For Fear of the Forest

It was strange. One night in May 2014 I woke up in the early hours with the words 'For Fear of the Forest' in my head. I wrote the words down on a piece of paper and went back to sleep. The following day I sat in front of my computer and started writing. There was no plan. I had no idea what I was going to write about. All I had was the title: 'For Fear of the Forest'.

Mairsil the Warrior was the first character that I created, and I wrote Chapter 3 of Part 1: The Everlasting Spell about her skill with a sword. This developed into a goblin invasion of the village, Withyforge, thwarted by Mairsil and her band of female warriors. Chapter 3 needed some work in order to make it more exciting but, in the meantime, I needed a beginning.

In Chapter 3 I mentioned that a swift red squirrel messenger had been sent to the Greenwood Castle to alert the elves about the imminent goblin attack. The Squire Samuel. S. Squirrel appeared on the page, and I began writing Chapter 1: An urgent message, which describes his race through the forest to the elves castle, and the help he receives on the way from his friends Arthur the Acorn Fairy, Busy the Bumblebee and Randolph the magical Golden Hedgehog.

Chapter 2 deals with Arthur, Busy and Randolph and their journey on the river to Mouse's house. Here we are introduced to Old Twisted Tree the Lord of the Oaks, and the animals and birds that live on, or about, his person. Wilberforce the forgetful Wizard, whose spells are always going wrong, and his loyal but long-suffering steed, Dow the Donkey.

With hindsight, I think I may have written Chapter 5 before I wrote Chapter 4, but let me tell you about Chapter 4 first. The Gruesome Grotesque Grinning Goblin General has failed in his attempt to take Withyforge, and he has to report to his master, the greatest and most evil sorcerer alive, Durg-Baulder the Goblin King. The general is given a choice of deaths including.

1) Having his head chopped off by Durg-Baulder's dreadful mace.

2) Being gnawed by Durg-Baulder's pet rats....the size of rhinoceroses.

To the dismay of all the goblins Durg-Baulder changed his mind. He gave the general another chance, and told the guards to let the snivelling idiot go."Your soldiers are cowards, just like you. Get out of my sight before I chop your head off, and expose your cowardly yellow blood to the rest of this spineless mob. Now, go and prepare a thousand armoured bats and goblin soldiers for a raid on the Greenwood forest"

"A raid on the Greenwood forest, your magnificence, but hasn’t that horrible Elfin Queen put a spell on it so that we cannot enter?"

"Are you questioning me?"

"No, my lord, but you have never ordered a raid on the Greenwood forest before."

"Well, I am now, and you had better succeed, or else!"

"Yes, most high one."

And the next part of my blog about 'For Fear of the Forest' will be available soon. The book, printed in paperback, will be released on 22nd October.

Thank you for reading this post.