Greetings from Ravenstone. Cooler, more windSwept and rain-soaked than we could have imagined just two weeks ago. Spectacular lightning a few nights ago. I was outside for that! I have been working on the runway to publishing The Shivering Vale this week, and I have deployed a new category interface to get you into Tales from the Woldwood, and also engaged a cover design and formatting company in the US. I have also settled a decision I have been mulling over for 18 months now. To Amazon or not to Amazon, that is the question. The slings and arrows of their platform have frankly lost out, and I take arms against the sea of selling direct instead. It is a business decision. If you have run businesses, as I have, to hand your product to them for such a pathetic royalty, with no access to your customer data and pressure to discount and give away books for free, seems nuts to me. I’m in the Edvane BUSINESS, and their model does not align with good decision-making. It is also a demonstrably woeful discovery surface, partially reliant on a ridiculous review-count system that seems to enslave everyone. I will be selling both the eBook and the novel directly on edvane.world come December.

And on that note, goodbye summer from me and my beautiful little forest elf, who has gone back to school.

Chosen, blessed, sky-called. A village girl ascends to learn what those beautiful words truly cost.

Pegwyche Goes Down

I wrote this for a contest run by The CoZy Quill, and it did not get a look in. I have moved away from prompt-based submissions now, but I thought this was quite good and sufficiently grim to publish on my own site. A village girl is lifted in a cage to a floating kingdom and placed in the hands of a mole groundskeeper who leads her to her fate. They call her chosen. They call her blessed. What she finds beneath the towers is something far worse than a marriage.

A new story publishes most weeks at edvanestories.com where you can access and read, or listen to, the entire archive.

A new way into the Woldwood.

Tales from the Woldwood constellation interface

The forty Tales from the Woldwood are now easier to discover on the website. I have deployed a constellation interface that allows you to choose a category of tale that interests you, whether that be schools of magic, wands, objects, places or characters. It looks best on desktop but is still more intuitive on mobile. Watch the explainer video below.

The Shivering Vale advances

This week I engaged Enchanted Ink Publishing to design my cover art and full wrap, and to format my manuscript for publication with internal illustrations. You will know that I am a fan of AI imagery; I think it does a job. But you know it is AI almost at a glance if you have looked at as much of it as I have. So, for this important job, I wanted more experienced hands and eyes, as well as a collaborator who won’t repeatedly tell me they get it when they don’t. I have followed the boss there, Natalia, on her YouTube channel since the early days, and I have always appreciated the plain-spoken delivery of her advice.

Gandalf, Dumbledore, Ged, Bayaz, Prospero and four wizards of the Marchlands.

What Is a Wizard?

The wizard is one of the most recognisable figures in fantasy. He arrives with a staff, a reputation, and answers. I wrote this post about what happens when you take him out of the centre of the story and stand him at the edge, where he reveals what the humans around him actually are. Four Marchlands wizards, four traditions, and the case for writing a wizard who changes everything just by being there.

VSS365 is a daily micro-fiction challenge on X. One prompt word, one complete story, 280 characters. Each week I will share my favourite of the seven. My favourite prompt this week was cord.

Every winter solstice, the villagers tied a red cord around the oldest oak. It was said to keep a spirit chained. One year, a boy cut it, and nothing happened. The villagers laughed at their ancestors' superstition. In spring, no crops grew, and by summer, even weeds lay dead. The Blight Mother had awoken. The cord had been her leash.

Discover my VSS365 flash fiction posts on X and Bluesky.

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