'Going it Alone...'

Making a living from a career in self-publishing is sooooo bloody difficult..! No multi-national publisher to help your books along. No in-house editorial advice. No fancy, paid for book covers or write-ups in the press. Everything the Indie publisher does, is off his/her own bat and yet, we keep on going. We dream, we hope, we pray and we stare for hours on end at still waters... waiting for luck to touch our shoulder...watching for that first bite...

'It's Out There... Somewhere'

From My Window...

See this everyday from my study window... only colours and sky will change. Leaves turn from green to gold to be whisked away on high winds and fast-running rivers, for one last crazy ride to the open sea...

Short Interlude...."Fingers crossed"...

Have known this little fella for almost five years now, named him Blackie for obvious reasons. Comes here every day, two or three times for his food. Trusts us, I guess...But I worry for him 'cause the shoot starts next Wednesday. Forty guns shooting the crap out of anything that flies within range. If Blackie makes it through to the end of January, reckon we'll celebrate with one, helluva party! But the odds are against him, he's getting old, not so quick on the wing anymore...bit like me; likes to sit in the sun and remember, (wind up the gramaphone)... "When you and I were young, Maggie..." 

"I Wolf" continued.

…DeLacy slowed his mount and though the mare’s step was lively, she was nervous of the forest. He waved the boy alongside him.

‘Are you of an open mind, lad?’

‘I am of that mind, squire, though separating truth from lies often troubles me.’

DeLacy smiled at the answer, there was honesty there. Though barely sixteen, the boy stood almost as tall as his master – his outlook more of a grown man and with a quick eye and loose limbs he could deliver the point of his sword faster than most.

‘And our quest... how do you see it? Driven by God’s own truth, or the wanton falsehoods of Lucifer himself.’

Jack took his time in replying.

‘I should say truth, sir. Too many men have died in these forests. I know of five good souls who have perished here. To this day, their families search for them but find nothing.’

‘So you see the beast as real?’

‘Wolves are killers, squire. If a man is foolish enough to walk the forest alone, then as would the deer or the sheep, he could well fall prey.’

‘Aye Jack, they are indeed killers, but this one… this one is not the same. I have seen it, boy.’ Or perhaps the ale I had drunk that night was more the culprit of my rambling. But in truth, I think not. ‘Not far from where we are – a sighting which turned my blood to melt-water.’

‘You saw a wolf, squire?’

‘That I did Jack, and no ordinary wolf was this one. Though most will shake their heads and sneer at what I tell.’

On impulse, DeLacy reached across for his sword and drew the claidheamh mòr half way out from its scabbard. In the moonlight, the blade erupted with tiny lights of brilliant silver; icy fingers of superstition reached beneath his cape and for a moment he struggled to quell the fear that followed them.

‘Six feet high at the shoulder, Jack. From that day onward, nothing has terrified me more than the sight of that hellish creature walking beside me. Nor did it walk on all fours lad, but straight-backed and powerful of limb. Its forelegs hung as arms and those terrible jaws, though shorter than any wolf’s, were filled with a wolf’s fangs;  as God be my witness, sharp as a harlot’s tongue and long and white as dead men’s fingers.’

He drew the neck of his cape closer in to his throat, as if the leather edging was strong enough to protect it.

‘But the eyes, Jack, they were the worst… the grist of any man’s nightmares; yellow in the moonlight, the eyes of some devilish manifestation, those of Satan himself…’

Brings out the Wolf in me...First Snippet..!

I Wolf

*

Bowland Forest, England, November 1703

                                                                            

1 

‘How much further, Jack?’

‘Three more miles before we see the lighted windows of Whitewell Village, squire.’

‘And none too soon it’ll be, lad. This cursed mist has frozen me through to the bone.’

Conrad DeLacy lowered the brim of his hat and drew in his cape against the drizzle. Not even the devil himself will be afoot on a night such as this. The great Suffolk mare that carried him stepped out solidly, head down to the rain.

‘My thoughts are such that we should have stayed the night in Clithero, lad.’

‘Aye, it would have suited better, squire, though now the moon is up, it will not take long for the wet to break.’

Where the forest opened, moonlight flooded in; ancient trees stood silent and black-shouldered. DeLacy’s eyes tricked with the shadows and from out of them, grotesque, leering shapes rose to walk alongside him.

‘Keep your eyes peeled, Jack and your sword to hand.'

Strapped diagonally to the mare’s left flank, the silver cage of DeLacy’s sabre nuzzled against his hip; the black, double-handed hilt of a claidheamh mòr, the Great Sword. Lifted by his father from the battlefields of Killiecrankie, the blade had been lavishly inlaid with silver, the steel sharp enough for it to clip a rose from the bower without so much as dislodging a single, trembling droplet of dew…

A bit more scary...

Tired of waiting for the rain to go. Filling in with bit-blogs in the meantime is driving me nuts.
So... time to do what I enjoy most, put out a story. Stepping outside my comfort zone with this one, but saw how many of you enjoyed Off with the Witches, a slightly scary horror story. This one is better, it's ongoing and a bit more scary... I think. Anyway, stay with me. Hope you like...

"I Wolf"

My fourth book, as good as it gets...

The time for my most fullfilling, African adventure novel is now. The pages accumulate faster than ever before, the writing excites me - the heat, the danger, the smell of old dust - all of these things are in there. Still waiting to get out treasure hunting, but the weather sucks. Mud like you have never seen and everyone's in a flap over the impending wine shortage - makes a change from flapping over Brexit, I suppose. Think I'll build a canoe and paddle upstream away from all the flappers..!

'The wine, the wine! It's all gone..!'