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Greetings friends—
It occurred to me that it’s been a while since any of you have heard from me, and that I should reach out and let you know what’s going on. What’s going on is: I’m hard at work on The Swithen Book 4!
The reason that I was able to get Books 1-3 out in just over a year is that… I didn’t have a job! I had all day (when I wasn’t looking for work) to devote to them, and I am very grateful for that time. Now I have a full-time job (and have also emigrated from the US to Canada), I have to snatch time as best I can to write. Mostly, I get up at 6am every day in order to get a good 90 minutes in before work, and I also try to grab any other time I can get, which has led to a pretty splintered writing process, which we’ll get to later.
Taking time for the first trilogy to take hold
Truth is, I had always planned for there to be a bit of a longer break between the first three books of The Swithen and Book 4. The main reason is that Book 4 will be the beginning of the Arthur story, and it really, REALLY has to be great. Which means I need to take the time and effort to make it that way. I am fine with that, because it gives me an opportunity to really try to get The Swithen Books 1-3 out there and garner a lot of readers for the series before we launch into Arthur’s childhood, and begin the main thrust of the overall series.
Luckily (and very gratifyingly) for me, it seems to be working. The series is slowly garnering great reviews, noting two things that really make me happy: 1) When readers finish one, they want to go on to the next, and 2) They’re recommending it to friends. One of the unexpected pleasures of independently publishing a series like this is that reviews come out of nowhere and without any warning, and it’s a great experience to wake up to discover that someone I don’t even know has posted a positive review, especially when they reinforce what I’m trying to do with the series, which is make the actual legends come to life and be vivid, relatable and compelling. These user reviews are hugely motivating and very much appreciated by me, so if you’ve read one, please take the time to post a review online and/or tell a friend about it. I thank you and will continue to thank you! They’re also incredibly helpful in keeping me motivated to continue writing!
Looking forward to Book 4
Now as for Book 4… this is going to cover Arthur’s childhood until he pulls the sword from the stone. This one (and Book 5) is going to be unique in the series because there is almost nothing in the legends covering this period. The legend goes from the death of Uther directly to Arthur pulling the sword from the stone, so 98% of Book 4 is going to be entirely original, made up by me. If you think that Merlin mentors Arthur as a child… well, that’s actually from T.H. White’s The Sword in the Stone, not from the actual Arthurian legend (a testament to how very influential that novel and movie was). So the good thing—and also the terrifyingly daunting thing—for me is that I have free reign to create the novel from scratch, and almost no restrictions on where it should go or what should be included.
New novel, new writing process
Because of this, and because of my job and lack of time to write, my writing process on this one has been very different from the other three. Each novel thus far has had a quite variable process, but this one is the strangest thus far. The main difference is that I am writing the story non-sequentially. It will once again have four parts, and I know the point I want to reach at the end of each part, so what I’ve been doing is just writing scenes where they are needed and where I feel like writing them, regardless of where they fall within the sequential narrative. This has allowed me to create with a more organic feel and get to know the characters before I write their major scenes, and to give the whole thing a much looser flow than the other books in the series.
Another difference in my process with this one is that I am doing a lot of dictation. My overall writing method is to get something—anything—down, and then use that as a base to revise and shape it into what I want, and get it up to the quality that I want. For me, the real action of writing is in the revising, so my goal is to just get something down, no matter how rough, because then I have something and can shape it until I’m happy. So on this one, given my time restraints, the first draft in many cases has been dictated into transcribing software, allowing me to get the overall shape of most scenes, and the book as a whole, down in very rough form. Right now, I have over 400 typewritten pages in very rough form, and what I’m doing in the early morning is to just go through and do the first pass, turning those rough scenes into composed prose, knowing that in the future I’ll circle through again as many times as necessary to get the novel up to snuff.
What’s coming in Book 4?
So, what can you expect? The first thing you’ll notice about the novel (when it’s finally released, probably early or mid-2020) is that it has a wildly different tone. It is much more relaxed, sweet and lyrical. It’s also very much a novel about one small family and their relationships. This is a novel of childhood, and we’re with Arthur and his adoptive family in a rural town, with lots of boyish explorations of the forest and surrounding fields. We get to know his adoptive family in intimate detail, with big parts for his foster father and a very large part for his adoptive mother—another woman who barely receives mention in the actual legend. Here she will be a quite big and influential presence (and she’ll be staying on through the next few books, too).
But the most well-known and lingering character we’ll meet is Arthur’s adoptive brother Kay. Those who know the legends know that Kay will be an important and ever-present character right up until the final book, and the formative moments of his life-long relationship with Arthur (as well as his somewhat pugnacious personality) will be laid out here. And as for Arthur… well, you’ll see, but I will say that it’s very fun and exciting for me to begin to compose the character of the man who I will be staying with through the next 22 novels, taking him through adolescence, to adulthood, into middle age and right up until his death. There are some other surprises, big and small, but I’ll leave them for you to discover.
So that’s it for now… if you’re following the series, I am very thankful to you, and hope that you continue to enjoy the novels as they come. Again, any review or recommendation to a friend that you make is hugely helpful and motivating to me, and helps ensure the continuation of the series. Thanks again and be well!
Greetings folks. I’m in the middle of writing Book 4 of the series, which will cover Arthur’s childhood until he pulls the sword from the stone. Happy to say that it’s going well (although slowly), and I hope it comes off as magically as I hope it will. Anyway, I am also in the process of recording the audiobook for Book 2, The Sons of Constance, and this put me in mind to put up this interview focused on that book in particular.
This interview discusses how Merlin ended up as ruthless and maybe not-so-nice as he did, how the Round Table was created in Uther’s time, the overall structure and some of the themes of the book, and which ones will continue into Book 3… and throughout the series. If you’ve read the book, this interview will give you some good additional insights about it (as well as its place in the overall saga.
So get on over there and read the Author Interview on The Sons of Constance. As always, if you have any comment, about the interview or about the books, always feel free to leave it. Thanks!
Hey there folks! Please take 3 minutes to check out the new video on the landing page I’ve made to quickly explain the main things to know about my Swithen fantasy book series. Would it send you into a buying frenzy for my books? If yes, GREAT! If not… then I have failed.
That’s the main page I send everyone to from any ads or social posts that I have. I figure it’s better than just sending people straight to Amazon, because this way they get to learn about the entire series and what makes it special. And the burden of that video is to give all the salient points as quickly as possible.
I want people to know that contrary to what most people believe, King Arthur is NOT all old and played-out. I want to touch on the reasons we’re actually not all familiar with the real legend, and that there’s a lot of stuff in there we still don’t know about. And I want to be sure to get across the main feature of my series; that I am committed to remaining faithful to the actual old legendary sources of King Arthur.
What do you think—did I hit it? I’d be interested in any comments you may have about that page, so… I’m all ears! Thanks for reading.
Greetings, readers! I have reached the 200-page mark in the writing of Book 4, which will cover Arthur’s childhood until he pulls the sword from the stone, and I’m also in the process of re-recording my audiobooks, which I’m going to talk a little bit about in this post. Nowadays, people listen to audiobooks much more often than they actually read books, so they are completely key to reaching a larger audience who might enjoy my work. They also allow me to have my podcast of the books (currently on hold) and… as an independent author, I make a lot more money on the sale of an audiobook than I do from selling an ebook or paperback, so if you look at it as funding that supports my continued work on this project… audiobooks are what we need right now!
Previously I had recorded an audiobook of Our Man on Earth, which was definitely my first attempt at reading an audiobook, and it shows in reviews like “Absolutely terrible! Author should NEVER narrate!” and “I definitely recommend that Telek NOT read the next one.” And I must say… it WAS pretty terrible. I really was just reading through without a great deal of inflection and, perhaps even worse, as FAST as possible. I then—seeing as I like to waste a great deal of time and effort on fruitless pursuits (wish I was kidding)—did a complete recording of The Sons of Constance, which was then rejected by Audible for not having the right audio settings. Does it seem like I should have checked that BEFORE I recorded the entire book? Well, yes… but now see my comment above about wasting time and effort.
But it wasn’t completely wasted, because I was learning about reading audiobooks, and I am confident that I will do a MUCH better job this time. This came over several revelations, the first being that I’m not just reading, I really have to TELL the story like I would around a campfire. Key to this is simply slowing down and giving listeners time to process what they’re hearing, and also for me to have time to give the narrator’s voice the proper rises, inflections, pauses… and to shape the meaning of the story through my actual delivery of it. I am happy to read the novels myself and be able to express my personal voice as it comes through in the writing (especially some of the ironies or jokes), but it was quite clear that I had to take my delivery to the next level, and I am hopeful that I have done that on this round.
The other thing is that in the meantime, I have completely revised Our Man on Earth in order to flesh out the character of Meylinde and to bring the tone more in line with the rest of the series, and… the currently-available audiobook is a recording of the first version. And the first version, honestly… I would be surprised if anyone wanted to stay with the series after reading that. It’s NOT great. The writing is very stiff and Meylinde is barely the warm and wonderful person she is now. So I am actually growing a bit embarrassed that people might be hearing that version of the story, when I know that one that is so much better exists.
So I decided to finally figure out how to adjust the sound in order to get the recording levels right and make it sound good, and I am starting to work through recording the novels, beginning with the first one, with the aim of having all three novels available as audiobooks before the fourth book is out. And once the first audiobook is done… we can start to once more think about the podcast.
The podcast is also a bit of an embarrassment, since it cut off right in the middle of Book 2 (just as I was telling listeners “it’s about to get really fun!”). Basically, I got a job (good thing) but it meant that the time I had available dropped precipitously, and my priority has to be on actually writing the books. Also, I just didn’t have the sense that anyone was listening. I NEVER got a comment, and very few likes, and the number of listeners remained very low. Once it was over, I heard from someone who “Loved the podcast!” and I thought… “Boy, I wish you would have told me that while I was actually doing it!” So, just a reminder that those reviews, comments, likes and other indications that you leave for authors or artists ARE very important, and have a very real effect on whether those series’ continue. Feeling like no one was listening and no one cared, I just dropped the podcast without a thought.
Now… a poll question! The new podcast will include chapters of the audiobook in a serialized form, and the point of it is to bring more people to my series and—I’ll just be open about it—to sell more books and audiobooks. At the beginning and end of every episode, I say “If you want the entire book right now, and don’t want to wait months for it to be complete, you can go buy the audiobook…” But then… what happens when you reach the end of the first book and go into the second? Here’s where I ask you for your thoughts, what solution would hit the sweet spot of both pleasing listeners AND helping me sell books (which has a direct effect on the continuation of this series). Ideas are:
a) Include the entire audiobook, up to the end, and when book 2 starts, just keep the whole first book up for free.
b) Include the entire audiobook, up to the end, and when book 2 starts, remove the last half of Book 1, but include a synopsis, and refer people that the complete audiobook is available.
c) Include the entire audiobook, up to the end, and when book 2 starts, take down book 1 and replace it with a synopsis.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments.
In any case, look for a new edition of the first audiobook and soon after that, new (and pretty good, I must say) audiobooks of Books 2 and 3, and don’t forget to leave likes and comments for your favorite artists and authors so they are encouraged to keep on!
Hi there, just a quick note that I added a new video that discusses the treatment of women in my series The Swithen, and you can watch it here.
The video covers 3 things:
That because a number of notable women in the Arthurian sources don’t even receive names or deep psychologies, one of the unique, and unplanned features of my series is that it comes off as “progressive” simply by supplying names and characters for these women (like Merlin’s mother, the protagonist of Our Man on Earth) and giving women’s concerns equal importance to the men’s.
Since Book 3, The Void Place, contains a rape, I discuss the process I went through of reaching out to women for their perspectives and also researching #MeToo stories and accounts of sexual assault. I also wrote a whole separate piece for my process in handling the rape in Book 3, if you’d like to read it.
That a big feature of the books going forward will be the education of boys to respect women and think before resorting to violence. There is so much violence baked into the Arthurian legend, and one of the major aspects going forward will be having our characters react to all that violence and process what it means to them to see all that.
That’s it for now, go off and watch the video, and leave me your comments on the page below.
