Category Archives: Uncategorized

Fireweaver is finished.

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Today, I finished the first draft of Fireweaver, the second book in my Sunweaver series. That’s two books down and one more to go. This series will probably come out once I get my entire World in Chains series out to readers, so it’s still a while down the road before it will be ready for readers’ eyes.

I had a big push these last two days, writing over 11,000 words over the two days combined. That often happens to me when I get close to the end of the book. I become so excited about what I’m writing, and the words simply flow.

This one has a few rough spots that I need to smooth out when it comes to revisions. I won’t deny that. But for the moment, my revision efforts will be focused mostly on The Shadowed Land, book 2 in World of Chains. I expect to start writing the last book in the Sunweaver trilogy soon.

I’ve discovered that the best writing method for me is to write an entire series before moving forward with it. I tend to write without a definite plan in mind, so there are sometimes inconsistencies between books that I have to iron out before I can publish.

 

In other news, it should be less than two months before I get my cover art for Empire of Chains, the first book of World in Chains. I’m not sure about the timetable for the rest of the series just yet, but Empire of Chains is still on track for this summer.

Fantasy Video Games: Distraction or Inspiration

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As a fantasy writer, I am naturally a fan of the genre in all its forms. Books, movies, video games–basically, if it’s fantasy, I’ll probably be a fan of it. But that raises an important question. As a fantasy writer, should you focus on books alone, or should you branch out into other areas for inspiration?

Personally, I think there’s a lot to be gained from fantasy video games. But I could be biased in that. Part of the reason I got into writing fantasy was from playing some of my favorite Square RPGs as a kid on the Super Nintendo. Those games helped me fall in love with the genre (and then I read Harry Potter, and I was doomed to be a fantasy fan and writer for the rest of my life).

One of the biggest places where video games help me is in crafting my settings. The best video games these days, in all their beautiful graphical glory, depict some absolutely stunning settings. I’m a pretty visual person, but I would have trouble coming up with some of these settings on my own. However, now that I’ve seen these beautiful images, I can use them as inspiration and make them into something that’s all my own.

Some of the best story-driven games also feature characters you fall in love with. The great thing about these games is that they are usually forced to show instead of tell. Generally, in a video game, you do not see a character’s internal thoughts. Everything must be conveyed through dialogue and visuals. And some games do this quite well. For example, I recently played the remastered version of Final Fantasy X. I felt such a strong connection to the characters in this one, and the story had me in tears a few times.

When it comes to stories, though, you have to be careful about how much inspiration you take from video games. In an RPG, you face a lot of minor battles, which are interesting in that format. In a novel, however, you cannot have your characters fighting Slimes every two pages. That’s going to get old very quickly. If you’re going to have battles, you have to be careful about which ones you show, or you’ll risk making your story repetitive.

Then we come to the all-important question. How much time should you spend playing fantasy video games? These games can use up a lot of your time, and if you’re not careful, you’ll spend your time playing games instead of writing.

As a writer, you should always focus on your writing. Whatever your writing goals are, it’s important that you hit them with consistency, and if playing video games is using up too much of your time, you’ll have to cut back.

Consistency is Key

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When it comes to writing, I’ve heard from many writers that the biggest thing you need for productivity and longevity as a writer is the ability to write consistently. You don’t write only when you’re inspired. Even when you don’t feel like it, you sit down and put your fingers on the keyboard (or typewriter or longhand, if you’re so inclined). It doesn’t matter how you get those words down. Just get them down.

I recently wrote about setting word count goals. I’m not sure I’ll make my 50,000 words a month goal, but that’s okay. I’m writing consistently and productively. I’ve hit at least 1,000 words 10 of the last 11 days. Over that time, I’ve written over 18,000 words. Per day, it doesn’t seem like a lot of words, but those words add up. At this write, I should manage three books in a year without too much of a problem. Of course, there’s also the revision process, which I need to get better about.

Finding the Write Balance (that is not a typo).

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I’m planning on releasing my first book this summer. That’s a big milestone I’ve been building up to for a long time. I’ve lost count of how many books I’ve written and discarded on the way to this, and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve changed my mind about going through with self-publishing.

But now I am going through with it, and I want to achieve at least a moderate level of success. That means making back the money I’ve put in at first and then earning more farther down the road, once I have more books out.

That brings me to my greatest dilemma. I have a lot going on in my life. I’m going to engineering school, I’m working, I’m trying to get things ready to move, and I’m trying to launch my writing career. On top of all that, I suffer from bipolar disorder and anxiety. There’s only so much stress I can put on myself before it becomes potentially dangerous.

When I look at a lot of self-published authors, I see that they’re putting out three or four books a year (sometimes even more). I’d love to be able to write on that kind of schedule. I’m a very productive writer when I’m actually writing, but I am not able to write every day due to my many other commitments. As such, I think I can put out one book a year, maybe two (but I’m not going to hold myself to that).

I’m trying to keep any kind of time pressure of myself. It will only push me beyond safe levels of stress and likely result in an inferior novel. So I’m going to set my goal at getting one book out a year. Since I have already written the first drafts of all the books in World of Chains, I anticipate the schedule being a bit quicker at first.

It may work out well enough that I can spend more time writing once school is over. I still have 2.5 years to go (including this semester). Of course, that’s assuming I don’t decide to continue my studies in graduate school.

I will try my best to get new material out there quickly because I know I like that kind of productivity as a reader, but I’m not going to promise any set number of books per year apart from the one I think I can do without putting too much pressure on myself. Beyond that, it will depend on how much time I find to write between my other commitments.

That being said, I still anticipate a summer release for Empire of Chains. If all goes well with editing, I hope to have the second book in the series, The Shadowed Land, out sometime around Christmas, but we’ll see how things shape up.

I do want to keep everyone updated on what’s going on with my writing. One of my favorite authors, Brandon Sanderson, is great about doing that, and I find his way of approaching his writing career is inspiring to me. Obviously, I’m going a different route with self-publishing, but I still think I can approach my career in roughly the same way.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to get more details soon on the release for Empire of Chains. I won’t really know until I have the cover art finalized, which won’t happen until June at the earliest.

Indie Book Review: The Empire of the Dead by Phil Tucker

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There’s only one word I can think of to describe this book: fun.

This is a different kind of story from Phil Tucker, who has written the excellent Chronicles of the Black Gate series (three books out, with two more to go, I believe). That series is epic fantasy with a capital E. This one is less epic, more tightly focused. It’s basically a heist story, though the object being stolen is a person rather than some treasure. But it also becomes much more than that.

It’s a story of a world where most of the gods have died and only the goddess of death remains. As such, necromancy is all over the place. That might seem like a tired trope of fantasy, but I think Tucker did it very well, putting some new twists on old ideas.

The biggest positive out of this book was the action. I already knew that Tucker could write great action scenes, and he delivered again in this one. I found myself frantically flipping virtual pages for much of the book. The beginning was a bit slow, and it took me a while to warm to the characters, but once I did, I was along for the ride. And it was a great one.

The only real issue I noticed with this one were a few more typos and editing issues than I’ve come to expect from Tucker. They weren’t egregious by any means, and I don’t think they should detract from anyone’s enjoyment of the book. I do think it could have used one more proofreading pass, though.

Overall, I really enjoyed it. I didn’t like it quite as much as The Path of Flames, but that’s a high standard to live up to.

Rating: 9/10

If you’re looking to give some self-published authors a chance, I highly recommend Tucker. My enjoyment of his stories is right up there with some of my favorite trade-published authors. Tucker knows how to tell a great story.

World in Chains is complete!!!

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Well, the first draft of the fourth and final book is complete. I still have a lot of revision and editing work to do.

For anyone’s who’s been following my blog recently, you’ve seen that I’ve done a lot of back and forth on self-publishing. Well, with the series nearing completion, I decided to go ahead and take the plunge and stop letting fear get in my way.

I’m not expecting to get rich immediately (or at all) from self-publishing. I think I can manage to write enough to keep my readers happy without pushing myself too hard. If I do enter a dark period mentally, I will be sure to keep everyone updated and let them know that I do intend to finish my projects.

Note that I’m not expecting this to happen, but I always find it best to be prepared.

 

As for the series itself, it is four pretty hefty books. The first one goes about 165,000 words, the second 140,000, the third 120,000, and the fourth 170,000. I wouldn’t be surprised if the second and third get longer in revisions.

Most of the series I have planned will probably be shorter than this one, but you never know. I’m just excited to get this out there and ready for everyone to read. This series has been with me in some form for more than 11 years now. With each iteration, I’ve stepped up my game as a writer, and now I think it’s what it always should have been.

I currently have covered are scheduled for this June, so you can expect to see the first book published sometime this summer. I would expect the others to follow at roughly four-month intervals (possibly faster depending on how smoothly edits go and how quickly I can get the cover art done). I may not be able to keep up that kind of schedule indefinitely due to school and work obligations, but I’ll try to be fast (without sacrificing quality, of course).

A Tough Decision

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I’ve had more time to think about my writing and self-publishing plans, and in the end, I think it will be best if I put off self-publishing for the moment. I have a lot on my plate between school, work, and family obligations. Adding extra pressure doesn’t seem like a smart thing to do, especially when I consider my mental health.

I’m doing okay right now, but I never know when a bad period is going to start. If that does happen, I don’t want to feel like I have to right or market or do whatever. I also need some time to relax and recharge, and I’d prefer that writing remain fun for me.

In the meantime, I’ll keep writing. By the time I do decide to self-publish, I’ll probably have a lot of material ready.

If anyone is really interested in what I’m writing (and I do plan to update my blog more regularly with writing-related stuff, books reviews, and such), I’m always happy to have alpha and beta readers take a look at my books.

Defining initial success in self-publishing.

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I recently made the decision not to go with self-publishing for the moment, and like always, I’m doubting that decision. Part of it, I think, is the expectations I’m placing on myself. I’m looking at authors who are finding success in self-publishing, and I think of all the work I’ll have to do to get to that point.

But perhaps I’m not using the right measuring stick. I’m not saying I should abandon my big goals, but perhaps if I make my goal simply to earn back the money I’m putting in, then it may be a lot more conducive to me taking the plunge.

Self-publishing is very rarely a ticket to great money, but it is a chance to make some income while giving readers the chance to read your books. That’s what I should focus on now. I’m tired of my stories languishing on the computer. They deserve readers.

But then I wonder if I should give trade publishing another chance. At the end of the day, though, I’m a bit of a control freak by nature. The idea of having complete control over the product I put out there is appealing. Even the marketing, although it may be a bit outside my comfort zone, is a chance to experiment.

After all, self-publishing is still very much an experiment for every author. There’s no magic bullet that works for everyone. For some, it’s writing a lot of books very quickly. For others, it’s becoming very involved with fans on social media. Then there are those who just put the book out there and readers somehow find it.

The point of all this is that there are many different routes to success and many different standards for success. I may do terribly at self-publishing, but that’s still better than never trying at all.

Even if I only make back a fraction of what I put into my first few books, that’s okay. Self-publishing is a long-haul. Some writers find success immediately, but it’s more common to build up momentum as you build up your backlist. Since your self-published book never goes out of print, the backlist can be a very powerful tool for success.

So I guess I’ve changed my mind. We’ll see how long that lasts…

An Update

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I know I haven’t been updating this much. I’ve been going through a rather tough period when it comes to questioning my writing. In the end, I think I will have to hold off on any self-publishing plans.

To do it right, I simply need more time than I currently have. Between work and school and my other commitments, it will be difficult to write at the pace I feel is necessary for success in self-publishing, and that doesn’t even include all the time I’d have to spend marketing, as well as the costs involved with cover art and professional editing (money I don’t really have at the moment).

This doesn’t mean that I’m giving up on writing. In fact, I am going to return to my original writing plans: pursuing trade publishing. This obviously comes with its own problems, but I feel it’s a better fit for me at this time. In the future, once I’m done with school, I may return to my self-publishing plans.

For now, I’m going to see if I can write some new material (though I may also finish the last book of World in Chains. I’m so close to the end, and it would be a shame to leave it unfinished).

If anyone’s interested in beta reading drafts of my novels, feel free to tell me. I’m always interested in improving.

Book Review: Ghost Story by Jim Butcher

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Since this is the thirteenth book in The Dresden Files, there will probably be some spoilers in this review. However, I will start out with some general observations about the series.

First and foremost, The Dresden Files is quite possibly the most entertaining series I’ve ever read. I’m generally more of an epic fantasy fan, but this urban fantasy series is one of my favorites. In reality, everything Butcher writes is great for me. I also loved his Codex Alera series and the first book in his Cinder Spires series.

What makes this series so great? For me, it’s two things: the nearly nonstop action and the voice of our narrator, Harry Dresden. That combination makes these stories a whole lot of fun. Butcher is a master of putting Harry in worse and worse situations, and it’s so much fun to figure out how he’s going to wriggle his way out of them. There are also some truly amazing scenes in this series (like Harry riding a reanimated dinosaur through the streets of Chicago).

The quality of the series is not quite as high at the beginning. It took Butcher a while to get into his groove. The first few books are merely good, while the rest are downright great. The last three have been some of my favorites.

And that brings me to Ghost Story.

SPOILERS AHEAD! SPOILERS AHEAD! SPOILERS AHEAD!

All right, you’ve been warned.

This one begins after the cliffhanger at the end of Changes, and we find out that Harry is dead. Now he’s a ghost, which makes things all the more interesting. For the entire series, he’s been in over his head at times, but it’s still the world he’s familiar with. Being a ghost in this one brings in an entirely new set of challenges and limitations, and that’s part of what makes this story so great to read. It’s different from the rest of the series, which I suppose could be polarizing among fans. Personally, I felt it was a nice change of pace.

Overall, I really enjoyed this one. It wasn’t quite as good as Turn Coat and Changes (my favorites), but it came very close.