Blog Hop

This was passed onto me by the delightful EJ Tett, author of various books (mostly YA fantasy), including The Power of Malinas Trilogy.

What am I working on?

My main work-in-progress (WIP) is Sir Edric's Treasure, the second story in The Adventures of Sir Edric. The eponymous hero finds that it's not nice to be wanted when it means a gang of ruthless bounty hunters are after you. To procure funds to pay off his huge bounty, Sir Edric (accompanied by his trusty manservant Dog) takes part in a competition to try and win an enormous inheritance. But he's not the only competitor, and he'll need all his cunning to stay ahead of his rivals, and the bounty hunters.

How does my work differ from others in its genre?

It's pretty rapid-paced fantasy comedy, and I try to add a certain dose of healthy cynicism to fantasy. Sir Edric's a selfish, sceptical, worldly wise fellow. He has no aspirations to world domination (or saving it either), he just wants to make some money, have as much sex as possible, and not die in the immediate future.

Why do I write what I do?

I enjoy it, and (hopefully) other people do too. I like grimdark a lot, but I also enjoy a lighter approach. Other people raising a smile or laughing out loud at my work (ahem, in a good way) is greatly rewarding. Besides, often when reading fantasy certain peculiarities do spring to mind, and it's nice to point these out in a gently mocking way. An example I haven't written about yet would be Mount Doom, and Sauron being the most stupid chap in the world.

There's one place, just one, in all the world that can destroy the Ring. Sauron has an enormous army of Nazgul, orcs, elephants (more or less) and so on. How many men does he assign to guard the solitary entrance to the only place that can undo him? 10? 1,000? 10,000? None. Not one. He's an utter blithering idiot.

How does my writing process work?

Work is such an... optimistic word.

For comedy, it operates with a sense of chaos and uncertainty. Planning is minimal (excepting the basics of the central storyline) which has its ups and downs. Each chapter tends to be more spontaneous than it otherwise would be, and I think that helps creativity and comedy. On the other hand, it does sometimes make progress slow.

I also have four unfortunate beta readers in whose general direction I fling chapters every so often (if possible I prefer to have each chapter read by at least two beta readers, with all, if possible, reading the first and last). Without them everything would be much, much worse, because I'm hopeless at objectively assessing my own comedy (when you've read a joke seven times it becomes an act of guesswork to try and assess how amusing it would be to someone else).

Due to some computer issues (and, er, being so absent-minded I have to check several times a day I'm still wearing trousers), I only remembered to get one more person to carry this on, but she is a delightful one, worth twice the average at the least:

LK Evans is the author of Keepers of Arden (The Brothers volume 1), with a sequel in the works.