Writing Blog Number 2 (continued)

20260225 Novel #41

Novel #41

The next book is a slight departure… though not really?
         Let me explain…
         I wanted to write the biography of an inanimate object. I thought it could be interesting to see what something goes through in its life. I spoke to some people and one showed me a book about a car, and it detailed the five owners the car had from 1948 until it ended up in the Birdwood Motor Museum (National Motor Museum?) in 2011, and what happened to it over that time.
         It had been done and I could do it.
         So I decided to do my own, but make it up. And what better subject than a sword? So from creation to the final display case in a museum, I wrote about a sword. 20 owners, 20 stories of the sword. Sometimes it is heroic, sometimes, it is not, but the sword is central to all of it. Each chapter could almost be a stand-alone short story, which was the goal when I started it. Each story is called “The Someone’s Tale” (or “The Something’s Tale”), a nod to Chaucer. And, at 63k words, it is the history of a magnificent weapon.
         Oh, I did my research. I even had a map of north-eastern Europe, so I knew where the sword went. I found battles, I found the sort of things happening, I found the history of the area, and then fictionalised all of it and put the sword into the centre of the action. To me, it was fine, but it was lacking “something.” Not sure what it was.
         Anyway, in 2024, I sent it to my then beta reader because she wanted a fantasy. Well, she loved it so much that she found a publisher for me and last year I submitted it there, thinking it had no hope. Well… back in December they asked for a full manuscript. So it is so very close to being published. I am not holding my breath because I have fallen at this last hurdle before, but it is incredible to think that it has reached that final line. To me, it was an experiment that was meh. Now it could be a book.
         Could be. Not will be.

However, because of that I have opted not to include an excerpt. Just know it is in the wild and hungry…