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.
No rest for the weary
I am sooooo tired. We hosted a wedding shower on Saturday, our house in Austin being middlish of the distance between the families in Corpus Christi and Dallas, though some families traveled from much farther. I’m not an extrovert, so even though I enjoyed hosting and meeting everyone, crowds do not energize me. Other introverts get what I’m saying—I enjoyed it, I love spending time with family and I enjoy meeting folks, but I see extroverts somehow consume Gibbs free energy, while I just burn through my own battery.
I took a pic from outside while I threw a log on the outdoor fire… I like the juxtaposition of the reflected outdoors with the indoor party.
I am saddened that I had a friend leave Intel this week for Microsoft, but I also had someone I respect achieve Principal Engineer, so some good news, some bad. I hope to have a beer with each, eventually.
Writing Updates
The sketch of Rocks isn't quite what I pictured, but it captures his essence--surfer-boy dressed up for business, with dark undercurrents beneath the façade. The artificial leg wasn't meant to be robotic, but after a few attempts to explain that to the artist, I threw in the towel, as I couldn't suggest a better way to bring that out of the pic.
I sent out the first copy of Book 4 for structural feedback. The cover is just some placeholder freebie art, while I work on something real. I’m counting on @inkqueenmarketing to coordinate and teach a team to provide helpful structural feedback, but she still has some catching up to do, reading-wise. In the meantime, she’s set up a form to build that small team.
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o To-Do list for writing last week:
Email updatesContinue editing Book 4 - clean up first pass of structural edits.- Maybe get the pictures for Book 4 started - still haven't placed the orders. As I thought about them, I realized I need to sketch them out, and I haven't had breathing room to do so.
o To-Do list for writing this week:
- Email updates
- Grammatical and Style edits for Book 4 - through chapter 14
- Sketch out or describe pics for Book 4
Previous Newsletters
- 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...