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This is a continuation of my blogging here at WdC |
| Novel #36 So… the next long work I wrote was Sins Of The Fathers. Clocking in at a little over 39500 words, it was not a proper novel, but I submitted it anyway. After editing with the publisher (“Can you add some more description here?” “I need more explanation here.” that sort of thing), it was 41k words, just a novel… and became my second book! Told in three timelines, it is about a group of guys who do something terrible as teenagers and it comes back to harm their children. I think it’s okay, but was not real happy with the formatting changes the publisher put on it. Still, he paid me, so there you go. And it is another book! Novel number 36 proper, though, is the only time I have ever written a deliberate sequel to a novel. Let’s jump back to 1987 ("20250331 Novel #3" ) and Into The Crystal. Now, I don’t know why, but in 2014, I decided that I wanted to know what happened to Keith and Kathy. So I set about writing this. I introduced their daughter, a young man from our world, and now dreams helped them cross over as well as the crystals. And it ended up being a decent 57k words. Because it is a sequel to that earlier work, I have no plans to submit it, even though I think it is actually not a bad tale. I gave it to a beta reader who begged me for something to read when I didn’t have anything completed. She loved it, and didn’t even realise it was a sequel. So that is a positive. If I throw them both together, I get a 98k work, so… who knows? Me – I ain’t doin’ it. The story: It is 26 years on, and Keith and Kathy are estranged. A man named Tiberius has bought Keith’s old house and in his dreams sees a woman, Katarina. He finds he can help her, like a really vivid dream. On the other hand, she also sees him. Then he loses her. It turns out she is Keith and Kathy's daughter and she has been taken by Keith’s half-brother. Tiberius finds a piece of the crystal and this transports him to Katarina. They become lovers and, with two of Tiberius' friends, go out to save the kingdom of AdgaD. Simple, really. The scene is from where Tiberius first meets Kathy, after Katarina was taken. Excerpt The house Kathy unlocked looked from the outside as though its owner took no pride at all in its appearance. What little garden there was was overgrown with browning weeds, some as high as Tiberius’ hip. The grass was brown and yellow where bare patches weren’t showing the dry, hard dirt beneath, and the large paving stones that made the path were all cracked and broken. The house itself was dirty, with broken tiles on the roof, cracked and chipped rendering, and torn and faded curtains in the windows. A huge spider web sat above the door, the dried husk of its builder hanging in the centre. The welcome mat was so tattered that the word was hardly legible. It would have looked abandoned if not for the car parked alongside it. Inside was not much better. The linoleum-covered floors looked like they’d had a perfunctory mopping maybe a week earlier, the few furnishings were threadbare and the television looked like it had been made in the 1980s. Katherine smiled at him. “Hovel sweet hovel,” she laughed. “I’m not going to ask what you think because I know what you think and I reckon you’d be too polite to be honest. But, think about it – anyone breaks in here, are they going to search too hard?” Tiberius looked around again and shook his head emphatically. “Right.” She locked the front door and led him into the barely functionable kitchen. Tiberius remained stunned, unable to reconcile his surroundings with anything he had believed about this woman. Katherine then unlocked the pantry door, revealing five shelves – three empty, one holding some old cookware, the other with cans of food so old they had started to rust – and too many cobwebs. She reached to the very back and moved her hands briefly. A soft ‘click’ sounded and she pulled back, taking the whole wall, shelves and all, with her. A light flashed on automatically, revealing a very small room with no floor, but a solid metal ladder leading downwards. Without even looking at her guest, Katherine climbed down. Tiberius hesitated and then, with a final glance at the kitchen, followed uneasily. Halfway down he heard a slight whirring and then a soft grinding as the shelving above closed once again. Tiberius felt as though he was trapped, completely and wholly. The ladder was resting in a room about twice the size of the one above. Katherine grinned just a little and pushed open a solid wooden door. “Welcome to my home,” she said. The area revealed was surprisingly big with a high, vaulted ceiling. At one end was a large bed with a high canopy, at the other was a decent, small kitchen with a highly decorated table and chairs, all carved out of fine wood. In the middle was a couch facing a huge plasma screen television set and stereo system. The floors were covered in what looked like fine furs, the walls were decorated with paintings, and sculptures had been placed at strategic points around the place. Only one door led off this room, he guessed to an en suite; the door he had come through was hidden by a bookcase which contained art and framed photographs along with a lot of reading material. “Very nice,” came out of his mouth before he knew what he was saying. “Thank-you.” Tiberius stood in the middle of the room. A photograph on the wall caught his attention. Without thinking he walked across to it. A muscular young man in a gymnastics leotard and long white leggings was a holding a pretty young lady with long black hair and also dressed in a leotard above his head. He looked closer, then back at Katherine. “That’s you,” he smiled. “Keith was a gymnast. I borrowed a leotard from one of the girls and they took that picture. It’s virtually the only one I’ve got of Keith and me together.” She sighed as she came next to him. “That was 1988. In the book I said Keith’s mum adopted me. I lied. We got married, and that was because Katarina was born. She was actually conceived in your house.” She laughed without humour. “Anyway, he named her after me. I didn’t like the idea, but I do love her.” She touched the photo. “He was Keith then. He’s Therion now. And never the twain shall meet.” It is a weird tale, with lots of battle scenes, the good guys all win, and the final scene with Tiberius’ kids is stupid and needs extending, but I am quite happy with it. |
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