Mawgrim

Pompeii was swallowed up by a volcano, Krakatoa catastrophically obliterated an island You like your volcanic eruptions! Great chapter. Glad to see Sam and Pietro are making friends.

Thank you. A compliment indeed.

In terms of the books, nothing much is going to happen in Southern for a few Turns (it's later on that F'nor re-discovers the fire-lizards and they find out about the grubs protecting the ground against Thread). However, in this story, things are definitely going to happen and soon. I've been thinking about a follow-up story, but I also have some other ideas I'd like to develop, set on Earth rather than Pern, so a sequel may end up on hold for a while. I'm definitely going to finish writing 'Threadfall' before moving on to anything else, though.

‘So, here we are.’ F’nor swung open the heavy double doors to the weyrling barracks. ‘It’s huge,’ H’rek’s voice was filled with awe. It echoed in the vast, empty space. D’gar looked around. The barracks were laid out in a very similar way to those at Fort Weyr. A wide central aisle separated the two rows of dragon couches and narrow beds for the boys. High windows all along the right hand side let in plenty of light and air. ‘How many can it hold?’ he asked. F’nor shrugged. ‘You’

An intriguing story. Definitely has me hooked and wanting to find out what happens next.

It depends a lot on the area where the cinema is built. In some towns, there just seemed to be a lot of moaners. Old people complained a lot that the sound was too loud. The posher customers generally wrote long letters to head office, whereas others just shouted and swore and threatened. The police had to be called several times. At some cinemas, the staff and managers all left together at the end of the night in case a disgruntled customer was waiting around to thump someone.

I was lucky enough to have stored plenty of canned goods in my shed prior to lockdown #1 against the possibility of shortages when the UK left the EU (Brexit). My Brexit stores came in very handy. Someone I know came up with a good theory about why people panic bought toilet paper. It's a psychological reaction to an infectious disease. Toilet paper is hygiene related, so people buy loads of it to 'ward off' germs, like some kind of talisman.

That lady who wanted a discount for waiting was just hoping for a freebie. We used to get that a lot in the cinema. People would sit through a film, then come out and complain to the manager to try and get free tickets. They didn't seem to realise, ‘I didn't like the film' is not a valid reason. Ditto to those who drank nearly a whole cup of fizzy pop or ate most of the popcorn before saying there was something wrong with it. Not going to work.

I live in the UK. We are now in our third lockdown. I shop once a week (I used to pop in two or three times) because my fridge just isn't large enough to fit any more fresh food inside! I tend to buy a couple of extra items of canned goods, pasta etc. Each time so I have a reserve stock in case panic buying breaks out again. It really annoys me when I see people not wearing masks, or wearing one under their chin, or below their nose. I know some people have exceptions due to health conditions, but I’m sure some of those I see are just thoughtless or inconsiderate, along the same lines as those who park in disabled bays when they don't have a blue badge. A friend of mine works in a DIY chain store, where the behaviour of some of the customers has been appalling. In fact, the staff were instructed by management not to confront anyone who wasn't wearing a mask as in some stores staff had been verbally or physically attacked.

A heartwarming story. Elderly people are often lonely. There must be many older folk like Eric, counting their pennies and working out if they can afford to put the heating on for a few hours. I enjoyed the development of the story and the way that each little step brings Eric further out of the shell into which he'd withdrawn and shows Andy that there is so much in his own life he's taken for granted.

An interesting and thoughtful story in which both main characters are forced to deal with issues in their lives. Moral of the story: Think before you act and don't be judgemental.

I tend to keep around 2-3 chapters ahead of posting. I wouldn't change my plot in any major way due to comments, but like you, I have further developed minor characters if people seem to like them, or want to know what’s going to happen to them in the future.

Yes, it’s an issue in the books too. When you consider that F'nor Impressed Canth at the age of ten, he must have only been twelve or thirteen when his dragon became sexually mature and started to chase green dragons. Lessa was told next to nothing about what happened in a mating flight before Ramoth rose. Obviously it’s going to be impossible to stop dragons doing what comes naturally, but I think the Weyrbred attitude of 'oh well, it happens so deal with it' is bound to cause problems such as these.

There are bound to be one or two in every Weyr. Thankfully H'sal isn’t as murderous as F'drun, but that’s probably his only redeeming feature.

It's a pity some of those religious bigots seem to have forgotten the saying,' Let him(or her) who is without sin cast the first stone.'

Over the Weyr, it was another one of those bright, early summer mornings. The weather report from Ruatha wasn’t so good. Fog, they’d said. Most of the wing riders were grimly subdued as they prepared for Fall. D’gar and the other weyrlings handed over their first sacks of firestone to the wing riders as they assembled in the Bowl. It helped him take his mind off thinking about later, when he’d have to replenish the stocks in mid-air. Even though he tried to stop it, he kept on remembering

I hope the day out is going to be worth all the hassle from Heinrich afterwards. He seems to think Rita is the best thing since sliced bread. Does he know she hasn’t paid her bills yet, or is she turning on the charm with the old man? Glad Rick stood up for himself.

As others have already said, an unexpected ending. I thought that James would end up compelled to live in the house to tend the trees. But human sacrifice has a long association with nature cults, so perhaps not so surprising. Obviously his uncle met the same end when he decided to fell the orchard. A well crafted and slightly unsettling story.

If you use Amazon, you can publish either for Kindle or print on demand. The formatting process is a little tedious, but once you've done one, it becomes easier. The marketing can be hard work (I prefer writing to selling) but if you already have an interested audience, it makes it easier. It also doesn’t cost anything except your time and you will make some money in the process. If you want to try to get in with a mainstream publisher, don't go the Amazon route.

I still need to finish up the prequel 'Threadfall' but I have a few good ideas for a sequel, although I have another couple of writing projects I'd like to work on as well. Kylara comes to a sticky end in canon. Prideth rises at the same time as another queen dragon (Kylara's fault mostly), they fight and both end up going between. I can send you a message when the next one starts. Will most likely be a couple of months after the others end as I have a house move coming up.

I have used the name 'Mawgrim' on the Internet for many years. It came about when I first needed to register a username with a site I can't even remember right now. I tried using various combinations of my actual name to no avail; everything was taken or would have required a string of numbers afterwards. Striving for inspiration, I looked up at my bookshelf. A friend of mine had recently finished a very long fantasy novel entitled 'Mawgrim's Flask' and it was sitting there in a folder, waiting to be read. So 'Mawgrim' it was.

The first lockdown didn't seem quite as gloomy as the weather was better. It's difficult to keep your spirits up when the news is depressing, the weather grey, cold and gloomy. I was lucky enough to get my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine just before Christmas, although the second dose has now been cancelled as the UK government is trying to get as many people vaccinated with the first dose as possible. I'm still cautious about going out, though, particularly with the new strain which seems to be much more infectious. The best thing that can be said about lockdown is that it gives you much more time to read and/or write. Had life continued as normal, I would never have been able to write 196,000 words in just under a year! Have been enjoying socialising on Zoom with a group of friends from the am dram groups I belong to. We have been compiling quizzes to test each other's knowledge, played online Bingo and other online games on jackbox.tv as one of the members has a subscription. I really miss going to restaurants, or in the better weather, sitting in a pub garden with a pint of beer. Let's hope the world returns to some kind of normal this year.

Well, that's it. Apart from a little editing, 'Gone Away, Gone Ahead' is now finished. I was tempted to extend the number of chapters, to keep it going a while longer, but I realised that the story I had originally planned had reached its natural stopping point. I'm not someone who plans out a story in great detail. I know what needs to happen and roughly where it's going to happen, but sometimes the characters start taking me down other paths and bring in more twists and turns on the journey. I'm usually two or three chapters ahead of posting, which allows for flexibility and changes. Sometimes a suggestion that someone has come up with in their comments makes me stop and think, ‘Hang on. What if I try putting that in. Will it work?’ Sometimes it does, sometimes not, but it’s good because it makes me write a scene in a different way than I may have first envisioned it. I’m still working on the prequel, ‘Threadfall’ and although the end is very much pre-determined in that story, getting to it is going be interesting. If I was the sort of author who does plan things out, then I should have written that one first, but it wasn't until I'd written about 15 chapters of ‘Gone Away, Gone Ahead’ that I had the idea to fill in some more of the back story on characters in the main work. At the moment, I'm having ideas about some of the minor characters and it may well be that their story is where the next part will begin. But my own life is about to undergo upheaval in the next month or so as I move from the house I’ve lived in for 21 years to start a new life with my husband. There will be lots of work to do, hence less time for writing, although I do find that when you are decorating, or gardening, ideas often ferment as your mind is free to wander. I like to be able to post updates on a regular basis, so unless I know I’m going to be able to have the time to do that, I'd rather not start at all. What I may do instead, is to re-format and tweak a totally different story I wrote for Nanowrimo several years ago - a supernatural mystery based in an old 1930’s cinema. That would be far less work and I think people might enjoy reading it, even though it's a totally different genre.

I find that writing regularly, even if I can only manage a couple of hundred words, is the best way for me. If I’m working on a story and leave it for a while it takes a while to get back into the flow of things. Getting feedback from readers is the reward for me. It definitely encourages me to push on, even if I’m stuck on a chapter, or life is busy. I've found your articles on the writing process very useful.

'My' chair often gets pinched by the cat if I am out of it for too long. I really understand that feeling of sinking into your favourite chair and not wanting to move.