A Quest of my Own

Well, this is Aaron. Say hello, Aaron.


"Hello...."

There's a good boy. He's not used to me talking to him, so he may seem slightly hesitant. Why don't you tell our readers who you are, Aaron.

Aaron clears his throat. "My name is Aaron Troughton, son of the town weaponsmith in Kanterville."

Which is in Ynera, one of the kingdoms in south-central Xystia.

"Aye."

Aaron is the main character of a short story I wrote, oh, about three years ago, I believe. I can't recall for certain, but at any rate, I wrote it for a short story class my brothers and I took some time ago, and since then, I have been editing it off and on between working on the Outlander Trilogy and other writing projects. Well, finally, the time has come to actually publish it. My family -- my grandfather in particular -- has been nagging me to get something published. "Official", as they call it, and I attempt not to take offense at that. I have about a million things written that took quite some effort to get out of my head and onto paper, thank you very much. Just not as much of it is coherently edited, much to, it seems, pretty much everyone's great dismay and exasperation.

Aaron doesn't care either way, do you, Aaron?

Aaron scratches his head and shrugs.

See? Anyway. I'm posting this to say a couple things. The first thing is obvious; I'm publishing Aaron's Quest. Well, the first edition of it, at any rate.

The second thing is that I'm going to the 2013 OYAN Summer Workhop with my brother, Seph, which starts this coming Monday. That means I won't be around to post anything for at least a week. We're bringing back Ani and Dana and Wynni to stay with us for a week or so after that, so I'll probably be busy then, as well. I promise to do my best to take as many pictures as possible, as well as some video of this year's Celtic Day at the SW.

So, until I get Aaron's Quest published, that's all for now. Say goodbye, Aaron.

"Farewell." Aaron smiles and waves.

He seems such a sedate little fellow--

"I'm not little."

--but he has quite a bit in him, I assure you. He does turn up in book three of the Outlander Trilogy, at least once. Deciding that actually made finishing his story tolerable. I've been editing that dratted manuscript so much it drove me bonkers. Only near the end did I decide to set the story in Ynera, one of the kingdoms in Xystia, which is the story world for the Outlander Trilogy. Rather than medieval England. Research.... Not my favorite thing in the world.

And neither is formatting. FORMATTING. Ick.

Aaron fidgets."Should I say farewell again, or can I go?"

Say farewell again, because I'm done now. Really.

Aaron waves again. "Farewell!"

Dia duit,
~Penny

PS
Gracious, I can't believe I forgot to mention this! The illustrations in Aaron's Quest, including the one of Aaron that I included in this post, were all done by Robert Carter. He did an excellent job; the cartoon style drawings fit perfectly with the tone of the story itself. Thanks, Robert!