Blackguards and Other Such Things!

Been a long time! A little over four months, which is regrettable, but I have excuses. Here's what I've been up to lately.

1. School! - Feels like one of the busiest semesters so far. Sixteen units, which isn't so bad, but throw in a statistics class and I've been stressing to the max some days. I'm hoping to transfer to a university either this year or next year, so I want to get as many classes in as I can. Hoping by next semester I'll have more room to write consistently.

2. Revising City of Blades: I'm still giving my most recent novel a lot of attention, reading and rereading it as frequently as I can while my sister finishes up her semester. Fingers crossed that she'll have time to commit to a cover, but in the meantime I haven't been sitting on my hands.

One announcement: When I titled the book City of Blades, I swear to all of you that I did the research and ensure that there were no other novels by that name. As it happens, now there are two. One by Robert Jackson Bennett (author of City of Stairs)  and another by S.M. White (an anthology buddy!). Needless to say, I'll be giving Book Two another title, and I actually like the new one better. After a couple other prospects wrap up, I'll post it here formally.

But with its old title, City of Blades has been making the rounds in the agent circuit, since I feel it's more "publishable" in its current state. Additionally, it's also been entered in Mark Lawrence's "Great Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off!" This was a great opportunity for me, and I'm hoping to have good news to share in the coming months. My novel will be read by Mihir Wanchoo of Fantasy Book Critic. Really excited to see the feedback it'll be getting!

3. Anthologies: The ebook edition of Blackguards: Tales of Assassins, Mercenaries, and Rogues is now available on Kindle (EDIT: and other places!) It contains my fantasy/Western short story, "The Lonesome Dark."

I've also entered another short story from the same universe into another anthology competition, but I haven't heard back from them yet. When I get the word, I'll post it here.

That's about it for now! Barring any unforeseen circumstances, I'll be starting work on Book Three of Lore of the Reluctant this summer. Already have a lot of fun ideas for it.

Take care!

Grimdarkness and BLACKGUARDS

It's official! My short story submission to Ragnarok Publications will be included in the soon-to-be-released dark fantasy anthology: BLACKGUARDS: TALES OF ASSASSINS, MERCENARIES, AND ROGUES.



I'm very excited about this for a few reasons. For one: this will be the first time I'll receive a paycheck from a publisher, which is an awesome kind of validation all its own. Two: I'll be thrown in with a talented bunch of writers. Paul S. Kemp wrote THE OLD REPUBLIC: DECEIVED, one of my favorite Star Wars novels, and Michael J. Sullivan wrote another one of my favorites, HOLLOW WORLD. (I've also begun reading Mr. Sullivan's first Ryria novel, STORM OF SWORDS, and I'm having a blast so far.)
For tree: "The Lonesome Dark" was a story that I was/am really proud of. It's an author's hope that their next project is always, always a culmination of what they've learned and how they've improved, and this story in particular (I hope!) shows how much I've grown as a writer and where my strengths are now at this moment. Plus, I had a lot of fun writing it, so that's pretty cool.
While I didn't make the cut for one of the two slots in the main anthology, my story will be included in the companion anthology, THE BLACKGUARDS BLACKLIST, which is composed of eleven stories that were selected from open submissions exclusively. THE BLACKLIST will be rolled into the ebook release of the anthology, and will be included as a backer reward to those who kickstarted the project.
If you have an interest in pre-ordering the book/ebook, you can do so through the BLACKGUARDS BackerKit RIGHT HERE.
Otherwise, the website says Ragnarok is aiming for a February 2015 release.
See you then!

Holiday Progress!

Since the completion of City of Blades, I've been making decent progress on what'll eventually be the final, publishable draft. Still catching typos, still working in some feedback from my beta readers/friends. My sister, Alexa, will be giving the story a read herself in the days to come and will (hopefully) be able to get the cover art ready during our winter break.

Aside from that, I've been a tad inundated with school-related stuff, since this will be finals week for me. Also a lot of short story writing for contests, class, and Kindle. The Lore of the Reluctant short story, "None Shall Pass," is in progress -- as is a short story anthology of sci-fi and fantasy that I'll be publishing with my friend, fellow writer, and editor, Chris Buchanan.

Progress is a bit more steady since this becomes a kind of group project during the editing phase, but I hope to have more frequent updates over the break.

Happy Holidays to you all!

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!