Tag Archive: ice lord


….half….

Filed under: New releases, On Dark Shores, Writing by J. A. Clement — 5 Comments
June 11, 2014

Just a short update:

Song of the Ice Lord
Cover is done and rather splendid – reveal should be in a couple of days, and hopefully some time in the next week or so pre-orders should be available. Files for the paperback are uploaded and assuming they pass review, the first proof should be ordered later on today, and is likely to arrive in the UK this time next week. Excited!!

Flight from Shantar:
Currently just short of 110k words (I’m getting on with finishing that while waiting for Song to be processed). The story is nearly finished but will need a bit of rearranging and then some pretty hardcore editing for tone and consistency. It needs a deal more work, but hopefully it will make a good, taut story by the end of it. A couple more bits of tidy-up and then I’ll print it out and start scribbling on it!

Book 3:
Still lurking around 100k words but though not much writing is happening till I finish with the others, plotting and sense-checking is ongoing, which means all the various plot-strands and motivations are starting to fall into place in a more sensible manner. Again, lots of work to be done, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the wordcount gets split between two books eventually – the 100k is missing a lot of character’s storylines – but the frame is in place and the bodywork is starting to take shape. So even that’s progressing, albeit slowly.

Lastly there are three short stories embedded into the text of Song and I’m thinking of releasing them as free shorts, provisionally titled “The Last Dragon”, “The Scarred Artisan” and “The Widow’s Son” (though the last is a rubbish title and hopefully likely to morph into something snappier).

Get me with the progress!! I have a good feeling about this year though… Fingers crossed!
Right. Back to it.

Cover reveal for Song should be in the next week or so, and release date before the end of the month so as always, watch this space for progress.
All the best:
JAC
*****

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Onwards & Upwards!

Filed under: New releases, On Dark Shores, Weasel Green Press, Writing by J. A. Clement — 4 Comments
March 25, 2014

Dear all:

It’s been a while since I last gave you an update, I know, but it’s not that I’ve forgotten you. I’m ensconced deep in the writing cave, doing my best to actually finish some stuff for you – and it’s starting to move a bit at last. Very exciting! So let me tell you a little about what’s been going on…

Book 3: This is now at 80 thousand words or so, and there is still much work to be done. I’m aiming to make this a proper fantasy-sized book but it all depends where the story breaks. Of course the larger story arc is hardly begun yet, but currently I’m thinking this should be a three-paperback story arc and come in nicely as a kind-of trilogy.
The flipside to that is that it’s just too messy having two novellas in one as a starter, so there may be a re-branding along the line to clarify this. This would involve the loss of many of the reviews that are currently up though, and I really value your reviews, so I need to think about how best to manage that. Watch this space.

Flight from Shantar: This is a prequel to events in the On Dark Shores series, and tells of the journey to bring the Mother of the Shantar from the heartlands of her country and smuggle her into Mardon, the country which has only recently been at war with her own. It links in with the arrival of Jack and Vansel in On Dark Shores, and introduces you to characters who will play a large part in Book 3.
This is now at 80k words and nearly at the end of the first draft…. Another ten thousand words (ish) should join up the gaps, then there’ll be a bit of rearrangement before I send it off to the editors to be attacked with scalpels… The second half has had a bit of work already (ie it came back with the comment “How did Suze get involved?” – a small question requiring a 40k word answer!), so it’ll be structural stuff on the first half, and word-polishing on the second. Baby steps, people!
But in the meantime…

Song of the Ice Lord: This is a story from the ancient history of the world of On Dark Shores, set millennia before the current storyline. A dark and terrifying being known as the Ice Lord precipitates the world into a devastating war. Country after country falls before him, until only a few survivors are left, gathered on the Skral islands, and having finished with the rest, the Ice Lord is coming for them. Only the determination of a one-handed craftsman, a young Skral bard and a half-blind Shantara will stand between the Ice Lord and the death of a world…
This is now in its second edit (ie structural stuff done, word-polishing attempted) and currently at about 90k words, though this may be subject to further scalpelling. Hopefully not much though… I’m getting it back from one editor tomorrow, but the other probably won’t finish with it till partway through April, so in the hiatus I’ll be inputting any edits from Julia and working on the other stories. Updates will follow….

So, progress! I am talking to a designer about covers for Song, and as soon as the final edits are back and input, that will be going off to the formatters. Hopefully sometime over the summer there might even be a release! Hurrah! I make no promises though, given my appalling record to date…

I know you are probably a bit cross as the one you really want to read is Book 3, but bear with me – at the moment I’m juggling 3 stories which is a silly idea… Soon to be 2 though, and with a bit of luck, in a couple of months’ time you’ll have something to be getting on with while I’m concentrating on untangling the events back in Scarlock where, let me tell you, it’s getting dangerous to leave the house at night. And WAIT till you find out a bit more about Copeland! Can’t wait tell you all the gossip I’ve discovered!

Right. Enough squeeing, more writing. I will be interested to see what you think, though, of all of them. Hopefully you will enjoy them even if they are sequentially challenged…. Also, if you haven’t signed up to the email list on Amazon.com (not UK, the one on the .com author page) please do as that way they’ll definitely tell you when the next one hits cyberspace. Which might not be so very long now, rah!

Well, that’s my fifteen mins of fresh air. Back to the writing cave!
Have a good one, all:
JAC

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