Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 146
January 13, 2020
DRAGONTIARNA: WRAITHS progress update
It’s Monday! Let’s see where I’m at with my writing projects.
I am now 70,000 words into DRAGONTIARNA: WRAITHS, and on Chapter 16 of 30, which puts me at over halfway there. My goal is to get to at least 90,000 words by the end of Friday.
I’ve also reached 7,000 words and Chapter 2 of CLOAK OF ASHES.
And I’m 5,800 words into WRAITSHARD: SWORD & FLAME, the first book of the secret project codenamed “Project Shard” I mentioned in my 2020 writing goals.
-JM
January 12, 2020
The Mandalorian, Aragorn, and Character Morality
Naturally, as a writer, I think about what makes the show compelling. The nuts and bolts, as it were.
MILD SPOILERS!!! for the show follow below.
Some reader emails provide a starting point for my thoughts about THE MANDALORIAN. Occasionally I get emails from (usually female) readers expression appreciating how I’ve written the characters of Caina and Nadia in the GHOSTS and CLOAK GAMES/MAGE series, which is a nice compliment. When my correspondents ask me “how do you write women characters”, I tell them that it’s simple – to write characters of the opposite gender, the writer must first understand that the opposite gender is just as capable of moral bankruptcy as the writer’s own.
Everyone has a good laugh at that, but they know what I mean. There’s a good quote from THE TWO TOWERS on that topic:
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“How shall a man judge what to do in such times?”
“As he ever has judged,” said Aragorn. “Good and ill have no changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man’s part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own home.”
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I think the key to writing compelling characters of any background is to realize that all classes of humanity, regardless of sex, race, wealth, or creed, have equal opportunity to make moral choices. Kings and beggars alike have become both saints and villains. In fiction, this is what makes for compelling characters and interesting plots.
The “Baby Yoda” character has become the most popular part of THE MANDALORIAN, but in many ways, he is a sort of moral MacGuffin for the story. When confronted with a (seemingly) helpless child, the characters have to make moral choices about him. The Mandalorian himself is at his most compelling when, after delivering Baby Yoda to the Client, he has a crisis of conscience and decides to go back to rescue the child. Or when the Mandalorian spares the mercenaries who betrayed him. The Client himself is at his most interesting when he makes his speech praising the order and stability of the Empire compared to the chaos that followed the fall of the Emperor, showing that he views his evil actions as a duty. All of the Mandalorian’s eventual allies make moral choices to help the child, while his foes try to sell the child or simply view him as a lever to use against the Mandalorian.
There’s a good lesson for writers here – if you’re having trouble writing a character, confront that character with a powerful moral choice. You can get a lot of plot out of that.
A second, equally important lesson for writers: if you wind up creating a “Baby Yoda” type character, make sure to retain the merchandising rights.
January 9, 2020
DRAGONTIARNA: WRAITHS underway!
Now that GHOST IN THE COUNCIL is published and selling briskly (thanks, everyone!) I am pleased to report that I am now writing DRAGONTIARNA: WRAITHS.
Currently I am on Chapter 11 of 29, at 53,000 words into the rough draft. I think it will end up at around 120,000 words but we’ll see.
The DRAGONTIARNA series has five main POV characters – Ridmark, Niall, Moriah, Third, and Tyrcamber. All five will have scenes in the book, but I think WRAITHS is mostly going to be Third’s book. We’ll also have a new POV character – Solthalis, an archmage of the cloak elves of Cathair Kaldran.
If all goes well, DRAGONTIARNA: WRAITHS should come out sometime in February.
-JM
January 8, 2020
favorite books of 2019
A commenter observed (somewhat sardonically) that I must spend more time playing Nintendo games than reading now. Not true! I did play a lot of Nintendo games in 2019, but I also finished reading 111 different books last year.
Here were my favorite books of 2019, broken down by genre.
FANTASY:
A Dragon from the Desert & A Dragon in the Palace, by William King.
These books are set in Mr. King’s KORMAK universe, but while the Kormak books are about a wizard-hunter, the DRAGON series is about a teenage boy who comes into magical power and becomes an apprentice to the feared court wizard of a powerful noble. Excellent worldbuilding, interesting characters, and fascinating plots.
SCIENCE FICTION:
The Blood On The Stars series by Jay Allan.
This is a military SF series about the Confederation, a corrupt interstellar republic that finds itself pulled into the war with a Union, a totalitarian interstellar dictatorship. Both the Union and the Confederation are successor states to an interstellar empire that was far more technologically advanced, and which of course left various nasty and dangerous artifacts lying around. An excellent series with a broad and grand sweep.
Thrawn: Treason by Timothy Zahn.
Zahn’s books are the only Star Wars books I go out of my way to read, and THRAWN: TREASON does not disappoint. Thrawn makes for a great villain protagonist, and it’s fun to read as he tries to balance his duty to the Emperor with his loyalty to his people.
MYSTERY:
The Comoran Strike series, by Robert Galbraith (pen name of JK Rowling).
These are some really good mystery books, and I hope Rowling writes more of them. The setup is that private detective Cormoran Strike and his plucky assistant (and later partner) Robin solve crimes. Both face some nasty opponents, and both grow and evolve as characters, usually quite painfully. Rowling has the half-cynical, half-amused, and half-empathetic eye for human foibles that great writers do (I’m aware that’s three halves – great writers do things at 150 percent!), and I honestly think these are better than the Harry Potter books.
The Brother Cadfael series, by Ellis Peters.
I started reading this series back in 2011, but I finally finished it in 2019. Brother Cadfael is a monk in 12th century Shrewsbury, and despite being a cloistered brother, somehow winds up having to solve a great many mysteries. Peters has the same sort of eye for human observation as Rowling, and the books have great historical verisimilitude. Each one can be read as a stand-alone book, but if you read them in order, there is a sort of very loose overarching plot arc about the civil war between King Stephen and Empress Maud that consumed much of the 1130s and 1140s in England.
Night Prey, by John Sandford.
Sandford’s books are generally darker than I prefer, but this was really good. Lucas Davenport finds himself hunting a thief and a killer who develops an obsession with a woman. The killer is a fascinating and disturbing character – he is in many ways a profoundly stupid man, but he possess a great deal of cunning and practical knowledge, and has just enough self-awareness to realize that his obsession with the woman is going to get him killed, but he can’t make himself stop. All this leads to a nail-biting and suspenseful final third of the book.
NONFICTION:
Blood, Sweat & Pixels, by Jason Schreier.
This is a fascinating look at how 10 different major video games were produced – from big corporate projects like DIABLO III to indie games like SHOVEL KNIGHT and STARDEW VALLEY, which was literally created by one man working alone in his apartment for years. Video game development is a brutal, brutal business, and I’m glad I never got involved in it!
Loserthink, by Scott Adams.
In this book, Adams defines “loserthink” as modes of thought that lead to undesirable outcomes. Bad thinking leads to bad results, and LOSERTHINK offers advice on how to spot self-defeating and self-sabotaging patterns of thinking.
One of the downsides of the Internet is that there is a great deal of misinformation on both social media and traditional news media, because misinformation can create strong emotions, which in turns drives reader/viewer engagement, which generates more ad revenue. The most interesting sections of LOSERTHINK deal with how to spot slanted or emotionally exaggerated information on social media and the news. If you have a friend or relative who is constantly getting upset over something they just read on the Internet (and we all know people like that) this book might help them deal with things on a more even keel.
Help! My Facebook Ads Suck! by Mal Cooper & Jill Cooper.
As I reconsider my marketing strategies and tactics for 2020, this was an excellent primer on using Facebook ads. Definitely recommended if you want an understanding of Facebook advertising.
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That’s quite the eclectic range of books, isn’t it? Looking forward to reading more in 2020!
-JM
The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 9: 2020’s Writing Goals & A Look Back At 2019
In this episode, I discuss my writing goals for 2020, and look back at how many of 2019’s writing goals I managed to accomplish, including things that went wrong.
I’ll also give a few hints about what my new series codenamed “Project Shard” will be about.
-JM
Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay
January 7, 2020
GHOST IN THE COUNCIL now available
I am pleased to report that GHOST IN THE COUNCIL is now available at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Amazon CA, Amazon AU, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, Google Play, and Smashwords.
For all her life, Caina has served as a Ghost of the Empire, one of the Emperor’s spies and assassins.
Now the Empire teeters on the precipice of ruin. If Caina cannot forge an alliance among the lords of the Empire, the brutal sorcerers of the Umbarian Order will enslave mankind.
After they have taken their vengeance upon Caina…
-JM
January 4, 2020
GHOST IN THE COWL now available in audiobook!
January 2, 2020
GHOST IN THE COUNCIL Table of Contents!
Tomorrow I’ll be ready at last to publish GHOST IN THE COUNCIL!
Meanwhile, here’s the Table of Contents for the book.
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-JM
January 1, 2020
writing goals for 2020
Happy New Year, everyone!
Now that 2020 is upon us, let’s see what I plan to do with writing, if all goes well.
1.) Write a million words of new fiction.
I’ve done that pretty consistently for the last several years, so barring unexpected difficulties, I should be able to do it again in 2019.
2.) Continue the DRAGONTIARNA series – reach book #8 or #9.
I’ve decided DRAGONTIARNA will be 10 books total, so I should get a bunch of them written in 2020.
3.) Continue the CLOAK MAGE series.
CLOAK MAGE has gotten a nice response, so I’m looking forward to continuing the series in 2020!
4.) Continue the GHOST NIGHT series.
I think GHOST NIGHT is going to end up around 10 books, so I’m hoping to write more of those in 2020.
5.) Reach 34 total audiobooks on Audible.com.
Right now I have 27 titles available in audiobook form, and I’m hoping to reach 34. Though that’s more of a stretch goal – audiobooks are expensive and there are a lot of factors outside my control.
6.) Pass the 100,000th copy of FROSTBORN: OMNIBUS ONE
This is kind of another stretch goal, but I think it would be cool if FROSTBORN: OMNIBUS ONE became my first title to pass 100,000 copies sold. It’s at 98,500 as of the end of November 2019, so reaching 100,000 in 2020 is within the realm of possibility.
7.) THE LINUX COMMAND LINE BEGINNER’S GUIDE audiobook.
THE LINUX COMMAND LINE BEGINNER’S GUIDE is one of my bestselling ebooks, and it’s my bestselling paperback. So it makes sense to turn it into an audiobook, and I’m planning to do that early in 2020.
8.) Project Colossus.
Over the last year, I’ve been gathering the pieces of a very, very long audiobook that I’ve nicknamed “Project Colossus”. It’s almost done – just one hour left to record, and that should happen in February or March. Watch this space for news!
Also, I’m giving my secret projects codenames, so when I get to the end of 2020, I can remember what the heck they are.
December 31, 2019
Home Alone Meets Don Corleone
Over Christmas I wound up rewatching HOME ALONE and HOME ALONE 2 for the first time since the 90s.
I initially saw HOME ALONE 2 with my grandfather, God rest his soul. After the movie he gave me a lengthy lecture about the dangers of using paint thinner in an improper manner.
