Foresters Miniseries - The Bottle Episode

"Just tell us how you came to be in possession of all that money” Goddard tried. 
“Go fuck yourself”  Rank Cynrid’s witty rejoinder. 
 She could see that this line of questioning wasn't going anywhere and tried a different tactic: 
“Be reasonable; tell us where you got the money Cynrid” Goddard asked in as diplomatic a tone as she could manage, “you cunt”. 
That ruined it.

So here's another episode of my nasty, irreverent, stupid medieval cop-show: 'Foresters'
It continues to follow three Lawmen as they go running after scum in Norman-Era Nottingham. 

I've always wanted to write a 'bottle episode' - you know; where the characters are stuck in one location, they can't leave and tempers are running high. It happens often enough in real policing; just ask any custody Sgt.

I hope you'll find it as big and brash and dumb as the previous one, and it may feature at least one of the characters getting chewed out by their superior: the Reeve of Nottingham.

Oh, and for the record; I've never just found a finger in a custody suite.

Episode 1 can be found in 'Sample Scribbles' over on the right.

Click here for episode 2 and enjoy, share, comment.

 -Tom

photo by Roy Smallpage

Foresters Miniseries - Pilot episode

"Goddard leapt the ale barrels without breaking stride, vaulted the first table, dodged a chair in her path and slammed a drunk out of her way. 
‘Foresters’ she shouted, as if the mail and the harness didn’t give it away. She received a growl from the assembled, but no one blocked her. They knew better, spilt beer or no. She was the fucking law"

You'll recall that I was kicking off a new project - a bit of fun I'm calling 'Foresters'.
It's an episodic miniseries featuring a grubby trio of Nottingham lawmen, working one of England's most dangerous beats in 1191AD.

The Extract is the slightly longer-than-usual pilot episode to introduce a few recurrent characters.
It's big and brash and stupid but hopefully you'll agree that it's also a lot of fun.

It's a lot more 'police' than my Novel about Robin Hood, and this makes it a little more fantasy, a little less history, but think 'medieval cop-show' and you've nailed it.

As before, I feel the sudden need to mention that it is in no way a thinly veiled ramble through some of my own police experiences, seen through a flimsy historical filter (no, wait, that's exactly what it is).

Click here for Extract and enjoy, share, comment.
-Tom

photo by Roy Smallpage

A Nasty way to Start the Show

'Cutthroat' is my take on the Robin Hood legends. 
Its a grim low-fantasy reworking of the medieval ballads, drawing experiences and language from my time as a UK police officer and medieval reenactor.

I wanted to get the first three chapters up here to share with you, while I go through the process that everyone has to: trying to navigate the world of conventionally publishing it.
 As for the action: It covers the opening frame of the novel and  the drawing of William Scathlock into banditry and crime. It's a nasty look at how easy it is to step off the path and be lost in Norman England, and a good window into a world that wasn't all Disney and Costner and Merry Men

No golden arrows, no fights with giants, no heroes... just Cutthroats.

-Tom

photo by Roy Smallpage

You know how to shoot that thing?

Archery.
Can't write about the history of Medieval England without archery. The nation's been at it's most warlike when archery has been a fashionable pastime. You can argue the point (and please do, that's what the comment box is for) that England's success in medieval overseas conflict went into decline as the bow itself declined in popularity.
Young people stopped shooting, and so didn't grow up to keep shooting all over Christendom. 

With archery popular at the same time that the early Robin Hood ballads were popular it's no surprise that the outlaws were depicted as archers. These were songs and plays for pubs. If the sport of the day had been football, they would have been footballers.
In the ballads, archery is used more as a sporting contest than deadly combat. Hood rarely shoots it out with an enemy, and rarely kills with the bow. Most of the time Hood and his opponent set a wand in the ground and shoot at this, with the winner being he that shoots closest.
Violence, when it happens in the poems is usually settled with swords.

Now personally, I've ignored this 'sportsmanlike' behaviour in my own novel. Looking at it with an ex-copper's set of eyes, the average bloke in 12C England had a social (and later, legal) obligation to practice with a bow, and often, a need to steal to feed himself.
It's the equivalent of every single person being trained to shoot, and having a gun in their home, but not enough money to eat.
Of course those bows are going to get used for violence.

side note - The practice of shooting at wands is pretty common in the ballads. It bears a striking similarity to 'clout archery'; shooting at pennants still practiced today.

I'm interested in the idea that archery is on the rise again. 
It's getting popular.
It's attracting attention.
Lets just keep it sportsmanlike though, eh?


As a parting shot, take a look at http://markstretton.blogspot.co.uk/ (see the note in the sidebar) on differences between modern shooting technique and medieval stance and draw, and the incredible 200lb draw bow!

-Tom

Kirklees Priory - an Extract from Cutthroat.

'Cutthroat', was my first full-length book. It's something I threw together as a re-imagining of the Robin Hood ballads, portraying Hood as an enterprising career criminal on the way up. 
I re-wrote the plotlines from the Robin Hood ballads to correspond to the attitudes of the violent criminals I saw in my time as a police officer.
This extract (Chapter 10 of the book) is a reworking of  'Robin Hood and Alan Adale' into a heist, or a rescue, or a kidnapping (depending on your point of view). 

No heroes here; just half a plan and half a chance...getting worse with every line. 

It's in 'Sample Scribblings' (over on the right). 

Take a look, and if you want to, leave a comment, like or share. 
-Tom

photo by Roy Smallpage

First Shot.

Hello and welcome, you found us alright then?
Come in, close the door, keep the forest out there.
This is my blog, it's a place for rambling and writing, for a loving look at all things from the late 12C, for medieval Archery, and of course: crime. Take a look around, get comfortable.

If you stumbled here from facebook, or twitter you probably know I used to be a police officer, working on an ordinary inner-city response team, where I learned more about violent crime (particularly robbery) than anyone probably should.
When I came out of the service I had a LOT of holiday owed. The concept of a 'disciplined service' means they can order you to work if needed, and they were a bit shortstaffed back then. I'm pretty sure the longest stretch was 28 days on, 2 days off (ouch).
Anyway, I left with a load of leave owed, so I did what any right-thinking person with a couple of months to spare would do. I wrote a book.

___________________________________

Someone once told me to only write about the things I knew best.

During my time in time in the force, I saw firsthand how the most successful criminals learned their trade; how they came up from nothing and carved out their little empires.For them, crime wasn't an image or a lifestyle accessory, it was their life. They were the career criminals, making banditry into a business. I've also seen that even the best of them fail when they get too famous to ignore; then the door crashes inwards and the response team burst in shouting “Down down down”.

As a dark-ages re-enactor and historical roleplayer I've also spent two decades wearing very different bodyarmour; slogging about the woods of England in chainmail, with a bow or a blade.
With a little research, anyone can write convincingly about a arrow or a helmet, but if your hobby is camping and fighting for up to ten days at a stretch with nothing invented after 1200AD, you come away with firsthand knowledge of the microdetail of day to day life in another time. You learn the things you need to get by in that world, like how to scrub the rust out of armour (put it in a bag with sand and vinegar and kick it for an hour) or how to site a campfire that can’t be spotted at night (always useful when the other side are better armed than you are).

So returning to that advice I was given; what do you write that first book about when your sole areas of expertise are crime and medieval living?

Robin Hood, clearly.

'Cutthroat', is a re-imagining of the Robin Hood ballads, portraying Hood as an enterprising career criminal on the way up.
I've re-written plotlines from a fistful of the Robin Hood ballads: Robin and the Forester, Robin and the Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood and Alan Adale as a violent tale of banditry in lawless 12C England mashed up with the gallows-humour of my police days.
The book asks 'what would these guys have been like if they were actually Norman era armed robbers, rather than Disney characters'
Let's look at that old cliché; ‘robbing from the rich to give to the poor’. In my time as a police officer I never once saw the hardened blagger give up his piece of the score to the poor and the needy, however, a robbery suspect on the run will bribe, buy gifts, and outright pay people for a place to stay until the heat dies down.
That’s a plausible reason why our gang of cutthroats would give stolen coins to common folk: for a place to stay where the Law isn't welcome. That’s a believable ‘truth’ behind the ballads and legends.

No glory, no golden arrows, no heroes; just bad men doing bad things and trying to stay a jump ahead of the law.

___________________________________

So yeah, I wrote a book, and now I can't stop.
I'll talk a bit about that, and about writing in general on the blog, but I'm mainly planning to use this dark corner of the interwebs to post notes and ramblings about aspects of medieval life, along with aspects of Nottingham, Robin Hood, or the history of the 12th and early 13th century.

I'll also be writing and posting an episodic miniseries called 'Foresters', featuring a grubby trio of Nottingham lawmen, working one of Norman England's most dangerous beats. I feel the sudden need to mention that it is in no way a thinly veiled ramble through some of my own police experiences, seen through a flimsy historical filter (no, wait, that's exactly what it is).

Finally I'll point my pen at anything else that has even a passing relevance to the fairly broad topic of writing about bastards...

...hopefully you enjoy reading about them.

-Tom