Benjamin Medrano's Blog, page 43

October 7th 2018 Update

So, got the final pieces of feedback on Queen of Ice, and started the next step of editing. I’m not enormously far along so far, only about 15% of the way through the document, but it’s coming along reasonably well. Besides, the first part of the book is always the hardest to edit, since it takes me a few chapters to get into the swing of writing.

Anyway, I’ll likely finish the editing next week, then I’ll send it to the editor early. He probably won’t have a chance to work on it until later...

Musings of an Author

Maybe I’ve been a bit introspective lately, but I think this is something I’ve been thinking about for a while and I just wanted to share.

I’ve loved fantasy for almost as long as I can remember, that and science fiction. Growing up, I vaguely remember watching part of the cartoon version of The Hobbit when I was less than eight years old… before I even went to pre-school, I think. That didn’t translate into reading, though, not for quite some time. I remember reading some books here and ther...

September 30th 2018 Update

The first draft of Queen of Ice is complete and being read by my alpha readers. The first of them (and the most biased) finished it already, and my wife says that I only need minor changes on the whole. A few here and there, but we’ll see what the others say. I expect to start on the second edit this week, but I know I’m going to be somewhat delayed due to my birthday being this week.

I’m continuing to plink away at my side project, and will try to hit it more heavily while waiting on feedbac...

September 23rd 2018 Update

Queen of Ice is at just over 115,000 words, and I’m in the final stretch of the book. I expect to finish it today or tomorrow, though there’s no way I can guarantee that. Even then, this is only the rough draft. I expect to go through it to finalize the first draft this week, then to share it with my Alpha Readers.

I’m on track to get the book done in time for my November 12th release date, though it’s ended up longer than I anticipated, so I expect my editor is going to give me a few death g...

September 16th 2018 Update

Queen of Ice is up to ~95,000 words, and I’m not done yet, not even with the rough draft. This past week was a bit rough on writing, mind you, primarily because we had the water lines of our house replaced, and that kind of shot an entire day for me. When heavy machinery and banging is going on, it’s hard to concentrate on writing a fantasy story, sadly.

I hope to finish this coming week, but I can’t guarantee it. Fortunately I built a couple of weeks of leeway into my schedule, so I should h...

September 9th 2018 Update

Queen of Ice is up to a bit over 82,500 words. Depending on how things go, I could finish the rough draft this week or next week. I could also be completely wrong and have it go longer than that, so I’m not sure.

Something I think I’ve said before is that I generally have a start and end point to a book mapped out ahead of time, but most of the events in the middle of the story are what come naturally for me. This often means that I’m not sure at what point I’ll get to different scenes until...

September 2nd 2018 Update

It’s September already? Sheesh, I feel like August went by far faster than June or July did, which is weird. Anyway, Queen of Ice is at a bit over 69,000 words, and I anticipate finishing the rough draft sometime around the middle of the month. Overall it’s going well, and I’m enjoying writing the book!

I’m still working on the secondary project I’ve talked about, and it’s almost to the point that I’m going to be sharing it with a couple of alpha readers to see whether I should keep it up or...

August 26th 2018 Update

Queen of Ice is coming along well, and I’m up to a bit more than 54,000 words. I’d guess that I’m about halfway done, more or less, though this is the first draft. I’m curious how things will go from this point, because a few of my plans have shifted slightly as I’ve written, particularly since Anara and Essryl refuse to stay in their neat little boxes.

I want to thank all of you who bought or borrowed The Avatar’s Flames this past week, and especially those of you who reviewed the book. With...

August 19th, 2018 Update

Tomorrow The Avatar’s Flames comes out! I’m excited and panicked, which means that it’s just the usual for me. I hope people enjoy it, though I’ll warn that, as one of the ARC readers pointed out, it doesn’t have as much action to the story as some of my other ones. That doesn’t mean it won’t have that sort of chaos, but the stories are definitely more interconnected than some of my other books.

So it’s good I’ve put up a pre-order for Queen of Ice, right? That will be coming out November 12t...

365 Magic Items

So, a while back I mentioned that I had a RPG book in the works. I find it amusing, and ironic, that it came out exactly a week before The Avatar’s Flames, but go figure!

Before I say anything else, there’s something I need to stress. This book is for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, and is not something that you’ll find enjoyable or useful if you don’t play Pathfinder or a similar game. It’s very dry reading that’s mostly meaningless without the game’s context.

That said… 365 Magic Items is...