A Progress Report, Part 2

So today I've carried on writing and I've got a bit more done. I'd guess that I'm now around about 75% in, possibly just a tiny bit less. Exciting things are happening.

I thought I'd just speak briefly about how I actually write the book. I've been really dedicated in the writing of this book, more so than I normally am when I write fiction. I think I'm more dedicated because I'm really enthused about the story. I spend as much time as I can find writing and typing up the book. I began writing on July 12 2013 and now, on August 29 2013, I'm over 45,000 words in. To me, that's dedication. It helps, I suppose, because it's the summer holidays.

So at about nine o'clock each night (or earlier if I really want to write LOADS), I go to my room, put a CD on, either a music CD or a Doctor Who audio play from Big Finish Productions. I get my notepad out (I've got a notepad just for writing the story in) and I begin to write. Just using a pen, nothing mad. I just write and write and write until about eleven o'clock, or maybe half past eleven. Then the next day I type it all up.

Just thought you might like to know that. It sounds really unusual writing it down.

So, at the moment, on August 29 2013, after 48 days of writing this damn book, I am at... 220 PAGES AND 47,986 WORDS! That's about 1,000 words a day on average. Normally I write more than 1,000 words a day, but I have off days. I think 47,986 words is pretty good.

A Progress Report

It's August 28 2013...

I've passed 40,000 words, which means the book is officially a novel, as per the rules of America and Nebula awards and things. But I'm not in America, so I'll just ignore that. Also, I passed 200 pages! That's good. But obviously it's about quality not quantity. Still, I can't help but feel good at having passed 200 pages.

45,779 words and 210 pages is what I'm currently at. I think I'm probably three quarters of the way through the book, so 60,000 words could be a reasonable target perhaps? I'm writing Chapter Eight at the moment and things are beginning to get exciting.

More news to come...

Doctor Sandstorm: Chapter 2: Welcome to Transylvania

The second chapter of my first novella Doctor Sandstorm. This was written in September 2012, and explains a little bit about the book. It's more about description than action. Don't worry, the novel I'm writing now is a million times better. This is positively RUBBISH stuff compared to Resurrection of the Golden Era.

“Well, the Conversion Chamber won't clean itself,” decided Doctor Sandstorm, making herself busy by stooping down to collect bits of the mountains of debris that had gathered, and putting them into a brown sack she had produced from nowhere, seemingly.

“That's what this place is called by the way. The Conversion Chamber. It's because this is where the Wraiths – those creatures you saw – take victims to be turned into new Wraiths. It's only normally with animals, so I'm really surprised they've taken you. And yes, you are underground. Transylvania, in fact. I promise you, it is beautiful. I was just popping by, checking how things were, nice break from Lysander Castle, too dark in there by half, but I picked up enormous energy readings coming from here, and I thought 'well, it's pretty bad sometimes in there, but this isn't normal' so I hotfooted it over here. Damsel in distress, woo hoo! Who could resist? And the Wraiths must be getting more clever if they're onto people now. But maybe that shows that they're weak. If they're using humans, they need stronger Wraiths than normal, so they're either weakening in power or dwindling in numbers”.

“Sorry, did you say 'welcome to Transylvania'?” spluttered Clara. She couldn't believe what was happening. She had been snatched against her will and drugged, and had waken up on an operating table and then a magic woman had broken down the door and sucked two doctors into a walking stick. She thought she would pass out, she had a pounding migraine, and she was tired beyond belief. She desperately wanted to wake up from this terrible nightmare, but somehow she knew it was reality.

“Is that the bit you choose to focus on? Not the impressive Wraith ritual? Yes, we're in Transylvania, but it's not all vampires and Dracula and neck-biting and bloodsucking. If it's that that you want, you need to go to the North of Scotland. There's a few vampire clans over there. They spread downwards a little, Edinburgh's quite notoriously got two rival vampire clans, but that's not what we're talking about”.

“There are vampires in Scotland? I go on holiday to Scotland!”

“Anyway...” continued Doctor Sandstorm, annoyed at the interruption. “Transylvania is a peaceful area of Romania, with some beautiful architecture, I can tell you. Nice... lovely... castles and things. I expect the Wraiths drugged you and you woke up here”.

“I was in New York!”

“Then they're more advanced than I thought. Hmm... no worries anyway. They're pretty stupid anyway. No brain. They rely on thoughts from their controllers”.

“They're robots?”

“Not really”.

“Do they work on their own?”

“No. I'm not advising you should call people stupid, unless they really are, especially at your age. How old are you, nine?” she asked.

“You're three years out,” she said.

“Six?” asked Doctor Sandstorm, looking Clara up and down.

“Er... twelve, thank you very much. And if they don't work on their own, who do they work for?”

“Ah. We don't talk about her”.

“Who?”

“Lady Darkness”.

“I thought you said we don't talk about her! You mentioned her! And who's 'we'?”

“Anyway, Lady Darkness is extremely powerful, unbelievably powerful, creating chaos and anarchy just because that's what she likes to do, and with a horrible taste in pink feathered cloaks. Scheming and manipulative, she possesses many powerful qualities perfect for starting wars, which she is very good at. The Wraiths are her servants”.

“What did you do to the creatures... Wraiths, whatever?”

“The little shabam with the blue light and the cane... I was wondering when you'd ask about that. Thought I'd add a little pizazz into my entrance. That word can mean two different things depending on how you say it, can't it? 'Entrance' as in, when you enter, or 'entrance' as in, put in a trance, mystify. I learned that at the BASIL in my first class of Hypnotics. Anyway, that thing with the Wraiths... well, that was magic”.

“Magic?” spluttered Clara again, disbelieving. This joke had gone too far. Yet again, she had to hold herself back. She could kind of sense that it wasn't a joke.

“Of course. It's an old thing, magic, dangerous and not to be messed with. Unless of course, you're me. The magical supervisor is a nice doddery old guy named Aldred Lysander, and he's the one who controls the flow of magic in and out of countries and who uses magic, when and where”.

“You mean there's magic that's existed for ages, and nobody's found out about it? How's it been kept a secret?”

“Well, people have found out, over the centuries since Saxon King Offa discovered magic. Journalists, looking for a story of the century, but they went to sleep that night after typing up their article, and woke up upside down, suspended by the ankles from their chandeliers with their computer files deleted”.

“Okay...”

“That's just one example, by the way. We can do loads better than that. The chandeliers and computers scenario is created by two simple spells. The first a word meaning 'to suspend', the second a word meaning 'to wipe'”.

“I can't believe this is happening”.

“Magic's not all just about blasting evil creatures away and boring stuff like that. Some of it's quite interesting and dare I say it, though I probably shouldn't, fun. Name?”

“Uh... Clara Green”

“Clara Green, do you fancy something to drink?”

And with that Doctor Sandstorm clicked her fingers, and two cups of steaming hot chocolate appeared in front of her, hanging in the air motionlessly.

“Go on, take one. It's nice,” she offered. Clara realised that she was still on the operating table, got up sheepishly, turned to her black jacket in the corner, put it on, rolled up the sleeves, and walked over to Doctor Sandstorm warily. She took the hot chocolate and drank it. The mug had a picture of a sheep on it.

“Mmm... that's nice,” she said as she slurped. And it was. Creamy, tasty, warm and fiery in Clara's throat, giving her some much-needed warmth.

“Marshmallows, cream, steaming hot, my treat. But drinks go perfectly with food, naturally...” she clicked her fingers and there appeared in the air, a tray of assorted biscuits. Doctor Sandstorm, whose hands, Clara noticed, were white-gloved, reached out and picked two custard creams delicately from the tray. Clara herself decided on a chocolate bourbon. After some time spent drinking and eating, including a half-minute trying to extract the biscuit from the hot chocolate after it fell in, Clara decided to speak up for herself.

“Doctor Sandstorm – that's a weird name. Doctor what Sandstorm?”

“Excuse me!” she responded in mock anger. “Have you ever asked a teacher what their first name was?”

“Um... yeah”.

“Good. I hoped I wasn't the only one. But if I told you my first name, we'd get too personal. And I can't allow that to happen. I need to drop you off back where you belong as soon as possible, after my friend's run a medical inspection on you, just a check-up”.

“And I just pretend that nothing's happened?”

“Exactly. Back to your boring, normal life. Forget about this. But first, a brief history of magic. To satisfy you. The magic I just did there, with the hot chocolate and lovely biscuits, was Conjury. Simple enough once you get the hang of it, but tricky to master at first. There's many other types of magic. Potion Brewing's easy enough with guidance, Numeric Arithmancy is predicting the future using numbers, which in turn is a category of Divination or Seeing, the art of seeing the future and more importantly, reading it and interpreting it. Can be useless and a load of codswallop, but can be incredibly important. Hypnotics is a bit of a fuzzy one, deviously hard, and so's Alchemy, but alchemists have a shady reputation round here. Time Control is the control of time, obviously. There's loads of other categories of magic, including some dangerous ones – Necromancy, or Evocation, the study of death and resurrecting dead spirits. Two good ones are Arcane Magic, which is primitive yet effective, and Demonology, the study of demons. Handy to learn so you can get inside their head and think as they think. But to do that you have other branches of magic. To get inside their head – literally – you need to use some simple Shrinking Charms, and to think as they think you need to use practice, Mind Reading and Mind Resistance. For all the dangerous magical disciplines, there's some nice fun ones to balance it out – Animal Charming, Healing Magic, Elemental Control. There are hexes and jinxes and curses and incantations and spells, but you won't be able to do any of that”.

“Why not?”

“Partly because I'm dropping you off back where you belong and leaving you there, but partly because magic is generally born into people. You can't suddenly become a magician, or go to sleep one night and wake up in the morning with magical powers, no no NO no. Magicians are born with magic. It flows inside their veins. It's in their very DNA, their existence”.

“You sound very confident. Knowledgeable. Clever”.

“Well, I've had a very, very long time to learn about magic. Ages and ages and ages. Years and years. Decades, even.”.

“You don't look that old! How old are you – thirty?”

Doctor Sandstorm pointed her finger up to the ceiling. “You flatter me, but higher”.

“Thirty-five?”

“204,” she replied calmly.

“Very funny”.

“No, seriously. I was born in 1808. Magicians have an ability sometimes to change their form, or even lock their physical appearance into the appearance they had when they were younger. If you don't want to look like an old geezer, you can simply lock your appearance one day and stay looking like that for the rest of your life. It's dangerous, but practical. I locked my appearance when I was thirty-three. Locking isn't just a part of streetdance”.

“Wow. Magic exists,” said Clara out loud.

“Thinking aloud, Clara?” asked Doctor Sandstorm. “Bad idea. All sorts of evil can get inside your head. It's a practice called Mintealectura, which is the Romanian for 'Mind Reading'. Most magical spells are in the Romanian language, and Romania is the base for all magic, really. Aldred Lysander lives in this country, as do most of the powerful warlocks, witches and sorcerers.

“Of course, for every spell there is a counter-spell. Resistance to mintealectura is known as rezistentminte, or 'Resistant Mind”.

“Resistant Mint and Minty Lecture? Okay, I won't be thinking aloud any more”.

“Magic can be non-verbal or verbal you know”.

“Stop trying to tempt me!”

“Right then. We need to see my friend Vir, the doctor, and he can apare here. That's the art of Appearing, or Teleportation, a rare gift, but one you can learn, with time. All the magic I've told you about I've learned, as many others have, at the BASIL school”.

“BASIL?”

“The biggest and best school of magic”.

“Named after a herb?”

“It's an acronym, Clara”.

“Of what?”

“Beatrix Arwald School of Intelligent Learning”.

“Sounds like a jumped-up boarding school”.

“Beatrix Arwald, the founder and an incredibly wonderful magician. Born 1592, still alive now, showing her age a bit, she locked at eighty-five. 'Intelligent Learning' – well, we don't want to put the 'Beatrix Arwald School of Magic” for a start, BASM isn't the best acronym, and secondly, we don't want everybody to know about magic. Anyway, we call Vir. Then he'll give you a quick medical check, and we get the next train out of here. We need to get you back home, Clara Green”.

“How do I explain all this to my teachers? My parents? My friends”.

“Leave that to me. I'll perform a little spell on them, make them think nothing's happened and you've been there the whole time”.

“So I just go on like nothing happened, forget about you, those creatures, and everything that happened”.

“I can't allow myself to become friendly with a non-magic person. Shh!” She closed her eyes and bowed her head, deep in concentration. Then, suddenly, from thin air, two men popped into the room.

The first was dressed in long, flowing robes of vermillion red, with small, gold patterns woven into them. The patterns looked like ornate little squiggles, sitting in their individual nests of vermillion red silk. He had an old, kind face and had clearly locked as an OAP, like Beatrix Arwald did. He had a long white beard and matching moustache, with small round blue eyes.

The second man was a little bit taller and looked a tad younger, though still quite old. This man had only a small beard, bigger than a goatee, but nothing fancy. His beard was grey and he had no moustache. He had a clump of white hair on his head, and wore robes of ebony black, which reached down to his toes and draped over his arms. They too were emblazoned with small gold squiggly patterns. This man must have noticed me staring at his robes, as he said

“Yes, I know, they are nice. Ebony black, with gold leaf symbols. From Selecta, of course. But you wouldn't know Selecta, naturally. Wait – hang on! Who the dickens are you?”

“I've just rescued this girl from two Wraiths, Aldred. They've taken her all the way from New York."

“Hmm... shouldn't be a problem”.

“What I thought. Maybe you should talk to Madame Geldhardt about it. Now this girl is called Clara, and Vir, can you run a medical on her before I take her back home?”

“Sure,” agreed the man in red, whose name appeared to be Vir.

“Vir Astym,” he said. “General expert and magical doctor”.

“She shows a lot of enthusiasm,” said Sandstorm to Aldred Lysander.

“Well, maybe enthusiasm is what the magical community needs right now. Warlocks are dying, we need new blood. Doctor Sandstorm, would you come here please”.

Sandstorm spun in full circles over to Aldred childishly.

“And stop being so babyish”. Aldred and Sandstorm had a heated discussion, and eventually Sandstorm nodded her head, mumbling something back to Aldred.

“Clara, me and Doctor Sandstorm have reached a joint decision”

“Though it was mostly him,” said Sandstorm.

“That we shall offer you a place in the magical community. We'll give you a few days to think about it, and we can use our magical skills to cast an enchantment whereby a complete copy of you always appears to be in your house or at school, like normal, with your memory input into the copy to live your life. And you can join us

and become a magician, learn magic. Come to the BASIL school”.

“Doctor Sandstorm said people had to be born with magic,” Clara chirped.

“Indeed, that is normally the case, but in some rare instances when somebody shows real potential or the magical community is at stake, I, the magical supervisor, can give you the powers of a magician. You can have equal magic inside you as me, Vir or Sandstorm, and train to become a magician. What do you say to that?”

“I...I don't know. I mean, I'll have to leave my family behind”.

“You can visit them when you wish”.

“And...oh, I don't know, can I have a think about it?”

 

“We'll take you back home to have a think. We need to cast that spell on your classmates and teachers, remember. Don't want them thinking you wandered off”.

“But I did!”

“Vir, do the medical test. Quick-sharp now. We're off to Transylvania Central Station”.

COMING NEXT ON THE BLOG: Doctor Who-Director of the Monsters-Episode 1 (an original Seventh Doctor and Ace story. It's three parts long but I've only written two parts at the moment, so you might have to wait until I've finished Part 3 before I put Part 1 up. Sorry.)

ROTGE: The Characters: Part 4/4

The final batch of character profiles for my original mystery-drama novel, Resurrection of the Golden Era. And this time, we're learning about the villains...

ELSIE FOX has got blonde hair, is thirty-four years old, and possesses natural leadership qualities and some important qualifications from an important dance school. She's a talented dancer in many styles, but is driven mad with the thought of the power the Golden Era could offer her.

MARK DORRY is twenty-eight, with curly brown hair. He is boisterous and messy, with a 'fiery passion for Egyptology and chocolate'. He can be childish at times, and teachers Drama. He's youthful and has many good ideas, and is, like his long-time associate Elsie, utterly evil.

JADA JOHNS is strict, but remains calm and composed even in the toughest of times. She's intelligent and doesn't like having to bow down to Elsie, but manages. She teaches Vocals and if she doesn't agree with something, she'll dismiss it. She has short blonde hair and is forty-one years old.

Not your conventional villains then... But Mark, Elsie and Jada were normal people until they learned about an ancient era, the Golden Era, and went mad thinking about the power it could offer them... So these character profiles are finally over! NEXT TIME ON THE BLOG it's the second chapter of my first novel, Doctor Sandstorm (the first chapter is available here). That'll be coming tomorrow, with the first part of a Doctor Who short story following on the 14th. Exciting!

ROTGE: The Characters: Part 3/4

Okay, so in my last post when I said "Come back tomorrow or the day after" I meant, "Wait until Sunday and I might do something." Sorry. Here's the third batch of character profiles for the novel I'm writing at the moment:

TARA BARCLAY
Tara loves fashion. Beautiful, ditzy, nice and chic, she's always up to speed on glamour developments. She can be a little bit childish, dumb and frustrating at times, but she is courageous and brave. She is thirteen years old with long blonde hair, a small face, and blue eyes.

TOM COHEN
Tom is athletic, focused and a tiny bit arrogant, but he is still warm, friendly and kind. He concentrates on sports training quite a bit, but finds time to be friends with Harry, his room-mate. He has blonde hair and is just a tad pudgy, and manages to land himself in trouble at the beginning of the book when he finds himself dating two girls at the same time!

KATHERINE GLENWY
Katherine is thirty-six years old and Welsh, with silky black shoulder-length hair. She's the 'floor-mother' for Floor Three (where all the main characters in the book reside), and makes sure the children are happy, safe and secure. She's very hospitable and offers a shoulder to cry on and some truly astounding cooking skills.

Come back tomorrow (or maybe in six months, you never know) for character profiles on the three baddies of the book...

ROTGE: The Characters: Part 2/4

In the last blog post I gave you character profiles for three of the twelve main characters from my novel, Resurrection of the Golden Era (24,609 words and still writing!) Here's the second batch of three characters (and to find out more about Brandon Poole, Ellie Ward and Ingrid Parker, see the last blog post).

HARRY LLEWELLYN
Harry's a joker. He's very fun, is okay at telling jokes, and enjoys hanging out with his room-mate Tom and playing pranks on people, which sometimes go a little bit too far. He rarely takes things seriously, and is thirteen years old. He has blonde hair, is quite tall, and has an aptitude for drama.

OSCAR BLAKE
Oscar's studious and works hard, and he's very clever too, but he's not a geek or uncool. He likes to be up to date on everything that's happening and makes good friends with Brandon, as they are room-mates. He displays odd telepathic qualities, and is twelve years old. He can be bold when he wants to, but is generally quite nervous. He's got mousy hair and a small face.

SHELBY THORNE
Harry describes Shelby as having 'a soul coloured black'. She's spiteful, vengeful and mean. She's horrible, but she has half a reason at least. Shelby's very talented, and so she's had a good five years getting lead roles in whatever she auditions for. For this reason, she sees anybody new as a contender to the throne, as it were. She always wants to be centre of attention, and is thirteen, with long black hair and piercing green eyes.

Come back tomorrow or the day after to find out more about Tara Barclay, Tom Cohen and Katherine Glenwy. By the way, BLONDIE RELEASE THIS DAMN GHOSTS OF DOWNLOAD ALBUM!

ROTGE: The Characters: Part 1/4

So, I'm going to be giving you summaries for all 12 main characters from my novel, Resurrection of the Golden Era (22,744 words and counting). I'll give them out in batches of three. Expect the second batch tomorrow probably, or if not a day or two afterwards.

BRANDON POOLE
Brandon's clever, but he doesn't like to admit it. He's a little bit rebellious at school, or at least that's what his teachers think. Nobody's really ever on the same wavelength as Brandon, but when he meets people who think the same as him and have the same ideas as him, he's friendly enough. He warms to Ellie, Oscar, Harry, Tara and Ingrid quite quickly when he arrives at the Laura Lang Boarding School for the summer drama school. He has brown hair and is twelve years old.

ELLIE WARD
Ellie's got everything. She possesses brains and beauty in abundance. She's got a good natural leadership, and handles everybody well. She's nice to everybody she comes across, and rarely loses her temper. When she does though, it's quite a big temper. On the whole, she's a friendly, welcoming, nice person. She's twelve years old with big blue eyes and long brown hair.

INGRID PARKER
Ingrid is rebellious and unique. She's funny and clever, but speaks out for herself and what she believes in. She's spiritual and a bit hippy, believing in weird sorts of creatures like fairies and pixies - basically, she's always away with the fairies. She's completely convinced pixies are real, and is quite creative. She's thirteen years old with long auburn hair.

Come back tomorrow or the day after to find out more about Harry Llewellyn, Oscar Blake and Shelby Thorne...