Bean-Grinding Adventures

My most recent story, The Duskwood Ribticklers, has been the most complex I’ve written so far. The first draft dates to January this year, and the manuscript has endured many tweaks until its publication ten months later. Even the cover took many major revisions before I was happy with it... the selected cover was version number 11.

The Duskwood Ribticklers’ complexity is due to threads linking out to other titles, including these currently available stories: Tingle Toes, The Bushgreave, The Oakmere Grynfang, Bristlewurm, and Meet Chompy.

Links to future stories include: Trembleknees, Don’t Feed the Ferrets, Rogue Kitty, and Night Strife.

Some links will be clear and obvious, others a little abstract; however, it was important for me to ensure consistency in timelines and locations before committing the final manuscript of the first edition.

The Duskwood Ribtickers centres around friendship and explores the sensitive subject of abuse and how it can manifest different symptoms within victims.

This tale is available in both e-reader and print format and will be included in the upcoming paperback ‘Mayflower - Collection One’, which includes the first three Elise Mayflower stories: Tingle Toes, The Bushgreave, and The Duskwood Ribticklers.

Elise Mayflower now gets a well-deserved rest after her three ‘bean-grinding’ adventures… but my own rest doesn’t start until next spring because I’ve two more stories to complete during the winter, and these are: Rogue Kitty and Don’t Feed the Ferrets.

New Kitty on the Block

It feels like eternity (all of two months) since my last post, and as there's far too much to cover in terms of what I've been working on, I thought I'd focus on one story inception that occurred shortly after my previous blog post.

That story inception is: Rogue Kitty.

Initially, Rogue Kitty was going to be a short story featuring Elise Mayflower (Tingle Toes and The Bushgreave) as the protagonist; however, when the story was being developed there was a greater opportunity for 'Rogue Kitty' to be a separate character and story path.

Long story short, Kitty Bakewell is now the protagonist and is set to fight tyrants with her accomplices. The first three stories planned are:

Elise Mayflower hasn't been neglected though as she's one of my favourite characters (are storytellers allowed favourites?). The Bushgreave was published at the end of September, and The Duskwood Ribticklers is due for publication next month.

With Rogue Kitty's arrival, some other stories I had planned have been pushed farther into the future, and the writing schedule has been jiggled around a bit to accommodate them.

Two months feels far too long to leave between posts, and so I'll add my next much sooner.

Focussing on the Fun Stuff

Summer is ending and autumn, my favourite season, approaches.

August has seen plenty of ice-cream (mint choc chip if you’re wondering) and summer walks; along with the following two releases:

The Promise (ebook)

Beasties - Collection One (paperback containing four monstrous stories).

After a short experiment with YouTube, I decided to pause that side-project for the foreseeable future. The amount of time spent prepping and building video files was taking far too much time away from the fun stuff of writing and developing stories, ideas, and characters.

Some excerpt videos and the welcome videos will still be visible via the website; however, I’ve hidden them from random discovery on YouTube itself. One day I may resurrect the narrated stories project and still have many audio files for several stories yet to process.

During September and October, my plan is to publish the following:

-          The Bushgreave (ebook)

-          The Duskwood Ribticklers (ebook)

-          Fables – Collection One (paperback containing five of the current stories available)

In addition to those I’ll be advancing the following story manuscripts:

-          Don’t Feed the Ferrets

-          Night Strife

-          Trundlebug

Another busy and creative period awaits and therefore my next blog entry will be posted on Sunday, October 26th just prior to one of my favourite celebrations, Halloween.

Additionally, I'm going to examine migrating blog posts to my own site as the Blogger interface (clunky and unfriendly) is driving me to the edge of insanity!

Not much time for ice cream.

 July has been a busy month, with a lot of work taking place behind the scenes. 
During the last four weeks (cutting out the boring stuff) activity has included:

• Adjustments and optimisations for the narrated version of The Oakmere Grynfang.
• Finishing touches to the narrated versions of Bristlewurm and Meet Chompy.
• The initiation of the Undelund Tales YouTube channel.
• Creation of 24 YouTube Shorts for The Oakmere Grynfang.
• Preparing ‘Beasties - Collection 1’ for release next month.
• Further writing on: The Duskwood Ribticklers, The Bushgreave, and The Promise.

Specific goals for next month include:

1. The release of the ebook version of The Promise.
2. The release of the narrated version of Bristlewurm.
3. The release of the print-only ‘Beasties – Collection 1’.
4. Release of six more YouTube shorts.

Completing goals #1 and #2 are the priority as I wanted to complete them this month; however, both are now at a late stage of development.

As a teaser, below are screen captures for the narrated version of Bristlewurm; in particular: The ‘Title’ screen and the ‘Listening Guidance’ section. This will be the first story published to the YouTube channel. These screen caps may undergo some minor adjustments prior to release.

Next month will be as busy as July has been, and I hope to see you at the end of next month for August’s update.

Best wishes.

Tim H.

A busy summer and the forthcoming YouTube channel

To give my blog posts a clear focus from this point on, they’ll comprise of two main sections. The first being updates made on various stories during the preceding month; and the second, being a focus on three specific goals for the coming month.

During the last 30 days:

• Meet Chompy has been made available via Kindle Unlimited.
• The Crossing of Crocklemell is now available as a paperback.
• The audio versions of Meet Chompy and Bristlewurm have been finalised.
• The Promise has entered the final revision stages with an expected release of the ebook for next month.
• The Bushgreave has also entered its final revision stages with an expected release of the ebook for August.
• The Duskwood Ribticklers is undergoing its final staging with an expected release for September.
• A welcome video for the forthcoming Undelund Tales YouTube channel has been created ready for publishing next month (15th July).
• 30 YouTube ‘short’ videos featuring excerpts for Bristlewurm and Meet Chompy have been created.
• Preparation for the audio version of The Oakmere Grynfang.

 

Three specific goals for next month include:

1. The first content being added to the Undelund Tales YouTube account.
2. The release of the ebook version of The Promise.
3. The release of the audio version of Bristlewurm.

While there will be plenty more development and planning activities going on, my wish is not ramble on too much.

Below are a few teaser thumbnails for three of the six YouTube Shorts being published next month; two are taken from Meet Chompy and one from Bristlewurm.

Not all stories will have videos created, but those that do will have a minimum of 12 shorts and a maximum of 24. These will be drip-fed via the channel over a twelve-month period to allow for a broader coverage.

Hope to see you next month for the next update.

Best wishes.

Tim H.

Cora Winstanley's Adventures

In my previous post I covered the character Elise Mayflower and her upcoming stories. This post covers another adventurous young lady, Cora Winstanley. Miss Winstanley features in my first tale, The Oakmere Grynfang and a short story named, Bristlewurm.

Adding to those two stories will be two new tales. Both upcoming releases have Cora team up with exotics-hunter Tarron Hawkmoor (from TingleToes and The Bushgreave) and the pair set off on adventures together.

The first of these two is Night Strife (due towards the end of the year) and this will be followed by the grimly named Danglemaggot, planned for early next year.

Before those two stories are released, the narrated versions of Cora’s other stories Bristlewurm and The Oakmere Grynfang are due along in the summer.

Speaking of summer, this season will see the following releases (roughly in order):

• The Crossing of Crocklemell (Paperback)
• Bristlewurm (Narrated)
• Meet Chompy (Kindle Unlimited)
• Meet Chompy (Narrated)
• The Promise (Free eBook)
• The Oakmere Grynfang (Narrated)

With a very busy season approaching, I’ll be scaling back the frequency of blog posts to the last Sunday of each month, and these will specifically summarise progress on various projects and look forward to what lies ahead.

Elise Mayflower's Tingling Toes

With the finishing touches being made to the paperback edition of Tingle Toes, now's a perfect time to provide an update on the upcoming stories featuring the story's protagonist, Miss Elise Mayflower.

Elise has two more stories to be told this year, firstly: The Bushgreave.

 

Miss Mayflower is tasked with babysitting a bushgreave while her business partner and mentor Tarron Hawkmoor heads away on a business trip.

The instructions on caring for the little beastie are clear enough; however, a cake-scoffing porter-boy's absent mindedness throws a spanner in the works.

This short story is planned for release this autumn.

Following shortly after The Bushgreave is the tale of The Duskwood Ribticklers:

 

In this tale, Elise sets off with Tarron to assist her new friend Sooki Brookes (pictured being spooked in the graphic above) who she met in the story Tingle Toes.

Once those are published, the first ‘Mayflower Collection’ paperback will be released and includes the stories: Tingle Toes, The Bushgreave, and The Duskwood Ribticklers arranged in chronological order. 

After these three adventures, Elise deserves to put her feet up with a cup of tea and a slice or three of something chocolatey and cake-like. 

In my next blog post, I’ll cover another female protagonist, Miss Cora Winstanley. Until then, you best check under your bed in case any fog beasts are lurking... 😮