The Beginning of the Æther Shadow

Just a quick post to post up the beginning of The Diaries of James Purcell Book #02 Æther Shadow.

Book #02 does not continue directly from Book#01 The End as several years and bad events that have been glossed over have passed between the two. One of these (Dragon Hunt which is part of the kindle only version) has been rewritten and will be published as Dragon World Book#00 Exiles.

The Diaries Of James Purcell
Book#02 Æther Shadow
Copyright 2012 James Purcell, All rights reserved.

The multicoloured lightning storm raged around the castle and mirrored the passengers anger as he stepped out of the carriage. There was no rain coming from the clouds as the storm was the result of wild magic that was slowly destroying the world of Albion. Highlord Norlan Bracegirdle stormed across the courtyard into the entrance of his castle causing guards, soldiers and servants to scatter out of his way. He had just returned from Camelot after having been summoned to account for the loss of two prototype ships that had cost the equivalent of seven ironclad battleships and now the partners who had invested were calling in their loans. He stormed up his tower and entered his chambers dropping his cloak on the floor. How dare they treat him like this, he knew too well how much was at stake, but if it wasn’t for his designs then the ships would not have existed in the first place. He walked over to the large table that was covered in diagrams and glowing glass spheres. In the middle of the table laid the plans for the two ships he had now lost. His hand reached out and picked up the glass sphere that was wrapped in satin and looked at the pulsing glow inside. The sphere hadn’t existed when the first ship had been converted and stranded in the other world, but they had come out of the development of the second ship and now the second ship had been missing for three years. He needed to get the first back and install the new devices that would allow it to cross back across the Vail and arrive back in Albion
Queen Victoria Pendragon had been there and was most defiantly not amused over the constant delays in the planned invasion of the other world. “Why had she been there?” he thought to himself, these things were normally below her, “I sometimes wish that stupid fool Guy Fawkes had succeeded in blowing up parliament. The Highlords would still be in control of this country and not answering to a bunch of old bureaucrats who spent all their time arguing over petty things and never getting anything done!”
“Sir?” Norlan’s guard and assistant asked.
“Where is she is she back yet?” Norlan roared.
“Where is who sir?
“You damn well know who I mean!”
“Oh Lady Alison DuBlade.”
“Yes her!” Norlan shouted back.
“She just got back a few moments before we did sir, according to the stable master.”
“Summon her at once.”
The guard walked over to the door, opened it and shouted down the tower. A few minutes later, the crystal on Norlan’s desk glowed and a ghostly female voice emanated from it.
“My Lord, you summoned me?”
“Tell me you have good news, Alison.”
“My lord?” The voice had an ethereal flow to it which was a side-effect of the crystals. “The mission was a success.”
“Have you killed the target?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“And were the traitors as the information suggested?”
“Yes sir, but … “
“But?”
“He wasn’t working on his own, he was working for one of the other lords.”
“Did you find out who?”
“No sir, he took that knowledge to the grave with him.”
“Very well, I have another mission for you. You have twenty four hours to recover, then I want you in my office.”
“Yes sir.” her voice responded before the crystal stopped glowing.
“Fools, this country is run by nothing but fools!” Norlan muttered to himself as he started pacing around his study stopping to look at the piles of correspondence that had gathered on his desk.

And as aways, if you haven’t picked up Book #01 The End it is still available on amazon including a few exclusive extra’s

https://www.amazon.co.uk/End-Diaries-James-Purcell-Book-ebook/dp/B00N89UNIE

Please enjoy and I will see you in port next time my fellow Airship Captains.

 

Patreon – What do you say?

I have been looking more and more into setting up a Patreon account for my Steampunk/Victorian Fantasy series The Diaries of James Purcell.

When I think of rewards levels I feel confused. I have settled on one of two reward levels based on a monthly donation system, but now need you thoughts.

£3.00 pcm – Name listed in both digital and print as a Patron as well as access to the Patreon blog and Members area of the new site (when I get the UI sorted out)

£5.00 pcm – The above +free digital copy when available.

£10.00 pcm – The above+ free paper copy.

£15.00 pcm – All of the others except that the paperback will be signed and come with a special free gift.

Originally I was going to lower the levels but as with all things, the parts for the free gift are not available anymore and have to pick more expensive versions.

So having never done this before, what do you say?
Please drop me a message and let me know what your view is?
The only time I will not allowed a message is if it’s trolling or spam so please feel free to have your say.

As ever,

See you in port next time Airship Captains.

 

Finished the first edit pass!

After eight rewrites I have called time and move my second book into the edit phase.

I have now finished the first edit and now one step closer to release.

I am still planning for All Hallows Eve, but there is a slim chance of early release.

Book #02 Editing and Formatting.

I can not say if the writing stage of Book #02 Æther Shadow is now finished, but I have now moved on to the Editing and Formatting stage of the book. It may not be all tied up and clean, but until I pass this stage I can not hand it out to the beta readers to check.

The above image shows the layout I am using in scrivner to organise my book and shows how much I have been slacking over it. I have finished the bulk work on the first interactive fiction game and that also need to be cleaned up, but so far the feedback has been positive (still cannot get it to work on non fire kindle devices)

Dragon Hunt has stalled due to being lazy and I am yet to build a website.

I still have a lot of work to get everything ready by All Hallows Eve (release date) and I have my fingers crossed that it will all be ready.

So goodbye for now and see you in port next time Airship captains.

 

Enemy Territory.

I jest, but I have finally managed to get the iBooks version of “The End” compiled an uploaded.

So whats the problem?

I fear that the conversion has not gone down properly. I used the same source that was compiled in scrivner for the Kindle version, but I am nervous that the conversion to epub went wrong.

Again, what the problem?

I can’t see what the book looks like until it’s live because there is no preview. I have to trust that the finale version will look like the epub when it goes live!

Now that’s out the way time for a bigger update.

The following contains a big spoilers for those who only read the paperback and iBooks Version

T.D.o.J.P:Book #1.0 : Æther Shadow has finished the 7th draft and is now in the process for editing and Book #2.0: Kitsune still need the first draft rewritten (A 1/3rd has to be cut and moved to a different book leaving it far to short.)
Dragons Rising: Exiles is about halfway through the first draft and has a change of series name,
Sirens: Shelly Lee has begun the note taking stage.

Sirens is set in the same worlds as The Diaries of James Purcell, but is a side series that fills gaps between the main series from the perspectives of the other characters.

That’s all for now, see you in port next time Airship Captains.

 

Book 1.0 Æther Shadow rev 7

I have just finished the seventh revision of book 1 Æther Shadow and bar the spelling and grammar check and edit this revision will be sent out to the reviewers and bug checks.

So glad that it’s nearly finished as in all honesty, I’m sick of the site of it.
Not because its bad its because I hate to read the same book twice.

I’m eager to move on to the next book, but at this stage there is two that are demanding to be written at the same time.

Scene writing trouble

Scene writing trouble

While trying to rewrite a manuscript that has missed its deadline I have come across a section that is missing a scene. This scene could be used as a chance to take a break before jumping into the action, but I am struggling. I could just drop the scene but the section that follows feels funny without it.

What to do, what to do.

See you in port next time, Airship Captains.

Why the Silence?

Why haven’t I updated properly for so long?

I still haven’t fixed the formatting of the paperback (still have dpi resolution issues) and Book 2 is way behind target.

The rewrite of Book 1 Æther Shadow passed 34K tonight and well on its way to passing the 60K mark, so much new material has been added to it that now makes it a story. I hadn’t considered the missing parts when I wrote the original version, but the new version now add more depth to the characters and the plot. I have also pulled a massive section that just felt out of place.

I may finish by December, but I am sure that it will miss its planned All Hallows eve release date.

See you in port next time Airship Captains.

After the battle.

This was spawned by a comment about feeling the story that your writing and I got the vision of a warrior freshly returned from a battle.

The cold metal calmed her racing mind as she ran her hand along the freshly cleaned and sharpened blade. Not one spot of blood stained the swords mirror like surface and not a single nick marred its smooth razor thin cutting edge. Running her bare hand along its surface again to check for any slight imperfections, she placed the long heavy antique sword down slowly and reverently onto the smooth blue silk cloth that had been draped over the cold marble plinth, knelt down on the cold stone floor of the family’s mausoleum and gave thanks to her father’s spirit for allowing her to take his place in the latest of the king’s battles. One her prayers and been offered to her fallen family and to her gods for helping to keep her alive, she stood up, opened her eyes and took in a deep breath of the chilled air and left for her chambers to remove the blood stained armour that she still wore.

The idea is that the Knight ( I chose a woman to do away with the stereo typical male model) had just come home from a fight beside her king haven taken the place of her father using an old family sword used but many generations. Duty and honour is more important to her then her own health and I wanted to show that the sword had priority over everything in her life.

Will that have a place in my books, maybe. If I can finish the first trilogy in my Steampunk/Victorian fantasy, I have a pure fantasy novel series I want to start on.

Excitement of next project. Æther Shadow & Kitsune.

I have a twinge of excitement. The latest amendments to the paperback manuscript have been accepted, I finished the unformatting of the digital copy and have started the reformat.

But that not the excitement, i am excited because I can leave this behind me for a while and concentrate on getting work on the next two manuscripts underway.

To say that I’m bored of reading the same story over and over (i can’t stand to read a book more then once) is an understatement. I have partially forgotten the events of the next book and I’m sure there are sections that will need to be altered following the creation of the “Zero” series starting with the end.

Æther Shadow advances the story to 1889, and a new set of problems but hiding in the darkness is the monsters from James past.