The Ballad of Vallony Vignacious
[Update July 2025] soon to be a book…
This page used to have a short story on it. I wrote it in 2022 for a writing challenge, posted it here at 5,000 words. That story has grown. It is now over 100,000 (roughly 300 pages), has seen many beta-readers, and is a great, yet unpublished, book.
The challenge was to write a story beginning with the phrase:
"There weren't always dragons in the valley."
Six words to five-thousand. Five-thousand to a hundred-thousand. Such small grit in our little mouths form pearls.
Of course, the first prologue, which was previously published here—was rough. Much has changed. That is one reason I am taking it down, to avoid readers getting a misimpression.
However, what it was was enough. Enough to keep going. Enough to fall in love with the characters and premise. Enough that re-reading this, I'm impressed with how much the characters of Dobban and Vallony seem well-formed.
See, when you're an average woman of business, one that traffics in the day-to-day industry of getting people drunk, heroes really aren't worth the trouble. Cheap-drinkers and bad-tippers, the lot of them.
That is certainly proto-Vallony! I hope this page will one day be updated with a link to good booksellers near you, and a preview of the real prologue. 'till then.