If you read fantasy for the magic, the world-building, and the occasional moment of dark humor—I write that. One urban fantasy series, one epic fantasy series, both set in the Fractured Arcana universe, with more coming. My newsletter takes you deeper into the worlds, the characters, and what's next.
Hear Chapter 1 of Mother of Trees
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Last week was Homecoming week, and my younger two girls are both now in High School. It's really something watching how much effort the girls (and their mom and other girls' moms) put into the preparation. Meanwhile my oldest had a rugby tournament, where they awarded her MVP. Certainly a better way to spend her time than watching that Arkansas v Notre Dame football game. Brutal. Yes, to relax, she does rugby and boxing. Any wonder I came up with Red? Really miss having my oldest girl around. Same stories, new formats! I also made a boxed set for Guardian League, ebook only. If any of you started with my newer series, you now have an easy way to grab the entire first series. Over the last couple of weeks, the third thread of Shepherds has begun to pull together. Two and a half chapters written, plus lots of notes and a fair bit of deleted data in the virtual recycle bin. Closer at hand, the evidence lay at the base of the crack. Broad scrape-arcs scored the stone leading from the dragon’s remains to where we stood—marks too wide for feet, too shallow for claws. Someone had hauled something massive here, then up. In the grit lay a snapped length of braided line and a shard of green resin, the kind Wood Elves use to bind ropes. That explained the grooves in the stone at the fissure—places where the lowering line had scored the rock as it bore weight.
“They’ve taken bones,” I whispered.
Speaking of bones, I'm still a long way from even having the bare bones of this story pulled together. It's been a crazy heavy lift. Or maybe I've divided my time more than with previous books by leaning into the marketing. Which has not gone well--my efforts pretty consistently backfire. I hope there's some kind of rule about how many mistakes you can make before something works. All books by Steven J. Morris Indie Author Showcase Previous Newsletters
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Steven J Morris
If you read fantasy for the magic, the world-building, and the occasional moment of dark humor—I write that. One urban fantasy series, one epic fantasy series, both set in the Fractured Arcana universe, with more coming. My newsletter takes you deeper into the worlds, the characters, and what's next.
Hey Reader, Quick fun bit before today's update: the polls from my last email are in. I'd asked how many of you had actually read the three portal fantasy books that made me want to write the genre: Mordant's Need: 14.3% have read it The Darwath Trilogy: 0% have read it War of the Flowers: 14.3% have read it Almost nobody has read them, which tracks. They're buried treasure. If any of them ended up on your list because of that email, I'd love to hear how it goes. Okay, the actual update. I...
Hey Reader, I was ~sixteen when I first read Mordant's Need by Stephen R. Donaldson. A woman gets pulled through a magic mirror into a medieval kingdom that desperately needs a hero—except she isn't one. No power, no destiny, no idea what she's walked into. What Donaldson does with her arc stuck with me, particularly the moment she finally understands the game being played around her, finds her place on the board, and chooses to step into it. I try to replicate that in my storytelling. That...
Well... this isn't the newsletter I expected to be writing. A couple of weeks ago I accidentally wandered into a blockchain hackathon. As one does. The timing was terrible. I was busy, traveling, and already had more on my plate than I should have. Naturally, I signed up anyway. And I created a... something. It's called Eigenthrope. It's an interactive mystery where the community votes and influences what happens next. Every week the story branches based on those votes. It runs on the XRP...