Month: November 2012

Summarizing a book in few enough words to fit on the back cover can be more difficult than actually writing the book.

Here’s my latest and (I feel) most successful attempt:

The Empire is failing. The old king knew it, and did his best to aid the changing of the time, but his son has other ideas. The new king of NaRasch begins to strengthen his armies and oppress his subjects. He undoes everything that his late father has done, including imprisoning Gail, his half-sister and queen of Gaeline, though she is queen only in title and has never so much as set foot in Gaeline, let alone issued an order as queen.

Imprisoned against her will on false charges, Gail is just beginning to think things can’t get any worse when they do. She is ‘rescued’, or perhaps ‘stolen’ would be a better word, by the horror called Paladin, and sold to Bandets to be offered as ransom to a brother who has no wish to buy her back. Somewhere between three enemies which all want her dead, she must escape their grasp and make her friends wherever she can find them, from Pirates, to Prophets, to Kings. She must survive, she must run. She must find out exactly what her sword Maroward does, and she must either flee or face the Paladin. At some point she must find out whether or not she really is the queen of Gaeline, and perhaps she must help her allies in their desperate plan to bring about the dethroning of her brother and the fall of NaRasch.

Well, I’ve said it on facebook, so I might as well say it here. I’m hoping to release The Fall of NaRasch part one this Christmas. Yes, I realize that’s only a month away. I think I said “hoping”…

It was about a month ago now that I was pondering my inability to get anything done in the way of writing, when I decided to drop what I was doing in and about chapter twenty-three, and go back to Vestrodge in hopes that another editorial pass might spark my interest in the story again and give me the momentum to push on through NaRasch. I was somewhere in the middle of Arme when it suddenly struck me like a hundred pound (I know, we’re metric. I’m trying, really I am. It would be a little easier if I didn’t have to use an imperial tape measure at work. Carpet and linoleum still comes in 12′ rolls, you know) meteor. I don’t have to release the book all at once. Tolkien did it, hell ‘A Christmas Carol’ was released in five parts originally. So, taking a moment to solemnly swear to myself that under all circumstances I would NOT allow this book to become a trilogy (I hate the phrase – Lord of the Rings is really six books, you know. It was never intended to be three, or to have the three dumbass names that the publishers tagged onto them. I’m still in search of a hard-cover leather bound six part edition) I set out to divide The Fall of NaRasch squarely in half. To my surprise, as I continued reading, I found that I had unwittingly already created my dividing point. I came to the end of chapter 19 and the incident of the Paladin (perhaps I’m giving too much away now that I’m about to release it) and, finding Leordon laying on his back in the dirt unconscious, I had on my last alteration been unsure how to transition to the next day and simply ended there. Chapter twenty begins with a sweeping description of Soptrod and the Bandets. It was perfect. I made a few last minute changes, and began sending it out to my editors.

I’ve toyed with a few different title ideas, but I think I’ve settled on Part One: The Princess and the Paladin. It seems somehow fitting.

I’ve also updated the site – you hadn’t noticed – so if there’s a few places where my old html doesn’t quite fit properly I apologize for that. I’ll be going through and changing stuff around. My old design was a little bit rebellious toward the blog format and the whole css thing. I’m learning slowly to let rules be rules and live by them, so you’ll start to see things fit together a little better in the weeks to come. The first step is to actually write my posts in html, like I’m doing now. Can’t tell the difference? That’s okay. I Can.