Have you ever put something off for so long that the thought of completing the task actually becomes more unbearable than the task itself? That’s been me and this blog for the last few months. Time and again an opportunity to post some snippet of bit of news has come and gone, and I’ve found excuses not to do so. “Oh, it doesn’t matter, nobody reads this thing anyway”, “Whatever, this information wouldn’t interest anyone”, “Why should I take the time when I have so many other things to do?”
While there may be some truth to that (I often feel as if I’m yelling into a void when I post here. Not that that is a criticism to anyone who might be reading this; that’s just my general sense when posting on what is arguably a dying platform for communication), none of the above is an excuse for my silence. Even if this blog serves no other purpose than as a record of my writing experiences, I still need to try to stay on top of it. One day I might want to look back on these times, and then I’ll be glad for the record.
So, I come before you, humbled and ashamed: six months have passed, and I have been silent.
One might argue that there was precedent for this behavior. The world has been a strange place for the last six months, after all. Disease, shutdowns, wildfires, square-dancing hurricanes, the world itself sometimes feels like it’s falling into chaos. I’ve always found it easier to retreat inside myself in times of trouble, turn to the worlds of my own creation, because they’re safer, in a way—they’re under my control. So I have ignored not just this blog over the last few months, but many obligations. I haven’t been in communication with friends, I’ve been lax on many of my other platforms. Hell, even garden never got planted this year, and I usually love the quiet time outside. For some reason, going outside to dig and hoe just felt too exhausting. So much has for the last few months, and I can’t say COVID is to blame for that. Not entirely, anyway. I’ve just been… elsewhere, mentally. It took a while to clamber back up, and even longer to return to my usual avenues of interaction. By the time I did, fall was upon us, and the year is already close to over.
Not that I’m entirely without things to show for it. I did release the first Bulletproof Witch omnibus back in August, which not only includes the first four books, but also a short story I wrote last summer (“short” being relative; it’s still around 10,000 words).
I also finished writing another book during the summer, one that came from an unexpected place—the LitRPG subgenre. During lockdown I kind of fell in love with the stories and decided to try my hand at my own. Before I knew it I had a completed manuscript, and a plan for a quadrilogy (you can see this now listed in my updated Author Works section).
The first book is to be called Fatedancer, and should be out sometime in November. Sadly, I don’t have a link for it yet as I’m still waiting for artwork to be completed, but once I do I’ll come back here and post some pictures and links. Also, I guess I do have a map available to look at if that sort of thing interests you.
There are two downsides to this announcement, unfortunately. The first is that I’m going to have to push back finishing the second half of Bulletproof Witch by about a year (book five is still on schedule to release next June, I’m about a quarter done with the first draft already). After book five, I’m going to alternate between writing BW and this new series (called the Books of the Ascendent, or BoA henceforce). So book 2 of BoA should be out late 2021, and book 6 of BW will be out in 2022. Of course, that’s subject to change if I get the bug to finish writing one over the other, but I think I’m going to try and hold to that, especially because I have some plans with how the books relate to each other.
Both series take place on separate worlds with separate magic systems, but they are part of a shared universe. Eventually there may be some crossover between them. Very minor, but I do have something in the works. So, because of that, timing may be a bit more set for me than normal.
The other downside to finishing Fatedancer, though not directly related to it, is that my standalone work Greenfingers is now on permanent TBD status. Unfortunately, I had been hoping to pick back up on working on it, but several attempts to progress the story have gone nowhere. I’m just not in the right spot for working on it, I think, so I’m going to keep it as a side project while focusing on my other two main stories right now. I know that probably doesn’t matter to anyone but me, and an agrarian coming-of-age fantasy probably wasn’t going to be of interest to many readers regardless, but I’d still like to see it completed at some point.
Alright, that’s enough from me for now. I’ll be back with Fatedancer news soon.