J.B. Norman's Blog, page 346

Almost Smash-Worthy

My thanks to the good people at Pexels and whoever that thumb originally belongs to. I’ve been getting a lot of mileage out of this picture.
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After more or less breaking from any major work over the Easter long weekend (Happy Easter, by the way), I’m back at going over the manuscript of Fryte’s Gold in preparation of getting it up on Smashwords.

I’m not anticipating that there’s much that’s going to need to be dealt with other than potentially the formatting, which I don’t think I’ll know until I first try to get it up to Smashwords.

If everything goes well, I’ll get Fryte’s Gold up on Smashwords either before this weekend or after next Wednesday.

That may seem like an oddly-specific choice of dates, but that’s because Forward, the Lyte Brigade is set to be available for free as an ebook on Amazon from April 10-14. I don’t really want to step on my own toes here, so I want to space out the Smashwords Fryte’s Gold and the free Lyte Brigade.

I’m optimistic that getting Fryte’s Gold on Smashwords will be quick and painless. As far as I can tell, I’ve done everything the “How To Do Smashwords” guide I’ve been following has told me to do. Of course, I won’t know until I make the first attempt. And if the first attempt doesn’t work (knock on wood and all), I have no idea how long it will take to fix, especially because I think I’ve done everything right…

Again, stay tuned for all the latest. And to stay tuned-er, consider subscribing to my email newsletter, or following me on my social media.

Big Plans (again)

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This is all stuff you’ve probably seen before, but in case you haven’t: here’s some of my Realmgard plans for the rest of 2021. Or at least the next several months of 2021.

There is, however, one new piece of news here: the ebook of Forward, the Lyte Brigade will be free on Amazon from April 10-14. I’ll post about that again closer to the date to remind everybody.

Happy Easter!

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Once again wishing everyone a safe and happy Easter!

We should celebrate, as is fitting, by going further East than previously — going “East-er”, if you will.

Big Plans

Amid all the Church stuff and general busyness of the Easter weekend, I’ve got a couple hours to breathe between more Church stuff (incidentally, the most important Church stuff of the year) and busyness. So I figured I’d have the time and energy for another quick post.

I thought it would be helpful to lay out my Realmgard plans for the near future. So, here they are:

1 —Fryte’s Gold will be published on Smashwords — that’s not going to happen before the Easter long weekend is over, but shouldn’t take more than a few days. Unless something goes catastrophically wrong and the document I’m trying to upload to Smashwords needs major revisions, that won’t take more than a couple days. Ideally — again, barring an unforeseen calamities — that should be done before next weekend.

2 — I am going to begin serialising my completed stories here on my website. I’m thinking something like one chapter (or maybe “section”, given that my chapters are pretty short) a week. This means that you’ll be able to eventually read all my stories for free in their entirety on this website. Though, of course, you’re still welcome to buy them if you’d like to support me more directly.

3 —Work continues on the next Realmgard story, Charge of the Lyte Brigade, the highly-anticipated sequel to beloved classic Forward, the Lyte Brigade. Work on the first draft is going well, but it’s still too far out to begin speaking of a definitive release date. Ideally, before summer.

4 —After Charge of the Lyte Brigade is published, the three most recent Realmgard stories — The Valley of Appraisal; Forward, The Lyte Brigade; and Charge of the Lyte Brigade — will be published together in one volume like how the first three Realmgard stories were compiled as The Sisters Darkstone. Again, too early to say for certain that will happen, but it won’t be far off after Charge of the Lyte Brigade is done.

5 — My next new Realmgard story after Charge of the Lyte Brigade will not be made available for sale. It’s less ominous than it sounds, I promise. My plan to write a Realmgard story specifically to make available as a free ebook downloaded on this website as sort of like a free sample of what to expect with Realmgard. Ideally, that will be available before the end of the year.

If any of these plans change or I make any substantial additions to what I’ve got planned for 2021, I will, of course, update you. So, stay tuned and to make sure you don’t miss out on any Realmgard news, subscribe to my e-mail newsletter, follow my blog (there should be a sign-up thing at the bottom right of this page), or follow me on Facebook or Instagram.

A Couple More WIP Maps

Since it’s almost the Easter weekend, I don’t anticipate getting much work done between now and at least Monday. But I want to have a least one more post before the weekend.

So here’s some more WIP versions of my Realmgard map.

Realmgard maps, featuring fancy tablecloth:

Realmgard map, featuring hastily-scrawled editorial notes:

Realmgard map, featuring an attempt at trying to realise those editorial notes:

Also, I’m starting to realise that I really messed up calling the big forest the Midwood, given that it’s really nowhere near the middle of Realmgard.

Luckily, I think I can fix that. Basically, it needs to be less north and pulled further south. It still won’t be in the exact middle, but it will at least occupy a good chunk of the middle third or so of the landmass. Huzzah.

Work in Progress: Map of All of Realmgard

After my previous maps of specific areas of Realmgard, I’ve been trying to figure out what Realmgard might look like in its entirety.

And here is my first attempt.

I think I like all of it except the northwest, which I think might be too small. I need to fit both the Amazon Decapolis and the kingdom that’s going to be Realmgard’s best and greatest polity equivalent of Canada.

But that’s a bridge to fall off when I get there…

To explain the couple things that need explaining: the area in the black square is the area of Realmgard I’ve already made maps up.

That big green blob is the Midwood, which is definitely not in the middle of Realmgard now — I might need to refine the definition to “middle along the East-West axis.”

The blue is the continent’s major lake/inland sea (I’m not sure that distinction matters for this) that is the historic cradle of civilisation in Realmgard.

The red oval in the south is marking off the borders of what is going to be the Circle Sea (hence, the circle — technically “ellipse”, but whatever), which is Realmgard’s equivalent of the Caribbean.

Overall, the borders and general shape (with the aforementioned possibility of the northwest) are solid, there’s still some details that need to get added — rivers, mountains, smaller islands, that sort of thing — but don’t really need to be on the map at this point.

Also, I think the scale of the northeast is messed up in this picture. It looks to small for the rest of the continent and I think I’m going to need to, as they say in Springfield, embiggen it.

Also, my little brother said that the green marking out the forest “looks like a guy with a big nose”, and now I can’t unsee it.

Guillaume d’Arquestone: Instagram Version

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Apologies for this one being delayed longer than the other ones, but I, uh, kinda forgot about it.

Anyway, here’s the Instagram post version of my most recent pirate bio.

Words Having Been Smashed(?)

As what I hope is the final update to the journey of getting Fryte’s Gold presentable for Smashwords: the process itself is finished.

As far as I can tell, all that’s left is to actually get it up on Smashwords. Of course, first, I’m going to go over the manuscript and try to iron out any remaining weirdness.

All of this is to say that I will make the first attempt at uploading within the next couple days. Hopefully, there will be no need for a second attempt.

The next update you should be hearing from me will either be “Buy my book on Smashwords!” or “I need to buy a new computer because I booted mine into the Sun because it didn’t work.”

Hopefully the former.

Once again, stay tuned.

“A Historie of the Pirates of Realmgard” — Guillaume Darkstone (and the Mermaid)

An ancestor of the current Darkstones of Porthaven, and thus an ancestor of a line long of pirates, Guillaume d’Arquestone began his pirate career as a man with a grudge.

Originally a knight from the Duchy of Chevaliers, d’Arquestone was disgraced and exiled for reasons that remain vague and poorly-understood by historians. The theory supported by most historians holds that he was the victim of a conspiracy undertaken by several politic rivals.

Whatever the reason, d’Arquestone was driven from Chevaliers and turned renegade, raising a pirate crew and amassing several ships to take his revenge on Chevaliers by harassing its trade ships and leading several daring direct attacks on Chevaliers’ port cities.

Ironically, it was these very attacks that led to d’Arquestone’s rehabilitation with the leaders of Chevaliers.

The ascension of a new Duke led to many of the nobles believed to be responsible for d’Arquestone’s exile in the first place losing their influence in Chevaleresque politics.

The new Duke of Chevaliers was said to prefer having an audacious pirate for a friend rather than an enemy, and offered to rescind d’Arquesone’s exile and restore his lost title and estates in return for pledging his ships to the exclusive service of the Chevaleresque navy.

D’Arquestone agreed to these terms and subsequently became a great hero of many of Chevaliers’ naval battles.

However, he never actually returned to Chevaliers, believing his homeland held too many painful memories of his disgrace and exile, as well as too much potential to find himself further embroiled in political chicanery.

Thus, he bequeathed his Chevaleresque estates to his younger sister and ultimately settled in Porthaven.

It is widely believed, albeit with little definitive historical evidence, that d’Arquestone married a mermaid. Indeed, more so than any episode in a pirate career notable in its own right, d’Arquestone remains best known as the man who married a mermaid.

While it is established in the historical record that d’Arquestone married and had children, his wife’s identity is not entirely clear, leading to much conjecture.

Among few attested facts about d’Arquestone’s wife is that she was a remarkably beautiful woman with a fondness for the sea. This is taken by some as proof of her mermaid identity, though skeptics note that such traits are by no means exclusive to mermaids.

Smashing: Part 3

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The short version: Getting Fryte’s Gold ready for publishing on Smashwords is, as far as I can tell, going well and almost done. And I remain cautiously optimistic that it actually getting it up and available on Smashwords will work without issue.

At the very least, I’ll have a newly-formatted and better-looking manuscript of the story with which to do … something.

Yay.

Again, it hasn’t been hard, just tedious and full of very specific steps that need to be done very specifically.

Updates soon, hopefully good ones.

Yay?