Margaret J Evans

AAHHH I need to keep up. Well done you two!

Thanks, Jim. And I’m so glad you enjoyed the Oath and Crown duology 😊

Most probably true, Richard. There’s a great youtube video showing people wearing full plate armour doing somersaults. Squires were required to master all the courtly and manly arts – combat, riding, tumbling, swimming, dancing etc – and often practised all of them in full armour. (Well probably not swimming because then there would have been far…[Read more]

I think you’re probably right there, Daed. I doubted my own findings so I consulted a few horsey people (breeders, riders etc) A horse can comfortably carry a third of it’s own weight. You’re average destrier of 15 hands weighed 1200 lbs. So they could comfortably carry 360lbs.
Assuming the average height and weight of a knight was 5’7″ and 150lbs…[Read more]

Thanks, Sandra 🙂 re destriers – apparently the modern shire/ cart/ draught horses are descended from them. Basically they bred some warhorses too big to have enough speed for battle and that’s where the latter great horses come from. I too was surprised to learn that a Medieval warhorse was usually only 15 – 16 hands high. (Apparently I also…[Read more]

Thanks, everyone 🙂

I am just about halfway through writing the second book now so the encouragement is much appreciated.

@JaneShuff – that has to be one of the best TBRs 😀

@Bella – I thought I was being flippant when I spoke about lads marrying their mother-in-laws, but having checked, there were cases where families got split up and the…[Read more]

I wouldn’t worry about agents etc. If you send a Word document then they will understand that it should be viewed in Word; it’s usually what they ask for. I think your problem is that either your browser or Google Docs or whatever gmail uses for previews isn’t displaying Times New Roman properly.

There are things you can try to fix it, such as…[Read more]

Are you using gmail’s webmail service?

I just had a quick try and noticed that when I clicked on a Word document, it was opened in Google Docs and not Word. My suspicion is that Word is fine but there’s something wrong with the way gmail is rendering Times New Roman. If that’s the case, then a fix depends on what browser you’re using and what…[Read more]

I wonder too 🙂

Can I ask for a bit of clarification? If you type out some text in Word using Times New Roman, it looks fine. When you send that as an email attachment and subsequently view it, it appears blurry and hard to read.

At the risk of sounding daft, how are you viewing the attachments? Do you open them with Word, i.e. if Word isn’t…[Read more]

Yay! I’m so glad you posted this, Daed. Highly recommend it to everyone who likes hist fic especially WWII. It’s an excellent novella. Can’t wait for the next one 😁

I think the linking text definitely helped @squidge. As did the editors having a clear idea of what they were looking for and how to make it all fit together. And I think the opening and closing stories gave the anthology shape too. But we weren’t actually given that much of a premise other than ‘demon invasion of Victorian Britain’ which expanded…[Read more]

Glad you’re enjoying it @Squidge I love the interlinking text – it really adds sometjing to the collection. I love the shared world aspect of the anthology too.

This was such a great project to be a part of (not least because I was basically asked to write war of the worlds fan fic 😉 ) Matt is being humble by the way. He’s written the opening novellette The Battle of the Alma, which sets the scene and tone for the entire anthology. It’s an excellent piece of fiction with stellar world building. (I keep…[Read more]

Thanks, Raine. Looks good 😊

What would be ideal is an option to indent and insert replies following an entry so that they were clustered after the entry to which they refer. I haven’t seen enough of WordPress or BBpress etc. to be certain, but I think that reply threading only introduces indentation to nest replies, in the same way that replies are handled for “updates”. All…[Read more]

Unfortunately, AFAIK (which may be completely wrong) WordPress and its plug-ins only allow a single chain of posts, the idea being that you have a Topic followed by Replies to it. So the thread might go something like ENTRY1 – Comment on ENTRY1 – Comment on ENTRY1 – ENTRY2 – Comment on ENTRY1 – ENTRY3 – Comment on ENTRY2 etc. which is likely to be…[Read more]

The Memory Thing

I think it was reproach: that look on his face; or maybe despair. I only had a second to work it out as he fell backwards onto the tracks. That’s an odd way to put it. I mean, I wasn’t actually trying to work anything out, let alone his expression. And I was shocked; I hardly registered what happened. This man, this young man…[Read more]

Fabulous piece, Raine.