July News and Progress

Somehow it is August, and the school year is starting again and I have no idea where the summer went. This happens every year and every year I am sad to see it go. Summer for us is a far saner pace, and I much prefer it to the stress of the school year; in that, I guess I’m not unlike my daughter. But, August is here, so… let’s talk about what’s going on!

Writing

The biggest news of July, writing-wise, was obviously the launch of Kherishdar’s Exception at retail. Pre-orders were stronger than I expected for that particular series, and my sale on The Aphorisms got some movement there. I spent a lot of time in July working on the various bits and pieces for this one, since both e-book and print edition entailed some challenges. I think it’s one of the few times I was working all the way up to launch on the materials. But it’s now out there, and I’m content with it. Those of you who like Daniel’s work on the audio in this series, the audio is in progress now. It should be ready in a month or so.

In addition to the launch for this book, I also ran the Kickstarter for Major Pieces, the “cut scene”/backstory volume for Princes’ Game. As You Know, that Kickstarter did well enough that we’ve bought another Dreamhealers book. I’m about halfway through writing Major Pieces now, and plan to be done with that by the end of this month so I can move on to Heartskein, the Dreamhealers book, which is due for November release. Most of my writing last month was devoted to this particular set of projects.

A little side effort—I finally straightened out the outline for Zafiil, which would allow me to fit its events into the canon. While I’m not planning on writing it (immediately, anyway), I needed to know what happened in order to write Surela’s books, so I’m good to go on those for next year. 

Finally, the Some Things Transcend audiobook is available exclusively from my Bandcamp. Mosey on over there if you want a copy (and aren’t at the $10 a month tier, which gets you a download code).

Art

My habit of going to the coffee shop a few times a week has been really good for sketching. It’s rare that I don’t come out with three or more pages of little things, usually suggested by people on Discord, which is great—left to myself I’d probably draw the same thing over and over, so getting suggestions has been fun, and led me to figure out things I would never have thought to attempt, like baby Chatcaava, and chonk horses.

I also started a Three Jaguars comic, mostly for my own entertainment, that I am slowly inking between other projects. I’m not sure when I’ll be done with that because there’s not really much I can do with Three Jaguars stuff anymore, but when I finish it I’ll post it here.

Finally, for relaxation I’m still doing a lot of calligraphy of Ai-Naidari words. Usually with ink. Sometimes in other media when I find it appropriate...

Upcoming

I feel like I’m pretty well set-up for the rest of 2019 and all of 2020. If you’ve lost track of my publishing schedule, here it is:

• 2019: Major Pieces (September)
• 2019: Heartskein (November)
• 2020 Spring/Summer: Coracle 1-4
• 2020 Summer/Autumn: Alysha 7.
• 2020 Winter: Surela’s Trilogy.

These things, of course, being subject to change, but for now that’s the plan.

This schedule puts me on the hook for several book covers (and I’m thinking of redoing the PG series covers too, but right now that’s backburnered), so that’s probably my art schedule in a nutshell too, beyond my daily sketching with the Discord folks. There are other things percolating, including some business decisions I’m putting off until I have enough data to make them; some of those are kind of tiring and I’m not happy about them. But in general, we are looking good, and I’m excited about what I’m planning not just for you, but with you, because as is evident it’s a lot more fun to write with your input than it is to fling things into the void. Y’all remain the best of communities, and I’m grateful for you.

As always, comments, suggestions, and questions welcome! And we march on, into August!