Finishing the sequel

2013 has been an arduous year in my life. It has brought challenges and difficult times that have truly tested the limits of my perseverance and endurance. I won't detail the exact events that I am referring to, as that is far removed from the purpose of this post.

Despite the difficulties of this year so far, I have finally finished the first draft of my UNISON sequel, titled UNISON:ARC. The story is over 130k words long - just over 2x the length of the original. 

I have mixed emotions about this achievement. I love knowing that the story is substantially complete. Just being able to see it completed is the greatest reward for the hard work and time I invested into writing it. However, at the same time, I am disappointed that the substantive writing process is over, as writing this story has been a brilliantly enjoyable experience. Obviously I still have to spend a lot of time editing and rewriting this story to make sure that it's sufficiently vetted for submissions, but that experience is not the same as watching the story write itself and grow from plan to manuscript.

I'm not complaining about editing, by the way, even if I do have an aversion to the 'red pen' - I use green to avoid this, its much less aggressive.

I hope that the sequel will follow in the footsteps of the original and make it into print, but I am very aware of the print industry's difficulties and the immense hardship of getting that covering letter, synopsis and sample three chapters noticed. Fortunately I already have a foothold as a published author, so hopefully some more doors may open for me and my sequel. Though, even if my current publisher rejects the sequel, and other publishers reject it also, I will always have the option to self-publish. Isn't technology brilliant? I think so.

So, although my blog updates have been sparse, I have returned to blogging for this exciting announcement. I thank everyone for their support and feedback on the first book and I look forward to making the second available for reading in the near future. I will make sure that I post my sample chapters on here as soon as I am happy with the edits.

Thanks!

L.H

Zen

The Last of the Magi:

In the old times, when the ancient magical bloodlines were starting to grow and expand, few would have described magic as an instrument of tyranny and oppression. Ask the people today and they would describe it as exactly that. How did the ancient gifts of nature become so tarnished in reputation?

The Sorcern are the cause.

In the early days of magic, only the fortunate bloodlines could channel the powers of nature. It was seen as a gift, believed to be bestowed only to those families who had lived in perfect harmony with nature in a mutual relationship of respect. It was the greatest blessing any could receive.

In time, the bloodlines grew and intertwined with the non-magical bloodlines to the point that the every family, every town, every city had at least one Magi amongst them. They only ever used their powers to help cultivate farmlands, summon well-needed rainfall and protect those around them. The Magi were said to be compelled by the will of the earth itself. The old Magi diaries all recorded similar beliefs, they believed that their powers gave to them an affinity to the needs of nature, and they believed that the misuse of their magic would result in their magic being taken from them. So the Magi served nature from birth until death. No Magi ever committed a crime, or misused his magic for selfish or evil purposes. Nature had a way of making even the most unpleasant of characters act selflessly when it came to the use of magic, it was a bizarre fact of magic. So, over time, the Magi helped the weak become strong and helped the vulnerable find shelter in the comforts of nature. Despite all they did for the people, the Magi never accepted praise or joined in the celebrations in their honour. They preferred to do their deeds and then return to the forests, rivers, mountains and deserts of the world and attune themselves with nature.

I wish I could have seen those days. When people and nature were completely in synch, thanks to the Magi. But those days are gone. Taken away by the Sorcern.

There were many who grew jealous of the Magi and their gifts. They tried desperately to find a way to steal their magic for themselves. Some Magi were killed, some made prisoner. Some tried drinking the blood of a Magi, or torturing them, or even eating their flesh. But such crimes against nature only drew them further from achieving their goals.

Some of the wealthy lords of the land rallied together and founded an organisation that studied nature and the Magi in order to find the secret behind their connection. They created great furnaces, wind tunnels and water jets to study the forces of nature in its most intense conditions. Its not certain exactly how it was done, but the organisation discovered a new form of power in their great nature factories. It was said that they bathed people in the gasses and vapours that came from their experiments. No-one knows for sure because the Magi burnt the factories to the ground, along with those inside. The experiments make the Magi fill sick, as they felt nature being abused for its power.

Although they managed to protect the balance of nature that day, the damage in the long term had already been done. In secret, the surviving scholars and researchers had escaped with the product of their studies. The wealthy lords were able to quickly refine the process and imbue their bodies with the violent forces of nature. They had just created sorcery.

If magic was the ability to commune with nature and share its gifts, then sorcery was equivalent to stealing the powers of nature and manipulating it with force. The difference was plain to see in its execution. The Magi had the ability to raise the hopes of all who witnessed their magic, the sun seemed brighter, the birds sounded happier and even the grass and trees seemed to become healthier. The Sorcern could invoke great feats of power with their sorcery, but at a cost. Sorcery ripped the life out of the nature that it manipulated. It killed trees, crippled animals and caused storms and droughts when used in great intensity.

Now, many years after the first Sorcern walked the land, I have seen the friction between the Magi and Sorcern reach its resolution. The history books and diaries may be fact, or they may be fiction, but I know this much to be true, the Magi failed to undo the damage to nature caused by the Sorcern. When I was just a child I witnessed the Emperor of the great Sorcern city lead a war against the Magi, in a battle that is now called the Great Purge. The Magi were powerful, but their benevolence were no match for the brutality of the Sorcern. They were too defensive. The Sorcern killed every one, using so much sorcery in their assault that they destroyed one of the most verdant meadows, leaving it as a blackened, dead, scorched, cracked and barren wasteland. That place serves as the reminder of the Sorcerns' power and superiority.

People no longer praise the day that magic-users enter their town. The Sorcern use their powers to oppress and command the non-magical folk into submission. That I have also seen. I have seen towns levelled and villages burned to the ground simply because a villager gave a Sorcern a funny look. The same happened to me.

The Sorcern took my home from me a long time ago. I have called the wilderness my home ever since. I have met so many poor people on my travels, all fearing the day that the Sorcern knock on their doors.  I do not pity them. They choose to stay still and wait until that day comes, and they do nothing to stop the tyranny of the Emperor and his Sorcern. I take a different stance.

I stop them. I kill them. Then I'm gone. I'm just a traveller, they never see me coming. The Emperor needs to be put down, and I intend on being the one who does it.

Creativity & Knowledge:

I've been having another one of my musings. Instead of thinking about food or my workload for once I am thinking of something a bit more... philosophical, perhaps? Let's go with that. I've started to think about creativity and knowledge. In the past I have always seen these two qualities as being mutually exclusive of each other, as in you either do something which exercises your creative imagination or your intelligence. I think in a very monochromatic view of the world, like an old film, you can see life portrayed that way. I personally blame the Sims for giving me this flawed perspective.

Such phrases come to mind:
"Creative license"
"Knowledge is power"
"Knowledge is the food of the soul."
"A picture is worth a thousand words."

So what has resulted for me is that I have spent most of my life putting things that people do as a hobby or career in one of the two boxes.



For example:

Creativity -

1. Art
2. Drama
3. Music
4. Design
5. Film
6. Writing (Fiction)
7. Dance

Knowledge -

1. Science
2. Mechanics
3. Mathematics
4. Law
5. Logic
6. Medicine
7. Writing (Non-Fiction)

Oh sweet naivety. Its dawned on me that creativity and knowledge are far from polar opposites. At the very least it could be argued that they overlap, and at the very most it can be argued that they are completely harmonious. 

Take an artist:

Creatively they express themselves, their purpose or their ideology through whatever canvas they decide to use. The end product is a result of their imagination.

Knowledge plays a key role also, without it the artist would not have the understanding of the effect of their actions, of the colour fusion, of the brush strokes. Without knowledge of the world they are in, the life they live and the understanding of themselves their art would be void of meaning or ideology.

Or a Lawyer:

Having an extensive working knowledge of the law on an issue will put you in great stead for knowing whether the answer to a legal question is yes or no. Having the legal know-how is the fundamental basis for doing well in the area.

Without creativity we wouldn't have interpretation. Without interpretation the answer to the question will almost always be 'no'. With it, the rules can be questioned and explored for loop-holes. 

The reason I picked up on this is because, as a creative writer, I often re-read my work and realise that I have not mentioned much about the colours of things in the environment, or the texture and shape, or even the temperature. The same thing goes for particular human senses, its easy to rely on sight in description but equally easy to overlook smells and tastes. And as I considered more things that I overlooked in my writing I eventually came to considering character's cultures and ethnicity. 

The ultimate realisation for me was that my creativity in my writing only extended to what I had knowledge of. I would write ancient religious connotations because I had the background knowledge to apply it in a creative way. But I would not write about international cultures or lifestyles because it is an area that I know little about. In effect, we are paint brushes, with the ability to only paint in the colours that we know. If we want to expand our potential we need to learn more colours.

So, the philosophical message to come out of this is this:

In order to be creative, we must expand our understanding and experience. With knowledge, we can use our imagination to look upon what we know anew.

I hope you enjoy this post :)

L.H.

Its been a long time coming...

Its almost christmas, joy-to-ze-world. Its taken me all of three months to manage logging on here to make a new post, which is shockingly terrible. I deserve a thorough beating around my face.

Its been an eventful few months, but those stories belong in the 'Me' tab rather than the 'UNISON:ARC' tab. so yes, suck on that all you viewers who stumble upon this section of the blog purely by accident while googling 'Gandalf v balrog'... shame on you. Though, as searches go, that is a pretty impressive phrase to end up leading people here.

But anywho, just thought I would plug an update here, the UNISON sequel has just broken the 114k word count and is rising! I really really really want to get this done, I'm loving the plot of book no.2 so muchly. Its just so hard to find the time to do this and still manage to get through a Law degree, while also doing extra-curricular shtuff and law-firm applications. How am I going to survive this year is a frequent question in my mind at the moment.

Arrrgghhhh there is just too much to do in this thing we call life. Can someone do some of it for me? That would be tastylishous.

So this book basically has a lot of words. That is just about the only point of this post. Its around 90% complete in terms of my estimated word count and I reckon it will be around 125k words by the end. I hope the simultaneous adventures of Jason Rider and Skye will bring an interesting new character perspective to the mix of personalities in my writing. I have focused on trying to deal with shortfalls in my writing and I feel that the lack of diversity and depth in my characters was in need of improving.

So, if the second book does come along, EVER, and you fancy a read I think you will enjoy the conflict of ARC-partners Skye and Hertz, polar opposites Ridexiel and Apolyon and the powerful Gabriel and Mercurius.

This book will go to the heart of who the Hierarchy really are, what they really stand for and will reveal the 'true' history of creation. Boom. Everything will change in UNISON: ARC, across all the three races, human, hierarch and deymon and everything will lead up to the series finale of book number 3!

I hope I manage to actually get this done within my lifetime!


You are all very pleasing to my face
Merry christmas and all that jazzabaloo

L.H

ARC-1: Skye

UNISON: ARC: "Oh really? When you find someone as good as me, you let me know"

I'm simply a soldier. My duty is to serve, but past that I'm the boss, I do things the way I want.

To be a special operative in the UNISON military I only needed to do two things, the first was to become the strongest soldier around, the second was to leave my life and family behind. Obviously being the best wasn't a challenge. As for leaving things behind, well, I never had them to begin with.

My parents were never a part of my life past my infant years. The birth of the Human Empire and its many rebellions kept them busy while I was left behind as an orphan. Then came the relocation program and I ended up in a new facility while my parents were moved to a more military-dependant colony.

I didn't care that much, it was a case of what you don't have, you don't miss. Though, when I finally had the opportunity to move and find them it became just another waiting game until they were off active duty. Then came the Hierarchy and the Fallen. By the end, all I had was a copy of the casualty list ironically the 'missing in action' section only had two names; Lieutenant A. Hudson and E. Mcann. No family, no friends, no home.

Being a soldier was all that was left for me and it's all I will ever need. They said I was powerful, fast and fearless. Apparently my only fault was my reluctance to work with anyone, I say its their fault for recruiting fools as my superiors, they were always wrong. I never failed them, they failed me. Eventually they realised that less soldiers would end up with cracked ribs and broken noses if they promoted me to a position of independance. I didn't lead many operations, but I went on many and it only took one look for the commanding officer to leave me to get the job done while the boys squabble over "who's watching who's back". Being out on the field in the heat of battle, if you could call it 'heat', was where I belonged. After a couple of years the little rebellion conflicts had gotten boring and I'd thought that with all the new threats floating around since first contact I might have gotten to taste real war, but no.

Eventually I was offered the position of becoming one of Lord Balson's Marshalls, the highest ranking soldier in the army and better yet, a solo operative. There was one position and 25 soldiers ready to show what they were made of but none of them had what it takes, not even close. After knocking the little boys back down to size the position looked like it was mine, and it would have been if Lord Rider had not been paying a visit to Balson that very day.

The next day my identity had been fully abandoned and I became a member of Lord Rider's Academy on the planet Carax. Now I'm training to become the perfect soldier, with Lord Rider's and the Hierarchy's own powers making me unstoppable. I don't get sent out into the frontlines anymore but the simulation training is the perfect substitute, I've fought everything and anything that could threaten the Empire.

When a real war comes to us, I'll be at the front, winning it.

Year two. Book two.

It's now the second year of my law LLB degree, and with the new work-load comes the added pressure of trying to get a professional summer vacation placement. As much as this academic year is a crucial one in terns of my potential future career, it is also a big year for my planned writing. By early 2013 I hope to finish my book sequel UNISON: ARC and pursue another publishing contract.

Basically I have a year of contract hunting, which I'm actually really looking forward to. 

As for the actual sequel, the writing is very nearly finished, but it's going to take some serious editing before I can start sending out submissions. It's exciting to almost be back in the position again, after all its such a great feeling to finish a story, particularly when this one is so much longer than the first.  Alongside another hopeful book publishing, I am going to be having another marketing push with Waterstones to try and get their support in Lincoln and hopefully Norwich around the Christmas holidays.  If i can't manage to get them to stock my book, which would be understandable, then they have suggested that they would be willing to help set up events for me within their branch. 

I think since that time when I started sending out my submissions for my first book, I have gone throug the steep learning curve from being a naive amateur writer with a painful level of optimism, to becoming more commercially aware in the way of the publishing industry and the steps that are required of me to try and get my book attention and sales. The main thing that has stayed the same for me is my love of writing, and my purpose behind continuing it; it is never a matter of making money that drives me, so much so that no further publications in traditional publishing would not damage my spirits. Instead it is simply a love of writing and a drive to have my stories told that keeps me going, stories that hopefully some people will want to continue reading. 

Thanking ye kindly. 

Much Love,

L.H

Advise from authors, to writers

Hello my children, today I am looking back to when I first started writing and I remembered that I was given advice by two writers who helped to set me on the right direction for getting into my own fiction writing.

Meg Rosoff:

While in my High School I was offered the chance to travel to another school to see a talk from Meg Rosoff about her writing career. She threw in some anecdotes about her life in advertising and even an amusing metaphor about a potato, but for the life of me I can't actually remember what it was about.

Now, at the time I was reading her book, "Just In Case" about a boy who has a bit of a young-life crisis and changes his name to 'Justin Case' and he embarks on a strange journey in his life where he becomes someone new, meets new friends and has unusual experiences. I havn't read the book in many years so its better than I can describe.

Meg had some good comments on her character creations and when asked why she left the physical description of Justin quite blank in the story she explained that she felt it better to let her readers create the character themselves. It seemed like a good plan. You can't not be interested in the physical appearance of a character if you have made the image yourself. Seeings as fiction is said to be all about the characters, its obviously crucial to give the characters situations and experiences that the reader will enjoy and understand but I think its quite a nice idea for you to leave the characters' appearances to the reader; creating a character who meets someone and falls in love with them would really work well if the reader is picturing their own perceptions of a perfect couple. Its a good point, I think.

I have done this to some extent with my human characters, but seeings as around half of my characters are of different races and species I feel that the limit of character non-description should be drawn to anything human.



Simon Scarrow:

Simon was a tutor at my college in good ol' Narrrfaaaaaak. He came in to talk about his brilliant historical fiction books which portray new perspectives of ancient events through the eyes of different characters as to what is usually seen.

He gave us a brilliant workshop into trends of the literary market, the idea of audience perception of a story and some insights into how to get noticed and published.

His advice was particularly focused on encouraging people to write and try to break into the publishing world as well as giving those valuable tips as to catch an editors eyes. His suggestions really compliment my post about the troubles of trying to be original with your writing, because, in truth, it is a very difficult task or, arguably, an impossible one. Instead, he suggested, take an easier route to start with and take an old story, nursery rhyme, fable or fairytale and twist it, like many authors and TV show producers have done. Red Riding, Grimm, Once Upon A Time, Angels and Demons, Da Vinci Code come to mind as examples of media that have done this, and pulled it off brilliantly. Catching a particular audiences attention is always difficult for a new author, but this burden will be particularly lightened if you start off with a foundation storyline that people can pick up and say 'ah, I know this. But hang on, its changed!' (Yeah that was really cheesey, but whatevs)



Alan G. Brown:

Alan is one of the people I have worked with, but i think he is a bit more camera shy. (All the best people are ;D). He is a self-published writer with quite a repertoire of published and in-progress works in his writing career. Alan has given me some brilliant advice into getting yourself 'out there' once your work is available for sale. He has helped me understand the value of publicity, reviews, websites and also gave me an insider's view into how self-publishing works and its really made me explore the option more for future works.

 Self-publishing for a writer such as Alan is a really powerful tool. It shows his dedication to his work, because obviously many people would use this option to bypass the long, long process of editing and self-evaluation in that editing process, but not a dedicated author like Alan Brown. He does all the work that many authors can effectively leave to a team of people and he writes, edits, promotes and markets his own work and does a pretty good job of it by the sounds of it.




I found it really promising to hear of his great results in his books, both at home and overseas and I hope to have at least a fraction of his success. Its a lot of work to get a book on the market at the right quality, and although I feel my first book may be lacking in that quality, I am going to follow his example and double my efforts now that I am older and have gone through the sharp learning curve of seeing my finished work in publication.






All of the books featured here are available for purchase on Amazon, kindle or print! I highly recommend them all to you guys :)