The birds in this banner are not pertinent to this post. I just like birds. :)
Hello hello! Welcome to this week's Mayhem & Magic. I've had a pretty successful week with my Camp Nanowrimo wip, which feels GREAT after struggling to string together a sentence in the Necromancer Book. I'm really vibing with this draft of TRUTHSEEKER, and I can see a pretty clear path to having a draft done by the end of April. The climax arc and ending are where it needs the most work, so I'll be slowing down as I approach those chapters, but for once it's not the messy middle giving me grief!
As of now, the climax arc and ending are a mess because I largely made up this plot as I went along, so there's a lot of inconsistencies and plot holes that resulted from me thinking of things at the last minute and throwing them in there with the intention of going back to fix them later. That's what first drafts are for, after all! Making a mess! And that sure is what I did!
I really do love this book, though. TRUTHSEEKER has been in my head for a few years now; I first started writing it back when The Oracle Stone was barely coherent and the character of the Peacebringer was just a long-ago myth. But Saevel, the main character of TRUTHSEEKER who eventually becomes known as the Peacebringer, has become a much bigger part of the universe of The Oracle Stone than I expected. And now they're demanding their own story be written, so I guess I don't have a choice.
TRUTHSEEKER is the first book in what I think is going to be a trilogy. In this first installment of Saevel's story, they become determined to unravel the tangle of secrets surrounding these monstrous creatures called Night Beasts -- which are supposed to be gone yet continue to lurk in the shadows. Saevel thinks the key to destroying Night Beasts can be found within the spell that creates them, but the truths they uncover as they follow clue after clue are beyond anything they could have anticipated. In the capital city of the West Kingdom, far outside the boundaries of the life they've always known, Saevel is in the belly of the beast, and even lifelong friends and allies can no longer be trusted.
So that's a really loose summary of what happens in this book, and though books 2 and 3 aren't written yet, I have vague ideas of where to take those, too. Since book 1 is about Saevel uncovering the truth of what's really going on, book 2 is going to be them figuring out what to do about it, and book 3 is how they put that plan in action. But of course it won't be that easy, because they have very few allies and the one person who could help them the most has become their enemy :)
I am not nice to Saevel in this book. My friends like to yell at me for that. If you're reading this and you've scolded me for being mean to Saevel, I'm not sorry lmao
Anyway! Writing multiple books in the same universe is mostly fun, but my struggle here is that TRUTHSEEKER actually takes place 900 years before The Oracle Stone, and since TOS is already written and published, I have to make sure all the events I put in TRUTHSEEKER and its sequels are consistent with the things I establish in TOS. In a way, it's helpful to know the ultimate ending of the bigger story, but it does sort of limit what I can do with this trilogy. I'm also trying to make it so that you can read these books in any order; you can start with TOS or you can start with TRUTHSEEKER and it won't matter, because they're obviously two very different plots that just happen to intersect. I like to think of TRUTHSEEKER as a neat backstory for anyone interested in Saevel's story and what brought them to be who they are in The Oracle Stone. I personally love when authors write an entire book or series for a side character, so don't mind if I do!
So TRUTHSEEKER is my main project right now, but I'm also starting to dip my toes into the sequel to The Oracle Stone. I actually have two more books planned as companions to TOS: the immediate sequel, whose title must remain a secret for now, and a 5-years-later novella about a certain beloved fire mage. Neither of these has a full draft yet, and TOS 2 is giving me some major grief, so I have no idea when they'll be done and polished. I'm trying to give myself a deadline of June 30 for a first draft of TOS 2, so then I can get to work revising it and maybe, maybe set a release date for early next year. We'll see. Depends on... well, a lot of things.
At any rate, I'm really excited for those two back-burner projects, and we ALL knew I wouldn't be able to stay away from the stars of TOS for long. I love those characters too much to just leave them be. Plus my brother keeps pestering me to write a sequel, so if for no one else this is for him so he stops bothering me.
My plan for now is to self-publish TOS 2 and the novella, since they directly go hand-in-hand with The Oracle Stone. TRUTHSEEKER, though... I'm not sure yet. I might try to traditionally publish that one in the future, since it can be read independently of The Oracle Stone. But for now, THE DEMON MAGE is my trad pub dream book, and once I know whether I'll be chosen for RevPit, I'm going to start querying that one again.
In short, I am very busy with bookish things! I've got all of those on my plate, and yet I also have a new short story rattling around in my head. It never ends.
Well, I just told you everything I'm writing, so here's a reading update! Surprise! I'm still in kind of a reading slump! I've mostly been reading graphic novels because my brain doesn't want to process words at the moment. So I'm still not done with Ravage the Dark and I have yet to read more than a chapter of Sweet and Bitter Magic and Raybearer (both of which I love so far but I can't!! Read!), BUT I did finish Rule of Wolves and hooooooboy that was a RIDE. I am also really into this manga I discovered called Witch Hat Atelier and oh my god it's so cool. I got the first three volumes from the library and then immediately went and bought most of the series because I'm obsessed already. It's so good. So that's keeping me afloat right now.
And if you've read The Oracle Stone and enjoyed it, a rating and/or review on Amazon and/or Goodreads would make my day :) Reviews help fledgling authors like me get noticed by more readers, so it'd mean the world to me if you took a minute to leave some thoughts.
That's all for today! Thanks for reading, and I'll see y'all next Friday.
Actually wait. Next Friday is Shadow and Bone day. So maybe not. So maybe Thursday instead. We'll see. Sorry, I have priorities and binge-watching 8 hours of a Netflix show based on one of my favorite book series is at the very top of the list right now lmao
Anyway. 😎✌🏻
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