September 2023 Update

Hello folks.

Still dealing with things outside of writing, but that’s how life is, I guess. In fact, a new little item has been added to my things I have to do list, an item that will take up some of my time for a few months. Well, at least fall is now truly upon us with cooler temps, and the season of costumes and tricks and treats is just around the corner.

I finished the latest read through, and I have to say, I especially like one of the characters, one of the side characters. It seems I really like people who are different from the norm in one way or another, because something similar happened in the fourth book of my young adult Dragonlinked series, though in that book the person in question was essentially the main character. In ‘Of Gods Trees and a Sapling’ it was Chanté (definitely not your normal person, though I’ll not say more to avoid spoilers), who I ended up liking a lot. At any rate, there’s someone in this book who is also not your typical person, and I just can’t help but like him. I’ve come across people like him in various media, namely roleplaying games (DnD, etc), anime, manga, and in video games, and in pretty much all those cases, I was completely enthralled by them. What makes them different visually has always fascinated me. Another factor that probably has me liking the guy is that one of the scenes in the book, in which he is arguably the most important character, was the first ‘vision’ or whatever you want to call it I had of this world/book/universe.

Anyway, during the read through I found a couple of things to tighten up and made a few tweaks for clarity, though no big issues were found. I also tweaked the book blurb/Amazon description a little and tweaked the cover a bit. I am still waiting on the last test reader. It seems everyone has a thousand things going on at once right now.

On the bright side, HEB (a local grocery chain here in Texas) has their seasonal pumpkin pie ice cream out again for fall, and it is so, so good.

So, until next time, happy reading!

April 2023 Update

Hello folks.

Welp, another month snuck past me. Apologies for the late post. The last couple of weeks have been a little hectic with a minor health annoyance that is finally being crushed out. It’s astonishing how even a simple thing that produces pain that’s not even severe can still throw a huge wrench into your physical and mental well-being, if it’s there ALL THE TIME. I think I understand the whole water-drops-on-the-forehead torture concept now. Thankfully, based on the residual, very faint discomfort remaining, it’ll be completely gone by tomorrow or the day after, so I’m very happy about that.

At any rate, I gave the book to a couple of test readers, and am making adjustments (or not) based on their feedback. While that’s going on, I returned to working on the cover. What I’ve found is that everything I try, as far as showing magic, looks forced and a little out of place, so I decided to go with a more subtle approach instead, having a magical ‘feel’ for the cover, though I do show Maximilian actively in the process of conducting magic. I also have been working on the book blurb. It’s harder than you’d think, trying to distil a book down to beats that will draw a prospective reader in, but which don’t give too much away, plus doing all that with as few words as possible. I also have been working on A+ content for the book when it goes on Amazon, extra information ‘From the Publisher’ that is displayed on the product page.

I think I’ll do one last read-through, next, and mull over any additional feedback I get from the test readers.