Not even sure why I’m writing this, but I guess I’m so drained that I need a little outside opinion. Today I’m doing laundry and trying to rest since next week is another round of chauffeuring and exhaustion. I’ve been listening to a new alternate rock station that showed up last weekend, which has me wanting to do a Thursday post with music videos.
Mostly, I think I want to do a post where I give a song for each of the champions and one for them as a group. I’ve done this before in the past and I think I’ll skip Fizzle to keep it at 7 videos. These types of posts are really hit or miss, but I figure I’ll give it a shot.
Either way, I’m kind of curious if anyone who has read my books or read about my characters here have ever thought of a song for them. I remember doing soundtracks for fictional characters a few times in college, so it could be a thing. Do you have have songs for your characters?
Not really sure what to write here for two reasons:
I didn’t really do much.
These posts don’t get much attention.
To be fair, I’m writing this on Wednesday since I’ll be busy for the rest of the week. That was always the plan, but Monday destroyed me. Some health issues have popped up and I’ll be seeing a gastroenterologist in early December to make sure this isn’t something really bad. That’s only one problem though because I have to see a dermatologist about another issue. At this point, I think my body is simply falling apart from stress and I just hope to make it to the Legends of Windemere: Warlord of the Forgotten Agerelease.
People might be wondering when that is . . . December? I have nearly everything set up to go, but am missing that final piece. Many people will realize this is the usual song and dance from me, so I hope it’s become standard operating procedure. At the very least, my internals have taken the hint to imitate squirming eels due to stress. I hope to get the book out in early December and then get all of those guest posts out. That’s really all I can say going into this due to various aspects of the situation.
Focusing on all of this has been difficult due to those health issues mentioned before and having to drive my wife everywhere. I also have to handle her errands as well as everything I typically take care of. This has left me pretty exhausted because I can’t ease into my day or rest a bit after sending my son off to school. So, I didn’t get much further than the Ichabod Brooks titles and a little bit of plot work. I’ll make a separate post about that down the road when I have more. The working collection title is still The Longbow of Ichabod Brooks, which is starting to grow on me. Again, that’s really all I’ve done, so I’m fairly boring.
Honestly, the only area of progress I’ve made is in watching ‘Samurai Champloo’ and reading a lot of ‘One Piece’. Neither of those are worth writing about since I can’t be sure how many people here know what either of them are.
Geez, I’m really not into this, which might be a sign that I’m getting more depressed and pulling back from people. This has been a looming problem for over a year and I thought I was fending it off to some extent. Something about the last month has pushed me to a point of nearly breaking and I don’t know what. Maybe it’s how I can’t find a moment to take a break without being made to feel guilty or fearing that somebody will make me feel guilty. Perhaps it’s that I feel like I’m not going anywhere other than backwards and am trapped in a lose/lose situation. I keep hoping for that one break or opportunity that I can take, but that hope is dwindling pretty fast. Part of me even fears that such a thought has seeped into some of my books. Not Legends of Windemere since I wrote that before things got bad and the fear there is more about making sure it’s a good ending.
I’m really worried about War of Nytefall because my wife is reading it and seems to always be confused. Jokes are falling flat and she isn’t getting some parts. I think part of it is because she’s still used to the way the Legends heroes worked and Clyde can be a pretty big jerk even though he’s a ‘hero’. Either way, I can’t figure out if this is working or not because of her responses. I haven’t read it over myself and I have to admit that I’m a tad nervous about going for beta readers. Mostly because everyone seems to have their own idea about vampires and the few times I’ve tested these ideas with others has seen arguing over the pre-existing mythos vs Dawn Fangs. I mean, the scenes were meticulously planned out and written with a lot of mystery, so they certainly work together. I just don’t know if I missed something or having such a large cast to introduce gave me trouble. Again, I haven’t read it since I wrote it, so I could just be my worst critic here.
So, what are the goals for the week?
Work more on Ichabod Brooks.
Think of posts for January. What do people think of spending half the month on the Top posts of 2017?
Read more One Piece.
Try to sleep as best as I can.
Try to get back into biking because it’s tough to get into it after running errands and dropping the wife off.
Work towards putting out Legends of Windemere: Warlord of the Forgotten Age
Avoid thinking 2018 will go any smoother. Learned my lesson since 2017 has been any better than 2016.
Most writers aren’t able to write full time. That means we tend to work full time and write full time. Between writing, querying, editing, and marketing, our schedules can quickly feel crushing, especially if you’re working toward a very specific goal, such as a revision deadline. Taking breaks can often make writers feel guilty. But you deserve a break, too. Especially during the holidays.
Grab a cocoa, some cookies, and watch the snow fall.
Admittedly, I’m a bit of a workaholic. My life is often, if not always, out of balance. I don’t make enough time for family or friends (or myself) and, though I know I should, I really struggle to find time in my jam-packed calendar full of work, publishing, writing goals, and personal goals. But that’s also why I get burnt out so often. (Okay. So maybe this year was just awful.) Anyway…
Endings are difficult and you need to be careful about being predictable. You also need to creature closure and not draw it out for too long. After years, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to end Legends of Windemere. One thing I did decide on is that there was going to be a few twists and turns heading into the grand battle. Yet, I’m not going to do the whole ‘fake ending’ trick because that’s just cruel after 15 books.
Many of the twists will revolve around the fates of the characters and how the battle will be going back and forth. I’ve said a few times that nobody is getting out of this intact. It could be a physical reminder or a mental one, but you can only find out when the book comes out. Seriously though, I think throwing a small curve in the ending isn’t a bad thing. People do love small surprises and action adventures like what I write have a dependence on a ‘wow’ factor. It shouldn’t come before good storytelling, but you can have the two work together. Much of it depends on setting things up in previous volumes to make sure the ending works.
To be honest, I tried my best to set up for the twists while not making them obvious. A few hints that things weren’t what they seem and an allusion to the Baron having some influence over the champion prophecy. The specifics weren’t designed until I did the final outline for the finale earlier this year. Even then, I changed some things around when I was doing the writing. It’s nerve-rattling to do this because you don’t get a second chance at an ending. Previous plot twist mistakes can be explained or undone down the road in a volume with some creative writing. In the last volume, you’re setting everything in stone and every twist has a risk. Fingers crossed that I pull it off.
Today, I have the distinct pleasure of featuring author Kent Arceneaux on this edition of A Perfect 10. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because Kent partnered with me on the book, Frank Immersed. He has been a friend for about 20 years and he is a multi-talented guy that paints, cooks, sings and now is now an author. His writing style is a cross between John Grisham and Stephen King. I had the pleasure of previewing his book, The Cove. It’s an engaging story that pulls in many elements from his youth in Louisiana.
I highly recommend checking out his book and I hope you’ll welcome this promising author into our blogging community.
Please enjoy this special installment of A Perfect 10
If you want to check out past interviews, you can find them in the following links:
Don Massenzio Today, I have the distinct pleasure of featuring author J.M. Goebel on this edition of A Perfect 10. Please enjoy this special installment of A Perfect 10 If you want to check out past interviews, you can find … Continue reading →
The titular Warlord of the Forgotten Age is none other than Baron Arthuru Kernaghan who hasn’t made too many appearances on this blog. Not as many as you would think in the series too. Being sealed and trapped, he can’t get involved in the action unless there’s a special situation. The Baron appears in prologues to show how he’s responding to previous actions and pushing some influence on what is about to happen. He can appear through communications with his agents or a scene might show what he is doing during the adventure. The truth is that he’s had to be a powerful, menacing villain who doesn’t get into the action until the final battle. Needles to say, it wasn’t easy putting him together and I am happy that people have acknowledged his presence.
The origins of the Baron is rather slim since he never made an appearance in the D&D game that Legends of Windemere is based on. We heard of him and ran into his son, Stephen Kernaghan, as well as the Lich. Yet, the Baron was a mystery because he was locked away. Don’t even think we uncovered the reason why, which meant I was working with a clean slate. He didn’t even have the same name. Originally, he was Baron Loquacious VonGalderon, but that didn’t work well when I was testing it with beta readers long ago. That and the first name means ‘talkative’, which didn’t fit him. He was also a vampire, which had been overdone by the time I got to him. The other problem was that I didn’t want him to designate how I would do vampires since I was considering moving the Dawn Fangs into Windemere.
So, I had to build the Baron up to make him menacing while absent. He had to compete with the Lich, Trinity, Stephen, and other villains who were all a motley crew of evil. He needed to be at the top, which wasn’t easy. I played around with his name first and then decided he would have magic, swordfighting, and immortality. Why would he have that last one? Because he was a mortal warlord who rose to become the God of Destiny, but was swiftly overthrown by Gabriel. He still had the power to rival a god and now was protected by the Law of Influence, so they sealed him in Vir’s Castle, which is found in the Chaos Void. Out of pettiness, Gabriel even erased the Baron from history and mortal memory, so his existence has been festering in the subconscious of nearly every living creature. A reason for this is because he committed some of the most evil acts in Windemere history when he was a warlord. The only way to eliminate him entirely is to use mortal agents who will adventure to develop enough powers to have a chance at winning, which is where the champions come in.
That’s the overall origin of the Baron that I developed as I was nearing the introduction of his legend in Allure of the Gypsies. As the series progressed, I designed more and more of him. One of the biggest pieces for the Baron’s origin was the fact that Dariana was his daughter. At first, I was going to have it that he had his way with Zaria when he was a god, but then I had Stephen being the monstrous rapist that got what he deserved in the end. The Baron was coming out more rational than his son, which meant it didn’t make any sense that it would have happened that way. His relationship with Zaria evolved to a new wrinkle in his legend. This is a slight spoiler, so I’ll put a break:
Grab a cocoa, some cookies, and watch the snow fall. 
Legends of Windemere 