I’m wracking my brain, trying to think of anything interesting that happened since the last newsletter. I bought a new (to me) car. A truck, actually. Four days in, the check engine light came on. I lost that roll of the dice. They were probably loaded dice, but I can’t prove it. I need a do-over week for all the people I snapped at that probably didn’t deserve it. 😬 Anyone heard of Fredrik Haren, The Creativity Explorer? I don’t know if Shahara, his Ops Manager, will actually read my newsletter, but she signed up! He’s going to interview me at the end of March—cool, right? Coincidentally, I’m on calls with Sweden for work more days than not of late. Funny little world, innit? I finally circled back and updated my web site to reflect my latest book release. I also worked on fairly complicated connections for the mailing list--how to fix the situation when people's email readers decide my email sign-up confirmation is spam. I have a really weird problem on Amazon - the paperback description for Mother of Trees, and the picture for the cover, are both right in their database, but wrong when you bring up the book on Amazon. Writing for Bones of Cenaedth reeeeeally slogged for the last couple of weeks. It's not so much writer's block as it is life forcing me to change my writing habits, and me resisting. OR, possibly I'm not pushing back hard enough. I ought to have more writing time, now that my oldest daughter has her license. Instead, I'm realizing how I do a lot of thinking while driving, and waiting in a parking lot for a kid was the perfect time to jot down those ideas. Jogging/running was another good time for new ideas, but I don't run as much because of arthritis--I try to balance running with other exercise that isn't as bad for my particular body. I haven't yet mastered the art of drifting away to another world while on a bike, or while doing a class. But this is life, and one adjusts. I'm going to fire off another glimpse into the next book--this particular snippet has no spoilers. Again, it could all be gone by the time the book goes out the door. This small section of world-building took a long time, for reasons not obvious from the text. Certain things have to fit together, like one of those blacksmith puzzles where you have to separate the metal parts by turning them just so. The magic, the geography, even the morals of the different elf cultures (not to mention the trolls and dragons and their cultural values) have to work together, especially when there's dissonance. As we cleared the twisted trees, the land sloped down, and I got my first look, and smell, of Theopolis, the city built on the edge of Fael Themar, also known as the Faelian Swamps.
Either the land had stretched fingers into the murky water, knuckle islands protruding without connection, or the water had attempted to swallow the land and bit off more than it could handle. Every meandering shoreline hosted knobby trees that interconnected at their roots, like one giant organism held the land and water in place. The smell was musty and earthy, but a sweet overtone drew my eyes to the white and purple flowers that peeked through the trees. Stone and wood buildings dotted the shore closest to the grasslands, stretching in a line rather than sprawling out into the swamp islands. To the north, a river spilled water from the grasslands, cascading off the hill we stood upon and tumbling in a series of waterfalls down to the town, where an elf-made barrier collected the water in a pond, and the swamp swallowed the spillover like it was nothing. Buildings hugged that pond the same way they embraced the shore. Empty pools dotted the strip of land between the hill and the swamp, pockmarks on the scar that defined the elf toehold.
“I… don’t understand what I’m seeing,” I said to my mother, waving vaguely toward the empty pools.
“Remember what I told you: the river shifts. Sometimes it comes through where you see it, sometimes where we are standing now. There are other openings farther north.” I looked behind us to be sure a wall of water hadn’t snuck up. My mother smiled. “The shifts can be quite sudden.” That explained the smooth passway; it wasn’t the work of elves, but of water.
If there's things you'd like to see in my newsletter that I'm not doing, please let me know. I've settled on a bit of non-writing, a bit of writing, and connections to other authors and their books. I'll try adding some recommendations for other newsletters. Here's my first, for my fellow writers. Indie Author ShowcaseOpportunities to find your next favorite author... Previous Newsletters
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Hi! If you enjoy fantasy with snarky humor, I've got some books for you. My newsletter takes you along the creative journey, and keeps you informed of what's brewing.
Click here to rejoin family content. Not a lot of updates. Between the family trip to the Keys, and a trip to see a set of grandparents, I didn't get much writing time. That's okay... sometimes I need a break from writing as much as I do from work. I did write one chapter, so not zero progress. I sent what I have to my mother, still my biggest cheerleader... the beginning and end of Secrets. She had questions about how it all connects to Guardian League. Maybe I hadn't said this before, but...
Click here to rejoin family content. Book 4 is well underway now. I took a different approach this time and wrote the first 4 chapters, then the final 5 chapters. The ending has weighed on me for so long that I just had to get it done. So now I just need the silly midling bits and it'll go out the door. :D Frankly, the parts I have written are missing things. Bits that it is hard to tie up in action scenes without distracting. It'll be fun and interesting to work that out. I'm still trying to...
Click here to rejoin family content. Oddly enough, the twice-a-month cadence for newsletters won out over once-a-month, by one vote. So twice a month is borderline. Maybe I'll skip a newsletter once in a while. And more people liked seeing the indie book options than didn't, so I'll keep them, but I set up ways to opt out of both the non-writing updates AND the indie book showcase. So you should be able to click on your choices in an email, set your preferences, and future emails will be...