Larian 4 – Grandfather’s Locket

Posted on Posted in Novelettes, Writing as a Business, Writing Progress Tagged with , , , ,

Back in March, I decided to write another Larian story.  I’ve had fun with his last three adventures (How NOT To Rescue A Damsel In Distress, Measuring Up, and First Blood), and it seemed time to do another one.  Plus, just two more and I could make a collection of five stories, just about him (insert shameless mercenary grin here).

I initially figured the story would run around 5,000 words, but I didn’t have a target.  I rarely do, unless I have an assignment like during Dean’s Workshop.  When it came time to leave for the workshop, I was at around 4,000 words though, and I realized 5,000 was not going to happen.  I put the finishing touches on it this morning, removing a few typos and clarifying a thing or two that Ericka pointed out.  Final word count: 8,300.  Just a bit over 5,000.  🙂

So that makes it my fifth novelette, if you count The Champion, which I do.  You know what that means: as soon as I hear back from Writers of the Future about The Champion (which isn’t going to be for a while, not until the end of June probably), The Champion‘s going up.  And so is a collection of those five novelettes, in both ebook and print.  They together come to 58,000 words – long than Glimmer Vale, but just barely.  That will make a respectable little collection, I think.  🙂

Anyway, back to the topic at hand.

In Grandfather’s Pendant, Larian’s comrade-in-arms and friend, Jiles (we met him in Measuring Up) received a family heirloom in the mail: a silver pendant carved in the shape of an eagle, with sapphire eyes.  It’s a gift from his grandfather, who recently passed away, and has been in the family for generations.  But when he went out for some Liberty, Jiles lost it somewhere in the town of Mirasol, an hour’s wagon ride from their Company’s camp.  When Larian offers to help recover it, they find themselves drawn into Mirasol’s dark underbelly, and encounter danger they never would have expected from a night out on Liberty.

Grandfather’s Pendant is $2.99.  It’s live now on Smashwords and DriveThruFiction.  It will be live on Amazon and Barnes and Noble within the day, and on the Smashwords distribution channels in a couple weeks.

UPDATE – It’s not live on Amazon as well.