Mawgrim

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.

There may well be volcanos in the south - the original colonists moved north to because of volcanic activity! Only about another 5 chapters to go on this one. Sorry. But there may well be a sequel.

It was my re-read of the Pern series last year that prompted me to write this story. The seven Turn gap between the end of 'Dragonflight' and the start of ‘Dragonquest' needed filling in.

He's being cautious and trying to keep his promises. F'lar came up with a sensible solution to the problem of Rioth rising while in the South. Let's hope everything goes as planned...

He definitely should. But he's tried warning people about F'drun in the past and nothing's been done. He also made a promise to S'fyn that he'd rather not break.

D’gar sat on his usual bench overlooking the feeding grounds, watching as Herebeth took down his second ovine of the morning. H’rek was off helping fill firestone sacks for the next Fall. He’d need to work out the shifts for that one later. His Wing was scheduled for clean-up duty, so he also had to decide which of his Wingseconds and riders would be working on that. It should be fairly easy; pasture rather than forest, so good visibility and no problems moving around to help the ground crews de

Glad you are enjoying the story. To have my style compared to Anne McCaffrey herself is a great compliment. Before I started writing the story, I re-read all of my Dragonriders of Pern books both to refresh my memory of events and to get a feel for the style. When I am writing scenes or dialogue for the canon characters, I always ask myself 'would Anne have written it this way?' I've not read the Wild Talents/Tower and Hive series. Maybe I should try to get some copies. I've enjoyed reading some of Anne's other books such as the Crystal Singer books, Decision at Doona and The Ship Who Sang. I need to make more time for reading now that I'm almost at the end of this epic (which has ended uo far longer than I anticipated when I began writing it). It's always sad when you are getting near to the end of a story, although even when Gone Away, Gone Ahead is done I still have the rest of Threadfall to finish.

It's never easy to move on. Transferring to Benden would be the best solution to staying with H'rek and D'gar would do the job well. Once he's had the time to think through everything, then he'll make a decision. Worrying about S'fyn's safety is going to be on D'gar's mind quite a bit over the next few sevendays.

Good point. I haven’t put any Harpers into this story yet because I didn't need one as a character and I already have a mile long spreadsheet with all the rider and dragon names! If the boys are old enough and a Search dragon reckons they have a good chance, they may very well be allowed to stand at the next hatching.

Yes, that's right. In 'Dragonquest' the whole of the leadership of Southern and High Reaches swap around, as all of the disaffected 'Oldtimers' are exiled to the southern continent. However, as you said, the Weyrs are meant to be autonomous and although there are occasional meetings between the leaders, they don’t interfere with what goes on at each individual Weyr. Benden and Southern are a little bit different as Southern is still, at this stage, fairly reliant on Benden and T'bor is new to the job (plus having to cope with Kylara). The only reason I've not mentioned Robinton or Fandarel is that D'gar, up until now, hasn't been involved sufficiently with the Benden leadership to have met either of them. As a Benden rider and Weyrlingmaster, should he accept the job, he'd be more likely to attend Craft/Weyr meetings.

I love all of the carefully observed detail in this story. It makes it so easy to visualise the characters and landscape they inhabit.

Strangely enough, the Southern Weyr has been doing some surveying of the area and have recently discovered some volcanic activity...

Both characters are interesting. I like the way that you have described Ben, as a partially -sighted person, using other senses such as taste and smell much more than the average person.

Unfortunately that's not something that can happen with Pernese dragons. Once they have Impressed with a human, it's for life. The Long Interval changed the way ordinary people looked on dragons, once they were no longer relying on them the protect themselves and their crops from Thread. Even though the threat is now present again, they won't change overnight. In fact, some may even resent having to rely on the Weyrs again. Since F'lar took over as Weyrleader, Benden has had much stronger leadership than previously, but he's still new to it and has to overcome resistance both within and outside the Weyr. F'drun is pushing it too far now and D'gar is reaching a position where he can start to influence what happens to a greater extent. I'd better not say any more than that...