Legends of Windemere

After getting a few emails and it was brought up in a phone call, I’m going to point something out about the last post:

It is a possibility and not set in stone!

What you see is the scenario that would lead to a Kira Grasdon book.  It involves either Kira being the sole survivor or Sari dying and Luke choosing to be alone.  I have plans for Luke being the only survivor, Sari surviving to get Luke, Sari surviving to lose Luke, Kira surviving to get Luke, and all 3 dying.  The truth is that the ‘Kira lives and alone’ is the story I put up there.  Here are the other scenarios:

Luke Only Survivor–  Plagued by guilt and wanders away from his friends becoming a nameless adventurer.  Returns for a later adventure when his old friends are in trouble.

Sari Only Survivor– Wanders in search of ways to distract herself, but stays in contact with all the old friends.  Focuses a lot on trying to be a hero like Luke and carries his sabers, which she trains to use.  Pulled into a quest that can lead to her choosing between reviving Luke or Kira, but not both.

Sari/Luke Survive & Break Up– They go for cameos where both are wanderers.  Sari is angry and Luke feels guilty.  An adventure happens where they are forced to work together and get a second chance.  Either they take that chance or they end being friends.

Luke/Kira Survive & Stay Together– They marry and settle down to become cameos.  Name a child after Sari who goes on future adventures.

Kira/Sari Survive– They bond over their shared loss and go into business together.  Kira runs the main merchant house while Sari gets clients and product.  Both appear in stories that involve trading and ancient relics.

Luke/Sari Survive & Stay Together– Same thing as Luke/Kira together, but they travel and name a child after Kira.  With help from Sari and any other surviving champions, Luke maintains the Grasdon Merchant House.

All 3 Die–  A lot of grief, memorials, and ghost cameos if it works for a story.

There we go, people!  All possible scenarios for these characters and there can be even more.  Only other thing I’m going to say is that it isn’t that it happens, but the how and why.  Authors reveal that a character might die whether by name or hint all the time.  So please calm down and enjoy the books that have PLENTY of twists coming.  Trying hard not to be annoyed here, but I got 3 more messages complaining about spoilers since I started writing this post.

Somehow, I keep ending up in conversations about Amazon rankings.  I know my recent breaking into the teens opened me up to this. I was #16 on the Sword & Sorcery list for an hour.  Then #18 again for another hour.  I’m back in the #30s only 2 days later and the book is still selling at the same rate.  Shows how fickle things are at least with the Fantasy Genre, which is what brings me to the real point of this post:

If you spend more time trying to crack the Amazon Ranking algorithm than writing your next book or promoting your current book then you have a problem.

I see it everywhere and I’m tired of the conversation because I’ve accepted that I have no idea how it works.  Honestly, I’ve gotten more joy and success as an author by writing my stories than analyzing the data.  All I know is that I did something right to get up there and I’ve seen other people do the same with different tactics.  There’s no magic behind it and you hurt yourself by obsessing over the details.  Seriously, you would benefit more by promoting and writing than investigating the inner works of Amazon.  I’m sure many will disagree with me, but if it was possible to find a foolproof way to #1 in any genre then somebody would have figured it out by now.

Call me an idiot if you want, but I’m an idiot who is done stressing over the rankings.  I’ll be openly excited if I come close to a high rank and give reports to show I’m succeeding. I still feel like sharing my good fortune with everyone who supports me.  Yet, I’ve seen my writing suffer a bit this week while I was watching Family of the Tri-Rune bounce around the lists.  Maybe it’s time for me to grow up in that respect and say that it’s just a number and I’ll do my best to excel.  Just not at the cost of my future books.