies is luckier than others, while no shirt seems to get more positive reaction than another. But the time of day and the day itself do seem to all have an effect!
So I'm off on a mini-break, gearing up for four days of frantic store appearances which, I hope, will see me break through the 1000 books mark.
Wit the counter sitting at 853, the end is in sight - literally and figuratively.

The Big July - Adelaide

2010-07-19T21:01:00.000-07:00

My last trip away for this amazing month of selling books was to Adelaide.
My main reason for going down there was A+R Edwardstown, which has been a great supporter my books and so I was keen to support them back.
I was being met by HC rep Anthony down there, who would look after me for the first day, then Graeme would take over for day two.
I was a little nervous, as they had warned me it was not like Sydney but at the same time I was confident I could make a good impression.
After all, this is not just about selling books. It is about meeting sales staff and getting the stores enthused about you, bringing your books out from the pack.
It was grey and drizzly as I flew in and headed out to A+R Westlakes, a combined book store and newsagency in a big shopping centre.
My fears were unfounded as I sold 21 books in the two hours there and chatted to some great people ... strangely enough both Anthony, myself and store manager Bradley had the same style of close-trimmed beard - make of that what you will!
A+R Edwardstown was next, an older centre but the store I was down here to see.
They were just as nice in person as they were on the Net, with Tarran and owner Jo snapping endless pictures of me!
After a slow start I kicked into gear and sold 22 books for them. A pair of spruikers were trying to sell exercise equipment just across the aisle from me - that was to happen a few times in Adelaide and I even tried to sell them some books (without success). Still, I thought, if I can sell to a spruiker ...!
I checked into my hotel, The Medina Grand, which used to be the old SA Treasury Department building. It was stunning - 15-foot-high ceilings, real old-world charm and in the heart of the city. I grabbed a early dinner in the Chinatown before heading out for Thursday night shopping at A+R Marion.
This was a tough gig, my toughest of the day. Not only was my voice really starting to break up but everyone was in a rush and very reluctant to stop and talk!
`MasterChef is on!' one exclaimed as she tore past me.
Hmmmm...
Still, I sold 17 books, aided by the manager, who loved the books and even persuaded one customer not to buy the fantasy book she had selected but to get mine!
Anthony, my fantastic guide for the day, dropped me back at the hotel for green tea, a hot bath and the hope that my voice would hold up tomorrow...
Graeme picked me up from the hotel at 9am ... only of course we waited for five minutes for each other at different entrances!
First up was Elizabeth, a working-class suburb on the outskirts of Adelaide, famously home to Jimmy Barnes at one point.
Like Campbelltown or Penrith, I had high hopes for Elizabeth, even though Graeme was sounding a note of caution.
But it went great - I sold 25 books and spoke to some amazing people. I even set a new record for myself, personalising WG for four women, who were going to share it and read it - still my highest number!
There were a few curious sights there as well.
I saw one bloke with the most magnificent mullet. A burnished gold colour, it was truly a thing of beauty. Fluffed up at the front, spiked on top, falling to a glorious length below his shoulder blades. I asked him if he liked reading but he answered `No!' and of course, I should have thought a little more before opening my mouth.
Maintaining and preening that amazing hair style would take all his time and, probably, spare cash. A hobby like that would leave no time for reading, sadly ...
Next stop was A+R Tea Tree, where I had a woman waiting for me, entire trilogy at the ready for me to sign.
It doesn't start much better than that and, despite the noise around me, including the centre's desire for piped music at a level just short of deafening, I sold 34 books and again spoke to some marvellous people.
The one sad thing about this massive, whirlwind tour, is that some of these people begin to blur in my mind. I come away from an appearance thinking those people were just lovely ... and then struggle to remember them all.
Last stop was Borders Adelaide, where they'd had to take down the big display of my books because too many were being sold! They only had a handful of books left when I arrived and I sold them out pretty quickly, to finish my Adelaide trip.
Luckily I caught up with Peter Cooper there - a Facebook friend who is about to become a published author himself. After corresponding by Facebook, it was nice to see the man in person!
Adelaide was a wonderful two days - great people, lovely stores and a fantastic pair of guides in Anthony and Graeme.
I like to think I brought a little good luck down with me as well - the Adelaide Crows defeated the rampaging title favourites Geelong that Friday night, as I was flying out!

The Big July - contrasts

2010-07-19T20:49:00.000-07:00

I had a day off - at last!
It was lucky, because I had brought back a virus, or perhaps I was just exhausted. Either way, I spent most of Monday on the couch, trying to recover.
I seriously doubted if I could get out to Penrith Dymocks the following day and I started thinking about perhaps putting it off for a week. My voice was shot but, more importantly, I was exhausted. I had also picked up a cough - not good when you need to speak a great deal!
The welcome news that Radiant Child had hit number four on the Dymocks Bestseller list for fantasy perked me up but not as much as a tip from my brother-in-law, Bruce. He recommends putting Vicks Vaporub on the soles of your feet overnight - and it works!
I felt much better on Tuesday and ready to get out to Penrith.
I used to work out there so actually knowing roughly where you are going for once was quite the treat for me - and Penrith did not disappoint. More than 30 books sold and a great many wonderful people met along the way - it was a great session.
Next day was Borders Bondi, one of the glamour stores in the exclusive eastern suburbs. My family came down with me on the train; they were going to the beach while I hit the bookstore.
The staff at Borders Bondi were absolutely lovely - but the customers made an interesting contrast with Penrith.
Ask Sydneysiders - especially those living in the trendy suburbs - and 9/10 will tell you that they would rather sell books at Bondi than Penrith. Penrith, unfairly so, is seen as the home of `westies' and full of flanellette, not Faberge.
Yet I sold twice as many books at Penrith as I did at Bondi.
Some turned their noses up at fantasy, some were of the `ho-hum, yet another author' school and even the buyers only wanted book one, not the whole trilogy.
Perhaps they had spent so much on their mortgages that they actually had less disposable cash than their Penrith cousins ... who knew?
But I found it very interesting that it was far easier to talk to people (and sell) in the despised Penrith than the glamourous Bondi.
Make of that what you will!

The Big July - road trip finishes

2010-07-19T20:32:00.000-07:00

I arrived at my friends' house in Horningsea Park, near Liverpool, late on Saturday night, to beers and roast lamb.
I was feeling pretty tired but really positive as well ... Canberra had gone really well.
It as great to be with friends - Ann desperately wants a part if the series ever gets made into a movie and has even offered to play a prostitute, an extra - anything!
After being spoilt with a big dinner and then scrambled eggs for breakfast, I was ready to tackle the day ahead, at A+R Macarthur, Borders Macarthur and Dymocks Liverpool.
Like many of the other outer suburban stores, I love appearing at these ones. Why other authors ignore them, I don't know.
A+R Macarthur is run by Karen Sharp, who had been at the Borders upstairs.
Sadly it was a slow start, with not many people about and I couldn't do much for her.
But that all changed at Borders Macarthur.
The staff there were fantastic, with quite a few picking up my books themselves. James came in on his day off to get book three signed, after I'd done the first two for him on my previous two visits.
They were funnelling people over to me and things got crazy as I shook hands and signed books.
Old friends from Campbelltown Theatre Group popped in to see me and take photos ... it was a lovely time and I sold more than 40 books there.
I was almost sorry to leave but I had almost sold out and had just one more store before heading home. I really wanted to see my family again but Dymocks Liverpool is one of my favourite stores.
The owners are lovely and this was my third time back there.
Sadly, by now, I was starting to really feel the effects of the travel and the long hours outside the front of bookstores.
The crazy traffic and struggle for parking at Westfield Liverpool didn't help and I was nearly 30 minutes late as a result.
Again, though, I met some wonderful people ... a lady called Kristi, who bought WG from me on an earlier visit and loved it so much, she was back for book three. Quite a few of the people there were coming back for book three, which was marvellous.
Likewise I had a great chat with a would-be author called Dan, who wants to get his children's series published. Always good to meet people like that!
But by about quarter to four, I was pretty much out on my feet and had to call a halt.
The drive home took forever and no time at all ... although one Mitsubishi driver doing 30km/h through a roadwork zone near my house nearly had me chewing the steering wheel in frustration.
It nearly broke me, that road trip. It was one day too long and probably two stores too many - but I met so many wonderful people and sold many, many books.
It was an experience I shall not forget.

The Big July - Canberra

2010-07-19T19:14:00.000-07:00

Two days in Canberra, with seven stores, hundreds of eager readers sure to walk past me and the guidance of HarperCollins rep extraordinaire, Jodi Callas. I was looking forward to it!
I kicked off in Queanbeyan, the NSW town on the border of the ACT, early on Friday.
The bookmarks had just arrived, which proved handy, although things took a while to warm up ...
One hour in, I had sold two books and had the nasty feeling that this was not going well ... then it all turned around.
People started buying the entire series left, right and centre and I actually finished with two people nearly fighting over the last Wounded Guardian, with the unsuccessful bloke ordering a copy in to go with the signed copies of books two and three
This was the first time I've ever been able to sell a trilogy without book one!
It was not without its dramas, with one bloke with a runny nose insisting on shaking my hand and a kid spilling its milkshake right in front of the table I was working from, so a cleaner had to block everything off while he fixed that ...
Still, it was the perfect start and had me warmed up for Dymocks Belconnen at lunchtime.
This was going great - until the renovated Belconnen centre decided to kick in the lunchtime entertainment for the littlies.
The sound of Shrek, Donkey and co doing the macarena and other dances from the centre square beneath us made my efforts to talk to people pretty difficult. But I still chatted to some great people - one bloke bought all three and declared he was going home to put his feet up and start right away!
Again, I sold out of WGs and so it was off to Dymocks Civic.
This is in a quiet spot but there was still plenty of action. One lady decided she wanted a better deal than the one Dymocks was putting on for the entire trilogy and waved a $50 note at me.
`Let's do a deal. $50 for the three, I put the money down and walk away with the books. Right?'
A little flabbergasted, I directed her inside to the manager, after failing to explain that while these were `my' books, they actually belonged to the store until I had sold them.
`No deal!'
Off she went, leaving everyone a little bemused!
I found myself having a long chat with a couple called Navin and Rebecca, who bought all three, and we talked more about what I'm writing now than this trilogy. They explained they were having a rough day at work, had come out for coffee and run into me - and our chat had lifted their mood. Well, they certainly lifted me as well!
Then it was off to my last store for the day - Borders Canberra, where the manager Geoff, is a fan.
A lovely lady called Jess made a special trip across town to buy the entire trilogy, while another bloke came in to get book three - always a huge thrill for me.
It was busy and I chatted to everyone I could until I was about ready to drop!
I grabbed some dinner in the food court outside, then it was back to the hotel that had been arranged for me through my planned travelogue story for the Sunday Telegraph.
The Novotel Canberra can be summed up in one word - sumptuous. I had a hot bath and fell into bed!
Next morning, Saturday, was my last in Canberra and I hit the buffet breakfast, loading up for a big day.
First stop was A+R Woden, where I began fast and then slowed a little, defeated by the distance between myself and passers-by a little - although I did sell WG to the wife of the manager!
Next was Dymocks Tuggeranong, where I was haunted by a lack of WGs. Apparently they had more somewhere in store but could anyone find them ... after selling out quickly, then attempting to sell trilogies minus the first book (not recommended) to a couple of blokes, I had one woman stop me as I was leaving.
Now, we'd talked earlier and she'd said she was going to `think about it and maybe come back'. To me, that's code for `don't call us, we'll call you' and is a very polite farewell. But, she came back, wanting to get all three books and I didn't have them to sell to her!
The fact I was going downstairs to the A+R store didn't even save things.
She was disappointed and I was gutted.
It took me a while to get going at the Tuggeranong A+R as a result - but then I got going and sold them out of WGs, racking up nearly 35 sales all up and selling the final trilogy (minus books one!) to a lovely young writer called Rebecca, who arranged to get it ordered in from A+R Woden.
It was a great way to finish in Canberra but all the Ricola elderflower lozenges and green teas had not saved my throat - I was feeling a bit scratchy and still had a full day tomorrow - Campbelltown and Liverpool!

The Big July - road trip I

2010-07-19T18:48:00.000-07:00

My last Sydney date before the big south coast-Canberra-Campbelltown road trip began was at A+R Warringah.
Some days you get the feeling that people are just not in the buying mood - happily, they were at Warringah! I sold out of Wounded Guardians in little more than an hour and so was able to get home early and prepare for my big road trip.
One of the more interesting people I spoke to was the father of Mark Timmony, the manager of Galaxy Books in the city, which will finish my 50 stores extravaganza - not that he needed to buy the books but it was great to talk to him!
Fourteen stores, four days and easily 700km in driving ... this was going to make or break The Big July. Possibly both!
My first day was driving south to Batemans Bay stopping at Shellharbour and Nowra along the way. As contemplated fitting in four store appearances around a 350km trip over 11 hours, I began to wonder if I had bitten off more than I could chew...
The trip to Shellharbour A+R was easy enough, despite the best efforts of roadworks to slow me down. At Shellharbour they had decided to restrict three lanes into one, then lean on a few shovels and watch their handiwork snail by. Then I discovered that there are actually two Stockland malls in Shellharbour, one for retail and one for bulk goods and of course I picked the wrong one first up...
The A+R was in a good spot but was probably one of the more challenging appearances I've had, thanks to the chicken shop across the aisle, where a spruiker was in full flight, extolling the virtues of their drumsticks.
Why all spruikers must have cockney accents and a desire to double entendre with specials on lovely legs and chicken breasts I don't know but there we are ...
Shellharbour really stuck in my mind. Firstly I sold Wounded Guardian to the sister of Ian Irvine, the famous Australian fantasy writer. Kerry was there with her mother and they kindly decided to support me - even better, Kerry came back 20 minutes later saying she'd read the first dozen pages and was hooked and wanted the whole trilogy!
But beyond that was a lovely Aboriginal lady, who was friends with the store owners, Doug and Beryl. She didn't buy the books but we chatted for a while, where she told me that I was writing something else now ... and then told me about it. She said she had some psychic powers, that she does not always reveal, but that sh felt compelled to talk to me. What she said will remain private but it left the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. It was accurate ... so accurate that she touched on things that I have only told a handful of people. I have to admit, it left me a little shaken - as well as uplifted.
I needed a little time to get my head back in shape and so stayed at Shellharbour a little longer than I planned, so set out for Nowra running a bit late.
It was a good trip down and I arrived at the Dymocks Nowra only 10 minutes late. I said before about how some days you just feel that people are ready to talk to you, and eager to buy. This was one of those days andI sold 16 books in less than an hour. There were few people walking by but they were almost all enthusiastic readers!
Just as was finishing, and preparing to go around the corner to the A+R, the heavens opened.
By the time I got to the A+R, the people who were ready to talk were all gone, replaced by people running for cover!
Nevertheless, things still went quite well, where I sold eight books, including one to a girl who had come in specially for book three (always a huge pleasure to sign one of those) and a family of teenagers, who bought book one after the oldest girl, who the father said would ``never'' read a book as thick as mine, begged and begged.
If Wounded Guardian gets her started on reading, and I hope it does, then that will be a huge thing for me.
So it was off to Batemans Bay, where I was staying with dear friends, dodging 4WDs along the way, who seemed utterly convinced that they always had the right to pull out at any moment, and other traffic had to avoid them.
Thursday night in Batemans Bay was chilly, and the people few and far between, although I did have an interesting discussion with one bloke down on holidays.
`What's your longest battle - how many pages?' he inquired.
So we examined my retelling of the battle of Pilleth in Risen Queen, which goes for four chapters and more than 120 pages.
`That's good enough,' he declared, satisfied.
He was from Sydney's north shore, and I remembered I had to sign a book for a chap at Chatswood, in a similar vein (so to speak) who wanted me to write ``enjoy the blood spray''. Not that I'm into glorifying war (the series goes the other way) but I'm happy to write whatever makes people happy...!
So I crashed at my friends' house in BB that night, thankful to have made it through a tough day - and with two days in Canberra to follow.

The Big July - A Big Day

2010-07-05T02:19:00.000-07:00

Saturday July 3 saw me zooming around the Central Coast, visiting Mandi at Book Bazaar in Umina and Kate at All Good Books Gosford, before watching my son play soccer (they lost 1-0) and then tackling A+R at Erina Fair.
Book Bazaar and All Good Books are not the biggest stores, nor are they in the busiest shopping centres but I really enjoy going there. The independents, more than anyone, work harder to bring people in and I sold 18 and 14 books respectively at the two stores, meeting some wonderful people along the way.
One lovely lady came in to buy Radiant Child for her grandson - this was the third time she had been into All Good Books at Gosford to get a book signed by me - the ONLY person to have come out three times!
I really like to support stores that have supported me and those two are just great.
A+R Erina is another store that has been a great supporter - in many ways they were the ones who started me on this big adventure, putting my details on the A+R intranet and basically booking me at a bunch of other stores. This was the fourth time I went there and it was a pleasure to sell for them again.
The day ended with a flurry as well, with two people buying the trilogy, both at the same time!
I also met a lovely bloke called Daniel, who had bought and read the first two - and was both surprised and delighted to find book three was out and he could get it!
Sunday saw me at Borders Rouse Hill, which is another great store, run by Aimee Green, who used to be the manager at Hornsby and I was pleased to be able to put in a huge day for her and her top team, selling 49 books to equal the record set by Borders Tuggerah!
They tell me authors are reluctant to go out to Rouse Hill but I don't know why - I met endless charming people, including a bunch who had come out specially to buy book three, including Facebook friend Alex Heydon - it's the second time I signed books for him and lovely to meet readers like Alex!
I posed for three photos and signed and gave away a stack of posters as well ... all in all it was an unreal day.
Monday saw me at Borders Chatswood and meeting the great staff there. Lucas, Jez, Nathan and the others were great - they even gave me a card and a box of chocolates to thank me afterwards. They also seemed quite impressed by my sales ability.
Proof of that came when I chatted to a young bloke about the book - only for him to admit he worked in the multimedia section and Jeremy had sent him down to talk to me and get some tips on sales manner!
It was another solid day, selling mostly Wounded Guardians but that's just fine with me - means they'll be back for the other two later!
So, just FIVE days into July and NINE days into my 30 days, I've already hand-sold 291 books ... well on the way to my target!

The Big July - Brisbane Part II

2010-07-05T02:09:00.000-07:00

I checked out of the Royal Albert Hotel at 10am and had an hour to spare before heading up to Pulp Fiction, the specialist fantasy store in Brisbane. So I wandered around the streets, ducked into an internet cafe to write the first part of the Brisbane blog, and found myself noticing far more of the buskers and spruikers on the streets.
I listened to a busker and threw a couple of dollars into his guitar case, shook hands with a Red Cross spruiker, who had a nice line in greeting patter ... I found myself thinking it was only right that I give as many as possible the time of day when I walked past an old man shouting something about ``The Indonesians are coming!''
I drew the line there.
It was great to go to both the Brisbane Dymocks and Borders stores and it was fascinating to see the people who like to read fantasy.
The first guy to buy a book in Borders was this biker called Froggie (well, that was what I signed the book to) who had a full beard, a delightful Irish accent and the ability to use the word ``Fooken'' as both a noun, adjective and a compliment.
Two blokes who both bought the full trilogy were big New Zealanders, who looked like they'd be happier ripping apart a scrum than they would settling down with a book - just goes to show that you can never judge a book by its cover ... (groan!)
I have to admit I was walking on air the whole time, after the manager at Dymocks, Pam, told me that Radiant Child had gone straight onto the Dymocks Top 10 Bestseller List for fantasy! Obviously I was delighted - although couldn't help thinking perhaps I should have scheduled a few more Dymocks apperances, rather than all those A+R and Borders ...!
One more wrestle with the GPS, which I turned off as I approached the airport, with it imploring me to chuck a u-turn immediately (perhaps it didn't want me to leave) and I was heading back for Sydney and a busy weekend of appearances.

The Big July - Brisbane Part I

2010-07-01T17:38:00.001-07:00

Well, here I am in Brisbane, it's cold and a little rainy - perfect book-reading weather I say!
My first day here was both interesting and frustrating - interesting because of the people I met and frustrating because all the roadworks going around the place freaked out the GPS I was using in the hire car!
I still have to return to the airport, and must admit I am dreading to hear those metallic words ``re-cal-culatating''. Not only it is infuriating to know that the GPS is baffled, it is also an affront to the English language to hear it mangled like that. And coming from me, who needs a great editor and proof readers to avoid committing the same crime, that's a big statement!
Yesterday, while travelling from Manly to Chermside (in Brisbane's northern suburbs), it took me on a route back to the airport - and started screaming at me ``U-turn now!'' and ``in 100 metres, make sharp right down an alley!''
I looked at the concrete barriers to either side, and the trucks whirling past me at 100km/h and screamed back: ``You stupid bitch, we're both gonna die!''
Suffice to say we managed to find our way there in the end.
My first stop was at Borders Garden City, which was a wonderful time. The place was packed though, and it took me nearly 20 minutes just to find a park.
My friend from Campbelltown, Maureen Thompson, a fellow thespian from Campbelltown Theatre group, winters in Brisbane and she came along and bought books two and three, being almost all the way through the first. It was wonderful to see such a friendly face - unfortunately the vagaries of the GPS had me behind all day, so we couldn't sit down for a coffee and a proper chat.
There were many lovely people I met, including a couple of budding writers and a lovely girl called Yassmin who had already read the first two and then came back for book three and insisted on getting a photo with me. Why anyone would want to look at my rough head (I have a great face for writing) is beyond me but I am always happy to oblige. Luckily Maureen was there at the same time, so could exchange photographic duties!
Then it was on to TLC books at Manly, a small store in an outlying suburb but the owner, Tanya Caunce, is a Facebook friend and it was her contacting me that led me to come to Brisbane. I love to support the stores that support me, so it was a pleasure to come out there. For such a small place, we did remarkably well, selling 14 books there in about 90 minutes!
Lastly I was out to Chermside, which is a simply massive place. After my parking troubles at Garden City, I grabbed the first spot and saw and it took me five minutes to walk to the store. I had some lovely chats with people, including Facebook friend Besa Ajazi, who took out time from her work in the cinema upstairs to come down to see me, which was fantastic.
I sold out of my first book, although still had plenty of books two and three there, so had to call a halt.
By now, not trusting my GPS entirely, I made my way into the city, to my hotel, the Royal Albert Boutique Hotel. Amazingly, I managed to get there without more than a couple of snippy comments from the GPS, who was now saying things like: ``please drive to the marked route''.
I didn't dignify that with a reply.
The staff were very kind to a frazzled writer who was both tired and famished, and I was able to soak in a hot bath and think about the next day ahead.
So, I'm off to Pulp Fiction in a few minutes, then Dymocks and Borders in the city. Just walking around the city, I find myself talking more to spruikers and buskers than I would have done a year ago, before I began this book selling. I appreciate them much more.
However, that nearly got me into trouble last night, when a spruiker approached me as I walked to the hotel. I was about to at least offer them a smile and a polite no when I realised what they were spruiking - a gentleman's club! My polite no came as I walked very swiftly away!

The Big July begins

2010-06-27T23:34:00.000-07:00

The Big July is off to a flying start, with 69 books already sold at the first two stores!
Well, I kicked off the humoungous tour of 50 stores, across three states and the ACT, over 30 days, at Maitland.This is the third time I've been to the A+R at Maitland and one thing I have learned is they love a chat up there!
I would have to say Maitland is probably the friendliest of all the areas I have been to - even the people who brush me off do so very politely, with a smile!
I was met up there by Deb Tate, and her two kids. Deb is a Facebook Friend and it was lovely to start it off with someone who was excited about the books and had come along to deliberately buy The Radiant Child, as opposed to someone who'd never heard of me before!
Sadly I had to cut things short at Maitland, in order to get back down to Borders Tuggerah. I had planned to get there at 2pm and ended up being about 10 minutes late, because people at Maitland kept wanting to talk.
One charming older man told me he never read fantasy, then spent a good 10 minutes going through the A+R shelves and bringing over books he thought I'd like to read! (He recommends The Kite Runner, by the way).
I met a couple of budding young writers, who were just finishing their first works - and hope that seeing if I can do it, they can as well.
Things had gone pretty well at Maitland - but they went off at Tuggerah!
For the first half hour or so, I was just signing and chatting to people who had come in to buy either just book three, or books two and three, as well as the grandparents of my son's best friend, who had come in specially to buy all three. I didn't have to try out any lines on people for ages!
Best of all was hearing from people who had read The Wounded Guardian and The Risen Queen and couldn't wait to read Radiant Child. I can never get tired of hearing that people have really enjoyed the books. After all, that was why they were written.
But when I got down to chatting to people, I found plenty who loved fantasy - must have been one of those Sundays!
An older couple ended up buying all three ... the man said he used to read fantasy but hadn't for years but was retiring soon and needed something to get him out of his wife's hair! I didn't think they would buy one, or perhaps just The Wounded Guardian but they bought the whole trilogy. Just as I was finishing, they walked out of the store, having obviously spent most of the time down in the Gloria Jeans section, where he told me he was already halfway through The Wounded Guardian as he couldn't put it down!
Another older chap listened patiently as I talked about the books, then strolled into Borders, saying he would think about it, which is usually code for ``I'd rather have dental surgery''. But a few minutes later, he's back, having picked one off the shelf inside and wanting me to sign it for him!
At one point, I had three people around me going through the books and I was down to just two of The Wounded Guardians, so had to desperately signal for Kellie, one of the managers at Borders, to bring out extra stock!
The guys at Borders were fantastic, led by Mark and Kellie. Mark spent the last hour out the front with me, trying to offer me food and drinks and, at the end, they presented me with a box of chocolates to say thankyou!
So, off to a great start ... next stop Brisbane!

The full list

2010-06-17T23:45:00.001-07:00

Here it is, the full list of bookstores I shall be visiting over 30 days - June 27 to July 29.
The times for my first day in Brisbane (July 1) and my two days in Canberra (July 9 and 10) may change slightly - I'll post any changes there and you can always check with the store closer to the date.
I'd love to see not just new readers but anyone who has read and enjoyed the books - come up and introduce yourself before I ask you if you like reading!
Sunday June 27
11am A+R Maitland
2pm Borders Tuggerah

Thursday July 1 (Brisbane)
11.30am Borders Mt Gravatt
2.30pm TLC Manly
5pm Borders Chermside (until 7pm)

Friday July 2 (Brisbane)
10am Pulp Fiction
11.30am Dymocks Brisbane
2.30pm Borders Brisbane

Saturday July 3
10am Book Bazaar Umina
11.30am All Good Books Gosford
2.30pm A+R Erina

Sunday July 4
11.30am Borders Rouse Hill

Monday July 5
11.30 Borders Chatswood

Tuesday July 6
11.30 Borders Parramatta

Wednesday July 7
11.30 A+R Warringah

Thursday July 8
11am Shellharbour
1.30pm Nowra Dymocks
2.30pm Nowra A+R
4.30pm A+R Batemans Bay

Friday July 9
10am A+R Queanbeyan
12pm Dymocks Belconnen
2.30pm Dymocks Central
5pm Borders Canberra

Saturday July 10

10am A+R Tuggeranong
11.30am Dymocks Tuggeranong
2.30pm A+R Woden

Sunday July 11
10.30 A+R Macarthur
11.45am Borders Macarthur
2pm Dymocks Liverpool

Tuesday July 13

10.15am The Turning Page Springwood
12pm Dymocks Penrith

Wednesday July 14
11.30 Borders Bondi

Thursday July 15 (Adelaide)
11.30 A+R Westlakes
2pm A+R Edwardstown
7pm A+R Marion

Friday July 16 (Adelaide)
9.30am A+R Elizabeth
12pm A+R Modbury
2.30pm Borders Adelaide

Saturday July 17
11.30 Leading Edge Books Lake Haven
2pm Dymocks Erina

Sunday July 18
11am A+R Kotara

Thursday July 22
11.30 A+R Roselands
4.30pm A+R Miranda

Friday July 23
11am A+R Newcastle Mall
2pm Borders Kotara

Saturday July 24
12.30pm Infinitas Parramatta
2pm Dymocks Parramatta

Sunday July 25
11am Borders Hornsby
2pm Borders Macquarie

Thursday July 29
12.30pm Galaxy Books, Sydney CBD

And that’s the 50!

The Big July Part II

2010-05-26T17:56:00.000-07:00

I almost have my full list of stores now and will soon post dates and times so you can, if you wish, come along and say hello and perhaps get a book or three signed!
Key dates are: Thursday July 1 and Friday July 2 in Brisbane, Thursday July 8 doing the south coast from Shellharbour to Batemans Bay, Friday July 9 and Saturday July 10 in Queanbeyan/Canberra, Sunday July 11 Macarthur and Liverpool, Thursday July 15 and Friday July 16 in Adelaide and finishing up with a Thursday lunchtime (July 29) at Galaxy Books in the city.
Along the way, I shall visit every Borders store in NSW and the ACT, Newcastle, the Central Coast and all points of the compass in Sydney.
Along the way I shall try and blog as often as possible, talking about the places I have visited and the people I have met.
PS: The link to my video on YouTube I posted earlier is not working ... you can either go direct to YouTube and search for me, go to my Facebook site and see it there, or go to the Harper Voyager site and see it there!

The Big July

2010-05-09T18:33:00.001-07:00

It seems amazing but almost a year has passed since The Wounded Guardian first appeared on shelves.
It has truly been an amazing ride.
Now The Dragon Sword Histories is about to end, with The Radiant Child, book three, to be released on July 1.
To mark this, I am planning something special - The Big July.
One of the things I have learned over the past year is how effective getting out into the bookstores to meet both the sellers and the people on the streets is.
Not only do you get the chance to meet some amazing people and talk about your books, but you also get to speak to the booksellers directly, let them know about you and you books
I have written before about how much fun this is, and how much I feel it has helped both promote my books and helped me understand more about what people are looking for.
So I am going to bring everything I have learned over the past year to The Big July.
In these 30 days, I plan to visit 50 bookstores and hand-sell 1000 books. That's not just The Radiant Child, but copies of The Wounded Guardian and The Risen Queen as well.
I am hoping the various booksellers will be keen to help me achieve this huge goal and fingers crossed we might be able to get some deals for purchases of two or more books.
I will be posting updates through the month as I travel not just around Newcastle, the Central Coast and Sydney, but visit Brisbane, Adelaide and Canberra as well, while also going further afield in NSW.
Please follow my progress - and I would love to see you at one of many stores!
Check out the following link for a YouTube video with some more details, which I recorded for HarperCollins: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21p5xGnBoB4
You can also see it on my Facebook page.
I shall be posting full lists and times of store visits as they are arranged.
I hope you can help me achieve my goal, and truly make The Big July happen for me and my books.

What I will write next ... you decide?

2010-03-30T18:55:00.000-07:00

At my frequent bookstore appearances, one of the most frequent questions I get (right behind the hypochondria-inducing ``have you written them all yet? You;re not going to die before you finish the series are you?'') is: What are you writing next?
Now while I have begun writing on the train again (let's face it, my only other alternative is listening to someone gibbering away on their mobile) I am still undecided as to which way to go.
Basically I have four stories I would dearly love to tell, two trilogies and two stand-alone novels.
I should say that it may well not be my final decision as to which way I go ... obviously a massive amount depends on sales for my existing trilogy and how that affects whether or not HarperCollins wants to keep me on, as well as what they might be interested in.
Naturally I would like the opportunity to write them all!
But I am curious to know what people think, what they would like to see. I'd love to hear opinions as to what you might like to read - and who knows, it could be the thing that tips me towards one over another!
So, in no particular order these are:
Trilogy 1: Set 10 years after the events of Radiant Child, many new challenges await the surviving characters from The Dragon Sword Histories. I can't say too much more than this, for fear of giving away parts of The Radiant Child, but they will all be tested to the limits - and beyond...
Trilogy 2: One of the great fantasy cliches is elves and magic. But what if one elf failed his test of magic? Well, he would be exiled to the brutal human world, driven out of all he has known. But, with his knowledge, his skills and his archery, he might just be a wild card in a people's fight for freedom from a ruthless King. with no singing, no dancing and definitely no elven poetry (he breaks up an inn when the drinkers mock him) he teams up with a young bard with dreams of peace and a young dancer with dreams of magic to change not just the human world but the hidden elven one as well.
Stand-alone 1: Loosely (very loosely) based on the Japanese tale of The 47 Ronin (Google it if you are interested). But this is in a fantasy setting and focuses less on Japanese tradition and more on a story of a sword captain whose Lord might be the saviour of an empire - if he survives. He must find out how far you are prepared to go for honour, for revenge - and whether you are prepared to lose yourself, your family, everything, to save your country. With Keanu Reeves reportedly signed up for a film adaptation of the Japanese legend, slated for a 2012 release, this might be the only window I have to write this tale...
Stand-alone 2: The term ``hero'' gets applied to sportsmen too easily. And in a country where the national sport is a cross between rugby and gladiatorial combat, the champion team is given everything they want. But when they travel overseas on an exhibition tour, they find they are being used by an evil King to distract his people. Forced out of their privileged existence, caught up in a rebellion, this team must decide if they want to be real heroes, even if it costs them their lives...
So please, tell me what interests you - even rank them in order if you have the time/desire!

Fear

2010-03-02T15:00:00.001-08:00

I was at yet another bookstore appearance (Borders Macquarie) and was lucky enough to get a visit from my copy editor, Abigail Nathan. In between me talking and selling, we had a disjointed conversation where she mentioned the fear of speaking to people versus the fear of putting yourself out there through your writing.
At the time I didn't really think about it - being somewhat more occupied with chatting to people - but it struck a real note with me.
Fear is an ever-present part of your life when writing.
When I was younger, I just wrote because I wanted to, because I loved to write. I sent books off to agents because I was blithely confident and knew no better. But, as each successive knockback came, the fear began.
What would people think of this book? What would people think of me?
Sending off a manuscript is at once a simple exercise - and one of the most daunting things you can undertake.
Asking to be judged - it's a big call. As I've written before, it's not unlike those reality shows such as Australian Idol, where you put yourself out there (albeit to a smaller audience), inviting criticism and hoping for acceptance.
Going to a bookstore and talking to people is like this, only on a smaller scale.
Yes, you are inviting people to reject you - but you go in with the mindset that this is going to happen. You know many of the people you talk to won't like reading in general and fantasy in particular.
Besides, after you have put your manuscript out there and it has been accepted, a little rejection in a bookstore is less of a worry.
But the fear does not go away.
There have been times when you think: This is all too much. When it seems as though it would be easier to stop writing, stop appearing, just walk away to a place where there is no fear.
But what keeps you going is the reaction from readers, and from people you speak to in stores.
Hearing that someone loved reading your book, chatting to someone who is excited and eager to buy your book - it is the perfect counterpoint to the fear.
I guess I've found that while the fear can be strong, it brings with it a positive reaction that's just as strong.
Yes, I get afraid. But it brings me alive at the same time.

Bookstore appearances for February/March

2010-02-11T19:22:00.001-08:00

After a short break, I’m back into the bookstores over the next couple of months.
My program is as follows:
February 21: Borders Hornsby 12pm-2pm
February 28: Borders Macquarie 12pm-2pm
March 14: Borders Macarthur 11.20am-1.30pm and Dymocks Liverpool 2.30pm-4.30pm
March 21: A+R Warringah 12pm-2pm
March 28: Borders Rouse Hill 12pm-2pm
Easter is the first weekend in April, then I'll probably have a couple of others lined up then (most likely Parramatta and Chatswood).
Once again there will be free posters to hand out and I will happily chat with anyone who comes along (or even past!)
Plus, if you have already bought one or both of the books but have them unsigned, bring them along and I'll sign them for you.
Hope to see you there!

Australian Book Idol or So You Think You Can Write

2010-02-09T15:52:00.001-08:00

I was watching an episode of So You Think You Can Dance last week, where the last few hopefuls were told whether they had made it into the Top 20 or would be doomed to disappointment for another year (at least).
At first I was whimsically imagining what Australian Book Idol, or perhaps So You Think You Can Write, would be like.
We'd have a team of judges, eager to put the book into the hopeless hopefuls.
``If I see another vampire story, I'm going to scream!'' the nasty judge would bellow, before throwing piles of paper onto the floor.
``Honey, you need to learn how to spell, you hear what I'm saying?'' the nice judge would offer.
``I can't believe someone tried the `It was a dark and stormy night' opener!' the credible judge would gasp.
But, jokes aside, watching shows like SYTYCD or Idol, at the moment when the final cut is made, can offer the budding writer some really good advice.
A few years ago, while I was nervously waiting to discover if The Wounded Guardian would be picked up by HarperCollins, I watched a similar show, and the desperate desire of young dancers/singers to make their dream come true really resonated with me. It still does.
You work hard, you train, you pour blood, sweat and tears into your craft, all in the hope of being able to share it, because it is something that burns deep inside you.
No wonder they burst into tears, even when they get the good news.
Apart from the human drama, I do like some of the advice the judges offer.
One line in particular struck a chord with me: ``You have to believe you deserve to be here, or you won't be''.
For a writer, nothing could be purer. Everyone suffers rejection, and it is only when you truly believe in your work that you can pick yourself up and try, try again.
Sure, your work can always be improved - there are few books that cannot be made better with advice from expert copy editors and proof readers. But there must be something inside that you believe so passionately in that you are prepared to put yourself out there, prepared to suffer humiliation for it.
Perhaps there is no national television audience but sending your work away to be `judged' by agents and publishers takes courage. But maybe seeing the young hopefuls on Idol or SYTYCD might help writers in their journey.
I doubt there will ever be a Book Idol. But every day, in agencies and publishing houses, the equivalent of So You Think You Can Write is going on.
It's made me look anew at these TV talent shows.
And marvel anew at the good fortune that allowed me to be one of the lucky ones.

Music and writing

2010-02-03T14:39:00.000-08:00

As I have written before, all three of my books have been written on the train, commuting to and from Sydney.
As you can imagine, peace and quiet and CityRail trains rarely appear in the same sentence together - unless the phrase ``can't find any'' pops in somewhere.
Thanks to the marvels of the iPod, I can shut out most of these distractions. But music serves as more than a way to block out the gibbering of some idiot at the end of the carriage.
I find music helps my writing and, in fact, I get inspiration from lyrics, as well as help myself get into the mood to write certain scenes thanks to songs.
At Conflux last year, I was on a panel that tried to answer the question ``Where do you get your ideas?''
Obviously not an easy one to answer but one of the things I said was lyrics of songs. I find that certain lyrics jump out of songs at me - and can take my mind spinning off in different directions, thinking about characters and even plot lines.
Julianne, one of the people who came along to the Risen Queen book launch at Infinitas (who posted her lovely review of the book on the Infinitas website) asked me there about the music I listened to - and probably got more than she bargained for when I started talking about it!
I should add that, while I remembered the lyrics, I certainly didn't sing. To use a phrase from the classic comedy series `Allo `Allo, I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket.
But I do remember lyrics - and I think that while listening to music while writing is not for everyone, they have helped take me in different directions, as well as truly get me in the mood to write different scenes.
Some examples:
Hoobastank's The Reason has a great line for Martil: `I've found a reason for me/to change who I used to be/a reason to start over new/and the reason is you'.
Live is not to everyone's taste but they have some interesting lyrics that jump out at me. Take their song Mystery: `Mine eyes have seen the glory of a love that does transcend/Mine eyes have seen the worst inside of man/And fear is like a fallen bridge, A broken promise/And the proof is in the bloodshot eyes of the one who failed to see'
Undoubtedly they are talking about God but I also take a different interpretation from that ... particularly the line `mine eyes have seen the worst inside of man'.
Or how about this from The Rasmus' song In The Shadows: `I've been watching I've been waiting/In the shadows all my time/I've been searching I've been living/For tomorrows all my life'.
These sorts of lyrics get me thinking about dark, lost characters, searching for a way back. But then I even get something from the likes of Chumbawumba's drinking song - `I get knocked down/I get up again/You ain't never gonna keep me down'. I take from that someone who refuses to give up, no matter what life throws at them ...
Music is as intensely personal as writing - I just find the two of them can be complementary and perhaps take the mind off in different directions!

The Risen Queen book launch speech

2010-02-02T19:25:00.000-08:00

After having a staggered release just before Christmas, to go with its official release of January 1, amazing as it sounds, I have only just got my head around the release of Risen Queen.
I had an unofficial official launch at Infinitas Bookstore at Parramatta on January 28 and it was only there, while giving a short speech, that I truly thought about what the second book means to me.
For those unable to be there - and it was only ever going to be a casual affair - here's a rough account of what I said.
With your first book, it is the realisation of a dream and a highlight of your life.
The second book is a little different, especially coming just six months after the first, as mine did!
But The Risen Queen is a very special book to me.
Firstly, for the mood I was in while writing it. I had just been told by HarperCollins that they were going to publish The Dragon Sword Histories and I was propelled by a wave of excitement and adrenalin.
Words just flew out of me. I normally try to write about 10,000 words a week while on a first draft ... I find a weekly target allows me to catch up if I have slow days. With Risen Queen there were no slow days! I was punching out 12,000+ words a week, I couldn't wait to get on the train to write them.
Secondly, Risen Queen deals with one of the inspirations for this series - the battle of Pilleth. I have written about this before, the amazing defeat of an English army by the last true Prince of Wales, Owain Glyndwyr. Here the Welsh archers the English had hired or threatened to make them fight changed sides in the middle of the battle.
This had always fascinated me - and the fact history has not come up with a definitive reason for their defection AT THAT POINT - had me coming up with my own solutions.
While my battle of Pilleth does not quite follow the historical model, being able to write that was still massive for me.
This is also the book that sees the greatest development of Queen Merren.
Risen Queen - and myself - have been picking up comparisons to the late, great David Gemmell, from reviewers and bookstores alike. While I love Gemmell's work, his one failing was his inability to write strong female characters. I am honoured to be mentioned in the same sentence as him - but I really want to be known for female as well as male characters.
I truly hope readers can enjoy Risen Queen even half as much as I enjoyed writing it!

The Risen Queen is out and I'm about!

2009-12-15T14:23:00.000-08:00

After spending the last few months honing my ability to talk about The Wounded Guardian, I'm about to put it all to the test when I go out to talk about The Risen Queen this weekend.
After answering just about every question imaginable about The Wounded Guardian, my inspirations, my motivation and how I came to write, I have suddenly realised I am back to square one with those who want to know about book two ... what do people want to know? How do I sum it up for those who may not have read book one yet?
Still, after the weekend I have planned for myself, I think I'll be learning quickly!
For those disappointed their local store is not on the list - don't panic. I'll be back to Parramatta, Liverpool and Campbelltown next year, while the Macquarie Centre, Penrith, Rouse Hill and Warringah are also on the list of places I'll be hitting around February.
Plus, for anyone in the area, I'll be at Angus and Robertson Batemans Bay on Saturday January 17 from 10am-12pm. Yes, even on my holiday I'll be slotting in a store appearance!
So - the weekend's action is as follows:
Sunday December 20: A+R Kotara from 10.30am-12.30pm, Borders Tuggerah from 2pm-4pm
Monday December 21: A+R Maitland from 9.30am-11.30am, A+R Newcastle Mall from 12pm-2pm
Tuesday December 22: (this is the big day, so all times could be a little fluid!) Leading Edge Books Lakehaven from 10am-11.30am, A+R Erina from 12pm-1.30pm, All Good Books Gosford from 2pm-3pm and Book Bazaar from 3.30pm-4.30pm
Wednesday December 23: Borders Hornsby 5pm-6.30pm
After that, I think I'll collapse...
Hope to see as many people as possible along the way though!

Don't be afraid of your readers

2009-12-08T17:53:00.000-08:00

I had just finished another enjoyable store appearance at Dymocks Parramatta on December 6, and was talking to the co-owner, when he said something fascinating, to the effect of that I seemed to have the hang of talking to people about books, whereas too many authors are afraid of readers.
Now this store has regular author appearances, so he was obviously speaking from experience, but nevertheless I found it intriguing.
I mean, surely authors love readers?
I have been averaging three store appearances a month for a while now, where I'm just out the front of a book store, chatting to people walking past, starting a conversation and then selling a few books. With The Risen Queen out in about a week's time, I have increased that and will be going crazy in the last few days before Christmas!
Over two hours I'm averaging about 20 sales, although speaking to more than 50 people in that time. It's great to talk to these people, to hear what they like to read - and an honour when they decide to buy The Wounded Guardian.
Even if people don't like fantasy, or don't like the idea of The Wounded Guardian, they have wished me all the best, congratulated me on getting published and generally been lovely to speak to.
But, on reflection, it is confronting.
I have got past the hesitation, the trepidation at hailing random passersby and talking to them about my book.
But I can see how some people would be reluctant to put themselves out there like that.
You are going to get knockbacks. You are going to get sneers and snorts of derision - particularly if you ask tattooed teenage boys if they like reading.
Still, if there is one thing I have learned from these appearances, from Newcastle to the Central Coast to Sydney, people LOVE reading and, even more, love talking to authors, even fantasy authors they have never heard of before.
Get past the initial barrier and you will be rewarded in spades.
Putting your book out there, putting yourself out there, is massively confronting.
But it is also massively energising.
There's no reason to be afraid of readers ... but every reason to embrace them.
To all those I have spoken to at various book stores, thank you.

The Manly Daily review

2009-11-25T21:35:00.000-08:00

For those of you who don't live in the Manly area (that's most likely just about everyone), here's a link to a great review of The Wounded Guardian the Manly Daily ran:

http://digitaledition.manlydaily.com.au/default.aspx?iid=29006&startpage=page0000022

(Be warned, it can take a minute to open up ... just click on the story to zoom in so it's readable.

The trouble with Twilight

2009-11-17T15:00:00.000-08:00

I've been appearing at book stores across Newcastle, the Central Coast and Sydney to sell and promote The Wounded Guardian over the last few months - and one topic that keeps coming up, as I chat about books in general and fantasy in particular, is Twilight.
Time and again mothers and grandmothers have asked me if The Wounded Guardian has strong female characters in it, because they are concerned about the portrayal of women in Twilight. The final straw, so to speak, came when I spoke to a high school principal, who said she loved the way Twilight has her girls reading but was worried about some of the messages within. She purchased a copy of my book to see if there were other options to get girls reading.
Although I have not read Twilight, it was obvious to me that there was a story here. That much community concern, across so many different areas, was too big to ignore.
Wearing my other hat, that of The Sunday Telegraph, I spoke to a variety of people and came up with an article that was published on Sunday November 15.
With thanks to The Sunday Telegraph, here is that article, with some added quotes that were edited out of the finished article for space reasons:

It is both a love story celebrated by millions and a textbook abusive relationship, a light-hearted fantasy aimed at teens and tweens that has disturbing messages about sex. Welcome to Twilight.
The best-selling book series and now blockbuster movies have captured imaginations across the world and inspired devotion in its fans.
Twilight also has many lining up to attack it, with accusations of everything from bad writing to betraying the vampire genre to Mormon brainwashing.
But leaving aside the mud-slinging, the literary world and schools are warning parents not to simply go along with the marketing hype and peer pressure, but to first understand exactly what it is their children are reading.
While they sing Twilight's praises for encouraging people to read and inspiring debate about reading, the concern is the way the book portrays women - its key readership - and their relationship with men.
While older readers should be able to distinguish fantasy from reality, and put the story in context, along the lines of Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty, the concern is what effect it will have on younger readers, particularly those who are using Twilight as their entry point to reading. Twilight centres on Bella, a human girl, and her relationship with Edward, a vampire and Jacob, a werewolf. This love triangle is resolved when Bella has a child with Edward that begins to rip its way out of her, breaking her ribs and pelvis, forcing Edward to tear open her stomach with his vampire teeth to deliver it in an emergency caesarean - and so Jacob falls in love with this child.
While this is a disturbing end to the tale in many ways, critics say the problems begin much, much earlier.
Literary agent Sophie Hamley, of Cameron's Management, likes vampire stories but says fans should get into Buffy, not Twilight.
``Basically the books, especially the fourth, detail a textbook abusive relationship,'' she said.``The message seems to be that you can't live without a man, particularly an idealised one.
``In many respects Edward is constructed as a classic romantic hero - brooding and handsome, and even Mr Darcy was withholding. But the constant threat of violence, while possibly exhilarating for readers, is unnerving. If I were convinced that Twi-hards were reading other books to balance it out, fine, but for a lot of people this will be their first plunge into reading a series so there will be no context. ''
Abigail Nathan runs Bothersome Words, a book editing agency used by publishers such as HarperCollins. She enjoyed the books but does have concerns.
``Adults are frequently disturbed by the nature of Bella and Edward's relationship, describing Edward as a stalker and Bella as a victim,' she said. ``Although Bella and Edward do not sleep together until they are married, it's hardly a delicate affair, with Bella waking up covered in bruises.``It's an interesting selection of messages, with Bella constantly pushing Edward to sleep with her, and ultimately ending up bruised and battered.'
``One message that is clear is once Bella has Edward she forgets about her other friends and is all too willing to leave her family to have her "forever" with Edward. The message to women that they don't need anyone else if they have their man, or their true love - that they can be happy that way, is a little disturbing.''
Fantasy author Glenda Larke is also concerned by the way Bella never finds strength within herself and must instead be always saved by Edward.``It harks back to a different age. Women my age had to fight to escape that kind of thinking. To present a heroine who never stands on her own two feet is to present a ghastly role model for today's youth.
''But no matter the criticism, it is clear the books have struck a massive chord with young readers.Fantasy author Kim Falconer said this cannot be ignored.
``How do we get past the fact that they want it? They're eating it alive _ what is it fulfilling in them?''
She finds it concerning and wonders whether it is a symptom of a wider problem: Can women tell the difference between abuse and love?
Nevertheless, simply banning teens from reading it would make the problem worse and, anyway, Falconer is a ferocious supporter of free speech.``We can criticise it but we cutting off the lines of communication. You must talk about it, be there for dialogue.''
She applauds the way the series has women and girls reading but laments: `What a missed opportunity to inspire women.''
Mount St Benedict College is an independent girls' high school at Pennant Hills. Principal Maria Pearson said it is very important for girls to develop the ``skills, resourcefulness and resilience'' to find ways themselves to get out of difficulty situations, rather than ``expect to be rescued''.``We have it in the library and it does engage our girls,'' Ms Pearson said.
``But it is important to deconstruct some of the themes. They need to have a conversation with concerned adults in their lives (about the issues it raises).''
So read Twilight - but it needs be accompanied by discussion of the issues raised, as well as a selection of books with strong female characters. Virtually any of the Voyager list, including the likes of Karen Miller, Glenda Larke, Kylie Chan and Kim Falconer would be suitable.
Duncan Lay is the author of The Wounded Guardian (HarperCollins) and the soon-to-be-released The Risen Queen, neither of which contain vampires but do have strong female characters.

Compared to David Gemmell in a review

2009-11-10T16:15:00.000-08:00

The late, great British fantasy author David Gemmell has been a huge inspiration for me - in fact, as I have written before, without his seminal work, Legend, I may never have read any fantasy beyond The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings.
As well as being a fan of his work, I felt a certain affinity for Gemmell's work.
He was a long-time resident of Hastings, in Sussex, while I lived in both Eastbourne and Brighton, both towns in Sussex, less than 50 kilometres from Hastings.
Gemmell was an editor of local newspapers in Sussex, I was an editor of local newspapers (albeit in Australia!)
The thought of one day meeting David Gemmell as a published author myself was a secret ambition of mine - although no doubt shared by many other would-be authors.
Sadly he died in July 2006, more than a year before I received my contract for The Dragon Sword Histories, robbing the fantasy world of one of its greatest writers.
Naturally he left many thousands of devoted fans wondering where the next Gemmell-esque book was going to come from.
No doubt there are quite a few authors jostling for this position.
I have to say, while I loved his work, I would hate to be thought of as 'the next David Gemmell' - for a wide variety of reasons. I would rather be thought of as the first Duncan Lay!
But to be compared to him is still, in my opinion, praise of the highest order.
Certainly his work had some flaws, such as his (self-confessed) problems with writing female characters - but his books had a marvellous depth, making them an experience to read both as a teenager and then something different as an adult.
Anyway, the point of all this is a review in the upcoming edition of Australian Bookseller And Publisher of my second book, The Risen Queen, which will be out in the shops from December 15.
The key passage, for me is: "Fast paced and dramatic, Lay writes the kind of battle scenes that I have not seen since the late David Gemmell, and booksellers should definitely be recommending this to his fans."
I've been absolutely pumped since reading this!
To be in the same sentence, particularly one recommending me to David Gemmell fans, is fantastic. This whole experience is a dream come true but let's just say that being compared to David Gemmell is something of a fantasy realised!

Cover designs

2009-11-04T21:37:00.000-08:00

Book two, The Risen Queen, will be out in shops from December 15 but, because its official release date is January 1, you might have to ask (nicely) your friendly bookstore people to unpack it from the back, as they will be busy, busy with the Christmas rush...
Book three, The Radiant Child, is out next June 28(ish) but the cover is already moving ahead.
I have posted pictures up on Facebook but, for those who aren't on Facebook, here's a couple of links that allow you to see the covers as they progress...

Risen Queen: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2028278

Radiant Child: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2014130

DVD Extras part four

2009-10-27T21:17:00.000-07:00

Last one ... this is a sequence when Martil and Karia almost meet an arrogant wizard, who actually takes a more important part in book three - but I digress!
I was trying to show how wizards operated in that world and how much Martil disliked them ... but one scene with Barrett seemed to do that!

By the time they had made all their purchases, and Karia had eaten her packed lunch - and all the interesting bits from Martil’s - it was almost noon, so Martil steered Tomon to Menner’s shop.
The shop was crowded this time, and there was obviously no point in trying to squeeze inside, so they walked down the street, looking at the other shops. Nothing appeared interesting, until they walked past one that was three doors down from Menner’s. Unlike the other shops, its window was boarded over, with the words ``Fernal, wizard of the Fourth Circle, by appointment only’’ painted in large letters. A few crude stars had also been added, for effect.
Karia was fascinated when she heard it was a wizard‘s shop. `Can we look inside? Can we pleeease?’ she begged.
With time to waste, Martil could not think of a good reason to refuse her, so pushed open the heavy wooden door and led her inside. It took a few moments for their eyes to adjust to the room. Two walls were taken up by large, plump chairs, thickly upholstered in some golden fabric. The third wall was dominated by a huge bookcase, filled with both books and scrolls. In the fourth wall there was just a door. Nobody else was in the room.
Karia wanted to go and look at the books but just as Martil stopped her, the door opened and a woman in a bright red robe walked out.
`Who seeks the Great Fernal? What is your concern?‘ she intoned, flinging her arms out theatrically.
Martil wondered if the ``Great Fernal’’ knew any way to keep small children quiet but decided not to ask that.
`We’re just looking,‘ he said instead.
`Looking? The Great Fernal does not haggle like some common stallholder! The charge is two silver pieces for a meeting, then between one and five gold pieces for magic, depending on the degree of difficulty. Those are the Great Fernal’s prices. If you can’t or won’t pay those, we suggest you go and see the wizards Stratt or Donald. Their prices are far cheaper, but considering they are both Second Circle incompetents who couldn’t magic up a customer at a decent price, they would have to be.’
`Are you the Great Fernal?‘ Martil asked, wondering how many people could afford this magic and put up with this overblown act.
`No! I am his assistant. Now I suggest you either show me some money, or I shall show you the door!‘
At another time, Martil might have decided to stay, but he did not feel like an argument at the moment. `Oh, we were just leaving,‘ he agreed. Bloody wizards! Thought they knew everything. He had no intention of paying them any money, so he ushered a disappointed Karia out of the shop.
Back at Menner’s he was delighted to find the shop had emptied, and doubly delighted to discover the clothes were ready - but not as delighted as Karia, who enjoyed trying everything on. Except for the shoes. She complained they made her feet itch, and it took all of Menner’s persuasion, as well as Martil’s determination, to make her keep them on. Even then, she went into a sulk that only some almond-honey sweets and the last - and best - dress managed to get her out of.

DV extras part three

2009-10-27T21:10:00.000-07:00

This section is when Martil trains the Norstalines ... sequences that survived only in much shorter form! The first one is the initial training and then, further down, it goes into shield wall training. I was trying to make the point that you can't just wave a magic sword and expect to have an army appear ... but I hope that was made anyway!

As to the men, training them was the most important thing. They were in three groups, and Martil made these into squads, trying to use the rivalry between them to spur each other on.
First came Sendric’s guards. There were two 10-man squads, as well as two sergeants and a lieutenant called Rocus. They were all well armed, with mail shirts, shiny helmets, shields with the Count’s crest and long swords. They had been drilled to perfection - to carry out ceremonial duties. However, the manual of arms was not the best teaching device for the skills necessary to fight your way through a shield wall. And if their swordsmanship was clumsy, their fitness was abysmal. Too much time standing post, and not enough time running, had them exhausted after only a few minutes of Martil’s training.
The hunters numbered 11, as well as a chief hunter called Tarik. These were fit men, used to running all day and night, brilliant archers to boot, but unused to working with others. They operated in small groups of two or three usually, they were unable to take orders and were just as likely to chase after a deer as they were to follow Martil’s instructions.
Then there were the militia. Sendric had tried to choose those men with at least 10 years service, but not so many years that they were too old for this sort of venture. He had selected a dozen men, as well as a lieutenant called Wime. They were tough men, who were all veterans of tavern brawls and street fights. Martil knew this type of experience could not be beaten, it was the sort of thing you needed to survive a battle. They were crafty, could take orders, and knew all about operating as a team and protecting your mate’s back in a fight. But they were only armed with thick wooden sticks, and wore only boiled leather coats for protection.
Each group had its own abilities, and its own weaknesses. Using each to the greatest benefit would be the real challenge.
The first day they looked a strange sight. The guardsmen were lined up immaculately, two ranks, sergeants at the ends, Rocus at the front, all in their polished armour and all standing to attention. The hunters stood in a group, chatting among themselves, while the militia had formed into a rough line but stood relaxed, waiting to see what he would do.
Martil had no intention of giving them a big speech, or impressing them with his war stories. It was more important to win their respect. Besides, he planned to let Conil tell them a few things and let that spread among them. For now, he would keep things simple.
`I am War Captain Martil, the wielder of the Dragon Sword. You have sworn to obey this Sword. Now I want to see how far you are prepared to go. Follow me now!’
He formed them up and then took them on a run. He knew he was not in great shape, but it was not so long ago that he had run two miles each morning over rough ground, in armour. He was able to set a pace that made the hunters stop talking after the first mile, and left the militia and the guardsmen in particular gasping.
He was pleased to see none dropped out, all three groups were determined they should finish the run as a whole, so as not to lose face in front of the other two. But the guardsmen were plainly exhausted at the end. If they had been asked to fight at this point, they would have been slaughtered. With a bunch of recruits, he would have told them this, as part of the process of breaking their independence, to the point where they would obey him in battle without question. But that process took time, time he did not have. For a start, Queen Merren was demanding they begin attacks as soon as possible. So instead he tried to work more subtly.
`You did well. For the first time. Fighting all day in armour that feels as though you are carrying a child on your back will leave you exhausted. Now drink water, rest and we shall try a few more tests.’
He took his own advice, changing his tunic to hide the sweat stains, then returned to hand out shields and wooden swords to train with.
He set them against each other in pairs, trying to ensure each fought against a man from a different group. It made for some spirited exchanges, as guardsmen accused militiamen of cheating when they used moves they had learned in street fights.
Martil tried to show them all how to handle their swords better, persuade the guardsmen that nobody was ever sent from the field of battle for cheating and explain it was no good complaining when your guts were hanging out.
The militia responded well, but the proud guardsmen insisted on fighting as if their opponent was a stuffed dummy. Finally, he decided to prove how bad they were.
`Pick your three best bladesmen. They will take me on, and if they win, you get the afternoon off. If I win, you run another two miles. And all they have to do to win is touch me with a wooden sword,’ he offered.
The other two groups watched with interest as Rocus selected himself and his two sergeants, both massive guardsmen. A circle was formed and Martil stepped in, loosening his muscles and using two wooden swords, rather than the Dragon Sword.
`Any time you are ready,’ he grinned.
Rocus rushed in, sword held high, and it was easy to spin away, delivering a thrust to the belly as he did so. The guards lieutenant folded over, blocking one of his own men, so Martil swarmed in on the third, both swords working furiously. The guardsman managed to block the first few cuts but they were arriving so fast, and from so many different directions, that he received a whack on the ribs, another on the shoulder and a third across the head before reeling away. The last guardsman circled away from Martil nervously, who had no intention of letting him run. A feeble thrust was blocked, then Martil rammed both swords into the man’s stomach.
He let the wooden swords drop and turned away to see the rest of the men gazing at the three big men rolling around on the ground. The hunters and militia were grinning, while the rest of the guardsmen just looked shocked.
`We’ll let those three recover a little before they go on their run,’ he announced. `But I hope a lesson has been learned by you guardsmen. The three men you have been listening to could not even lay a sword on one man. If they fight like that against Gello’s men, they would all be dead now. Something to think about next time I advise you how to stay alive.’
And after that, they did listen, even Rocus.
Martil worked them hard, trying to get their fitness up first. The hunters excelled here, making the other two groups look foolish on the runs, while the guardsmen were left floundering even on the forced marches.
The guardsmen had initially laughed at the militia when they had been introduced to sword use. The militiamen were more inclined to use their swords like clubs, and Martil had to instruct them in basic sword use. But when it came to combat exercises, the militia took great delight in beating the guardsmen, their experience in fighting obvious compared to their ponderous opponents, who seemed to be in slow motion most of the time.
But although they were the group that finished last most often, the guardsmen had a stubborn pride, and held themselves to be above the others. This was of particular concern to Martil. Not only did he expect the guardsmen to be his main strike force, but their attitude threatened to fragment the small army. He had to work doubly hard to make them see how they all had to rely on each other. The Queen and the Dragon Sword, as well as the presence of Count Sendric, these were enough to secure their loyalty. All these men knew what was at stake - they had been told to bring their families along, in case of reprisals. But Martil felt they were not truly behind the cause. He was a Ralloran, and they were not ready to die for him. Not yet.
Of course there were other problems.

Meanwhile he had the time to not just work on Sirron and his farm boys, but also the other men. They had performed well from ambush and had stood their ground as the archers destroyed a small band of cavalry but Martil knew the next time they fought, it would be against a full squadron of cavalry, enough men so it would come down to a stand-up fight.
The men were ordered to wear hauberks, the heavy chain mail shirts of small, inter-connected rings over a thick leather coat. Some were second-hand, most of these had arrow holes in them, crudely patched, while naturally the guardsmen’s ones looked impeccable. Martil could see how the farm boys were struggling in the heavy coats. While a hauberk did not restrict your movement initially, the weight would grow progressively heavier. Even the fittest of men, after an hour of fighting in one, would be exhausted. Then he made them take up shields, and spears. Every man looked unfamiliar with these but Martil knew this was the weaponry that would keep them alive when fighting cavalry.
He drilled them hard, teaching them the basics of spear fighting, keeping them at it until their right arms were too tired to even lift the heavy spears any more and they were heartily sick of practising the same strokes, up at a cavalryman, down at an infantryman, and the thrust from the second row of a shield wall into your enemy‘s front line. He fretted that the training was nowhere near enough but knew he did not have much time so, as quickly as he dared, he went to the next stage.
`A shield wall only succeeds while the men in it have courage and heart,’ Martil told them. `But if you do not have trust in each other, if you fear for your own safety, it will crack like an egg. Stay together and live. Try to run and you die. Understand?’
They nodded at him but Martil was not convinced. They would have to see it to feel how effective it could be.
He formed them into three ranks, the guardsmen at the front and sides, the farm boys at the back and the militia in the middle. The guardsmen dropped to one knee, shields rammed into the ground, spears pointing upwards. The militia stood close behind them, shields held high to protect both themselves and the guardsmen, spears also held high. The farm boys were close behind them, bracing the militia and supporting the spears. He rode along the front of the wall then, showing them how no horse would charge home into a tightly packed wall of spears.
He took one of the captured heavy cavalry horses, a huge beast, and spurred it at the line. He knew that, to the men in the front row, it was a daunting sight. But even the trained warhorse would not press home the charge and veered away from the massed iron points.
`A man on a horse needs four feet of room to ride and swing his sword. A man with a shield and spear needs only two feet! So each trooper is riding down a corridor that ends in three ranks of two spears - that’s six spears to each horseman!‘
He saw they were gradually getting the idea, so he let them feel confident, then moved onto the next stage.
`I need three volunteers!’
He ignored Sirron and the other farm boys, instead selecting three guardsmen. These were ordered to put down their spears and link shields instead.
`Look impressive, don’t they?” Martil said, pointing to the three big men, standing tall in their hauberks, shields held confidently, overlapping each other on the left-hand side to present an impenetrable wall.
He bent down and picked up a shield himself.
`Lads, all you have to do is hold your line,’ he told them, then broke into a run.
The three men tensed, the man in the middle crouching slightly to try and take the expected impact, but at the last second Martil turned and smashed into the man to his left. The guardsman took a step backwards to keep his footing and Martil spun, using both his speed and the momentum of the turn to crash into the man on his right, who was unable to brace himself properly. The force jolted him back into the last man and the two of them stumbled backwards, the man on the right going down.
Martil threw down the shield he was carrying. `This shield wall is dead. Every man who was within it is dead,’ he said conversationally. `Now, let Sirron and his boys come forward.’
The farm boys walked out awkwardly, looking uncomfortable in their armour. One of the younger ones stumbled over another‘s spear, drawing a jeer from the guardsmen.
`Your lives depend on these men,’ Martil snapped. `Doubtless they would find the sight of you trying to milk a cow equally amusing.’
Abashed, the guardsmen fell silent. It was a start but Martil decided he had to make the farm boys win the respect of the others.
`For the next exercise, I will need three guardsmen. If they can break open a shield wall, they get a bottle of brandy to share.’
A howl of protest rose up from the ranks of the men.
`Don’t think that’s fair? Well, how about this. If they can break the shield wall, you all get a barrel of wine to share. But if they can’t, you have to cook dinner for the farm boys tonight. Agreed?’
Martil looked over to where Wime was talking quickly to Rocus, but the tall guardsman waved him away and shouted his agreement.
Grinning, Martil formed the eight farm boys into three ranks, with himself in the very centre. Quickly he showed the others how to brace the rank in front of them by putting their shoulder in the middle of the man’s back, and the feet behind the man’s heels. He showed them how to overlap their shields, to make an unbroken wall. He also instructed the front row to crouch down as the guardsmen approached, then push upwards with the shield at the last moment, so they had some momentum when the two sides met.
`A shield wall is a fearsome thing. You are closer to the men you are killing than you are to the woman in your bed. But stand firm. It is the side that blinks first who dies,’ he told them. `The front row just needs good nerves and strong arms. The second row is where the shield wall is won.‘
Meanwhile Rocus had selected his three biggest men and was telling them to charge in hard.
`Remember to push back hard, and we’ll dine well tonight,’ Martil told them.
The three guardsmen raced in, not at full speed but at a good pace, sensibly sacrificing speed so they could stay together.
`Crouch now, push up when I tell you. The rest of you, get ready to hold hard,’ Martil snapped. `Brace them!’
The guardsmen yelled as they ran the last few yards and Martil bellowed at Sirron and his two brothers to rise. The three farm boys crouched, then pushed themselves up as hard as they could, just as the guardsmen arrived. Shields clashed on shields but the force of the guardsmen’s charge would have bowled the farm boys over, except it was transferred into Martil and the men beside him, and to the ones behind them. The second rank held the first, and the third held them, absorbing the force of the charge. The line bowed but stayed as one.
`Push!’ Martil yelled, shoving Sirron as hard as he could so the farm boy straightened and began heaving back at the guardsmen.
Even in the second row, Martil could smell the breath of the guardsman pushing hard at Sirron. The two were shield to shield, hard against each other. In a real battle, they would be too close to use even a short sword, which was where the second row came in. They had room to swing a blade, attacking the head of the enemy’s front line. Of course your enemy’s second line would be doing the same thing, so you also needed to protect the man in front of you with your shield. It was brutal, fearsome work. Made more so when your enemy used tricks like giant axemen to break your line before their shield wall struck.
`Heave!’ Martil roared, and felt the farm boy behind him force him forwards. He used that momentum to propel Sirron forwards. But the guardsman facing him had nobody behind him to prop him up. The three guardsmen stood for a few moments more before the transfer of momentum saw them pushed backwards, to stumble and fall.
Stunned silence greeted the sight of the three men on the floor, then the farm boys cheered each other, and were quickly joined by the militia, who always enjoyed seeing guardsmen humbled.
Martil dropped his shield and wiped his face. His left shoulder and arm ached, while his back was also tender from having a shoulder stuck in it, but thanks to the armour and the padding underneath, he doubted he would have much more than a small bruise.
`I hope you were all paying attention,’ he told them. `You just saw a bunch of farm boys, who are only just learning how to use their swords, defeat three of your best men. That is the power of the shield wall. It will help you survive in battle as long as you are prepared to stand strong. But if it is broken, you are all dead. Remember that.’
He formed them into a shield wall, and had men take turns standing in each row, as well as joining him in running at the shield wall and forcing it to stand firm to repel them. By the end of the day, the men were exhausted, but Martil felt they all had a better idea of what they would need to do. He had been pleased to see men, not just Wime and Rocus, calling out encouragement to each other, and telling each other to hold hard, or push back. They were not ready to take on a rival shield wall, but he felt they could probably stand up to one charge of cavalry.
Martil made sure the farm boys were to receive their reward - being waited on by the militia as the guardsmen peeled vegetables and roasted meat. One advantage of having farmers in camp was they had brought bags of seeds with them. But the biggest advantage, of course, was having Karia and Barrett, who could make vegetables grow overnight. Martil had the guardsmen clean the armour, just to reinforce the punishment for losing.
`I told you he never makes offers like that unless he is sure he’s going to win,‘ he overheard Wime tell Rocus, which brought a smile to his face. He then washed quickly in the cold stream and went to find Karia.

More DVD extras

2009-10-27T21:07:00.000-07:00

For those who have read the earlier posts, there was a fair bit of The Wounded Guardian that ended up on the (metaphorically speaking) cutting room floor. Sometimes this was for the best, sometimes things just had to go because there was plenty of ambushes/fighting already and I have a word count deadline to meet!
Anyway, here's another sequence that appeared only in a truncated form...

MARTIL looked down on the approaching convoy and prepared to give the signal to attack. Until now everything had gone perfectly. The men, hardened by Martil’s training, had performed well on the march. Not that it had been as tough as a normal march. Thanks to Barrett, their progress was swift, with the woods opening up into a trail for them. They had reached Conil’s ambush position easily and Barrett had prepared the trap by spreading sticks across the road and using the same magic technique on them he had employed to guard his house. Anyone who walked over the sticks would be instantly entangled. Martil was a little hesitant about entrusting such an important element of the ambush to some flimsy sticks, but he had seen enough of Barrett’s work not to challenge him on this.
Then the three groups had taken up their positions and it was just a matter of waiting for Havrick’s supply convoy to arrive. Even that proved ridiculously easy. Barrett used birds to report back to him regularly, so they knew roughly how long to wait, and could eat a hot meal and have the fires doused long before they could be seen.
The convoy was impressively large, more than a score of heavily-laden wagons, with a corresponding number of light cavalry as the escort. Martil had been hoping for just a dozen men, but with the advantage of surprise, he was confident they could handle the few extra. He had decided to wait with Rocus’s men. Partly because if the charge was not broken by Tarik’s archers, the Dragon Sword would be of most use there. But mostly because he did not trust Rocus to follow the plan. The man might just do something foolish, like charging in and demanding a fair fight. Barrett was with Tarik, where he could best use his magic. And because it would be better for him to save his powers. As Martil had reminded them all, just taking the convoy was not enough. They had to get the supplies back to the caves as well.
`Almost there,’ he said to himself, as the lead riders of the escort rode up to the first of the sticks.
The cavalry, as Martil had hoped, were talking amongst themselves, looking around and generally behaving as if they were out for a gentle ride. No doubt they were thoroughly bored by the slow trip north but Martil found himself hoping their officer was killed in the attack. Gello would no doubt exact a dreadful punishment if the man returned alive to tell of a looted convoy.
For a long moment, nothing seemed to happen, and then everything seemed to happen at once. Two riders were sent flying as Barrett’s sticks worked their magic, and the officer woke up enough to start yelling at the others to stay back. In a moment the convoy had ground to a halt.
`Forward!’ Martil raised his arm and led the guardsmen up and onto the road, where they swiftly formed two ranks.
The cavalry officer saw the armoured men blocking the road and screamed at his troopers to form up for the charge. But in the confusion, more men fell as Barrett’s traps struck, and while two of them were able to remount, there were three horses left writhing on the ground with broken legs.
`Steady, lads,’ Martil told the guardsmen, as they shifted nervously. They did not have spears, and infantry without spears was always vulnerable to cavalry. `Hold your line!’
It seemed to take a long while, but finally the cavalry escort was past the traps and moving into the canter.
`Charge!’ their officer screamed.
`Now, Tarik,’ Martil muttered.
It was essential he wait until the horses worked up some speed, because that would mean even one horse falling would disrupt the charge.
Almost as soon as Martil said it, Tarik and his archers stood and began loosing arrows as fast as they could down on the cavalry. For expert archers, men who expected to put nine arrows out of ten into a bullseye at 80 paces, a man on a horse at half that distance was too easy. Each arrow was the length of a man’s arm, tipped by a needle-like steel head the length of a man’s finger. They hissed as they flew, and the sound as they drove through armour and flesh reminded Martil of the time he had dropped a full winesack from a battlement onto the stones below.
Men and horses screamed and fell, as the charge dissolved into chaos. Tarik’s men had deliberately aimed at the front rank of the cavalry; as they fell, they brought down the men behind. As the riders at the rear desperately tried to avoid being thrown, they were picked off as well.
Now Wime led his militia in among the wagons, dragging the shocked wagoners down and clubbing any that tried to fight back.
`Forward!‘ Martil led the guardsmen down the road but he could see there was almost no need to draw his sword. Each archer had loosed perhaps 10 arrows, and every one of those had been aimed. That meant every trooper had had more than six aimed arrows sent at him, at a range where the hunters did not miss.
It was almost a miracle the lot were not dead, Martil reflected.
`I want one of your squads to put those horses out of their misery, then round up any that can be ridden,‘ he ordered Rocus. `We need this road open so we can use it. I want the other squad to gather up the cavalry’s wounded. Strip them of any weapons and armour we can use. Remember, we are going be arming farmers and merchants, so any armour is better than none.‘
Every man who had charged was dead or wounded; the only unharmed survivors from the escort were the three men whose horses had been brought down by Barrett’s traps. They stood, dazed by the brutal slaughter of their fellows, until Wime took their weapons and made them lie on the ground.
`Quickly now! We must get as far away as possible today,’ Martil urged the men on.
There was much to do. Some of the draught horses were used to drag dead cavalry horses out of the way, while Wime and Martil went through the wagons, deciding what they would keep, and what they would destroy.
The convoy had everything Martil had hoped for - and more. There were thousands of arrows in sheaves, scores of shields and swords, as well as barrels of spears and racks of axes. There were two wagons alone filled with thick, boiled leather jerkins, nowhere as good as mail hauberks but still solid enough to stop most sword strokes.
Then there was the food. Wagon upon wagon piled high with bags of corn for the horses, as well as twice-baked bread and dried meat for the men. Enough to keep a force in the field for months.
`We’ll take the five wagons filled with weapons and one filled with food, then burn the rest. Tarik, you’ll stay behind with half your men. Give us until nightfall - or until you see someone - then burn the wagons and follow us as fast as you can,’ Martil decided.
`Shouldn‘t we take more food, sir?’ Rocus asked.
`Arms and armour are more important. We can always get food from farms, if we need. But we can’t get weapons anywhere else. We’ll also take every horse we can to help us.’
It was hard work, but they were able to roll out of the ambush site only a couple of hours after the first arrows had flown. Thanks to Barrett‘s magical abilities, where he made the trees shuffle aside to form a trail, they took the wagons deep into the woods, until they reached slopes that could take horses, but not wagons. Here they unhitched the draught horses and loaded them up with as much as they could carry, then loaded every other horse they had brought along. The men took as much as they could, then the remaining items were just left. There was not much, just a handful of leather jerkins, a few bags of the bread and some sheaves of arrows. Each wagon had had four horses, and another five cavalry horses had been lightly wounded, and were able to be pressed into service.
Even so, it was going to be a slow walk back to the caves. And so it proved. Tarik and his men caught up with them after dark, sweating, smelling faintly of smoke and all wearing a jerkin of the leather armour and carrying sheaves of arrows.
`We waited as long as could, but saw the dust of some travellers behind. So we torched the wagons and ran to catch up. Havrick’s trackers are going to get a shock,‘ Tarik smiled.
Martil found the breath to laugh, although he was wearing two of the jerkins and carrying four spears over his shoulder. Barrett’s trail, which he had forced through the woods, was closing behind them, so Havrick’s men would find five wagons in the middle of the woods, surrounded by trees, with no possible way in or out.
It was a hard walk, and a long walk, but the easy victory had them all laughing. And the reaction when they arrived back was even better.

Final blurb for The Risen Queen!

2009-10-27T20:51:00.000-07:00

Here it is, the final blurb for The Risen Queen.
And I have had it confirmed that it will be in the shops on December 15, although bookstores will be flat out around that time, so you may have to ask them nicely to unpack it for you!

Martil and his Rallorans are trying to gain control of the north for Queen Merren but winning the hearts of the people is proving impossible when the bards have painted them as murderous barbarians.
King Gello the usurper is planning to lead a massive army to crush the budding rebellion but, even if a way can be found to defeat him, the Fearpriests stand ready to come to his aid…
Karia is trying to persuade Martil that she has all the answers, while Merren is considering desperate solutions to the problems facing her and Norstalos. Perhaps the vilified and despised primitive race of men to the north, that the Norstalines call ‘goblins’, might be the answer.
But on Dragonara Isle, the dragons have their own plans for Martil and particularly for the Dragon Sword…

The Wounded Guardian DVD extras 1

2009-10-07T18:43:00.000-07:00

A little while ago, I suggested books should be more like DVDs, in that they could feature deleted scenes.
This is the first of several major scenes that were sliced in the editing process. It was initially written to give Merren and Karia time to get to know each other, while Martil was out wearing down Havrick's forces. It was also part of my general desire to write a book where the hero does not wave a magic sword, immediately create an army and march to victory.
But, honestly, I don't think the book lost anything by this sequence being erased.
Still, I'd like to know your thoughts!
PS: This is not quite the finished version, so if there are errors, they are entirely my fault!

SERGEANT Errec spat as he waved his men forward. The few game trails around here never seemed to go in the right direction, so more often than not, he had to have three men up front, blunting their swords by trying to cut through the undergrowth. Luckily the woods were relatively open, the bushes barely taller than knee high, but still it took plenty of effort to force a passage and Errec knew they had to be wasting their time.
No way could 50 men and horses move through here without leaving some sort of sign. But he had his orders, and he knew the consequences of disobeying them. His was the last group in the line, the one he felt was least likely to come across anything, but he was still ready in case his old friend sergeant Porrit, who led the next group in, found anything. Errec had been a soldier for nearly 20 years and felt strange about this whole exercise. He had signed up to fight against Berellians, Avish and Tetrans, not his own people. He knew Wime was among the so-called rebels, and he was a decent man. But he trusted his officers when they said these rebels had to be stopped before the army would get its chance to take care of the other countries. And he believed Duke Gello when he said how Norstalos was going to be the greatest country in the world. The Duke would lead them to victory and riches. Give them something to look forward to, not just guard duty and breaking a few goblin heads.
He spat again, watching the slow progress of his trail-breakers up a slope, where the bushes seemed to cluster thickly.
`Hurry it up!’ he roared.
`We’re trying, sarge!’ one called back.
He snorted. They weren’t trying hard enough for his liking. Then he grunted and took a step backwards. It felt as though someone had thrown a rock at him, striking him in the middle of his chest. He looked down, ready to yell at the joker who had done that, but was astonished to discover the feathers of an arrow jutting out, just beside his sternum. He touched them, just to see they were real, and thought about yelling a warning, but he suddenly had no breath. Around him he could hear shouts and screams, and the hissing of arrows, followed by the meaty thump as they struck home. He dimly registered he should be doing something to protect his men. There had been an order, or some such, about sounding a warning horn? He thought he would walk over and talk to his trumpeter, but found himself sitting on the ground instead.
Just a quick lie-down, he thought, then I’ll have the energy to tell people what to do. He fell backwards and found the leaf litter strangely comforting. He sank into it.
- - - -
MARTIL watched Tarik and his archers drive the soldiers into cover, splitting them up and picking off any who showed an inclination to fight back. Half were down, including the sergeant and the trumpeter, and the rest were more concerned with staying out of sight and in cover than trying to link up.
Martil waved to the militia and guardsmen he had with him, on the soldiers’ flank.
`Come on!’ he roared, and led the charge in.
The arrows stopped, but before the soldiers could do more than stand up, Martil and the others were upon them. One man lunged at Martil, and received the Dragon Sword through his chest as a riposte, then Rocus and the others swarmed over the rest. Martil looked around for anyone else but there were only dead and wounded soldiers, as well as a pair who had been belted over the head with the flat of blades or the full face of a shield.
`Quick now! Take their weapons and be ready to march! Wime, find me a wounded man who can talk!’
Martil inspected the site with satisfaction. Not one of his men had been even hurt, while two squads of Havrick’s soldiers had been wiped out.
`Captain! Over here!’ Wime shouted and Martil hurried over to find the trumpeter propped against a tree, an arrow high in his chest and another in his gut that would kill him before the day was out.
`Listen to me. What are the calls for being under attack, and how do you talk to the other groups?’ Martil demanded. `Tell me and I’ll end your pain quickly.’
The man just moaned back at him, so Martil reached down and took hold of the shaft deep in the man’s stomach.
`Talk to me, or I’ll rip this out, slowly,’ he growled.
The man’s eyes widened and his breath came in short gasps as he felt the pressure on the arrowhead lodged deep in his stomach.
`Captain!’ Wime gasped.
`We have to know. Victory is the only thing that matters,’ Martil said softly, his eyes on the trumpeter’s face.
`Tell me, and I’ll have our wizard come and look at you,’ he told the man. `Refuse to answer and your last hours will be spent screaming.’
`One blast every hour to let them know our position, four blasts to call for help,’ the man moaned.
Martil let go of the arrow and stood.
`Barrett! Can you do anything for this man?’ he shouted.
Barrett walked over and looked down at the moaning, sweating, trumpeter. `I’m not a priest,’ he snapped. `Only Aroaril could save this man now.’
Martil turned back to the wounded man.
`I’m sorry, but you heard the wizard,’ he said softly, drawing the Dragon Sword and placing it on the man’s thigh. He carefully opened the main artery at the top of the leg as he talked. `There was no way to save you. But I thank you for your information. And I have made sure you will not suffer in pain.’
The man’s head sagged forward and Martil stepped away, sheathing the unmarked Dragon Sword.
`Lieutenant Wime!’
`Sir?’
`Don’t question my orders again. As it happened, it helped him believe I was actually going to torture him. But if you want to stay in command, just obey me. Understand?’
`Yes sir!’
Martil watched him go, and sighed. `Tarik!’
The hunter appeared by his side a few moments laster.
`Stay here with two men. Give us a decent start, then sound the horn four times and follow as fast as you can before any searchers can get here.’
`Sir!’
The guardsmen and militia had finished collecting discarded weapons, so Martil called them in.
`Well done lads! We’re giving Havrick a headache! Now, let’s away and find another spot to hurt him!’
- - - -
THE news one of his groups had been wiped out reached Jennar only slowly. Then it took him time to concentrate his groups around the site of the attack, out on his right flank. He had served with Errec for a decade and knew the ambush had to have been well planned to do so much damage.
`They had archers up there, then a force of swordsmen took the remaining men in the flank,’ one of the scouts reported. `They didn’t stand a chance.’
`They must have killed a few of the rebels,’ one of his sergeants, who Jennar recognised as Errec’s friend Porrit, mumbled.
`Don’t be a fool. They were outnumbered and surprised,’ Jennar snorted. `No, they were wiped out. Now get the bodies buried, and two squads to take the wounded back to camp.’
`Your orders, sir?’ one of his junior lieutenants
`Same as before. I doubt Captain Havrick would take kindly to us giving up the search. Anyway, this is what he wants. Use our lives to find out where they are hiding. As long as one man lives to tell him of the rebels’ location, he’ll be happy. Now, we must form up and create a new search pattern, based on this attack, as it must have been their group closest to their camp.’
`What if that’s what they want us to think?’ an old sergeant asked.
Jennar smiled at the man, a tough veteran called Gillen.
`I might be tempted to agree with you, but then that would mean we should search in the opposite direction. A man could go crazy doing that. And let’s not forget, who’s to say they have been trained. A bunch of soft guardsmen, some militia and a few hunters. If it came to a proper fight, they’d be no chance.’
Gillen still looked doubtful, so Jennar put an arm around his shoulder. `Sergeant, if that’s what they wanted, they wouldn’t have aimed at the trumpeter. Two arrows, and a sword wound. They wanted to silence him. We have to assume that, or we are just wasting our time out here.’ Jennar knew he was talking too much. A good leader did not have to explain everything to his men. But he knew the men were worried about how they were being used as bait. He felt he owed them some sort of explanation.
`Now let’s begin the search again, but try and stay close to your next group. And be prepared for an ambush at any moment.’ Jennar knew he was ensuring slow progress - and that would infuriate Havrick - but he could not force his men to march to their deaths. `They’re going to strike again, and probably again, but each time we will be that much closer to their camp, that much closer to revenge,’ he said, hoping it was true.
- - - -
Martil had sent four of the guardsmen back, laden with captured swords. He did not need them to ambush 20 men. He reckoned one more attack, again at the group at the far right of their line, which was far to the east of their camp, should be enough to ensure their search pattern would miss the caves by several miles. This second attack would be more difficult. The soldiers would be alert. But he had Barrett, who was able to provide him with an accurate picture of where the groups were. Once more Martil gathered around the squad leaders.
`Tarik, I want you to take your best two archers with you, and strike this group here,’ Martil indicated the group three in from the end of the line. `Pick off their scouts, and the group leader, if you can. Then fade into the forest before they realise how many of you there are. They’ll react by blowing the warning horn. When we hear that, we’ll strike this group here. The horn will attract their attention and distract them enough to allow us to strike.’
`How will we know when to attack?” Tarik asked.
`Barrett will send a bird as a messenger,’ Martil gestured towards the wizard.
`Expect to see an owl arrive, and fly down onto your shoulder. As soon as that happens, you know to attack,’ Barrett gestured, and an owl flew down to join him. `This one.’
`And if they are too far away from us?’ Tarik asked.
Martil gestured down at the rough map he had sketched into the dirt.
`They are all moving at similar speeds. They will not be far away. But if they are, Barrett will have seen that, and the owl will bring you new orders.’
Tarik looked over to where the bird sat on Barrett’s shoulder, unblinking.
`I’ve heard of using bird calls to signal an attack before, but this is ridiculous,’ he muttered.
The others laughed, and Martil had to join in, as well. Men who could laugh before a fight were ready for battle. Two easy victories had given them plenty of confidence. The trick was to ensure those easy victories continued.
- - - -
JENNAR waved his scouts forward. He had three men out, a good 50 yards in front of the main group. They darted from tree to tree, while his men did likewise, trying to stay in cover and watch all around them. They only had swords, which were hardly the right weapons for this sort of fighting. The rangers used bows, while also carrying throwing knives and short swords. But the rangers were confined to barracks, he had heard, deemed not loyal enough. Still, they would have come in handy here. Although there was something about these woods that chilled a man. He had not seen or heard any animals or birds - although, as he thought that, he saw an owl glide overhead and disappear off to his right.
He was confident that most of his men would survive an ambush; enough, at least, to hold off a charge until help could get to them. For the 20th time he checked his trumpeter was safe, then waved his scouts forward again. But this time, instead of running to the next group of trees, the trio just collapsed onto the ground, and lay jerking. Jennar stared in shock for a long second - until he saw the white feathers of an arrow sticking out of one man’s chest.
`Get down!’ he roared, and dived for the dubious safety of a fallen tree, as an arrow whistled over his head. More arrows were whipping in, and he could hear two of his men shouting with pain. He risked a quick look up, and saw his trumpeter sounding the four notes to warn of attack.
`Help’s on its way!’ he roared.
But although a few arrows hissed through the air and thudded into trees, the expected arrow storm seemed more like a shower. One man had an arrow through the calf, another had one in his chest, but apart from that, nobody had been hit. They were just being kept pinned down.
`Watch your flanks!’ Jennar yelled, but nothing materialised out there.
The arrows seemed to have stopped, and that indicated swordsmen were going to attack at any moment. But still nothing came.
`There!’ someone called out, and Jennar turned to see figures running towards them. He was about to order his men to form line, when he realised they were his own men, from another group.
`First squad, into the trees! Find out where those archers are!’ he barked.
But by the time the first group to respond to the trumpeted distress calls had reached him, and another was in sight, that squad had returned to say there were no archers in the trees. Or indeed, anywhere.
`I think we scared them off, sir,’ Sergeant Gellin suggested.
Jennar thought about that theory. He liked it, but another possibility suddenly occurred to him.
`Sound recall!’ he bellowed.
- - - -
SERGEANT Porrit heard the trumpet blasts only faintly.
`Not us lads, it’s down the line, too far away to reach,’ he declared.
His men relaxed, and he did not yell at them for it. They had all been under pressure, the fear of the next attack growing with every step they took into the woods. They felt sorry for the other group that was under attack but it was a relief, as well, not to be them.
Porrit wondered if they should start marching towards the sound. He turned towards his trumpeter, intending to ask the man if he should sound the recall, when he heard a hissing noise, followed by a sound that reminded him of a waterskin being burst. Two feathered shafts appeared in the trumpeter’s chest, followed by a third, and the man collapsed backwards. Porrit jumped for the trumpet, but before he could reach it, felt two hammer blows in his back and fell on top of the man’s body without even realising what had killed him.
His men were standing around talking, thinking they were safe, and the arrows ripped into them for precious seconds before they scattered for cover. But as soon as they scattered, Martil led a charge in from the flank, the militia and guardsmen close behind.
The soldiers tried to fight back, in groups of two and three, but each small group was faced with up to 10 militia or guardsmen, and were swiftly wiped out.
Martil raced forwards, Dragon Sword in his hand, and charged right at two men who jumped out to fight him. One aimed a cut at Martil’s head, but he blocked the blow with his left-hand sword, then beheaded the man with the Dragon Sword. His mate tried to thrust at Martil’s face, but the Dragon Sword sliced through the top third of the man’s sword, then ripped open his chest. Martil darted away, almost before the body hit the ground. The exultation of using the Dragon Sword was almost too much in battles such as this.
He felt like laughing as he fought, but his laughter dried up when he saw Barrett join the fight. Once more the wizard’s staff had become the size of a small tree, and with every blow he swung, a soldier was sent flying through the air.
The soldiers were brave and well-trained, and tried to fight back, but wherever Martil and Barrett went, resistance collapsed. The last two men threw down their swords rather than face him, dropping to their knees in terror.
`Rocus! Check for casualties, and round up all the weapons we can use. We shall leave swiftly,’ Martil called.
`What about these prisoners, captain?’ Wime asked.
Martil hesitated. He knew he should try and win them over to his side, using the Dragon Sword. But if they had not surrendered, he would have ripped them apart with it.
`Use the Sword. Try to make it work on them,’ Barrett encouraged.
Martil rounded on him, taking his arm and leading him a short distance away from the others. `Thank you for the advice, but I give the orders around here. And what did you intend by joining the fight? We had it won, we did not need you. But we might need your magic to get us back!’
Barrett dragged his arm free. `I am here to help you, and to protect the men. Thanks to me, as well as yourself, not one of our men was killed, and just a couple were wounded. And I have not expended too much energy, either. It is not just yourself who can impress the men in battle, remember.’
Martil ground his teeth. `You are under my orders. Disobey me again and I’ll leave you back at the caves with the women.’
`Well, I’m sure Merren would like to have me around. Especially after you get yourself killed because I’m not here to guide you every step of the way,’ Barrett snarled.
Martil took a deep breath. This was not helping things - and they were wasting time here.
`I will call on you when I need you in battle. Until then, you should remain our secret weapon. Now these survivors will be able to tell Havrick that you are fighting alongside us.’
`Not if they are won over to our side. Use the Sword,’ Barrett urged.
Marti walked away from him, because he had no intention of arguing further with the wizard. He would use the Dragon Sword, and show the wizard who was the real champion here. He drew the Sword and held it out before the two nervous men.
`This is the Dragon Sword. You watched me wield it. You know it is real. So now you have a choice. Join me, fight for the Queen, or fight against the symbol of everything you have been brought up to honour,’ Martil said simply.
The two men just stared at him before the taller, a muscular man with a thick moustache, spoke.
`Will you kill us if we refuse?’
Martil was almost tempted to agree, so they would want to join him and he could at least show off two recruits, but he had no intention of allowing men who were not committed to fight beside him.
`No. You will go free,’ he said.
The man shrugged. `That may be the Dragon Sword. But I watched it kill my friends. How can I fight for you then? I can’t destroy their memory.‘
Martil nodded. `So you will seek revenge for their deaths?’
The man straightened. `I will.’
`Why not now? You two against me. If you win, you go free,’ he offered.
The pair looked at each other before looking at the Dragon Sword that glittered in Martil’s hand. He hoped they would choose to fight. Just thinking how Barrett would be swift to report to Merren that the Dragon Sword was still not responding to him was making him angry.
`We would be mad to do that. You would kill us,’ Moustache said finally.
`Tell your friends that. Any that come against me will die. Remember that,’ Martil stepped in close, so he could see the man’s eyes and feel his fear. Moustache tried to meet his gaze but the younger soldier just stared at the ground, where a widening puddle betrayed how afraid he was. Disgusted, both with them and with himself, Martil stepped back.
`Time to go! Tie these two gutless bastards to a tree and gag them!’ he called.
`I can do that,’ Barrett declared, and before Martil could say anything, had gestured at the pair. A nearby tree suddenly came to life, its branches wrapping around the men, lifting them off the ground and leaving them high in the air, their mouths stuffed with leaves so they could not even cry out.
Martil was about to say something, then realised what an effect such a sight would have on the men who found this group. A frightened enemy was one who did not fight as well.
`Good work,’ he told Barrett, grudgingly.
Just then, trumpets sounded through the forest.
`That’s our signal to go. Come on!’
The two wounded guardsmen were helped away by their comrades. One had a cut bicep, which was bound up tight, the other had a pair of broken ribs, after a sword thrust was mostly stopped by his leather armour. Barrett stopped the blood flow and promised to do more once they were back at the caves.
The men were still extremely cheerful. This was the third time they had cut apart their foes, and still not one of their number had been killed.
`At this rate, we’ll have them all killed off by the new moon,’ Rocus boasted.
Martil did not tell him that Havrick would probably have his men searching in groups of 50 after this. He walked slightly ahead of the men, near Barrett, who was leading the way as usual.
`I know you did not want me to fight, but I think you should try not to fight, either,’ the wizard said quietly.

Conflux Part 3: Where do you get your ideas?

2009-10-07T16:49:00.000-07:00

THIS panel saw many audience members bring along notepads, ready to take down advice from myself, moderator Richard Harland, Sabrina de Souza and star panellist and Voyager author Jack Dann.
My take on it was two-pronged. First you need your characters, and finding them in everyday life is certainly one way. You need characters that interest you, and sometimes that even comes just from a feeling. TWG’s Martil was inspired by thoughts of redemption, of a man coming back from a dark place because of a child’s love.
Perhaps my most useful statement was my belief that human history is rife with fantastic stories, tales of extraordinary heroism and hope, many of which can be adapted to a fantasy setting.
One of the principle inspirations for TWG (although it does not take place until Risen Queen) was the battle of Pilleth, when Owain Glyndwr defeated the English. Look it up on Google - it is an extraordinary tale.
But in the trilogy are such things as the massacre of Srebrenica, the atrocity at My Lai in Vietnam, the taking of Babylon by King Darius, the Zulu victory at Isandhlwana, the taking of Tenochtitlan and Mayan sacrifice rites.
Richard and Jack both often use dreams for ideas, while I also take feelings and impressions from music - some lyrics can really strike a note with me.
Probably the thing I took from this panel, although we did not really sum it up for the people there, was that ideas are everywhere.
One idea will not make a book, let alone a trilogy. You need many ideas - ideas for plot, ideas for characters, ideas about the lands they are in, ideas about what happens to them.
Write ideas down, keep a pad by your bed to record dreams and thoughts there - and be prepared to let stories percolate around in the back of your head for a while. Sometimes thinking, not writing, can be just as productive.
Jack had the classic line that a fellow writer was once asked where he gets his ideas from and replied: “ I send $5 a month to a little old lady in Albuquerque and she sends me five ideas back”.
But when the writer tried this joke at a US convention, there was a massive line of people wanting the lady’s address!
If only it were that easy!
I get ideas from the Australian countryside, from everything I see, from people I meet, from dreams, feelings and impressions gained from music and movies.
The trick is turning them into something a publisher is willing to pay for!

Conflux Part 2: Fantasy literature

2009-10-07T15:51:00.000-07:00

THE second panel I appeared on at Conflux was a tricky one, to say the least. With a rather nebulous title - fantasy as literature, moderator Jenny Blackford, myself and Sabrina de Souza attempted to tackle something that had little to grasp hold of!
Beyond suggesting that fantasy is, in fact, the bedrock of Anglo-Saxon literature, using as my supporting evidence the epic poem Beowulf and the tradition of bards and skalds, we were fighting to come up with anything controversial. Sadly that (my effort) did not stir the passions of the audience, given they were almost all fantasy fans and quite happy to agree!
Jenny, a judge on the World Fantasy Awards, had kept us going with some discussion but we were running out of steam.
Luckily for us, panellist and fellow Voyager author KJ (Katie) Taylor (The Dark Griffin) arrived. Her entrance was a little late due to Daylight Savings but was perfectly timed. Her energy and outspoken enthusiasm rescued a panel that was threatening to struggle.
We also all agreed with KJ, when she said fantasy is unfairly maligned and that fantasy was a genre of almost unlimited possibilities (although it has plenty of bad fantasy efforts).
But we were also saved with the best question from the audience I heard all weekend (admittedly there were many panels I missed).
Christian Tambling, self-published author of Dragon Moon, asked if there were any boundaries you could not cross in fantasy.
This had us all thinking hard.
My take came back to my favourite saying - get the characters right and people will be more inclined to follow them on the journey you are writing, no matter how extraordinary it grows to be.
The only barrier I like to avoid is the limit of normal human ability. If you have heroes slaughtering hundreds of soldiers, or able to far surpass normal physical efforts, then you may well have a problem.
Readers will check their disbelief at the door when they crack the cover of a fantasy book, allowing you to indulge the fantasy of magic, mythical creatures and the like - but having people do the impossible without even an attempt at a logical explanation is what gives the genre a bad name.
What do you think?

Conflux: Part 1

2009-10-07T15:30:00.000-07:00

My first panel at Conflux was the Secret Of Writing Humour - and I feared it was to be no laughing matter. Humour is such a subjective business, I was worried what would be said and if I would end up looking like the joke.
After all, The Wounded Guardian has a fair bit of humour (at least, it was intended to do so, and plenty of people have said they found it funny) and it is something I enjoy having in my writing. I find it breaks the mood if things are getting too heavy and can have multiple benefits.
But I needn’t have worried too much. Moderator Richard Harland (who’s funny in the nicest possible sense) and fellow panellist Val Toh made it easy for us to relax.
My theory (as I told the audience) is humour flows from the characters. Get the characters right, get them real enough that people can visualise them and then put them into situations where humour can arise. You don’t need snappy one-liners, which, after all, often fall flat!
The perfect example, of course, is Fawlty Towers, where such “unfunny” lines as “Don’t mention the war” are almost guaranteed to have people in stitches, even though on paper they don’t look like much. It is the character that gives life to the words so, if you have strong characters, you can have them generating plenty of humour.
In-jokes and pop culture references, we all agreed, are not easy to make funny - and can easily date, so should be stayed away from.
My thought was to have no more than 10 per cent of the book as humour, to use it sparingly - unless of course you aspire to be the next Terry Pratchett, in which case you either need no advice from me or are doomed to failure. (Sadly the latter is probably more likely).
Another little trick is to have “sidekick” characters, whose purpose, at least initially, seems to be to provide light relief - but if then they get swept up into the action (and, hopefully, tragedy) it has even more of an impact.
One thing both Richard and I felt very strongly about was the need to assess your characters as you write - if someone placed for humour then turns out to be particularly interesting, then give them more. Keep going with them, because sometimes they can take your story in new directions and give it an extra dimension. Sometimes characters demand to be given more of the story - and you should give it to them!
TWG, with a peerless warrior forced to look after a small girl and an ex-bandit without a filter between brain and mouth, was designed to have humour breaking up the action.
So, for me, the secret of writing humour is giving your story strong characters and putting them into incongruous situations.
Feel free to tell me I am wrong!

Store appearances

2009-09-29T19:53:00.001-07:00

Earlier this month I appeared at Angus and Robertson Erina, for a book signing/selling afternoon.
Back in July, I did a few of these around the coast, with mixed results, but I think I have the formula right now.
Instead of sitting at a table at the back of a store, waiting and hoping for someone to come over, I was out the front, talking to anyone who came past!
It worked so well that we sold 17 copies in about two hours - and the A&R stores at Maitland and Kotara have booked me in for similar appearances on October 11 and 18 respectively!
Now, normally I don't like cold callers. And I hate being accosted in a shopping centre by someone trying to sell me something.
But, in the pursuit of spreading the word about my book (and making a few sales!) I became what I normally despise!
It's an interesting exercise, trying to hit up people for a chat as they walk past.
For a start, people don't wear shirts proclaiming they like fantasy books. Although I did meet one guy with a really cool Stormtrooper T-shirt on, which was a bit of a giveaway. And yes, he bought my book!
But what about the others? Some young, muscly, tattooed blokes just laughed at me. Others were willing to talk. A pair of old ladies bought a copy, while Goth-looking teenagers turned up their (pierced) noses!
As time went on, I began to refine my technique. There were some people who were walking just too fast to bother about. Others caught my eye or glanced in the direction of the posters.
I began by saying: " Do you like reading?''
Quite a few replied: "Not today thanks!" which begged the question, would they like reading tomorrow?
But if they stopped, I asked if they liked fantasy and then talked about my book.
I probably spoke to more than 50 people - some claimed to come back later (perhaps they did)others that they had no money that day.
It was an extraordinary experience to speak to so many people about my book.
And I learned that you can sell something if you truly believe in it.
So watch out for me around Christmas, when book two is out!

Your personal zombie attack plan

2009-09-26T00:31:00.000-07:00

Like millions of people who live in/around Sydney, I ``enjoyed'' waking up to a post-apocalyptic red dawn last week, as well as a slightly brown dawn on the weekend.
Amid all the excitement, and coughing, I was chatting with a few mates and we naturally ended up discussing our personal survival plans in case of zombie attack in the event of an apocalyptic event.
Now most people I know (perhaps a comment on the people I know!) seem to have some form of plan to help them survive a massive zombie onslaught.
My basic theory is, you never go into the heavily-fortified compound, because there is always a traitor/fool/fatal flaw that will expose it to zombie infiltration. And once the zombies are in, there's no escape.
Naturally I think it's best to head for wide-open, isolated spaces where you can see them coming (and keep on running) and Australia is brilliant for this.
Of course, it does depend a little on the type of zombie. If it is a viral, rage-frenzied zombie type from 28 Days Later, then obviously you would just have to survive for a couple of months, until they die of hunger.
If it is the mutated, I Am Legend-type zombies, it's even easier. Firstly, they are all CGI and, without powerful computers, wouldn't exist to bother you. Second, all you'd have to do is find a spot where there's no shade (easy enough in Oz) for further than a zombie can walk at night, as they cannot survive UV rays.
Now, if we're talking old-school Dawn Of The Dead zombies who survive on human flesh and can only be killed by having their brains wrecked, then you need to be able to see the slow-moving suckers coming.
If they're the REALLY dumb types, from Shaun Of The Dead, then all the better. If they ever arrive that far west, they'll also be a source of amusement as you watch them bumble around. Sort of like seeing strange tourists trying to find their way around, or the token dumb American couple on The Amazing Race.
Whatever, a large cattle station out in the middle of Australia sounds perfect for all types, giving you self-sufficiency, space to see them coming - and many already have CCTV to allow the farmers to check on stock.
Of course, getting there safely is another matter!
But a mate thinks you need to find an abandoned underground bunker (well, there's surely a few secret US bases around in the outback), while others say cave systems are the go.
Anyway, if the next red dawn brings out the zombies, I'll be ready.
The only flaw in my plan is if someone reads this, gets zombified, then decides to come looking for me ...

Villains too evil?

2009-09-20T21:21:00.000-07:00

The Wounded Guardian was reviewed by The Adelaide Advertiser recently, which was a pretty complimentary review (four stars out of five) - although it threw in the comment that the villains were too evil.
That got me thinking - how evil should fantasy villains be? I mean, I don't remember anyone saying Sauron was a bit too nasty in The Lord Of The Rings, or that the Ringwraiths weren't cuddly enough.
There are few fantasy books where the villains are quite nice people really, just a little misunderstood.
Are we willing to accept that orcs/goblins/trolls/whatever are all utterly evil but that humans cannot be that bad?
If so, where do the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot come?
When writing The Wounded Guardian, I had the difficulty of beginning with a compromised hero. Martil is derided as the Butcher of Bellic, a man with evil deeds to his name.
So if you imagine a scale between good and evil, he's kind of sitting in the middle. That meant any villains had to begin further down the scale than Martil - and keep going!
But I don't know if I'd class them as "totally'' evil, although I wanted the like of Duke Gello and the Fearpriest Onzalez to be very dark - they are men who are not bothered by conscience or morality. History is littered with such men.
But what do you think?
Can we believe in utterly evil non-human villains but human villains need to have some sort of redeeming feature?

The DVD extras of The Wounded Guardian

2009-08-22T00:12:00.000-07:00

When you buy a DVD, these days you expect to get a few extras ... a bit of commentary and most certainly some deleted scenes.
I always enjoy watching the deleted scenes, seeing how it may have changed the story and if it improved/detracted from the flow.
So why not get those with a book?
If you've read a few of my earlier posts, you'll be aware I had to slice about 30,000 words out of The Wounded Guardian to make the 180,000 word count that is the upper limit for a Harper Voyager book.
Now that wasn't a bad thing. In fact it meant I tightened up some rather flabby scenes and cut back excess that didn't need to be there. But there were a few things that it was a bit of a wrench to leave out.
One of the problems I faced with the book was giving the main characters time to develop a relationship. Martil and Karia needed time to get to know each other at the start, while in the second half, Merren and Karia needed time to develop a relationship - for events in the next two books would swiftly overtake them.
This meant I had Martil spend time training the Norstalines and then undertake quite a detailed campaign against Havrick and his soldiers - and this area took quite a trim when it came to making the cuts.
There were also some other scenes, such as Martil and Karia meeting a rude wizard's assistant in the town of Wollin (a wizard who plays a part in book three), which also had to go.
So, in the spirit of DVD extras, I'll be posting some of these scenes on the blog over the next few weeks - and would like to know if you feel their removal from the final manuscript made it better/worse.
But the order in which they appear will be by request.
So, out of the following:
a) Martil and Karia try to talk to a wizard in Wollin
b) Martil trains the Norstalines
c) Ambush in the forest
d) Defeating a cavalry charge
e) Fooling Havrick's forest search
What would you like to read (if any!)
Add your thoughts here or on Facebook and I'll post the first next week!

Adelaide Advertiser book review

2009-08-18T23:59:00.001-07:00

The Adelaide Advertiser, the leading newspaper in South Australia, reviewed The Wounded Guardian last Saturday.
While the reviewer didn't like the villains, he did enjoy the story - giving it four out of five stars!
Here's the review, for those unable to get South Australia's finest!
BTW: I'll be talking more about his point about Gello and Onzalez later.

Martil is a war hero – or a war
criminal, depending on your
perspective. But now all he wants
is to settle down quietly. That’s
not going to happen, as fi rst-time
Australian author Duncan Lay gives
his Dragon Sword Histories series
an enticing start. Martil made a
decision which won a war against
aggressive neighbour Berellia, but
blackened his name and put a price
on his head. His plan to leave fame
and notoriety behind is complicated
when he is burdened with fi rst a
feisty young girl, then a magical
sword and an endangered queen.
Martil is an enthralling character
but, having given us a complicated
hero, Lay stumbles slightly with his
villains, who are totally, ridiculously
evil. Ignore that and The Wounded
Guardian rolls along beautifully.
Scott Moore ****

The Risen Queen back page

2009-08-02T18:56:00.000-07:00

Perhaps not the absolute final back page blurb for The Risen Queen - but pretty close!

Martil and his Rallorans are trying to gain control of the north for Queen Merren but winning the hearts of the people is proving impossible when the bards have painted them as murderous barbarians.
King Gello the usurper is planning to lead a massive army to crush the budding rebellion but, even if a way can be found to defeat him, the Fearpriests stand ready to come to his aid...
Karia is trying to persuade Martil that she has all the answers, while Merren is considering desperate solutions to the problems facing her and Norstalos.
Perhaps the vilified and despised primitive race of men to the north, that the Norstalines call ''goblins'' might be the answer.
But on Dragonara Isle, the dragons have their own plans for Martil and particularly for the Dragon Sword...

mX picture story

2009-07-23T21:06:00.001-07:00

The free commuter newspaper, mX, ran the following story on me on Thursday July 23:

Some people use the time to daydream, others read and some sleep.
But one CityRail passenger used his time commuting to write a book. Three books, to be precise.
The two-hour commute each way from Gosford to Central station became the time Duncan Lay used to write his fantasy trilogy.
The first book, The Wounded Guardian, has been published by HarperCollins.
``Writing a book is the perfect way to use a long train trip,'' he said.``You don't have other distractions and you can just get stuck into the writing.``I was able to feel like my trip was not wasted.''
The three books have taken Lay about five years to write.``The amount I would write varied on the inspiration that was striking me on the day, but I average about 10,000 words a week while writing a first draft.''
The biggest trouble he had writing on the train was the occasional tussle over the armrest.
``You need a little bit of elbow room when writing and sometimes there is a spot of elbow fencing over how much room everyone wants,'' he said.

The Sunday Telegraph article

2009-07-22T23:30:00.000-07:00

As I work for The Sunday Telegraph, our books writer, Lucy Clark, as well as editor Neil Breen, very kindly arranged for the following article to appear on July 5:

Not many commuters would claim hundreds of hours spent on CityRail trains as a wonderful gift. Yet that is exactly how The Sunday Telegraph journalist and Central Coast commuter Duncan Lay regards his time spent on the train from Gosford.
While those around him read or stared out windows, Lay transported himself into the fantasy world of a country called Norstalos, with characters and a story that won him a three-book deal with HarperCollins.
The first of the books, The Wounded Guardian (Voyager, $20.99) is on bookshelves this week.
Here Lay reveals exactly how he did it:``Writers normally like somewhere peaceful to come up with their first book -- a stereotypical garret or a villa in Tuscany, perhaps.``I used the 7.33am from Gosford to Sydney Central.``My publisher tells me I'm the only author to have put together three books on the train, and certainly nobody I've spoken to can remember another author doing the same -- or at least admitting to it.
``In some ways it was the perfect place to write. You can't go anywhere and you've seen the view hundreds of times before, so there's no excuse not to knuckle down and work.''
In the same vein as Raymond E. Feist and David Eddings, The Wounded Guardian will appeal to die-hard fantasy fans who enjoy being transported into mystical lands where lives are won and lost by magical powers and epic wars.
The story centres around wounded warrior, Martil, who has been branded ``the Butcher of Belic'' and must leave his homeland.
Captured by bandits he's tricked into taking into his care Karia, an orphan who is trying to reach the home of her uncle.But when Martil and Karia arrive the village has been destroyed and the people are gone. The only remaining resident is an ex-bandit who has in his possession a magical relic belonging to the rulers of Norstalos -- the Dragon Sword.
Suddenly this unlikely and reluctant duo find themselves in the middle of a dramatic struggle as Norstalos's good queen fights to keep her crown from her cousin Duke Gello and his dark forces.
At the heart of Lay's first novel lies a lesson about the search for family, and how, by seeing life through the eyes of children, yours can change forever.

The Daily Telegraph article

2009-07-22T23:24:00.000-07:00

The Daily Telegraph featured the following article on me, published Wednesday July 22:

IT WAS a coffee with one of the world's top fantasy writers that fired Duncan Lay's creative spirit.
The Sydney writer was editing a local paper in 2002 and Raymond E. Feist, author of novels such as the Conclave Of Shadows was touring the area. Lay grabbed him for an interview.
`We started talking about writing and I'd been, like most journos, a frustrated writer,'' Lay says.
`We talked about how you work out your plots and he talked about how his characters take control of the story. He has the bare bones of the story and knows they start at A and finish at Z but how they get there is up to the characters themselves.''
Lay's self-diagnosed problem was that his characters were a bit flat. But, two kids and a few years down the track, Lay felt a little older and wiser and more confident after the chat with Feist. So he had another crack.
He now has a three-book deal with HarperCollins with The Wounded Guardian, the first instalment in Lay's The Dragon Sword Histories, now fresh on bookshop shelves.
And character was the key to his success.
The plot centres on a war hero, Martil, who is persuaded to take a child to her uncle. He is soon caught in tumultuous events and in possession of a magic sword, fighting for his life amid the battle for a kingdom.``I really wanted this idea of an embittered warrior, almost like a Vietnam vet, someone who had seen too much,'' Lay says.
For want of a better description, this is realist fantasy (no elves, goblins or fairies), led by a believable cast of characters.``One of the things I've tried to do is not simply to have this plucky group of heroes on an expedition. They're all unique characters and quite often they don't get along.''
As for Lay's own journey, well he dropped a gracious email to Feist via his management and got a quick reply, including a disclaimer.``Don't go blaming me, mate, if you got the storytelling bug,'' Feist wrote. ``And if you somehow get rich and famous doing this, it's not my fault! Seriously, congratulations.''

This was written by Chris Hook, editor of T Weekend and a former workmate from Cumberland Newspapers. Needless to say, I think he's a great writer!

Book Launch

2009-06-30T17:56:00.000-07:00

You only ever get one book launch for your first book - and many people will never even get that chance.
So June 28 will live in my memory as a golden day, the day when I launched The Wounded Guardian.
I say ''I'' but it would never have happened without the help and support of friends and family. The Global Financial Crisis means HarperCollins is unable to help out with book launches (especially for nobodies) but, seeing as they are the ones publishing my books, I reckon they've done more than enough right there! I can't even begin to tell you how grateful I am to Stephanie Smith and the Voyager team!
But I digress - friends and family really stepped in and worked unbelievably hard - I owe them all a great debt of thanks.
Kincumba Mountain was the perfect place for the launch - an atmospheric building, lots of grass for all the kids to run wild and toilets that were positively medieval!
The road up to the top is long and, for those who travelled from Sydney or even further afield, it must have felt almost as long as the trip to Mount Doom! I'm sure I saw a couple of hobbits wandering dazedly around the bush tracks...
I'd never done anything like this before, and found myself operating on a combination of adrenalin and nervous energy. Only the knowledge of how bad the toilets were kept me from too many nervous trips to the bathroom. That, and not really eating or drinking anything the whole day because I wanted to talk to everyone there!
Sadly, such a thing was impossible - there were more than 100 people there, from as far away as Brisbane and Melbourne. To all those who made it there, I thank you - and if I didn't get around to talking to you, I am sorry!
The whole thing was somewhat dream-like ... to see Dymocks Erina staff piling up my book (and then see people buy it) was surreal. To sign it for people was even crazier! This was the sort of thing I had imagined and dreamed about for years ... to see it happen was an incredible experience.
I can honestly say that it is only topped by seeing my children born and my marriage day.
We had some incredible Celtic music care of two young musicians, Elissa and Naomi, as well as half a dozen medieval warriors thanks to Mahkra and his mates. The music was great and the kids all loved the chance to get a photograph holding a bow and arrow or a sword!
But the main thing was the book, and to see so many people buying not just a copy for themselves but for a friend was, simply, humbling.
Signing books for friends (and family) I have known for years or even decades was a surreal experience. I still pinch myself to imagine it was real!
But now the book is out there.
It has been launched and now it will be judged by the people who were at the launch, and hopefully a few others!
But wherever it goes, whatever it does, that launch day will be a high point in my life.

writing checklist

2009-06-30T17:41:00.000-07:00

Every writer has their own style, their own habits. What works for one may not work for the other. But, having said that, here's what I have learned about writing - perhaps it may be of some use.
1) Imagine you are writing it out longhand. Don't fiddle around, don't get bogged down. Imagine instead that you cannot go back and change anything until you have finished, so that you press ahead and have a first draft of your work. Once you have a first draft, you have a much better foundation to work from and will have learned more about your story and your characters, which you can use to add depth and complexity.
2) Let your characters do the driving. Get them fixed in your head so that they push the action along. Don't make them do things or make choices you realise they wouldn't really make, just because you plotted it in a Chapter Plan three months ago. If you want them to turn right but you just know they would turn left, then turn left and explore where that goes.
3) Rewrite, rewrite and then rewrite some more. Rewrite until you are absolutely sick of it - and then do it again. Would-be writers send their work off to agents waaaay too early (I know, I did!) You need to put your draft away in a drawer for a week, or even a month, then come back and start ironing out the flaws.
4) Find some friends you can trust to point out the flaws. There will be flaws, trust me on this. The trick is finding someone who can tell you - this character isn't working, this plot point isn't up to scratch. Perhaps publish a chapter or two on the HarperVoyager site ... they have a section for writers to post work, where it can get feedback. Having your flaws exposed is painful. Having an agent reject your work at the last moment because you didn't spot those flaws is agony.
5) Explore the concept of external and internal action. Joss Whedon (Buffy, Firefly) tells this best. Get the two-disc edition of Serenity and watch him talk to a bunch of Aussies at Fox Studios about this. Boiled down, he says that external action is your plot (ie, goblins attack). That, by itself, is fairly ho-hum. What you need is to couple it with internal action (how it affects each character and the characters' relationship with each other). So goblins attack, which makes Fred mad, because he's been warning about this for years. George, who's been boasting about how great a warrior he is, discovers he's terrified. The two, who had been friends, are now arguing - all because of a few goblins. Their relationship has been fundamentally altered and will affect the rest of the book, all because of a simple goblin attack.
6) Finally, just begin writing. Even if you don't hit the jackpot with your first effort, you will have learned something. Every failed attempt I had taught me how to be a better writer and, ultimately, led me to be published.
Good luck!

Thoughts on writing

2009-06-30T17:24:00.000-07:00

I wrote all three books of the trilogy on the train, travelling to and from Sydney - and it actually has me very valuable lessons about writing that can be used by anyone, not just commuters with about three hours a day to kill!
My first draft was written by hand, in a notebook. Sure that's about as old school as you can get but it is actually a really good technique.
See, if you are writing by hand, you can't go back and start messing about with it, editing words and sentences and changing things around. You can make notes for yourself in the margin, you can write future scenes with a particular character as if you had changed something important in the earlier part of the story but YOU CAN'T GO BACK. The only way is forwards.
Sounds like a recipe for more work but, in actual fact, it is a great way to write. It forces you to push on and finish your first draft, instead of getting bogged down in one particular place. Instead of wasting time trying to get something perfect, or obsessing over something that's not really working, you have to push on. Thus you are able to defeat writer's block by the simple expedient of leaving the blockage behind.
When you have a first draft in your hand, then you can REALLY get to work on improving and polishing things. A first draft is just a first draft - a book is not like an essay where you write it out once and then hand it to the teacher. You have to keep going through it, time after time, polishing it and adding layers of plot and character.
I reckon it's better to have a finished first draft, a foundation if you like, rather than a half-finished book that you've been working on for months or even years, unable to move forward because you're tinkering with Chapter Three.
Imagine it's hand-written and that you can't play with it. Make copious notes to yourself for the next draft (I always keep a notepad by my bed for this very thing) but move on. Don't look back until you've written The End.
Even when I put aside the pad and wrote books two and three exclusively on the laptop, I still wrote like that. Don't fiddle endlessly with something - just push on.
Of course you can write like that anywhere, not just on the train. But the other way a train really works well is that it removes all distraction. You can't make a cup of tea, you can't put out the washing or do the dishes, there is no escape and no way out. You have to write or listen to the person across the aisle recount their exciting weekend over the mobile phone.
The other great thing about the train, for me, is that it enables me to walk in the door, plug in the laptop to recharge, back up my day's work - and then forget about writing until the next day.
(Well, all right, my mind is sometimes buzzing, but at least I'm spending my time with the family, not physically writing).
It teaches you discipline and focus.
If you can bring those to your writing - ie set aside an hour or two where all you can do is write, then that's just as good.
You too can have the experience of writing on a train - just without the strange smell, the audible iPod doof-doof music and the early mornings.

Writing on a train

2009-06-23T23:20:00.000-07:00

THOUSANDS of people are locked into metal cylinders every day. Their surly guards are indifferent to their suffering, while the mysterious power that controls their every movement taunts them with a recording, which promises sarcastically that ``CityRail apologises for the inconvenience...''
It sounds like it could be the plot of a novel but, instead, it was the place I chose to write my novel.
Instead of the stereotypical artist's garret or just somewhere peaceful and calm, I wrote not just one book but a trilogy while on the train, commuting from my home on the Central Coast to Surry Hills.
That's more than 750,000 words written and, later, typed onto a laptop.It meant I struggled with character development and plot points among crowds of people with strange physical habits, the bizarre need to share their lives with the rest of the carriage via the mobile phone, snoring problems, issues with personal space and various illnesses.
In some ways it was a fantastic place to write. It's mostly air-conditioned, the seats are mostly comfortable and my fellow travellers are mostly normal.
Sure, you get the days when the remnants of Saturday night's kebabs are strewn all over the carriage _ hopefully still undigested _ or a school excursion takes over the carriage.
But an iPod helps you tune out the distractions. And when the alternative is listening to Dodgy Headphone Man with his doof-doof on maximum or Social Girl catching up on all the goss on her mobile phone, it's an easy way to beat writers' block.
Plus, with two small children at home, even the old blokes offering free life advice to any poor unfortunate close enough to listen are bearable.
Most of all, it was the knowledge that four hours of my life each working day were not wasted. Rather than resign myself to another long session at the whim of CityRail, I could escape to this world I was writing - and the journey sped by.
I could even accept delays (as long as I was on the train, rather than waiting on a rain-swept platform), reasoning that it was more writing time.
Of course there were challenges.
Probably the biggest one was the daily fight over the arm rest.
You see, you need a little bit of elbow room when typing. Sitting in the aisle seat was perhaps the best position because, apart from being knocked by every schoolkid with a large backpack, your elbow has room to run free.
But get the window seat and, while you can luxuriate in the space if you're by yourself, you're always dreading who's going to sit next to you.
Small Asian student doing their homework is good, the fat bloke who ate the Cabbage Surprise for dinner, not so good.
My book, although a fantasy, does not feature any magical creatures _ although I saw plenty of strange ones at different times on my travels.
While Cityrail country trains have two armrests, one for each seat, many commuters seem to feel they need both, and a swift game of Elbow Fencing can ensue.
One of the stranger encounters was when a lady tapped my elbow until I lifted it, then used a cleaning wipe to make sure the armrest was spotless, before politely sharing it with me for the rest of the trip.
I have caught some people watching my screen curiously, particularly when I am writing something gruesome or when I am editing a book and the words ``Chapter Sixteen'' in 20-point type scroll across.
Quite possibly they thought I was mad, writing a book on the train. Quite possibly they were right.
But not only was it a huge amount of fun (and how many people can say that about their daily commute) but if I can see someone reading my book on the train, it will be all worth it!
PS: CityRail isn't quite as bad as I made out.

2009-06-18T16:41:00.000-07:00

THOUSANDS of people are locked into metal cylinders every day. Their surly guards are indifferent to their suffering, while the mysterious power that controls their every movement taunts them with a recording, which promises sarcastically that ``CityRail apologises for the inconvenience...''
It sounds like it could be the plot of a fantasy novel but, instead, it was the place I chose to write my fantasy novel.
Instead of the stereotypical artist's garret or just somewhere peaceful and calm, I wrote not just one book but a trilogy while on the train, commuting from my home on the Central Coast to Surry Hills.
That's more than 750,000 words written and, later, typed onto a laptop.
It meant I struggled with character development and plot points among crowds of people with strange physical habits, the bizarre need to share their lives with the rest of the carriage via the mobile phone, snoring problems, issues with personal space and various illnesses.
In some ways it was a fantastic place to write. It's mostly air-conditioned, the seats are mostly comfortable and my fellow travellers are mostly normal.
Sure, you get the days when the remnants of Saturday night's kebabs are strewn all over the carriage _ hopefully still undigested _ or a school excursion takes over the carriage.
But an iPod helps you tune out the distractions. And when the alternative is listening to Dodgy Headphone Man with his doof-doof on maximum or Social Girl catching up on all the goss on her mobile phone, it's an easy way to beat writers' block.
Plus, with two small children at home, even the old blokes offering free life advice to any poor unfortunate close enough to listen are bearable.
Most of all, it was the knowledge that four hours of my life each working day were not wasted. Rather than resign myself to another long session at the whim of CityRail, I could escape to this world I was writing - and the journey sped by.
I could even accept delays (as long as I was on the train, rather than waiting on a rain-swept platform), reasoning that it was more writing time.
Of course there were challenges.
Probably the biggest one was the daily fight over the arm rest.
You see, you need a little bit of elbow room when typing. Sitting in the aisle seat was perhaps the best position because, apart from being knocked by every schoolkid with a large backpack, your elbow has room to run free.
But get the window seat and, while you can luxuriate in the space if you're by yourself, you're always dreading who's going to sit next to you.
Small Asian student doing their homework is good, the fat bloke who ate the Cabbage Surprise for dinner, not so good.
My book, although a fantasy, does not feature any magical creatures _ although I saw plenty of strange ones at different times on my travels.
While CityRail country trains have two armrests, one for each seat, many commuters seem to feel they need both, and a swift game of Elbow Fencing can ensue.
One of the stranger encounters was when a lady tapped my elbow until I lifted it, then used a cleaning wipe to make sure the armrest was spotless, before politely sharing it with me for the rest of the trip.
I have caught some people watching my screen curiously, particularly when I am writing something gruesome or when I am editing a book and the words ``Chapter Sixteen'' in 20-point type scroll across.
Quite possibly they thought I was mad, writing a book on the train. Quite possibly they were right.
But not only was it a huge amount of fun (and how many people can say that about their daily commute) but if I can see someone reading my book on the train, it will be all worth it!
PS: CityRail isn't quite as bad as I made out!

Is fantasy inherently violent?

2009-05-31T18:37:00.000-07:00

An fascinating topic posted on the HarperCollins Voyager website last year was (and I apologise for not taking down the username of the person who posed it:) Is Fantasy Inherently Violent?
It’s an intricate topic, particularly in the wake of Harry Potter. Many young readers have become interested in fantasy since JK Rowling’s boy wizard swept the globe but, as a parent myself, there are many fantasy books I don’t want my children reading until they are older. Even the later Potter books are, for me, too dark and violent for the 10-12 year-old children some thought the series was aimed at.
Some of the responses to this question claimed that fantasy is not necessarily violent and it is up to the individual writer. Certainly there have been several sub-genres of fantasy, which seem to nudge almost into the Mills & Boon territory, that are without violence.
But, looking back at its history, I have to say there is something inherently violent in fantasy.
Look at the early giants of the genre: Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock, Robert Howard, JRR Tolkien - all violent.
Even the likes of CS Lewis has plenty of battles and deaths in the Narnia books (although not nearly as many as in the Narnia films).
Later writers, such as David Gemmell, Raymond E Feist, Terry Brooks, David Eddings - even Terry Pratchett - have plenty of violence in their pages.
Fantasy is often referred to, sometimes insultingly, as ``swords and sorcery’’. But the key phrase there is the sword - any society where people use swords and axes to solve problems is going to be inherently violent. Just open an ancient history textbook to see what humans have done to each other through the ages!
I suppose I am particularly sensitive to this topic, as my books are violent.
I think of them as M-rated - parental guidance advised for under-15s.
I make no apologies for the graphic representation of the violence. A battle was a vicious, nasty place to be and telling children that it’s easy - and fun - to kill and kill again is not what I want to write.
Nothing annoys me more than to read a book where the hero slaughters his way through a pack of opponents and then blithely continues, completely unaffected and spotlessly clean as well.
The Lord Of The Ring films, despite their brilliance, were a little guilty of that. After slicing and dicing about 50 orcs, the characters still looked immaculate!
Apart from a desire to realistically portray what goes on, there is a serious plot need for the violence.
The main male character, Martil, is a warrior who’s sick of war. He’s seen too much, been forced to do too much and he’s haunted by it. To understand why Martil is like this, I wanted to take the reader into the middle of battle, in the pain and blood and violence. To understand him better, the reader needs to gain some understanding of what he has seen and experienced.
I like to compare it to a French film called A Very Long Engagement, which was both praised and criticised for showing some of the most graphic World War I battle scenes in cinematic history. I am ashamed to admit I have not read the book this film was based on - but no doubt its discussion of war was similarly brutal. As Manech, the hero, was sentenced to death for cowardice in the trenches, you needed to see why he was driven to that. You needed to see how a brave, patriotic man could be driven to desperate measures, could even lose his mind.
So The Dark Warrior is violent - and there are more battles to come, none of them romanticised.
Part of that is due to the inherent violence I feel lurks within fantasy, part to understand the characters and part to show readers that there is nothing glamorous about killing another human.
If that upsets some readers, then so be it.

Fantasy and maps

2009-05-31T18:31:00.000-07:00

HarperCollins has a wonderful website for fantasy fans, though its Voyager label. The Purple Zone, as it is known, has all the news on fantasy in Australia as well as plenty of spirited discussion. When I have time, which is not often lately, I like to look at what is being discussed and even contribute a little, under my username ``seagulls’’.
That name, incidentally, has nothing to do with hot chips, it is the nickname of my old hometown soccer team, Brighton and Hove Albion. They play in league one (the old division three) now but, when I was at primary school, played in the old first division and took on Manchester United in the final of the FA Cup in 1983.
Anyway, one of the topics I put up was fantasy maps. At the time, I was being asked to do a map - and was a little unsure about it.
After all, there is something of a cliché about fantasy maps. Comedian Ian McFadyen (ex-Comedy Company) puts it best in a very funny web article called How To Write A Fantasy Novel (look for it). As he points out, not only are there often jungles next to snow-covered mountains but all these worlds are roughly square - the size of a paperback’s page!
It seems to hover unpleasantly close to Dungeons And Dragons, where the map was essential to the experience. Not that I have anything against D&D, given I played it as a teenager in the 1980s but, equally, it is not where I want my writing to go now.
The question is, does a fantasy novel need a map? After all, this is a work of the imagination so, surely, the reader can picture what is going on, and where?
Thinking back to the fantasy I read, the likes of David Gemmell and Terry Pratchett did not have maps for most of their books - although some crept in by the end. And the earlier writers, such as Michael Moorcock and Fritz Leiber did not include maps.
Of course, JRR Tolkien did so - and probably inspired a thousand bad maps by doing so.
This was haunting me - for my artistic abilities are limited in the same way that bricks don’t swim too well.
But many of the Voyager online community felt a map was vital to the book, that it helped with understanding the world that has been created by the writer.
So that got me thinking. Has the tradition for maps with fantasy books meant that readers now expect a map, and are disappointed when one does not accompany the novel?
Or is the map just a natural fit for fantasy writing?
Personally, I blame Tolkien. I think fantasy got along fine without maps before Middle Earth turned up, created in more detail than just about anything else I can think of (and I’m happy to be proved wrong on that).
Now maps are synonymous with fantasy.
I’m afraid I doubt my writing will become known for its intricately-formed worlds, created and explained in great detail. Anyway, I’d rather concentrate on characters and plot, offer the readers a world they can reasonably picture and leave it at that.
But I have created a map, with its flaws, for these books. Hopefully it adds something and readers don’t look too closely at my dodgy drawing skills, although cleaned up in a wonderful job by a HarperCollins artist!
But what do you think? Is the map now an essential part of fantasy?

Publishing process

2009-05-26T22:22:00.000-07:00

I have worked in newspapers since I left school, usually weekly or bi-weekly publications and now I am with a Sunday newspaper, so I am used to a relatively short deadline for publishing. But in the world of books, the pace is much, much slower.
The Wounded Guardian (although it was called The Dark Warrior then) has been a work in process for about four yeas.
Usually what happens is you send a section of your manuscript to an agent - usually about four chapters and a summary. If they like this taste, they will ask for the entire book. Now, from what I have been told, only about five per cent of submitted manuscripts get this far. Most get sent back with a polite letter. Mine picked up several of these! Of the five out of a hundred who get the chance to submit their entire manuscript, the bar is raised much, much higher. Now the agency is looking at whether they want to represent you.
Many things go into this process - the quality of the writing, the plot, the characters, who it is aimed at, the genre it sits inside, the state of the market, the other writers they already represent. Of the five out of every 100 that get this far, perhaps one gets an offer. Sometimes less! My agent told me she would be delighted to know one out of every 100 manuscripts she reads would become a book!
Anyway, one agency, Cameron Cresswell, was interested in The Wounded Guardian and wanted to read it all. This was back in the day when you had to print everything out and, one ream of paper and an expensive ink cartridge later, I had the manuscript sent away.
Much nervous waiting followed, then she rang to say it had all got messed up and, as I had not numbered the pages, could I send it again?
Another ream of paper and ink cartridge later and I was back to chewing my nails.
On my birthday, in 2005, she rang to tell me it was very promising but there was too much work to be done on it for her to take it on - especially as she was about to go on maternity leave.
Obviously I was gutted but managed to ask her what sort of work needed to be done. Usually you get nothing like this from an agent. Perhaps the fact I had sent it to her twice, or perhaps my birthday helped. Whatever the reason, she told me how my main character, Martil, was very well developed - but everyone else suffered against him, because they weren’t developed enough.
After I got over the kick in the guts, I realised what a gift I had been given, and furiously re-wrote the book, changing the whole focus.
That was a huge break for me.
So many would-be writers don’t get proper feedback on their work - and by that I don’t mean someone saying they loved it. It has to be constructive criticism, pointing out the flaws - for there will be flaws. Far better to find out what they are than have them seen - and not commented on - by an agent who will conclude your manuscript is too flawed and needs too much work to take further.
Once again it was ready to send, and once again I was back at square one, looking for an agent.
As anyone who has tried to get a book published knows, there are few enough Australian agents - and even fewer taking fantasy submissions.
As I was ringing to see if any were interested, and not having much luck, one suggested I ring Stephanie Smith at HarperCollins direct, as I worked for The Sunday Telegraph. Normally I would say, I don’t want to abuse my position, I want to achieve things by myself. But at this point I was going to take any help I could get, so I rang. She was happy to take a few chapters … and the next stage in the process began.
I had fondly imagined that, with the extra advice I had received, the book was now up to the required standard.
Not quite!
Stephanie gave me more valuable feedback and wanted things rewritten, then for me to submit it again.
Obviously I was delighted at that and her advice was excellent, so more rewriting followed.
For more than a year - from about May 2005 to July 2006 - we went back and forth, with me working in new ideas and improving the book each time. Finally it was ready - but about 40,000 words too long!
So out came the chainsaw, followed by the axe and finally the scalpel as I sliced 40,000 words to get it down to the 180,000-word target.
At long last it was ready to go to what they call the Acquisition Committee. As I understand it, this is where all the section heads sit down with the big boss and put up the manuscripts they think should be published.
The Wounded Guardian went to its first meeting in August 2006 - and received neither a yes or no, just a maybe.
So I sweated bullets for another month, biting my nails down to the stumps, until one Tuesday in September, when my mobile phone was about out of battery. I had just plugged it in to recharge when it rang.
It was Stephanie, to tell me my book had been approved for publication!
It was one of the best days of my life and well worth all the effort it had taken to get it that far!
Of course, if I had found an agent, then I would have signed an agreement with them and then they would have pitched my book to one or more publishers. I went through the back door of this process but it was still a long journey!
After I had my offer from HarperCollins - and it was an amazing sight, seeing your name on that sheet of paper under the HarperCollins logo! - I went back to the agent who had given me such good advice, Siobhan Hannan from Cameron Cresswell.
There were two reasons for this - first, I had been advised that if I was serious about writing, I should get an agent. The second reason was more like karma, I suppose.
Would my book have been good enough to attract Stephanie’s interest if I had not had that advice from Siobhan? Would I have wasted that chance, the opportunity that has led to a three-book publishing contract? I don’t know - but I do know it helped my book and helped me as a writer.
Anyway, your first step in being signed up is an offer memo, which outlines the broad terms of the agreement - publishing dates, print runs and your advance and payment
Once you have signed that, then you get the full contract, with all the details of everything.
It looked daunting, so I was glad to have an agent at that stage, who could go through it - although as she said, it was an extremely fair contract anyway and there was hardly anything she could see worth changing.
After all that excitement had died down, not very much happened.
I was busy writing book two but the most exciting thing that happened was the need to change the book titles I had originally chosen The Dark Warrior and The Golden Queen as the titles for books one and two - only to discover those were already taken.
Coming up with new titles isn’t easy. Not only is there the creative process but you have to keep checking through amazon.com that no one else has already picked them!
Finally I came up with The Wounded Guardian and The Risen Queen, with The Radiant Child as the third.
Meanwhile I finished off book two and still nothing much had happened with book one (which had a publishing timetable of October 2009 back then).
Then things began to happen!
First came the cover, with an Australian artist called Les Petersen working on that.
Then everything moved forward - from October to July 2009, with the other books also coming forward, to January 2010 and July 2010 respectively.
Then the book went to the copy editor, Abigail Nathan, who did an excellent job of spotting flaws within the book.
A thorough rewrite later and it went out to proof-readers.
At this point, HarperCollins also printed up review copies (full of little mistakes but very exciting to hold it in print!).
After the proof-readers, I spent an hour on the phone with Stephanie, going through corrections.
Then it was time for a final read by me, then a final proof-read - then off to the printers!
Probably the biggest thing I learned was to keep rewriting - and to find people who can offer you constructive advice that points out the flaws in your work. Because there will be flaws!
It is a long road … but well worth travelling!

What's in a name?

2009-05-11T21:52:00.000-07:00

The book was to be called The Dark Warrior, a name that really appealed to me. I love double meanings and the hidden meanings in ``dark’’ just summed up the book, I felt.
Unfortunately I was too late!
Someone else had already nabbed the name and I needed to change it - and fast.
To add insult to injury, my title for the second book, The Golden Queen, had also been taken.
Luckily my title for the third book, The Radiant Child, was still free but I had to come up with some new titles - and fast.
After thinking about the book as The Dark Warrior for so long, to change titles seemed unfair - as well as difficult. But I had to put it into perspective. It’s a problem many would-be authors would like to have - change your title so our book gets published.
I racked my brain for weeks trying to come up with something good. Obviously the three titles had to relate to each other, as well as to my original idea of the first book title relating to the warrior, Martil, the second to the Queen, Merren and the third to the child, Karia.
And the first title was the most important. I might have the world’s greatest title for book three, but if the first in the series was only bought by six friends and the crazy lady down the road who lives with 27 cats, it’s not going to do much good!
I had to have a word as evocative as ``dark’’. That was my problem.
Guardian, with its dual implications of a protector and also as the legal protector of a child, ticked all the boxes.
Wounded, with its meanings of someone hurt in spirit, as well as body, struck me as being the way to go.
I tried Wounds Of A Guardian but it went on too long and didn’t jump out. Wounded Guardian sounded good but I really wanted the `The’ in the title to nail it down to the one character.
Book two gave me even more trouble. I knew it had to have Queen in it but how to describe her in a way both accurate and interesting?
Lots of work with the thesaurus gave me The Risen Queen.
Now, looking at it, I like them better than The Dark Warrior.
And if the title gets just one person to pick up the book, then it has done its job!

The Wounded Guardian

2009-03-24T22:24:00.001-07:00

A haunted man, war hero Martil -- now derided as the ‘Butcher of Bellic’ -- leaves his beloved homeland in search of peace. Set upon by bandits, he is tricked into taking a small child, Karia, to her uncle. But the village has been gutted of its people ... except for one ex-bandit who has the Dragon Sword, a magical relic belonging to the rulers of Norstalos.

Martil and Karia find themselves being swept up in the struggle for a country. Norstalos’s first-ever queen is trying to keep her crown while her cousin, Duke Gello, wants it and is prepared to do anything, even make a deal with dark powers, to get it …

Martil finds himself caring for a child, fighting for a queen and discovering that even a magical sword is no guarantee of victory …

Well, that is the back page blurb of The Wounded Guardian but here is a more detailed description…
The central character is Martil, a warrior who is sick of war. He has seen too much, been forced to do too much. He struggles to control his anger, his drinking. The final straw is when his King and country turns on him because he was part of an army that sacked a city, the last act of the vicious Ralloran Wars that saw Martil fighting for half his lifetime.
In search of peace, he leaves his homeland and heads north, to Norstalos, the largest, richest and most peaceful country on the continent.
But by mischance and due to the attack of some foolish bandits, he is forced to look after Karia, a small child with an attitude problem and strange magic powers.
Karia has many problems of her own. An orphan, she was raised by a priest before being claimed back by her father – a vicious bandit – who beat her and ground down her spirit.
The pair of them are forced together and must learn to rely on each other – particularly as they are heading into the middle of a civil war.
Merren is the first-ever Queen of Norstalos and her cousin, the ruthless Duke Gello intends her rule to be the shortest in history. He believes a man should be on the throne – himself – and is prepared to do anything, even stealing the country’s symbol of kingship, the fabled Dragon Sword.
But his plan goes wrong when Martil ends up not just with the Dragon Sword but as the Queen’s Champion and her last hope of taking back her country.
Lurking behind all this are the Berellians, the men Martil has spent half his life fighting. For while they were defeated in the Ralloran Wars, their dreams of blood and conquest are undimmed. They have made a deal with the Dark God Zorva and his foul minions, the Fearpriests, and believe it is only a matter of time before Gello turns to them for help…
While books do not carry a rating, I consider this to be an ``M-rated’’ book, in that it is written for those aged 15 and above. Younger readers may still enjoy it but I would recommend they only read it after a parent has read it first, to make sure it is suitable for each individual child.
There is a fair amount of blood and gore and I make no apologies for that – to see how Martil has been so badly affected by war, the reader needs to graphically see how brutal sword-fighting is. Hit another man with a sword or an axe and there is none of the ``clean’’ kills made popular by semi-children’s films such as Narnia or even Lord Of The Rings, where the hero swings the sword and the baddie falls to the ground instantly and bloodlessly.
Also, there are concepts within the book that some younger readers may struggle to appreciate.
I have tried to write this on two levels – for teenagers there is an adventure story, as well as plenty of humour. For the older reader there are also issues such as redemption, how children can change adults and the nature of good and evil. I hope older teenagers could enjoy it now – and then re-read it years later and appreciate different aspects, on deeper levels.
But principally I hope it is enjoyed!

Thanks to Gemmell and Feist

2009-03-18T22:44:00.000-07:00

These books would not exist without two of fantasy’s top writers – David Gemmell and Raymond E Feist.
Like most teenagers, I had read Tolkein and thought fantasy consisted of endless description, long passages of verse in other languages and a healthy dose of elves, dwarves and orcs. While I enjoyed it, I had no plans to read more.
Then a mate of mine presented me with David Gemmell’s first novel, Legend, and insisted I read it, over my protestations.
Long story short, I read it, enjoyed it so much that I have every one of Gemmell’s novels and began to read fantasy – Eddings, Brooks, Feist and more.
I loved the gritty, realistic fantasy, as well as fantasy with great characters and intricate plots. Gemmell had begun a fascination with fantasy, opened the door into that genre for me.
I tried to write my own fantasy – plots were no problem but characters were and I had zero success in interesting people with them.
Flash forward a few years and I was – like so many others – a frustrated writer, while working as the editor of the Hornsby Advocate, a paper serving the far north of Sydney.
I had no more plans to write fantasy but was trying to write a contemporary Australian novel – and getting nowhere.
HarperCollins (one of those quirks of fate/destiny/whatever) brought out Raymond E Feist for his Talon Of The Silver Hawk tour. Feist was one of my favourites and I lobbied to get him to visit Borders at Hornsby, where I could interview him.
Success! I met him at Starbucks and spent a fascinating 45 minutes chatting to him – so much so that the publicist had to call a halt to our interview!
But I had enough time to talk to him about writing, and we discussed how he works through his books, how his characters sometimes take him off into subplots or on entire arcs that he never imagined when he sat down to write.
As he put it, he knew the characters have to get from A to Z – but they don’t go via B, C, D, E etc etc. They might begin that way, then jump to M, N, before darting back to J.
I listened, fascinated. For that was exactly the way I like to write.
Inspired, thinking that I was, unwittingly, emulating Feist, I began work on fantasy once more.
Seven years later, The Wounded Guardian will be on the shelves.
Incidentally, after I signed the contract, I tracked down Mr Feist. He was generous enough to reply to my email.
It said, in part:
Don't go blaming me, mate, if you got the storytelling bug. And if you somehow manage to get rich and famous doing this, it's not my fault!
Anyway, continued success to you and if I played even a small part in motivating you to live your dream, thanks for letting me know.

So thanks to Mr Gemmell and Mr Feist, I am about to become a published author!

How it started...

2009-01-19T19:36:00.000-08:00

Like so many people, I wanted to be a fantasy author.
Now I am about to become what I always dreamed - thanks to hard work and a fair slice of dumb luck.
Literary agents would like the first few chapters of books I sent in, and would ask to read the whole manuscript - but there it would end.
Naturally I was getting frustrated, unable to see where I was going wrong.
Still, every book I was able to finish (no matter how bad) did help me grow as a writer.
Then came what I felt was my best book yet. Once written, I sent it out to various agents in an attempt to get it published.
Some weren't interested but one liked it enough to want to read it all.
Months went by, then I was lucky enough to get a call from her. She liked my latest effort but felt it needed too much work to pick up. Worse, she was about to go on maternity leave and would not be back for more than a year. It happened to be my birthday and, in something of a play for sympathy, I asked what was the greatest problem. Perhaps as a belated present, she told me - when most agents won't give you any feedback.
Inspired now, I re-wrote the book thoroughly and approached the publisher of Voyager, Stephanie Smith, directly. Luckily for me I work for a newspaper and thus she was willing to read my rewritten manuscript.
She liked it, but had plenty of suggestions for it to be better.
Months of re-writes and to-ing and fro-ing ensued.
This was the key, apparently. I have been told since (but not during that process) that many authors are able to get agents/publishers interested in their work. It is the ones who are willing to take suggestions for improvement, who can work with agents/publishers and rewrite their work again and again and AGAIN ... those are the ones who can break through.
Finally she told me it was to go before their Acquisition Committee.
The first time, it received neither a green nor a red light and ANOTHER month of agonised waiting ensued before ... YES! They offered me a three book deal.
My first book, The Wounded Guardian is out July 2009.
The second book, The Risen Queen is out January 2010.
The third book, The Radiant Child is out July 2010.
So what did I learn from this?
First, you need some impartial, possibly even brutal advice from someone who knows books. Friends who tell you it is great, in order to spare your feelings, are no good. Unless you discover the flaws, you might never break through.
Second, be prepared to rewrite. The Wounded Guardian goes to the publishers in April 2009 and is on its 20th rewrite. Publishers like authors who are prepared to listen and work on their manuscript to get it to the stage where it is publishable.
Third, be prepared to get knocked back. Several agents and publishers didn't like my work - but I will be on Australian shelves under the Voyager imprint, which dominates Australian fantasy.
Above all, DON'T GIVE UP.