To be precise, the total now stands at 50,031 words, and the last one written was ‘cryptographers’, which is a much more interesting word than the banal conjunctions, prepositions and pronouns that usually claim these distinctions.
A New Allegiance now tips the scales at 170 pages, which probably makes me about halfway through the work. I am fascinated by words. I could hardly be a writer if I wasn’t, could I?
Pride of place in the list of human inventions is traditionally given to the Wheel. All of Technology and Science stems from that. I am not convinced that it should be so pre-eminent, though. I suggest that the greatest of all human inventions is Language. All animals communicate, but it takes a human being to do so to a sophisticated level, with words. I am not suggesting that whichever prehistoric individual it was who realised that heavy weights could be moved by putting them on top of something that rolled had complex Language skills. Whoever it was, though, must have been able to communicate the idea to others because they couldn’t do it on their own. The weights they were moving were simply too heavy. That makes their communication skills well above those of a dog, a cat or a chimpanzee, all of which can communicate to a simple level. They have even been known to use things they find as simple tools, but the creation of the Wheel was a much more far-reaching brainwave than anything they ever did.
That is an oversimplification, I know. The origin of Language predates the building of Stonehenge by at least 50,000 years. There again, for its builders to overcome the technical difficulties that they must have encountered suggests that they could communicate to quite a high level.
So, Language it is – at least for me. Feel free to disagree. I have just begun to write Chapter 8, which is actually the ninth chapter (the first is a Prologue). Bruno is now in England and he has met Alice for the first time.
Although A New Allegiance is set during World War ll, it is not a war story. There are no battles. If you want them, I have written plenty of other books to satisfy your needs. Allow me to direct you towards my Avalind series of Fantasy novels. There are battles enough there to keep you sated, trust me. Instead, it is a story of two people from very different backgrounds who meet each other in far from ideal circumstances. I am enjoying writing it, and I hope you enjoy reading it.
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