Words You Never Want to Hear the Three Year Old Say When Coming Out of an Unsupervised Room II

"I'm painting!"

The Witch of the Westmoors Lives

I received the .pdf version of Abandoned Towers #3 and my second story set in the world of Raven Kill is alive and well. Scheduled release date is 1 July 2009 and I know you will want to buy multiple copies. (At 1000 words you won't be able to line your bird cages with it if you don't.)

Tuck Reviewed

Tuck is the continuation of the King Raven Trilogy, a retelling of the legend of Robin Hood. It sums up the fight that Rhi Bran has been engaged in since the early pages of Hood. It also cleverly explains how the Welsh legend got himself transferred to the woods nearby Nottingham in later tellings. In short, I really enjoyed this book. The writing is clear and compelling, the story resonates with all the trappings of the hero's journey, and the characters are deeply drawn. You root for Rhi Bran and his quest to correct the injustice stemming from his father's death. The princeling who began as a self absorbed cad becomes a leader of men and a true hero. In all, the series is both a clever retelling of the legend and a great story in its own right.

Tuck

The CSFF is promoting Tuck by Stephen Lawhead this month. I absolutely love this series but I am pressed for time so the review will come tomorrow.

Speaking of Othren Four-Scars...

Finished the new story on his origin over the weekend. I also figured out what the macguffin was and of course there is a good deal of rewriting that I have to do. As is typical, I get new ideas as I go along and usually just write them in as if they've been there all the time. Anyhow, it came out at more than 6000 words and will likely remain about there. Now to think about where to submit it...

What Can You Do

I was talking to some friends yesterday about the stories I'm working on now. When I said I was working on another story about Oth from Return of the Sword one of my friends looked at me sort of puzzled like. "Didn't he die?" I scrunched up my eyebrows. "No, he didn't die. He's immortal. He gets to choose the moment of his death." My friend didn't seem convinced. "I thought he staggered off and closed his eyes like he was dead." I pondered on this for a moment. "No, I'm pretty sure I remember what I wrote and he just sat down at the rock." That was when my other friend chimed in and said that he thought Oth died as well.

So today I pulled the story up and printed off the last page for them. It's quite clear that he does not die. Just another example of writers writing one thing and readers reading another.

Interesting and Timely Review

This review from The Cimmerian comes out at an interesting time:

“The Battle of Raven Kill” is a last-stand story from Jeff Draper that, despite some weak points background-wise, ends with some satisfyingly defiant bloody glory reminiscent of “The Valley of the Worm” and “The Children of the Night.”

The 'weak points background-wise' were due to trying to maintain Oth's immortality as a secret until the end. That's exactly what I'm trying to explain now in the new story.

Walking on Shifting Sands

Well, the last week has been marked by mounting frustration over the direction of "The Granite Strand." As I said before, I've got a lot of moving parts and they are not meshing together as neatly as I'd like. Most of the difficulty lies in me not having a clear idea of what the motivations are for two key characters. One is very key and I will have to come up with something and the other is not so key and I will have to decide if I want to keep him. Decisions, decisions.

On the other hand, the new Oth story has progressed solidly into the middle with a blast of action and I'm pretty sure I know how to slide into the ending. That's encouraging. Still haven't thought of what the Important Thing is so for now I'm still just typing [macguffin]. Something will come to me. It always does.