The Story Continues...

In praise of patience on an auspicious day

In our age of Amazon and Netflix, we’re unaccustomed to waiting for things. The parcel is at our door within hours; the whole series is instantly available to binge.

How lucky you are then, dear reader, that I took an age finishing my latest novel, Dark fire! How much sweeter it will seem, after all that delayed gratification, when it’s finally nestled in your hands!

After ten years of delay, Dark Fire is officially published in the U.K. today. You can get it here or here or here (the last link is to Blackwell’s, which will deliver internationally for free).

The Blind Bowman: Dark Fire; page one

I’m currently re-reading Dark Fire myself. Initially, this was for professional reasons: I wanted to reassess my strengths and weaknesses as a writer; to see where my storytelling has improved, and where it can be further refined.

But in fact, once I was immersed in the story, I kept forgetting to read with my editing brain and was just swept along by this epic tale of love and revenge.

I was entranced all over again by Marian, the warrior queen of Sherwood – her scheming and her resourcefulness and her rage. I was captivated by the images of a primal Robin Hood, dressed in the pelt of a slain wolf-god and wielding a bow of pure shadow. I was lost in this mythic forest full of gods and monsters, which in the way of the best story worlds sometimes seemed as real as life outside the book.

Dark Fire’s good qualities didn’t come for free. Although I’ve written at length about how writer’s block derailed this book for years, that isn’t the full story. This novel was also a long time in production because both myself and my publisher, David Fickling Books, believe in making things with great care: in the patient, painstaking craft of storytelling.

There were many times during the creation of Dark Fire when we might have settled for a slightly inferior draft. Instead we went back to the manuscript again and again, reworking and rewriting, until the book was as good as we were able to make it.

And yes, I’m happy to report, in my opinion at least, all that work paid off. Having not re-read Dark Fire for a while, revisiting it has been exhilarating. For those of you who’ve been waiting a good while longer, I hope you agree!

Happy reading, and thanks for being here!

Tim