WIP: Mist On the Moor

He was halfway down the first page of Elov's journal when the door opened brusquely, startling him from his deep concentration. The ink splotched on the paper and Roel frowned as he looked up at whoever had arrived in such manner. It better not be that insufferable woman--

It wasn't. It was a man. He was big and muscular, taking up almost the whole doorway. His hair was short and black, or at least so it seemed in the twilight--and he was scowling.

"Are you hurt, sir?" Roel stood up, going around the desk to help the man if something was wrong.

"I saw the light on and thought maybe it had been forgotten," he spoke gruffly. "I did not mean to disturb you in your work."

"I was almost done anyway," Roel said, not quite able to keep the annoyance of the splotched ink out of his voice. But he did not want to be rude, even if this was the man he had overheard with Teun the other day. His voice was not to be mistaken. This was the foreman ...

Dark eyes stared down at Roel for a moment before the man swept his gaze over the room in general. "I sent Elov to see you earlier today. He never came back to work." His voice was accusing.

"Elov will be fine," Roel told him. "I ordered him to go home and rest for today. He'll be back fully tomorrow, all healed."

The man seemed to reluctantly look over at Roel again. "You healed his foot?"

"I did." Roel nodded. "Even if I am young, I am a doctor, not a novice." That would tell the man clearly that Roel had heard exactly what he had said and that he did not appreciate it.

Those dark eyes seemed to bury into Roel as the man just stared at him coldly, then he nodded his head once and left.

Roel shook his head as the door slammed closed behind him. That man had judged him from the moment Roel had arrived, but Roel would show him differently. He'd show him just what a good doctor he actually was.

Sitting down on his chair, he sighed as he took a new piece of parchment and started over on Elov's journal. He wanted everything to be done before he left for the evening, he wanted everything to be perfect.

Because he could not let the foreman be right.

He was going to prove himself, he was going to help the people of this dreadful coal village and hopefully bring some life back into the tired people he had seen so far.

And the foreman ... well, he could be as judgmental as he wanted. Eventually he'd have to see just how good of a job Roel did, especially when his workers came back healthy. Eventually, he would have to admit it and Roel could not wait.

Fantasy Maps

When it comes to fantasy stories, I quite enjoy making maps of my worlds. I made maps for my Legend & Lore series, posted both on live journal and deviantART, and I made a map for my Thralldom series, which hasn't been written yet. 

I also hand-drew a map of the village Mist On the Moor takes place in, which you can see to the left here. It is a tiny village and the setting of the whole book. 

I love maps in any form; hand drawn, photoshopped, landscape maps. I love to see how authors picture their world, how they've set it up, what they've done with it, how much more they have to play with in it. 

This map for MOtM is a sketch. I will draw it bigger, not on a page in a notebook, and color it. I quite like it hand-drawn. When it comes to world maps, I like to make them in photoshop with my pen and tablet. 

For the Legend & Lore and Thralldom maps I only drew the outline and roads and rivers with the tablet, and used some brushes I downloaded for trees and city marks. When I do the world map for MOtM, I will try to draw it all myself. I quite like the way I did trees in this sketch, it's better than using a single drawing of a tree, I think. What I'm going to be struggling with though is the mountains. I'm never ever happy with the mountains. 

Usually, in famous fantasy mass-market books the maps are in one of the first pages of the books. That's cool to show it off like that before the story actually starts. What I thought was brilliant though, was the covers for Megan Derr's The Lost Gods series. The maps are a part of the cover and I simply LOVED all of those five covers. It gives me an insight to where the borders between the countries lies, what form the country has and the mountain chains. 

These things interest me, and I squee in delight when an author has a map of his or her fantasy world. I squee in delight as I make my own maps. I don't know if anybody else cares about maps, but I do. I love making them too, and if I read a fantasy story without a map, I have this urge to make one. I have never actually done it, because I really have no idea about the surrounding land, but I sure want to sometimes! 

Do you, as a reader, like to see maps of the fantasy world you read about? Do you, as an author, enjoy drawing maps of your world or commission someone to do it? 

Mist On the Moor

Mist On the Moor was supposed to be a single book with fantasy elements. There isn't much magic or anything fantastical in it. It takes place in a scruffy little coal mining village. The main character, Roel, has healing abilities, but that's the only kind of magic that goes on in the story.

The story was always supposed to end on a kind-of cliffhanger, but the love story was mostly resolved. Now, however, it turns out there's more to the story and it wants to be a duology. At least the story of Roel will be, but I'm pretty sure other characters will pop up in the sequel as that one moves away from the mining village. 

Magic will be introduced there too, because there is magic in the world, it's just something that hasn't really been heard off in a small mining village at the edge of the map, so to say. 

So worldbuilding. That has to be done. I also actually have to finish Mist On the Moor. It's not much left; a lot of drama happening from now on, then the sort-of cliffhanger ending. I'm hoping that the remainding scenes will be about 10K, leaving the book at 35K or thereabout. I'm hoping to have the sequel just as long too. 

There's also a lot of short stories that wants to be written. There are a lot of people in the mining village, a lot of people Roel helps and bonds with and become sort-of friends with. They want their stories told, even a m/f couple is forefront in my mind.

I really do like this story, even if it isn't a usual fantasy story. Except for Roel's healing abilities, it seems maybe more like a historical at first. But it's not, and it will become more evident in the sequel.

I have spent a long time writing Mist On the Moor. Mostly because of my hiatus, which lasted for maybe about two months, but I hope to have it finished soon. And I hope the inspiration to continue on to the sequel will still be there, because this is turning out to be quite the journey.

I'm not too sure about the title, especially as I already have the title for the sequel, and I don't really feel that they match. I do like the title, I think it's original. I don't even remember how I came up with it. I think it's rather cool, and maybe it will stick. 

6 Sentence Sunday: Mist On the Moor

Here's six sentences from my fantasy WIP, Mist on the Moor. The main character, Roel, is a doctor and here's a little bit of a scene with his first female patient, Paulette. 

* * *

"I am Paulette, daughter of Ion, the blacksmith," she introduced herself tersely. "I have a problem and I need you to help me with it."

She was certainly direct, Roel would give her that. "What kind of problem are we talking about?" he questioned.

Her eyes met his then, hard and determined. "I am with child and I need you to help me get rid of it."