Tag: fantasy

Three Months of Books: October, November, and December

On By R. J. HowellIn A Month of BooksLeave a comment

It’s been spooky, turkey, and pine tree season! I seem to instead be channeling an overall desire for flannel, knit sweaters, and warm drinks, since most of my reads this month fall, once more, into that “cozy” category and heavy on the romance. Frankly, not too many books read these past few months or, at least, not many books that are published. I did read quite a few books as a beta-reader and then was up to my neck in revisions, so I was mostly reading my books, which don’t count. Either way, without further ado, three months of books!

A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland: This was a delight. Very, very slow burn romance between a prince and his bodyguard, who are very opposite yet work so well in contrast with each other. The mystery element was a little transparent, much like it was with A Strange and Stubborn Endurance and yet, I found myself not minding it, since it honestly doesn’t matter, as the book isn’t really about the mystery, it’s about the romance and the politics. I adored the world-building, especially that it was so, so casually queer-normative and not once was a character’s sexuality or gender identity used for “drama” or weaponized against. People were just queer and the way it was done was so deft, never once did I feel it would stray into the whole “oh, this person is being hurt because they’re [insert queer identity here].” As for the characters, Kadou is a wonderful depiction of living with anxiety and I found his experience rather…eye-opening, seeing that I never realized I struggle with anxiety till I saw a character with anxiety and I was like…oh, his brain beats him up just like mine does me! …oh. Wait a minute… Evemer (and his mother!) is wonderful and I just love how he has to learn to use, y’know, words. Complex sentences. Express himself. Not just rely on grunts ’cause that’s going to trigger Kadou’s anxiety terribly. Aaaaand, slightly spoilery, but there was a certain character I had enjoyed greatly and braced myself for his death, probably in a dramatic moment of self-sacrifice because of course that’s what you do with the ex in romance novels…and he didn’t die. In fact, he not only lives but recognizes that his feelings are his to work through? Which was unexpected, refreshing, and very much welcome. Also, there’s a positive hat-tilt to the importance of therapy. My only moment of marginal disappointment was when I realized the romance was definitely monogamous but there were a few hints that it could have gone down a poly amorous path. There just isn’t enough poly am representation in mainstream publishing…

Immortal Rising by Lynsay Sands: Ah, the installment for the long-running Argeneau series that I missed. This one was different, and had a refreshingly different pace/approach/formula. The last few (er, like dozen) have had older immortals who are well past their first couple of centuries and uninformed mortals as their life mate, so you get a lot of the same sort of structure of the immortal dancing around the reveal, and eventually the reveal which if, like me, you’ve been reading all thirty-something of these for years, you can recite near verbatim in your sleep. This one had a young immortal (who, even more intriguingly, is one of the “fangless” variety) and a…well, I hesitate to call him just a mortal, only because he, er, is genetically modified to have wings and his mortality is a little questionable? Either way, he’s already in on the secret, so the obligatory explanation is extremely brief. There was a twist I wasn’t expecting, and another which…eeeeeeh, okay, fine, I’ll give it though it borders on silly (however, this series knows it’s campy and embraces the camp, so again, didn’t bother me even as I rolled my eyes…but smilingly so), and a certain enemy arc is brought to a conclusion. I wonder who the next antagonist will be for the next batch of life mate couples…*

After the Bite by Lynsay Sands: The new installment of that same long-running series. To be absolutely honest, I can finish reading these in a day, and often do, which is why they tend to be on here in batches. They’re fast reads, usually funny, and just pleasantly entertaining with a rather creative approach to the world-building (I mean, vampires who aren’t vampires, but nano-infested immortals from the lost city of Atlantis…that is just so campy and embraces the camp wholeheartedly). This one was back to older immortal and ignorant mortal structure, which was okay, and there might be a new antagonist being introduced, though we’ll see. Admittedly, the one issue I’m starting to have with these is when they inevitably call for reinforcements and we get ALL the cameos from a bunch of previous books…only, it’s been a few years since I read them and I don’t know who half these people are anymore anyway… Still, I do still enjoy the idea that, oh, sure, finding your life mate is incredible, once-in-a-lifetime chance that every immortal dreams of…but it’s also WILDLY inconvenient, seeing that you keep passing out from incredible, and incredibly brief, sex. And, er, everywhere. Woe to the life mates who have sex in a confined bathroom with an awful lot of sharp edged counters and hard tile everywhere, for they are doomed to head injuries (which, er, has happened in previous books).*

At the Feet of the Sun by Victoria Goddard: This book. This book. This book was incredible. I’d been waiting for it for a few months now, and it was worth that wait in every way. But most importantly, this book gave me that queer experience of seeing oneself finally, FINALLY reflected in a character and feeling validated. This book made me cry. A lot. I devoured it in three days, and even then, I had to take breaks because of the sheer amount of feels it inspired in me. Because I understood. But more than that, this book understood me. Up until reading this one, I have never had the experience of reading an ace character who is not only explicitly described as ace, but has the way they love not only validated but shown as being just as important as allo-experiences of love. I have never read that before, never experienced a book that said to me, “Hey, the way you experience love? Yeah, that’s valid, and here’s a whole book with a character who experiences love the way you do and it’s beautiful.” I finally, finally have a book that, when someone asks, “So what’s it feel like to be ace?” I can point at and be like, “Read that. It’s very close to my experience.” And that is just the romance. The rest of the book is just gorgeous, and I adored every bit of it. Will I reread this 1000-page behemoth? Oh, yes. Reread and re-experience and love every moment. Again, I just adore the way this world depicts both the concrete reality and the fantastical—not just fantasy, per say, but whimsy and myth and folklore and story. And the way Goddard writes characters is truly just extraordinary. And you have no idea how utterly delighted I am to discover that not only are there two more Red Company books planned, but there’s also a third for Lays of the Hearth-Fire. I thought this one was going to be the end, I really did, but then…I learned there will be more. Adore, I simply adore. And I foist! Read, read, and join me in my adoration!**

Also, it’s very, ah, fitting that I featured both Alex Rowland’s new book and Victoria Goddard’s new book in the same blog post. For reasons.

* Just as a note, though I mostly read queer-leaning romances, this series is almost painfully het and follows the mainstream category romance market formula very closely. This is not a knock to category romances or het relationships, but if you’ve come across my blog because of the queer SFF romances I feature, just know that these are not those.

** This review has very little, ah, content, mostly because if I get started, I won’t shut up, and I would prefer to keep in as unspoilery as possible. Because I will babble. And I will give things away.

Many (Many) (Like 12) Months of Books

On By R. J. HowellIn A Month of BooksLeave a comment

Well! It’s been awhile since I’ve done one of these, mostly due to grad school and work devouring the whole of my attention, but even while I was doing said grad school and work, I did manage to read quite a few books new to me (I try not to feature too many rereads on this, since I tend to reread when stressed, and I have been quite stressed). You may also see a certain trend of the kind of book I’ve been consuming lately. Mostly “cozy.” A lot of cozy.

This shall be a very long post. Please keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times.

The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard: My favorite, favorite book discovery this year is, hands down, The Hands of the Emperor. It is THE most delightful, wholesome doorstopper of a book. It’s the Goblin Emperor but, like, leveled up, and a thousand-ish pages of heart-warming, with amazing characters, relationships, and people who are in government bureaucracy who are…actually and actively trying to make the world a better place in tiny increments. It’s also the only fantasy novel where you have radical communist communes and tax auditing right next to flying sky-trees that can be turned into sky-ships and the literal god of the sun incarnate, where magic and myth and mysticism are just as real as grant applications. It’s also about culture and family and work and trauma and healing from trauma and deep, deep friendships that exist in defiance of taboos and—oh, so many things. I admit, the beginning is a bit, all right, not sure where this is going, but the second Cliopher sees that summer mansion and makes his plan to invite his emperor on vacation, I was utterly hooked. And then I loved it so much, I read it twice! It’s a beautiful book. I absolutely cannot wait for At the Feet of the Sun*.

Petty Treasons by Victoria Goddard: A companion/prequel to The Hands of the Emperor that adds the delightful (and often aw-inducing) context from the emperor’s perspective. Highly recommended, but definitely to be read after reading THotE, otherwise, it’ll make only a marginal amount of sense, and it’s really designed as a supplement—the moments that made me gasp with recognition and realization wouldn’t quite have the same punch without seeing those same moments from Cliopher’s mildly unreliable point of view (he really does downplay things). But! I would say read this one before Return, if only to get used to this other narrative style.

The Return of Fitzroy Angursell by Victoria Goddard: AKA, The Return of Spoiler Spoiler. While technically it can be read alone, it has far more significance when read after THotE. Like THotE, this was an absolute delight, but for different reasons, and it’s wonderful to finally have a viewpoint character who is able to experience the magic, and I adore the idea of a wild mage being the reason narrative conveniences occur—because they’re wild mages, wild coincidence just happens, and that conceit is delightful. This one sort of has the feeling like a retired D&D group is coming together again, but they were adventurers in their twenties and thirties, and now they’re in their fifties and sixties, and have lives and careers and spouses and children, but want to have just one more adventure together. And they will, it just might take some time, because they’re still trying to fit each other into those thirty-year-out-of-date versions of themselves, and haven’t quite got a handle on who everyone has become. I also have theories for why this one is in first person.

The Redoubtable Pali Avramapul by Victoria Goddard: I devoured this one in a day, then went back and read it again. Ooooh, what Goddard does that is amazing is having the same scene told from two points of view, and realizing that, um, yeeeeeah, from another vantage, that had a totally different result. I look forward so much to Pali meeting Cliopher again, I really do. And whether or not she’s gonna murder him. But that’s neither here no there. Really, the character work in this series is extraordinary. These people could just sit in empty rooms and talk and I’d be riveted. And there are so many moments where, as a reader who has read the others, I knew why one character was doing something, or what they might’ve been thinking, and oh, the heart-wincing I endured as Pali…couldn’t pick up on the subtext. Also, Tor needs a hug. But. Um. Maybe with a lot of advanced warning…

The Assassins of Thasalon by Lois McMaster Bujold: Wow, it’s been a-while since I’ve done a Month of Books post. This one came out ages ago, but it would appear, I never featured it on this mini-series of blogs. Unlike the rest of the series, this one is novel-length! A short novel, but still a novel! It also ties together so many of the dangling threads laid out in the other novellas, and feels, half the time, like the end of the series (it isn’t though!). The other half of the time, there’s a bit of a recap on how demons and sorcerers and saints work, but as it centers on a very intriguing abuse of the demon-sorcerer system and the powers of a saint, the retread isn’t unwelcome though if, like me, you chose to reread the whole series in preparation for Assassins, you might find yourself skimming a little of the education-during-the-carriage-ride scenes, but I still enjoyed them. Also, there’s quite a few familiar faces, which are always a treat, and a few characters whose names we’ve heard but never met being onscreen.

Knot of Shadows by Lois McMaster Bujold: This one was the surprise gift. I totally thought Assassins was the end of the series, and then, ‘lo and behold, Knot of Shadows is released, which ties the Penric and Desdemona novellas to The Curse of Chalion in a way that it hadn’t before (Pen and Des are more obviously connected with The Paladin of Souls, for obvious, demonic reasons) and re-explores that central concept of death magic/the miracle of justice (along with a threat/concern introduced in TCoC which was a source of tension but not, er, something that came to pass). It also makes me cry. I’ve read it twice now. I still cry. As always, anything by Lois McMaster Bujold is gold.

Paladin’s Hope by T. Kingfisher: Another paladin book! This time, it’s a romance between a berserker paladin with night terrors and a coroner with the ability to touch a dead body and experience their death (there’s a reason he’s a strict vegetarian) as they work together to escape a trap-filled dungeon, and is just filled with those tiny references to RPG-related logic holes…like why would you have lethal traps in a place people walk around in? Unless, of course, it was never designed for people… Also, the developing tensions and relationships between humans and gnolls are fascinating to me, and I thoroughly enjoy how the world shifts and changes as the series(es) progress. Another absolute delightful installment of the series, and routinely laugh-out-loud funny.

The Grief of Stones by Katherine Addison: So I appear to have a thing for protagonists that understate the situation a tad, and Celehar very much understates. But now he has a partner! Who is marginally more emotive than he is (though there’s this delightful moment where he has a moment of weakness and laughs and…everyone else is like, “…I’ve worked with you for years. You have never laughed.” “I’m a little stressed.”) The slow-burn relationship continues to be very slow-burn. It’s possible in a book or two, they might even hold hands! Maybe. But I am a sucker for the “shift from last names to personal names” trope. The mysteries weave together nicely, and I devoured the whole of it in a day. And that one development! It was both surprising but inevitable, and leaves me hungering for the next to see how this plays out. (Trying not to spoil!)

Sword Dance by A. J. Demas: I stumbled across these in a “Books Like” list as I was looking for cozies to scratch the itch left by The Hands of Emperor, and ended up falling in love with this series of very queer, classic era-Greece analogue fantasy that almost, almost reads like historical fiction except…not. There’s some nice echoes here of Swordspoint, but also locked-room historical mysteries (murder! in a villa! but the murder doesn’t happen till the 1/3 mark and the first third is setting the stage and letting you get to know the players and the suspects) and romance (and these two people who are awkward around each other work together to solve the mystery and end up falling in love!). This one hit so many of my personal “favorite tropes,” and I love that it’s so casually queer, with a romance between a bisexual man (Damiskos) and a genderfluid enby (Varazda).

Saffron Alley by A. J. Demas: Book 2! Varazda invites his lover to his home to meet his family–and his family, er, have a range of reactions. Like Sword Dance, there is a mystery element, though unlike the first book, there isn’t a, ah, body, so to speak. More delightful coziness of the two’s deepening relationship as Damiskos is vetted by Varazda’s family, and still so wonderfully casually queer (especially with the found-family and adoption aspects). Mostly, everything here is still just sweet and makes me smile. (Also, just as a note, for all of these books, there’s a massive content warning for slavery and trauma and questions of consent; A. J. Demas’ website lists the content warnings for each book, which is both helpful and considerate.)

Strong Wine by A. J. Demas: And the conclusion of the series. Book 3 alternates from Varazda’s and Dami’s viewpoints, and Varazda now gets to meet Damiskos’ family (who are…odd). Once more, it has that combination of murder mystery, romance, and historical fiction-textured secondary world fantasy which works so very well—but now with courtroom drama! And you have no idea how refreshing it is to have a character introduce his boyfriend (sometimes girlfriend) to his family, and they’re just like, “Oh, you usually don’t bring your lovers by to meet us,” and that’s it, that’s the extent of the drama. Although, I do have to warn, there are some unpleasant insults thrown Varazda’s away about his gender presentation (but by the book’s antagonists, so I feel like that’s a given?) Oh! And quiet autism rep, which is also refreshing (the parents are vile about it, but are the disapproved-of minority). I enjoyed these three so much, I read them twice.

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree: You may have noticed a trend to my reading lately, and that is cozy fantasy, and if you spend any time in cozy fantasy circles, you will hear of Legends & Lattes, and for good reason. It is the epitome of cozy. It also is full of RPG references (I mean, even the title is riffing off of Dungeons & Dragons) and coffee shop AU tropes, and is just, frankly, wholesome and pleasant to read. Yeah, sure, you kind of suspect the conflict and, like me, you might catch early on what’s going to happen to that coffee shop, but it’s the kind of comfortable predictability of a romcom; you know it’s coming, and that’s part of the pleasure of it.

A Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows: This one…I’m a little conflicted about, but I think the root of it is that I went in expecting one thing (political-leaning fantasy with rich world-building, assassination plots, and a slow-burn MLM arranged-marriage romance) but got something very different different (light world-building, political-leaning but in the background, an assassination plot that ran tangentially to the romance, but the two seemed a bit…disconnected? Not as enmeshed as I would have preferred). I was very committed to the first 30%, but the general feel started to shift around the 40% mark, and by the end, I wasn’t as invested as I would have liked. However, a friend of mine adored it (for many of the reasons I didn’t!). The hardcover edition, by the way, is gorgeous. I do recommend it for fans of Winter’s Orbit who are looking for that same MLM arranged-marriage, sweet slow-burn romance with a backdrop of politics and a central mystery, but fantasy rather than space opera. CW, though, there is an onscreen rape of a viewpoint character within the first 30 pages**.

* All right, yes, I can wait, and will wait as much as necessary, but the anticipation! Aaaaah! Also, I’ve been foisting this book and the rest of the series and parallel serieses on anyone foolish enough to get me on my new favorite topic. Consider it foisted on you.

** Honestly, what is it with MLM romances and rape? I can name half a dozen off the top of my head where this is either a plot point or a backstory element.

Updates! Including an Unexpected Novel Ambush, Discussions of Food, and Some Art

On By R. J. HowellIn Art, Sketches, and Doodles, Prophecy's Exile, writingLeave a comment

*creeps out of stress-cave*

*attempts to dust blog off with dirty rag*

Well, hi! Um. I may have neglected this blog a bit these past many months. Life has been…hectic. While I hope that it will soon become less hectic, it’ll probably remain fairly hectic for the next few months, though I’m hoping to restart the Month of Books series. I miss the Month of Books and I’ve read some fantastic stuff recently that I’d like to share.

I also may have been ambushed by a new novel. There I was, working on Prophecy’s Incarnate, when out of nowhere, I introduced this one-off side character who gets mentioned but never is on-screen, and I found myself wondering, Huh. Who’s this guy? Aaaaand next thing I know, I’m writing a spinoff prequel novel that, in the space of slightly less than three months (egads), I have written over 100,000 words of. Yes, I almost succeeded in two consecutive NaNoWriMo challenges, though sadly not in the month of November.

Is this stress-related? Oh, definitely. Am I enjoying it greatly? Also, definitely.

For unlike Gev’s story, Asheru’s is…almost entirely plotless. It’s just this guy. Living his life. Doing things. Having tiny adventures. Mostly just living with his family. Very slice-of-life. Where Gev is my under-emoting potato, Ru is my exceedingly emotive dandelion who has feels about everything and opinions. Mostly about cooking. Why, yes, I am currently writing a character who is 100% in love with food—the eating of it and the making of it, and I get to write about cooking.

*whispers* Spoilers, but I love to cook. I also love to eat tasty food, so you have no idea how much of a joy it is to write a character who understands food and can describe it to an excessive degree. Gev? He eats and it tastes good more often than not, but he doesn’t describe it deeply. My previous book, Dead God’s Bones? Kossa mostly eats because otherwise, he’d starve and die? It’s a means to an end. Maiv has a similar kind of single-minded focus, but can at least describe a nice take-out dinner. Luko likes to eat, but lacks the vocabulary to describe it in any depth, because why would he? The book before that? Bunch of semi-immortals on a mostly liquid diet, so food…wasn’t really a high point.

It is so much fun to write a foodie who rants philosophic about chili oil.

So I’m a 100k into an unmarketable spinoff prequel that takes place about six years before Prophecy’s Exile and I have no idea what I’m going to do with, but hey! It’s a thing. I’m aiming for about 160k, but it might end up longer. Since it’s utterly unmarketable by itself, I’m caring less about fitting it into the proper boxes for a query and more about just writing the story however I want. It’s gloriously freeing.

Speaking of things, I also decided to paint what had started as a sketch of an Indros warrior on a war-garn that was mostly for me to work out armor and saddle designs, and it, er…got out of hand.

Cue random lore-dump: It’s a bit tricky to see, since the rider’s leg is shadowed, but he is buckled into the saddle. Because garn, particularly war-garn cavalry, pitch and rock and rear and jump nearly twice their height from a standing position, and the most common injury for Indros cavalry are broken legs if their garn rolls and they don’t have time to release the saddle straps. The saddle is designed for one rider, and has a high back like a chair. The armor is a lacquered wood laminate, which can basically be painted pretty much any color they wish, though it’s usually in family/bloodline colors. The wealthier the warrior (or their family) the more intricate the carvings and inlaid with more gold and enamel. End of lore-dump.

As I was painting this, it occurred to me it looks almost exactly like a Magic: The Gathering card illustration, so for the fun of it, I made it into one. I have been told it’s a rather expensive card for what you get, but in my defense, it’s been easily a decade since I played.

In other news, a short story of mine is slated for inclusion in Neon Hemlock’s Luminescent Machinations and, I am told, will have an accompanying illustration that I absolute can’t wait to see. More on this as things progress.

Still querying Dead God’s Bones, but it’s quieted as I’ve started to question the trajectory of my career and what I want as a writer. More and more, I question if I need the validation of a traditional publishing deal, or if what I really want is someone (preferably many someones) to read what I’ve written and—my hope—enjoy it. And whether or not I need a traditional publishing deal to accomplish that desire. I’ve been mulling. My mulling has, so far, been rather fruitless. I watch developments on Twitter with a mounting sense that something in publishing is going to give and change of some sort is immanent. But we’ll see.

So that’s it for now.

Prophecy’s Exile Updates!

On By R. J. HowellIn Art, Sketches, and Doodles, Prophecy's Exile, writingLeave a comment

So! After many, many weeks of first-pass revisions, Prophecy’s Exile finally had all its placeholders replaced with actual words! Bringing the wordcount up to *cough* 167,000. And so the first-pass reading and editing commenced and brought the wordcount down to (drumroll please!):

Exactly 160,500 words (excluding the header and contact info and such).

I swear, that was pure chance.

It is now ready to begin its rounds with beta-readers, and is in the hands of three so far. And, because I’m extra and I enjoy making maps, here’s the novel’s map!

So this is the island nation of Odiřa (which looks a bit like a jalapeño, no that wasn’t intentional), where the VAST majority of Prophecy’s Exile takes place (there’s a bit at the beginning in Remdar, but only two chapters out of twenty-six). Not all locations are named (yet), since Gev mostly sticks around in the middle-western region in the mountain foothills between Emarazet and the Umoreshca camp, with some detours. The second book, Prophecy’s Incarnate, will go more into the eastern coastal areas, so all those places will get actual names rather than just be…dots on the map. You can probably track Gev’s travels in this book purely by what places I have proper names for so far (well, mostly). Secretly, Exile is a homage to 90’s epic fantasy travelogues, while also poking fun (a lot) at 90’s epic fantasy travelogues.

I also realize all those islands should be named. Am I going to name all those islands? Maybe. Just…maybe.

And, for the sake of “it’s fun,” the blurb!

The Remdari Empire needs a spy, an ambassador, and an accomplished fraud. With the first choice dead and no one else on hand, what they get is Gev Hyromius Caerus, a 40-year-old quartermaster with more of a talent for the logistics of supply lines than hoaxing prophecies about killing literal gods. Gods of living flesh and probably mortal, but still gods.

Abducted from Remdar, deported to an ancestral homeland he’s never seen, and magically branded a criminal exile, Gev is pressed into service as an imperial agent—supposedly by clandestine order of the emperor of Remdar (a mistake, surely). His task: fake fulfilling a prophecy foretelling the return of a dead war hero who will kill the gods to teach them true divinity. At least, long enough to finagle an alliance with the xenophobic island nation of Odiřa. Succeed, and the exile brand will be removed and his old life reinstated. Problem is, though he might look the part, he knows next to nothing of Odiřa—its culture, its language, its people—and he has less than a year to accomplish his mission. 

Worse yet, that prophecy isn’t so apocryphal. It has a mind of its own, and it wants to be fulfilled.

Though I know it’s generally discouraged, I have, um, started writing book two, rather than start something brand new. Because I just am really, really enjoying this world, these characters, this story, and I want to stay in it a bit longer, especially since Exile, unlike my previous novels, is definitely designed as a book one and I’m itching for book two.

The short pitch for book two, by the by, is “Gev does side-quests.” And is, exactly, that.

Long Time, No Post

On By R. J. HowellIn Anthologies, Magazines, and Announcements, Conventions, writingLeave a comment

Well, it’s been a minute.

I haven’t updated this blog much, mostly because of a tandem of life events. If life events are meh, skip ahead to the more writing-related sections below.

The first: I now work full time and have health insurance through my job! Woo! As a person with chronic health conditions, health insurance, or the lack thereof, has been a fear hovering over my head since I was 14. For the hell of it, I once calculated what the uninsured cost of my life-preserving meds would be for a year (just the meds) and it came out to $136,000. Which is just, um, terrifying. And that’s just for the one condition (the MS) and for a good year (just the “keep it controlled” meds, not the “save me from my own rebellious immune system” meds, which are a great deal more expensive). To my everlasting gratitude, my work has promoted me to full time and now I health benefits!

Which neatly brings me to the next life event: part of the deal for full time was to also get my Master’s in Library Science, so I’m back in grad school and trying, oh so hard, to finish this whole program by summer of 2022. Because I refuse to turn 30 and still be working on (another) Master’s. I have rules. They may not be wise rules, but I have rules.

And thirdly, I gave myself the self-imposed deadline to finish drafting the current novel within the year. Because it would mean that I wrote a novel in a year, which is often the timeframe of publishing contracts, and my last, er, four books were each written over the course of two years+ (I think a year and a half was the shortest, but most averaged two and a half to three years). Specifically, I set December 10th as the deadline.

WHICH I HIT! AHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!

*ahem*

Though I failed in my original endeavor of writing fanfiction, I did, however, succeed in writing a 157,000-word novel in a year (started Jan. 6, finished Nov. 27). Well, I say finished, but it’s quite ready yet for beta-readers. I still have to name things. Because proper nouns are my great enemy and there are a lot of placeholders waiting for proper terms to be created. And in order to create those terms I, er, have to invent a language. So the draft is done, and hypothetically, you could read it through and it would make sense, it just…would have a lot of random ______ lines everywhere. Because that’s how I make placeholders. ______. Basically, the book looks like an a giant game of adlibs right now, but I’m working on it! Goal is to have a finalized, legible draft by January, and start lining up beta-readers for it.

Tentatively titling it Prophecy’s Exile. So, er, PE for short?

And because I can, the (also tentative) query blurb:

The Remdari Empire needs a navy to cover their retreat from an ill-advised war. The island nation of Odiřa has such a navy, but no reason to lend its services to their expansionist imperial neighbor. As the decennial treaty renegotiations loom, an alliance could be finagled—and naval support procured—if only Odiřa’s negotiator wasn’t a xenophobic nationalist whose most ardent prayer is for the entire Remdari Empire to sink into the sea.

Odiřa does have a prophecy, though, one foretelling the return of a great war hero who will kill the gods to teach them true divinity. Anyone attempting to fulfill it gains near instant renown, the kind that may stretch so far as replacing a certain anti-Remdari negotiator with one secretly loyal to the empire. The Remdari need a spy, an ambassador, an accomplished liar and cheat.

What they get is Gev Hyromius Caerus, a forty-year-old quartermaster with more of a talent for supply line logistics than killing mortal gods. Abducted from Remdar, deported to an ancestral homeland he’s never seen, and magically branded a criminal exile, Gev is pressed into service as an imperial spy. His goal: fake the prophecy long enough to earn a place at the negotiating table and save his empire’s ass. His reward: removal of the exile brand and the reinstating of his old life. The problem: that prophecy isn’t theoretical.

Bonus points if you can guess what IP sparked the idea for the failed fanfic that ultimately led to the novel.

I itch to start edits on it, but must wait till I complete this semester. Soon, though! Very soon. All those placeholders will be removed, words cut, words added, y’know. The usual.

I also attended my first in-person convention (WindyCon) since before the plague. It was good. It was also a bit nerve-wracking. Still not used to large crowds yet, and I question if I ever will be. However! The experience was incredibly validating for a multitude of reasons.

  • I sold books! Myself and a few other local writers often split a dealer’s room table to sell our books, and I not only sold out of the stock I’d bought for the convention, but made a good dent in my back-stock from pre-Covid times. I, shockingly, even managed to make a profit. Egads.
  • I did panels! I was even a surprise panel moderator (surprise, as in, surprise to me) on a panel with two highly successful professional authors and I was scared out of my wits! Wee! (Jody Lynn Nye and Seanan McGuire, who were both lovely to interview for this panel but also, -hyperventilates slightly-)
  • I received a contract for a story I sold and signed it! (More on that at the end of this post)
  • I received a partial request from an agent! Aaaaaah!
  • A representative from the convention art show tracked me down from one of my freebie bookmarks and demanded to know why I didn’t have my art in the art show. Which…I mean, there’s no actual reason, I’m not boycotting it or hiding from it, it just wasn’t on my radar? However, I did promise to submit my art to the show next year, so that’s now a thing? And it also gave me the impetus to pick up the digital brush and start painting again, which, I’m happy to note, that even after a year of stagnation, my skills haven’t atrophied. The muscles in my right hand, however…

DGB Query Trenches Stats:

  • 20 Queries Submitted
  • 2 partial requests (1 rejection, 1 pending)
  • 1 full request (ultimately rejected, but a nice one!)
  • 11 rejections
  • 9 still pending

I’m going to take a break for the holidays and come back to this in January, especially seeing that quite a few agents on my to-be-queried list have closed for the holidays as well. I’ll be honest, I’m actually rather shocked by my request rate, seeing that this book is an “unsalable” 186k words. 15% ain’t bad!

And lastly! My weird west short story, “A Cold Dark Line to Cross” will be published in Wicked West: A Summerstorm Press Anthology on December 1st! Sometimes, being dead gives someone a chance to be a better person than they were in life. To earn his permanent death, undead outlaw Gabe Dunn has one last member of his former murderous crew to kill, but doing so will mean confronting the man who made him into a monster. Teenage necromancers out for revenge, their personal ex-outlaw attack zombies, magic users with strange powers over animals, all chasing each other across the Mojave Desert in an alternate late 1800’s.

Here’s where I’ll wrap up. Happy holidays to those celebrating holidays during the coming season! Maybe next year (ye gods, I’m not ready for that!) I’ll finally reintroduce the month of books wrap-up posts. Or maybe I’ll try something new.

Either way, signing off.