Welcome

Hi, thanks for visiting.

The One Saga has quite a long history beyond where it stands today. Originally the main characters came to life in a tale called The King of Kings, this was a relatively short story of around 40-50 thousand words written in the style of the King James Bible. It featured the core characters of Emun, Dorn, and Lo set in a future fantasy after a great apocalypse had wiped out civilization. None of the original concepts exists in the current saga, after all that was 25 years ago.

I left the story alone after that and went on to write other novels, though not very well. One day, on a train from London to Manchester, Emun wandered into my mind as I sat staring at the passing countryside. By the time I got home the concept for a novel, then a sage was born. I sat at my computer in the kitchen of our home in Stalybridge and began to write Emun of Mor. It was a mess, but it was my mess and I loved it. A friend helped me to correct some of my early near-catastrophic writing errors, I soldiered on, writing fever had taken over. Lo the Prophet was written next and then A Chord of Three Strands, which remains unfinished.

I self-published Emun of Mor on Lulu.com and sat and stared and my paperbacked baby, ugly as it was. As time wore on and eBooks began to run riot across the face of computer screens everywhere I got published by and press called Vamplit Publishing, who sadly no longer exist. The book never sold more than a handful of copies but I carried on regardless. I even spoke to a literary agent called John Jarrold, who gave me some free advice about book length and how it should all be like everything else out there that is currently selling. The problem I had with this was I did not like anything that was currently selling. None of what was out there was anything like what I saw running about in my head. So I just wrote for myself and kept it there.

Years passed, really years! One day I thought, ‘sod what people think’. I took an axe to my story and hacked it apart. Emun of Mor never got a good review so I rewrote portions of it, cut the end off and wrote a new one. The new baby was renamed as The End of Mor. It still sucked, some people hated it for the simple fact that a boy raped a girl and got away with it, or so it would seem. Then I had another idea, sod it all!

I wrote what I wanted to write. When I was done I put a sample of Young Warlock, on Createspace.com and there I got the best piece of writing help ever. A random stranger actually wrote something helpful and constructive. He suggested removing the words: like, that and which as much as possible, especially from the narrative. For this, he said his three-star rating would have been a five. For the first time as a writer, I felt as though I had got something right. So, thanks to you my anonymous friend for your most valued input.

So happy was I, I even hired an editor, Stephanie Dagg, who has proved an invaluable ally in keeping the saga in shape. The One Saga of today is a far cry from The King of Kings, though it owes its very existence.

Young Warlock has received a number of good reviews, for which I am truly (surprised) grateful. There are those who don’t get it and those who just don’t like it, but thanks for reading anyway. To date, it has had more than 10000 downloads and keeps plodding on. The sequels, Fire Thorn and the next instalment, Dark Mistress, will not be. For more information on these please follow the individual links.

Many Thanks for taking the time to read all the way to end.