Legends of Windemere Series Trailer by Chris the Story Reading Ape

Posted on January 1, 2018 by Charles Yallowitz

I woke up this morning to this amazing video from Chris the Story Reading Ape.  A big thank you to him for this and helping me start 2018 on a surprisingly positive note.

Click Here for the Amazon Site!

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Scars of War to Enhance a World

Posted on January 1, 2018 by Charles Yallowitz

Middle Earth Battlefield

With the final battle of Legends of Windemere written and published, I’ve begun thinking about the stories that happen afterwards.  My next series takes place a few hundreds years before the champions, which gives me time to consider all of the changes that future heroes will introduce to readers.  After all, the Baron and the champions had a massive battle and it doesn’t make any sense for there to be no eternal scars that remind people of the event.  We have stuff like that in our world with ruins, preserved battlefields, and museums.  So, why should Windemere be any different?

I think the physical effects of war on a landscape tend to get overlooked, but I can never figure out why.  I was about to write that people don’t see these every day, but there are places on Earth where the scars of war are daily visuals.  Could it be that there is a lot of weight to such a thing, so authors reserve it for a plot point?  Having characters walk through an abandoned battlefield creates a certain atmosphere much like a graveyard or a dark road.  There’s a sadness as well as some awe and maybe even fear that the events will return.  In fantasy, you can have undead appear, so battlefields usually have a specific use in these stories.

Still, what about scars that aren’t battlefields?  Cities and towns that have been damaged in the fight may rebuild.  Even if they don’t put up monuments, buildings will be erected to replace those lost.  A slight change in material or the fact that they look newer than their neighbors can be a reminder.  So, the scale of war scars isn’t always epic, but the events do make a change.  It certainly is easier to make the visible parts of this so big that they can’t be ignored.  Craters that nothing grow in, abandoned cities, fields of swords driven into the ground, swamps of bodies, and the list keeps going of what I’ve seen in the fantasy genre.  Honestly, it makes fantasy worlds seem to be nothing more than wars and patches of corpses.

As far as the lasting scars, you could even have the locals celebrate a holiday around the event or have a distrust towards outsiders.  These are parts of world building as well because they help create the scenes and give a history.  In fact, I would say that ancient wars are essential part of a world’s history and helps give a sense of the types of people that live within the story even if they weren’t part of the war.  You can see how certain groups relate to each other or understand the existence of various treaties.  Personally, I like setting things up like this instead of having races get along or hate each other simply on principle.  A great example is how elves and dwarves ALWAYS appear to despise each other.  Most fantasy worlds won’t give you a reason, so you can assume it’s because Tolkien did it.  Although, I never understood why authors focus on that part and now how Legolas and Gimli became friends.

Another ‘scar’ that one can find in fantasy is what I guess you could call a roaming scar or maybe just a remnant.  With so much magic being flung about in some of these battles, it isn’t strange to discover a creature or weapon that was unleashed.  Maybe it was created by accident or it was what was used to end the war, but it’s still moving around even though the battle is over.  Sometimes they travel far and wide or they might remain in the area as a guardian.  Now, these tend to only come about when the story requires them because having a super weapon appear for no reason makes little sense.  Ghosts and zombies can fall into this as well since areas of massive death are known for creating such things.

So, what do you think of this aspect of world building?  Have you ever used it or given it more than a passing notice?  How much does a war scar effect the history of the world you’re either reading or writing?

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Smorgasbord Author Promotion 2018 – If you are in Sally’s Cafe and Bookstore.

Posted on January 1, 2018 by Charles Yallowitz
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Legends of Windemere: Warlord of the Forgotten Age – Charles E. Yallowitz on ‘Food and Drink’ @cyallowitz

Posted on December 31, 2017 by Charles Yallowitz

Karen's avatarMy train of thoughts on...

Dear friends and readers,

It is always difficult for a blogger to find a blog post worthy of the grand finale of the year. This year, however, it was an easy choice for me. As you may all know, Charles E. Yallowitz published the last book in his Legends of Windemere series, Warlord of the Forgotten Age, on December 21, 2017. His guest post covers the topic Food and Drink – a highly suitable topic for the last day of the year 2017. Please join me in a warm welcome to Charles:

Thank you to Karen for offering to host my guest post and being a part of the promotion for Legends of Windemere: Warlord of the Forgotten Age. This is the last book of my 15-volume fantasy adventure series, so I’m hoping to have it go out with a bang. I’ve been looking back at this personal…

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A Letter to 2017

Posted on December 31, 2017 by Charles Yallowitz

Dear 2017,

Where to even start with you?  I mean, you heard people complaining about how bad 2016 was and you took it as a challenge.  This is where I’d normally look back at the fond memories of the year, but you truly sucked harder than a shop vac with something to prove. Sales sucked, health took a few hits, personal issues where everywhere, the laptop debacle going from late March to early September (maybe October?), and that’s not bringing in the state of the world.  It really felt like there was no haven from your immense suck-a-tude.

So many people I know are finishing you with a physical or emotional limp because of the hell you brought down on them.  Some are optimistic while others are pessimistic, but you really left some scars.  I know we can’t blame you entirely because some things were caused by the selfishness of other people.  Yet, you did set up these events for one person to let down another with a resounding thud.  Honestly, I can’t think of any other year where my faith in humanity dipped so low.  Just pray 2018 isn’t your evil twin because I can’t deal with another round of ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’

By the way, do you have any shame or guilt in regards to your actions?  Do you feel sorry for any of the horrors you’ve unleashed or bonds you’ve severed?  It’s like you simply hated for people to be happy or even content.  There was always something lurking in the shadows to maul the chessboard.  Half the time, people couldn’t even reset the pieces before the mauling returned.  You truly were a curb-stomping, head-butting, groin-grinding, nipple-twisting suck of a year.

Now, I know you’re going to come up with some shining moments.  Betting you want to point out the end of ‘Legends of Windemere’.  Don’t pat yourself on the back.  Such an event would have happened regardless, but I dragged myself down a road of broken glass and lemon juice to get here.  Busted laptop, wife with a broken arm, medical thing, delays, getting blocked out of my files for a few days, losing Internet the day before the release, my son getting the flu ON release day, holiday vacations, dwindling promo funds, and Amazon rewriting all of my keywords whenever I saved.  Yeah, that’s just a walk in the fucking park for me.  Probably why I’m writing this with a glass of honey whiskey in my hand.  I swear, I’d buy a dumpster full of 2017 calendars and light it on fire if I could afford it.  For now, I’m settling for this venting post.

My hope is that 2018 looks at you as a cautionary tale.  It should do better.  Then again, we thought the same thing about you after 2016.  So, it isn’t a strong hope.  I’ll keep my expectations low and savor the brighter spots.  Yeah, me being an optimist isn’t really natural, so I won’t hold my breath on that.  Anyway, I’d give a toast to you, 2017, but I don’t like you.  Just go away and stand in the exit long enough for the door to hit you where the sun don’t shine.  Preferably with enough force to knock you into a thorn bush that might have been doused in gasoline.  Why do I have a lighter if I don’t smoke?  Start leaving and we’ll find out.

Sincerely,

Me

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Announcing My 2018 Interview Series

Posted on December 30, 2017 by Charles Yallowitz

Unknown's avatarDon Massenzio

Hello,

With the new year, I’m announcing a re-vamped author interview series. During the past two years, I have interviewed nearly 200 authors and have compiled these interviews into an author directory. I would like to add to this list in 2018.

My current plan is to post one author interview per week on Fridays. I have a new set of questions that should give your readers deeper insight into your writing process. Since I’m limiting these interviews to one per week (a maximum of 52) I will be spending more time making them look good to help you drive more readers to your work.

These interviews are open to those of you that have participated previously. If you have something to promote or just want to increase your exposure across a new group of followers, please come and participate. Please feel free to share this post with your…

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First Goals of 2018

Posted on December 30, 2017 by Charles Yallowitz

Cover Art by Jason Pedersen

First, a reminder that Legends of Windemere: Warlord of the Forgotten Age is live and available for $2.99.  It’s been doing okay considering the holidays are rather slow and most of my promos are set for after New Years Eve.  I’ve been on the Top 100 New Release lists, but nobody really looks at those.  In fact, I’m guessing people don’t care unless you’re tagged as #1 and even that might be a stretch.  Thank you to the scammers that made a mess of the Top 100 lists.

This week saw very little going on because my son was home and he started the week getting over the flu.  It was also really, really cold, so we didn’t go out much.  His martial arts class and food shopping were it.  The rest of our time was spent with Legos and video games.  He got a few new sets including a Spider-Man Bridge Battle set that came in at 1,092 pieces, which was fun.  I’ll be honest that I enjoy these and have one set on my wish list for myself.  It’s $350 and 4,000+ pieces, but it’s the original Ghostbusters Fire House and I’d make room to display it.  Not that I can ever afford that, but it’s fun to have such dreams.  Seriously, it’s that and a reverse blade sword, so you can tell how simple my desires are.

I’m torn as to what I’m going to do next week.  My son goes back to school on Tuesday, which might be a day where I get back in the swing of things.  We don’t know if he’ll go back to fearing the bus and giving us trouble, so I don’t want to plan much for that day.  I might contact a few cover artists that were suggested to me and see who falls into my price range.  The last two years have left me in a bad spot, especially since I fell victim to a few scammers that promised promo spots and then vanished on me.  It’s another reason I don’t stray very far from the tried and true sites these days.  There are two things that I could feasibly do this week:

  1. War of Nytefall needs an editing run.  I’m still twitchy about it because I haven’t started a new series in a long time.  Being another Windemere core series, it feels like it has more weight than Bedlam and Ichabod.  So far, only my wife has read it, which might not be a great thing.  She kept questioning the jokes, getting annoyed about how mean Clyde was, and asking me about plot points before she got to the foreshadowing payoffs.  I’m thinking at least one more go over since I want to do a March/April release.  Don’t know how I can boost my confidence with this one.  I’m aiming to start doing excerpts in February and maybe begin character profiles and inspirations around that time too.  There’s a much bigger starting cast than Legends of Windemere with a hefty 13 main characters.  Again, I’m struggling to find a way to put my mind at ease here.
  2. Maybe I’ll just take it easy, work on Ichabod Brooks outlines, and read Trigun Maximum volumes.  I ended up taking all 14 volumes out from the library, so I might need to focus on that a bit.  Then again, I’ll be the one taking my son to martial arts again now and that’s where I did a lot of manga reading.  Part of me doesn’t want to sit on my laurels too much.  I did that last January and it felt like I could never catch up to my schedule.  I have Quest of the Broken-Hearted, Dawn Addison finale, and at least three more War of Nytefall volumes to write this year.  That’s a hefty load, especially since I might not have any time over the summer.  Be nice if I could take things easier, but the constant pressure of proving that going author wasn’t a mistake hasn’t eased up even after 5 years.

Guess I’m ending the year just as confused as when I started it.  Tomorrow will have a venting letter to 2017 and then we’ll see what happens.  Right now, I’m leaning towards taking Tuesday off to make sure things aren’t about to explode.  Then, I’ll dive into the editing and get that done by the middle of the following week.  Rest for the remainder of that time and then take care of Quest of the Broken-Hearted.  Does the hyphen have to be there?  This will be a tough one since it involves closure for *insert character from Legends of Windemere here*.

Getting a new cover artist is definitely first on the list though.  Can’t release a new book without one isn’t an option.  This is becoming a nerve-wracking endeavor because I crank out 3-5 books a year.  It’s only 3 if you stick to the series.  So, I’d need a cover artist willing to work with me for a long haul like Jason.  Another issue is that a series needs consistency with the covers, which is a challenge in regards to Photoshop.  Doesn’t help that I have no idea what would work here either.  It’s vampires, but not the kind that people have become used to.  The Dawn Fangs exist in a fantasy world and are fairly violent, so the genre would be more of an epic fantasy vampire adventure.  Maybe I’m worrying for nothing since visual arts was never my area of expertise.  So, let’s get to the goals:

  1. Possibly start editing War of Nytefall: Loyalty.
  2. Contact cover artists.
  3. Work on remaining Ichabod Brooks outlines.
  4. Get back into biking since it’s been 2 weeks.
  5. Read Trigun when I need a break.
  6. Go over Quest of the Broken-Hearted and future War of Nytefall outlines to put mind at ease.  At the very least, go over Lost and Temptation because I’ve read ‘Quest’ so many times that I nearly have it memorized.  Maybe I should make a post on Thursday about that one and get some vague feedback?
  7. Try not to let the pressure and stress get to me.  This one is getting harder by the week.
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Smorgasbord – Sally’s Book Reviews – Circumstances of Childhood by John W. Howell.

Posted on December 30, 2017 by Charles Yallowitz
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Finishing a Long Series – Guest Post by Author, Charles Yallowitz…

Posted on December 29, 2017 by Charles Yallowitz

Chris The Story Reading Ape's avatarChris The Story Reading Ape's Blog

Thank you to the Storyreading Ape for letting me be a guest and helping me promote Legends of Windemere: Warlord of the Forgotten Age. After 19 years of writing, editing, outlining, and toiling, my big fantasy adventure series comes to an end. I no longer wake up ready to write about Luke Callindor’s latest obstacle or how Nyx is worried that her family is about to get destroyed. I’ve given Fizzle his last apple and Timoran Wrath his last bottle of Ifrit mead. Yeah, this is fairly melodramatic, but these characters have been a part of my life longer for nearly two decades. Is it odd that part of me wishes I held out long enough to make it for an even 20?

Dwelling on the recent past makes me think back to the beginning where I never considered it would end. I had plenty of other stories to…

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Off to the Next Quest: Champions to Dawn Fangs

Posted on December 29, 2017 by Charles Yallowitz

Yahoo Image Search

2017 is coming to an end and I’m staring at my first year without Legends of Windemere to keep my busy.  Yes, I know I’ve said this many times before, so I’ll stop right there.  Instead, I’m going to mention where I’m going in 2018.

It’s going to be an odd year over all because Lloyd, Cassidy, and Ichabod Brooks are going to be on a break until 2019.  I might be writing the final Raven story for next October, which means I retire Dawn Addison.  Not to mention I will release a standalone spin-off of Legends of Windemere next summer to give a certain character some closure.  This feels like another retirement too.  2018 really is shaping up to be a tying up of loose ends type of year, which makes sense considering I spent 5 years with most of my energy on one project.

With all of these breaks and endings, I still have a big beginning on the horizon.  That’s the real highlight of 2018 because I’ll be starting War of Nytefall.  For those who don’t know, this is a series that takes place in Windemere before the champions gathered to fight the Baron.  Some connections will be made, but the action starts a few hours before the Great Cataclysm.  From this event, the Dawn Fangs are born and the series shows how they went from a single member to the widespread species they are today.  Considering they’re vampires, this series will be fairly bloody and a little dark.  Yet, I have managed to retain a lot of humor and having characters with healing factors seems to open the door for some really odd gags.  For example, one vampire hearing something in a friend and abruptly opening their rib cage like a cabinet.  Instead of a fight or pain, the ‘injured’ vampire simply asks ‘do you mind?’  So, I do think this new series is going to be a lot of fun and I’ll start putting up some teasers around February.

Not saying it will be all fun and games though.  With Legends of Windemere ending, Jason is no longer doing covers for me.  I’m very thankful that he helped me for all of these years and I wouldn’t have gotten so far without his art.  This means I need to find a new cover artist that is willing to work on a long series.  Not to mention the one-shot, which will either be the same person or someone else.  I’ve been looking around Deviantart and asking for opinions, but I’m still not sure.  My big January goal is to find someone to help me here.  I’m not going with 99designs here because these projects are a little too big and I’d rather work with one person to hash out an idea.  On the fence about using pre-existing images too because I’ve been seeing a lot of covers with the same pictures these days.  It tends to backfire when a picture of the character is put up there too because it rarely matches the in-book description.  With Ichabod Brooks, I had such a hard time getting people to put a black character on there and many of what I saw were either white guys in shadows or Zulu warriors that didn’t fit him at all.  God only knows what I’d find with the vampire thing and the character in the spin-off has a rather exotic look too.  Anyway, I’m ranting here because this is the next big challenge for me.  Always happy to hear some suggestions and get introduced to people.

So, this is a goodbye to 2017 and the champions along with a hello to 2018 and the Dawn Fangs.  Hopefully people who enjoyed the first series will give the second one a chance.  It may be vampires instead of mortals, but I’m still doing the same humorous action adventure with colorful characters that I always do.  In fact, expect some character write-ups to start appearing around February.  This is like going back to the beginning where I don’t have to worry about spoilers and can simply introduce all of the new faces.  Have a great last few days of 2017.

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