Originally published at LonPrater.com. You can comment here or there.

Tonight I finished the first draft of The Whisperer in the Willows, an unholy mashup of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows and H.P. Lovecraft’s Arkham in the near future.  Rat and Mole are replaced by Nat and Cole, a homeless man and his slightly learning disabled protege.  Badger is now Rodger, an academic with something to hide.  Joad (nee Toad) is no longer obsessed with fast cars, but rather dark secrets and eldritch mysteries.  All around them, the world is grinding to a halt as the reign of man creaks to an end and the Great Old Ones struggle their way into the world.

Throughout the book, Grahame’s values of home, friendship and kindness are put to far worse tests than his simple river gentlefolk ever dreamed of, and some of them even manage to hold firm to their life and sanity!

It weighs in at 238 pages, or approx. 60K words.  A short novel, then, but a novel nonetheless.

::sighs contentedly::

It’s really weird, what with the concept, and hanging on to Grahame’s style, tone and theme. Probably too weird to be salable, except to those who get a large charge out of Lovecraftiana.  But damn it was fun.  Well, off to a couple of first readers.  If anyone out there is a big fan of HPL and would like to take a gander at it, I’d of course be happy to return the favor.

Now for a couple weeks gloriously OFF.  Time with the kids and visiting family I’ve not seen in too long.  Some video games, reading, amusement parks and camping are in store, no doubt. Then I’ll be ready to edit my industrial fantasy fix-up novella “Dirt: A New Promise Concerto” and of course begin primary research for my next novel project, which I probably won’t start actually writing till fall.

Somewhere in there I need to work on marketing my stuff.  No one can accept or reject what never leaves my hard drive.  Time to get those shiftless stories out and earning their own keep!