The Seal Whistle is almost done. I’m wrestling with the main ending scene. Tying loose strings together into one coherent finish. I find that the dramatic end of a story is quite different, can be quite different, from the personal end of the story for the characters. Which is why I wrote the end of A Storm in Tormay the way I did. It ended with what happened to the characters after the ending climactic scene. After, mind you. That’s the way I see stories ending (I’m writing primarily for myself). Not with a bang and a flourish and a crash of cymbals, but with the long, smooth legato of violins and the sun setting as smoothly and serenely as it always does.

Because that’s who I want to be. And how I want to die. Of course.

I have to bring up death in this context. A great deal of the fairytales, the genuine ones, have to do with death and endings and partings. Things changing irrevocably. The adventure over, the marriage begun, the evil vanquished, the wicked stepmother nailed into a barrel and rolled down into the sea (whatever happened to her next?). That’s exactly what Tolkien did at the end of The Return of the King. He was writing about death and dreadfully solemn endings to life. Things fading away with as much serenity as a ship sailing over the horizon from the Grey Havens. Because those things were even more important than the fall of Sauron.

But, in that, there is joy.

Not for the George R. R. Martins and Abercrombies and Patrick Rothfuss minions of the world. Nope. They’ve thought themselves into a box that is defined, described, bordered (up, down, top and sides) by human self. The style is well done–I won’t fault them on that–but the substance runs dry of hope. Which is logical. The human creature cannot find hope in and of himself.

Which is why you cannot will not will never can never find Tolkien’s eucatastrophe in any of their stories. For me, it’s like deliberately painting in black and white and steadfastly ignoring the dazzling panoply of color patiently waiting on the palette. Waiting and never used. Like going about with a blue plastic umbrella always over your head and thinking, this is my sky. This blue plastic curve is my sky, and that’s it.

And refusing to listen to the crash of thunder and the wind and the lightning and the rain and the sunset splashing down in more shades of purple and red and orange you could every find words to describe. All that true sky happening outside and above your umbrella, and you’re still steadfastly muttering “this blue plastic curve two inches above my head is my sky, the sky, the only sky.”

For me, that’s epic fantasy without eucatastrophe. Without joy.

Once upon a time there was a little book called The Hawk and His Boy. A narrator got hold of it and decided to turn it into an audio book. And now, in several days (or several days plus a day or two), the Hawk shall appear on Audible.com. That’s that, eh?

I just published a new cover for The Fury Clock. To be honest, the book simply does not sell, even though I think it’s a vastly readable and hilarious story. What’s not to like about scoundrel heroes, beautiful barmaids, cantankerous dwarfs, sanctimonious ogres, evil necromancers, monsters, roast boar, and dirty farmboys intent on saving the world? Humorous fantasy seems to be a very narrow field, despite the success of Terry Pratchett and…well, Terry Pratchett. At any rate, there’s a rather nasty dragon in the story, so I’m giving him front and center billing for the cover. I hope this attracts a few more eyes…

The Seal Whistle is the name of my newest Tormay story. I just passed the 100 page mark and I’m not sure where the end is. It could turn into a regular novel or just a long novella. We’ll see what the characters want to do. I’m fairly pleased with this one for various reasons. For one thing, it answers a big question that was left unanswered at the end of the Tormay Trilogy. I can’t say what the question is, as it would reduce a certain amount of the story’s fun. However, the question concerns what happened to one of the main characters of the trilogy, after the trilogy ended. The Seal Whistle involves the sea, of course, which you probably already figured out from the title.

I’m finding it an interesting thing to revisit Tormay. The land exists in such detail in my mind that I’m discovering the story refuses to simply unfold in a straight and quick fashion. Rather, characters intrude and have their say and then go back to whatever they were doing: herding cattle, fishing, chatting in a tavern, several doing rather evil things, a young boy trying to earn enough money for a pair of boots.

If you’d like a sneak peek at The Seal Whistle, I’m going to release the first eight pages next week. However, you have to be on my email list to get them.

The old stories about Sleeping Beauty never got it right. I’m sure you suspected that. I’ve written the real story. The genuine article. It all began in a little Central European country called Bordavia with a princess named Rosamonde. Well, I’m getting ahead of myself. You’ll have to read the story for yourself and find out about Rosamonde and the family curse. It’s actually more of a novella than a story, being a length somewhat in between a story and a novel. Now, I’m off to work on my newest Tormay tale. It can’t wait any longer (actually, I’m about 2/3 of the way through the first draft).