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.
Newsletter - January 15, 2025
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I came close to missing the newsletter this time--just wrapped up in other stuff, and the date snuck up on me. In terms of life news, it looks like I'll be exiting retirement soon. I have an offer, but since I haven't accepted yet, I'll just hold off a bit on the details. The job would be a jump back into the semiconductor industry. I'm still working through my second pass on Secrets of Deara. It's fun that the pacing problems of this book are entirely different from the last book. Bones of Cenaedth was very linear, which is unusual for me, and I struggled getting the timing right in terms of the pulse of reading. The new book has several threads that need to diverge and then come back together, more than once. So it presents a different sort of pacing problem, one more like what I dealt with in The Guardian League series. Because I've learned, and gotten better at this craft, I'm more particular. That generally means it takes longer, but ends up with a better result (hopefully). Let me put it this way--when I wrote Guardians, I didn't think about pacing. Or sentence structure and how it relates to story pacing. How narrative versus exposition can be used to speed up or slow things down. Does being aware of it make me better at it? Ultimately, probably. What else is going on? A couple of things. One is that we should start the cover for Secrets in Feb. I have another, but I'm going to wait until it solidifies a bit more before I bring it up. Next newsletter I think. I wrote an update to my writer friends on my marketing efforts. That's just so others can learn from my mistakes. If you're new to my group and a writer, AND you're interested, let me know and I'll add you to that email group. I already put the results of the last polls in my unscheduled newsletter, so nothing new to share there. That's all I can think of! I hope you all have a great couple of weeks. All books by Steven J. Morris Indie Author ShowcasePrevious Newsletters
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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...
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