Writing more Princelings books

jemima at camp nano

I’m at Camp NaNoWriMo at present, working on the last two books of the Princelings series.

Except that it seems to have become the last four books.

The plan was to write the Chronicles of Willoughby the Narrator, and outline Princelings Revolution.  But I have interviews with Fred and George, and also Willoughby, on my blog in July, and I realise that some stories that I’ve done in the past won’t be in either of these books.  I may revert to an earlier plan, and collect them together for the Chronicles of Marsh (or Castle Marsh), calling Willoughby’s book simply Willoughby the Narrator, which it’ll probably be called for short anyway.  But there is a big gap between where Willoughby will now end, and where Revolution should start… and the gap would be filled with another earlier thought, The Princelings of the North. You remember Dylan and Dougall, who had their own stories in the BookElves Anthologies?  Well, they also had a short story in 2013 when I did an A to Z of short stories. I expect them to play a part in the revolution, but a lot is scheduled to happen in 2016-17 in the Realms, well before the last book is scheduled to start.  So I think they’ll have an adventure of their own within the series, probably before Chronicles is released, and then I’ll finish with Princelings Revolution as planned.

I realised all this as I started Camp Nano.  The first thing I did, despite some prep work in June to bring the timeline up to date and review where I’d got to with Willoughby, was to open a new file called ‘A Short History of the Realms’.  That forms the basis of all the rest of the stories, and I decided the easiest way was for me to do a summary of the whole thing, then pull the books together from that.  Maybe the Short History will eventually come out as an extra 🙂

So, don’t forget to catch up on the later books if you don’t already have them – there’s a Smashwords promotion on through July – and watch for more news in August.

Farewell CampNanoWriMo

Camp-NaNoWriMo-2013-Lantern-Vertical-BannerWell, Camp NaNo is over for another year, and I finished The Adventures of Victor, getting to over 51,000 words, well within the time limit.  This is, of course, because I had an old version I was pullling apart and putting back together.  But I completed it, with lots of new passages, and new themes and problems for Victor to sort out.  And then I decided it would be good to make all of Victor’s narrative in the present tense…

Well, I searched and replaced 843 instances of “said” to “says”, and then “I says” to “I say”, and considered doing the same for didn’t to don’t and things like that, but decide in the end just to go through and change them.  In the process it makes me change a few other things, so it’s not a bad exercise.  I think changing “asked” to “ask” would have saved some effort though.  The next stage is to put it away for a couple of months and then start a real edit – cutting and reshaping and making it altogether tighter.  I expect it’ll end up at about 42,000 words, but when I changed the tense I rather enjoyed the dream sequence.  Maybe I’ll keep it!

I fancy giving you another excerpt, but I don’t want to give you the end, as I rather like it.  This is from Chapter 19 (of 24).  If you haven’t read book one yet (why not?) you won’t ‘get’ the cliffhanger!

You’re going to need to have read at least Books 1 and 4 to make sense of this book, I think (and preferably the whole Trilogy).

From: Ch 19 – Return to Castle Marsh

I walk into the Cheeky Parrot and ask Archi when the next stage to Marsh is due.

“Hi Victor, it’s this afternoon – about an hour’s time.  Shall I book you on it?”

“Yes, please, Archi.  Er, is Py around?” I add, thinking I haven’t seen Py since the funny inn at Main, and wondering what he was doing if Archi was all on his own.

“Not at the moment.  He’ll be back soon though.”

“Soon as in hours or days?”

“A few days. We’ve got lots of business interests,” he says, grinning.

I bet you have, I think.

“I’ll just send a message, then.”

“Please yourself, the operator’s in there,” he says, nodding at the vacuum post office door.

I knock and go in.  The operator is very helpful and suggests I fill in a standard form with no more than 12 words, for the cheapest way of sending an express message.  I think Lupin should have it express, but I can’t afford a long message.

“Lupin – have urgent package from Hugo for you. Some value. Victor.”  I suck the end of the pencil for a bit as I draft it.  Hard to say enough but not too much.  I end up with a word spare.  I think they could allow you to put the addressee and the sender’s name free. I suppose I should have put Prince in front of Lupin, but I only think of that after I’ve written it out, and I’m not going to change the whole thing just for that.  I’m sure he’ll appreciate my economy of effort.

I’ve just sent it when I realise I should have told him I am going to Castle Marsh.  He’ll think I am still at Castle Wash.  Bother.  I come out of the office, thanking the young lady for her help, and sit at the bar.

“Would you like a drink after your perilous journey on the waves?”

I reckon Archi’s joking.  It wasn’t perilous, just bumpy.  “Yes, please,” I sigh.

“How about this new one, just came in this morning from Castle Deeping?  Free sample to every inn, they say.”

“What’s it called?”

“Moonlight.  By the way, you’ve got stuff on your lips.” And he hands me a small cloth to wipe them on.  Pencil marks make the cloth look very grubby.

“Thanks.  And thanks, yes, I’ll try a Moonlight,” I say, handing the cloth back.

He takes the top off the bottle and pours the contents into two glasses, handing one to me.  “Cheers!”

“Cheers,” I echo, sniffing the drink.

And tasting it.

And slurping it.

Archi is doing the same.

I look at him, and he looks at me.

“This is Wozna,” we say at the same time, except he adds “isn’t it?”

~~~

The last line

Would you like to know the last line?

Really?

It’s….

“That’s a yes, then,” I say, grinning again.

+++ Just four more days to enter the Lazy Days of Summer Giveaway Hop +++

Camp update 3

35,000 words and counting

Camp-NaNoWriMo-2013-Lantern-Vertical-BannerI thought you’d like an extract today.  George went to a flying festival in the Rhinelands, but got waylaid and involved in a project to develop a flying boat – called the Pelican – by the mysterious Blackbird, aka the Rajah of Nilgiri, who is based at a castle on the river Rhine called Laurel-Eye.  George has more or less been kept captive on this project ever since.  He’s currently at a place called Lago Major, somewhere just south of the Alps, at the workshops of Kurtz Brothers, who are building and testing the flying boat.  George is just to make the return journey. What none of the flyers know is that there has been a major storm in the Rhinelands and the river is in full flood…

This is from Chapter 17, currently entitled “Water Sports”.

George was up and about smartly while it was still dark.  The passengers for the trip back were standing in line ready to be weighed, along with their baggage.  A few were grumbling about the early start, some of them just stood there dozing.  Princess Lili von Ottostein was complaining bitterly about having to pay more for her luggage on the way back than she had on the way to the meeting.  She shouldn’t have taken that trip into town and bought those extra gowns, George thought.  The Kurtz engineer was telling her much the same thing.

George watched proceedings, carefully checking the weights and advising the engineer when he needed advice about where to stow the baggage.  Distribution of weight was vital to get the machine in proper ‘trim’ as he called it. He stepped on the scales himself, received a red chalk mark on his shoulder, and went across to the other end of the hangar to check the bags and other freight were being stowed properly according to the colour marks.  The Kurtz guys were good.  They’d got the hang of this now.  George could relax.  Except he couldn’t really.  He had hatched a ridiculous plan.  He was fed up with being kept at Laurel-Eye and shunted backwards and forwards on every trip the Pelican made.  He’d had enough.  So he’d made sure that one of the emergency coracles and himself were both earmarked to travel in the aft compartment.  He was going to jump ship, quite literally.

A couple of hours later and he unwrapped himself from the blanket, checked his scarf was drawn tight about his neck and his keys securely fastened to his scarf.  They had descended from the mountains now, and were following the long line of the River Rhine.  He’d seen the River Main join it, and he was watching for the Castle of Laurel-Eye forward on the right hand side.  They had to land before the river turned the corner to go round it.  George was banking on throwing himself out of the back door, holding the coracle spread-eagled, landing on the water, and being washed up on the far side of the river as it turned the corner.

The flying boat was sinking lower.  The river seemed to be rushing beneath him awfully fast.  There was the Laurel-Eye!  George skipped to the aft doorway, kicked the hatch open, grabbed his coracle with both hands, and threw himself onto it as it flew out of the door in the plane’s slipstream.  He was tossed like a leaf, but held on grimly.  As luck would have it, he landed exactly as he’d hoped, flat down on top of his coracle, arms and feet still stretched out like a flying squirrel.

Something was wrong.  The coracle was bucking like a mule on what should be relatively smooth water.  The river was rushing, in full flood.  Waves tossed him from side to side, even though he was hurtling downstream far faster than he’d expected.  There were thundering noises in his ears, as if a waterfall was somewhere near.  He hung on grimly, trying not to choke as the water splashed into the little craft, threatening to overwhelm him.  The coracle was bucking so much it tipped as much water out as it was shipping.  George suddenly had a vision of his brother Fred in the crow’s nest of a pirate vessel in a storm, many years ago.  This was what Fred had meant when he said he couldn’t let go, but he was afraid he was going to drown. Then he was afraid he wasn’t.

George’s fingers and toes were rigid with cold and strain.  He just told himself to hang on.

And hang on.

It seemed like forever.

Camp update 2

In which I pass the halfway point

Camp-NaNoWriMo-2013-Lantern-Vertical-BannerYes I’ve already written 25,551 words for the new story. It is extremely helpful to be reworking a story I wrote a long time ago but got stuck on, since I’ve had three years to work out how Victor should talk to Hugo, when Hugo is on the other side of the time tunnel from Book 1 (and book 4).  In other words, he hasn’t done any of his adventures in Book 1 yet.  He has done his adventures in Book 4, but Victor doesn’t really know about that.

What Hugo is up to is trying to right the wrongs he discovered at the end of Traveler in Black and White.  He’s after the Rajah, aka Blackbird, to try and get him to give back the money he’s stolen. However, the Rajah is trying to reintroduce Wozna (which he brews under licence from Hugo) to the realms, even though (in book 1) Wozna was withdrawn from the realms until about 6 years hence.  Hugo doesnt know that, and mustn’t know that, as it hasn’t happened to him yet. And Victor is trying to find George, who seems to have disappeared while helping Blackbird invent a plane that will help reintroduce Wozna to the realms in 6 years time.  Not that Blackbird knows that.

The question is, are you still with me?

Oh, and since people like them, I’m trying to make my chapter subheadings fun again. I don’t think I’ll ever do one as good as one in the first book “In which George finds engineers need people skills more than people need engineering skills”, but I’m trying.

Halfway through July already!