Pixie-Led | The digital home of author & photographer Chris Elphick: Lore

Lore was my third folk-horror novel and is a tale of a writer who, obsessed with the dark folklore of a remote Scottish bay, decides to rent a small converted boathouse there to explore its macabre stories first hand... The story features tales of ancient mermen, avenging selkies, a lonely sea spirit who seeks the friendship of a young boy, a giant kraken, phantom soul-stealing sailors and more.... You can purchase the book by clicking on the image above and view the creation of the book, from start to finish, below:

Thursday, 07 September 2017

All, and I mean all, of the original ideas behind my fiction writing occur to me whilst I am out walking in the wilds. My muse is obviously the outdoors type. This past weekend, whilst taking a walk along a lonely stretch of coastline, I happened upon this particular scene:

The scene that set up an entire short story

The picture shows a large log/tree stump that had been washed ashore on a particularly high tide. Now, my eyesight is not at all good these days, but the lack of clarity in my sight does, I believe, make food for creative thought. For example, it can take a little while for me to work out exactly what it is that sometimes catches my eye on my countryside walks. My mind then engages in a little creative whimsy as it tries to focus on the object it tries to delineate. In this particular instance, I wondered if this object washed up on the high tide line might have been a seal. Then I realised it was too big to be a seal- it being of almost of sea-lion dimensions. But, of course, exotic animals like sea lions never get washed up on the U.K. coastline, do they?. Hmm. I then wondered what other wonderful creature it would be fascinating to discover washed up here. The thing looked large, with a tail and a torso, maybe? As I neared the object, it turned out, as it so often does, to be something far more mundane than my imagination had fired me up for - a great whacking log. But my creative juices had been stirred and I had myself a rather late night when I got back home as I jotted out the rough outline of a story of an old fisherman who stumbles upon the washed up body of an aged merman!

I am rather proud of the fishy little tale I conceived after this foreshore walk. I have always wanted to write a tale of Selkies and Mermen/Mermaids and often enjoy a bit of reading on their folklore. The story is now fully fleshed out and will be next writing project when I complete work on Edn™...

Saturday, 03 March 2018

Holidaying in a remote region of the Isle of Skye, overlooking the sea. No internet, mobile phone or even a TV signal for a week! Lovely to be able to switch off from the world and just chill though. Also, this lack of modern distractions can make for a very creative experience.

Conjuring up fresh ideas for a new novel at Greshornish, Skye

There is something very hypnotic about the sea. Watching it's waters stirs the imagination. And with a window seat with a view as magnificent as this, you can bet I spent a good few hours just watching the waves and wildlife that lived here:

My window view for a whole week :)

Whilst I already had an idea for a short story about a merman planned out, having so much free time to just sit and ponder, I fleshed out and expanded upon that tale and soon had the beginnings of a full length novel concocted in my head.

Sunday, 04 March 2018

Lore - Making a start on my 3rd novel:

Sunday, 25 March 2018

Lore research:

Thursday, 29 March 2018

I love this image of a merman. It is exactly how I envisioned the creature washed up at the start of my new novel Lore. The drawing is by Arthur Rackam and you can find more of his great artwork here.

Saturday, 07 April 2018

Sunday, 08 April 2018

Thursday, 12 April 2018

Saturday, 14 April 2018

Two of the scariest things from my childhood were Raggerty from Rupert Bear and the old illustrations from my 1961 edition of Pinoccio. These images stirred terrifying concepts in my young mind and have brewed in my head for decades. They now form the inspiration for the third chapter of my third novel, Lore...

Saturday, 21 April 2018

Sunday, 22 April 2018

8,654 words into Lore:

Saturday, 28 April 2018

Started Chapter Five:

Saturday, 05 May 2018

Completing Chapter Five of Lore out in the garden :)

Sunday, 06 May 2018

Chapter Six begins to take shape:

Sunday, 13 May 2018

Saturday, 19 May 2018

Chapter Six complete:

Friday, 25 May 2018

Sometimes it's difficult to write when you have a cat:

Saturday, 02 June 2018

A little money spider visited the page I was working on this morning. Known to be lucky little guests, he was more than welcome to interrupt my writing for a few minutes :) Despite his hindrance, or because of the good fortune they are said to impart to those they meet, I surprised myself by managing to complete the first draft of chapter eight of Lore today. :)

Sunday, 03 June 2018

Lore - Chapter Nine begins...

Monday, 04 June 2018

Wednesday, 13 June 2018

Saturday, 23 June 2018

I sat out in the garden nice and early this morning and managed to complete the first draft of my third novel, Lore. I am more than happy with the tale and the second draft should be little more than just tidying up the prose. Looks like I will easily hit my target of getting this book published this coming Halloween 2018 😎

Saturday, 30 June 2018

The finished design for the cover of Lore:

This would make the cover or Lore fairly similar in design to my first book - Crawley ~ an adult faery tale. If I used this image, I would probably change the cover of my second book, Edn™ ~ a trippy tale of alien horticulture to a similarly styled monochrome image. We'll see...

The photograph I used for this cover was taken from this Instagram image I took whilst on a pedalo Llangorse Lake in Cardiff:

Sunday, 01 July 2018

Researching, taking notes and starting work writing draft two of Lore! #deadlinesmustbekept

Tuesday, 03 July 2018

When I write a second draft, I WRITE a second draft ;)

Thursday, 05 July 2018

My cats hate me writing lol:

Saturday, 07 July 2018

Working on the second draft of Lore on a lovely sunny morning on Llangynidr :)

Monday, 09 July 2018

Saturday, 14 July 2018

A little while back, I wrote that I would be using the characters Pinnochio and Raggerty from Rupert the Bear as inspiration from one of the folk tales contained in my next novel, Lore. Well, the second draft of that story has now been completed and I have now also finished the illustration I wanted to go along with tale.

I had the opportunity to visit the British Museum a couple of months back, and whilst there I saw this fella:

He is a wooden carving of a water spirit (I am sorry to say there is little further information I remember about the object) and as soon as I spitted him, I knew I wanted to use him as the character in folk story. I had to change a little of the detail of the actual structure of the figure as the water spirit in this tale manifests itself, not as a piece of sculpted wood but from tumbleweed. Anyway, the photo below shows the drawing I finished of him this afternoon...