Mongrel, 1

This is it! I’ve just let Draft 2 Digital (the publisher I’ve been with for about six years) know I’ll be serializing it here on my blog. Mind you, it’s not nearly Monday yet in the northern western hemisphere, so I am jumping the starter gun a bit.

And in addition, I said I’d write a post with Ushen’s letter. That’s not happening. It isn’t hard to read her story between the lines, and the details will keep till we meet her again as a grown up woman down the track.

Giving the manuscript another edit while turning it from a print format into an online reading format, I’m laughing about the bits that are already dated. I’ll be interested to hear about you tripping over them.

Rita de Heer, Mongrel, 1 Download

Earth Fall, 22

This Lego model is something how I imagined a tiffany would look like.

What follows is a long chapter tying off most of the ends, a short final chapter will follow in the goodness of time.

22. Ushen’s Plan Download

Earth Fall, 21

Connecting A to B

Connecting Earth Fall to Meld is not happening. The amount of time between them is out of wack. I think now that the events in Earth Fall took place before anything in Mongrel happened.

Lol, does it seem like I’m talking as though these events are coming into being without a writer’s input? Put like that? Yes, it does. A broad band of muscular storying is growing between Earth Fall and events in Mongrel and it’s not like I planned anything much.

Mongrel was to be part one of a trilogy that in my mind I’ve already scaled back to a twosome. Time will tell. Mongrel resides in the long long tail of indie published novels marketed by Draft to Digital.com.

I had a quick read of Mongrel’s Chapter 26 the other day and thought I wouldn’t mind running my eagle editing eye over it once more. And maybe turn it into an audio file by reading it chapter by chapter into some software and publishing that chapter by chapter.

Which will necessitate taking it off Amazon if I don’t want to get a shirty email, saying I’ve been cancelled, as the biggie doesn’t allow any part of a production it’s selling to exist outside the virtual covers of the item being sold.

Making some friends over on Substack, I got a bunch of links on how to find my voice. Thank you, Aurelian Ashmore. So yeah, I’m looking into it.

Earth Fall, 20

Ushen at Ten

Basalt boulder, possibly coughed out by Wollumbin, 23 million years ago.

20. Ushen at ten Download

Earth Fall, 19

The action from here to the end of Earth Fall is from Ushen’s point of view. Her very early memories and experiences are glossed over somewhat, since realistic communications would’ve ranged from inchoate to difficult as she is only two years old at the beginning of the chapter.

Rather than posting up the whole lot at once, I decided on short chapters relating to the distinct phases of Ushen’s life. Plus, my thinking was that starting with very short chapters would allow me to expand where needed while editing, and that has been the case so far. Section 1 started with a bunch of notes of about 500 words, that became approx 1800.

As seems to be becoming usual these days, I’m behind on sourcing/painting imagery. The image pertaining to this installment may be added later.

19. Ushen Download