I've had a bit of time lately. I've had Covid the last week and a bit, though it's finally shifting. I'm prone to chest infections so Covid has had me worried for a while what with it replicating in the lungs, but thankfully I'm fully vaccinated so it wasn't as bad as it could be and I've been fighting chest infections my whole life, so I was able to stop it from migrating to my chest too badly. It's my first Covid infection since this all started, so I'm happy it was an easy one. Here's hoping the next one will be the same, though experience tells me that won't be the case.
But after all of that mularky, I'm finally starting to get files prepped to upload bonus content and here is the the first one.
This is the original version of The Captain's Promise. Sometimes when I'm writing a story I'll know something is wrong with it, but not necessarily know what that is. This is the case with this story. It just wasn't working for me so I scrapped what I had written and did a page one rewrite that is the version you know.
You'll notice that I reused lines and even paragraphs in some places. The back story was always the same, except for everything to do with Kanica, Mikel and Sarah's second daughter. I removed her from the book because I hated depriving Chloe of her mother and I didn't want to do the same to Kanica. I also removed Chloe from the story to tighten it up, though not from the world. Sometimes I consider writing a short story where Sarah and Chloe meet, which is always contentious, then resolving that, but I also know I can write that when I write Chloe's story a few years from now. I have scenes for that story already written down and I can't wait to introduce you to her love interest, though you had a tiny mention of him in The Crime Lord's Fall, Vaudin, sitting in the meetings as a heavy with Rorak. I know their story down to the bones and I can't wait to write it. Vaudin is going to be a lot of fun to write and he's a fierce bastard when it comes to Chloe.
Anyway, enough teasing. This is only 42 pages long, roughly 14k words. There are some nice snippets here and you'll also get to meet Chloe and Kanica.
I hope you enjoy it.