As we’re still in February and not even halfway through, I don’t feel too bad about this newsletter being later than intended. I’ll explain why in the Works In Progress section. Don’t panic — it’s late for a good reason.
Work in the Scriptorium continues apace, milestones have been reached, and celebrations have been, er, celebrated. Focus is beginning to shift as we emerge from the depths of winter. Seeds have been planted — literally and metaphorically — so we’ll see what pops up.
Works In Progress
I’m confident that this year will see the release of two new books. These are The Scriptorium Chronicle and Pass The Duchy. I haven’t figured out which will come first, as there are a couple of “it depends” details to work out before committing to a publishing schedule. In a nutshell, it all depends on distribution and marketing. Having put out the first three books using Kindle Direct Publishing, I’m looking to move away from being dependent on a corporate platform to being, well, more independent. The details to be worked out are how to do this. There are all manner of complications and compromises when it comes to the distribution side. The idea is to go wide with as many outlets as possible, but whoever you go with, it invariably comes with strings attached. I’ve got a few ideas, but need to look at these more closely to figure out how to proceed.
So, as this section is called Works In Progress, here’s what’s been happening in the Scriptorium this past month and which works have progressed. Turns out it has been The Flipside Of Somewhen. As I made headway with the rewrite, it occurred to me that the book, as it stood, ended in the wrong place. There was more story to tell. The Big Dramatic Finish in the old version got thrown out of the window to be replaced by… what? I had ideas, so outlined the additional chapters to get to The End. That meant writing new material, which turned out to be quite a lot more than I thought it would be. As I got closer to The End, I began to have doubts about the ending as I’d envisioned it. The way the draft now concludes makes it obvious that there is even more story to be told. Yep, that means it’s wide open for a sequel. I’d kind of left it open with the original ending, but this new one is right on the nose. Yes, the story ends in what I hope is a satisfying way, but it’s clear that the story is far from over. I’m not sure how I feel about that. With the rewrite finished, I’ve set it aside and will go back to it in due course to complete the various edits that will need to be done.
Having done what I can to Flipside (for now), I turned my attention to The Scriptorium Chronicle. First off was a read-through. Apart from a handful of grammatical tweaks, it is almost ready to go out into the Big Wide World.
I say almost because I want to put a few more illustrations in, so that the page layout is more evenly formatted in terms of text to graphics. I know which illustrations I need, so it’s now a matter of drawing and painting them, scanning and inserting. It also needs the copyright page doing and I want to be sure to put something in there about no AI being used or the book being scraped for training AI. I also need to do a dedication or acknowledgements page, as there is a growing number of people who have had a hand in getting the Chronicleto where it is now. I’ll work on all this over the next few weeks before turning my attention to Pass The Duchy.
I think the Duchy is finished, but want to give it one more read before I make a call on it. Enough time has passed that it will be fresh to me. If it goes the way I hope, there will be minor nitpicking to tweak, but nothing significant. From there, it will be a question of which publication platform I’ll go with. Don’t mention the marketing that will need to be done, as so far I’ve been pretty hopeless at that and need to improve.
I will continue with The Scriptorium Cookbook on an ad hoc basis for the time being. I know it needs the illustrations doing (I don’t want to recycle the ones from the Chronicle), but it also needs a few additional recipes included (which will need testing first). Then there’s the matter of the voice used. As it is supposed to be the scribes writing down what they’ve learned from Mrs Pritchett, the introductions to each recipe need to be more consistent in their language. It also needs a lot doing to the punctuation and grammar as it’s all over the place at the moment. This is okay for now as it’s a first draft, but it will need to be done at some point. First things first, though.
Oh, and as for All Steamed Up, let’s just say that I’ve not forgotten about it. I’ll get to it once I’ve attended to All Of The Above.
The Wildflower Meadow & The Kitchen Garden
Let’s face it. February might be the last month of winter, but it’s still winter. There are signs of growth beginning to show, so spring is around the corner. We shouldn’t be lulled into a false sense that spring is actually here, because it isn’t.
That said, the first seeds of the season have been sown, starting with the tomatoes (Moneymaker, Radiator Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter, and “Purple Dawn”), and chilli peppers (paprika and Etna). “Purple Dawn” is a made-up name, as I don’t know the variety. Thinking about it, they’re all made-up names.
I also found several packets of seeds that should have been sown last autumn. These have either been put in trays and left outside or scattered on the ground to take their chances. There are frosts forecast in the next few days, so they might do okay, or then again not. We’ll see. One thing is for sure — they won’t grow in the packet.
What I’ve Been Reading And Watching
I stumbled on Fallout more or less by accident. Having been aware of the video games since they came out (but never played them), I thought I’d give it a shot. I found the first season took two or three episodes to get going, as it seemed to be trying to get being based on a video game out of its system. The story emerged slowly to begin with, but gathered pace and has kept going ever since.
I’ve found it interesting to see how each of the main characters has developed, and love the way the show plays around with the choices they have to make. It’s not heavy-handed, and it’s not black and white — there are a lot of shades of grey in between.
Having finished a book I’m not going to mention, not because it was bad but because it didn’t grip me, I’ll skip ahead to “The Light Ages” by Seb Falk. This one I’m really enjoying.
It’s about a 14th-century monk called John of Westwyk who wouldn’t have been out of place in the Scriptorium. It’s a fascinating insight into medieval science as the first universities are being founded, and mechanical clocks and eyeglasses are being invented.
I could go on at length about both Fallout and The Light Ages, but won’t (partly because they will take time to write and I want to get back to The Scriptorium Chronicle, and partly because there are lots of other reviews out there, so it would be a duplication of effort).
Second Thoughts And Third Ways
At this point in the newsletter, there would usually be the Ask Alexa column, followed by Mrs Pritchett’s cookery corner. You may have noticed a shift in the way that it’s being written, which has come about from the thoughts I’ve been having about The Scriptorium Cookbook. That’s not to say there won’t be recipes included in the future (there will. I’ve still not done the one for Lemon Drizzle Cake, which began as a running gag), but that they will be as it occurs to me. It’s still the Scriptorium Newsletter, just rejigged a little.
That’s all from me for now. See you back here in a month or so with what’s been going on. You never know, I might even include that recipe for Lemon Drizzle Cake.
Mark Weaver 