Endings and Beginnings

This is the title of the final chapter of the book.  Stories, like life, don't have a fixed end or beginning in my experience.  In the case of my narrative, we jump into Lydia and Elaine's lives at a certain point.  That point isn't necessarily the very first in the series of events that culminate on the night of the Storm but it is "a" beginning from which we can follow them.

Certainly, the point at which the book ends is only "an" ending.  Not only because, as an author, it would be unwise to write myself into a narrative cul-de-sac on my first outing!  Storm on the Cathe is about events that will have a profound impact on the direction of the characters' lives.  The immediate may resolve but as with any crisis in life, at the point of resolution (be it happy or painful) new paths and possibilities open up.

It should not really have come as such a surprise to find that completing the story and publishing it in e-book form isn't the end of my journey.  I have new anxieties and tasks to occupy me.  Listings and profiles to "tweak", profiles to create and download stats to become slightly obsessed over! This blog won't end with publication either.  There is more I'd like to discuss and share about the world and the characters.

Another beginning, which I await with some trepidation, is feedback.  Over 200 people now have copies of Storm on the Cathe when only a few days ago only close friends and family had read it.  At some point (hopefully!) star ratings and comments will follow.  I'm not going to pretend that I don't care about what people say about the way the story is written. Or even how well I have succeeded in crafting something people will enjoy.  Oddly though, what I am really anxious about is how the characters fare.

Lydia and Elaine have been part of my imagination for many years.  What I am most nervous and excited about as I await feedback is how they have been received.  In a sense, in publishing the story, it is they who have begun a journey.  All I can do now is wish them "Fair winds and safe return".

Editing Pains

There is a memorable pub brawl in Robert Rankin's Book "The Brentford Triangle" in which the unfortunate barkeep is grabbed and lifted towards the counter bringing his more tender parts into contact with a beer spout.  In a book replete with wonderful quotes, the phrase "Arrgh!" Wailed Neville as his cobblers smote the beer engine... always brings a smile to my face (tinged with a slight wince of sympathy pain).

The current editing process calls this particular image to mind as I battle to work and re-work a couple of sections of the book that stubbornly refuse to comply and just seem right.  Furthermore, in an act of unforgivable self-doubt and stupidity, I undertook a major editing session without the proper precautions and now have to un-pick and reinstate a substantial section of book manually because actually it was a lot better before I started fiddling with it.  Aaargh indeed!

So as my April publishing deadline slips unceremoniously away to be replaced with a less specific "soon" please be assured that, like the hapless Neville, I will not be deserting my post but will keep at it - painful though it may be.

It's all getting a bit real!

As the excellent Seth Godin has often blogged, the brain will come up with a lot of reasons not to do something but it should not be listened to!  Storm on the Cathe is now finished insofar as plotting and drafting is concerned.  So all that stands between my story and the reading public at this point in time is me.

Which is why my brain has been working overtime with worry and nagging self-doubt.  It's no small thing to launch my story and characters into the e-book world, knowing that once discovered it can be reviewed and criticised for all to see.  Unpublished, the story is "safe".  It's been read by a few friends who have said kind and encouraging things about it but if they hated it, they'd be far too nice to tell me.

So why, my brain asks, should I risk public humiliation by sending it "out there" into the scary world?  At this point I could all too easily retreat from the goal I set myself over a year ago for no better reason than the fear of what some people, who I'll most likely never meet, might feel/say about my work.  On this occasion, though, I don't think I will.

Mindful of the ease with which I could "wimp out" I have taken the precaution of telling lots of people that the book is finished and will be published soon.  I've created a situation where NOT seeing it through an unacceptable outcome.  I have sent it away to some friends and family to be independently proof-read before publication, however, as a necessary concession to my nerves.  Not because I need some more people to tell me I should e-publish but because I want it to be as good as it can be when I do.

After the hours of work, I have come to feel that the story and the characters deserve to be "out there" and I should not worry too much about what comes afterwards. The achievement and satisfaction is in the doing of it and if just one reader stumbles across Storm on the Cathe and feels it was an enjoyable use of their time to read it, then I would feel it was worthwhile.

So folks, you read it here!  Storm on the Cathe WILL be available on Kindle sometime in April 2013.  For me, this is both exciting and terrifying, but it IS going to happen!

Extract from Chapter 9

The girls are summoned to the manor at Forngarth where they are met by the formidable family matriarch Eleanor D'Shan:

A high door, gilded with gold, opened on the left a short distance from the bottom of the stairs.  Eleanor D’Shan came through to welcome her young guests.

        She was dressed in a rich black dress, well decorated with white lace-the only concession allowed to a widow-and a simple silver necklace with a sapphire pendant.  Her hair was silver and worn long which was unusual for a lady of her years.  Although frail and requiring an ebony cane, the old lady’s back was straight and her eyes sharp and intelligent.  Her voice, too, was strong and full of authority.

        “Elaine, Lydia, welcome to Math Forngarth.  I trust you are both well?”

        “Very, thank you Grandma,” Elaine replied with a slight bob.

        “Quite well, Great Aunt, thank you.”  Lydia’s curtsey was more practiced and earned her a slight nod from the elderly matriarch.

        “Do come through, dears.  Tea is ready and I can’t stand for too long in draughts.  The doctor tells me that warmth and rest are important in one of my years, though what he knows about being my age I can’t imagine!  In my youth it was fresh air that was the thing, but I do find standing tires me.”  The grand old lady chattered on as she led the girls into the drawing room whose tall windows looked out onto sweeping lawns.  The waters of Carras Sound glistened in the distance beyond the green sweep of the downs.

        Tea was set out for them. A silver tea service and china plates bearing light sandwiches and cake.  “Do the honours, Elaine dear,” the old lady ordered, settling herself gently into a high backed chair and setting her cane next to it.  Elaine hesitated.

        “Grandma, wasn’t that Tristan we just saw?”

        “It was.  Nasty young man he’s turned into I must say!”

        “Great Aunt, you must be careful!” Lydia exclaimed.  “He’s dangerous.”

        “Do hurry up with the tea, dear,” Eleanor rebuked Elaine mildly.  She waited until the tea had been poured and they each had a plate with two bread triangles.  “Dangerous?” she said eventually as if there had been no pause in the conversation.  “Well, I suppose he is to some.”

        “No, really, Grandma, Lydia’s right,” Elaine said, carefully swallowing her mouthful first.  “He has the Gift.”

        “He’s a D’Shan isn’t he?”  The old lady brushed a couple of crumbs absent mindedly from her lap.  “Of course he has the Gift.  He’s turned to the bad, that young man.  Thinks he has all the power in the world!  Humph!  He thought to get his hands on this place.  He won’t be back, though, I soon told him what I thought of him.”  Eleanor saw the girl’s horrified expressions.  “Don’t look so alarmed, children!  Elaine, do you think you are the first to have the Gift in our family?  Where did you think it came from?  Not your mother or your father!  The Gift often skips the odd generation.”

        “You have the Gift too?” Elaine exclaimed.

        “Of course I have! I’ve never troubled much with it, though.  Not my thing.  I’d been expecting Tristan ever since Master Berant came to see me on his way up to that school of yours a month or so ago.”

        “You know Master Berant?” Lydia managed to ask first.

        “Since he was a boy,” Eleanor replied.  “He used to put in for stores at Whellan.  Many’s the time we fitted him out with provisions and cordage; sails and the like.  He was for ever off on some journey or another.  Oh yes, we go back aways; I had quite a chat with him.  I can’t say as I approve of the way the Mageblades terrify the wits out of young and old alike, whatever their reasons might be, as if the Gift was something to be afraid of!  I told him so!  I said that I didn’t expect him to come it the high and mighty over my granddaughter, what with us being old friends.”  The two girls gaped.

        “That’s why he didn’t let them take me!”  Elaine said.

        “You’ll go yourself, in your own time, like I told him,” the old lady stated firmly.

        “He said his was the harder course to steer.  Do you know what he meant by that?” Elaine asked.  Eleanor D’Shan chuckled as she helped herself to a slice of cake before passing the plate round to the girls.

        “He talks in riddles, doesn’t he?  It makes him seem clever and mysterious, so he reckons!  He means, dear, that you can go to the Navigator’s Guild on Forath for the first part of your training.”

        “The Navigators!”  Elaine’s whole face lit up with excitement.  “I never realised!”

        “Why, dear, what do you think the Navigators and Weatherworkers are but Sea Mages?  Master Berant himself is a member of both Guilds; one of their most powerful members I should imagine, though like most men he lacks basic sense.  He should stand up to those fools at the Kerun Dur and I told him so!”  The thought of Master Berant being given a sound ticking off by Eleanor D’Shan brought a smile to both girls’ faces which they quickly smothered.  “I hear your father’s in a spot of trouble,” Eleanor continued suddenly, turning to face Lydia.  “Always was a weak fool, your father, and now what’s to come of this I can’t tell.”  Lydia shifted awkwardly, embarrassed at the brutal frankness of her Great Aunt’s words.

        The elder Mrs D’Shan stared hard at Lydia for a moment, as if thinking deeply, though Lydia got the distinct impression that she was being appraised by the shrewd old lady in front of her.  “I shall think about what’s for the best,” Eleanor said eventually.  “The last thing you need is a hasty and ill considered marriage, which is no doubt what your mother is presently planning on Thirnmar.  The D’Shan’s are strongest when they marry for love, not money or position.  Your father would have done well to remember that, although he undoubtedly does care for your mother.

        Now, unless girls are very much changed from when I was young, you both have good appetites and there is plenty of cake and more tea in the pot.”