Tag Archives: Stories

The Redemption of Erâth: The Beginnings of Book Three

Don’t forget – you can claim your free copy of The Redemption of Erâth: Consolation just by emailing satiswrites@icloud.com and telling me which digital format you’d prefer (ePub, Kindle, PDF, etc.)!

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So, book one, Consolation, is out and published, and I’m embarking on the long and tedious journey of actually getting people to read it. Use the email above to get yourself a copy! Book two, Exile, is ready to be sent out to my editor for reviews and copyediting, and I’m looking forward to her comments and criticisms. That means that it’s time to turn my attention to book three: Ancients and Death.

What do you think of the title?

I started writing a bit of book three back in June/July, actually, but my summer’s been a bad one, and I haven’t been able to do much focusing. Things are feeling a little on the upswing now, though, and progress on book three has been going well. This is going to be the hardest book I’ve written so far; not only is it going split the action between the two main characters (Brandyé and Elven, who were separated at the end of book two, if you remember), but it’s going to be looking at a time, place and culture that has hitherto been unseen in the first two books. This means new people, new places, new events, and possibly even new languages (and a couple of very old ones). In my planning and plotting it’s delving dangerously close to science-fiction, and I don’t want it to have too jarring a shift in tone from the first two books, which were solidly fantasy.

The chapters are also the longest I’ve written so far, though I’m aware editing could whittle them down a bit. At the moment it’s standing at 26,000 words – at a point where book one totaled 15,000. I had to get book one to around 100,000 words or my publisher wouldn’t publish it; I don’t feel quite the same constraints for books two (143,000 words) and three (160,000 planned).

I’ll be taking the drafts of book one down from this blog soon, in light of the book’s recent publication (and my giveaway!), but I’ll be leaving book two up for your reading pleasure at the moment. And from there…it’s time to start sharing book three with you!

I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be publishing each chapter of The Redemption of Erâth: Ancients and Death as it’s written, hopefully roughly a chapter a week. As before, this will be a first-draft, rough copy, typos and all. But for those of you eager to follow Brandyé and Elven’s journey further, now’s your chance. I’ll be posting the first chapter later tonight, but going forward I’m open to suggested posting times – when do you do most of your blog reading?

Thank you all for following with me so far, and stay tuned – things are about to get exciting!

The Redemption of Erâth: Maps

Don’t forget – you can claim your free copy of The Redemption of Erâth: Consolation just by emailing satiswrites@icloud.com and telling me which digital format you’d prefer (ePub, Kindle, PDF, etc.)!

I know I’ve posted these here before, but since they didn’t make it into the final book, I thought I’d share them again for anyone reading through The Redemption of Erâth: Consolation for the first time. These are the maps I drew up representing the world of Erâth, the continent of Thaeìn and the land of Consolation, respectively. Bear in mind that while the majority of the first book takes place exclusively in Consolation, the remainder of the series will travel far and wide across the world of Erâth!

The world of Erâth, with the seven continents: Golgor, Cathaï, Faerün, Thaeìn, Aélûr, Narün and Oríthiae.

The world of Erâth, with the seven continents: Golgor, Cathaï, Faerün, Thaeìn, Aélûr, Narün and Oríthiae.

Map of the land of Thaeìn, one of the major continents of Erâth.

Map of the land of Thaeìn, one of the major continents of Erâth.

Map of Consolation, Brandyé's homeland.

Map of Consolation, Brandyé’s homeland.

Hopefully these will give you a sense of place and setting, and help you picture all the places Brandyé goes in his travels.

Many thanks!

Satis

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Thought of the Week: When Can I Call Myself a Writer?

There’s a man named Joe doing work in our new house today. He doing some stuff like sanding the floors and fixing the walls and stuff; things I don’t do. Now see, I know what he does for a living because he’s doing it right now. But what about when he asks me?

“So what do you do?” asks Joe.

“I…um…I…” says I.

“I see you have a lot of computer stuff. Are you into computers?”

“Yes, yes that’s it. I’m a computer technician.”

“What are you writing?”

“Oh, this? Nothing really, just a novel.”

“Is it published?”

Well, I digress here. Joe didn’t actually ask me if it’s published – it wouldn’t make much sense, given that I’m still writing it (duh). But he could have.

Anyway, the key point here is, when someone asks what I do, what do I tell them? Am I a computer technician? I suppose I am. It’s what I’ve been doing for over ten years; you could say it’s my career.

But then what’s all this business with putting together strings of words? Is that just for fun?

Well, not really: in only a couple of weeks, something I wrote will actually be purchasable from, what did they say? Thirty-eight thousand online book retailers? That’s some crazy-ass shit. Of course, being purchasable is not the same as being purchased, I’m well aware. But hey – the potential’s there.

Does that make me a writer, instead? Was I a writer when I was writing for fun? What about when I started to get the thought that I could actually finish a novel and possibly make it available for other people? Will I be a writer when I’ve sold my first copy? It’s pretty likely that the first few dozen copies are going to go to friends and family – people who would’ve bought the book anyway, even if they’re not going to read it. Am I writer when someone posts a scathing review?

Or am I only a writer when I make my monthly rent based solely on book sales? When I can actually call it a living? When the federal government starts getting interested in the pennies I’m raking in with every copy sold?

I know it’s a tired old question, but it throws me when someone asks me what I do. I write. I’ve written for a long time, longer than anything else I’ve ever done in my life (that’s not exaggeration). But am I really a writer?

 

Featured image from http://clancytales.blogspot.com/2010/06/power-of-pen.html.

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