It’s been a long time in coming, the impact of Covid-19 needs little explanation, but it certainly put a crimp in my plans – which definitely did not survive contact with the enemy! Nonetheless this is a significant milestone in getting this book out to you all. We have a story!
First drafts are, by their nature, pretty rough things. I do tend to edit a bit as I go along, so it’s not quite as rough and ready as it might be, but there is still quite a lot more work to do. However, the major elements of the story are in place and now it just needs a thorough review and detailed going over. Dialogue, pacing, description, detail… all of it will come in for considerable scrutiny over the next few weeks!
I’m pretty happy that I’ve done justice to the new realm of the Icemark as we experience it through the senses of our protagonists and antagonists. Tarithel and Shareth have been huge fun to write in this story, which has turned out to be quite complex and tricky to manage. I hope as I read through I feel I’ve done enough – doubtless a few extra bits will have to be written to clear things up.
The word count at present stands just shy of 155k words, which means it’s about the same length as Lords of Midnight. I think this will rise during editing, as I’m pretty sure I need a bit more scene setting and dialogue in places, some bits were definitely a little rushed in the first draft. Overall though, it feels about right. Next up will be a good solid second draft, review by Chris and then on to the editor for the real process of turning it into a book!
From a creative perspective now, my thoughts are turning to my Hegira Space Opera. This will be set in the same universe and time period as my Shadeward Saga, but featuring planets and situations with much higher levels of technology. So far, all I have are ideas, but elements of plot and story are already forming in my mind. This will also be a 4 book series, so plenty more to come.
So, as ever, it’s back to the keyboard!
Feel free to join me on my twitch broadcasts (I’m now a Twitch Partner!) or follow me on YouTube if you wish to watch offline. I’m regularly posting up bits and pieces as I work!
With my Lore and Astro Tours complete, I promised that I would use my Thursday evening Elite Dangerous streams to showcase the “new player experience” and give some of my thoughts on what that was like – inviting other players to join me and “start over” in the game once more, giving us something to do prior to the arrival of the new Odyssey DLC.
With the availability of an “extra CMDR” with the recent Epic Games giveaway, quite a few other notable streamers and players have done something similar, so… in order to do something a bit different and make things a little more interesting, I’ve decided that I would do something rather more ambitious.
I’m not in a position to write another official Elite Dangerous novel, despite the success of both Reclamation and Premonition, but that doesn’t stop me from being creative and wanting to involve the playerbase in new adventures in Elite Dangerous.
So… I’m going to attempt something that I’ve not tried since 2017 and the end of Premonition – an Elite Dangerous in-game story. It features a new NPC controlled by me, “Sassia Bianchi” who you will be able to interact with in-game and the story will be told through the outcomes of her adventures and interactions with the player community. A story called “Elite: Retribution”.
As a story teller, I’ve penned a little background to Sassia’s story of which you can learn a little of in the trailer below. More will be revealed on a weekly basis as an episodic story unfolds within the “Drew Wagar” Private Group in Elite Dangerous on PC. Players can contribute to that story and the outcome will, once again, be decided by the players. Season 1 should take us up to the beginning of the Odyssey DLC availability, we’ll see if the story continues after that…
We begin at 8pm game time on Thursday the 14th of January, in the Drew Wagar private group, broadcasting live on twitch.tv/drewwagar and available afterwards on Youtube.
To join the PG, send a friend request to “Drew Wagar”. You can also send friend requests to “Sassia Bianchi”.
It’s rather difficult to come up with anything non-cliché about 2020, certainly it wasn’t the year any of us expected. Many have had to wrestle with drops in income, huge uncertainty and separation from their loved ones.
In short then, I didn’t make as much progress on my books as I wanted to. The Shadeward Saga was completed earlier this year and the final installment of Kiri, Zoella and Meru’s adventures seems to have been well received. I’ve also completed my first 4 book series, which is a milestone in itself, bringing my list of published full length novels to a total of 8.
I’ve been working through my back catalogue with a view to “audiofying” them all as well. So far 3 out 4 Shadeward books are done, the third reaching Audible in just the last few days. If you haven’t seen Shadeward Enervation yet in audiobook form, you can find it here! Part 4 will be recorded early in 2021 and hopefully be available by the Spring – and that finishes it complete!
I’m also planning to record the Lords of Midnight and make that available as an audiobook, so that will follow on from the Shadeward Saga.
I’ve also launched a “shop” for Shadeward merch (mugs, t-shirts and so on), so have a look here if that interests you. Amongst other things you can get a copy of the official Shadeward Map of Esurio, which is a definite help in navigating the stories!
Alongside that I have the current WIP book – Doomdark’s Revenge – apologies for the delay in this as it should have been done by now – my writing time has been trickier to manage in the pandemic and there have been many calls on my time. I recently hit 115k words and am getting close to a first draft. I’m aiming for a publication date of Spring 2021 for that too!
After that I can begin to get my head around my next great undertaking – the expanded Shadeward Universe, another series of books starting with the Hegira Hegemony (working title for the moment!). I’m really looking forward to that, but Doomdark’s will take priority until it’s finished.
So to finish up, thank you to everyone who has supported me in this bizarre year by buying books, following my streams, watching my youtube videos and listening to my audiobooks. It’s very much appreciated! More material is coming – as soon as I can create it. 2021 should be another year of new stories and adventures!
Despite the fact that both “The Lords of Midnight” and “Doomdark’s Revenge” were written by Mike Singleton over 35 years ago, an eternity in computer and video game history, the odd surprise can still be thrown up and a little more of the history around the games revealed.
You’ll be aware of the genesis of my Lords of Midnight novelisation (if not read here) and how a novel was originally promised to the first person to win the game and provide evidence of so doing – by printing out their adventure on paper and sending it in by post… there was no internet in those days. That story is a bit of a legend in its own right. However, in the last few weeks, I’ve been privileged enough to get in contact with some of the individuals who were involved at the time, allowing me to shed a little more light onto this ancient history of times long past… or 1984 as we like to call it!
The first ancient artefact unearthed was a letter from the “Beyond Robot” (Beyond Software – the original publisher of the games) to a competition entrant, thanking them for their entry, but informing them that they had sadly not been the first to submit a winning entry…
Picture courtesy of Stewart Beatt
Following on shortly after this was an example of one of those entry competitions… a record of the game printed out on thermal paper. The ZX Printer of the time (and many of its rivals) didn’t use the common 9 pin or 24 pin dot-matrix affair, hammering against a coated ribbon to create text on ordinary paper, but rather used heat transfer onto a special roll of thermal paper to produce the text and images. The ZX Printer was affectionate known as the “Bog Roll Printer” for reasons which are fairly obvious.
The infamous ZX Printer
The entries for the Lords of Midnight and Doomdarks’ Revenge competitions thus looked like this, faded with the passing decades, but a valuable keepsake regardless. (Keep Scrolling!)
Image courtesy of Richard H Harris
As is now widely known, the winner of the Lords of Midnight competition was supposed to have the prize of their specific adventures being immortalised in a novel. That prize was never delivered and we still don’t know precisely what happened in lieu of the book – which I eventually wrote 35 years later! However, for Doomdark’s Revenge, the winning prize was instead going to be a set of bespoke metal miniatures representing the characters depicted in Doomdark’s Revenge.
Until November 2020, nothing had been heard of these miniatures until a conversation on Twitter (bless Twitter for all its indirect contributions to Midnight and the Icemark!) caught the eye of the original winner of Doomdark’s Revenge, who still has those miniatures, alongside the winning printout of the game where the “Watchwords of Midnight” were revealed.
Image courtesy of Richard H Harris
Image courtesy of Richard H Harris
Image Courtesy of Richard H Harris
These miniatures have not been seen before as far as I know, but it’s good to know that the original winner still owns them and plans to cherish them for the future!
Here are some close up of the figures – give them a chance to load on slower connections, all images courtesy of Richard H Harris – https://twitter.com/TelecomGuru. to whom I’ve very grateful for permission to reproduce them on this blog.
Luxor the Moonprince
Morkin the Free
Rorthron the Wise
Tarithel the Fey
Shareth the Heartstealer
It’s been fantastic to see these miniatures after all those years and close out a little bit of the history of Doomdark’s Revenge in the process. The novel is still being written, with the 100k mark having recently been passed. The sky brightens in the east once more across the snows of Midnight and Icemark. Dawn cannot be far away!
I have, without any shadow of an excuse, rather neglected my blog. Oops. There’s a list of things every writer is supposed to have; websites, blogs, youtube channels, social media presence, bookmarks, free giveaways, posters, signage… trouble is, if you spend all your time doing this you’ll never actually sit down and write a book. Anyway. I do intend to get back to the blog a bit more often.
As per the previous post, I’ve spent some time rejuvenating the website, delving into the murky world of html and css, in order to modernise it a bit and put in place the foundations for some future e-commerce activity. More of that in time.
I have been working hard – honest!
So, 2020 then. Didn’t really go according to plan it has to be said. I’m sure many of you are in comparable if not similar situations. Within weeks of Covid-19’s lockdown becoming apparent almost all of the conventions I was planning to attend were cancelled (some were a bit tardy in doing so in my view, but got there in the end) which meant a complete lack of book distribution opportunities. My plan for 2020 had been to spend a lot of time ‘investing’ in this to put my name out there a bit more and aim to promote my books more strongly. Scuppered is the correct word here.
As a result of that, quite a lot of upheaval at home and a significant income drop to be factored into the equation (and, alas, writers still have bills and mortgages to pay… plus it is pleasant to eat upon occasion) I was forced to alter my work patterns and seek alternatives, which has kept the bill collectors away, but rather thrown a spanner in the works in terms of book creation. I planned on writing 2-3 books this year, I’ve managed 1.5 thus far. It remains to be seen how I will fare in 2021.
Doomdark’s Revenge has been significantly delayed as a result. It was supposed to be out this year during the summer and it now won’t be out before 2021 unfortunately – however progress is still being made and I’m pushing it forward as quickly as I can. As per usual, I do want to ensure it’s “right” rather than “on time”. As I’ve already missed “on time”, I’m going to have to deliver on “right” ! Quality is one of my hallmarks and, particularly when working on someone else’s IP, I want to ensure it’s the best it can be.
The Lords of Midnight
The Lords of Midnight has gone down well, exceeding the popularity of my second Elite book, which was something of a surprise to me given that I thought it was somewhat obscure. There’s a lot of love out there for Mike Singleton’s work and, if the majority of the reviews of LoM are to be believed, I managed to extend on his narrative without compromising it. It was good for me to be able to show that I didn’t need Elite to be successful. Both LoM and Shadeward are selling well alongside my Elite books. I will be working on Doomdark’s Revenge exclusively until it’s complete – just to reassure you!
I’ve been watching the slow but steady progress of Elite Dangerous over the last year or so, adding my voice to those lamenting the lack of lore and story-telling in the game. The good news is that (finally!) Frontier have decided to do something about this and GalNet has returned. I’m not involved any more, but I have enjoyed producing the Lore Tour and the current Astro Tour, but I’m unlikely to provide much more content for that universe.
The most popular Elite Dangerous novel – Reclamation
Odyssey (a.k.a SpaceLegs) really doesn’t interest me all that much. I’m sure I’ll still play occasionally, but “I think my work here is done”. I’ve had a uniquely privileged position in the community as the result of my Elite Dangerous books – you fans have ensured that both of my books are by the far the most popular of all the official novels – and I am very grateful for both the opportunity and the reception to those stories. It’s been nice to give back a little here with my short stories for Michael and Evelyn. The Salomé incident remains controversial, but, at the very least, it was memorable and I think that’s a good thing for a writer! I even got to speak to CMDR Beseiger (a.k.a. Harry Potter) on one of my streams and reminisce, in a civilised manner, on what was a very interesting day in the game back in 2017.
Overall, I’ve been very privileged to meet a lot of people through the shared experience of this video game and, with only one notably egregious exception, all have been amazing, remarkable and dedicated fans with whom it’s been my honour to spend some time with. Right on, Commanders! o7!
My completed Shadeward Saga
Shadeward, my genre-straightjacket-busting SF and fantasy saga, was also completed this year and has gone on to a great response. The last book in particular has had many people and reviewers coming back to me with the accusation that they have been brought to tears throughout, such was the emotional strength of the story and the outcome for the three main protagonists; Kiri, Meru and Zoella. No spoilers of course if you haven’t yet read it, but that emotional resonance was by design.
Shadeward, whilst being an adventure, fantasy and SF story, is about the people primarily. The interplay between the three was deliberately designed to be complex and not a tawdry love triangle or superficial romance. There are themes of hatred, vengeance, with bittersweet reunions and acts of forgiveness, altruism and sacrificial love. That’s the heart of Shadeward. This was also another opportunity to show that my writing could stand alone away from Elite (and even LoM). I take my writing very seriously and plan to continue for quite some time – the response to the stories was everything I hoped for and it’s wonderful to know I’ve built a core “fan base” who look forward to my next output!
In terms of that actual process, i am reviewing my approach for the future. I’ve published my own works directly and used the wonderful team at FBP for many of my novels. Frontier also published one of my Elite books. As a result I’ve now got quite a lot of experience of both the pros and cons of various approaches. I’ve not bothered with the “traditional” approach thus far – i.e. finding yourself an agent and then having them pitch your book to a big publisher.
I may give this a whirl, but the problem I see here is that every new “middle man” you introduce into the process reduces your cut of any profits to be made – and they aren’t particularly big anyway, especially not with Amazon taking a major chuck of the takings. You also loose a lot of executive decision making power and may have to write within the genre straight-jacket, something I really abhor. Some writers will say that you haven’t been properly published until you have an agent and a publishing deal with a publisher that your gran has heard of – that’s a conceit, of course, but quite a popular one. I don’t subscribe to it at all however.
My aim is, and has always been, to write the stories I want to write, without let or hindrance. I am not very tolerant of being told what I can and can’t do, particularly by those who seek to enforce diversity, ethnic, religious or political agendas in their story-telling. I’m not a big fan of allegory or lecturing my audience as some academics would have us do. I’m also seeking authentic reviews and feedback on my books. It’s tempting to send out free copies of your book in exchange for reviews – I don’t do this because there’s a huge danger of feeding a self-serving cottage industry – many such blog sites only give positive reviews – rather sycophantic to my way of thinking – and perhaps a bit unethical.
Not all reviews are created equal.
My advice is that if you see reviews stating that the reviewer posted their thoughts in receipt of a free copy (ARC is the acronym of choice today – advanced reader copies) then take that review with a hefty dose of salt. The reviews of my books – good, bad and indifferent – are from people who have actually bought them on the basis of my previous work. Quality is more important to me. An inflated number of optimistically gushing reviews is the writing equivalent of the insecurity you see on social media, the constant reinforcement required by the needy for validation by receiving as many “likes” as possible for puerile posts. Fortunately, on Amazon at least, you can check the “Verified Purchase” tag next to the reviews to sort the wheat from the chaff – this isn’t perfect (and some reviews without the tag will be genuine as the reviewer may have got the book from a non-Amazon, but authentic purchase) – but worth keeping in mind.
So… what’s up next?
The focus is on Doomdark’s Revenge next. I have promised myself (and you!) that I will not work on any other projects until that is complete. In practice that means 100% on the first draft (which is about 85k words right now). Once that it done and the editing train begins I will start to move the other stuff forward.
Due in 2021 – fingers crossed!
Next up is the Hegira Hegemony. This is another series of 4 linked books, set in the Shadeward Universe and concurrent with the events you’ve already seen on Esurio. This will be a no holds barred Space Opera in the grandest sense and will exceed the scope I managed with Elite Reclamation and Premonition. For those of you of an Elite disposition you’ll find much to love and enjoy here, there will be space combat, trading and system spanning political intrigue, along with the more provincial action focused on the antics of a ship and crew. As you’d expect from me, characters will be the big focus, with a new cast of memorable people for you to love, hate and love to hate. There will be dramatic revelations and exciting set pieces aplenty. The four books have the current set of interrelated working titles at present – Contravention, Condemnation, Confrontation and Conflagration. I’m looking forward to cracking on with this.
Alongside this, the audible work will continue. I now have 3 audiobooks out there, one is currently in QA (Shadeward 3). Shadeward 4 will follow and then I’ll produce both Lords of Midnight and Doomdark’s Revenge. With that lot complete, hopefully I’ll be deep into the writing of Hegira by this point!
So – I’d better get back to the grindstone! There’s much to do. Thank you ever so much for all of your support, via the (much missed) conventions, emails, twitch and youtube videos and social media and discord. I try to respond to all the communications I get, but they are sometimes delayed by the sheer volume I receive.
As you may have noticed, I’ve been revising my website! This was a fairly major job, requiring an upgrade of PHP, SQL, exporting/importing and then a new theme mechanism, various tweaks and a new look and feel. All this has allowed me to integrate a bunch of new functionality and there are some more bits and pieces to come.
I have brought back all the previous blog entries from the old site, but I’m not going to go through nearly 400 of the wretched things to reformat them for the new look and feel, so a retrospective through those older articles may through up a bit of visual oddity for which I apologies, at least the content will be there! I intend to do some more blogging on progress and the new content will fit better.
So this blog post is a bit of test. If you’ve read this, it would appear that the upgrade was successful!
