Sorry for the lack of a post for the last few weeks, but I return heralding new fiction and updates!
As I have mentioned before, I am a member of a fantasy writers group based on Reddit. Every month they have a writer’s challenge and members can submit entries based on the writing prompt and requirements of that particular challenge. I like to participate in these because they give me a break from working on my novel, Unsundered, and when I return to it a few days later I feel very refreshed looking at the old material. It’s also nice to get feedback and peer review. In October I published my September entry, The Visitor, to Aethereal Engines where it proved popular, giving me the idea that future submissions could also be used to fuel new fiction for my story blog .
The challenge for November was “10,000 Fantasy Somethings”. I conceived a vague concept, and then I started writing. And writing. And writing. I went insane. Or became thoroughly inspired… Or possibly insanely inspired? Either way, by the end of a two week period I had gone from zero to a completed story draft of novelette size. It’s probably far too long to win the contest, but the prose just flowed as the characters and story gained their stride. I feel that it is some of my best work to date, and now you know what I’ve been up to the last few weeks!
Here is a teaser blurb:
When Ama discovers that Bean… a young man that the spinster has taken under her wing… will face debtor’s prison or worse unless he enters into a mysterious deal with the hated local exciseman, she offers to enter into the bizarre contract in his stead. Now Bean has the chance to make a better life for himself than Ama ever had, but at what cost to his friend and mentor?
A Contract in Azure and Indigo is a novelette of over 14,000 words. It is a self-contained, standalone story in three chapters that takes place in my world of Burrus… the same setting as The Visitor and my serial-on-hiatus, The Pool of Sacred Stars. So far the reactions to it from my alpha readers and others have been very positive, and I’ve entered it into the contest.
I don’t think that I have a good chance to win the contest, but not for want of quality in the work. Although there is a lot of quality competition this month, I think the length of my entry, which is twice that of any other, will hinder it the most amongst the shorter fiction that can be read and judged faster. All the same, my feedback on it has been very encouraging and I think I have a good story on my hands. I’m planning on posting A Contract in Azure and Indigo up on Aethereal Engines as soon as I see if it needs more polishing. This will likely be in three parts over as many weeks because of its length.
I’m even considering a getting some commissioned artwork done for a Kindle version! I really can’t wait to share this story, stay tuned!
Aethereal Engineer 
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