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.
Newsletter - May 30, 2023
It’s been a coon’s age since I’ve written a newsletter, so I’m carving out a moment to catch up. Work-hell will continue for a few weeks yet, but the kids have wrapped up school, and maybe that will take a little pressure off—at least I won’t be helping them study for finals. But it does rekindle the summer phase, where kids are done and don’t understand why I’m not free to drive them to all the stuff they want to do. It’s sweet and cute… but kinda sucky too.
My youngest continues to create new crochet creations. She also nailed her back flip. 👍
Long-time friends invited us to spend a day at the Guadalupe River. We had to leave two of our kids behind for other activities and another of the families left one of theirs behind. It’s the beginning of an era where our kids are still home, but have other commitments. That night, we spotted the Starlink satellites passing overhead—it felt like a sci Fi the way they all line up. It’s crazy that they’re 340 miles from the Earth’s surface.
How do I put this? I’m hanging on to writing like the little thread of flesh that secures a 7-year-old’s loose tooth. That said, the world of Thauamatropic Roots continues to solidify—there’s nothing insurmountable on the horizon, but the disappointment of failed marketing sucks the life out of me. It’s well and good to enjoy the writing and not the marketing, except that the indictment of poor sales burns like the day after accidentally falling asleep on the beach. If said beach were in the fiery pits Mordor.
I do have a positive story. We are trying to finish a chip at my day job. A guy at work stopped me in the hall a little after 5pm and said, “I don’t know where you come up with this stuff.” In my head, I’m thinking through our project schedule and his block and what, if anything, I’ve said about it. “I mean, we went from creatures attacking the Earth to going off-planet.” It had been a long day. My brain scrambled. What the heck was he talking about? But the neurons finally fired. I knew he knew I wrote, but it surprised me that he’d read my stuffs. We talked about my books (I discovered he was almost done with book two), D&D and the campaign where he had to trap a vampire, how things had changed in role playing over the last 30 years… great conversation.
My process lately has been to edit book 1 of the new series in the mornings, and write ahead into the series in the evenings while I'm waiting to pick kids up. Works' busyness has cut into the first, slowing it down, but I don't have the brain juice left in the evening to edit. My work with the artist should kick into a higher gear now that summer has begun.
I also cut into that time doing puzzles. I found one I really like called unolingo on puzzlesociety.com. Anyone else play?
For authors: I signed up to do an audiobook promotion through https://www.writtenwordmedia.com. I like the looks of that company. I'll give the audiobook promo a whirl, let you know how it goes, and circle back to see if I want to do more.
Previous Newsletters
- Newsletter - May 14, 2023
- Newsletter - May 1, 2023
- Newsletter - April 25, 2023
- Newsletter - April 18, 2023
May you get lost this week in another world.
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.
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I built a tracking page for Father of Stones (FoS) this week. I did not, notably, write very much of said book this week. There's a joke in there about creative avoidance and I'm not going to pretend I don't see it. Anyway — here's what I made instead. Word Count Over Time A live chart of Father of Stones' progress since late June. I'm not smoothing over the slow weeks. There's a very flat stretch from June 'til August where I worked on the Eigenthrope story, then another flat stretch through...
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