Welcome

So I decided to make a website, and this is it. Come in, make yourself at home. The kettle is on and there’re biscuits in the tin.

In this first blog post, I thought I would explain why I made this site, what I intend to do with it, and what you can expect from me moving forwards. As I get closer and closer to finishing the finals drafts of my first full-length novel ‘The Judge Itinerant’ (120,000 words at present) I realise that I might need to start cultivating what I hear the kids are calling an ‘online presence’. Like a lot of people drawn to writing, I am socially anxious by nature and this idea fills me with dread, yet like Bilbo I bravely and somewhat reluctantly embark upon this adventure.

My cunning plan, as cunning as a fox who has been made professor of cunning at Oxford University, to butcher a joke made by a man far funnier than I, is to publish my short fiction to draw you in, my good reader, then bam, release a novel that you might be persuaded to purchase. The only obstacles? Writing enough good short fiction to do that - I have one piece currently up and I’m thinking of publishing a second already written one once I’ve edited it a bit more - finishing the editing process of my novel, then convincing an agent and an editor to give me the time of day and perhaps even publish the damn thing. Bah, I say, easy. And indeed, those might be the easy steps when compared to that most dreaded task: finding people who might actually want to read what I want to write.

On the blog section of this site, you will find further updates from me whenever I have anything of interest to say - which is to say rarely. I am thinking of also using that part of the site for blog posts on other things that interest me - discussions of books and the general speculative fiction space, for example. Maybe even some discussions and explanations of international relations and foreign policy, given that is what I am actually qualified to talk about, and does relate to my very politically oriented fantasy. Perhaps of history as well.

Beyond that, I hope to publish a new piece of short fiction every month or so. Perhaps a sample chapter from the novel, who knows. Most of that will be set in Teua - my secondary world within which almost all of my fiction is set. Teua’s present is roughly equivalent to our world in the late 18th century, though I hope to move it forward through the equivalent of the 19th century and its resultant political, economic, and social shifts as I continue to write. The next step in this - a 7-part series of much longer novels telling the equivalent of Teua’s French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars - is already roughly outlined, with the first novel fully outlined and ready to write as soon as I finish with this one. Teua has no fantastical elements besides being, you know, entirely made up, and is very reflective of our world around that time, the main difference being the lack of overseas colonialism. It has dozens of independent states across three continents, with much of its worldbuilidng focused on the international and domestic politics of the world, along with the resultant issues of war, diplomacy, and trade.

You can read more about The Judge Itinerant and any further longer fiction on the ‘upcoming projects’ page and, if you’ll indulge me, about yours truly on the ‘about’ page.

Until next time,

Ben