I will be spending some time going around various blogs and apologising for not visiting the entertaining, thoughtful or provocative sites. The story is long and mostly one a lot of folk can relate to.

The Computer: Well my usual one finally died and I dug out my back up which approached all the requests with the ill-humour you would associate with a bear being poked out of hibernation with a stick (a very, very long stick). Thus I embarked on purchasing a new one. Now being in the Covid-19 era and also wishing to purchase one for a reputable supplier ANNNNNND trying to find one which everyone agreed on was dependable (Don’t you hate those Reviews Sites which are peppered with 5 & 1 stars in equal measure?) this was a journey. One replete with delays, confusions, mixed up e-mails and an incident at a store which was like Kafa had written a Marx Bros script- that has to be a separate post! Anyway I got a new laptop, a cute lil’ 14″ light-weight ASUS which some ‘superior’ sorts may sneer at…to which I reply ‘Like I cared about your HD or your download speed for films and all that stuff you write which I swear is half-made up in an attempt to make us feel like lesser mortals’

So, thus to the other important cause.

NB: Those who might not have read my previous posts should bear in mind none of the following is advice in any form. This is about how I write- you can shake your heads and say ‘Oh dear’ and I will not be offended in the least. 

Yes firstly I apologise for mentioning the word Re-Write yet again however this evolved into more than a simply hunting out of mis-spellings, eradications of odd-syntaxes, ironing out those continuity fractures.

I finished the narrative, too a very deep breath and went back to the very, very beginning set ‘Review’ and ‘Read’ and began Microsoft Word Actually Being Useful in Self-Editing

This is quite a long process and there had to be several returns to the beginning due to a whole lot of issues not just creative ones but such problems as convincing WORD I was not actually planning on writing portions of the book in Italian (Warning, be careful writers in English should you use another language’s word or phrase…..WORD might decide you are writing the whole book in that language, it will even start narrating in that accent….Yeah I know….Go Figure).

Anyways as I progressed the journey became one of discovery and dare I say affirmation, the proof-reading/editorialising turning into an experience of witnessing the various characters trying to cope with situations which were beyond their complete control; the more successful ones adapting as they went along. Slowly the narrative was definitely slipping away from my influence changing me to the reporter. There was no problem there, if this was going to work for me anyway the tale had to have its own life, the situation described in the narrative snowballing beyond anyone’s authority. Read any histories (good ones that is, no Conspiracies!) and you will see no one is ever in control, the winners are the ones who make the least mistakes or learn by them. If there were any outside influences in my writing then they were all based on military and political history. The comedy and romance interludes were probably me co-operating with the characters.

I have not finished this process yet, hopefully half-way through this month, then it will be numbering chapters and toying with the idea of giving them titles, and of course the glossary. Following from this I will be waiting for a cover from Matthew who produced a stunning one for Volume II ‘Our Skirmishers of Lace, Fire and Steel’

I really am looking forward to his next interpretation.

There we are then 233,000+ words and maybe little chance of it being a successful.

Why do you do it then, some might ask. Others will of course know the answer.

‘Because I wanted to write this’