Almost a month has flashed by since my last blog post. Not only have I neglected my blog in that time, my social media has also experienced a drought during that time. Not due to writer’s or artist’s block, or anything as reductive as that.
There’s been quite a lot going on in my personal life recently. I won’t go into detail here, but suffice to say this made creating not just difficult, but utterly inappropriate. I needed to spend time with my family, and so, my creative projects stammered to a halt.
The past few days, however, I resumed work on my next fantasy novel project. And quite apart from that, I have some big news.
My debut novel, The Black Rook, has been given a rough release date of later this year!
That’s right, my first novel will soon be published. To say the least, I’m over the moon.
The Black Rook’s setting – the dark, rugged world of Entros – has been around twenty years in the making. As a child, I invented Entros as both a means of escape and as a reaction to the bizarre modern world I found myself in. As a home-taught kid, I found the outside world ugly, impossible to relate to, and frightening.
I spent much of my childhood visiting old castle ruins and Tudor country houses. My favourite spots were Welsh castles. These heritage sites fed into my vision for a surreal, fantastical world. With Tolkien’s novels, the Warcraft video games, and the Warhammer tabletop war game as my main sources of inspiration, I began world-building what eventually turned into Entros, the same fantasy world that I write about today.
The Black Rook is an introduction to that world. I’m so proud of myself for continuing to plow away with the novel (which I began plotting around 10 years ago), even when doing so seemed pointless.
For the rest of 2022, I plan to finish the draft of The Black Rook’s sequel (currently titled The Unsetting Sun), with plans to edit it next year. 2023 will also be the year that I market The Black Rook. I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing in terms of marketing, but I’m excited to learn as I go along.
Aside from the Entros books, I also have two other novels, Human Zoo and Like Pigs, which I spent a considerable amount of time drafting and editing this year. I will search for publisher-homes for them both next year.
I have a feeling that 2023 will be an incredibly busy year for me. Quite apart from my author ambitions, there will be a lot going on in my personal life as well.
In only three weeks, my partner and I are set to fly back to England to spend much of Christmas there. I haven’t seen my direct family since June, so I’m really excited to see them.
In other news, my partner and I visited a place called Fort Knox in the American state of Maine, a couple of weeks back. This was the first heritage site I’d ever visited in the United States, so it was really cool to see. It was a beautiful day and I got some lovely photos (one of which is at the top of this post). I’ll also feature some photos at the bottom of the post, which I took in Maine.
When an exact release date has been announced for The Black Rook, you’ll no doubt hear from me here on the website.
If you want to receive updates when they happen (and also to hear me ramble about all kinds of nonsense) follow me on Twitter @ davey_cobb
Davey Cobb 