It has now been just over a year since I last heard from Julia. Our regular email exchange broke off in the middle of a conversation and I have to accept that she is no longer with us.

I want to provide some notes about her and what her contributions mean for the future of Anmar.

Julia got into contact with me a long time ago, around about chapter 20 of Somewhere Else Entirely (SEE), offering help. In truth, I was by then in dire need of help since the "simple" story I had begun had spiraled out of all recognition. I was having trouble with the ever-increasing lists of names and places, not to mention the dates and so on.

I am also not very good at drawing which, fortunately, Julia was, and she offered to draw maps of the Great Valley for me. These were originally done in Inkscape in .svg format which meant that I could zoom in and out to see both overview and detail. The maps do vary a little from what I had first envisaged but they were acceptable and have become canon.

I even used those maps to make plot-points: the whole subplot of Boldan's Rock, for example, came about because I noticed a specific feature Julia had drawn to the north of Forguland. Other features have informed plot lines in both SEE and Voyage of the Visund (VotV).

Then she wanted to write stories set on Anmar. The first and greatest is of course Julina of Blackstone (JoB), which essentially began with Garia's (first!) visit to Blackstone and followed the life of a young local girl. Julia introduced features and ideas which I have subsequently used in SEE and vice versa. The two tales are inextricably intertwined.

Without Julia's input SEE would probably have been a good story but not a great story.

Julina's tale carried on until the Rains in 1175 and then paused. This was partially because I had then finished SEE and begun VotV, most of which happens elsewhere in the Great Valley. I think the delay while I wrote what became a longer tale than I expected annoyed her and for that I am sorry. While she waited for events to catch up she began writing side short stories set elsewhere along the Sirrel and, again, I have referenced her people, places and descriptions in my own tales.

The whole collection therefore interconnects in many different ways. This made actually managing the whole mess somewhat difficult, with Julia and I emailing spreadsheets, files and edits back and fore all the time. I was therefore forced to attempt to make the process simpler by using some existing resources of my own and creating a (hosted) website where we could share information. This took some months to design and code but meant we could both access and inspect information immediately whenever we needed it.

Aside: The code for this website is available if anyone is interested. It is just a zip file which can be installed and run under Apache web server or similar, locally or hosted elsewhere. Although there are features specific to Anmar it can be used by anyone with a collection of related tales and, possibly, one or more authors doing the writing. It could probably do with a professional update. PM me for further information.

I have begun writing the third part of the trilogy - since trilogy is what it will become - and the stories of Garia and Julina will intersect there. This was always intended to happen but now I will have to do all the plot work by myself. I will respect Julia's contributions and use them as she intended. I do not expect to make any changes, minor or otherwise, to her writings but if there are inconsistencies I will have to work around them.

I will not attempt to complete Julina of Blackstone since I am not certain I could do justice to Julia's writing style. Therefore this tale will remain unfinished - from that point of view. What I may do in the future is to attempt a short(ish) story tidying up loose ends from JoB but it would be done in my style, not hers, and from another point of view. That of course would depend on events in Return to Anmar, the third story (RtA). I cannot post any of that until VotV is substantially complete since many of the people in VotV will of course appear in RtA - and I do not yet know how VotV will finish.

Personal Notes on Julia

Julia originally lived and worked in a hotel in Bern in Switzerland, as night reception/porter/etc. She retired and decided to move back to England where she had relatives in Kent. Before retirement there were indications of trouble when she passed out on a drive across France after visiting those relatives. She had Type 2 diabetes and heart trouble as well. I discovered, late in our friendship, that she was just two months older than me when I thought her to be much younger.

Returning to Kent may have been a mistake since the laws around property rentals had changed and it was difficult to find somewhere permanent to live. She and her partner were forced to move every six months, finding new places to live further and further away from where she had intended. Having to pack up and move, including furniture, every six months or so cannot have been easy for someone who was no longer fit and young. It may have contributed to her passing.

She wrote on a laptop. This required maintenance at one point and she took it to a local repair shop, I forget exactly where. Unfortunately the shop was burgled and, when she went there to find out the delay in returning her laptop, was arrested by police who thought she had something to do with the burglary! They held her for five days and it was longer before the laptop was returned. Since the lack of emails lasted so long I wondered then if something had happened to her.

I don't know the circumstances or whether there were any other factors in that arrest. In particular I have no idea what else might have been on that laptop. The police never contacted me so I am of the opinion it was all an innocent mistake.

So there you have it. I miss Julia. We had different strengths and weaknesses and wrote in differing styles but somehow we meshed together very smoothly. We edited each other's work and had no problems telling each other if something was wrong or did not fit. I will always respect and honor the legacy she has left me.

Other Anmar projects

I have a small number of other part-finished Anmar projects, only one of which has so far seen the light of day. I refer, of course, to What Milsy Did (WMD). This was begun as a side project to cover events that happened in the palace while Garia was in Blackstone and it included Eriana's arrival at the palace and subsequent fun happenings. I did, however, overdo some things and that has caused some differences between SEE and WMD.

During the course of writing WMD (so far) I have come to realize that Milsy's place in the Tales is much greater than I originally expected. In fact, Milsy's own arc will stretch right to the very end of RtA. Whether I manage to write most of that arc remains to be seen. Since it has to fit in with all the other narratives and requires considerable amounts of research for each chapter, I may restrict any further parts "until time permits".

Apart from Return to Anmar there are two other shorter pieces I hope to finish, one involving the Twins and the other set 30 years in the future. There may also be one or two more one-shot short stories.

In addition, I have been contacted by another author who is in the process of finishing an entire story set in the Anmar universe! It has fourteen parts containing forty-two chapters. I will say no more about that except it is set even further into the future.

My own health

I had a triple bypass last May and, according to those who know, have recovered successfully. While that may appear so it has shown up a number of other shortcomings with my body. I am woefully unfit, and unable to do as much physically as I would wish, which would help my fitness. I have recently suffered a sequence of colds and coughing fits which make it unwise to spend much time outside.

During Covid I bought a new bike but have yet to actually ride it. I was in the process of setting it up to suit me when I had the heart diagnosis, which meant stopping everything. I do want to get out again because I know that will help my fitness but every hour spent out riding means an hour less spent doing all the other things I ought to be doing, let alone writing.

Still, I do what I can when I can.

Penny