Just like in the original, when I needed some friends for Eleanor, Alice and Kirsten wandered into the story straight out of one of my earlier (unconnected) stories, so Alice has continued to talk to me through here diaries. She’s given me one such entry which could well act as a prologue for some more Loki/Freyja action.

Possibly don’t read on if you are wary of spoilers…

Alice’s Diary
5 September, Reykjavik

It was weird seeing Andy again. He had looked just as ever he did, but different too. I guess I had never really noticed it before but he had something of a hawkish look to him since when we first met. No, not a hawk but a corvid – both he and and that Valdis woman – Ódinn’s two raven friends.

I still don’t know why Kirsten and I accepted that we should go whilst Ellie, Ben, and Hanna went back into the other world. We did though. I think it was worse for Kirsten though. She and Ben had only just recently – and she was convinced that this was forever. I told her to be strong, I mean like really told her, like I had the metaphorical baseball bat in my hands and was really telling her. We went down the stairs and we didn’t look back.

I say we didn’t look back but I definitely sneaked a glance over my shoulder so I’m sure that Kirsten must have.

It’s hard to describe what the Bifrost is like to walk through. When you are up high, at the top of the arch, the bridge is almost transparent. You can see the world outside; storm clouds and burning mountains. Actually, sometimes you can hardly make out the colours. Down near the entrance it is more like a cave, or a stone wall with steps hewn from single pieces of rock. And then you leave the entrance like a mouth of a cave but you take no more than two or three steps and the bridge is gone. You can see the rainbow, but like rainbows they always seem to jump further from you the closer you get to them. We couldn’t have followed the others then if we had wanted to.

And we did want to, we really did. It had felt so much safer on that bridge than on this hillside right then. The wind was howling – no, raging – and behind us we could see the molten lava spitting from, and a surge of melt water ice, and rock pouring out of a fractured glacier. We looked about us, but on the exposed ridge on which we found ourselves was quite isolated.

And aghh, I couldn’t breath! Kirsten too was choking on the air. It was thick with dust – ash I guess – and sulphorous fumes. It burnt at that back of my throat. I was soon on my knees and squinting through my eyes because it hurt so much.

The next time I woke it was in a bed in Reykjavik Hospital. I turned my head to one side and saw Kirsten lying in the next bay along. She was sleeping and I wondered if she had woken up yet.

I tried to remember what had happened back on the mountain. I remembered the ground quaking, and the following eruption. I remembered lying with my face on the ground paralysed with fear and eating dirt.

That was when I first met him – Luke, the male nurse who was on duty the afternoon that I woke up He was passing through the ward at that moment and saw that I was awake. He crossed the floor and got me to drink a little water – my lips and the back of my throat were so dry.

I remember trying to sit up, and wincing in pain. Feeling numb in my body because it hurt so much. Just bruising I think, or that’s what Luke told me later. Kirsten too, we had been so lucky. Luke helped me to sit up a bit and copy of the National Geographic to read – I think it was one of the few they had in English.

He was really very attentive to me. Too attentive I thought, actually. If he shows this much care to me then he can hardly have any time for his other patients. Not that I was going to complain because he is hot I mean like seriously fit. He had waves of thick, dark hair that hung over those dark eyes of his – eyes of mystery I called them.

The hospital was really insistent that we spoke with our next of kin – which we did – for all the good it did us. My folks were still cross with me that hadn’t got the next flight home and had put myself in further risk even after I had pointed out to them that the only airport was a complete no go area. Still, we need to go when we were discharged and Luke helped us. It seems that everyone knows Hanna’s pabbi!

When the morning came of our departure, Luke helped us down to reception and waited with us until Baldur and Lára arrived. He hugged me, held me tight, and I pressed him a kiss. I wasn’t going to see him again. Kirsten couldn’t believe I had done that but she has always been so much more reserved than me.

It wasn’t until later that night, when I got this journal to write this journal that I found Luke’s card slipped between the pages. I’m staring it now; his name, personal address, email, and mobile number in clear type.

Of course I can’t ever do anything with this information. Not ever.

Over the last week those choices have been making themselves heard again. I previously said that it is a follow-up rather than a sequel to, The End Of All Worlds, and that is still true.  Whilst I have a car of characters – some who you know and some who you don’t – and a series of smaller companion stories, and an idea of the offer -arching big idea, the main plot is still somewhat of a mystery. What I do know is that I am to find that plot in a myth, it legend…. or a s as fa. To this end I have started to read Penquin’s seminal 700+ page collection of the Idemand sagas. I have tried to read this, on and off, for over a decade, and this time I am determined to succeed. If only is I can decide with the knowledge of having read them that I must rely on my own imagination.

The question is what bit of the book do I read from. So here goes, those of you who’ve read it, please give me your suggestions, and hey, I’ve even made it easy for you.

[poll id=”2″]

The question is what bit of the book do I read from. So here goes, those of you who’ve read it, please give me your suggestions, and hey, I’ve even made it easy for you.

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Originally published at shepline: the journal. You can comment here or there

Today, we sit down with T E Shepherd, author of The End of All Worlds. A storyteller since the day he wrote his first word, Shepherd has written a tale about the bleak possibilities our planet might face in the not-so-distant future.

Q: Tell us a bit about yourself.

A: I was born in 1973 and grew up in Lowestoft, Suffolk before moving to Cheshire to study a degree in Creative Arts. Having worked as an electronic production editor for science and academic publishers in Oxford, I now work as a Web and Digital Media Officer for a top modern university. I live in Oxfordshire with my wife Emma and our seven cats, four chickens and two bunnies and I’m different. I’m not your usual person. Lots of people can say that about themselves but with me it’s true. Just ask my wife! I only discovered how different in the last ten years when I discovered that I have Asperger’s Syndrome, which is on the mild end of the autism spectrum. In subtle, subconscious ways I think this does affect my writing. For someone who is, on occasion, somewhat clueless and inept in social situations, I have been praised on my dialogue. As a person I also have difficulty reading visual cues and body-language and consequently my editors often tell me I’m ‘telling’ too much when I should be ‘showing’. Show not tell they say and I have to really work hard to achieve that!

Q: How long have you been writing?

A: I’ve been making up stories for as long as I can remember, and probably writing them down as soon as I could. It was aged 9 that my Grandpa gave me a toy theatre that he had made and I started writing plays. My first play, co-written by my cousins Tracey and Judy, was a stage production of Star Trek for ‘play people’ actors and featured an exploding washing machine complete with real soap suds! My next was the infamous and endless Rome, for which I would sell tickets to my family and friends and sit them down in front of for entire Sunday afternoons. It wasn’t the greatest creation but one that seeded in me the fun of creating and sharing stories.

Q: What is The End Of All Worlds about?

A: At its heart, the story is about how we, as the human race, are changing and destroying our planet. It’s also a modern day saga pulling together different strands into this, so we get various explanations of what is causing the storms, and the fragile, erratic and dangerous changes in climate, geography and geology…

Q: How did you come up with the plot?

A: I have Icelandic cousins but it wasn’t until 2001 that I made my first visit to their country. I knew from the beginning that with a country so rich in folklore I had to write a story set there. In August of that year there was a story on the news of a girl, hiking with her family in the Peruvian mountains, who got lost. For a few days there were signs that she might have survived, but I cannot now remember what the final outcome of it was. That idea of beating all the odds and emerging out of the wilderness and back into civilisation was all I needed for the idea to sow itself in my brain.

Q: Tell us about your main protagonists.

A: The novel begins and it is Eleanor’s story, but she is only one of the three main characters in The End Of All Worlds. Eleanor is the artist with the passion for, and the belief in, the old legends of her father’s country. Ben is her brother with the background in science and the certainty of man-made climate science. Their cousin, Hanna is the bridge between them – the polymath with the science knowledge and the intellectual understanding, but the unswerving faith in her own country’s mythology.

Q: Did you have any specific goals when writing The End Of All Worlds? Any themes or ideas or concepts that you wanted to get across to the audience?

A: I wanted to write a good story, first and foremost, and through it bring out the importance and the truth of climate science. So for every mythological occurrence there is a scientific explanation. The story is one where the myths and legends of Icelandic folklore come alive in the twenty-first century. Eleanor sees, and talks to – wants to help – the huldufolk or the ‘hidden people’. These unexplainable events need explanations though, and those explanations are very relevant to our world. Think of Ben and Eleanor as the Mulder and Scully of Norse sagas.

Q: What do you feel are the most important aspects of a great book?

A: It has to be an engaging story, well-told. It also has to have the ability to be read again for a second, third, or fourth time, and to get something new out of it every time. A book with layers would be a great book in my eyes. Firstly, there has to be the story but then on further reading there should be levels to it that you can only get to as you yourself learn more experience more.

Q: Describe your ideal protagonist. What traits do he or she embody?

A: Eleanor, Ben and Hanna? I would hope that all three were my ideal protagonist. I like heroes to be those that fall into the story, and get caught up in the events, rather than who are born into it. Polly in Diana Wynne Jones’ Fire & Hemlock would be just such a protagonist, whilst I find Will in Susan Copper’s The Dark Is Rising to be – particularly in the later books in the series – a little bit annoying because his position as an Old One. I think that Cooper herself might have felt a bit like that too, as these same feelings are expressed by the other children in series.

Q: Can you tell me about the first thing you ever wrote? Was it a short story? Book? Magazine article?

A: I’ve already talked about the first story I ever wrote, but what I consider to be my first novel I wrote when I was 16. I remember being excited by the idea that I was going to defy convention and be published at such a young age by Puffin (or Penguin even?!) or Methuen Teens! My Dad’s secretary typed it up for me before I subsequently submitted it as both part of my A-Level English coursework, and, illustrated and bound for my Art exam. Ruins Of The Old was to be a four-part novel made up of individual tales involving the Greek Gods in human form, magic, with modern-day-Merlin, and an unusually evil King Arthur. Looking back I can see now how derivative it was of so many of my then favourite books. There were sparks of originality in it though, and I never say never to pulling ideas back out the draw and reworking then in the future.

Q: As I’m sure you know, many readers like to find their favorite authors on social networking websites like facebook and twitter. Do you have any social network links you’d like to share?

A: I have an online journal that I have been writing in for the last 10 years. It’s nice because I can limit the visibility of individual posts according to what I’m talking about, but allows me to keep everything in one place. I remember it becoming ‘cult’ reading in the workplace of a previous job. With the emergence of social media I think it really can connect you to you reaches in a way that you never could before. It has to be the writer themselves who tweets and posts on facebook and I do think it needs to be about more than books. You need to be able to see the personality of the writer there and not feel like it is one or more marketing executives posting as the writer. I can be found at http://twitter.com/shepline and facebook.com/teshepherd, and if you would like to follow a couple of other writer’s worth following, try www.twitter.com/rhi_lassiter and twitter.com/MHarrison13

Q: What do you think of the changes taking place in the publishing industry? With authors gaining more control over the creation and distribution of their work, what do you think readers stand to gain/lose?

A: More than ever the publishing industry are only taking safe choices: the work of ‘celebrities’ or authors already famous elsewhere or writers for whom they can attach a marketing spin. They pay these few individuals massive advantages when really they should be using half that amount to pay many, many new writers tiny advances in the knowledge that only a handful will be successful but that the ones that are will be genuinely, unexpected finds. With the rise of Indie Publishing there is a real chance for the democratisation of the publishing industry. Ebooks can do for writers what mp3s did for bands and musicians…

Q: Were there any other authors in particular that inspired you to pen your own novel?

A: I have perennially favorite authors who inspire me but the work of the late, great Diana Wynne Jones always tops that list. Alan Garner and Susan Cooper are always also firm favorites, and particularly with this book, Garner’s dark fantasy of The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. I am not much fussed about sword and sorcery and other-worldly fantasty, preferring instead what I call real-world fantasy: stories that take place in the here and the now but where magic intrudes.

Q: And just for fun, favorite movie or television series?

A: Can I name a favorite movie and television series? Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise in which two people meet on a train across Europe, talk, become friends, talk some more and depart. And on television, Steven Moffat’s pre-Doctor Who, early 1990s children’s drama Press Gang, I love the way the language they use is so unrealistic and yet it feels so completely real. Brilliant.

Book homepage: www.words.shepline.com/books/end-of-all-worlds/
On facebook: www.facebook.com/TheEndOfAllWorlds
The End of All Worlds: Amazon UK | Amazon US

After a couple of week’s I tried a free promo day. It wasn’t the best planned of things, rushing it out with barely 24 hours notice but buoyed up sales and kept it ticking along. Generally speaking I’ve been having a monthly peak and a corresponding dip. During September and October they dipped a lot, flat-lining to virtually nothing. Again, possibly with not enough planning, I organised another free promo this time across Thursday and Friday to celebrate the first six months of publication. In just 24 hours the book was downloaded just short of 3,000 times and rocketed me into the number one spot (if of free books) in a couple of genres…

I did look at those 3,000 downloads and think ‘if only they were paid downloads I’d be looking at more money that I get paid doing the day job in three months’ – I couldn’t help myself – but in truth I shouldn’t feel like that because those people wouldn’t have known about the book had it not been on free promo. And it doesn’t matter anyway, the promo lifted me back up the rankings, increased my visibility, and kept me bobbing along (often in the Top 100 of the Fairytales/Myths and Fairytales genres) with on average one sale every day, ever since. I’m also pretty certain that the book has now gone beyond my own sphere of influence to be bought by persons completely unknown to me.

It’s both a scary and exciting thought that something that I created now has its own (if modest) momentum. Long may it continue!

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #11,654 Paid in Kindle Store
#49 in Kindle Store > Books > Fiction > Fairy Tales
#76 in Books > Fiction > Myths & Fairy Tales

Heading over to the reports I can see I’ve sold two more copies overnight, and I’m fairly sure that these are to people I don’t know.

I’m also pretty stoked by an email I had last night from a reviewer I sent my book to. I’ve not seen the review yet, but I’m told its coming soon. In the email they said that they ‘loved it. It was a fantastic read, and you’re a very wonderful writer. If you get any other books ready, send them my way, I’d love to do more reviews for you. Also if you’re interested, I’d love to do an author interview with you when you have time’. I can’t help it but be pretty high and chipper that my little story might be starting to go places.

Might…

Maybe…

Firstly, you might think that I know every twist and turn and nuance of the story, but there are a surprisingly (and I think, refreshingly) large amount of the story that comes as just as much as a surprise as if I am reading it.

Secondly, it’s weird, but those words that I have written look different when read on the printed, published page. Just sometimes, I read a phrase, and I can’t help think, did I write that? I hope that doesnߣ sound boastful or deceitful, I’m just finding it weird to read back words that I have written. Like I said, its just really, really weird…

Changing the cover has been a controversial decision, with many of my friends actually preferring my own illustrated former version of the novel, even if they admit that the all-colour new edition will sell more on bookshelves. Oddly though, the version is closer to my original vision of what I wanted the cover to be like. The black and white illustration was my interpretation of a photo that I could in no way afford to use. The new one uses someone else’s illustration which I can afford the licensing on montaged with my own photograph, and I think represents the way that the burden of the war between the worlds falls on one girl who stumbles, literally, into the responsibility.

There has been much said of late as regards the way that Amazon has been slowly killing off high street stores and independents, and I do a feel a bit guilty about getting so completely in bed with Amazon with the eBook and POD publication of my novel. That said, the reason why the paperback has the admittedly high price of £10.99 is because I opened out the distribution as widely as possible to allow local bookshops to order it.

So today I did something that have never done before, and have been petrified of doing so. During our Saturday morning trip into Bicester I ventured into Cole’s Books to ask if they would be interested in stocking the book of a local author. I was half-expecting that on a Saturday there wouldn’t be the right person to talk to, but no, they were interested so long as they can get it on sale or return, but they scanned the barcode and it came up on their book distributor so I think that might be hopeful. Hey, I might even be able to do a book signing. Now that would be an experience…

Following my bravery, and the purchase of much healthy fruit and veg, Emma decided on the spur of the moment to take me for a celebratory lunch at Amici’s Italian Restaurant in Bicester. Whilst we were choosing from the scrummy menu we had the most torrential of downpours and the waiter was jokingly offering fresh, locally caught fish from the street outside! 🙂

As I write this, my current performance on Amazon is:

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #15,070 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#55 in Kindle Store > Books > Fiction > Fairy Tales
#95 in Books > Fiction > Myths & Fairy Tales

And its picking up some good reviews too both on Amazon and Goodreads with a 4.5–5 star average rating.

Author Interview – T E Shepherd

Today, we sit down with T E Shepherd, author of The End of All Worlds. A storyteller since the day he wrote his first word, Shepherd has written a tale about the bleak possibilities our planet might face in the not-so-distant future.

( read the full interview )

Book homepage: http://www.words.shepline.com/books/end-of-all-worlds/
On facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheEndOfAllWorlds
Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0083XG35W 

The End of All Worlds
Amazon.com | Amazon UK

The 17 June is also the one-month anniversary of the publication of my debut novel, The End Of All Worlds. By way of celebration of both of these events, now seems like an excellent time for a round-up of the brilliant reviews I’ve had so far for my novel, The End Of All Worlds.

5.0 out of 5 stars Book Lover, 17 Jun 2012
By LeKeishs
I really enjoyed this book! Took me a few days to finish but it is so worth the read. I’m like obsessed with paranormal, fantasy, Sci-fi, etc… so this book wasn’t as big a leap from what I usually read. It tells of the Huldufolk in the Icelandic Mountains trying to save their home as well as protect it from evil. Now, I’ve never been to Iceland, but I imagine if I were to venture there now i’d be kinda spooked or maybe too curious for my own good. Reading this book has only heightened my love for all things legends and folklore. The author did an amazing job and trust me, you will not be disappointed. I just recommended this book to my cousin who is just as obsessed about all things legends as I am. It’s truly a great read!

5.0 out of 5 stars amazing !!!, 16 Jun 2012
By gemgem
I have not finish the book yet only a few chapters, i think the text is easy to read the little drawings on the chapter pages are a lovely touch. the story its self is very addective i cant put the book down and i have enjoyed very bit i have read its been a very long time since a book got me hoocked so fast. Great book would very highly recommend it to every one

4.0 out of 5 stars Pleasantly surprised!, 15 Jun 2012
By LindaKnightHall (Dorset, UK)
Not my “usual” thing, I wasn’t sure this book was going to hold my interest for the duration. I needn’t have worried! Combining modern science and ancient folklore, this book takes you on a journey from the dangers of Iceland’s natural elements to the supernatural world of the huldufolk and their fight to preserve their ancient home and protect them, and us, from evil. Starting off it was, seemingly, a tale of one woman’s survival against the unforgiving Icelandic weather and her family’s struggle to come to terms with the fact she may be lost forever.It soon developed into something much more complex and unusual and I got immersed in the characters’ journeys through time and the race to save our world. I was pleasanlty surprised by this book and I look forward to more from this talented author.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantasy with an icy twist, 24 May 2012
By hdd (worcester, uk)
I’m not a reader of fantasy fiction, but what makes this story different is the overarching theme of climate change, the effect people have on their environments, and most of all the setting of Iceland. The author clearly knows the country well, and I found it fascinating to read a story set here, which definitely gives a twist to the story. It’s an atmospheric, original story, well-told by an author who has a gift for writing fantasy fiction with a wider appeal. I can imagine this story being enjoyed by both young adults and adults.

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read!, 17 May 2012
By Emej
I really enjoyed this book. It has a good mixture of science and fantasy in it and keeps you rivited throughout. The folklore and history in Iceland is fascinating and I can’t wait to visit there to find out more. I will be expecting to see huldufolk hiding in the rocks of course.

Want to learn more about Icelandic culture, myth and folklore, and threats to our environment? Why not find out what the fuss is all about!

Amazon UK | Amazon US (available for Kindle and Paperback)

Coincidence being the funny thing that is, there was of course an article in The Guardian today about how to become an ebook superstar with various dos and don’ts. Thankfully I seem to be doing much of right things (or at lease not doing the don’ts!) thanks in the most part to my new twitter pal Emily Tippetts.

With only half the day gone I’d passed the 100 downloads in a single day mark, and entended my reach in the US quite considerably, climbing UP 525,395 in the rankings which places me at:

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,488 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
#27 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > World Literature > Mythology
#37 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Children’s eBooks > Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror > Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Magic

…in the US store placing me ahead of the Twilight Saga and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe in number of downloads. Considering I’d only sold one copy in the US to date, I am pretty impressed with this and as it must have increased my visibility over there. Here’s hoping that half those readers are vociferous readers and keen reviewers! If it has then today will surely have been worth it.

To get The End Of All Worlds find it on Amazon with the below links, or search for it on your local amazon site…

( UK readers | US readers )

The story is blended with different stories, not just the adventures with the huldufolk and the very real threat of climate change but also stories of romance, and the development of Hanna’s band. One of the threads is that of Alice. She walked into this novel out of an earlier, unrelated, story. She’s brilliant. See an extract from her own diary entry – one of the unseen but parallel stories in the novel.

From Alice Cartwright’s Diary

Day 1: Reykjavik to Hólar

I don’t think I’ve ever been more scared in my life. I’ve been travelling for over 24 hours now. First I had to get the train down from Manchester to Cheltenham to meet up with Kirsten. Quick cup of tea and a Snickers and she was driving us to Heathrow to get our flight. I was petrified. It was bad enough before I did my first NT Acorn camp – that’s where me and Kirsten met – and it was a great holiday. The best.

This was different. Hardcore. This was a proper expedition. Iceland in tents, building and repairing trails. I thought drystone walling on the York moors was going to be scary.

The gang are not what I was expecting though. They are just normal. I mean there’s the usual weirdo who I’m going to have to avoid, but the rest seem nice. Kirsten and I have fallen in with a couple who seem nice. I say couple, they’re friends. He’s really fit. She’s half-Icelandic or something with family in Reykjavik. I thought we were staying in Reykjavik overnight but the leader he’s driven us from the airport and gone straight north. We’re staying our first night in an agricultural school or something – mattresses on the classroom floor with these really scary portraits that follow you round the room – very Harry Potter!

The country is so beautiful. The drive up here was amazing. I’m going to love this trip. I know I am. But bed now. I think there’s our first geothermal pool to look forward to after breakfast tomorrow…

To get The End Of All Worlds find it on Amazon with the below links, or search for it on your local amazon site…

( UK readers | US readers )

Please talk about this promotion on Facebook, and Tweet using the hashtag #TheEndOfAllWorlds…

It’s a beautifully written book so far which seems room draw, at its heart, much of the same imagery army own book. This makes me happy. The imagery is comfortingly familiar. The myths are resold in different says but that is the point when handling retellings – to come up with a new way of saying it.

The publication of A.S. Byatt’s book, and also Joanne Harris’ Runemarks books and their basis in norse mythology is one of the reasons why I decided that the time was now to publish my own norse-inspired story.

One of the challenges that I faced, and one that I still need to write about, is how I was to ensure that my Indie-published book is properly edited. I was therefore interested to read the author’s note to the book, and wonder whether I should have opted for something similar to explain any residual inconsistencies in my names and spellings…

A Note on Names

This story has been made from many stories in many languages – Icelandic, German and others. The names of the persons in the myth vary from telling to telling. Iduna is the same person as Idun. There are many ways of spelling Jørmungandr or Jörmungander. I feel happier using various spellings, rather than trying to achieve artificial consistency. Myths change in the mind depending on the telling – there is no overall correct version.

Perhaps not!

In the first couple of days it shot up the charts, getting into the Top 20 for the genre that it was in, but it has naturally enough slipped back down the rankings. At around the #50,000 mark in amazon I’m happy. It’s not the #1 bestseller but with something like 8 million titles in amazon its good, and its averaging at about 2 copies every day. For an unknown Indie published author I think that’s pretty damn good. And not all those sales have been to people I know either!

( see the book on amazon )

Today, after a long, hot day I got home to find a parcel waiting for me. As I slit through the tape and pulled back the protective paper, two books emerged into view, and my heart seriously gave a flutter. For a moment, they didn’t look like my books, they were two proper, published novels. It felt weird. Really, really weird. Suddenly this wasn’t just indie publishing (or if it was it didn’t matte that it was indie publishing), this was publishing. My book was published.

When I first visited Iceland in the summer of 2001 I fell in love with the landscape, the people, the history, the folklore – everything about the country, and I knew that I had to write a story set there. I didn’t know what the story would be. Then in August 2001 there was a story in the news about a girl who was lost whilst hiking in the Peruvian mountains. I can’t remember what happened now, and I fear to find out, but the idea got lodged in my brain and together with ideas surrounding Iceland, the seeds of the story was born.

So, it was conceived in August 2001. 110,000 words; 430 pages; 250 days in the writing; 5 years in the making. Blood & Fire, as it then was called, was finished on Tuesday 19 September 2006. Another three years of revising later, and I started subbing it to agents and editors but, as is so often, these days I only got the classic ‘our lists are full’ or ‘we like your writing but you as a writer are not quite right’…

I got married, and started writing Mr Tumnal and left The End Of All Worlds as its now called on the shelf for two more years. In that time technology changed and self-publication – Indie publishing – became something that actually worked. With the the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in 2010 other events since then, some of the themes of The End Of All Worlds have become increasingly topical. I decided that ten years is a long time to live with a novel. I needed to let it go free and for other people to read it.

I will write about the process of getting the novel to this point, today in future articles, but it has been a journey these last few months. But today I have reached it. I have published a novel out there, to the world and I will wait, if nervously and with large amounts of trepidation, to see what the world will think (if indeed they notice).

All day, friends have been posting messages of congratulations on my facebook and twitter accounts. I feel a bit of a fraud about it really because yes my book is published, but I published it. Surely congratulations would best be saved for when a publisher decides to publish my book… And then I thought, no. Lots of people can claim to be writing a book, still more to wanting to write a book, but only the few actually complete the book, and then work to make it in some shape or form half-decent. To publish a book, even by the self, is still no mean feet. It’s still something to be congratulated.

And so to those who have congratulated, I thank you, if humbly and diffidently…

With these two, and the one that I have done tonight of Nelly’s bar in Reykjavik (in the story, it is in the basement of a bar like this where Hanna Katla rehearses with her band mates), I have completed 25 illustrations now, with just 11 more to go. I think that’s the total anyway – need to double check precisely how many chapters are (there may actually be 38…), and I’m done.

I’m having fun illustrating my novel. Can you tell?

But in this ambition I have always had a problem in that I cannot draw people reliably well, and when doing illustrations, the ability to draw people is, what you might say, vital. I’ve also had the idea that the kind of illustrations suited to The End Of All Worlds would be woodcuts, and I’ve been looking forward to getting to grips with this technique and printing them using my Adana Eight-Five presses. But woodcut design is a difficult skill to learn and I didn’t think I would have time to learn the art of woodcut, print the woodcuts and do enough to accompany each of the chapters in time to go with the story when published (even if I waited five years to have it picked up by a publisher or agency). So I had all but given up on the idea…

However, if I am to publish the book as an eBook on Kindle I need to have a cover for it. In working through a technique for creating a striking cover that works in black and white (essental for eBooks), I have created a cover image that I am happy with. Coupled with this I have recently submitted my application for 10 ISBN numbers to call my own. When you apply for your first set of ISBN numbers you have to submit the title information for was for my Mum’s book, The Underhill Buttons, and there is a space on the form for, if applicable, including the number of illustrations. This question hit me, hard. I’m currently looking at doing small illustrations to head up each of my chapters. The technique involves using my brush pen to trace the outline of the main drawing and then fill in the shading and add other elements as required. So far three down and 33 to go, it seems to be a technique that is working…

Does it work for you?

What I ended up with, after I culled it from the clippings file (a not altogether unwieldy process discussed earlier in the pages of this journal), was a document of some 53 pages of corrections to make. It is a somewhat time consuming task to go through the novel in Word to make those changes, but effective none the less. What I must remember though, next time I go through this process, is to highlight more than just the words the or is or are, etc…

Helpful? Not.

For a long time I have found it very hard to say in two or three concise lines what it is that The End of All Worlds is about. And then today, just as I was leaving work I realised, and then proceeded in telling myself and explaining it, and talking myself through it, all the way home, partly because I was in fear of forgetting it! The interesting thing about this description – and why I am still a little unsure about it – is because it doesn’t actually mention the three central characters, heroes if you will, at all. I guess the novel is about something bigger than that…

Ódinn, who has committed crimes in his own world and has been cast out to walk the world of men for all eternity, desires to return home. He enlists the help of Charles Ancell, a young, ambitious, aluminium developer to build a revolutionary new factory in the Icelandic Highlands to provide cheap metal. The techniques used will break apart the fragile bridge between the worlds and allow him to return home. As a consequence of this our world and its climate is set to change irrecoverably.

So anyway, what do you think? Answers on a postcode, or in the comment box below…

Reading it back on the Kindle for the first time in several years, and with the benefit of having been writing in the past tense whilst working on Mr Tumnal, I am struck with how much better The End Of All Worlds could be if I was to convert it to past tense. I have attempted a few pages and it seems okay, but the prospect of converting 299 further pages of present tense pages, does somewhat fill me with horror. A major revision in the history of this particular novel if there was one!

I got home and unpacked and was about to have a late lunch when Emma arrived home after a half day, tired and weary and suffering a bit from her depression. So whilst she had a sleep I set about my sunny springtime jobs of oiling the door to the garage, laying the new turf in the bunny run, putting in the log edging to the shady garden a the end and preparing the lawn and sowing a top up mixture of rye grass.

This evening I am very, very tired, but in a productive, nice way similar to that feeling that I get on conservation holidays. I have enjoyed a nice spaghetti carbonara, watched the excellent Delicious Miss Dahl, and the weirdly fantastic Heston’s Feasts, and subbed my novel, The End of All Worlds to two more agents, after yesterday’s one gave a swift ‘No’ today to yesterday’s submission.

We got back mid-afternoon to be greeted (thankfully) by all 6 cats, present and correct, but a total of 12 hungry mouths to feed (instantly!) – that’s the 6 cats + 4 chickens + 2 bunnies (not counting the sligtly less demanding 2 fish…). After a bit of unpacking and relaxing we set about cleaning out the fishies, and then planted the spuds and the carrots and Emma did some more seed sowing whilst I make a simple if delicious meal of scrambled eggs on toast with freshly made bread and freshly laid eggs.

We saw Cambridge make it the double with the boatrace by beating Oxford in the final of University Challenge, and then I submitted The End of All Worlds off to another agent (the same one that handles the likes of Philip Pullman and Helen Dunmore). Well, when you’ve got a novel that’s set in Iceland at a time of volcanic activity, geological uncertainty and jökulhlaups I find it important to submit it for publication at a time when Iceland is going through a period of volcanic activity, geological uncertainty with the threat of jökulhlaups…

Wish it well for me!

He turns to face her and sees her gaze. He feels the need to broach conversation with her; to develop a rapport. He longs for more than a exchange of glances, the holding of hands and her warm embrace. He wants to know her and to share her thoughts and her dreams. He wants more than the inane conversation of the relationship and not just the time-specific, subject – orientated discussions of friends.

Current wordcount: 60,197
Current pagecount: 219

I have discovered today that it is almost exactly one month since I last wrote in Blood & Fire. In that time I have been busy at work; I have been busy at home – decorating and laying new floors; I have been busy on Project Nelly^TM learning about me – how I work – and how other people work with me. Yesterday soulsong asked me “whether [my] characterisations change in [my] novel as a result of project nelly […] since [I’m] gaining more understanding of conversational style and body language.”

I think, probably they are. My understanding of Ben, and how he sees the world is changing. He is possibly somewhere on the Aspergers scale himself now I think about it – highly intelligent but not really understanding human relationships – fixed to his very scientific, rule-driven view of the world – I don’t know. I’m sure exactly where this novel is going, but I feel that there is going to more of Me in this book than I first thought.

Harry rubs his chin, slowly, thoughtfully. He feels the stubble growing beneath his fingers, as he stares at the computer model. Alongside him on the table is a glass of beer, not much drunk from; frosted with condensation. Without taking his eyes off the screen, his hand reaches out for the glass and lifts it to his lips. He shakes his head.

Alice lies on her bed, a sheet pulled loosely over her, one hand under her face, and her hair strewn across the pillow. Across the room, Helen lies on the front, propped up on her elbows writing into her notebook. She sketches out characters and settings, allowing her imagination to run.

In the lounge, Ben fills another page with graphs and equations. Tapping the point of his pencil on the page he scratches he dismisses his last reasoning and scratches it through with a bold diagonal line. Folding back another page, he moves fast to redraw it.

Current wordcount: 57,037
Current pagecount: 208

And he’s gone. Helen sits staring at the corner of the tent where the steam from the large aluminium kettle rises and clings to the inside of the tent as damp droplets. A faces writhes and forms itself in the haze. Another one – the trolls companion. They are small; about three feet in height, one wearing a crown of blue flame; the gas ring beneath the kettle.

A draft brushes through the tent, and the candlelight flickers, dancing light and shadow up onto the girl’s faces. The trolls are gone.

Leafing through it, it looks – somehow – like a novel, and I see scenes that I remember, and I like them and I remember how they fit into the story.

It may of course, end up as complete poo, but right now, it is encouraging me write…

Current wordcount: 55,719
Current pagecount: 204

My ideas are still bursting forwards, but I must stay my pen now, and take some rest or else I will never awake in the new dawn of tomorrow. Still, I leave chapter four at the cusp of some fast-cutting scene changes, and a little over one sixth complete.

A good day.

“Where are they?” She looks up at her husband.

Current wordcount: 51,599
Current pagecount: 189

I’m hoping, as this chapter builds to it’s climax, that my readers will be thinking, oh no, not again…

The rest turn to look. Hannah vocalises all their thoughts. “What is it with these storms?!” Stopping for a moment they just stare at the looming clouds, building and blackening as they speak. A cold rush of valley sweeps across the valley, as the wind picks up. Birds rise from their roosts and squawk noisily.
“What is it with you and these storms?” Ben turns to face his sister. Suddenly it’s said. The slowly germinating thoughts and preoccupations manifest themselves in words.

Current wordcount: 51,039
No. of pages: 187

And I know exactly what happens next. And how that builds, and is juxtaposed, and of how the chapter ends…

What I would like to know is why it’s taken four or five hours for these two show their deeds to me, for the writing to come – and why now, on the cusp of a new day when really I should already be in bed and resting before the new day? It’s simply not fair, but then if they were fair, they would not be mischievous…?!!

Current wordcount: 40,346

Beneath the window, Finnbjörn plays in the garden. He is slight and slender and richly dressed in fine clothes. He conjures tricks from the stars and plays with the sprites and faerie folk. He climbs the wall of the house athletically, and finds a perch on the window sill where he can sit and stare in at the brother and sister asleep within.

“She never said thanks,” his voice is light and lilting, “She didn’t credit that we were there.”

Finnbjörn looks along the glazed window to where his sister Johanna has joined him on the sill. Her hair is glistening fair, her eyes the shiniest blue, her face, angles of beauty and shining like silver. She turns her head towards her brother.

“You know that the other, he has arrived back in the city?”

“Is this true?” Finnbjörn reflects on Helen sleeping in her bed, “Has she neglected her boy?”

“‘Tis true. Olà saw him arrive,” Johanna, slips the catches the window, and prances down into the room. She steps slightly, in her satin gown, her jewellery glistening in the moonlight, making small circles from her steps, leaping Helen’s bed, and ducking down close to listen to her breathing. She looks up her across Helen’s sleeping face. Finnbjörn’s playful smile is close and opposite.

elves are mischievous
they are very naugthy
humans have to take care when they meet elves because they are very clever
and as the stories go people have been tricked by elves

This, I realise, is how Andy is to die. The elves are mischievous, they play, they joke – Andy dies.

It’s simple. It’s Icelandic. I like it.

It works.

Current wordcount: 40,131

Helen turns over, tugging the covers in. She looks out across the room, through the half-light of night. Her brother is in the bed opposite.

“Ben?” she sounds out his name.

Again, she repeats his name, “Are you awake?”

Ben lies, facing the wall, eyes open. This time he answers, “Yeah… Helen?”

Helen sucks on her lip, “I think she knows.”

Ben sniffs. He gives his head a slight shake, he’s seen it too, “She’s sharp, our mother.”

Helen sighs, falling back on her back she stares up at the ceiling.

“She’s going to find out.” Ben turns over, propping his head on his arm, he looks across the dim interior at his sister in the opposite bed. His mind spins with further things to say, but his mouth says none of them. He just lies there on his side, staring out, and thinking.

Silence lingers. Outside, cars move on the road, their headlights occasionally penetrating the gloom of the room before sweeping back out into the night.

“So you and Hannah then…”

Ben stumbles over silence, “Yeah.”

“Who’d have thought?” Helen turns her head and looks over at Ben, “My little brother, all in love…” she grins.

Ben bites his lip. Love? Is that what it is? He turns inward to consider the evening, and map out possible futures. Again silence lingers in the air.

I’ve got lots written this week (chapter three is about one sixth complete ^__^), and I’m enjoying walking round town and finding an agreeable place to lay my book and and write.

Current wordcount: 38,924

“He left my grandfather’s house for University and never returned. As children, Eyrún and I, we remember a few holidays, Christmas – and maybe a couple of summers. My father was in love with the city. He was not a farmer.”

As he’s been talking Guðni has been handling his whisky glass, moving it round between his fingers. He now stares into it, watching the light reflect across the surface. Suddenly he drops it. To the table it falls, and he strokes the rim once.

“I love the old house. So do the kids, Helen, Ben – I made sure they would love it too. You can lose yourself there.”

It’s almost like its a new story.

Current wordcount: 37,573

Ain’t it weird. Suddenly in the space of half an hour I’ve written twice as much as it’s taken me the whole night to write. Have I found my voice for Northern Capital?

Lights swirl, music pumps, the air feels sticky and putrid. A man moves, weaving between the people. With his fingers twined round several bottles of beers he ducks across the room, and skirts down the backstairs. Turning sideways to a door he pushes it open and enters in.

Within, to the strumming notes of her guitar, Hanna Katla sings her words. She looks up, through big, wide, open eyes as Halldór hands round the bottles. The song is cut as she reaches out for her bottle.

“Skull,” she grins and together she, and Halldór, and the rest of the band raise their bottles before swigging down the beer.

Current wordcount: 36,834

Ben perches at the edge of the table in the living room scratching at his notes. Around him there is a cacophony of conversation as Helen tells her family what happened on that night, and tells an adaptation of the truth of what followed. The questions keep coming, the explanations echo in response. The sound is layered over Ben’s mind, he presses his fingers into his forehead and leans closer to the paperwork but it is useless – he cannot concentrate.

He looks up. Out across the room, he sees Helen, his sister, silhouetted against light from the window, explaining. He sees his father, mother, listening, concerned. He sees her two friends from the holiday, Hannah and Alice, sat at his sister’s feet enraptured by the tales of her adventure. He sighs quietly to himself and shakes his head. It’s not even the true story, but some abstraction – just where does she get the ideas? And how does she make a fantastical tale of staying alive for nine days in the wild sound more credible than the fantastical truth that she now hides…?

Ben looks down at his paper, the notes and graphs in front of him. His eyesight is out of focus, his understanding blurred. The cacophony of conversation intrudes further into his brain. He wipes his brow with the base of his hands, anguishing under the inability to concentrate on his thoughts. He sighs deeply, and audibly. For a moment his family look up, questioning his wellbeing—

“I’m fine.” He shakes his head, and pushes his papers together into a pile. Rising to his feet so that the chair he’s been sitting at scrapes back across the floor, he stacks his papers and books and pens on top each other, cradles them up in his hands and shuffles out the room, muttering his apologies.

I love it!

Current wordcount: 36,296

Ben stands on the cracked and puddle filled forecourt outside of the bus station. Alone, he looks on at his sister received again into the family embrace. He watches, feeling the isolation, as he notices his father observe him narrowly from across Helen’s shoulder. In his mind he pre-empts the criticism that he knows will follow.

Hanna brings one of their rucksacks up to him, and lays it down next to him. She looks from her cousin, across at Helen, now in her mother’s embrace. She glances again at Ben, and nudges him kindly, stroking his arm, before going back for the other bags. There’s a standpoint between Ben and his father, and one, which neither of them can cross.

Laughing and joking, and reunition cuts into the quiet, Helen has found her friend’s Hannah and Alice – surprised that they are still in Iceland, relieved that she has not missed the end of holiday parting.

Guðni takes some steps towards his son, and Ben moves to meet him. The greeting is staid and difficult, revealed first in an uneasy handshake, then a tentative hug. Guðni does not mention Ben’s rash actions in taking off after Helen but even so, Ben can feel the tension that that has generated. He makes his excuse and moves to help Hanna load the rucksacks into the back of the car.

Current wordcount: 35,734

She stares out the window, watching as the mountains sink into gentle slopes, and the cragg strewn mountain floors are cushioned by rich, fertile fields. Homesteads become more numerous, with their painted corrugated iron roofs bluring into a melange of colours. Hamlets give way to villages, and villages subhurbs. Grass verges are replaced by pavements and the road is adorned with white lines and traffic lights.

In going off to find Helen, Hanna has skipped on work, and is behind preparing for her gigs. She can’t go with the family. Chapter Three therefore will see Hanna persuing her own Reykjavik story, whilst Helen and Ben are joined by Hannah and Alice. What of Andy though? At what point does his death occur. I feel I may have to have him go with the family too…

And now… to the close of chapter two…

Current wordcount: 35,016

Other news: My £11.41 hinge arrived from Hoover today (hey, I get all the exciting packages at work!), so nipped to Homebase after work to purchase a set of allen keys (spelling?) and have fixed the door back on washing machine. Woo-yay! I can wear clean clothes again! I have also cleaned the house, and digitalised loads more music more my new geeky toy (iRiver).

Current wordcount: 34,330

Of course as the trolls arrive and discuss the matter in song, that she hears in her mind, the storm ends, and she collapses, drenched and drained, so the reader is still unsure as to what she has discovered, but rest assured they are closer to discovering it…

Current wordcount: 33,480

I go and make myself a Hot *Vana Tallinn* Chocolate, and the words come even more, I splice in a flashback to Hanna, singing at a gig, it kind of fits with the mood of the piece.

Current wordcount: 32,525

The guitar plays softly to a gentle, soothing percussion beat. She sits on the edge of the stage, in softening lighting, singing the ballad to the intimate gig. Hanna’s voice resonates across the room, through people’s hearts and minds, taking them out across the fjords and over the hillside, into the mountains. She cups her hands around the mic almost breathes out the words. She glances behind her, at the band. They can rock. They can also capture a room like this.

Helen climbs, along the side of a ridge, rounding an outcrop of rock carved into fingers by wind and weather. She stops, beneath her, the roadway is barred by three metre high security fencing, and security guards sat in their truck by the gate. Beyond, heavy machinery grinds and clanks on a construction site.