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Welcome to the Newsletter

It’s a thing to do, I guess. Read ten different articles on marketing as an indie author and you’ll find eleven different strategies to try. If you’re new to it, it can seem overwhelming. And it is, even if you’ve been at it for a while. But you try and fail and try and fail, but every so often, something works. Let’s see if this works.

I was debating a regular emailed newsletter through MailChimp or MailerLite or whatever, except even when I do sign up for newsletter, I never read them. I don’t even get a lot of mail, but when I do, it pisses me off. Even if I’m expecting it and agreed to it. On the other hand, I’ll read a blog or a substack or whatever because them I am seeking it out. I want to see it at that time and I do. I could just be too finicky about it.

So anyway, welcome to the newsletter, I guess. Monthly seems to be a fairly common recommendation, but we’ll see. And I’m not giving up on my blog. In fact, there will probably end up being more stuff over there in the event I do book reviews or contemplation essays or something of the sort. And the newsletter is going to be copy/pasted over there, so blog fanatics aren’t missing out.

I ramble. I know. I have a hard time doing these things consistently because they bore me. Because I hate them (see above). So, bear with me, and we’ll see what happens.

Old Stuff

Maybe I’ll do this like secretarial minutes for official meetings and stuff. So we’ll start with old business.

The Hand Holding the Knife (The Hands of Time #3/F) was released a few weeks ago, bringing The Hands of Time to a close. And yet, as I was giving it the final coat of wax, I kept wondering why it just didn’t feel satisfactory. The Lone Wolf is finished, and it definitely felt better despite it continuing in Free Time (The Chivalrous Welshman #5). So why didn’t The Hands of Time feel the same way?

If you don’t like even the tiniest of spoilers, stop here.

If you don’t like minor spoilers, stop here.

No, seriously, stop.

Skip to the next section.

But don’t keep reading.

I came to the conclusion that it’s because, essentially, the bad guy wins. Not that Rifun is a “good guy” necessarily, but it is still very much a victory for evil.

Imagine it this way. Two sides, vying for supremacy. Classic black vs. white, good and evil, etc. etc. Good guy wins, takes the castle. In the last chapter, he surveys his kingdom, knows that there is much work to be done to rebuild and get everything the way he wants it (the good way), and he sends out his trusted knights to hunt down any pockets of evil resistance.

Most people can accept that as a decent ending, a fitting finish. Good has triumphed, happily ever after.

Now, flip it. Bad guy wins, takes the castle. In the last chapter, he surveys his kingdom, knows that there is much work to be done to rebuild and get everything the way he wants it (the evil way), and he sends out his trusted knights to hunt down any pockets of resistance.

Most people can’t accept that as a decent ending. It can’t be finished yet. The good guys haven’t won. How am I supposed to just walk away from this knowing the bad guys have won? The same ending,when it’s reduced to its basic elements, but it is the motivation and the integrity of the victor that makes the difference. We want the good guys to win. And that’s not a bad thing.

But that is not how The Hands of Time turned out. Julianna wins. The greater evil wins. The dragon wins. That is the end of this particular series.

Is it fair, then, to demand that readers dive into an entirely different series in order to see if the dragon ultimately loses? Quite honestly, I think it is fair. Because the scope and perspective of the single series has been buttoned up. It is self-contained, even if you don’t like the ending. In order to keep going, to watch Julianna’s unholy vision unfold and understand what is going on, you have to look at things from a new perspective. That new perspective cannot be well-written into the series at hand. It demands its own spotlight. So, yes, it is perfectly fair.

New Stuff

Couple things to write about here. Turning Point (The Chivalrous Welshman #9) is undergoing editing for its release in July of this year. I didn’t think it was as big as Synchronization (The Chivalrous Welshman #8), but word count says it is. That’s okay, though, because I fully expect it to change. The story as it was, was fine. A bit of a dramatic shift from what has been going on, but it worked well. Well, as I was going through The Hand Holding the Knife, I had a bit of an epiphany, a way to strengthen Turning Point on its own and tie in better to The Hands of Time. This means rewriting a few chapters from scratch. Nothing huge, really, just going to take a little more concentrated effort to smooth out any ensuing wrinkles.

I have also begun more work in earnest on Bearer of Bad News (The Akari-bearer #1). I had it partially outlined and a couple chapters done a few years ago, but I set it aside when the rest of the series started piling up. Nothing there has actually changed, although I have given myself a break and made the final decision to keep them short and sweet. Think Of Saints and Sinners level, not Synchronization. Four hundred, not eight hundred pages. Considering there are five books in the series, well, it saves me a lot of headache.

Fun Factoid

The Chivalrous Welshman was originally going to be the only series. It was going to have sixteen books. Then I cut it to fifteen. Then I decided to add in Of Saints and Sinners in order to better expound upon that certain long chapter in Windup (The Chivalrous Welshman #3). Then I started adding more series for a more well-rounded understanding of what was going on, all the changes I was making to The Chivalrous Welshman.

Then I made the decision to split The Chivalrous Welshman into two parts. The earlier series would be ten books, covering a roughly three year period of time. The later series would be five books, covering nearly thirty years. Then I wrote the end of The Eleventh Hour (The Chivalrous Welshman #10/F). It really can’t happen any other way (yes, it could, but it is best as is). So then I started wondering how I was going to pick up in a second part. But I put it off because it was way far off in the future.

So I continued writing the other books and series. Chasing the White Bear, The Lone Wolf, The Hands of Time, and I decided that The Chivalrous Welshman needed to simply cut off at ten books. Trying to finagle things as they were into another five books over such a long period of time was really going to mess with the overall cadence and screw up the series. Instead, I decided to replace it with a different series entitled The Fifth Horseman. Foreshadowing for the themes and larger implications can be found in Lone Wolf (The Lone Wolf #3/F), and foreshadowing for plot can be found in The Hand Holding the Knife.

Other News

Not much going on, and thank God I can finally say that. We found a house, we’re moved in, and I am unpacking things I haven’t seen in over a year. And we’re planning a trip to Botswana in October for our tenth anniversary. If we have the time and money, we might even puddle jump over to Madagascar for a day, see if I can’t meet a pen pal who has been asking me for years to come visit her. Good times.

And that’s it. We’ll see how this newsletter thing goes.