The Ramblings of Harbyns

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) - ...

 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: The release of the ebook version of The Promise. The release of the narrated version of Bristlewurm. The release of the print-only ‘Beasties – Collection 1’. 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 ...

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 h...

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 (N...

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...

Rather than an author, I consider myself a story-teller, and a story can be told in many ways. My plan since the inception of Undelund Tales is to make the stories available in the most optimal formats; one of those being via audiobooks or in a streaming format to be listened to on websites like YouTube or services like Spotify. Professional Voice Actor Narration: In an ideal world this would be always my first choice. Nothing beats having other people read a manuscript, add their own twist to a character, and spice things up as they go along. In the future, I'd like all the stories be be narrated and voiced this way; at the moment though it's too cost-prohibitive. Fully-automated services: Narration service provide an easy method of making stories available as audiobooks; however, the downside from my perspective is that (at the time of writing), there is no means for story-tellers to 'proof-listen' to the story before it's made available to ensure it's up to ...