NEW SHORT STORY: "Define Heroes: A Lore of the Reluctant Short Story"

FREE PROMOTION! - Starting tomorrow, April 29, this story will be free on Amazon for five days!

This will probably be my final story release until July-ish. By then, MY BATTERY IS LOW AND IT IS GETTING DARK will have released and I'll have one more short story ready to go.

"Define Heroes" is a standalone short story that's set in my LORE OF THE RELUCTANT series. Timeline-wise, it takes place after THE OUTCASTS OF VAMPIRE FLATS and BLADES IN ELSINGR.

Here's the synopsis:

Acys, Jasper, and Kalen are three friends from our world who woke up one day to find themselves in a fantastical realm of swords and sorcery. But it's been a few years... Now they're bored.

In this adventure, the trio of sellswords have run out of money in an eastern kingdom that is enjoying an era of lasting peace. In their bid to avoid skipping out on another bill, and to put a little extra money in their pockets besides, they might just commit regicide and plunge the entire kingdom into civil war.

More portal fantasy for ya!

This series has always been super easy to write. It was originally part of my goal to learn the ins and outs of self-publishing and so I thought up a concept that would be just plain fun to mess around with. I love the idea of fantasy adventurers who are in on all the jokes and are unimpressed with a lot of the tropes. And, also, they're kinda sociopaths at this point. Fun all around!

As I said above, I'll be running a free promotion starting tomorrow (April 29 @ 12 AM PST, as best as I can tell) and it'll run for about five days.

Be safe!

UPDATE (4/2/20): The sale went over well! I've donated 100% of what I made to United Way of San Joaquin County and also purchased a batch of stories from the sale. Here's what I got! Looking forward to checking these out.

• Twelve Ways to Die in Galadore, Coleman Alexander

• Fire in the North, Richard J. Lowe (No relation 😄)

• The Blood-Tainted Winter, TL Greylock

• The Half Killed, Quenby Olson

• Street Cultivation, Sarah Lin

• The Dragon's Blade Trilogy, Michael R. Miller

• The Crimson Queen, Alec Hutson

Author Bryce O'Connor has put together one heck of a cool charity event called LOCKDOWN READFEST.

From March 30th to March 31st, 60+ authors have pledged to lower the prices of their books/short stories to 99 cents and donate 50% of their proceeds (more, in some cases) to charities relating to COVID-19 relief.

In my case, I've pledged the revenue from the two novels and three short stories I have available through Amazon. When Lockdown Readfest has concluded, I'll be donating to United Way of San Joaquin County.

San Joaquin County borders two of California's most densely populated counties and, as a result, has begun to feel the impact of COVID-19 and shelter-in-place order. Funds donated to United Way of San Joaquin County will be directed to local non-profits and shelters, and will help provide relief to folks in our county's most vulnerable communities.

I'll also be going through and picking up a bunch of stories from some talent authors in the hopes they'll be able to help out their own communities, as well!

For more information about Lockdown Readfest, as well as the authors who have pledged to the event, CHECK OUT THE REDDIT POST HERE.

Check out some fantastic stories, buy some on the cheap, support some worthy causes that'll bring relief in these stressful times!

• LOCKDOWN READFEST Information and Author/Story List

• United Way of San Joaquin

• Bryce O'Connor Official Website

What Have I Been Up To?

Hello!

So, this blog hasn't seen an update in a while. The writing has continued and I plan on releasing some more stories in the near-future. Likely over the summer when I'll have more time to sit down and give everything a thorough edit and begin formatting.

But the main reason I haven't been able to update:

I'm in Japan!

Last August, I started working as an ALT at a high school in Japan. Specifically, it's a school in our sister city, which has provided me a tremendous opportunity to explore a culture I've always been fond of, get some first-hand teaching experience by working alongside other teachers, and facilitate a cultural exchange between our two cities as best as I can.

So, while I've had plenty of time to write, and while I've actually been able to complete a few projects that will either get shopped around or self-published in the short-term, my ability to get things self-published out here is not at a comfortable level.

In the meantime, if you're at all interested in my adventures over here, please give my Instagram a look!

@amlowe1123

This will be my primary social media account going forward. I'll still have Facebook, but it won't be getting much attention.

Looking forward to sharing what I've been working on this year!

Stuff on the way!

It's been a while, but with my time as an undergrad coming to an end this summer, I have some more stories on their way towards merry self-publication!

Without getting into details (yet), it will be a batch of three short stories that I'll be making available through pretty much as many sites as possible. Kindle will be a certainty, but I'm looking into others such as B&N, Kobo, and Drive Thru Fiction. All of it will depend on which ones accept short fiction.

Beyond that, I'm looking to get an unpublished piece LORE OF THE RELUCTANT short fiction up on Kindle as a free purchase. The Weird Western Anthology thing is still in progress, though, with graduation on the horizon, I'm guessing that one won't see completion until winter. I'd also love to get more movie reviews up on the blog. I love writing them, but I can rarely keep them brief. If I can keep up with it, I'll post some in the short term.

Until next time!

BLADES OF ELSINGR (Lore of the Reluctant #2) is Out Now! Also, an explanation...

Things moved quickly this week! The cover art was completed and I was able to get the second story in the Lore of the Reluctant series published this morning. Check out the link above for the Amazon Kindle version.

So, since this has been a long time coming, and I've gotten a couple stories published since the first book, let me explain what this series is and what it's attempting to be:

A little over three years ago, I set a goal for myself. I would self-publish at least three novels, regardless of subject/genre, in an attempt to 1) Learn the process of getting a novel to the market, 2) Build a kind of portfolio to show that I can continuously produce full-length projects, 3) Basically just keep myself writing and learn from whatever feedback I was able to get.

The result was the Lore of the Reluctant series, something I've been kicking around for years. Three friends from our world who wake up in a high fantasy realm, complete with everything they'd need to quest without incident. New bodies, new memories, and entire lives to draw upon so that they'd never miss a beat. By the time the series picks up, they've been at it for a while and they're getting kinda bored with the whole prospect. If they can't get back to Earth, they just want to settle down in a quiet city somewhere, but the Realm of Shiloft has other plans for them.

Each book is meant to be a light, standalone "day-in-the-life" story in the vein of the old Conan and Red Sonja novels. Almost nothing plot-wise carries over between novels expect for location and the trio's wanting to just quit the whole thing. My goal is to write at least three of these, keep them short enough so that they can be read casually, ensure the novels don't lean too heavily on each other, and hopefully make them funny as hell.

BLADES OF ELSINGR is the second entry, with one more being written as we speak. I have other projects in the air right now (that I've mentioned here before at one point or another). Work on it will probably progress in earnest over the winter break.

That's it! Please give the story a look if you can, post some feedback if you have the time. Otherwise, I'll see you next update!

None Shall Pass

Just finished my first round of edits last night on City of Blades. Happy to report that there weren't too many things that needed to be added or changed. Basically, it wasn't the mess in the structural sense that I thought it was going to be. Whenever I break from my habit of on-the-spot editing, I keep thinking things are going to get crazy when I read through the next time.

Luckily, that wasn't the case!

While my friends are reading through the second draft, I'm going to be working on None Shall Pass, a prequel novella to The Outcasts of Vampire Flats and City of Blades. It'll pick up just after Jasper's death and follow our three adventurers as they struggle to make their way over the Backbone of the World--and on top of that, convince themselves that they should be the ones to save the world.

This story will be up on Amazon for free eventually, as an introduction to the series.

I'll also be getting a printed copy for myself pretty soon for more edits, and so the artist can read through and get some ideas for what she wants to do for the cover.

Later!

Finished!

The first draft of City of Blades is done!

Now comes the first wave of edits which shall begin after a celebratory slumber. =D

Inching Towards Daylight

Thought I'd title the blog with a line from Matthew Stover, because I'd like to think it's apt. It's been a long year, filled with delays and ulterior obligations, but we're closing in on the final section for City of Blades.

Jubilations!

I'm really happy with the way it's been turning out. Even if you get an outline going, sometimes you can never tell where the story's gonna take you. The second and third acts are entirely different from how they were originally plotted out, and I'm hoping it's a little less predictable because of that. Even though the entire premise of the story is predicated on our three main characters going up against your standard fantasy tropes and reacting in odd ways, I still want it to have a few twists and turns!

But as to the goals that I set for myself before starting the sequel, I would like to provide a rundown in terms of what I think I've achieved so far, and what I still have left to do:

1. Create a Standalone Adventure: I've been working and reworking City of Blades so that if this is the first book in the Lore of the Reluctant series you happen to pick up, you won't be scratching your head and wondering, "Vampires?" I do want to give the impression that Acys, Jasper, and Kalen have been through the wringer, and that this certainly isn't their first adventure in Shiloft. Part of the reason I made Jasper a woman (who was previously a man before getting completely owned by that rogue necromancer) was to give an immediate cue to the reader that stuff has most definitely gone down.

There will be references to past adventures, scars from previous losses, but on the whole I don't believe City of Blades leans on any of those incidents to tell its own story. This was one of the major criticisms from The Outcasts of Vampire Flats, that readers had felt like they'd missed something. This is definitely something I want to correct to a point, and I hope I've succeeded.

2. Keep the Story Brief: As I've pointed out in other posts, I really feel like stories that try to be heavy on the funny work best when they stick around only for as long as they need to. Outcasts was around 47,000 words, which is probably as short as a novel can get and still be called a novel. City of Blades will be decently longer, maybe as much as 70,000 words depending on how I taper off the ending. And the increase in length directly correlates to...

3. Show More of Shiloft: Even when I was writing Outcasts, I had much of the Realm of Shiloft already plotted out in some form or another, but not a whole lot of it made it into the actual story. This was due to my commitment to making the story as streamlined as possible, and because I thought excessive worldbuilding would feel out of place in a novel that sported dick and tit jokes. But after looking at some of the feedback, I decided that I would draw a lot more of the world to the surface, and throwing our adventurers into the city of Elsingr seemed like just the way to do that.

It's certainly a far cry from Mythrin Forest, I'll say that!

4. Maps: I've been gradually working out a map of the North, the region of Shiloft in which these two novels have taken place, as well as a detailed-ish map of the city of Elsingr. I'm hoping to have them finalized concurrent with Book 2 itself, and I'll also be researching the obvious: how to incorporate them into the ebook itself.

5. Short Story: I mentioned before that I'd like to get some kind of novella or short story onto the Kindle Store that I can give away for free as a kind of entryway to the series. At this point, I do have something in the works that I'll be poking at gradually. As of now it's titled "None Shall Pass," and it will begin just after Jasper's resurrection in Endarin and follow the three as they make their way over the Backbone of the World.

--

I think that's everything I wanted to cover! I'll be tinkering with the progress bar, since it doesn't properly reflect where the story's at. I was using 50k words as a goal, but I'm well past that now.

Oh! And I caught that I had somehow posted the same excerpt for City of Blades twice, so I'll be posting another one within the next week or so. Just gotta nail down the right part.

Later all!

Book 2 is officially titled...

Center justified! Italicized! Emboldened... Boldened? Emboldened! Underlined! Book 2 of the Lore of the Reluctant series is officially titled:

City of Blades

Time to celebra--Dang it. Time to celebrate!

And here's the rough synopsis that will eventually go up on Amazon/Goodreads/what-have-you:

Acys, Kalen, and Jasper are a long way from home. Take abruptly from their camping trip in the Sierra Nevada, they've been plunged into a new world with fantastical tendencies -- the Realm of Shiloft. Granted new bodies by mysterious means, with new lives and memories to match, the three lifelong friends wander the world as very hesitant sellswords, hoping to someday find their way back home. 

In this adventure, which the trio have desperately tried to avoid, an unexpected detour on the long road to Vellonae drops the companions in the middle of the labyrinthian coastal city of Elsingr, where the old ways are paved over wholesale in favor of the new, and the gods and goddesses of the Starfall are unwelcome. During their mid-journey festivities, the trio are attacked by the most vicious, most regicidal assassins guild in the land: the dreaded Backblades. 

Now, they must plot their way through the winding roads of Elsingr, and survive long enough to determine who paid such a large price for their heads... Also, they're suffering from hunger, sleep deprivation, and they're generally pretty annoyed with each other, so there's a good chance they'll kill each other off before the Backblades can.

Still aiming for a late September/early October release window. Hope to see you then!

More Writing. More Shadowrun.

Back to college. Back to making more progress on Book 2!

I've updated the progress bar to reflect a rough estimate of where I am as far as writing goes. We're definitely closing in on the end, and I think now that summer fun is over and I have more time to crank out some chapters in the library, that percentage will rise drastically over the next few weeks.

I'll also work on getting another sample from the story going in the near future, along with a proper post to "lock in" the final title for Book 2. At this point, I've let it sit for long enough and it still seems right, so I'm gonna take the leap and stick with it for the duration.

On the promotional side of things, I would also like to get some kind of free ebook up on Amazon that serves as an introduction to Lore of the Reluctant. Stories like Wool have proven that having that low barrier of entry is ideal.

So just to break everything down:

1 - Lock in the final title for Book 2.

2 - Finish Book 2!

3 - Begin the editing process. Call in those old favors. Send my editor friends on guilt trips.

4 - Research the possibility of getting The Outcasts of Vampire Flats on CreateSpace (physical copy), iTunes, and B&N Nook. Consider doing the same for Book 2.

5 - Write an "Introductory Story" for the Lore of the Reluctant series to publish for free.

6 - Hire Lexy to get started on the cover art.

7 - Publish Book 2!

And, of course, since I promised myself that I'd write/publish at least three stories using this setting, I'll eventually start plotting out Book 3, which is really just a vague idea at this point.

I'll keep this blog updated as I go through the steps! And I do want to thank everyone who has an interest in this story for being patient.

--

I've been hopelessly addicted to the Shadowrun universe lately, and there's 20 years' worth of material waiting for me to read through. This is gonna get dark, I can already tell!

Excerpt from: "Lore of the Reluctant - BOOK 2"

The assassin wasn't on a job, and she hadn't been for some time. Every now and then, she questioned whether that still made her an assassin and if she could even rightly claim that title these days. Over the regular course of the last few years, she had certainly killed people—multitudes, even—but it had always been in combat, in self-defense. She couldn't even remember the last time she had cut a contract.

On those off days, she questioned further: Did she even have it in her anymore? Could she kill a man or woman for no other reason beyond their names being scrolled across the wrong sheet of parchment?

It took people like their driver, Jacob, to make her revisit those questions with marked intensity.

Jacob, who preferred to be called “Jake,” who made his own liquor once, who departed university early because “those boneheads couldn't teach him nothin',” who could break any horse, who could win any bare-knuckle fight with any chump south of the Portis Freeholds. It couldn't have been more than a half-hour since Acys had gone into the shop, but it felt like flimsy concepts like time broke down around the ramblings of someone like Jake—not Jacob.

“So, I wandered the North for a time, mostly bouncing from job to job between the Freeholds. They always said I could stick around on a permanent basis if I cared to. I was that good at what I did, but I couldn't put down roots like that. Never seemed right. Like I knew I was needed elsewhere, you know?”

“Mmhm,” the assassin said, hearing a pause.

“Got it in my mind to head south, happened to pass through Trevarun before hitting the Red River and met up with a man running some stables near the edge of town and got a job breaking horses. You ever head out that way, go to the Reiser Stables and ask anybody there. I was the finest horse trainer they'd seen in years. Years, I'm telling you. Old Mr. Reiser said I was the best he'd ever employed. Go ahead and ask him.”

“Mmhm.”

“Would-a stayed longer than I had. Stars above, the Reisers practically begged me not to leave, but it was just like before. Got that same damn feeling that I wasn't quite where I needed to be. You ever get that feeling, Jasper?”

“Mmhm.” The assassin, Jasper, unsheathed one of the twin daggers at her hips and used it to scratch the dirt out from under her fingernails. “Shit happens.”

“It's like there's gonna be a place on the road where everything's just gonna work out perfectly, and then I'll be able to put down roots and do so with a smile. I'm sure they want me back in the ring already. There's a guy down in Winterset who would pay me fifty zayl a fight because of the crowds I drew in.” He slapped the door of the coach. “Just taking this job as a driver to help pay my way back down there. Bet he's willing to up my pay just for showing up—”

“Hey, dude...” Jasper sheathed the dagger and opened the door out of the coach. “Listen, I'm gonna stretch my legs and see what the others are up to, all right?”

Jake-not-Jacob looked at her blankly from the driver's seat, twisting the reins as if he hadn't heard. “What was that?”

She sighed. “Me go that way, check on others. I'll be back in a bit.”

“Oh... okay.” He waved at her. “I'll be right here, then.”

“More's the pity.”

“What?”

“I just saw a kitty.”

“Oh...”

Jasper rolled her eyes and walked past the general store. Whatever was keeping Acys, she really didn't want to interrupt. Also, she didn't really care. Instead, she pressed on into the small town of Oliver's Field.