The Realm of Katherine Vick

 A little piece set in the Realm of The Disposable for you, written to given an outsider's view of the strangenesses of our annual festivities. Merry Christmas everyone. :) Festive Spirit “It’s not going to shift, is it?” Bow the Serving Man glanced at his younger brother Scrape as they paused for a moment in their task for a necessary breather. Prickly green spikes now festooned their thankfully sturdy livery tunics, making them resemble something akin to a pair of disgruntled green hedgehogs. The enormous spruce tree, heedless of their efforts, remained firmly wedged in the door frame of the Royal Palace’s Great Hall. He shook his head in a shower of needles. “Doesn’t look like it. We may have to find some help.” “What help?” Scrape leaned against the wall as he pulled dark spikes disconsolately from his clothing and flicked them tersely to the floor. “Everyone’s busy . The cooks and the rest of the kitchen staff have been at it for days down there. All the artisans hav...

 For all you American bods out there - The Disposable e-book is now on sale at  Amazon.com!

 In honour of the fact there is the possibility of snow in the forecast a mere three days into December, I've dusted off this old dialogue only challenge story I wrote a while back in a distant writing community. It is short and daft. The prompt, I believe, was a picture of some snowy palm trees: Elemental “What were you doing? No, seriously I mean it – what were you doing?” “Look, I just slipped, all right? How was I supposed to know the damn thing was loaded?” “Was it loaded ? It is the Horn of Eternal Cold – what did you think I’d done, put the safety catch on?” “I was just holding it – I didn’t expect it to just go off like that! I wasn’t even pointing it at anything!” “Why were you holding it anyway? It’s got nothing to do with you!” “I just wanted to see what it felt like! My travels are always so warm, so happy, so vibrant – I’ve never known the cold before…” “Well, you know it now. You just dropped a dollop of snow the size of a blue whale on top of Barbados !...

  I’m not one of life’s natural proofreaders. There. I've confessed. This is a realisation that has come to me during this publication process as I have taken to my own work with a fine tooth comb to ensure that it is as mistake-free as possible for the attention of my publishers. Because one thing that undertaking this has really brought home to me is how the human brain works when it is reading – that it doesn’t read every word but gap fills the meaning for you. This, I’m sure you are aware, is a well known phenomenon and it’s one my brain seems particularly adept at – I have no problem with reading those strange sentences that people write in memes when they leave the first and last letter in place in a word and shuffle the inner letters, for example. I have a brain that, in that respect, likes to be helpful and extracts the meaning without taking any great note of the technicalities. The trouble is that doesn’t really help when one is trying to spot mistakes. My brain has a...

 The human imagination is an extraordinary thing, when you stop and think about it. Being as I am not of a scientific bent, I have no idea of the ins and outs of how it can possibly work, how it is that a lump of grey meat inside a wrapping of bone could possibly generate images, ideas, unheard sounds, regurgitate things once seen and create whole new universes out of nothing. Indeed, to be honest, I don’t want to understand how it works - that would destroy the magic. I’m quite happy just to have the means to play in new and never before seen realms in the depths of my own head. But there is another special thing about the imagination – it is unique. It is a strange thing to consider that no one will ever see my characters exactly how I do. Oh, I can describe them down to the freckles on their noses but one of the beauties of books and taking a world out of words rather than pictures is that everyone’s imagination will give it their own slant. Even the finest description in t...

I should really be writing something profound and thought-provoking here but, to be candid with you all, dear readers, I'm really tired and can't be arsed so I have chosen to share with you another little story written many moons ago for a writing challenge far away in a distant corner of the internet. Once more, it shows my tendency to try and angle things a little differently. Copyright is mine, of course, and if my little note in the original document is accurate, the prompt was "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want". Enjoy. :) A Surfeit of Irony He couldn’t say when he’d first noticed the pattern. That was the thing people tended to forget. He was an intelligent man. Calling himself Dr De’Ath was no affectation – he’d earned the title legitimately through studies conducted at numerous highly considered universities and the surname had been a bonus of lucky parentage. After all, being born Xavier Marvolio De’Ath the third pretty much guaranteed a high leve...

 Now over the years, I've written quite a few little stories, mostly as part of a writing challenge on various online writing groups, now sadly mostly gone. However I thought it might be fun to share a few of these little pieces, written mostly in the spirit of pure daftness and finding as odd an interpretation of any given prompt as I possibly could. I'm also very fond of writing in a pure dialogue form for this sort of thing, as per the below. I believe the prompt may have been "apple". Copyright is mine, obviously. Do enjoy. :) Practical Considerations “Oh blimey. So now what do we do?” “Well… and this is just the first thing to spring into my head, mind… I reckon we should carve her a beautiful glass coffin and carry her to a perfect sunlight glade in the centre of the forest where we should build a nice plinth on which to rest her and then wait for a handsome prince to come along and kiss her back to life.”   “Why wait for a prince? I mean, if the kiss of l...

  There is something I feel the need to address. I have been chastised. Gently, it is true. But chastised I was, by two different persons on the same matter upon their reading my beloved opus, The Disposable. And I felt I had to take heed given they had both offered up the same complaint – why, oh why in creating my masterpiece had I not provided them with any decent places to stop reading? Because, as you may have noticed, The Disposable is on a roll. It has no chapters. So here I am, finding it necessary to try and explain myself. Why did I do this? That, at least, is simple. Because it suited the nature of the beast. I know I’m far from the first to abandon chapters. Sir Terry Pratchett, one of my writing heroes, was there long before me. I can’t recall ever seeing anywhere whether he ever stated his reasons for doing it, but I do know it suited the anarchic nature of his work to a tee. And I had a feeling the same would be true for me. I realised fairly early on that ...

 As part of my ongoing campaign to jump up and down and wave in various corners of the internet in the hope that someone, somewhere out there might want to read my book, I recently completed a series of author interviews for a variety of book websites. Many were fairly standard questions – indeed several of them, I openly admit, had copy-pasted answers from one to the next! – but one in particular caught my attention. And it was this: Do you have any unusual writing habits? And my immediate reaction was – well, what’s a usual writing habit? Because, to me, writing is such an individual thing. It’s not a group activity - the vast majority of writers do so alone. If there are people out there that like to stand on their heads and write upside down or type the keyboard with their nose or hold their pen between their toes and write on the walls while humming the Carmina Burana – I would understand that that could be classed as a little out of the ordinary. But in terms of just s...

  When you stop and think about it for a minute, ordinary life is full of magic. I forget exactly whose quote it is [Edit: I googled, it’s Arthur C Clarke] but there is a saying that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. And I think it can be easy to forget sometimes just how lucky we are. In these difficult times of isolation and fear, those of us living in the more technologically connected parts of the globe do at least have the means to communicate at a safe distance, by phone or face to face, across thousands of miles if necessary, with our loved ones. Via the internet, we have the means to order food and clothes and necessities to be brought to us, with no more effort on our part than the click of a mouse button (though a bit more for the delivery people). We have endless supplies of entertainment in the form of books, DVDs and television, both standard and streamed. We have the world in our hands from inside our homes. And at a more basic ...

I like reviews. Anyone who knows me from my fanfiction days will know that. I’m happy to admit it. It’s an odd feeling, but a nice one, that little buzz of validation from a total stranger, often living hundreds of miles away. It is someone you will probably never meet and never know but yet they have taken the time and trouble to spare a few words to make your day. They like your writing . And for someone of an insecure and anxious disposition, that makes a massive difference. Writing is an odd pursuit in that most of the time it is done in total isolation. And much like those hopeful youngsters singing in their bedrooms before applying for The Voice or X-Factor, a writer can never really be sure if they are actually any good at it until they sling their efforts out into the cauldron of public opinion. Reviews are the big reveal, the enthusiastic gush or the caustic put down, the moment one knows whether or not one is writing good stuff or total gubbins. It is what shows a writer ...

Ask the Author – July 2020 Something a little different for this month’s blog – I offered the kind folks following my Facebook Page The Realm of Katherine Vick – Author the chance to ask me any burning questions they had about The Disposable and its world, which I have then endeavoured to answer. The results can be found below: Our first question comes from Chriss Corkscrew: “I've got one that's been bugging me. Clearly your characters know how to read, but is there a culture of reading for pleasure?” Hmmm. That’s a tricky one to answer. My feeling is the answer is probably “only if you’re Dullard.” Reading is vitally important to the Realm so everyone is literate but reading is more a part of the job than something that is done for fun.   Books exist but are more set dressing than anything else. I suspect that plenty of material is written by bored folks on the sidelines, which is how the books come to be – take Doom the Dark Lord and his plays for the AFCs for e...

A friend asked me lately – what’s the perfect place to write? And I found that an interesting question. It certainly isn’t one that any two people are likely to give the same answer to. Everyone has their own preferences and their own ideals – as is typical with life, everyone is different. For example – ignoring for a moment current world circumstances, I can’t imagine writing in a busy coffee shop. I would imagine most of us have seen – or indeed, some of you may have been – that person sat in the corner on the big, comfy leather chair with the laptop and the rapidly cooling cappuccino, beavering away at the keyboard to create their latest epic. And it seems to have worked for JK Rowling. But I know it wouldn’t work for me as I am, quite simply, too easily distracted. Every noise, every hiss of steam, every bubble of laughter, slam of the door, clink of the cup – I’d be looking up, looking over, looking around and distraction for me, when I write, is fatal. It jolts my mind ou...

Darcia Helle, Top 100 Amazon reviewer, likes my book! 😊  She asked me if I could write a little paragraph explaining the inspiration behind writing it; I have done so and she has kindly posted it to her Instagram.  Darcia Helle Instagram - the Disposable

As anyone who has read my work must realise, I have very strong views on life being fair. It really matters to me that everyone has the same opportunities and chances in life, that no one be pushed down or denied on the grounds of their birth and social standing like my Disposables are, or discriminated against for the way they look or chose to live, like Dullard. I think that everyone deserves a fair shot at living or getting themselves the life they want, regardless of who they are. But the world itself doesn’t help there. Because, she says as she dusts off her old cultural studies brain cells from her long ago Geography degree, the culture in which one grows up materially affects what every person within it considers “normal”. Viewpoints on what is acceptable and what isn’t, on what society should be and, more importantly, everyone’s place in it are ingrained into its inhabitants from a very young age without most people even realising. And so it can be that persons in one cul...

I think it’s fair to say – marketing? Not my strong suit. I’m doing my best. Honestly, I am. If anyone out there is actually reading this, it’s possible I’m not even doing too badly. But the trouble is, I’m just too me for it. I’m British. Old School British. Not for me the desperate yearning to wander round in a bikini on Love Island (trust me, it would be deeply traumatic for all concerned!) or to warble forth upon some TV talent fest with all eyes fixed upon me, trying to decide if I will sink back into obscurity or grace the pages of the gossip magazines forever more. No, I’m British in the sense that jumping up and down and shouting “Look at me and the wonderful thing I’ve created!” fills me with a deep and existential embarrassment to the fullest extent of my soul. It’s like a spiritual cringe. I just can’t praise my own work. It feels wrong at a fundamental level to be so horribly immodest as to suggest that something I’ve made might not be too bad. Oh, I can joke a...

A bit of silliness to toss out at the world today. I’m afraid this is what happens when I start pondering how two of my characters in particular would cope if the Royal Palace of The Realm happened to go into a lockdown situation. Please forgive me for stealing a line from the BBC’s 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice too, but it just fitted too beautifully in both word and sentiment. I blame the BBC for repeating it. ;) ****************** KNOCK KNOCK. “Hello sir, no need to open the door. It’s Pious the Priest here, just checking in on behalf of the Officious Courtiers to see how you are coping in this unprecedented isolation?” “No need to call me sir, honestly! And coping? You know, I really am absolutely fine. In fact – well, I hate to say so, given the dreadful situation and all but... This has actually been a bit of a godsend! I’ve got so much done! I mean, all those rock samples, I was so behind on cataloguing them and now, everything’s neatly sorted and put ...

Over the course of the last week, as an exercise in sanity maintenance (never easy at the best of times), I have taken to scribbling down observations about life and the world as it stands within reach of me at the moment in a conveniently placed notebook. I sincerely doubt they make a drop of sense but I thought I’d share them anyway. Just cos... One of the children who plays in a nearby garden makes a noise that sounds like an ailing peacock has mated with the sound effects cartridge of a 1980s computer game. I find this disconcerting. I have a dripping tap in my flat. I swear it’s getting faster. The kindness of strangers can prevent scurvy. Or so it seems to someone who is currently dependent on the lovely people from her local corner shop to deliver her milk and vegetables. I like birdsong. It’s nice to hear that normal life is going about its business for someone. Though that song thrush does sound disconcertingly like a fire alarm. Working from home on one’...

It’s a strange thing, to spend a long time on your own. I’ll be frank – as a socially awkward introvert, it’s something I actually enjoy in normal life. I’m a nervous ball of performance anxiety in the company of other humans. When I do find the courage to speak, my ability to insert my foot into my mouth and wiggle it around is fairly legendary amongst those who know me and when I’m by myself, I can say or do whatever stupid thing I like and keep the embarrassment personal instead of public. It takes the pressure off. And I like being at home. It’s my comfortable place, where I can relax surrounded by things I love and take a deep breath away from the outside world. My home is my little me cocoon where I can curl up and shut everything out for a while. It’s where I hibernate from life. But the key words there are – for a while . Because it’s ever so odd that so often in life I’ve wanted nothing more than to be left alone to wallow contentedly in my own space indefinitely...

First rule of fantasy writing – always start with a map. Now, I admit that may seem a bit of an odd concept given the nature of the book I’ve written and the fact that the landscape of my world is, by its very nature, of no fixed abode.   But the fact of the matter is, that rule still has to apply for one simple reason – I wouldn’t have a clue where my characters were or needed to go without one. And if I’m confused – what chance does any reader stand? The above began life as a pencil scribble on a handy piece of A4 paper, created quite messily and on the hop as the story developed. The fact it looks so shiny today is entirely due to the efforts of my good friend Kerry, who kindly applied her skills in Paint to said scribble and made it look thus. I love a good map. I grew up around them, did a degree that heavily involved them and I take an absurd amount of pleasure inventing my own. I openly admit I’d be rubbish at creating a real one ala the good old Ordnan...

The Disposable by Katherine Vick, now available to purchase in paperback and e-book form from all good Amazon websites. :) For the paperback: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1951471024/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/1951471024/ For the e-book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0854QDX5D https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0854QDX5D The Narrative Must Be Obeyed Everyone in the Taskmaster’s Realm knows how the story goes: the boy of destiny goes on a quest, defeats the dark lord, and gets the swooning princess. It’s a great story, if you happen to be a knight or a wizard or a hero. But it’s pretty odious if you’re Ordinary: a barmaid who has to inflate her bosom and have her backside pinched, a homely prince who can’t buckle his swash because his face doesn’t fit, or a soldier who gets killed over and over and over again just to progress the plot. Fodder of Humble Village is one of those soldiers, and, frankly, he’s sick and tired of getting speared, decapitated, and disembowelled tw...

In honour of publication day - a little insight into my main character. Though do forgive him, he's not very verbose... ;p 1. What was your life like growing up in Humble Village? Well... it was Ordinary. I did my bit as an Urchin, scampered about In Narrative when it needed me, messed about with my mates like Flirt and Shoulders when it didn’t. And then I joined the Disposables. It was what it was. Nothing bad but nothing special – just as it was supposed to be. 2. Tell us about the event that started the rebellion, from your point of view. That’s a tricky one, really. It was hard to define, I’d just... had enough. I don’t even know where that feeling came from, it just kind of crept up on me. I was angry at life in a way I’d never really been before. And then suddenly I was free and doing things I shouldn’t have been able to. Something just...changed. 3. If you had the choice, what kind of character would you want to play? Ah, you see, that’s just it. I’m n...