Still Untitled

A quick update. This is new. I don’t think I’ve ever finished a first draft before deciding on its title. Not until yesterday, that is. I rounded off the first draft of Delamere Nine yesterday, and I am reasonably pleased with it, though I’d like it to have a little more emotional depth, so I need to work that in during the next stages. I also realised how many Suffolk and East Anglian dialect words I used, so there will have to be another glossary at the start of the book.

I can’t start thinking about a cover until I have a title, but once I have, I will also commission a drawing, but who will it be of this time…?

This story has a background theme of coming of age. The emotional theme is tied in with that as there’s some father and son discussion, a mild debate about when do boys become men, and so on, and there is an action theme which is to do with smuggling. There are also two mysteries, the main one, which develops into something else, and then a side one which ties in, and hopefully isn’t too easy, and yet isn’t too unrealistic.

All will be revealed in time… For now, it’s on to the second draft.

A Flight of Fancy

What’s that then? Well, it’s currently the working title of the next Delamere Story. I am up to 70,000 words of the first draft, and things are coming together nicely. I wasn’t sure what this was going to be about (apart from a mystery), but not long after starting, I decided it was going to have as its background the theme of fathers and sons. Or, in the case of Delamere, Uncle Jack and ‘adopted’ nephew, Simeon, mirrored against a father and son relationship. It also encompasses smugglers, the countryside, a young man’s imagination and stories, folklore (to a certain extent) and something else which I will keep as a surprise.

There’s a mystery, of course, and for this one, we’re leaving London and heading to Suffolk. Be warned, dialect is being used, and there will be additions to Baxter’s Glossary.

That’s all for today, where it is 37° outside with 75% humidity. Eek! I have the fan on full blast, and my fingers are still sticking to the keyboard. But before I go…

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