By Allan | Monday, 12 July 2010 at 09:45
Category: Writing | Tags: The Faerie Path
A few more pictures for you to look at.
The first one is of the Hampton Court maze.
These other two are of Camden Market, which you will remember from The Lost Queen.
This one shows the “Stable Block” - at the far end is the little cafe where Tania and Jade have a rest, and where Edric turns up unexpectedly.
The other one is the main street - the Magic Shop is on a corner, just behind the photographer.
By Allan | Saturday, 10 July 2010 at 08:01
Category: Writing | Tags: The Faerie Path
Here are some more Hampton Court photographs. This time, outside the Palace itself, in the grounds.
This is the Mortal World equivalent of the stretch of the River Thames (Tamesis) where Drake brought “Anita” when she first met King Oberon on his Royal Barge. The Royal Barge of Faerie is more impressive than the little boat you can see here, but it’s in the same place.
This is part of the Royal Gardens, facing North. Just out of sight to the right is the Brown Tower - the Faerie equivalent of Anita Palmer’s London bedroom.
This is another view of the Royal Gardens, this time facing South towards the Royal Apartments.
More Gardens with a gatehouse in the background.
I was asked if I had any pictures of the maze,
but unfortunately the maze just looks like a giant hedge from ground-level - and I didn’t manage to take a picture from above.
If I get time, I’ll post some more photos in a day or two.
By Allan | Friday, 9 July 2010 at 08:09
Category: Writing | Tags: The Faerie Path
While I was swapping computers I discovered a bunch of photographs I took when I went to visit Hampton Court Palace just before writing the first Faerie Path book. I thought you might be interested in seeing some of them.
This is one of the main entrances into the Tudor part of the palace - I think you’d probably get to the Great Hall of Faerie if you went through those gates.
This next one is an internal gatehouse - it may well lead to Eden’s tower, if I remember correctly.
Remember the scene in the Immortal Realm where Tania goes to find Edric and he tells her he’s going to Weir to speak with Lord Aldritch? Well, this is pretty much the modern equivalent of where it happened. Imagine a stone bridge.
I’ll post a few more tomorrow.
By Allan | Tuesday, 6 July 2010 at 09:02
Category: Writing
There I was, minding my own business and eating a rather tasty pasta dish that Claudia had concocted - when a certain person decided she wanted a taste!
Fortunately, I had more or less finished.
Claudia took a series of pictures of Siouxsie digging into my dinner - and another few of her on her armchair a little while later, licking her paws in a very satisfied fashion. As you can see!
A little while earlier, Siouxsie had been tucking into a bowl of grated parmesan cheese. That cat will eat anything - except ordinary cat food.
By Allan | Friday, 2 July 2010 at 11:21
Category: Writing | Tags: Sundered Lands, Warrior Princess, Writing
Well, can I start off by wishing all my American friends an early Happy 4th of July! Have a really great day, all of you, no matter what you do to celebrate. Hey - what do people in America actually do on the 4th July? I’d really like to know.
I do have a few things to tell you. Last week Claudia and I went to see the Mozart Opera “The Marriage of Figaro” at the Royal Opera House. The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, is one of the most prestigious cultural venues in the world, so its really something to actually go there. Its an amazing place. We had “champagne tickets” - Claudia bought them for me for my birthday. They were excellent tickets and we had seats in the stalls, in row G, right near the front. Some people dressed up for the event in tuxedos and evening gowns (despite the fact that it started at 6pm and it was broad daylight out there!). But other people turned up in jeans and t-shirts. We were somewhere in between and we arrived early and had a couple of glasses of champagne while we watched the other people arriving. Claudia used to work in the fashion industry, so she spent the time making really funny remarks about the curious and bizarre clothes some of the people were wearing. (I know - not very kind to make fun - but we did it very quietly, so they didn’t know!) It was a really marvellous performance - the scenery was excellent and all the singers were world-class! I had a really great time - even though Mozart is not my all-time favourite Opera composer. My favourite is Richard Wagner, and my favourite Operas are his Ring Trilogy, which are based on old Norse Legends and are full of goblins and dragons and giants and Norse gods and magic swords and excellent fantasy stuff like that.
Another thing that has happened recently is that an American radio show host has asked me if I’d like to take part in an hour-long interview on his show - which includes dial-in questions from fans. I’ve agreed to do this - and I hope that some of you might be up for calling in and asking me questions. Does that seem like a good idea? The show isn ‘t till later in the year, and I’ll of course give you more details closer to the time, but I thought you might like to know that you could have the opportunity to actually talk to me. Anyone interested in doing that?
Next, I have been approached by the editor of a “steampunk” book anthology, asking if I would be willing to write a story for a new book of short stories all based in a steampunk world and all kind of fantasy/romances. I said yes, because I already have a short story idea that would fit really well. For those of you who have never heard of steampunk, it’s set mostly in a kind of Victorian world, only with inventions that never really existed - like computers, and steam powered submarines and airships - a bit like the League of Extraordinary Gentleman movie, if you have ever seen that. I thought it would be fun to write something like that! I need to submit the story by October this year - and as with the radio show, I’ll give you a better idea of it all nearer to the publication date.
We are also only two weeks away from the UK publication of the first Sundered Lands book. Gary Chalk and I have been working hard on the website and it’s almost ready to go live. I’ll give you more details soon, and I hope you’ll check it out and let me know what you think. I still don’t have a date for US publication of this series, but as soon as I do…well…you know the rest.
So? What else? We’re having a bit of a heatwave over in the south east of England right now, which makes a change. Siouxsie doesn’t like it too hot and right now she’s sprawled on the carpet down by my left side and - oh! No, she’s just got up and she’s clambered into “her” office chair which is set up alongside mine. Claudia is asleep at the moment and everything is quiet, which is good because I have a big pile of stuff in my in-tray that I need to do.
The fourth Warrior Princess book is with the American Publishers now and it has a provisional title: The Bright Blade. This may change, though.
Bye for now.
By Allan | Wednesday, 23 June 2010 at 07:13
Category: Writing
We’ve been on holiday. Well, when I say “been”, I don’t mean we actually went anywhere - but Claudia took a couple of weeks off work and I cleared my desk of things to do and Claudia’s parents flew in from Germany to stay with us for two weeks of sun and fun and lounging in the garden and eating and drinking way too much.
So far, so good. By the way, the reason we didn’t go away was that we don’t like to leave Siouxsie alone. Now this may sound crazy to some of you, but Siouxsie our 18 year old cat is used to having people around most of the time, and we think she would get really distressed to be left on her own while we went away on holiday - so we stay home.
Well, long story short, Claudia’s Mom got ill - in fact she got so ill, that we had to call an ambulance at 4 in the morning and have her taken to hospital. A major fly in the ointment is that Claudia’s parents don’t speak very much English (Claudia’s German, in case you don’t remember or didn’t know) so Claudia had to translate between her Mom and the doctors in the hospital.
Anyway, Claudia’s Mom recovered quite quickly and within two days she was well enough to be discharged from the hospital - but while Claudia was driving her Mom back here, the cat got ill! The poor thing was howling and running around and hiding in corners and it was very distressing. Claudia couldn’t believe it when she got home at 9 in the evening with her Mom and I told her about Siouxsie.
I went online and found an all night emergency vet not too far away, and we bundled Siouxsie into her basket and drove off. Siouxsie, by the way, really hates travelling, and howls all the way - plus she was in pain so there were double howlings! The vet gave her some pain killers and anti-biotics and we went home. Siouxsie fell asleep on the bed and Claudia fell asleep on the couch - until 4 in the morning, when Siouxsie started howling again. We got back in the car and went back to the emergency vet for more pain killers.
That gave us until 8.45 am when we were able to visit our normal vet. Siouxsie was given a good examination - and she was very quiet and good - apparently the pain killer included morphine, she she was pretty much spaced-out after two shots and her eyes were like dinner-plates. The vet said she most likely had a form of cystitis and that we should carry on with the antibiotics.
Good news is that Siouxsie is much better now, in fact she’s just settling down for an early morning sleep on the old office armchair next to me right now as I type. The other good news - and proof that Fate can work in strange ways to do good things - is that the doctors in the hospital here in London have finally diagnosed what has been wrong with Claudia’sMom for some time, and which the German doctors missed! So we’re all hopeful that she will make a full recovery.
And finally, Claudia phoned her partner in the company where she’s Office Manager and told him the sorry tale of her “holiday” and he agreed to cover for her for a few days more - so she’s not going back to work till Thursday night!
So, that was our summer vacation. I do have a lot of stuff to tell you, but it’s 7 in the morning now and Claudia has just woken up and asked me what I’m doing up working so early, so I guess I’ll sign off for now and get back to you soon with news of a Radio Broadcast I’m booked to do later in the year, as well as the fact that the first advance copies of Sundered Lands book one have arrived at my place and someone has asked me whether I’d like to write a short story for a fantasy/romance anthology. Oh, and probably a couple of other things, too.
Meanwhile, I’m off to make some coffee for Claudia and to mash up the last of Siouxsie’s antibiotic pills into some chocolate milkshake - that cat loves chocolate milkshake!
I hope your Summer Vacations turn out to be more relaxing than mine! But for the next week or so I’m going to laze around watching the Tennis at Wimbledon on TV.
By Allan | Saturday, 5 June 2010 at 08:38
Category: Writing
Hello there.
Sorry I haven’t blogged recently - all kinds of stuff going on!
I have a new iMac computer now. A lot of it is quite different to my slow old PC, so it’s taking me a while to figure everything out - and next week I’m going up town for a one-to-one training session, which should help. My wife Claudia is finding it trickier because she really understands how PC computers work, so she has a lot of stuff to unlearn and relearn. Which I don’t - because I NEVER knew how the old computer worked and I’d be forever yelling “Claudia! The computer’s broken again!” and she’d come in and say, “No, it isn’t, get out of the way!” and five minutes later it would all be fixed. Claudia is the perfect proof of how great being married can be! Oh, and she was out last night with a pal of hers for a midnight performance of Shakespeare’s Macbeth (oops - I think I should have called it “The Scottish Play” to ward off bad luck…or is that just for actors…?). She saw it at the rebuilt Globe Theatre (It’s an exact replica of the Shakespeare Theatre that was on the same site in the 16th Century but burned down a long long time ago.) She got home about 3:22 in the morning. I woke up for no reason two minutes before she opened the door - I think I’m getting like a cat where Claudia is concerned - I know when she’s coming home. Anyway, before she collapsed into bed, she said it was a fantastic performance. I’ll find out more when she wakes up, I hope.
What I actually set up this blog to tell you is that I have a new book out. It actually came out two days ago - but before you start wondering what book this could possibly be - it’s a non-fiction rewrite of a book I first wrote with a colleague of mine way back in 1994 - it’s called WRITE A CHILDREN’S BOOK AND GET IT PUBLISHED - and its part of the “Teach Yourself” range of books. You can check it out by going to www.teachyourself.com. Now, over the past months, since I set my website up, I’ve had plenty of people asking me for writing tips, or advice on how to get started writing, or how to turn an idea into a proper story. Well, for any of you interested in that kind of thing, this is a good book for you to read. (Modesty prevents me from telling you its the best one out there - but I do think it gives a lot of insights into the whole business of writing for children - up to and including what we call in the UK Young Adult (teenagers, to you) - and also explains the kinds of pitfalls and problems you will encounter as a new writer trying to get your work published.)
If you are interested in this book, I’d recommend you buy (or borrow) the 2010 update - the older versions that you might find on Amazon etc are pretty badly out of date now. Believe it or not, when we wrote the first version, we had to explain what the internet was! (”Some people even write on computers these days - and there is this new invention out there called the world wide web, which is full of useful information.”) Yes, just sixteen years ago, most people had to have the internet explained to them, it’s true.
What else? Oh, I’ve finished the rewrites of Warrior Princess 4 (very few - they really liked it) - and it is now about to wing its way over the Atlantic to be looked at by the American editors in New York.
Oh, and we finally got the DVD of Alice In Wonderland - and watched it - and totally loved it. As some of you may already know, I am a total Alice in Wonderland freak - I have the two books (wonderland and Through The Looking-Glass) as hardback copies, I have them unabridged on talking books, I have a radio play of it, I have an Alice in Wonderland chess set, I have pictures on the walls, and I have ornaments of the Mad Hatter, White Rabbit and Alice as well as a bass-relief of the Mad Tea Party. And I also have five versions of different Alice in Wonderland movies on DVD, going all the way back to 1933! Although the Tim Burton version tells a different story than the original books, I thought it was great. Okay, I’m done talking about Alice now - in fact, I’ve kept you reading now for long enough, I think, so I shall disappear now…bit…by…bit…until only…my…grin…is……left….
By Allan | Wednesday, 12 May 2010 at 09:02
Category: Fan Club | Tags: Artwork, The Faerie Path, Warrior Princess
I know a lot of you have been visiting the Fan Forum (http://faerieroom.proboards.com) that was set up and is being run by Arya (http://seaofpages.blogspot.com). Well, Arya has been beavering away quietly in the background for quite a while to set up a brand new Fan Club site. She showed it to me a couple of days ago and it looks great - I’m sure you’ll want to visit. You can find it at http://mysticrealms.co.nr. Arya says she hasn’t quite got it looking the way she wants it to look when it’s completely finished, but it is up and running. She plans on doing more work on it over the summer to give it a more “Faerie” look.
An exiting part of this new site will be that you will be able to post your own fan-fiction on it, as well as fan-art and even fan-videos, if that’s what you’re into. I’ll be posting some of my own artwork on there soon - including my sketches of what Tania’s sisters look like. Arya says there will be competitions and prizes (signed books etc) and, of course, plenty of opportunity for you people to post comments and suggestions and ideas.
I hope you’ll take the time to visit the new site and reward Arya for all the hard work she’s put in.
Meanwhile, other stuff is going on as well. I have just read through the “copyedit” version of The Charmed Return - Faerie Path 6. As most of you know by now, the “copyedit” stage of the book is where all the spelling is checked and the punctuation and grammar are tidied up, so that the book is ready to go to print. One of the things that has to happen at this stage is for my spelling to be changed so it works in America. For instance, in the UK we spell color “colour” and we spell gray “grey” - and we call sidewalks “pavements” - oh, and a whole lot of other little things that need to be changed for the American market. Well, that’s pretty much all done now and in a few days the copyedit manuscript will go back to the Publishers so they can prepare it for printing.
A lot of you have been asking when The Charmed Return is due to be published. Right now, I don’t have a firm date - but I’m guessing that it will be in the stores in January 2011. I know that’s a long way off, but the Publishers think one Faerie Path book a year is enough - although from what I have heard, plenty of you disagree!
I also have the first draft of Warrior Princess Book Four back from the UK editors. They really like it, apparently, which is great. Here’s a censored extract from the mail I got from them:
We are completely blown away by your draft of Warrior Princess 4. What a
harrowing, breathtaking ride: Oh! Ironfist trying to ******! And Iwan and Branwen *****! And the big *****! And ********’s death! And the final battle! And just everything! We’re really thrilled at how strong this is.
In a few weeks I will have the time to start looking at their comments and suggestions and get to work altering the things that I think need altering, before we send it off to the Publishers in New York.
That’s just about it for now - don’t forget to take a look at the Fan Club site!
By Allan | Tuesday, 20 April 2010 at 09:30
Category: Writing | Tags: Sundered Lands, Warrior Princess
Those of you who have been paying particular attention may know that for the past two and a half months, I have been scribbling…well, typing…away at Warrior Princess Four. Well, last Friday I wrote “The End” at the end and sent it off to my UK editors with a sigh of relief.
Those of you who pay even closer attention will also know that this is far from “The End” in real life! This is what’s called the “first draft” of the book. It is now going to be read by two colleagues of mine - a really smart guy called James, with whom I occasionally go out for an evening of wine and conversation, and a rather charming woman named Clare, who actually lives in New York and who I have only spoken to via the phone - on conference calls, which are a bit odd, if you have never done such a thing.
They are now going to read the book and come back to me in a few weeks time with their thoughts, suggestions and comments about how it could be improved. (For anyone reading this, who doesn’t already know, this is all fine and perfectly normal. Every book ever published in the whole world always goes through this editing process).
I will then take a look at their suggestions, change the things where I agree with them, and write back with things I don’t think want changing, explaining why. One of the good things about this process is that it makes me think about why I have written certain things - are they really as good as they could be? Have I really explained things properly? Do I need that scene at all? Could I make this piece of action a bit more swift and involving? Etc etc.
Then, I will send the “new improved” typescript (now called the “2nd draft”) off to them, and they will forward it to the American Publishers in New York - who will also read it and make sugestions etc, before sending it back to me again. I will do the same lot of things again to try and fit in with what the American Publishers think the American readers would want - then it gets sent back. Providing everyone is happy, the book will then go off to be copy edited - meaning the grammar and punctuation etc will be checked. Once that has been read and approved by everyone - the book goes to typesetting and printing. Phew! Oh, and somewhere along the route, it will get a title!
Anyway - despite the problems with the Icelandic Volcano and the clouds of volcanic ash floating over Europe, my friend and collaborator Gary Chalk is coming over from France to visit tomorrow for a few days. We’re going to be working on the Sundered Lands website, so that should be fun.
Oh - and if you haven’t already done so - check out the new Fan Forum on http://faerieroom.proboards.com - it looks really good and lots of fans are already getting involved with it.
Well, that’s about it for now. The garden is beginning to look good, what with the spring and everything. We got out all the solar lights over the weekend and now every evening the garden is full of twinkling lights! Ahh! Cute! Claudia is off to Germany in a week or so to visit her folks over there, and I’ve promised to decorate the living room while she’s gone. Then I have to clean the decking and the patio - and by then, Warrior Princess should be back for me to get busy with. A writer’s work is never done! Bye for now.
By Allan | Monday, 5 April 2010 at 20:38
Category: Fan Club | Tags: The Faerie Path, Warrior Princess
I know a lot of you were disappointed when the fan-site crashed a while back, so for all of you who had made friends there - and hopefully a few more who have come aboard more recently - here’s some really great news!
Arya, who runs the seaofpages book review site, has been working away in secret and has put together a brand new Fan Forum where you will be able to chat among yourselves about all things Faerie Path and Warrior Princess.
Now I really hope you’ll all take a look at this - it looks really cool, I think! - and I hope lots of you will join the forum and have plenty of conversations about all the things that interest you in these two series. The topics are for you people to pick: from whether Tania should end up with Edric, to who you’d like to see in any potential movie, to which character you’d like to be, to how to drum up more sales to ensure there is a 7th Faerie Path book and a 5th Warrior Princess book, or whatever else interests you.
Basically, the FORUM belongs to all you people - I hope you like it!
I will drop in now and then to check out what you’re all talking about - and I hope some of you still want to write to me here. But let’s make this a scucess -and let’s all give Arya a great big thank you for her hard work.
And Arya’s not finished yet - she has other plans on the go - but I’ll let you in on them closer to the time.
So, please check out the Fan Forum on:
http://faerieroom.proboards.com
and let me know what you think!