Character focus: Josette Barbier

Painting: William-Adolphe Bouguereau, "Reverie sur le seuil"

This is the first in a series of articles highlighting characters from my second Alpine Dawn novel, The Invisible Path. Don't forget to sign up to my mailing list for advance notice of publication!

Two kinds of characters inhabit my novels: those who were once real historical figures, and those who are entirely the products of my imagination. I love both kinds for different reasons, but I can have the most fun with characters who are entirely mine. Josette is of that class.

I've been complimented before on the strength of my female characters, but I don't really make a distinction; I try to create strong characters, and gender is incidental. Never has that been more true than of Josette Barbier. She is one of the main characters of The Invisible Path, and her character arc is absolutely critical to the future of the entire series.

The portrait above is from an 1893 painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau. It's the closest image I can find to her likeness, although it isn't quite right; I see Josette wearing an old-fashioned frock coat with missing buttons, face smeared with red brick dust, and a percussion pistol concealed under layers of ragged clothing. Her eyes are savage. Maybe there's blood on her sleeve.

Who is Josette? She's at once fragile and dangerous — a little bird, a starving creature from the slums of Paris, but she has known more heartbreak and suffering in her nineteen years than many experience in their entire lives. Although from a wealthy middle-class background, her family disintegrated years before the events of the story. Her father, Armand Barbier, had been a successful lecturer at the Hôtel-Dieu, but gradually surrendered to an obsession regarding a mythical peak lost in the wilderness of the Alps, and the legend surrounding it: the Pégremont.

After the family fell apart, Josette's mother died in poverty, leaving the child to fend for herself at the age of fourteen.

She has lived alone on the streets ever since. She has suffered rape, starvation, misery, and has been forced to steal and kill in order to survive. Josette is tough, but she doesn't always look it. In the revolutionary year 1848, Josette joins the fight for bread or death against General Cavaignac's armies.

So what is her role in the story?

When she was a child, her father was tutor to a young English medical student named Albert Smith. Smith and Josette became friends, but Smith left Paris years before Josette and her mother began their life on the streets. Smith returns to Paris in 1848 to find his old tutor, seeking answers to questions about the Pégremont legend.

The Barricade Saint-Martin, where Smith and Josette fight for their lives in The Invisible Path

He is caught up in the revolutionary war sweeping the city and plucked from death by the more streetwise Josette — a woman he hardly recognises from the bright child he once knew. Reluctantly (for she did not part from her father on good terms) she helps Smith seek an audience with the old man. They find him living in reduced circumstances; his obsession has driven him to poverty, just as it did the rest of his family.

Disastrous events follow (spoilers, so I won't give the plot away just yet!) and Smith finds his destiny intertwined with Josette's. They leave the wreck of Paris together and travel to Zermatt, seeking the answers to questions posed by Barbier. Although the trail went cold decades ago, Smith thinks he can be the one to solve the mystery of the Pégremont. His motivations — and the grand quest which consumes the thoughts of several of my characters — will be the subject of a future article.

Josette is permanently damaged by the events of Paris. Smith has a promise to keep, but he is too blinded by the thrill of the adventure to recognise what is happening to his travelling companion — and she has been very silent over the past few weeks. When the dam bursts, it bursts with violence.

Section I of the book concerns Albert Smith's first attempt to follow the invisible path, but Section II is all about Josette and how she pushes against the forces that seek to govern her future. Despite all her efforts to avoid it, she gradually becomes just as committed to the quest for the Pégremont as Albert Smith — although she has absolutely no intention of performing the role he has in mind for her. And she is haunted by the obsession that destroyed her family when she was a child and ruined all the happiness she once knew.

Josette is one of my favourite characters in this project, and she continues to be unpredictable and difficult to work with — which is usually a good sign!

How Zermatt would have looked when Smith and Josette visited in 1848

Alpine Dawn II — a teaser

As many of you know, I am currently writing the much-delayed second volume to my Alpine Dawn series. The first volume, The Atholl Expedition, is currently available on Kindle and in paperback. I hope to release the second, The Invisible Path, this year.

Here's a portion of a scene in which Josette Barbier sees the mountains of the Alps for the first time, and meets a significant character. As always, this is uncorrected rough draft material.

***

1848 — JUNE

Josette wandered alone.

Smith had not seen her leave the inn. He was busy with his work, and since they had left the smoking wreck of Paris he had spoken of little but his quest.

La Pégremont. Her heart broke a little more each time she heard him utter that name. She did not even know precisely what it was, but she knew what it meant to her — the destruction of a once-happy family, the abandonment of her mother to a life of shame and poverty; finally the death of her father and the city she had loved above all else.

Her life had been filled with happiness before the quest had consumed her father's mind, leaving room for nothing more.

Now Albert, her childhood friend and the last untainted memory from the time before all had failed and wilted, could think of nothing but the quest which had ruined every moment of her life.

Tormented, she trod the crooked alleys of Zermatt, giving no thought to her direction of travel. She passed beneath the eaves of the church and the hummocky earth of the burial ground. To her surprise, the charnel house had no door. Morbid curiosity got the better of her and she peered into the timber structure to see a raven pecking at a skull.

She shivered and drew her ragged dress more tightly around her shoulders. She had heard of the savage practices of these remote valleys.

Within a few minutes of walking she had left the village. She was astonished that it could be so small, but then she had never before left Paris. They had passed through many villages on the long stagecoach journey across France and through Geneva, but none appeared to merge into the wilderness as abruptly as this one. After the last ramshackle hay loft, the road plunged directly into an ocean of rippling grassland, painted iridescent shades of green and magenta by the brisk sun and a steady wind from the valley head. Her gaze followed a wave in the long grass as it sped away from her with a sound like dry grain falling through her fingers. The ripple passed through a cloud shadow, parted at a gigantic boulder, and finally died a little way up the slope where the first stands of trees stood guarding the mountain ramparts above.

She had felt absent on the journey from Paris: a ghost, her mind imprisoned by the carefree betrayal of her genial travelling companion; blind to her surroundings as visions of fire, death, and the annihilation of the world she knew occupied all of her senses.

Now her senses were open. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. Outside the stale atmosphere of the village, she breathed the purest air she had ever tasted. It was ... cold, yet also warm. She smelled what she imagined to be the scent of distant snow, and flowers, and ripe grass, and animals free to roam and to live — not confined in stinking cellar pens that smelt of death.

She opened her eyes, and allowed that lowest fringe of forest to capture her gaze and sweep upward. Trees, trees by the million, stretched in an unbroken swathe from the edge of the grassland to a point higher in the sky that she would have believed possible. The textures delighted her as much as the colours. The world she knew was made of hard lines and dull shades, and mud, everywhere mud; but here was a rich, random, organic tapestry like nothing she had ever seen.

Only after her eyes had drank in every detail of that wild forest did she dare raise her head and look higher still.

And she beheld the ice world.

A dome of white dominated the valley. It was the biggest thing she had ever seen. Fractured into crystalline shapes, with a smoothed-over brow that reflected a delicate blue, it seemed as distant as Heaven. When she squinted at it, the light was so powerful that it seared her eyes. A great tendril of snow reached down from that elevated plateau, tumbling in chaotic shapes down the valley a few miles to the south. It looked rather like a slumbering dragon; dark lines or ridges followed the curves of its spine, and a torrent sprang from a cavern where its mouth would be. If she listened carefully she could hear cracks, bangs and echoes carrying on the wind.

She wondered if that was what her father had called a "glacier". It frightened her a little; she wondered when the beast would awaken and bring ruin to the people who lived in the valley below.

So intent had Josette been in her study of the mountain that she failed to notice the approach of a stranger until his shadow fell upon her. She gasped and shrank back, suddenly wary.

'Do not be frightened, miss!'

The man's voice was low, rich, with a curious nasal accent. She understood his French, but it was not Parisian.

She looked up. At first she saw only the silhouette of a powerful man, all wide-brimmed hat and square shoulders; but then her eyes adjusted to the harsh lighting and she found herself able to discern a few details.

He was of medium height — not more than a few inches taller than she was herself — and wore a much-darned shirt of chequered fabric, loose at the collar. He carried a jacket over his left shoulder and supported himself with a long pole. She noted a hatchet wedged in his belt, and beneath his hat the skin of his face was deeply lined and tanned the colour of old leather. An enormous black beard completed the picture, but it was his eyes that captured her attention: uncommonly large, mobile, and imbued with an intelligence she had not expected.

'I am sorry, Monsieur,' she replied instinctively, stepping out of his way, averting her eyes.

'Nothing to be sorry for.' She saw him smile in her peripheral vision. 'And I am no Monsieur. They call me Balmat.'

Work in Progress Blog Tour — The Invisible Path

I've been nominated by Lucas Bale to participate in a work in progress blog tour. Lucas Bale is an author I've welcomed to my blog before, and it's been my privilege to work with him recently on the No Way Home anthology (coming out March 2nd, more information here). Lucas writes compelling science fiction and if you have any interest in the genre you really ought to check out his books. Each new one is better than the last, and if the teaser on his blog tour post is anything to go by, A Shroud of Night and Tears will be the best yet.

Here are the rules guidelines of the blog tour.

1. Link back to the post of the person who nominated you. Here's Lucas's post.
2. Write a little about and give the first sentence of the first three chapters of your current work in progress.
3. Nominate some other writers to do the same.

My work in progress: The Invisible Path (Alpine Dawn II)

Chamouni in the early 19th century

The second novel of my Alpine Dawn cycle has been gestating for a very long time now, but in recent months I have made significant progress and am currently almost 50,000 words into a rough draft. The year is 1848 and many of the characters from The Atholl Expedition return to follow an elusive quest that takes them from the hills of Deeside to the high Alps.

Albert Smith

Albert Smith makes his debut in this novel. Smith is a hack writer, journalist, stage showman and would-be Alpine explorer, but he has repeatedly failed to climb Mont Blanc and seeks a fresh challenge. When he discovers the story of the Pégremont, a legendary mountain of ice rumoured to exist somewhere in the wilderness between Chamouni and Zermatt, he becomes obsessed with the hunt for the peak. The Pégremont myth is a sinister tale involving loss, bloodshed and treachery — and it extends back into the last decades of the 18th century, when the great explorer and philosopher H.B. de Saussure first turned his gaze on the glaciers of the Alps.

Professor James Forbes, the Scottish geologist who stars in The Atholl Expedition, returns in this adventure. He has a very personal connection with the Pégremont tragedy. Besides, his professional curiosity is provoked by the rumour of a mountain of ice that may be navigated beneath its surface. An expedition could provide the evidence he needs to complete his grand unified theory of glaciology.

As events move towards the 1850s, the actions of these characters begin to lay the foundations for the great wave of exploration that will later become known as the Golden Age of Alpinism.

1. Prelude — August 1832 — The Mer de Glace, Chamouni, Territory of Savoy

'I can see something down there. A coat — perhaps a coat!'

'Do not be absurd, Monsieur. Nobody has been here for twenty years.'

'Lower me some more, Couttet.'

James Forbes gripped the rope with both hands as his guide lowered him in jerks and stops into the abyss. The fibres quickly froze to his bare skin. After the heat of the glacier's surface, up there in the open sun, it was a refreshing sensation — but he knew that soon the cold would work its way beneath his layers of woollen clothing, probing and teasing, sapping his warmth.

2. Chapter 1 — June 1848 — Montmartre, Paris

A brick crashed through Smith's hotel room window. He woke instantly, groped for his pocket-watch, but the reflected sunlight from the courtyard blinded him. Of only two facts could he be certain: first, that he had overslept; and second, that this was Paris, his second home — but an exceedingly dangerous place for an Englishman at this precise moment.

3. Chapter 2 — June 1848 — The Île de la Cité, Paris

Smith very deliberately did not believe in destiny. He had written articles on the subject, satirising those who believed they had a calling, or who read great significance into chance encounters or coincidences. Life is complicated enough, he had written for The Comic Almanack some years ago, without believing cosmic forces direct our steps and set out a path that we must follow. One advises the intelligent reader to take responsibility for his actions before ascribing events to the work of the Almighty.

My onward nominations

To continue the blog tour, I would like to nominate the following authors.

Stuart Ayris writes a variety of literary and historical fiction, and I have found his books weird, wonderful, and heart-warming. Tollesbury Time Forever is of particular note and quite simply defies description.

Michael Brookes is an author who specialises in the genres of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. His Third Path Trilogy features a mind-reading psychopath as a main character, and it was recently my pleasure to edit the third book in the series, The Last True Demon. It's epic stuff.

Alpine Dawn II progress report

"I lifted my eyes up to the heavens, and saw above me the eternal snows

of the Monarch herself, Mont Blanc."

— James Forbes

Most of my progress reports on Alpine Dawn II so far this year have been heavy on excuses and light on progress, but I'm glad to say that work has resumed on this novel in a meaningful way. It won't be out in time for the end of this year, but a summer 2015 release is starting to look likely — and I believe a longer gestation time is creating a better book.

Working titles

Firstly there's the issue of what this book is going to be called. At this stage I really can't tell you. Working titles have included The Solomon Gordon Papers, Kingsley's Challenge, A Year of Revolution, and (most recently) The Invisible Path. The problem is that this novel is a window into a huge story played out by a large cast of characters over nearly seventy years, and over the last thirty-odd months my focus has changed more than once as I find the right viewpoints (in both time and space) for the story I really want to tell.

I have already written and discarded over sixty thousand words. This story matters to me, and it needs to be told in the right way. In some respects the birth of Alpinism is the greatest story ever told, and while I don't hold my own fictional take on these events to such an impossibly high standard, I am determined that it shall be the best it can possibly be.

At the time of writing I have thirty thousand words that will make it into the final version, but much remains to be done.

This is the first time I have worked on anything of this scale before. It's like an iceberg. The submerged portion is bewilderingly huge and it has taken me years to make sense of it, but I won't inflict all this backstory on my poor readers. The end result is being neatly packaged into the series of novels I call Alpine Dawn. I will have failed in my job if I can't tell this tale in less than two hundred thousand words, all said.

The beginning

It all began in 1784 in the remote village of Savoy known as Chamouni. A Genevan scientist and explorer, H.B. de Saussure, offered a cash prize to the first man who could stand on the summit of what was believed to be the highest mountain in the world: Mont Blanc.

Two friends, Jean-Marie Couttet and Jaques Balmat, searched for the route together. They were crystal collectors and chamois hunters by profession although both had started to earn a supplementary wage by guiding travellers over high passes.

On the 8th of August, 1786, the world changed. Balmat made it to the summit of Mont Blanc, but his companion was the physician Michel-Gabriel Paccard — not his friend Couttet. Couttet was bitterly disappointed that his name would be forgotten while Balmat's would live forever. He finally made it to the summit the next year, but it was the beginning of a feud that, in my fictional storyline, came to shape the 19th century and — ultimately — the destiny of the present day.

The actual narrative of Alpine Dawn II largely takes place in the years 1848-9, but I hope this taster has demonstrated that I am working with a story that goes far beyond the desires and fears of the characters I introduced to my readers in The Atholl Expedition. The book will be ready when it's ready, but I am confident that it will be worth the wait.

When's the next book coming out, Alex?

2014 has whooshed past in something of a blur. My plan at the start of the year was to release three titles: one major novel, plus two shorter companion pieces. I’m sorry to say that I’m on track for releasing precisely nothing.

Work continues on A Year of Revolution — the sequel to The Atholl Expedition and the next volume in the Alpine Dawn cycle — but it’s nowhere near ready and I only have a few chapters completed. A Christmas release just isn’t going to happen, and at the rate I’m going it will take another six months. As for other titles, I have made progress on a science fiction short story for an anthology project, but that’s about it.

Worse still, 2014 has been a year decidedly light on mountains. I managed three trips. The first, in January, had to be called off due to terrible weather. In May we went to Edale for a few days, which was enjoyable, and in July I went to the Alps, which was a significant and worthwhile expedition. However, I’ve only stood on two summits all year and it’s starting to feel like a really long time since my last adventure in the Scottish hills.

Last year I was productive, discliplined, and made short work of Atholl’s first draft. I also managed to fit in several excellent trips to the mountains. So what happened this year?

Real life intervenes

Until recently I worked part time as a consultant at the Carphone Warehouse. This job worked reasonably well for me last year and I managed to fit both writing and mountaineering trips around my shifts (which generally didn’t exceed four days a week). The balance worked.

However, our manager left late in the year to help a struggling store and that’s when things unravelled. As a small team of four, we worked well together — but removing a key component changed the dynamics. Another member of staff left shortly afterwards, leaving just me and the new manager. We entered crisis mode. As far as I can tell, the store remains in crisis mode nearly a year later.

Early this year I was working 6–7 days a week. At first I thought this would just be for a month or so, until we found new members of staff, but somehow we failed to hire anyone for months. Few people applied for the job, and the candidates we called in for interview were astoundingly bad. Eventually we hired someone, but they only lasted two shifts.

After months of burning the candle at both ends, we finally hired someone who was actually suitable for the role. By this point I already knew that Carphone wasn’t working out, but it wasn’t until July that I made the decision to go freelance and establish Pinnacle Editorial. I owed it to my colleagues to wait until a reliable new member of staff was on board before I could leave.

Of course, from that point on I have been dedicating every working hour to getting my new business off the ground and establishing a client base. I’m glad to say that things are going well in that regard, and my working week is full of varied and interesting work, but I am not yet at the stage where I can relax and focus on other things. New ventures — particularly freelance ones — require time to nurture and grow.

Excuses, excuses

I know, I know. If I was a real writer I would have found time — etcetera etcetera. I’m aware of all the motivational ephemera floating around the Web that exists to make writers believe that if the words aren’t flowing out of them in a torrent at all times then they shouldn’t be doing it. The fact is that not all writers are alike, and for me much of the work of writing is an unconscious process that does not involve putting words down on the page. I can be sat staring into space and still writing. Most of the work is done by my characters, anyway … all I have to do is record what they are up to.

Being serious for a moment, there are also priorities to consider. Writing is not my main source of income. For most of this year I have had to prioritise the things that pay the rent.

Balance

It’s all about balance.

For me, the ideal balance allows me to dedicate several hours every week to writing — not necessarily every day, because I don’t have to write every single day to be productive. This balance would allow me to conduct my editorial work from 10–6 every day (my preferred working hours). It would also allow me to read for an hour or two in the evening, and give me the time and money to escape to the hills for a few days every couple of months. A day off every week for a long bike ride or hike through the Wolds is also an important ingredient.

This is the balance I am trying to build in my life. I very nearly hit it last year for a few months; the only sour note was the uncertainty and stress of a day job that I was never particularly good at.

In 2015 I will have more control over my life than ever before. I am master of my own time and can assign it as I see fit. The ideal balance will take a little while to achieve, and I have no doubt that I’ll have to continue prioritising my editorial work for much of 2015 … but I also know that I’ll only have myself to blame if I don’t find the time to write as well.

Thanks for reading, and if you’re one of my readers then thanks also for your patience. The new book is going to be worth the wait.

Three years of work on Alpine Dawn

In summer 2011, I read a book that would change my life.

That book was Travels Through the Alps of Savoy by James Forbes. I've already discussed it many times on this blog, so I won't go into it again now, but it is sufficient to say that it introduced me to a new period of Alpine history and a remarkable character who achieved more over the span of a single summer than most scientists achieve in their entire lives.

In 2011, I was working on The Only Genuine Jones and planning a sequel set in the Zermatt and Evolene area. However, after reading Travels I was seized by a grand new idea and abandoned all plans for a Jones sequel.

Early stages

At first my new project was simply called 1848 and it took me nearly a year to do the preliminary round of research and reading I needed to do in order to get up to speed on the era and the history. By 2012 it had a new name: Alpine Dawn, a phrase taken from the works of James Forbes (who speaks of "standing on the threshold of an Alpine dawn" in 1842, which is remarkably prophetic considering the golden age of Alpinism began not much more than a decade afterwards).

I started working on a first draft in 2012, and by the end of the year I had four chapters written ... but it was hard work, harder by far than anything I had written before. On New Year's Eve I wrote:

Alpine Dawn is not easy to write. It haunts me, challenges me, defies easy classification or comfort. I suspect it has the potential to hold more truth than anything I have written before, but it will have to be wrenched from me, and it won't be ready for a long time.

In early 2013 I got bogged down, decided the tone was too bleak and that my main character, Thomas Kingsley, wasn't sympathetic enough. I archived everything I had written and started work on a sideline project which later became The Atholl Expedition.

A bigger picture emerges

I picked up my old Alpine Dawn manuscript and realised that what made the story great was not the details, but the bigger picture. I scrapped the character of Thomas Kingsley, abandoned the dismal Victorian London setting, and focused on my key characters: James Forbes, Albert Smith, and the shadowy legacy of Horace Benedict de Saussure. I wanted to create a grand vision of hope and enlightenment, not financial ruin and despair.

Echoes of my story can be seen everywhere in The Atholl Expedition and it soon occurred to me that this book was, in truth, a prologue to the tale I really wanted to tell. So that decision was easy. The Atholl Expedition became Alpine Dawn Book I. It's a very optimistic novel and it reflects my vision perfectly.

Instead of being hopelessly overwhelmed by a huge plot far too big to be contained in a single novel, I decided to split it into more manageable parts and focus on each at once. The tactic worked. The Atholl Expedition was completed in a timely fashion and published at Christmas 2013.

A Year of Revolution

I am currently working on Book II, which originally had the (rather boring) working title of The Solomon Gordon Papers. I'm now using the title A Year of Revolution instead, which reflects the fact that 1848 is the year everything changes — the tipping point beyond which the actions of my characters begin to have consequences on a European scale.

A Year of Revolution focuses initially on Albert Smith, the London journalist, showman and mountaineer who seeks the answer to the legend of the Pegremont — a mountain of ice discovered by the great explorer Saussure in the 18th century, but lost ever since. The book opens with the June revolution in Paris and Smith finds himself on the barricades, desperate to make his rendezvous with Doctor Barbier of the Hotel Dieu, his old tutor — and an amateur Alpine historian who Smith believes knows the truth behind the Pegremont. He is helped by a savage young woman called Josette who organises the defence against General Cavaignac's National Guard.

It's the beginning of a series of events that will lead to Balmoral, and the hunt for Solomon Gordon's papers — the documents that hold the key that will unlock the mystery of the Alps.

The future

I foresee no end to this series as of yet. After three years of work I have completed one novel, am a good way into a second, and have a third (The Ice World) partially planned. The opportunities for the future are virtually limitless. The Alpine golden age is filled with drama and romance, larger-than-life characters and legends, and it remains an untapped gold mine for the writer of mountain fiction.

People have asked me How many books will there be in the Alpine Dawn series? but the truth is that I simply don't know!

A return to the Western Alps

My blog has been far too quiet this year, and that's a reflection on the fact that the day job has been occupying more of my time, and (as I recently lamented) I have been able to enjoy fewer trips to the mountains.

However, that is about to change.

Between 2007 and 2010 I visited the Alps three times. It was a natural progression from my mountaineering in Scotland, and my trips (usually accompanied by James) had a focus on getting to the top of big peaks. We had some stunning days out — quite literally high points in my life, the most notable being the moment we stood on the west summit of Lyskamm at 4,479m above sea level.

The ice world is completely unlike anywhere else I've ever been. It's a place of ferocious heat and cold, low oxygen levels, harsh light, and skies a far deeper shade of blue than anything experienced on the surface of the earth. Everything is exaggerated. Timekeeping and a lightweight pack are critical to the preservation of life.

My climbs in the Alps changed my thinking forever and directly spawned the books I continue to work on to this day. Unfortunately, since 2010 I have been unable to return due to work commitments.

I booked a week of holiday at the end of June, and my original plan was to return to the Cairngorms and do a bit of backpacking. However, something made me change my mind and look a bit further afield for my adventure.

The Voyage of Professor Forbes

In 1842, Professor James Forbes (a main character in The Atholl Expedition) conducted a grand voyage throughout the Western Alps. One of the earliest British explorers to turn a critical and scientific eye on the ice world, his achievements that year included laying the foundation of modern glaciology and a pioneering survey that rewrote the map of Savoy (now part of Switzerland, Italy, and France). His writeup of that momentous summer can be read today in the form of Travels Through the Alps of Savoy and Other Parts of the Pennine Chain.

Travels is one of the first pieces of truly engaging British literature from the dawn of the Alpine golden age. Its tone, which reads more like a story than a travel narrative (although it has been compared with an epic poem) was widely imitated by other Alpine classics and echoes of Forbes' voice can be detected in the works of Whymper, Mummery, and Stephen.

I have wanted to follow his grand journey for years, and now I have found the opportunity to replicate a small portion of his route.

My route of choice

On the 29th of June I will fly from Heathrow to Geneva, travel to Aosta, and begin my backpacking route. I plan to walk the length of the Valpelline, cross the Col Collon and descend the Haute Glacier d'Arolla to Arolla itself. My journey will end at Evolene, the ancient capital of the Val d'Herens. The total length is about 40 miles, and I've allowed myself five days to do it, which should permit a leisurely pace with plenty of time to take in the scenery and climb a mountain or two on the way.

This section of Travels Through the Alps is one of the most memorable, in my opinion. When Forbes stood on the Col Collon with his companions he discovered the skeleton of a traveller in the snow. Surrounded by such remote grandeur, he was moved to write a few lines on the awesome nature of the landscape.

"... we turned and surveyed, with a stronger sense of sublimity than before, the desolation by which we were surrounded, and became still more sensible of our isolation from human dwellings, human help, and human sympathy — our loneliness with nature, and, as it were, the more immediate presence of God. At such moments all refinements of sentiment are forgotten; religion or superstition may tinge the reflections of one or another, but, at the bottom, all think and feel alike. We are men, and we stand in the chamber of death."

I think this passage reflects the views of a vanishing age in the history of Alpinism. By 1842 the golden age of mountaineering was only a decade away, modern maps were being drawn, travellers were starting to penetrate the deeper valleys, and the Alps would not remain a fearful realm of ghosts and demons for much longer. Today there is a C.A.I hut just beneath the Col Collon and it is a popular route with hikers, but I shall try to see an echo of the old Alps as I follow in the footsteps of James Forbes.

Breaking the ice on a new novel - the pilot chapter method

Actually getting started on a new novel can be a difficult step. Every writer is different: some of us leap headfirst into a new project, eager to get going, while others linger over characterisation and plot plans.

I tend to fall into the latter category. I have failed on novels before due to poor planning, so nowadays I like to be sure everything is ready before I write a line of the story. I spend weeks (or sometimes even months) conducting research, writing notes, drawing up detailed character files. I write complex historical novels so it would be foolish to jump into the deep end before I'm ready.

However, sometimes it pays to set aside the research and just get stuck in — even if it's only to test the waters.

The Pilot Chapter

What do I mean by a 'pilot chapter'? Put simply, it's a test run. It lets you explore characters, themes, and plot elements without committing to anything. Think of it as a sketchbook.

I'm currently at the point in planning Alpine Dawn II (boring working title The Solomon Gordon Papers) where most of the prewriting has been done and I'm itching to get into the meat of the story — however, I'm well aware that I'm not quite ready yet. I still need to outline the overall plot and answer some important questions before I begin.

I'm introducing some new main characters in this volume, including the journalist and showman Albert Smith. The pilot chapter I'm currently working on is set in Paris on the 23rd of June, 1848 — a date when revolutionary battles broke out between the desperate workers of the eastern quarters and the government forces of the west. This won't necessarily be the actual first chapter of the finished book, but by putting Smith in a stressful situation I can learn about how he acts and reacts as a character. The chapter is also answering lingering questions about various subplots.

As you might expect, I began by creating a first line. Here's mine:

A brick crashed through Smith's hotel room window.

Will it end up as the first line of the book? Probably not, but for now it's serving its purpose.

As a Springboard

Sometimes the pilot chapter can be something more: it can be the seed for the first draft. If the story really takes off and you find yourself three chapters in and still going strong, you're probably onto something good and should just keep going!

This is more or less what happened when I was working on The Only Genuine Jones. After two false starts — one of which got to over 20,000 words in length — I eventually decided just to start writing, no pressure, and see what happened. That pilot chapter worked well and, with a few modifications, became the final version of Chapter 1 as it exists today.

Ultimately we're all different. The pilot chapter method will be completely unsuitable for some writers; after all, some novelists don't plan their books at all, and thrive on jumping straight in. However, for those of us who like to plan for every eventuality before committing words to the page, the pilot chapter method can be a great way of breaking the ice on a new book.

The Solomon Gordon papers, 1787 - 1789

"Who is Saussure? I hear his name everywhere about town this morning. Can it be that I am to have civilised company in this execrable valley at last?"

"... For now that I have seen it, I confess that my thoughts are elevated from this abyss of sin in which we all wallow and up to the immaculate heavens of Mont Blanc."

I am currently working on Book II of my Alpine Dawn project, a series of novels that aims to examine the origins of mountaineering - with my own unique fictional slant on events, of course. Book I, The Atholl Expedition, has been well received and is currently selling far better than my first novel ever did.

However, Atholl is only the very first step.

In Book I we see a glimpse of Scotland in the days before the mountaineers arrived, but everywhere there are echoes and hints of a wider context and larger storyline. By the year 1847 mountaineering was already a venerable and established pastime in the Alps, but it had not yet spread to Great Britain. I am interested in the interplay between Alpine mountaineers and activities on our own British mountains. I chose the 1840s because that decade stood at a turning point between the quieter world of the "old Alps" and the Golden Age in which all of the major Alpine peaks were climbed.

In the second volume the reader will get a slightly wider view in preparation for events that take place in the Alps in Book III.

The Solomon Gordon papers

Solomon Gordon is a character I have invented to provide critical backstory for my plot, both motivating actions in the present day of the book and influencing events far in the future - arguably right up to the 1897 of The Only Genuine Jones. He was born in 1760 and in the years between 1787 and 1789 was involved in a scandal known as the Swiss affair.

I am currently in the process of creating a set of fictional documents known to my characters as "the Solomon Gordon papers." Since they have been lost since the 1820s, the precise contents of these papers are not known, but it is in the best interests of certain parties that they remain hidden.

Albert Smith, explorer and showman, desperately wants to read these papers and his efforts to locate them form an important storyline in Alpine Dawn II. Solomon Gordon is an ancestor of James Forbes and the frail glaciologist will return in my third novel - but he does not necessarily want the contents of the Solomon Gordon papers to become public.

Pegremont

Why does Smith want to find the Solomon Gordon papers so desperately? What secret can they possibly contain? The answer is another mystery that goes by the name of "Pegremont."

Smith doesn't know much about the Pegremont apart from myths and rumours he has managed to gather during his voyages through the Alps since the late 1830s. Legend has it that the Pegremont is a mountain of ice that can be found on no contemporary map and can be seen from no accessible summit. Most intriguingly of all, everything Smith has painstakingly discovered so far points towards one remarkable idea: that is is possible to navigate a course beneath the surface.

It is believed that Saussure's expedition of 1789, accompanied by Solomon Gordon, may have reconnoitered the Pegremont. However, no notes on the expedition were ever published, Gordon himself died shortly afterwards, and within a matter of weeks the storming of the Bastille and subsequent events in France resulted in the loss of Saussure's entire fortune and estate. The Swiss affair (hushed up very efficiently by Lord Haddo) caused massive damage to several of the most powerful families in the British aristocracy.

The mystery has captivated both Smith and Forbes. Both are determined to find out the truth - and, if possible, to rediscover this lost mountain of ice that proved so catastrophic for so many people in the late 18th century.

That's just about all I'm willing to divulge at this point, but hopefully it's whetted your appetite for Book II! I'd better get back to writing these mysterious Solomon Gordon papers...

Defeated by Lochnagar but inspired by Balmoral

Wham! The gust of wind punched me in the chest, lifted me off my feet, and hurled me twenty feet back through the air to land, dazed, on a snowbank. I struggled to get up again but the force of the wind was relentless, pushing me back step by step, crushing me to the ground.

I had never experienced wind like it: ferocious, elemental, irresistible. When I saw "gusts to 60mph" in the forecast I thought I could handle it, but faced with an exposed climb ahead I couldn't risk being blown off my feet a second time. It was galling to turn back less than 200m from the summit, but I had no choice.

The plan

The plan had been simple enough: get the bus to Crathie, walk to the Gelder Shiel bothy where I would spend the night, and climb Lochnagar the next day. Unfortunately things started going wrong almost from the very start.

My train was late at Grantham, which caused a knock-on effect resulting in massive delays later on in the journey. I missed the last bus from Aberdeen to Deeside, so had to stay in the Aberdeen youth hostel overnight. When I arrived at Crathie the next morning, I spent several hours scouting out the Balmoral estate.

Balmoral

The Balmoral estate will be a primary setting for Alpine Dawn Book II - as yet unnamed, but set in 1848 and 1849. A big reason for going on this trip at all was to conduct some field research and get a feel for the area myself.

My first discovery was that it's virtually impossible to actually see Balmoral castle from anywhere! The trees have grown up a great deal, and I couldn't even see a glimpse of the turrets from the top of the nearby hill (or from the other side of the river Dee). Happily, this is of no importance to me as the modern castle bears no resemblance to the building that would have existed in 1848. The first castle was demolished in the 1850s as it was too small for the Royal household.

The River Dee, taken from the bridge built by Brunel

I did, however, make some useful discoveries. The current kirk dates from 1895, and replaces an earlier building constructed in 1804. The head keeper of Balmoral in 1848, a man named Grant who had six sons, lived in a cottage a mile from the castle with a good view of Lochnagar. Victoria, Albert and their children built a number of cairns on the hillside in commemoration of their purchase of the Balmoral freehold in 1852 (until this point they had the castle and estate on lease from Lord Aberdeen).

I walked up to find Victoria's cairn and was treated to a spectacular view as I came upon it:

Queen Victoria's cairn

I have come to know Victoria and Albert quite well over the last year as they are major characters in The Atholl Expedition and shall certainly be returning in the next book. Far from the conventional, stuffy figures most people call to mind when they think of Victorian royalty, these people were actually fascinating characters who did a huge amount of good in their lifetimes. They also had many positive qualities, including a genuine concern for the lives and wellbeing of their servants.

My books don't take sides when it comes to the class warfare of the 19th century. My job as author is to show the story from all possible sides, which is why in The Atholl Expedition I picked characters from every possible level of the social spectrum. All of these people have qualities both good and bad. Some may criticise me for portraying the Royal couple in a positive light, perhaps wishing that I had instead pursued some political or social agenda in my novels, but I see no need to take sides in a war that is no longer being fought (or, at least, no longer being fought in the same way or on the same fronts).

I stood for a few minutes on the high prow of rock where Victoria and Albert first looked out on the estate they had purchased, and I don't mind telling you it was quite a touching moment for me. They found such happiness in their visits to Blair Atholl, but it was always at the sufferance of the true owner (the 6th Duke of Atholl). In Balmoral they were finally able to create a miniature world all of their own. They also did a lot of good in the local area, providing employment, improving infrastructure, and boosting the economy.

Gelder Shiel

After exploring Balmoral I walked to Gelder Shiel in increasingly strong winds; however, the weather was otherwise good and, despite the forecast, I convinced myself that the next day would be acceptable for climbing.

Gelder Shiel is a comfortable little bothy and I spent about 15 hours there in total. Once unpacked, I spent a fair bit of time writing up notes from my research I'd carried out in the Balmoral estate, and fleshing out ideas for my next book.

At Gelder Shiel

Lochnagar

I started the walk-in to Lochnagar just before dawn. It felt pretty windy in Glen Gelder but I was confident things would improve later on. The sky was clear and I was treated to some absolutely stunning cloud and light effects as the sun rose.

Dawn

A herd of red deer

A well-constructed (even perhaps a little obtrusive) track cuts through the reserve and eases the initial walk-in, but after the first mile much of the track was drifted over with snow of varying thickness and quality. It hadn't really got below freezing overnight at this altitude so the breakable crust on the snow was rarely strong enough to hold my weight, and consequently travel was far more laborious than I had expected.

The approach to Lochnagar

I broke away from the track and began the ascent of Lochnagar, cutting up behind Meikle Pap to reach the col on the NE Ridge. I had already decided against climbing any of the gullies as I had seen avalanche debris from as far away as the hut. Freezing level was at about 900m but windchill was at least -10 or -15 at that altitude.

As I climbed, the crusty snow lay in deeper drifts and it got windier ... and windier ... and windier!

Above the snowline

Soon forward progress was a real battle and I was constantly having to stop and lean against my alpenstock to avoid being blown backwards. As I approached the col I got hit by some monster gusts, far in excess of 60mph in my opinion, and when I finally got blown over (while on the steep slope above the col) I decided enough was enough.

Ominous lenticular clouds

The prospect of getting bowled off that ridge by another gust was not an appealing one, given the huge drops on either side, so at about 1000m altitude I reluctantly decided to turn back: a decision made all the more galling by the gorgeous blue skies.

On the way down, an expansive view of the Balmoral Forest

Back at the bothy, I collected my sleeping kit and began the tramp back to the road. My original plan at this point was to catch a bus up the glen and sleep overnight at the Slugain Howff before making an attempt on Beinn a'Bhuird the next day (taking advantage of a weather window). However, it was dark by the time I jumped on board the bus, and given the fact that the Slugain Howff is both secret and exceptionally well-hidden, I didn't much fancy my chances of finding it in the dark! A friend had told me the approximate location, but I'd never been there before. I decided to find accomodation in Braemar.

Remarkably, all three hostels in Braemar were closed so I was obliged to take a room at the Fife Arms Hotel.

The retreat

With several days left until I had to go home, you'd have thought I would have jumped at the chance to explore some more areas and climb some more mountains. However, all the mountains accessible from Braemar are big days, usually requiring a stay at a bothy, and the forecast from Friday onwards was pretty bad - I didn't fancy being blown off another mountain. I considered doing one of the smaller hills, but to be honest that would have meant staying another night at the hotel, and I had started to feel a little apathetic about the entire trip. I suppose my failure on Lochnagar disheartened me a little.

My research work - the main reason for coming in the first place - was done; I had been beaten by Lochnagar, the mountain I really wanted to climb; any other objectives were purely secondary. I decided to return home on the first train the next morning.

Despite my failure to climb any mountains at all, this has actually been a very successful trip. I've done a lot of highly useful field research, and perhaps more importantly, my sojourn at Gelder Shiel allowed me some thinking space and I have already planned out about half of my next book...

Introducing the Alpine Dawn series

In 1847, Europe stands on the brink: of economic catastrophe, of war, of revolution - but also of a period of heroism, beauty, and wonder like no other in history. The golden age of Alpine exploration is just around the corner. The age of the mountaineer is almost upon us...

In this post I would like to introduce my readers to an exciting project I am planning. Recently I blogged about how the 1840s have become my new playground of choice. One of the main reasons I'm enthusiastic about the late 1840s is that the golden age of Alpinism is only a few years in the future, and this makes it a good subject for a mountaineering writer.

I am planning a series, which will go under the name Alpine Dawn (previously the working title of a temporarily paused novel-in-progress).

The goal of this series is at once simple but very ambitious. I want to create a panoramic, fictional account of the growth of mountaineering as a pastime in Britain and Europe. The Only Genuine Jones stands at a point in history when the Alps were already fully explored, and every British mountain had been climbed. In 1847, by contrast, the majority of Alpine peaks were completely unknown, and it is possible many Scottish mountains also awaited first ascents. This is an incredible period in the history of mountaineering, before Munro's list, before Ordnance Survey maps, before climbing guidebooks, before train travel opened up the Alps and the Highlands to the masses.

~ BOOKS IN THE ALPINE DAWN SERIES ~

The series is not yet fully planned, but I can reveal some details today.

Book One: The Atholl Expedition

Expected publication date: Christmas 2013

SCOTLAND, 1847: Convalescence doesn't suit Professor Forbes. When one of his former students appears exhausted at his door, telling stories of murderous gamekeepers and a lost glacier in the heart of the Cairngorm mountains, he can't resist the chance for another adventure. However, he soon finds himself up against the failings of his own health and the Duke of Atholl's men, determined to find the trespasser and punish him for interfering with a very important hunt. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert are staying at the castle - and Albert has an ambition to shoot the oldest and most cunning stag of the estate.

Will Forbes discover the rumoured glacier of Bràigh Riabhach, or will the Duke have his pound of flesh?

Book Two: Kingsley's Challenge (working title)

Expected publication date: 2014

Thomas Kingsley, a failed journalist who owes a great deal of money to some very determined men, seeks an escape from the stinking cesspit of London. He wants to begin his life anew but feels trapped - until, that is, he meets Albert Smith and his shy sister Peggy.

Smith is an Alpine explorer who turns his disaster-riddled exploits into shows for the stage. The old school of explorers consider him a charlatan. Widely known as the man who never successfully climbed Mont Blanc despite many attempts, he seeks a defining triumph to finally seal his reputation.

Professor Forbes is the world's leading authority on glaciers. He wrote the book on Alpine science, but now he is dying. He yearns for one final mountain voyage while he still has strength; a journey without end, one last attempt to solve the mystery of what lies deep beneath the ice.

Together, these unlikely companions will go through hell, revolution, poverty and storm to forge the beginning of a new age.

Book Three has not yet been planned, but will go beyond the events of 1848 and show the beginnings of the new dawn in Alpine exploration.

Remember, to get access to my books before they go on general sale, and at a lower price, please sign up to my new release mailing list. It won't be long before The Atholl Expedition is published!

"What about the next book?"

This is a question I have been asked several times over the last few days. Unfortunately the answer is far from simple! On Wednesday night at the book launch I dived headlong into a conversation about glaciers and legends and the remarkable books I have read over the last year and a half. Afterwards I analysed the conversation and realised how impassioned my side of it had been.

The Only Genuine Jones is, in many ways, a book as much about the future as it is about the past. I use an alternative version of past events as a lens through which issues relevant to modern mountaineering culture are examined and explored.

My new book is something quite different. Sometimes I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew. I haven't even begun to understand the full scope of this novel, and I don't think I will fully understand its themes until I have made the final tweak to the final draft. This is not a story I can sit down and write in one go. It will grow as I grow.

Provisional
cover

Alpine Dawn is not a book about mountaineering culture, although the main characters are mountain explorers. It does not feature a radically different version of true events ... although historical figures interact in ways they never did in real life. I have been influenced by the writings of Forbes, De Saussure, Thackeray, Dickens, Hugo. I want to imitate the epic scale of a panoramic Victorian novel while avoiding the sentiment and episodic nature they are frequently accused of.

I want to create a story of balance. Soot-choked misery, boom and bust, disease, unemployment, death, and social upheaval are the dark scourges of the mid 19th century, but always there is suspended in the distance a vision of light and perfection, a purer and more honest world towards which my characters stumble. The Golden Age of Alpine exploration lies just beyond the horizon from the perspective of 1848.

If I had to choose one phrase to sum up Alpine Dawn today, it would be this: the discovery of sublime truth and freedom through escape from the industrial world. That is oversimplifying it, but it's an important theme.

I'm 35,000 words into this book, but nowhere near a third of the way through. This will be a big novel. Will it be ready for release a year from now? I don't know; I've been working on it for a year already. It might take another two.

Read the Prélude here

See other articles about Alpine Dawn here

A sneak preview of Alpine Dawn, my work in progress

Regulars will be aware that I am presently working on an ambitious novel called Alpine Dawn. This book takes the reader back to the years immediately before the golden age of Alpine exploration--with my own unique fictional take on events, of course!

Here is the first draft of my "Prélude" for you to enjoy. Set in 1832, it depicts one of James Forbes' first expeditions to the Alps, in which he makes a discovery of tremendous importance that will shape events over the coming twenty years.

As always, this piece is very strictly "All Rights Reserved" and is unpublished and uncorrected draft material (very much subject to change and deletion!)

PRÉLUDE

1832

'I can see a body.'

'Do not be absurd, Monsieur. Nobody has passed this way for twenty years.'

'He is not lying in an artistic position, Couttet. Lower me some more.'

James Forbes gripped the rope with both hands. The fibres froze to his bare skin. After the heat of the glacier, up there in the open sun, it was a refreshing sensation. The guide, Couttet, lowered him in jerks and stops into the abyss. Slowly he sank into darkness.

Looking up, Forbes could see daylight still. The brilliant sky of an Alpine morning smiled down upon him, a spear of light thrown deep below the surface of the ice. As he descended, he passed from reality above into the dreamscape below: a glassy, cavernous wonderland of pearlescent blue and emerald green. Veins of trapped bubbles, frozen in whorls and spirals for vast spans of time, passed before his gaze. Meltwater streamed from the opening above and pattered on his cap before falling into the depths.

Crevasse. The word chilled and terrified him. The living did not venture into these places; they belonged to the dead, to demons and monsters.

Should I be doing this? It was not prudent, but the young Scotsman possessed insatiable curiosity and was determined in his quest for truth. Nobody knew why glaciers moved downhill, or even why they existed at all. Nobody had ever mapped one. Few learned men had ventured into the mountains since the war ended in 1815, and those who came here drew unscientific conclusions from their observations. Tourists clamoured to climb Mont Blanc but few looked at the glaciers with anything but facile awe.

There, he thought he saw it again! The impression of a man flickered before his eyes. A ghost, perhaps? He thought of the books he had read, chronicling the deeds of the old explorers: titans of the Enlightenment, champions of truth and science who had suffered for their cause. Could this be the shade of an old hero?

Gravel crunched under his boots as he reached solid ground. His eyes started to adjust to the subtle light beneath the surface, and he sensed a tunnel leading off to the left between mirrored walls. Droplets splashed in a pool: plop plop, plopploplop, plop. He imagined such a sound continuing from the formation of the world until the present day, eternal and unchanging, and the thought thrilled him more than anything he had ever felt in his life. Although he aspired to be a man of science, he felt the more immediate presence of God in this underground cathedral.

Radiance surrounded and penetrated him, filling him with the most sublime awe and wonder at the glories of nature. Who could possibly have known that such beauty existed here, in the harshest and most ignored corner of Europe?

'I am untying from the rope,' he shouted. 'Wait for me, Couttet!'

Echoes vanished down the corridor. He followed them, seeking his ghost.

#

The rotting skeleton of a ladder blocked his path. Forbes stepped carefully towards it, wary of the slanting floor that dropped away into a dark fissure. The light grew fainter as the passage delved deeper. He raised his axe and smashed through the debris, slipping a sample of the wood into his pocket for later analysis.

Then he came face to face with his ghost.

A withered hand grew from the ice near Forbes' shoulder. It had caressed his coat before he realised it was there, and the gentle touch, like a whisper from another century, made him start. After crossing himself--the superstitions of the Alpine peasants had rubbed off after all--he took a moment to examine this grisly relic. An arm, all angular bones and leathery skin, reached from within the mass of the glacier. Beneath the surface, impressions of objects could be discerned, refracted and distorted in the packed ice. Was the body completely buried, Forbes wondered? If so, how had he been able to see it from the surface--?

He soon realised that the arm was entirely detached from the rest of the corpse, which stretched out at his feet, preserved more perfectly than he would have believed possible.

The man lay face down. He wore a tricorne hat and buckled shoes, studded with dozens of bright hobnails and fitted with six-pointed crampons for better grip. His coat was of poor quality and had been clumsily mended at the elbows and shoulders. A greasy ponytail poked out from under the hat. The left sleeve of his coat had been ripped off at the shoulder along with the arm, but of course there was no trace of blood. The long frost of this subterranean world had preserved him just as surely as an ice house. The skin of his cheek looked like a scrap of calf's leather, dry and long squeezed of any trace of life.

Forbes found himself transfixed to the spot, unable to move forward or back, compelled by some morbid power to look on the remains of his man who had died--how long ago? Forty years? Fifty? His clothing was not of this century.

Who was he? Few had ventured here since De Saussure had spent seventeen days on the ice in 1788. Forbes noticed an object to one side of the corpse that might be a knapsack. He stooped to open it, and items spilled out, releasing a cocktail of odours. Feeling with an outstreched hand, he sensed a woollen garment, a stone figurine (a saint, perhaps?) and a notebook...

By God, a notebook! He stood upright and opened it carefully. The pages were brittle with time, but he could see traces of handwriting. It was too dark to make out any words, so he fumbled in a pocket for his tin of friction lights. Sparks struck against the piece of sandpaper and soon a flame burst into life, driving back the natural radiance of the tunnel, replacing it with a chemical glow.

He turned to the last page of the book.

"Voyage sur la Mer de Gl. et le Col du Géant - 1788
Horace-Bénédict de Saussure et guides
Batons - 8
Haches - 2
Corde - 200 mètres
..."

It was an inventory for an expedition--the famous 1788 expedition! His hands shook. This was a momentous occasion. Had this poor man been one of De Saussure's guides? He scanned down the list of provisions until he came to a ruled line and a new title.

"VOYAGE SOUS LE GLACIER DE PÈGREMONT - 1789?
Batons - 12
Haches - 3
Corde - 500 mètres
Lanternes - 12
..."

Wait; journey beneath a glacier? One lantern per climber? What was this--?

The match burned his fingers. He dropped it, and watched in horror as the flame engulfed the notebook, dry as dust after almost half a century. The burning pages fell from his hands and vanished into the dark.

Silence.

Forbes scrabbled at the grit and snow at his feet, desperate to recover something, anything, of that precious journal. His fingers came away smeared with soot; he found nothing but half a charred page, covered with meaningless numbers. The record of De Saussure's planned expedition--one that never took place--was lost forever.

Glacier de Pègremont.

The name haunted him. He knew the maps of the Alps, inaccurate as they were, by heart. There was and never had been any Glacier de Pègremont. Well, he had come down here seeking a ghost, but had not been prepared for this.

He looked at the poor guide whose name he still did not know. This brave man had died far from home in a barren and harsh place, induced here by the promise of gold from the wealthy Genevese scientist. Forbes liked to think some nobler sentiment stirred the heart of every mountain voyageur. He shared a bond with this man. They had seen the same wondrous sights, smelled the same clean air, felt their hearts uplifted by the symphony of an Alpine dawn.

A sad end to a charmed life. All of a sudden he wanted to be out of this tomb, this frozen world of silence and the petrified dreams of the long dead.

'God be with you, brave fellow,' he whispered, and turned back towards the light.

End of year update on "Alpine Dawn"

Chamouni in the early 19th century

I have managed to achieve very little writing over the past few weeks. My progress on Alpine Dawn is glacial and I still seem to be halfway through Chapter 4. I tell myself this is because I've been busy getting Crowley's Rival out there, and preparing my first paperback novel for production, but in reality it is simply a very challenging story to write.

The characters tug at my brain in unexpected ways and at the most unexpected times. While talking to a customer at work, I will suddenly find the voice of Albert Smith interrupting my chain of thought, demanding to know why Kingsley has not yet made any effort to improve his situation--and asking about the bruises. I will find myself walking through the dark and gloomy ways of London in the late 1840s, watching the corpse of a dog floating down the Thames, or standing forlornly outside a penny pie shop in the dark, wishing I had the money to fill my grumbling stomach.

The trials and troubles of Thomas Kingsley affect me on a daily basis. He is, in many ways, the least sympathetic main character I've ever written about: weak, insecure, frequently depressed, unable to improve his life. And yet he has a noble spark somewhere deep in his character ... a desire to break free and be true to himself and the ideals he hopelessly aspires to. He feels instinctively that his destiny will take him far from London but he fails to take advantage of the opportunities presented to him.

Alpine Dawn is inspired by Dickens and Thackeray, and I already know this is going to be longer and more complex than anything I have written before. It will hopefully also be more meaningful. In Kingsley I'm trying to create a character that the modern recession-era reader can identify with: trampled upon by the economic disasters in the outside world, but also undermined by his own inability to live within his means.

This may not be a novel I can sit down and write in one go. I will probably abandon it for weeks or months at a time while I work on other things--probably more Jones and Crowley stories, as I feel comfortable with their characters and have already written huge amounts of backstory.

Alpine Dawn is not easy to write. It haunts me, challenges me, defies easy classification or comfort. I suspect it has the potential to hold more truth than anything I have written before, but it will have to be wrenched from me, and it won't be ready for a long time.

So in 2013 I will apply myself with greater discipline and diligence to my craft. I will continue to build on the successes of 2012, creating more Jones/Crowley stories for my readers to enjoy. I will continue to harvest ideas for future stories and books (the ideas never seem to end; the difficulty is writing them all!) Most of all, whenever I am able to do so, I will bend myself to the challenging task of building Alpine Dawn into a real novel. It's going to be different to my existing work, but trust me: when it's finally ready, it will be the best material I have ever written.

I hope you all have a happy new year, and I will see you in 2013!

In other news:
Don't forget that today is your last chance to snap up your digital copy of The Only Genuine Jones for the low price of 99p! It will go back up to the usual price of £1.99 tomorrow. It has recently received another glowing 5* review from historical fiction author Mike Hogan.