I had an interesting (and productive) journey to Drenthe the other weekend. While the main purpose of the visit was for a large family get-together at the Drouwenerzand vacation and amusement park, and I spent most of my time there enjoying the rides and the Halloween-themed spookiness — and eating way too many frikandel, kroketten, burgers and kaassoufflé — it did allow me to do some research at the Hunnebed Centrum in the nearby village of Borger. For those readers who aren’t familiar with hunnebedden, these are ancient neolithic structures, large burial chambers built using boulders that were carried here by glaciers during the ice age. The largest stones provided walls and a ceiling, smaller stones filling the gaps between, and they would once have been covered with turf; though that has long since gone, leaving only the largest stones behind.

The nearby hunnebed D27, the largest in the Netherlands was impressive. Unfortunately, the museum at Hunnebed Centrum was closed on Mondays, the day of my visit (I really should have checked opening times in advance), so it wasn’t possible to see the Oertijdpark, the recreation of a Neanderthal settlement. Another journey to Drenthe is required at some later date.
Then I spent that Monday afternoon at the Openluchtmuseum Ellert en Brammert in nearby Schoonoord, which provided an opportunity to see the type of peat-roofed homes where medieval peasants lived in that region.

This is research for a short story that I’ve been planning about how the young teenage Hauke meets the Meisje Agata and first encounters the Witte Wijven. In the ten days since returning home from Drenthe, I’ve written nearly 10,000 words of “Spirits of the Hunnebed”, and I expect it to be somewhere between 18,000 and 20,000 words when complete. That’s a bit too long to be considered a short story, and closer to a novelette.
“Spirits of the Hunnebed” is intended as the first of a series of short stories that I’ve been planning, tales featuring either Hauke or some of the other characters from the “Wandelaar van de Duisternis” setting. Other stories, such as the one I’ve provisionally entitled “The Gordijnensteeg Hauntings” will detail the episode of the possessor ghost mentioned briefly in Chapter 17 (“Wanted, Dead and Alive”) of “Broken Shards”. Still others will follow the adventures of different characters, before or after the events of “Broken Shards”. Some will answer questions such as what Nicole does with her new-found freedom, while others explain the back stories of more minor characters like Olga.
I had originally intended to collate all of these smaller stories into a collection called “Short Cuts”, but now I’m not certain if I might make a few of them available as free downloads, or perhaps include one as a bonus story in the next book (“Ghost Ship”).

Work on “Ghost Ship” itself has been progressing slowly — I even deleted an entire chapter that I’d previously written, but which didn’t move the plot forward in any way — but writing is still progressing and currently at over 70,000 words, even after the chapter deletion, of my target 120,000. That deleted chapter dealt with a traumatic experience from my own teenage life, so even if I never use it, there was some catharsis in writing it. One lesson learned as a result of feedback from readers of “Broken Shards” is that each chapter in “Ghost Ship” now begins with a date and location, so the flow of time in the flashbacks is easier to follow. I may well go back through “Broken Shards” and add the same time/location references in each chapter, but haven’t made this change yet. The fact that I can make such changes is a big benefit of self-publishing through Amazon KDP, although I’m not sure how it triggers the update for Kindle downloads and it may take some time to reflect in the paperback version.

The plot for the third full-length novel (the true sequel to “Broken Shards”) in the series is also taking shape, and I’ve started writing the first chapter. The opening scene has Hauke and Keetje enjoying a romantic getaway on board the “Tijdgeest” in the Biesbosch, when they’re interrupted by an event from the past. It’s a good excuse for me to visit the Biesbosch, the freshwater tidal wetlands on the Maas river near Dordrecht, again in the Spring. My working title for this book is “Spirit Camera”.
I hope that Lilian will continue to do the cover art for all these books.

In other news, not writing related: I’ve now received a letter from the Dutch Immigration Authority (IND) informing me that they have approved my application for naturalisation. Now I’m only waiting on the gemeente, the city council, to complete their processing of my application. IND warn that this might take as long as 12 weeks, but I’m hoping that it will be quicker in a small city like Montfoort. I’ve been told that the naturalisation ceremony isn’t conducted in person any more since the Covid restrictions, so I’m not sure what to expect, but I hope to be a dutchman by Naturalisation Day on 15th December.
It’s a big step for me: the Netherlands doesn’t allow dual nationality except in certain special cases, so I have to renounce my British citizenship.