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.
Yesterday I needed to remember exactly how a character destroyed a dragon artifact three books ago. I didn't dig through my own novels to find it—I asked an AI I built to search them for me. It's called the Grimoire: a mini-AI system I put together with Pinecone that I can ask questions about my own books—hair color in a different epoch, a side character I want to bring back, a detail I'd otherwise lose momentum digging for. It keeps me writing instead of hunting. That's the quiet way AI has...
In this one: an old friend from way back, 20k words of progress, and a new reel from Thaumatropic Fractures. Last newsletter I asked for some accountability help. A few people reached out. One was someone I think of as an old friend from high school. But I've got to tell a little story about him. Way back before high school, in 5th grade, I transferred into a new school roughly mid-year. In one of my classes, the teacher insisted I do a placement test. But the placement test was this set of...
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...