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 31, 2022
My wife and I went country dancing this week. We had fun, but wow did we struggle with the dancing. We used to dance more, and somehow haven't had many opportunities the last few years (I can't entirely blame covid... we have many sources of music in our house). It was just like riding a bike--have any of you not ridden a bike in twenty years and then tried? Bikes used to feel like a natural extension of my body, but I could easily have done serious damage to myself when we went downhill biking in Utah a couple of years ago. I mean, we didn't have to haul my wife off of the dance from on an ATV, but it was close!
I went with family friends to the Texas Military Force Museum on Memorial Day--what a great place to think back on the sacrifices others have made for our freedoms. I didn't think through a great pic to share, but this enormous tank caught my eye.
Next week is family vaca -- so there may not be a newsletter. Or maybe I'll have all the time in the world for a newsletter. Entirely unclear.
Weirdly, Book 4, The Song Unsung, is pretty much done. I'm waiting on a pic to come in, and still looking over some edits, but I'm mostly just waiting now... waiting for the book tour to start, the Goodreads giveaway to kick off, and the actual publication date. With the breathing room, I turned my attention toward getting some long-standing issues with the books straightened out. I've updated all four books to have a more consistent set of opening pages, tweaked the cover designs based on updates from Amazon on their templates, and changed the margins to be consistent across the books. I can't believe all the weird details I have learned about going from Google docs to docx and epub formats for uploads. At least now I'll have a space to sign the books that isn't so awkward.
I updated my web site... tweaking it to improve the formatting and hopefully make the site more navigable.
Some Mother-of-Trees shirts and a water bottle have made it to their destinations, but the shirts run a little on the snug side. Learning! The water bottle sounds like a win (haven't seen it myself yet, but the feedback was positive).
Countdown for Book 4 Release
o To-Do list for writing last week:
Email updates- Just pulling in edits and work on formats for the book releases. That stuff takes an obnoxious amount of time.
o To-Do list for writing this week:
- Email updates
- 🤷♂️
Previous Newsletters
- Newsletter - May 24, 2022
- Newsletter - May 17, 2022
- Newsletter - May 10, 2022
- Newsletter - May 3, 2022
- Newsletter - April 26, 2022
- Newsletter - April 19, 2022
- Newsletter - April 12, 2022
- Newsletter - April 5, 2022
- Almost done Marching - 3/30/2022
- Spring Break - 3/22/2022
- #weekendgetaway - 3/15/2022
- March Merch... - 3/8/2022
- March on! (yeah, that's terrible) - 3/1/2022
- Late-Feb Slog - 2/23/2022
- No rest for the weary - 2/16/2022
- Book 4 of The Guardian League, The Song Unsung - 2/9/2022
- Happy Birthday to my Wife - 2/1/2022
- Finding Books "Connected" to mine - 1/25/2022
- Hunting for Silver Linings - 1/18/2022
- Starting off the New Year with a Bang - 1/11/2022
- Happy Neo Year - 1/4/2022
- Treasure - 12/28/2021
- Happy Holidays - 12/21/2021
- A week of promotions - 12/14/2021
- Elf on the Shelf and the Bless-Yous of Winter - 12/05/2021
- Thanks have been given - 11/30/2021
- Reviews, but not bookish reviews... - 11/23/2021
- Lights, digital recording device, action… - 11/16/2021
- Annnnd... cue Christmas! - 11/09/2021
- Book 3 Hype-Up Coming Soon - 11/02/2021
- Losing Faith, a Calyx Twins Story - 10/26/2021 📜 Losing Faith, a Calyx Twins Story.pdf
- New pics for Book 1 - 10/19/2021
- Happy Birthday, Middle Egg - 10/12/2021
- Age Before Duty -10/05/2021 📜 Age-Before-Duty.pdf
- Grundle's Hope - 9/28/2021 📜 Grundle's-Hope.pdf
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.
I promise I’ve made progress on Father of Stones (FoS). Here's a screenshot to prove it: click the photo to get to the live data showing progress But... I have put a little time elsewhere. I want to invite you to try this web-game I’ve been building out. It was meant to be a role-playing game around Thaumatropic Fractures, but ended up being focused on Thaumatropic Roots. https://tfrpg.sjmorriswrites.com https://tfrpg.sjmorriswrites.com The game will ask you to use your email to associate...
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...
Yesterday I needed to remember exactly how a character destroyed a dragon artifact three books ago. I didn't dig through my own novels to find it—I asked an AI I built to search them for me. It's called the Grimoire: a mini-AI system I put together with Pinecone that I can ask questions about my own books—hair color in a different epoch, a side character I want to bring back, a detail I'd otherwise lose momentum digging for. It keeps me writing instead of hunting. That's the quiet way AI has...