Saturday, April 26, 2014

Announcing: What will be happening with The War of Six Crowns

I know that this is a weird time for me to post this, but I've had this moment of clarity while listening to an awesome song. And right now it's super-exciting and I'm just going to lay it all out there.

See... I have a blog for my writing, a blog for my life and this blog. And for a while, I've been struggling as to what to put on this one. I've been figuring some of this stuff out, but the truth is that only now things have fallen in place in my mind. 

The truth is that when I signed up for this writing gig, I sort of had this nebulous view as to what I wanted to achieve. Basically, I want to write a ton of books and I want to publish them and sell well. That was the goal. But now.... I've basically gotten hit by the sting of what this industry's like, and I've had to take stock of everything. 

And this song pretty much kicked me into gear.



Once, I split a good book into two in order to form The Vanished Knight and The Heir's Choice. And as a result, that good book grew a bit more epic. But let me take the moment to admit that I did this to fit in with my publisher.

Now, I don't have to. Now, I can do exactly what I want with my books. Which in itself was daunting. But now... now I've decided on a course of action.

This series has always been intended as one long story with four (and then five after the split) volumes. And the thing is that I still feel that The Vanished Knight feels a bit lonely without a friend. So I'm going to do something insane, and I'm going to publish it and The Heir's Choice at the same time. There's a method to this madness, I promise. But the first thing that I feel is that even after the split, these two books run together so closely that it feels wrong to put six months' minimum of a wait between them. At the same time, throwing two books with different minor arcs back into a single volume doesn't feel right either.

So two books you'll have. Hopefully by the end of October. And:

They. Will. Be. EPIC!

Speaking of epic, this blog is going to go to a whole new level, because I'm going to pop up at random to share awesomeness. Songs that inspire me? Check. Awesome scenes - cut or not? Check. Many other forms of epicness? Honey, you have no idea.

We're going to have so much fun.


Saturday, April 12, 2014

A little taster from the War of Six Crowns Series...

So this morning I woke up with this song in my head. Which is interesting. See... I've heard it many times, but never really bothered to pay attention to the words.

Thing is... those words hooked somewhere in my subconscious and I woke up hearing: "And the walls came tumbling down on the city that we love." 

Now usually when a song's looping through my head, there's a reason for it. So I went around trying to try and find out why.

Now, it's an interesting fact that when I'm writing I have two muses. I have a general (female) one, that's kind of my creative mind going about inspiring me as if she were a separate person. And... well... it suits me to think of her as such. Because if I let ideas grow and expand organically and without conscious thought as I write, I generally write MUCH better.

So that's one muse. The other... Well.

The other is Darrion. Yup... as in one of the main characters from The War of Six Crowns. He kind of just started out as the first guy from the stories to show up in my head. Then he became their spokesperson in my head. And... Well... Now he tends to be the one to kick my butt into gear when I haven't been working on the series in a while.

And this, lovely people, was him kicking my butt into gear. Why? Well... I have book 1 to re-publish, book 2 to edit, book three to re-write and book four to start.

This song ties into book four on so many levels that it makes me emotional to think about it. But just in case you fear I'm posting a spoiler, nope. There's no volcano erupting and destroying everyone.

The words are all metaphorical, and deeply beautiful to me because I know the meaning. Sadly though, sharing the meaning will be spoiling, so instead I'll share the song and let you come to your own conclusions.


Thursday, April 10, 2014

Bad news and good news

Hey all.

As the topic says, there's bad news and good news today.

Bad news is that The Vanished Knight was taken out of all its selling sights as my publishing house gave me the rights back.

The good news is that I'll be publishing it again very soon, and the fact that I have free rein with the book now, means that this blog will be a lot more fun.

Watch this space!