The Realm of Katherine Vick

I'm doing something slightly different with this month's blog - offering up a smidgeon of deleted material from The Disposable. Don't get too excited, it's nothing epic or revelatory as I'm not one of life's deleters - generally if I remove something, it's to rewrite or replace it rather than to extract it altogether so the majority of my deleted material folder is simply alternative versions of existing scenes, not totally unseen bits of writing. There are one or two exceptions however, and one is part of Dullard's first appearance in The Disposable . Writing this scene was a joy and a delight as Dullard sprang into life for me and material spewed forth but as a result, the scene was just a bit overlong and I pulled out a couple of unnecessary paragraphs to tighten it up. The below is one of those sections, often a touch more background on Dullard's place in his family, and honestly, I don't think I've looked at it since the day I pulled it ...

  It's here!!! It's release day, Ladies and Gentleman - the quirks of Amazon permitting (obviously), The Narrative should now be available to buy in the US and the UK! UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Narrative-Plot.../dp/B0BGSGN9ZF US: https://www.amazon.com/Narrative-Plot.../dp/B0BGSGN9ZF

  For you lucky American bods - in honour of the imminent release of The Narrative, the eBook of The Disposable is now on sale on Amazon! https://www.amazon.com/Disposable-Plot-Bandits-Book-ebook/dp/B0854QDX5D

I present some pre-release tasters for you! For anyone who would like to hear Flirt and Shoulders's thoughts on their present situation, their character interview can be found here: Character Interview - Flirt and Shoulders For anyone interesting in reading about me wittering on about my upcoming release,  The Narrative , my author interview on this matter can be found here: Author Interview for The Narrative And a small piece of daftness produced by an actual fan of my book! Yes, they exist! :) Disposable Mambo And of course for those unwilling to wait politely until November 15th for the paperback, links are available to allow you modern bods to Pre-Order the ebook now on Amazon! Links to Facebook Pre-Order Post Amazon UK eBook Pre Order Amazon USA eBook Pre Order

In honour of two weeks to go until the release on Amazon of my third Plot Bandits novel, The Narrative , I thought I would offer up a little taste of what is to come by presenting an extract from the book itself! I hope it whets the appetite a bit. :) ***** Shoulders had never heard a pair of horses scream before. He hadn’t been aware that they could. He could also have lived with­out finding that out. Somewhere nearby, he could hear Flirt yelling, his bouncing head catching glimpses of her flattened out and clinging with an alarming amount of desperation to the seat of the cart she had so abruptly set into motion. He could hear the angry and, thankfully, fading roars of the chasing Barbarians. He could hear the pound­ing of hooves, the screeching of cartwheels that were reaching the limits of their endurance, the clatter and rattle and tumble of the sacks and barrels loaded in the cart’s rear that vanished with an occasional dusty crash, presumably as they were flung into the road. ...

COMING one month today - The Plot Bandits Book Three (of Four) - THE NARRATIVE! Due for release on Amazon on 15th November 2022! O r those unwilling to wait politely for the paperback to become available - THE NARRATIVE Kindle eBook version is now available for Pre-Order. :) USA: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BGSGN9ZF UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0BGSGN9ZF

  Three Books That Changed My Life I’ve seen a great deal of posts and memes asking about what books have changed people’s lives and the way a person reads. Every individual will, of course, answer that question differently and choosing just a few is so incredibly hard as, like it or hate it, everything we read affects us somehow. But I was challenged by a friend a while ago to come up with some and so, here they are: ;p Dragons, Giants and Witches (Usborne Story Books) If there was an author, I don’t know it, I’m afraid it doesn’t say, but I know it was an Usborne book because so many of my childhood books were. My mother ran Usborne book parties and bought for me from her stock and I’m so glad she did as they were wonderful things. Books of stories, of mythology, of history, of science, of knowledge – I picked up so many of my basic interests in life from those quirkily illustrated pages. But the story book Dragons, Giants and Witches (alongside, Princes, Wizards and Gnome...

 It’s Ask the Author time again! This month’s questions both come from Sarah Awa , that you for asking! I shall now attempt some answering, though can’t guarantee they’ll be much help! If you were a character in your books, what type of character do you think you would be, or want to be? I’m 99.9% sure I would be nothing more exciting that Background Villager Number 3! ;) In terms of looks, I am so fundamentally Ordinary looking I would certainly never make it to any of the more glamourous levels! In terms of want to be – I feel like swashbuckling adventure ought to appeal and probably would have done more in my younger days but in reality, knowing myself as I do, I’d probably find the performance anxiety of that kind of forefront role much too stressful! I suspect I’d be best suited to some minor position, rather like Dullard, so I could be left mostly to my own devices! I am good at organising things but less good at pushing people around so I’d probably make a decent Priest ...

In last month’s blog, I discussed the dilemma of the fantasy writer in creating a different world – how different exactly does one make it? I concentrated specifically on matters of time but that is far from the only consideration when one is crafting a whole new world out one’s imagination. For beyond the temporal, as indicated by the original title of this blog (can you tell it got a bit away from me in the writing? Typical! I’ve split my novels and now my blogs!), there is also the cultural. All fantasy realms have their own cultures, sometimes based on the historical or geographical cultures of our world, sometimes a thing in and of themselves. That is a fantasy world standard – indeed a necessity – and isn’t what I am referring to. I’m talking about the imbedded social things that most people wouldn’t even think about. From my cultural perspective, a nod is yes, a shake of the head is no. Thumbs up is positive, thumbs down is negative. Waving is a greeting or a farewell. Eating ...

 The thing about creating a fantasy realm is – it’s a different world . Yes, I know that sounds self-evident. But when starting work on any kind of fantasy story, it needs to be borne in mind because it places the author immediately into a dilemma. How different exactly? A different world means different rules, that fundamentals of life that all its readers have in common don’t necessarily apply. Take units of time for example. Is the length of our day the same as a fantasy world’s day? Do they measure time as we do in hours and minutes and seconds? Do they follow the same turn of seasons, the same months, the same year? It's a tricky one. On the one hand, upending these basics makes one truly feel that the place in which the story is taking place is alien and different. But on the other, it upsets the audience’s equilibrium. They are used to the old ways. Having to remember this world they are reading about has different rules can actually be jarring, it can push a reader’s b...

 This was written for the story prompts Horror and Spectre for a long ago internet writing challenge. Being my usual contrary self, I did something a little different with it. ;) The Spectre Cometh  She couldn’t remember the last time that she had been so deeply, utterly afraid. They were coming. They were coming for her. There was nowhere to run. And what good would running do? There was no escape, not ever, not for her, not for anyone who had trodden the path she had chosen, who’d taken the responsibility she had willingly accepted for she had always known that with the children would come Them. It was the price that must be paid for those happy little faces she watched over day after day, for the privilege, not the right, of watching them learn and grow and change, of keeping them warm and safe and happy until the day came when she was forced to bite her lip and wave them through the gates into the dark austere arms of the grim and tatty monstrosity that towered over ...

I have discovered in myself in the last few years a rather odd talent – I am very good at figuring out whodunnit in certain modern TV Detective shows. For example, until I stopped watching it a while ago (because the challenge had rather gone out of it), I had 100% hit rate on the long running murder of the week BBC series Death in Paradise . I figured out the murderer in the recent ITV series Holding in the first episode of four and was proved correct in the final show. So how do I do this? Have I missed my calling as a valued member of the police force? Well, no. Not in the slightest – at least not unless today’s detectives are solving their crimes via the art of narrative convention. I don’t choose my likely candidate by watching them intently, considering the evidence and weighing the probabilities. I make my selection generally early on in the programme, usually very shortly after the line up of suspects have been introduced. And I use very simple criteria. Who doesn’t the wri...

  From Thinklings Books: This one's not a joke, promise! We've put The Disposable on sale, in honour of both April Fools' Day *and* The Disposable's 2nd publication anniversary! https://amzn.to/3tbakrk

This is a short story written for a challenge prompt of "Messy Room" some time ago. It is, to some extent, inspired by my childhood, when my bedroom floor required stepping stone clear patches to allow me to get to my bed. But the thing was, I knew where everything was and couldn't understand why everyone else felt I needed to tidy it up! ;p I am much tidier now but I will admit, there is still an element of system in play in certain aspects...;) The System That was the thing that no one seemed to be able to understand. She knew where everything was.   Oh it looked a mess to the outside eye. It looked like carnage. But to her it was a code. The clothes were not strewn at random but carefully arranged – over the chair if they had been worn once but could be worn again in public, on the stool if they had been worn several times but were still good for lounging around the house and in the heap at the end of the bed if they were due for the washing machine, preferably with ...

On the Matter of Content Explosion Now, anyone out there who has followed any of my fanfiction projects over the years may be aware that in respect of my writing, I tend to have something of a problem when it comes to estimates of length . My fanfiction projects were famous for turning into monumentally vast monsters well beyond the bounds of my original intent as chapter after chapter proved insufficient to hold the content I wrote for it and split out and split again. Indeed, anyone who read my author interview for The Merry Band will also be aware that this phenomenon of my writing is not confined just to fanfiction, given the confessions I made there – that my novels were all originally intended as a single book, would you believe, and that I split it, first in half and then into a trilogy to accommodate fresh material that blossomed into life in the process of writing. Once I started writing, there was simply too much story for one book or even two books to hold. Some might...

I wrote this piece to a challenge prompt of the word "wea ve". It’s written by me, so it’s weird and slightly warped and very strong with my own opinion on certain matters though I have updated some of the names, since they were about a decade out of date. Some choices may be a bit British, but persons of whatever nation may feel free to insert their own offenders as appropriate. Because I know you’ll all have some…;p The Apprentice Okay, I admit it. I may have made a few mistakes. But I mean, this soul-weaving lark – it’s not easy, is it? The apprenticeship is a thousand years for a reason and how much help do you get? All those other weavers, they sit there glued to their looms, churning out visionaries and artists and geniuses and did one of them bother to show me the threads? No. They just sat me down and told me to use my instincts. And I’ll admit, it hasn’t always gone well. It is possible I got a little confused with my backstitch when I was working on Henry VIII’s...

  Ask the Author – January 2022 Well - I tried. But I think everyone was understandably a little preoccupied with Christmas so my appeal for questions on this occasion resulted in a grand total of one. So for this short but sweet blog entry, I shall simply wish everyone a very Happy New Year and proceed to answer it! From Sarah Awa: Will there be a dragon in the third book? Any other magical creatures like unicorns, mermaids, etc? I feel that Maw has rather had his moment of glory – anything further might be a little much for his delicate constitution. ;p In terms of magical creatures, the story at this stage is really more focussed on the people and how they handle the erupting goings on of their Realm rather than the wider universe of beasts and beings – but rest assured, there will be plenty of AFCs and one glorious and significant appearance from a monstrous special guest. ;)