elizabeth_oswald

Road trips and crawdads

My family spent this weekend on a road trip (only about four hours) so that my husband could go to a convention. While he did his thing, my daughter and I went to find a park. Now, when I write about Rouge, I'm often thinking of my daughter. She's only five, but she has Rouge's nearly boundless energy, intelligence, curiosity, and love of knowing every little detail about every random stranger she's ever met. 

We talked about Daddy Longlegs (did you know they're more closely relate...

Goblins?

Goblins are, of course, one of every fantasy author's favorite tropes. Whether they're stupid, barbaric, disposable grunts, or produced the anti-hero, whether they're called goblins or some other term created by the author to differentiate their version, we all know what they are. 

Small, often green, underground dwellers, the first, most basic foe that many heroes have to battle, especially in LitRPG. There are certainly many authors who, like me, attempt to give their goblins dep...

Have we talked about Khor?

You've probably all figured out by now that Sumi, Khor, and Silus were Aspen's companions when he was a Necromancer. They decided to stay with him even though Atae wasn't compelling them to do so any more, and Gina used her power to allow Aspen to continue communicating with them (because she's nice like that).

I'm leaving Khor and Sumi behind for most of this book. We needed someone to hold down the fort, as it were, but also I'm going to be adding in a LOT more characters who will pas...

Writing rambles

I've wanted to be a writer for a very long time. Other career-oriented wishful thinking has come and gone (singer, poet, voice actress, character actor, teacher, veterinarian, nurse, editor...) but author always stayed stuck in the top three. (I still wanna be a voice actress too, though.)

Lots of things discouraged me along the way, mainly involving my potential lack of talent, but also often revolving around how hard it is to get published. I mean, for real, with books on shelves. &nb...

Distractions...

I'm assuming that if you enjoy LF, you have at least some video gaming experience. I (obviously) do as well, though it kind of goes in cycles. Like, I'll want to just read, then I'll watch lots of TV, then lots of anime, then play lots of games... Does it work like that for you, or do you do all of them at once? 🤔

So, besides the normal demands of Adulting  (bah humbug), I try to balance writing with whatever my current Phase of Entertainment is. (Bad grammar, I know.) But the n...

Book Two cover and description!

Zoey has started her summer internship at Veritas Corporation, and she can honestly say that being an adult is boring. Until she starts learning secrets she was never supposed to know.

In game, Rouge is finally making progress on her big quest. Apparently Duke Penbrooke took too long to return to the world, so the world is coming to get him... in the form of a few assassins.

Aspen is going to have to face the life he left behind, and deal with the fact that it's not as easy being ...

Book cover 2 concept

Unfortunately the photo shoot I tried didn't work out, so I'm trying something different. I have a little ways to go on this, but I like the idea, and frankly, this is about the limits of my Photoshop skillz. Everything is made up on tweaked free art, and can be wiggled, lightened, etc. What do you guys think? Suggestions?

Rouge's Mambele

Thanks very much to everyone who stuck with me for another month! I hope you didn't miss having a joke chapter from me, but I've just never been very good at April Fool's Day. Hopefully, you got enough pranks from other people, and didn't miss it here.

So, let's talk about Rouge's weapon! When I first created Rouge's character, she was just going to have a basic knife/dagger type weapon. No big deal, and she'd probably have several different ones as she upgraded through the course of th...

Now what?

Okay, you guys all saw it coming too, right? Rouge isn't the only one? 

So, now you're thinking, "Huh. Predictable." Just hold your horses, because this is almost the end of Book One, which is really just setting up Book Two, when all the questions will be revealed, and Zoey will start finding answers to a few of them.

Soon, Chapter Fifty will round up Tilling and we'll have a new (and hopefully less confusing) prologue to start Sowing. I look forward to sha...

An arc from another PoV?

Soon, Book 1 will be complete. You guys are almost there, it ends at Chapter 50! At that point, things will change, and fairly soon (and I don't want to spoil anything here) but some members of our group MAY leave the farm for a little while. Including our two PoV characters. Which means we won't know what's going on back there until our heroes return triumphant (or not 🤷‍♀️). Now, I know I promised no additional PoVs (except Bree's one brush with fame), but I'm wondering if you woul...

Creepy crawlies?

Is everyone enjoying getting a chapter a day? I hope so! It was fun to see people's response to William on RR.

I just wanted to tell you a little about my inspiration for Sumi. She was actually the first of Aspen's friends who I met, though you guys met Khor first. It happened when my daughter told me she had made a spider friend. We decided to look this friend up, and see what kind of spider she was. (Spoiler: she was an orb weaver.) In the process of doing our research, I saw mention ...

Silus!

Ever wonder what Silus looks like? Silus' appearance is based on Peters's dwarf epauletted fruit bat. I only have one image to share, because I want to be respectful of copyright (this one is approved), but now that you know, you can find many more adorable pictures of our favorite little friend whenever you want 🦇🧡

Thank you!

I just wanted to take a minute to let you all know how much I appreciate you! I just wrote Chapter 62 of LF, and the first book ended at chapter 50! (My mom is even trying to figure out how to do a short print run of the first book. Is that something anyone would even be interested in?)

Anyway, I just wanted you all to know that the support I get from you here, and the comments here and on Royal Road really help keep me going. There are definitely times when I have a scene that just won...

Codswallop and Rouge

Codswallop handily won a popularity contest on Royal Road at the end of Chapter 22. I promised to drop an image of the winner, and since Codswallop looks like, well, an ostrich, and he rarely goes anywhere without Rouge, I thought I'd include a bonus! (Rouge also has her mambele.)

The Rest of the Story

In real life, I (SilverSidhe, aka Elizabeth, aka "mom") have a five year old daughter. Said daughter sometimes makes me very, very tired. Also, I have to write after she goes to bed, because there is no way to concentrate while she's telling me about how she rescued a dinosaur after its mom was injured after a meteor hit the earth, and she promises it won't eat us all, and can she keep it? So, by the time I reach the end of a chapter, I'm pretty wiped, and probably shouldn't be producing anyt...