Happy Blog Day Everyone!
A short one this week as I’m pressed for time, but I wanted to touch base on where I was in the prequel, A Boy and A Rat. For those that don’t know (or have managed to block me talking about it from their memory) this is the story of how Brennan met Riz when he was sixteen and the rat was…well a lot older then you would believe. Anyway, on to the weekly briefs!
Weekly Briefs
Harvey Duckman Presents…Volume 2
Not long now till the second Volume is released! In fact you can find the pre-order here! Just as with the first, you’ll get a whole host of fantastic stories from established writers, to up and comers. Of and you’ll also get a new Brennan and Riz story, the ‘Black Cat on the Prowl’. Please support these releases as there is more planned!
It releases 6th July with a book launch at the Kapow! Sci Fi Market in Stockton-On-Tees the same day, if you’re in the area, come on down! I’ll be there…With a special guest….Watch you this space…
Crossing the Tees 2019
Creator Chaos
My ‘All About Me’ Interview is live and available to listen to! Give it a spin and let me know how I did with the questions. Some of them were unexpected to say the least.
We are due to record the next main episode of the Podcast soon, with yours truly doing the hosting duties…Which should be fun.
A reminder of who the rest of Creator Chaos are:
Me – I don’t think I need to explain myself…
Kelvin Rodriguez – Fans and followers of the #vss365 tag will recognize this fellow and his creations, a master of the pun. He also has a mighty fine singing voice.
Zack Brooks – Author of the ‘Charlie the Cupid’ shorts and ‘The Trials of Amaford” novellas, the audio book version of ‘How Not To Be A Rogue’ is out now! This is a perfect chance to get in on this series, with a great narrator. A great guy and the defacto leader of our rabble.
Pete Hartog – Author of the novel Bloodlines, and currently working on its sequel. A great guy with a great taste in music and a fantastic name. He also has a blog you can find here, give it a read! He’s currently working on a sequel to Bloodlines.
Click here to listen to all the podcasts so far and look out for us on Spotify and Apples Music Service!
Vector Unit Regen Orphan’s War
To catch up on the series so far, click here!
If you follow the #CharacterChaos tag on Twitter, I’ve chosen to answer this months questions as the main characters, Drake and Ava. Search the tag to see what they’ve got to say for themselves!
It’s been fun using these two for this month, as I feel I’ve gotten to know them a lot better and in turn, helping to focus on their paths going forward.
Brief Mentions
Looking for their newer stuff? Click here for their Christmas encounter with a Yeti, or click here for the anthology containing the short ‘A Walk Through The Pleasure Gardens’, get this one and you also get a whole host of brilliant short stories as well from fantastic authors.
Click here to find me on Goodreads
And now…time for our main feature presentation…
A Boy and A Rat, The Progress Report.
Let’s start with the basics, currently I’m on the end of Chapter 19, hopefully moving on to chapter 20 very soon. Then I estimate it will be ten chapters before this draft is finished. Too basic? Well the writing has got a rhythm going for it, flowing greatly one time, before slowing down, and right now, I’m in the slowing down part. This is probably because the chapter I’m working on, is very important in terms of book themes and because of the characters involved.
To recap, this story is largely told as a flashback, from Brennan’s point of view (meaning his snark is present as he looks over his memories, using hindsight to it’s fullest benefit) from when he was sixteen. A time when he had one friend, someone he depended on, trusted. That friend was...Merrick.
Then it shows how he met Riz, and that was the end of that life...So while this is ultimately a story of how Brennan and Riz met, it’s also a story of how Brennan’s life changed, and at the same time, how Merrick’s life changed.
Followers of mine on Twitter may know a character I tweet about sometimes, either as part of the #vss365 tag or the #satsplat tag. This character is Gallows, an antagonist who has no qualms about killing people in the name of his freedom or just to get under Brennan’s skin. Gallows debuts in this novel (that’s the other thing that’s been hard to adjust to, going from short stories to a full novel again) in the very first chapter, but even then he’s someone who Brennan and Co have dealt with, and this prequel shows that as well. Of course, there’s also another fan favourite character that appears half way through and steals the show, because of course she does, Valarie.
Back when I started the novel as part of the NaNoWriMo challenge, I was never sure if I was going to bring her into the prequel, as I couldn’t decide at what point I wanted her to meet Bren and Riz, as their relationship changed depending on what part of their lives they met. Thanks to fan feedback though (and one good friend taking Valarie to his heart and making the choice to include her much easier). Adding her in proved to be difficult with the pacing and raised a few questions about her purpose, this is one of the factors that led me to abandon that draft as it was, and start to rework it all.
One of the other benefits that came from doing this, meant I could find a beta reader who could give me feedback on the chapters as I wrote them, and help keep me on course. Luckily I found one within the fantastic writer Abi Pearson, the author of the Wayfarer’s Journey fantasy story (she also has her own website and blog here!) She’s been a firm supporter of my work and leapt on the chance. It’s also because of her that I did something that I always kept umming and erring about, taking Brennan to the Seely Council for a couple of chapters, shedding a bit of light on my version of the Fae.
Anyway, the new draft has given plenty of challenges to overcome, and I’ll go through them all after the book is published, but I’ll say that I greatly under-estimated the challenges of writing a prequel, in terms of keeping plot points straight, and realising that things I promised in earlier stories, have to be kept. This is has been one of the biggest headaches for me.
There’s been some work that I’ve had to delete just to keep the lines straight, and the time frame from the story has been stretched further then I would have liked because of something I wrote in the Yeti in the Snow story that just had to be explored here.
There’s revelations of course, to counter these difficulties, and yes, I do sort of set up Valarie’s solo novels, as it wouldn’t make sense for her to just blurt out everything that fully happened to her, she says what she needs to...then kicks ass.
Oh, one thing I should add, is that you do meet Brennan’s parents. Which made me ask myself how involved I wanted them being, not just as parents but as parts of the greater plot, again, there was plot points from previous stories that forced my hands here, but not in completely bad ways. I found a compromise that works for me as the author, and it opens up further doors to explore in later stories, should I wish to go down that way.
As it stands, the current chapter is solely about Merrick and Brennan, and them coming to terms with their friendship as it stands, meaning this is very character driven. I’ve never really written anything like that before. Which ties into what I first said about writing slow...
As we’ve come full circle, I’ll leave you with this teaser from A Boy and A Rat, and I’ll wish you all a fantastic Day, so until next time, Farewell.
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