History: Two Years of The Gabbin
Two years have passed since the publication of The Gabbin, and across the world, at least several whole people have delved into its contents. Here now is a little history on the conception of the series:
Though being the first book published, The Gabbin was actually the second story originally written. In January 2005, still riding the excitement and wonder of the Lord of the Rings movies (and having read the books), I began sending a cousin of mine some emails that had absolutely nothing to do with it. Then, he replied in kind. We liked foolish humor, and these started off as simple and cringeworthy poems designed to make each other chuckle. Soon after, I found myself writing a piece of a nonsensical story, nothing more than a short paragraph. He responded by keeping it going, and we went back and forth like that every few days for weeks.
At some point, our high interest in Lord of the Rings permeated the tale, morphing the remainder into something of a parody. I printed it out (vast amounts of errors and all) which two or three family members read, possibly getting a laugh out of it.
Before the years' end, we decided to write another—this time with the Middle Earth parody theme starting at the very beginning. It was a prequel to the first story, and obviously, was meant to be a humorous take on The Hobbit. There may have been something else much larger written the following year that my cousin eventually grew weary of for various understandable reasons and left for me finish on my own. These three stories then sat, unlooked at and slowly forgotten over the next few years.
After getting a new desktop pc around 2010, I decided to go in and clean them up a bit, thinking perhaps I could get them printed for myself into an actual book. I jumped around throughout each one, adding content, fixing errors, and correcting some of the more overly ridiculous parts to be a bit more tangible. It wasn't long before I slowed down and left the stories to once more sit dormant in dark folders hidden in the back of a computer which grew more seldomly used as time went on.
In 2018, my wife gifted me a semi-fancy new laptop for Christmas as a not-so-subtle hint to continue work on the stories. I got to it right away... one year later.
In late 2019, I began focusing time on expanding one of the books, choosing The Gabbin first. Since it was the second book, it was somewhat better written and more thought out than the The Lad. But, it was also shorter, coming to a total of around 7,000 words. I worked on it for about 4 months or so, keeping much of the original text in place, but heavily expanding it, adding several chapters that did not previously exist. When I was finished, the story had increased by 30,000 words.
A month after its publication (April 2020), I began work on The Lad and the Ring, thinking I would get the entire thing finished and ready for print by the end of the year. Not only did it take a lot longer than I'd thought, but it also ended up being so much bigger that I was forced to end it as a Part 1. The original story was just over 10,000 words; the new, full, re-written-from-scratch version clocks in at a whopping 75,000. It's more than twice the length of The Gabbin, and that's only Part 1. Work has begun on Part 2, and I'm hoping that it can be wrapped up without having to make a third, but we'll see.
If you managed to find yourself here and actually read all this, then I really appreciate it. If not, then I guess you're still cool, but you'll never know since you're not reading it. So, anyway, if you haven't read one or any of my books, The Gabbin and The Lad and the Ring Part 1 are available now. I thank you for your continued support, Skiddle-Brains. Until next time!