THE GOOD.
The new work-in-process - a novella - has a working title: The Queen’s Outlaws. Or it may get the title Knights to Queen. (Can I do a play on the chess move Knight to Queen? What do you think?)
This is a Henry de Grey/Stephan l’Aigle* story taking place in 1202, three years after the death of Richard the Lionheart. Richard’s brother John is king, and he is fighting the French, his nephew Arthur, Duke of Brittany, and his rebellious barons, attempting to maintain a hold on his continental domains.
*For new subscribers: Henry & Stephan were introduced and are the ‘stars’ of Battle Scars I-III; they are secondary characters in the Tales of Robin Hood books.
I have 4 chapters left to revise and my writers group is loving what they’ve heard so far. If all goes according to plan, The Queen’s Outlaws will initially be a Newsletter subscriber exclusive later this year.
THE BAD.
I just got over my second cold of the summer. I have never had two in the space of three months. Never. Sore throat, nasty cough, pink-eye! Fortunately, the 2nd round was not as severe - no pink-eye - and was much shorter. I’m recovered! Hallelujah!
The colds were bad, but then came…
THE UGLY.
Website issues. Ugh. For 3 weeks in June I could not add new posts or edit existing content on my website. Long story short: it pushed to the forefront long term considerations about paying for web hosting and maintaining a Wordpress site with plugins and theme updates that I wasn’t great at keeping up with. Not to be morbid, but I didn’t want family to have to monitor whether things ‘broke’.
Migrating website content from one host to another certainly wasn’t on this summer’s to-do list. (And it was not a straightforward export-xml-import-to-new-site. I’ll spare you those details.)
But the new site is live on Blogger, though I still have some blog-related work to finish. It may not be as fancy as my old site but it’s good.
Because my website was in limbo, I couldn’t even announce that Rogues & Kings was awarded a BRAG medallion! Thank you, indieBRAG!
https://www.bragmedallion.com/award-winning.../rogues-kings/
ICYMI…
Check out my research post on Rogues & Kings: “Char Newcomb’s take on King John’s last days” on Anna Belfrage’s blog along with her review of the novel.
#OTD 8 June 1191 with an excerpt from Men of the Cross.
And read an excerpt from my short story “A King’s Man No More.”
I’ll close for now. I wish you all good books, good health, and reprieves from the hot and/or wet summer that has plagued much of our planet.
Until next time, happy reading!
—Char
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