Kyle Belote's Blog, page 7

The Jackal of Shades—Live June 25th!

There are few things darker in this world than the night, and those monsters come crawling up from the Underworld.

Three years ago, Xilor’s death ended the second Wizard’s War, yet it gave rise to a tyrant, and Godfrey’s will won’t be denied. But the Krey aren’t a nation to be shackled. Rage and rebellion are simmering at the boiling point.

Starriace still searches for the brimstones, but her strange powers endanger her loved ones. And everyone faces new threats: the aging disease killing large swaths of the population, an ancient evil from the Underworld, and the machinations of the enigmatic Time Warden.

The Jackal of Shades is the third installment in the Dark Legacy Series.

War Plan: the next 5 releases

…And I’m back! This will be short, so let’s dive right in.

Sorry for the shameless plug, but we’re a few days from release, so get your copy of The Jackal of Shades on June 25th! It will be available in paperback, Kindle, and Kindle Unlimited. 

Red Creek kicks off a novella series about Maro Prakk, and it’s the next release to hit the shelves. I’ve just finished the 5thand final draft for it, and it’s set to go to the editor in October of this year. Let’s hope I can get it out by Christmas. In the meantime, I’ve got other projects to work on. 

The follow up to Red Creek, titled Bloodbane, will be released in 2025. So, I’ll have to turn my attention to it soon. It’s got one solid draft, and a half-hearted clean-up of a second draft—primarily to fix how a character talks, so not a real “draft.” It’ll need a second draft before too long, and it’ll probably be the next thing I tackle. 

In 2026, the plan is to release two more stories, the third in the Maro Prakk series, and Warmaster, the sequel to The Demon’s Fate. The third story is written in a very rough first draft, and there’s a tentative title to it, but I don’t like it, so it’s still open for change. With Warmaster, there’s a single draft done, and it’s the next major title on the chopping block to get another draft, and the focus will be internal thoughts and tone of individual characters. There’s a lot of worldbuilding that needs to take place—which is usually the focus of the third round—but the foundations are there. 

And after? Volume IV of the Dark Legacy series is expected to hit the shelf in 2027, and it’s supposed to be another year of dual releases, but we may have to ease up on the novella series to get this volume ready for the publisher. It’s a massive beast, and it’s been whittled down from 402k words in the first draft to 285.5k words in the third. There’s also a whole novella I cut out of it, and I’ll have to decide whether to release it or sit on it. We’ll see. 

In other news, I’m contemplating setting up a Patreon or joining Royal Road. Still weighing it out and seeing if it’ll be a nice fit. I’ve also joined Instagram, and you can find me there at outpost_dire. 

If you enjoyed this content and want to read my works, check out my books on Amazon. All works are available on Kindle Unlimited, eBook, and print. Reviews can be found on Goodreads and Amazon.

Volume VI: Draft Update 1.0 & more

…And I’m back! This will be short, so let’s dive right in.

Well, I’ve reached a point where I’m satisfied with the first draft. I started to have a bit of a burn out there at the end, and I slowed down quite a bit. I managed to meet a personal goal and surpassed it before slowing down, adding 100k words in forty days. There may be a chapter I’ll need to add in the rewrite, but we’ll see. Round two is still a long way off, and I’ve got other projects to focus one: volume IV and V, Warmaster, and the Maro Prakk novella series.

All in all, the word count is now up to 235k words for volume VI, and I’ve still got to add all the world building details. Most of this is dialogue, setting, action beats, etc. Bringing the world to life will come in the revisions. I very much enjoy how this story turned out, the twists and turns it took, the pairing of characters I didn’t see coming. I think readers will also be pleasantly surprised.

In other news, I’ve started a new Instagram account. Don’t know why, but it seems like everyone’s on it these days. I’m still pretty antisocial when it comes to media, but everyone swears up and down you have to have one to make it work nowadays. We’ll see. You can find me at outpost_dire

Don’t forget The Jackal of Shades is coming out June 25th! Pick up your copy and settle in for a cozy read. It will be available on Kindle and in paperback.

If you enjoyed this content and want to read my works, check out my books on Amazon. All works are available on Kindle Unlimited, eBook, and print. Reviews can be found on Goodreads and Amazon.

The Jackal Of Shades—Coming June 25th!

Don’t forget to preorder your copy of the third installment of the Dark Legacy Series! Title will be available for Kindle and print. Order your copy today!

Volume VI: Draft Update 0.7

…And I’m back! This will be short, so let’s dive right in.

This draft’s taking quite the toll on me. I haven’t stretched these writing muscles in years, and I do feel the burn out. I’ve found a way to truncate the story, condensing it so we’re not over 400K words again. This draft’s missing all the details of world building, so when I go through on the second and third round, to focus on those elements and internal thoughts and body movements, the word count will jump.

I’m recently passed the 180K word mark, up 30K from my last post about nine to ten days ago. The vast majority of Act II is finished, minus a few chapters from one character, and I’m halfway through Act III. I still have the other half of the coin to write for this segment, but if any of you have been following me for a while, you know I write my stories in a different method. Not linear by the standard of stories, but linear per character. Then, I weave the stories together by their arrangement. This first draft will probably finish somewhere between the 220K-250K range. Longer than the first and third book, but not volume II or IV. That’s typically the way it goes with my stories, since I write in duologies. However, this portion of the series is shaping up to be a trilogy as we enter the finale.

If you enjoyed this content and want to read my works, check out my books on Amazon. All works are available on Kindle Unlimited, eBook, and print. Reviews can be found on Goodreads and Amazon.

Volume VI: Draft Update 0.6

…And I’m back! This will be short, so let’s dive right in.

Well, draft one’s well underway by this point. There was a period of about seven to ten days where writing became scarce as life and work get in the way. So, where are we? Starriace’s storyline is complete minus a few small details, and I’m okay with it as a first draft. It’s the barebones of her arc, minus all the essentials that bring a world to life, and that’s just fine. That’s easier to add later. For me, it’s the story first, then the worldbuilding. 

With that tidbit out of the way, I’d say the first act’s complete. It’s currently about seventeen chapters, and I might be able to whittle down to fifteen by moving some chapters into the second act. Not sure if I will. There could be one that slips in. We’ll see. So far, part one will be more main character centric, while the second will focus on other characters, and the finale will bring it all together in a nice blend. I will admit, I’m a bit apprehensive about the third act, only because it’s going to be something I’ve never done before, and the challenge will be writing it without a sensory overload, or the details being lost in the jumble. No spoilers at this time.

So, where does that leave us on word count? Well, remember, this story, so far, is without world building to bring a place to life, and this is the skeleton. We’ve gone from 114k words to 150k. Now, with part one officially done, I can say we’re about 1/3 of the way to the finish line. Might be over 400k words again, and I’m fighting like mad not to make it such a tome. While a story’s important, so is the cost to readers. If need be, I can shift some story from this book to the next and continue. As it is, I cut a plot point from volume IV to carry into this one, so it’ll be nice to have that moment come to fruition.

If you enjoyed this content and want to read my works, check out my books on Amazon. All works are available on Kindle Unlimited, eBook, and print. Reviews can be found on Goodreads and Amazon.

Vol. 4, Draft 3.9 & Vol. 6, Draft 0.5

…And I’m back! This will be short, so let’s dive right in.

I’ve finished the 3rd draft of volume IV. It was a brutal twenty-day process of pouring over the tome and cutting. As stated in an earlier draft, I cut a subplot that carved out a good chunk of words, and you can’t tell it’s missing. That’s when you know whether something was relevant to the story or not. Again, it detailed this character’s life, but it added no value to the overall story. So, now, we have a more streamlined story with all the crucial elements. We’ll see how it reads as I’ve given it to a beta reader.

For the bad news: I didn’t make my target goal of 280,000 words. I ended at 285.500. Without being too negative, I did add to the story in some areas for clarity, or to bring into focus a character that will become quite relevant in later novels. I don’t want this one to be overlooked and feel like he popped up out of nowhere. All considered, I started this third draft at 319k, and we’re down to 285.5k, so that’s 34,000 words gone. When it comes time for the editor, my pocketbook will thank me. 

So, where does that leave me now? Considering I’ve gone through books four and five recently, it’s fresh in my mind, so I’ve decided to jump to book six and write Starriace’s storyline. She’ll be in this book a lot more. She is, after all, the central protagonist to the series, and her story’s taking center stage. 

Where is book six in terms of completion? Pretty far off, not going to lie. When I started book six years ago, I only wrote about the first 10 to 20% of some characters, with the exception of one story arc, which is complete for the book. So, in those terms, maybe 25% is done. I did jump ahead and write the end of Starriace’s plot for this book, to make sure it resonates with volumes four and five. That boosted the word count past 125k words. And we’re only a quarter of the way done? Shades! Looks like this book is shaping up to be even bigger than volume four. God, I hope not. I’ve got my work cut out for me. 

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Volume IV: Draft Update 3.2

…And I’m back! This will be short, so let’s dive right in.

Just posting a little update on draft three of volume IV. As of now, I’ve gone through thirty-eight of the fifty-seven chapters, which is about sixty-six percent. I’ve managed to cut below the 300k mark, and I’m sitting around 293k. While it’s great progress, I hoped to be a little deeper into the word count cut. I did make significant cuts and changes to a particular storyline, removing a subplot that had zero bearing on the overall story. While it fleshed out her day-to-day life, it also padded the bloat. Cutting this helped substantially, as before, I hadn’t even crossed the 300k threshold.

In other news, I’ve had a map created of the Ralloc domain, the continent of Ernrul, and I’ll be inserting it into my books from here on out. I do plan to go back and add it to the uploaded file so that subsequent printings can have a copy. Bringing a map to the page has been a request of folks for a while, but I couldn’t bring myself to release the pitiful drawing I made over twenty years ago.

If you enjoyed this content and want to read my works, check out my books on Amazon. All works are available on Kindle Unlimited, eBook, and print. Reviews can be found on Goodreads and Amazon.