The past has gone live...

September, 2024

Wow! September already over.
 
I began this two-year journey with the aims of writing new work and also ensuring my old works were available online or on request through print-on-demand.

The former aim has currently led to one published novel, Girlie, an anthology of my early life poetry titled Rearview Mirror, and ten unpublished novel manuscripts awaiting further editing and publication. I’m very happy with that outcome over a twenty-two month period.
 
The second aim resulted in republication of the Andrakis trilogy (30th year edition), the Ashuak Chronicles trilogy (20th year edition), and finally, as of this coming week, all four books in the Dreaming in Amber series. Phew!
 
Republishing the Dreaming in Amber books was an interesting process, primarily because I no longer have possession of the last edited manuscript copies that HarperCollins used for publication. I spent significant time across September editing the manuscripts I do have, and they needed important adjustments that included:

• ensuring character names and personalities were consistent across all four books
• inserting final adjustments that were made originally via email conversations way back in 2006-8
• finding and replacing or deleting ‘noisy’ words, like quickly, suddenly, smiled etc
• correcting a major issue around the name Dylan being used for Andra, an issue that made it all the way through to the original HC copies (long story, not for this blog)
• ensuring consistency with ‘amber’ from the Genesis Stone being the source of magic across the stories
• paragraph breaks being relevant
• text layout consistency
• minor typos

I was surprised how much needed correction. To be honest, I’m sure more can be fixed, but my headset is also that these books are in the past of my writing life and represent where I was back then.
 
My readers do know that all of my fantasy books are set in the same physical world, in different regions of that world, and they share the same background history regarding the Genesis Stones, amber, dragons, Elvenaar/Aelendyell and Dragonlord cultures. However, they represent different times in the world’s history, across at least two thousand years from the falling meteors that are the Genesis Stones through to the release of the Demon Horsemen in the Dreaming in Amber books. Across that time, human culture developed from basic medieval in the Andrakis books to emerging industrial era technology in Dreaming in Amber.
 
Two fantasy series remain in unpublished format that are additions to the world above. The first, working series title Dragon Kin Chronicles, deals with the dragons who were portalled away from Ashua by Alwyn and the Alfyn, far to the west of Andrakis and Ranu Ka Shehaala. Their story is set around a similar time to the Dreaming in Amber series (ie three hundred years after the Ashuak events) and the Domovinan human culture affected by the dragons is an emerging industrial technology in line with similar developments in Ranu Ka Shehaala (there are trade and espionage exchanges between the nations influencing human technological growth). Ultimately, the story explores how and why humans and dragons eventually co-exist, which sets the scene for the second unpublished fantasy series, The Last Wizard Saga, originally heralded by my 1995 novel, The Last Wizard. Set a further five centuries ahead in time, humans having undergone a medieval Dark Ages period post-destruction of emerging human technologies by the Demon Horsemen and Dragon Kin, the novels look at a world in which dragons and wizards are outlawed (the outcome of the Dragon Kin Chronicles having proven problematic), but one of each survives, and a new world order commences.
 
Basically, I linked the tales across seventeen books, and core elements are echoed, with the amber/Genesis Stone magic source underpinning them all. It’s been and continues to be a fun journey for me, and hopefully readers.

In conversations with my daughters, we also redesigned the cover for Girlie, the historical biographical novel. The original cover was to publish the story mainly for family, using a photo of my Mum and a background of the tapestry she wove while recuperating from TB, but the new design incorporates her favourite peacock green colour, and art deco design and lettering more akin to the era in which the story is set. Consider the pictorial comparison in the changes. The third image is a hardback edition with the black background.

So, September has been busy. What I planned to spread across three months, I condensed into one. I’m about to edit two works by friends early October as a break from my own creativity, and then I’ll return to working on the existing unpublished work. As I flagged in the last post, November is booked out again for a NaNoWriMo project. 2024 is racing along. The AFL Grand Final is done, Bathurst is looming, bursts of Spring sunshine cause house renovation and repair jobs to blossom, and writing is never ending.