An easter gift from Gisborne…
As we in Australia move into Easter Thursday, my novel’s main character and I would like to wish you all a safe and happy Easter break. I’m off to write more Gisborne and walk the beaches. And Gisborne? That’d be telling!
The shortstory has now been published by Bo Press in a robust miniature form and I am delighted with what the studio has created. It portrays the essence of Gisborne’s place in the medieval era beautifully and given that my Gisborne has a predilection for illuminated manuscripts, is even more apt. 
I ordered one immediately but really feel I should order another and send it to Richard Armitage via his agent. Has anyone got the agent’s address?
On Friday, Bopress Miniature books asked if I was interested in writing a short-story about Gisborne for the studio to create and bind a special book. I needed no urging because last year the studio did a beautiful version of The Masked Ball around the time that we were actually holding a ‘virtual’ masked ball on the blog.
I could smell his hand and some pathetic part of my body reacted like a cat with a bowl of cream. But the direness of my stuation kicked the bowl to smithereens and as I struggled, squirming and pulling against him, I realized I could never call for help. To whom? De Courcey’s men? I tried to kick backward, wanting to hurt him…
Writing frantically to fill my commitments for FanstRAvaganza was the best thing I’ve done in terms of moving Gisborne along. As a quasi-regular upload to the blog in the past, such lack of commitment to the narrative was not a good thing. Despite the fact I loved writing this story more than any other I’ve done, there were always other writing commitments. Kindle edits, edits of a fantasy manuscript to be sent to London, writing blogs… oh and Twitter, Facebook, and the now famous and much-loved Austen #A4T contributions.
The last instalment for FanstRAvaganza. Further uploads of Gisborne will take place in the short term on Mesmered.
Be calm. Don’t panic. Think. My heart raced and my legs threatened to fold as I poled the craft as quietly as I could. It humoured me, allowing me to slip along in the current, barely making a ripple. But the darkness suffocated. Swathes of giant grasses lined the banks like serried rows of pike-men in some duke’s army. Huge trees towered above the grasses and I fancied they resembled trebuchets and mangonels. The air itself, hardly moving in the night, was moist and laden with the odour of mud and weed. As Walsocam drained into the rivulet there were other smells as well – excrement, the bloated remains of a butchered sheep… the fragrance nauseating.
The fourth instalment as part of Fanstravaganza.
The journey continued like a roll of ribbon unwinding and sometimes I despaired of ever seeing the end. There were other times when I never wanted the end to appear as it meant so many things that I couldn’t bear to countenance. The first time a familiar landmark appeared, my stomach jolted and I wondered if I should be sick. The instinct to turn and flee was a powerful one and had me almost undone. Would I have continued on without Guy’s protection? Somehow I doubted it. Is it Guy’s so called dependability that will make me feel secure? Or is it that my obligations are greater? Oh such good questions, such unanswerable questions.
If you like what you read, you may also like The Stumpwork Robe for sale on Kindle and in print at Amazon. Feel free to read the first few chapters by clicking on the flipping book in Mesmered’s sidebar.
Please enjoy the following chapters as part of the FanstRAvaganza event. At the end of each chapter will be a list of blogs that you can visit for the occasion.
For the rest of the Gisborne story from the very beginning, go to the Page listed as Gisborne at the top of the blog and click and off you go!!!
For those who read Mesmered, you’ll know that every Tuesday for the last few weeks, I’ve been a part of a global collaboration in the writing of an Austenesque novel on Twitter (#A4T) . So many of Austen’s most well known characters have arrived at the ball… the Bennets, Caroline Bingley, Charlotte Collins, Lady Catherine de Burgh, Anne Elliot, Henry Tilney, the execrable Wickham and the questionable Willougby… in other words, friends and foes. As the ball progresses a plethora of dreadful disasters face Elizabeth and her husband Mr.Darcy as guests mingle and create mayhem.
