If you read fantasy for the magic, the world-building, and the occasional moment of dark humor—I write that. One urban fantasy series, one epic fantasy series, both set in the Fractured Arcana universe, with more coming. My newsletter takes you deeper into the worlds, the characters, and what's next.
From the Fractured Arcana - Sept 1, 2025
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My other two daughters started school as well--my youngest is in high school! Crazy. I know I keep saying this, but it's gone by so fast! We are back into the help-me-with-homework evenings, Friday-night football games, and never-ending car troubles. This thing where boys ask girls to Homecoming with posters... why did that start? Feels like something Hallmark should take advantage of. Writing has been tough since the last newsletter. It isn't writer's block, and it isn't too many interruptions--the problem is getting all the complexities I want in the story to be compacted into a storyline that also provides action. I'm definitely not hitting the mark yet, but it's better than it was a couple of weeks ago. I typically have points like this in each story, but this one has proved particularly difficult. I think it's because I locked down tighter on some of the major pieces of the story and didn't leave as much wiggle room. As you might suspect, I've also got to move an army while still keeping the story personal. Lots of challenges. That said, I also have to spend time on marketing. I've been digging into reviewer quotes to use them in my ads. So thank you to those who have reviewed. Here's some of the ads I'm trying out. This stuff is hard--finding the right images and quotes (or other messages) is very different from writing stories.
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Steven J Morris
If you read fantasy for the magic, the world-building, and the occasional moment of dark humor—I write that. One urban fantasy series, one epic fantasy series, both set in the Fractured Arcana universe, with more coming. My newsletter takes you deeper into the worlds, the characters, and what's next.
Hey Reader, Quick fun bit before today's update: the polls from my last email are in. I'd asked how many of you had actually read the three portal fantasy books that made me want to write the genre: Mordant's Need: 14.3% have read it The Darwath Trilogy: 0% have read it War of the Flowers: 14.3% have read it Almost nobody has read them, which tracks. They're buried treasure. If any of them ended up on your list because of that email, I'd love to hear how it goes. Okay, the actual update. I...
Hey Reader, I was ~sixteen when I first read Mordant's Need by Stephen R. Donaldson. A woman gets pulled through a magic mirror into a medieval kingdom that desperately needs a hero—except she isn't one. No power, no destiny, no idea what she's walked into. What Donaldson does with her arc stuck with me, particularly the moment she finally understands the game being played around her, finds her place on the board, and chooses to step into it. I try to replicate that in my storytelling. That...
Well... this isn't the newsletter I expected to be writing. A couple of weeks ago I accidentally wandered into a blockchain hackathon. As one does. The timing was terrible. I was busy, traveling, and already had more on my plate than I should have. Naturally, I signed up anyway. And I created a... something. It's called Eigenthrope. It's an interactive mystery where the community votes and influences what happens next. Every week the story branches based on those votes. It runs on the XRP...