Tag Archives: Gods of the Deep

New year musings…

01 Tuesday Jan 2019

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As usual, I am late at doing a retrospective of the old year. In fact, I may be more than a year late as I cannot recall if I did one of these last year or not…

Anyway, after being name checked in Russel A Smith’s blog yesterday I have been shamed into doing a new year post of my own…

Eddie the smooth coated fox terrier on a beach with a ball2018 has been a mixed year. I lost two things. One was my full time employment, with redundancy in June. The other, more tragic and personal, was the loss of Eddie, our Smooth Fox Terrier. This last one is still very recent (December) and he will be sorely missed. He has featured both in this blog as ‘Christmas dog’ and also had a small cameo in my first novella publication (Transitions) where he is found eating from an upturned bin during a scene where the hero, Brandon, leaves a love note on Helen’s doorstep. I am sure he would have been the first to tell you that the entire plot of that story was all about him and the bin eating scene was artistically essential for the overall plot of the novel and if you cut it out the whole story collapses.

However, there were also good things in 2018. For one, the loss of employment has allowed more time for writing – both fiction and non-fiction. This has meant that I have now almost completed my second educational resource and will be starting a third later in January. I will be using this blog to announce when these are published so keep an eye out for that. The two current ones are based on the BTEC level 3 Health and Social Care specifications for 2016. The potential future one will be based on the Applied science specification.

I’ve also kicked the fiction writing up a notch. I have been working with a new writing Authors incliding Jacey Bedford and Ruth Long doing a panel at Mancunicon Eastercongroup, courtesy of the wonderful Jacey Bedford who is shown in the photograph from a panel I shared with her at Mancunicon (Eastercon) and that has given me some inspiration and encouragement. I am currently working on two novels. One is a sequel to Gods of the Deep called Gods of the City which will bring us back to the Arcroc and the adventures of Rachel and Everyn. The other currently does not have a name (it was formerly Fortune and Troy but that title no longer works for various reasons and I need a rethink…) but will be set in the Waypoint universe which has already featured in two of the stories in Lurking Miscellany.

Final thing in writing is that I have become a reviewer for the BSFA Review. My reviews have not (at present) made it to the page but are expected to start appearing in the next issue which is due out soon. I have been reading a mix of trad and self published books. Spoiler alert, my review of Lost Gods by fellow Mancunian Micah is largely positive. This has nothing to do with the fact I got to attend the lavish release party…

Purple relief figure in Brick lane, LondonIn photography, I have made massive changes. I attended a course at the London Institute of Photography in August. I spent a few days in London with them doing artistic shoots in Brick Lane and the Barbican centre and a few other places.  I learned a lot there and have been applying what I learned to my work. One of the images I took there is shown here – some of the fascinating graffiti in Brick Lane, London. I also traveled to Cyprus to photograph my sister’s wedding, which was an amazing experience and have found a group of local photographers who have been meeting in a pub in Manchester every Wednesday to experiment with interesting photography ideas. I have set up a facebook page to showcase some of my more recent shoots both from those sessions and others.

I also found out that a good friend of mine has recently qualified as a professional photographer and did a residency abroad which was very successful and which makes me very jealous of her. You can see examples of her work here. She is absolutely amazing and I want her to do well if only so that the wonderful photos she took of me and my wife at a friend’s wedding become collector’s pieces in the future :).

For the year to come I am making my usual creative resolution but modifying it. Over the last two years I have made it a policy to do at least one creative thing every day, even if only a small thing (literally a word or two on a document counted). It didn’t matter what it was – writing something, taking a photograph or editing a photograph all counted. However, in the latter half of 2018 I modified the rule a little. Now, instead of being able to do photography OR writing tasks I am being strict and saying that I must do writing every day. I am not making a similar rule for photography as I know that it is often erratic when I can get to do that. However, I am sure there will be more of that to come. The writing every day is essential for the writing group anyway. There must be new stuff for them to critique each meeting and that means I have had to up my volume.

Coming up this year are a number of things.

First of all there is the release of Out of this World Alphas due soon. 15th January is the release date you should put in your calendar. FB_IMG_1545486717540.jpgOr you can click the link and pre-order if you prefer and it will be delivered to your e-reader on the release date. I have a story in this anthology set in the Arcroc that stands between Gods of the Deep and Gods of the City.

Secondly, thanks to the aforesaid Russel Smith, I am working on another anthology which will be based in Manchester. I have the vague concept of a story incubating for that which involves druidic magic.

As for conferences etc. I am not able to make Picocon again this year, which is a shame because I really enjoyed my time there last year. However finances are against me there and, besides, I have two other amazing conferences to get to this year. One of these is Eastercon which this year is in London and gives me the chance to catch up with Frances Hardinge again after too long not seeing her. Regular readers will recall many years ago when she appeared on this blog having done a reading for World Book Night at the Fab cafe. I also did a reading then but I am not sure as many noticed. I am looking forward to a good weekend of panels and talking with people who I tend to only see once a year over Easter…

The other main event this year is like Eastercon only bigger… Worldcon is coming to Dublin this year and as that makes it far more accessible than it has ever been I am going to travel there in August. I have also been involved in the brainstorming sessions for this, which seem to involve a bunch of people sending emails with crazy panel ideas and the rest of us either agreeing with them or making them crazier. No spoilers but I am sure any of you who attend will be in for some treats… I am looking forward to my first Worldcon and will be there with a camera in order to take lots of photos of Dublin to bore you all with.

So that is it… plans for the new year as they currently stand. I hope you all have a good new year yourselves and are successful in any and all ventures you attempt.

 

Photoshoot with Lady Catherine

25 Tuesday Jul 2017

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Gods of the Deep by D.A LascellesThose of you who have read Gods of the Deep will already be familiar with Berg based socialite and detective, Lady Catherine, the character who is proving to be quite popular based on some of the feedback I have got privately. Naturally being the sort of lady who likes to be seen being seen, it was very easy to persuade her to agree to a photoshoot.

So, we took ourselves to Deansgate, near the centre of Manchester, and to the John Rylands library which is one of my favourite locations in the city and which provided a perfect backdrop for the shoot.

lady with a gunOf course, being a fictional character, Lady Catherine could not attend in person. She is obviously far too busy being fabulous to concern herself with such petty matters as posing for her own photographs. However, she managed instead to manifest in the form of professional model and occasional Cosplayer, Penny Dreadful.

Penny was very enthusiastic about this shoot. When she read the story Heart of the City, Lady Catherine, detective of Bergwhich introduces Lady Catherine, she was filled with ideas about how to bring the character to life and we spent a long time discussing the details of costume, hair, make up and props. We then spent almost 2 hours on location, with a couple of brief breaks in a convenient nearby pub for costume changes, doing what we could to produce the best images possible. There were some issues with reflector stands blowing over in the wind, some problems finding some good light and a few passers by near the library gawping but other than those it was a very smooth shoot.

You can see some of the results of the shoot in this post and there are others on my Flickr account. Comment on the ones you think best portray the character. You can also buy a copy of Gods of the Deep to learn more about Lady Catherine and what she gets up to. It may also interest you to know that I am currently percolating ideas for the sequel… More on those as they develop. Currently they include explosions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Vampire Month] The sun rises

31 Friday Mar 2017

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Gods of the DeepWell, it has been a more erratic Vampire month than usual this year, scheduling hiccups and my time being eaten up by that vampire that is work. However, despite all that we managed to pull it off and release a limited Vampire month line up on time. I hope you enjoyed this year’s offerings and come back next year to see what we have in store for you then.

As a photographer I have obviously been exploring vampires quite a bit recently and I intend to keep up that interest. There is also the possibility that I might be thinking about looking at Vampires in fiction. If I get a good idea for a story involving vampires I may delve into it and see what comes out. I do feel that Helen, my hero from Transitions and Transformations, is overdue an encounter with a blood sucking fiend of the night. After all, she has bested the ghost of a Roman soldier and been almost seduced by a shapeshifting Fey so how will she cope with a charming older being? Or maybe Everyn from Gods of the Deep might meet one… I will be sure to keep you all informed of any developments.

In the meantime, if you know someone who should be featured in Vampire month, feel free to let me know. We welcome any and all applicants. Just be aware, Ann Rice and Rachel Caine get first dibs…

See you all next year!

 

 

 

New Year post (belated)

04 Wednesday Jan 2017

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warriorprincess

I’d like to say that this first post of the new year is late because I have only just finished partying. That would, however, be a lie. It is late because I have just been so busy doing other things.

No, that is also a lie.

I have simply not been sure what to write.

Which is odd for me because I am not usually that bad at thinking of things to write about. The main reason this blog gets neglected is usually because of one of the other two things mentioned above. OK, I admit, mostly the second one – I get too busy with other things, my days of constant partying are I feel in the past :). However, the nature of 2016 has been such that I am overall not sure what to think about it and I do not feel I am alone in this.

It was the year of celebrity deaths. A year in which when we thought George Michael might be the last of the shocks*, it hits us with the sad passing of Carrie Fisher and then William Christopher (of M.A.S.H fame). Though, it is worth pointing out that the Wikipedia page on celebrity deaths does have Robert Taussat (French historian and author) listed last for December 2016. However, I am not sure if this means he was the last one to go or if the list is in no real order.

D.A Lascelles, Alex Campbell, NinfaHayes and Dianna Hardy

The Urban settings panel at Sandbach

On the subject of Carrie Fisher, I did spend a lot of time browsing through this site of tributes by artists. I was first of all amused by the fact it is actually a hell of a lot more than 10 tributes (last I looked it was over 100) and also by the many different views artists have of her. There are ones here that play on her famous quote (“No matter how I go, I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra.”  which was her response to George Lucas’s quite sexist remark about there being no underwear in space because of some nonsense about pressure), ones that show her love for her dog and ones that show her as she was before she died – i.e. not just focussing on her as she was in her best known role. I am not linking or showing any of the art here as I wish to respect the copyright of the artists but I do encourage you to go check out that page and wallow in all the bittersweet.

This was also the year of politics gone wrong with Brexit and Trump throwing the UK, US and a chunk of the rest of the world in to shock. We are now facing a year in which we have to deal with the consequences of those decisions, good or bad. There are naturally concerns about the rise of the right in both cases and I am not sure that those who voted for either will actually get what they were expecting to get.

On a more personal note, this was a mixed year for me. In terms of my real world job I lost one not very secure position that I was hoping to make more permanent by December but very quickly gained one that is, while technically less secure, still seems to have more promise of permanence in the near future. So, overall not too bad, if a little uncertain on the career front.D A Lascelles Gods of the Deep Kindle Fantasy Swashbuckling

In terms of creative stuff, I have been really ramping up the photography in the past year and feel I am improving massively in both taking photos and editing them. This has been partly down to some epic mentorship from Ste Manns of Quattrofoto on the ins and outs of photoshop and partly down to the efforts of the JW Creative network – a group of photographers, models and make up artists who collaborate on some crazy projects. They have given me the chance to practise shooting with experienced models and photographers in an open and friendly environment where I can get helpful advice and support. I have posted one of my favourite shots from these gatherings here and you can see the rest on my Flickr account…

Finally, in terms of writing this has been a good year. I completed Gods of the Deep (finally… its only taken 6 years from conception to birth…) and attended a number of events including EasterCon, the Manchester Author signing and the Sandbach author signing. All of these I considered successful events in terms of my personal goals and I am looking forward to more of the same next year. Not only that, but I have had at least two people tell me how much they enjoyed reading Gods of the Deep which was a real boost to my ego.

I guess the one downside to my creative year was not doing what I promised to do and revamp this website… I’ll get round to that soon, I promise…

So, I am not usually one for resolutions but I am going to make myself a promise for the coming year. That is to do more creative things – try to advance at least one creative project, even if only by a little, each day. Whether it is take a photo, edit a photo, write more of a story or edit more of a story. At the moment, in terms of writing projects, I am currently skating on the edge of the void that is about to become ‘The Silver Tower’ – a SF tale set in Manchester which is looking like it may well be aimed at a YA audience. I’ll keep you all posted on that and hopefully this one won’t take six years to write…

*In what is possibly the most ironic timing of all time – the artist famous for ‘Last Christmas’ dies on Christmas day… even in death the man had a talent.

Five get literary in Sandbach

16 Wednesday Nov 2016

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So, last weekend I was at the Sandbach Author Signing event (SASE). I may have mentioned this event a few times over the last few months, most recently here, because I was incredibly excited by it. Turns out I was excited for good reasons.

#SASE Sandbach Author Signing event at Sandbach town hall

Sandbach town hall (c) Nellie Simpson

SASE was the first event of its kind in the Sandbach area, though it followed a pattern similar to many other events (like the Manchester signing of August this year). A group of authors getting together in a location and a bunch of readers wandering around the tables looking to buy books and get them signed.

I travelled to Sandbach from Manchester in the company of Ninfa Hayes and Alex Campbell, two members of the Tea Society and Vampire Month posters. We weren’t the only members there either, there was also Dianna Hardy and Elizabeth Morgan (who was also the organiser of the event). We were only missing Alex James, Miriam Khan and Russell Smith but we did have leaflets from all of them so they did not miss out too much. We set up our tables in the lovely, modern interior of the Sandbach town hall (nicely contrasted with the older exterior of the building) and awaited the arrival of the public.

D.A Lascelles, Alex Campbell, NinfaHayes and Dianna Hardy

The Urban settings panel  (c) Nellie ZSimpson

There were also some panels throughout the day on a number of topics ranging from Women in Fantasy to Fangs and Fur (vampires and werewolves in fiction). I was asked to moderate two of these – ‘Fangs and Fur’ and one on settings in Urban fantasy. Turnout for these was low (a handful of people) but the audience was keen and the discussions were wide ranging and interesting. From talking to another blogger, it seems that panels are not a common thing in her experience of signing events so this idea is both a way of distinguishing this event from others and also something new that the attendees may not have been too sure of. Personally I feel Alex Campbell’s reminiscences of  the tales of Northumberland to be worth the entry fee to the event by itself. Catherine Green and Lucy Felthouse joined myself, Ninfa and Dianna for the discussion on Vampires and Werewolves and we tackled the age long issue of why vampire fiction never seems to die. In the urban fantasy location panel we explored the idea of the location as a character (something I touch on in Gods of the Deep), how some stories are location dependent while others are not and what locations in our stories were influenced by places in our real lives. There may have been some discussion about trying to set a Batman story in the countryside but I have no idea who came up with that mad idea. As moderator I also posed the question about overuse of location – are certain locations (London, Chicago, New York etc.) overused in contemporary fantasy fiction and should other sites be given a chance to shine. There were excellent arguments from both sides there, with an overall conclusion that the common sites are used for recognition purposes – more people know about London than they may know about Newcastle – and so are likely to remain popular. However, there is scope for stories set in other locations, especially ones with their own myths and legends – Alex Campbell’s use of the Northumberland Lambton worm story being a case in point.

Throughout the day there were visits by some journalists and the event made it into theSandbach Chronicle authors hold masterclass local papers (Sandbach Chronicle headline: Authors Hold Masterclass) and Elizabeth was interviewed by Stewart Green for Sandbach Soundbites. Click the link to listen to the interview in full. This all suggested that there was quite a bit of media buzz about this event which is the first of its kind in the town.

It is to be hoped that Sandbach will return bigger and better next year with more people risking attending the panels and getting involved in discussions. I know the organisers have big plans for next year and any success of this new event would be well deserved.

The photographs in this article were taken by Nellie Simpson.

D.A Lascelles is the author of Lurking Miscellany, Transitions (Mundania Press) and Gods of the Sea (Pulp Empires) and Gods of the Deep. He lives in Manchester UK. You can sometimes see him writing about Zombie porn on http://www.dalascelles.co.uk but he mostly blogs about books, vampires, science fiction and Terry Pratchett. He is inordinately proud of the fact that one of his Pratchett articles was referenced on the French version of the author’s Wikipedia page.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaLascelles

Twitter: @areteus

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Gods of the Deep

20 Wednesday Jul 2016

Posted by in Musings, Productivity, Publicity

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Well, it has been a long time coming. It seems like I have been talking about a sequel to Gods of the Sea ever since the Pirates and Swashbucklers anthology first came out all those years ago. In fact, it was quite ominously Friday 13th April 2012 when I reported to you all that I had got an email from the publisher of Pirates and Swashbucklers asking me to do a sequel.

And now, four years and approximately three months later… you can buy the completed book in both Kindle and paperback formats. gods of the deep postcard

Ok, I admit I was slow in getting this done but this project has gone further than I imagined it would. Plus I think I can still claim a faster turnaround than GRR Martin at the moment. What started as an idea for a  relatively  small novella turned into a much longer work and now includes two bonus short stories that explore the wider world in addition to a newly edited and tidied up version of Gods of the Sea which now serves as what I describe in the foreword as being similar to that scene in a Bond film just before the theme music plays.

And that is not the only thing that is special about this release. In addition to the wonderful cover produced by fellow Steampunk market trader and artist supreme, Lauren C Waterworth, you also have internal illustrations derived from the sketches that she made when creating the cover to coo over. If you like the cover, by the way, you should totally check out her facebook page and see if you can buy prints of her artwork. .

The official launch will be taking place at the Manchester Author event on the 13th August 2016. You can buy tickets for this event here. There I will be signing copies of both Gods of the Deep and Lurking Miscellany. I am also attending another signing event in Sandbach in November and Chester in April 2017. Finally I am also an attendee at Inominate, the Birmingham run Eastercon in April next year where I am hoping to be on some panels again. If you see me at any of these events feel free to pop over and say hi. Also, if you want to pre-order a signed copy of any of my books you can order them using this handy form and they can be delivered to you at the event of your choice.

You can also expect to see me sneaking into some other peoples’ blogs and messing around in there, getting mud on all the furnishings. I’ll post links to these as they go up. In fact there is one here for the Addicted to Reviews blog which went up earlier today. Go check it out and give the owner some love.

Finally, I am staging a stealth raid on the Manchester Author event Facebook page this Thursday (21st June). I will be taking control of the mic around 1030 GMT and holding onto it like grim death until it is wrested from my cold dead hands at 11pm by JF Holland. Come to the page to check out what nonsense I will spout. If it is anything like my last page takeover, expect some musical links to my books and some extracts… If you are lucky there may even be dog photos.

Don’t forget… buy your copies of Gods of the Deep as soon as you can!

Want a Badge? Here is how…

10 Monday Aug 2015

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So, a few days ago I received a delivery of badges. I have 50 of them, 10 of each of 5 designs. They look awesome (even if I do say so myself) and they will be making their debut at the MancsterCon on the 29th August. You can see the designs for them here…lurkerbadge

You can purchase a badge for a not unreasonable price if you come to visit the stall. Through a simple transaction you can walk away with what I am sure will be this year’s ultimate fashion statement. However, there is another more fun way to acquire one…

Contact me in advance of an event you know I am going to be at and tell me what you can do to earn one of these very covetable badges.

Contact details are all over this blog (see right at the bottom of this post) so you should find it easy to find me…

Some examples are:

gods of the deep3– You can take a selection of leaflets and other swag from Tea Society members and promise to deliver them to a place where they may get picked up by interested people. This can include a local library, a book or comic shop, another form of shop (I recently dropped some in a local organic grocers) or even a bar or nightclub. You do have to know for certain that this place will totally be cool with this. I don’t want to get blamed for your littering. I’d also like to see a photo of the leaflets in place, not because I don’t trust you to do the job but because it is nice to be able to post a photo of our leaflets on Social Media.

– You can do a blog post or a review about one of us or one of our books or give one (or more) of us blog space to post a guest blog. Honest reviews, please, I do not want to be accused of buying good reviews. And of course we’d like to see the links for these posts so we can share them too.elementbadge2

– You can offer some other promotional opportunity… Impress me with your ideas.

I’m also going to offer a free badge with every purchase of a copy of one of our books. Mostly this covers books bought at events but I guess if you can show up with evidence of ebook purchase (or even go online on your smartphone and buy one there and then) I’ll pass one over to you too. Obviously this applies to all my books. As to which other authors it applies to… well I am going to be evil there and not tell you (but you can flip back to the previous post to find out or come to an event and ask).

If you contact me with a promotional idea you can also feel free to request which badge design you want. However, this is first come, first served. Bear in mind there are only ten of each design so stock is very limited (for now…).

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D.A Lascelles is the author of Lurking Miscellany, Transitions (Mundania Press) and Gods of the Sea (Pulp Empires). He lives in Manchester UK. You can sometimes see him writing about Zombie porn on https://lurkingmusings.wordpress.com/ but he mostly blogs about books, vampires, science fiction and Terry Pratchett. He is inordinately proud of the fact that one of his Pratchett articles was referenced on the French version of the author’s Wikipedia page.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaLascelles

Twitter: @areteus

Buy Lurking Miscellany (paperback)

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tea society badge2 gods of the deep2

Writing process questions

26 Saturday Apr 2014

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Neelima Vinod tagged me in the Writing Process Blog Tour. You may remember Neelima from Vampire Month a few years back and she has since been doing rather well for herself. This meme is an interview meme about the writing process so those of you who are interested may find out more about how I do things… maybe…

 What am I working on?

Well, the official answer has to be ‘shaping the minds of the next generation in the hope of getting them into university’ because at the moment I am mostly working on my day job of teaching. However, you want the writer answer and for that I am doing two things. One is working on the final stages of Gods of the Deep, the sequel to Gods of the Sea. That is with an editor and I have a cover waiting to be revealed which is awesome. The other is editing a selection of my short stories for publication in a collection I am calling Lurking Miscellany in honour of this blog. In addition to those two writing based things, I also have something I only found out about yesterday which I am not allowed to talk about. Which is ironic as it will involve me talking…

 How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I am not sure I am qualified to be able to say my work is different to any others. I’d like to think that it is but I consider that to be a question that readers should answer rather than me. If pushed to answer I would like to say that Transitions differs from many other romance works because of the BBW element. However, there is a whole genre of romance fiction based on that concept. I could also say that Gods of the Sea was either a pirate story set in a fantasy universe or a fantasy story set in something other than the Tolkienesque fantasy setting – either way a slight deviation from cliché. However, many of my influences (such as Barbara Hambly) are writers who have done similar. There is a lot of fantasy out there now which is veering away from the Tolkien influences of my youth and I consider this to be a very good thing.

Why do I write what I do?

I started writing while in school and found that I enjoyed it a lot. However, I never really considered what I wrote as worth publishing and so I mainly did it for fun. Of my current published works, I wrote Transitions because of an interest in both Roman history, specifically the history of the town of my birth, and in the paranormal. Gods of the Sea I wrote because there was a call for submissions for a pirate themed anthology and I had an idea for it which I thought might work.

 How does my writing process work?

Chaotically. In the terminology of the Absolute Write forum, I am definitely a Panster (someone who writes by the seat of their pants) rather than a plotter (someone who carefully plans out the sequence of events in their story). Whenever I tried to write like a Plotter I found I could not do it and I actually think that everyone has their own preferred way of working which fits how their own mind works rather than there being any ‘one true way’. I often get ideas when my body is doing one thing (walking, tidying, etc.) and my mind is free to wander, the only problem is that I rarely get time to sit down and get those ideas down on paper. However, any idea that survives in my mind until I get time to write about it is likely to be one worth keeping while those that don’t I am probably better off losing. I also tend to be encouraged by necessity. Both of my published works have come about because there was a pressing need to get something submitted to a project I wanted to be involved in so I stopped wallowing in uncertainty and just got on with it.

I’ve also worked in different ways for different projects. For Gods of the Sea I basically sat down over Christmas and splurged out most of the story over a couple of days. I was not even aware of what I was writing until I reviewed it later. For Transitions, however, it was a more careful process and for that I had actually started out with the beginnings of two very different stories (an historic romance about a Roman soldier and his dying wife and a contemporary romance set in Birmingham) which I then realised could be merged into one.

 

Thank you Neelima for tagging me! You can read about her process here.

As part of the game, I’m tagging two writers for you to blog hop to.:

R.A Smith is the author of the wonderful Oblivion Storm and its sequel Primal Storm. You can find him on Facebook here.

Ninfa Hayes is the author of Bites and Nannies Inc . You can find her on Goodreads here.

2013 in review

01 Wednesday Jan 2014

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Some interesting results here. Seems that as well as Vampires, Indian Writer Neleema is one of the most popular attractions on this blog. Maybe I need to get her back talking about Vampires 🙂

This year has seen a lot of changes in my life. In the last few months I found myself in full time employment which has limited my writing time considerably but made things more secure financially. However, there are still some writing plans for the year to come. I am at present working on getting the sequel to Gods of the Sea – Gods of the Deep – ready for publication so if you are into swashbuckling and magic this may be something for you to look out for. I have also made arrangements for a cover for this book which I think will be awesome. I certainly like the work of the artist involved a lot and think they will produce something special (no pressure… 🙂 ).

I also have the next BBW romance anthology to complete. The last of these led to Transitions and some other awesome stories by some very good writers. I don’t think we did much to change the opinions of the world on the role of ‘women of a non-standard size’ in romance fiction but I hope we entertained those who read it nevertheless. This one promises to be even better with a SF theme to work on.

I will also be looking for some writers for Vampire month in March this year. If you are a writer of Vampire fiction, an expert on the genre or merely have an opinion or some artwork you would like to share please get in touch and we can discuss details.

So, there you have it. There follows some stats from the wordpress elves for you to look at. I hope to see you all at a Steampunk fair (such as the Leeds Steampunk Market) sometime soon or have you commenting here or visiting on http://www.facebook.com/DaLascelles.

Happy New Year!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,900 times in 2013. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

The Next Big Thing

22 Thursday Nov 2012

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So, I got tagged in this meme thing by Melinda Dozier (you should totally go and check out her site…) the point of which is to answer questions about your work in progress.

Here are the rules:
1) Answer the questions.
2) Tag 5 other
writers, providing the links.
3) Let the writer’s know you tagged them.

What is the working title of Your Book?

Gods of the Deep is the current working title, which is a step up from ‘Un-named sequel’ which was its previous working title. It was chosen to fit in with the previous published story which was Gods of the Sea.


Where did the idea come from for the book?

The idea for Gods of the Sea came from a LRP game I used to play (now long defunct). I decided I wanted to tell the origin story of how two of the characters met so one Christmas I got out my laptop and tapped out a few thousand words and sent it to a publisher who I knew were looking for ‘pirate stories’. It got picked up and published in the Pirates and Swashbucklers anthology. No one was more surprised at this than me.

Then, earlier this year, the publisher contacted me and as a result of that discussion the concept of ‘Gods of the Deep’ was produced – an anthology of short stories set in the same world as Gods of the Sea, including both a reprint of Gods of the Sea and some form of sequel. Again, I was surprised.

 

What genre does your book fall under?
It’s mainly fantasy with some pulp elements. And Pirates, Because you’ve got to have pirates…

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie?

Many years before I’d even considered writing Gods of the Sea, one of the organisers of the LRP game told me that they believed Professor Everyn Crowe should be played by Christopher Ecclestone. Not sure I quite agree with that assessment but I am hard pressed to find an appropriate alternative. Someone like David Tennant would be good too but I am not sure if that is not just me showing my Doctor Who geekery. Of course there is also the fact that any casting choice may have to take into account Everyn’s foreign nature as he is supposed to  have a ‘Mediterranean’ look but that has never stopped Hollywood in the past before.

Captain Rachel Drake obviously has to be played by a strong, British woman. Downton Abbey’s Michelle Dockery (Lady Mary Crawley) is a possibility but there are a few other actors who would be excellent in that role. I think there may, however, be a general call for ‘anyone other than Keira Knightly’ which I agree with…

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I am still writing it so no idea. Am hoping to get it finished soon, though. It is my Nano project and completion of it is the target I have set myself for this month. However, Nano style writing is different to how I usually do things. The concept of splurging words onto the page in order to acheive a word count target and worrying about the editing later is alien to me. I prefer a slower method with less faff afterwards. However, slower methods do not let you reach deadlines so easily.

Gods of the Sea was written in a number of days, however. And not whole days, either. A few hours each day in between doing other things. Possibly the fastest I have ever written anything intended for publication that actually got published.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

 One of my crit partners did say that Gods of the Sea read a little like a Michael Moorcock story and I have been strongly influenced in the past by his work, specifically the Elric novels. So I suppose you could say that the closest comparison to Gods of the Deep would be a Michael Moorcock story in style if not in the features of the story. The fact that Gods of the Sea and Gods of the Deep are shorter fiction (Gods of the Sea is a short, Gods of the Deep a novella) which have a direct continuity with each other also fits the pattern of early Moorcock, where one novel was comprised of several shorter stories that directly followed on from each other.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

The main inspiration for the story came from the LRP game, Adventures in the Arcroc, which I played many many years ago. The Arcroc was the name of a fantasy world with a technology level roughly somewhere between 1600’s and 1800’s. It’s not particularly precise in its historical comparison because there are elements from all over history thrown in there, but the history is also an inspiration as are stories of swashbucklers and pirates and adventures at sea – anything from Sinbad to Hornblower and Pirates of the Carribean.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? How about a teaser?

There are demons… and a scene I love where Everyn runs to Rachel’s rescue, thinking he is the only one who can save her from assasination, only to find when he gets there that she has quite happily rescued herself and is now being rather suave about it in an ‘injury? What injury? Oh this? Just a scratch…’ sort of way.

“But…” he stammered. “The demon…” He waved the horse statue in the air in front of his face. “I’m here to… banish it.”

“Banish it?” She smiled as she checked the length of the blade for nicks and scratches. “No need, everything is under control.”

“But, the only way you could have banished that demon was to have empowered a suitable vessel with the correct incantations and blessings and trapped its incorporeal essence therein…”

“Not the only way, no.” As the dressing on her wound was completed, she stood and tested her weight on the leg, wincing slightly as she did so.

“Well, no, you could have physically ablated its physical form using brute force but generally such creatures are immune to most forms of weapon. Many can only be harmed by a blessed weapon or something composed of an alloy with a significant quantity of silver.”

“Hmmmmm, yes….” She held the sword up, letting the light fall on its shiny surface and reflecting on her face. “Silver alloys. I wonder where someone with my wealth could get hold of something like that?”

And so there you have it…. now to spread the infection…

I am tagging:

R.A Smith

Ninfa Hayes

Erica Hayes

Marie Roberts

And… YOU, Yes, you over there, the writer who is reading this. If you want to do the next big thing challenge, feel free to consider yourself tagged by me, just make sure you link back to me when you do…