Welcome to the Scriptorium. Pull up a chair and make yourself at home, just try not to knock over the ink as it makes a mess and is difficult to clean up.
For those that may not know about the Scriptorium, let me tell you a story. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. Once upon a time there was a social media site (TwitFace, formerly Ex) where some scribes began to comment on life, the universe and anything that happened to cross their minds at the time. Some of the musings would be about what they were working on at the time and some of it would be about how much of a dump TwitFace had become. From this emerged a tale that sort of grew in the telling and acquired pictures from old manuscripts along the way. Then came a whole bunch of copyright issues about the pictures which led to brand new pictures being commissioned in the same medieval style as the old ones. Thus The Scriptorium Chronicle was born.
While the scribes were mucking about with what would become The Scriptorium Chronicle, they were busy writing and publishing other things. The ones that have made it into print can be found by poking around on this website (and by that I mean look below, they are right there). The others are still in the pipeline in varying degrees of completion, including, at the moment, the Chronicle.
Things Made Up And Written Down is a dark novel about a writer who loses track of the distinction between fiction and reality and somehow gets caught in a time slip, or not as the case may be, and goes to find H.G. Wells to ask about how to get out of it.
Liber Monstrorum is a historical adventure set in the Dark Ages about a novice and a spear-companion that go looking for creatures they believe to exist in the same way they believe that eagles and wolves exist. The fact that they don’t is part of the mystery of the novel.
The Complete Guide To Exploring Your New Planet was written at the same time as Liber Monstrorum and never intended as a book but as light relief for the author to get away from all the serious research that went into Liber. It was written in short bursts that somehow added up to become novel length. It was a quarter finalist in the 3rd SPSFC held in 2023.
Coming up will be Pass The Duchy, a humorous romp through the murky world of international off-shore finance set in a small duchy somewhere in a fold in the map between France and Switzerland. The new duke is surprised to learn of his title because his late father never mentioned anything about a duchy and the tax avoidance scheme that went with it.
Then there is what began life as “The Sandwich Thing” and permission from Neil Gaiman (from whom the opening lines were shamelessly ripped off) to go ahead and write the thing which became All Steamed Up. Set in a former mill town in northern England, a Victorian Weekend is held to boost tourism. Unfortunately, non-Victorian elements such as a rock festival and a steampunk convention begin to creep in and disrupt events.
Lastly, and by no means least, is The Scriptorium Chronicle. This began as the scribes mucking about on TwitFace (formerly Ex) and slowly grew into something which took on a life of its own (thanks to the nudging from Jimmy Hollis i Dickson of La Gr@not@ publishing hut). It is currently at the “being polished” stage before publication.
There are other works in progress but these are under wraps for the time being. The scribes are always working on something in secret.
Mark Weaver 