That’s true. I’d heard the word for a long time, but it always went one ear and out the other until it started popping up everywhere. Maybe I’ve had too many of the series I’ve watched come to a close, so I noticed it more. Not sure if most people even know what the word means. Well:
Penultimate- The second to last in a series.
War of Nytefall: Anarchy would be the penultimate book of the series. It certainly feels that way too. I made sure to have all of the loose ends converge into the big headache that’s going to give Clyde his final challenge. This makes it easier to focus on the finale because I’m not trying to jam all of the closures into one volume. Now, I merely have to put a cap on the whole adventure. Don’t worry. Putting caps (some may say lids) on require twisting, so you know it’s not going to be a straight or clean shot.
Let’s see what everyone thinks about this type of volume.
What do you look for in a penultimate volume of a series?
Does it help you prepare to say good-bye to the characters?
What piece of advice would you give for this kind of story?
Time nearly got away from me on this one. You can tell because this post is really just to get the ball rolling and buy me a few hours to get the promos fully prepared. Honestly, I had so much going on that I kept wondering if I would get things done and be ready to publish in September. Thankfully, I’m coming in under the wire.
War of Nytefall: Anarchy is the penultimate book of the series, which means big things are going to happen. It was a challenge to write because I had to bring everything I’d been setting up into place for the finale. That’s really what this story is about, but it still stands on its own. I’m always worried about writing the second to last book of a series because I feel a lot of pressure. You want things to be set up perfectly for the last hurrah while not giving too much away. You don’t want the book to be flimsy either, so it’s a juggling act from start to finish.
It’s going to be tough to promote this one too. So much happens and there are a lot of twists and turns. Teasers will be shaky and introducing the new faces will have to be done careful. Got a few wild characters thrown into the mix. Throughout the entire process, I had to keep my eye on the solid landing too. I couldn’t deviate to a point where I screwed up what’s happening in the end. Much of this related to Clyde’s behavior and the state of his leadership, which has been a central point in the series. I mean, you have a thief who is now the ruler of a kingdom, so his confidence has never really shifted entirely to this aspect of his life. Guess we’ll see how I do.
Yeah . . . I’m sorry. I seem to no longer know how to promote a book anymore. The posts coming up with be interesting and fun, but I’m not sure what to do on this one. All I really came here to say is:
Since I’m still hoping to get War of Nytefall: Anarchy released next month, I figure I’ll do one more request for volunteers to host a ‘book is live’ post on their blog or other social media.
The way this works is I send a copy of the post I’m going to have on my blog. It will be either in HTML or Word form. I can help anyone who wants the easier HTML thing by walking them through the usage. Due to work starting tomorrow and limited time, I can’t really do anything personalized right off the bat. If you have an idea for a post then let me know in the comments and we’ll see what we can do. Just want to get some announcements out once the book is live, which I’m hoping to do on Labor Day weekend as long as life goes smoothly.
So, leave a comment if you want to help. I’ll send an email to the address connected to your comment unless you give me a different one. Thanks in advance.
As stated above, this was the last week of my summer break. I’ll be putting a mask on and going back to work on Monday. My son was nice enough to point out that this break wasn’t even 10 weeks long. Feels like it was a blur with everything that went on, but here we are.
From Sunday through Wednesday, I was away with my son. We went up to Oswego, NY, which is on Lake Ontario and where I went to college. Last time I was there was April 2013 to try to sell Beginning of a Hero at a local convention. So, it was more of a business trip where I got to see a few friends while standing behind a table. Prior to that, it was 2003 until I moved back to Long Island. The town was both the same and different than I remember. I’ll admit to getting hit by the nostalgia bug and I’d just stare out the hotel window at the river whenever my son was still asleep. Maybe I miss the quiet scenery compared to my life here. Either way, it was fun and hurt a little when it was time to leave.
Just to get the driving part out of the way, it wasn’t easy since I was the only driver. Keep in mind that my shoulder was, and still is, in bad shape. It’s healing very slow, but the 6 hour drive was brutal even with the breaks. Didn’t help that we left just as Hurricane/Tropical Storm Henri was hitting. Seriously, the rain started coming down just as we pulled away from the house. Felt like every time I dropped below 60 mph, the rain would get stronger, so it was like we were being chased. This resulted in us getting up to Oswego much earlier than expected, but we made it. Got to give my son a tour of the town and campus by car . . . This was done mostly because I got lost.
The full days we were up there were Monday and Tuesday, which I learned was when some of the places I chose were closed. So, no Fort Ontario or bumper cars in Syracuse’s Destiny USA mall. We did get to go to two zoos. One was the Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, which I’d been to before. It was great and we were able to go around it twice before we left for lunch. My son got to feed a camel and got a lot of use out of his new camera. There were a bunch of animals he’s never seen before like Golden Lion Tamarins, Stellar’s sea eagles, and gray wolves. We went to the mall for lunch after that and hit up an arcade to make up for no bumper cars. Got lost finding the exit, but managed to get back before my shoulder gave out. Then it was resting in the pool, which we did all 3 days we were up there.
The second zoo was the Wild Animal Park in Chittenango. This was smaller and more expensive, but it had more first times for my son. He got to hold a baby kangaroo (yes, I know it’s a Joey) and we went on a small train that went through the deer area. They had every big cat there too. He fed a giraffe too. New animals to him included binturongs, badgers, fishers, and pygmy hippos. Also, he got to see this:
That would be a white tiger. We had to go back a few times before leaving for this, but the white tiger still lost out to holding a baby kangaroo.
The second day included going to a mall I used to work at and finding out that it was open, but a ghost town. Stores were there, but the food court and anchor stores were gone. It was both sad and creepy. Just headed back to the hotel and grabbed lunch nearby. Got to have dinner with two friends from college who I haven’t seen since 2013. They never got to meet my son either, so it was a big event. Good memories were forged before the long drive home.
Nothing else to really say about the rest of the week. I had no time to write and it was hard to muster the energy for it with other things going on. The notebook I brought on the trip got no attention and I still don’t know what grouping of ideas I’m going to put in there. It may be a while before I tackle that. Thinking of slowly printing out War of Nytefall: Eulogy and edit when I have downtime.
Next weekend will be the release of War of Nytefall: Anarchy and I’m planning to announce it on Sunday. That gives me Friday evening and Saturday to get everything in place. Not sure if Sunday is a good day to announce, but it doesn’t feel like I have good timing on releases at all. At this point, I’m simply doing this for myself. Still, it’s nice to think that someone will catch wind of my books and that could create a little buzz.
Didn’t watch any TV while away or after my son went to sleep when home. I typically went to bed soon after because I was drained. Probably toss on an anime called ‘Combatants Will Be Dispatched!’ starting tonight and then another when that’s done. I don’t know exactly how next week will go with everything, so I’ll play it by ear. Maybe I’ll start fiddling with ‘Phi Beta Philes’. Nah. That spelling isn’t going to work. ‘Phi Beta Files’ looks better and less . . . I keep thinking ‘philes’ is short for pedophiles. Might want to remember that thought for the book.
Goals for the week:
Start work.
Prepare son for first day of school.
Get back on sleep schedule.
Maybe some notebook work.
Release War of Nytefall: Anarchy. I only have to hit publish at this point. Want to wait until my son starts school because that requires my full attention.
Drama . . . It’s inevitable.
Seriously, I will get on that exercise bike now that my shoulder isn’t in agony with the slightest twitch.
The above characters are from anime that I recently watched. Space Dandy is from the anime named after him and Lloyd is from ‘Suppose a Kid from the Boonies Moved to a Starter Town’ or whatever it’s called. One is science fiction while the other is fantasy. One is a zany comedy with a flimsy relation to the fourth wall. The other is an action adventure/slice of life type of thing. Both deal with epic scale events at some point, but the real connection I’m touching on is this:
Space Dandy– Rare alien hunter who has an obsession with women, terrible with a gun, and has a special power that this evil empire wants. He doesn’t know he has this power or that he’s hunted.
Lloyd Belladonna– Weakest citizen from a legendary town who ventures out to become a soldier in another kingdom. Has the power to single-handedly hurl local monsters into orbit, faster than the eyes can follow, and knows ancient rune magic that works even if he messes up. He doesn’t believe he is strong at all.
Both characters are special and don’t realize it. The difference is that I think one was done well and the other was a joke that stretched on for too long. Oddly enough, it wasn’t the comedy that made this a joke. This actually made and broke the series for me because it became a defining trait of the characters.
Space Dandy is ignorant of his power because it’s subconscious and nobody has told him about his abilities. They happen without him knowing and the audience doesn’t even know about them until the end. His friends don’t know either, so nobody can reveal the truth. He’s not the smartest person either, so all of this combines to explain why he doesn’t know. It’s such a distant subplot until the end that it’s kind of a whimsical mystery that you forget while the current fun is happening.
Lloyd is surrounded by people who know he’s incredibly powerful, but stand there in awe or fear. If they do try to tell him then he doesn’t really believe them. This goes on for a long time. In fact, I can’t remember if he ever acknowledged his own strength by the end of the season. At one point, he seemed to just fight and act like a hero, but nobody spoke of him having monstrous power any more. He still mistook local monsters for basic animals and had this level of ignorance that made him hard to like. He wasn’t stupid like Space Dandy, but unaware and this became an issue as he progressed because it felt like he should have noticed something was going on.
That’s a lot of set up, but it’s the best way to present the ‘Ignorant Badass’. These are powerful characters who don’t realize their own strength or importance. You can keep that going for a while depending on personality and situation, but it gets harder to maintain as the victories pile up. Imagine if Superman believed he was weak even after he reversed time, caught a plane, died and returned to life, and flew through space. His own experiences and actions should reveal that he’s powerful, especially with weaker people all around him. This is where Lloyd messed up since it reached a point where he couldn’t feasibly believe that his weaker allies had saved the day. Eventually, you have to drop the ignorance unless you work hard to keep them in the dark.
One of the easiest ways to do this is with a power that is amazing, but both subtle and not in control of the character. This way, they don’t realize they’re doing anything. It makes it more difficult for them to believe anyone who says otherwise. It can make it a challenge for anyone to notice what is going on. Only the audience may see the truth and characters never hear us yelling from the other side of the pages. At least with this scenario, we can understand why the hero thinks they’re weak even though they’re winning. How could they know if they aren’t doing it on purpose or with clear movements?
Legends of Windemere 