Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 228
April 4, 2017
FROSTBORN: THE SHADOW PRISON update
17 chapters of FROSTBORN: THE SHADOW PRISON down, 17 to go. Halfway there!
-JM
April 3, 2017
progress on FROSTBORN: THE SHADOW PRISON
I didn’t get much writing done last week, because most of my time went to Business.
Alas, because of the kind of movies I watched when I was a kid, I assumed that Doing Business would involve sitting around in a pinstripe suit, smoking a cigar in a swanky bar near the Warehouse District and/or the Spaceport, and exchanging veiled threats with private detectives (and possibly with the private detectives’ android sidekicks), all while attractive waitresses carried out tumblers of expensive scotch. And then Batman would show up to engage in fisticuffs.
However, in the many years since I’ve learned that Doing Business usually involves things like this:
-Printing out large numbers of PDF forms.
-Filling out PDF forms.
-Standing in line at the post office to mail the printed PDF forms.
-Navigating phone menus.
-Discussing various types of retirement accounts with polite men in button-down shirts.
-Trying to fix one’s website.
-Attempting to locate discount refrigerator parts.
On the plus side, I didn’t have to fight Batman, so it worked out.
But! Wrapped up all that last week. I’m now on Chapter 15 of 34 of FROSTBORN: THE SHADOW PRISON.
I had hoped to finish it by Easter, but that might be unrealistic. FROSTBORN: THE SHADOW PRISON will definitely be one of the five longest books I’ve written, and there’s an outside chance it might end up being the longest book I’ve ever written. So instead I will try to be 2/3 of the way through – at Chapter 23 of 34 – by Easter. Let’s see if I can pull that off!
-JM
April 2, 2017
CS Lewis meets the FROSTBORN
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I got an email from a reader this week asking if a specific scene in FROSTBORN: EXCALIBUR was inspired by a scene from CS Lewis’s THE GREAT DIVORCE.
I had to congratulate the eagle-eyed reader, because he was right!
The specific scene in FROSTBORN: EXCALIBUR (when you read it you’ll know the one) was inspired by this scene in CS Lewis’s THE GREAT DIVORCE when the narrator encounters a man who met Napoleon Bonaparte in purgatory:
‘Did they see Napoleon?’
‘That’s right. They went up and looked through one of the windows. Napoleon was there all right.’
‘What was he doing?’
‘Walking up and down—up and down all the time— left-right, left-right—never stopping for a moment. The two chaps watched him for about a year and he never rested. And muttering to himself all the time. “It was Soult’s fault. It was Ney’s fault. It was Josephine’s fault. It was the fault of the Russians. It was the fault of the English.” Like that all the time. Never stopped for a moment…’
-JM
March 30, 2017
maintenance complete!
I am pleased to report that jonathanmoeller.com is back up and running!
I needed to change web hosts. I’ve had the same hosting provider for so long that I made the first version of my site in FrontPage 2003. However, while website technology has evolved since then, the hosting provider didn’t, and it had an increasingly large number of problems. The final straw was when a server misconfiguration simultaneously broke my site’s comment form while also allowing hundreds of spam comments through at once.
So, I bit the bullet, and spent the last two days moving the site to a new hosting provider. I am looking forward to enjoy modern web hosting features (automated backups! automated backups!) and hopefully less web-crashing weirdness with my site.
-JM
March 28, 2017
down for maintenance
Later tomorrow my website and email will be going down for some much-needed maintenance.
I’ve put it off for a while, but it’s time to bite the bullet and get it over with. This post, if my numbers are right, is the 7,684th post and page I’ve put up on my site, and so it really needs some maintenance at this point. I don’t think FROSTBORN: THE SHADOW PRISON will be ready until early May, so this is probably as good a time as any to do it.
If all goes well, we’ll be back up by Friday or Saturday.
-JM
March 27, 2017
CLOAK GAMES updates
A quick note of thanks – CLOAK GAMES: TRUTH CHAIN had the best first-month sales of the series so far. Thanks everyone!
Also, occasionally people ask how many CLOAK GAMES books there are going to be. I finalized the outline last week, and CLOAK GAMES will have a total of 11 books. After the 11th book I might continue the series the way GHOST EXILE continued THE GHOSTS series, but I’ll decide when I get there.
Meanwhile, there will be 11 books in the CLOAK GAMES series, and I’m looking forward to starting CLOAK GAMES: HAMMER BREAK later this year!
-JM
FROSTBORN: THE SHADOW PRISON progress
11 chapters of FROSTBORN: THE SHADOW PRISON down, 23 to go!
50k words into the rough draft.
-JM
March 23, 2017
what will GHOST IN THE RING be about?
Been working on GHOST IN THE RING on the side while spending most of my time on FROSTBORN: THE SHADOW PRISON, and I finished Chapter 1 today.
Related to that, intrpeid reader Bret asks:
And perhaps I’m slightly worried. Ghosts Exile was soooo good and ended soooo strongly, that I’m having trouble imagining how you’re possibly gonna match the quality and excitement of those books.
Well, here are six short previews of what GHOST IN THE RING will be about.
1.) Caina’s mother’s family. Caina’s mother was actually the youngest daughter of a family that’s like a cross between a sorcerous Mafia and the Death Eaters.
2.) What does Caina do now? Hard to be a spy when you’re famous.
3.) A ring, a dagger, a sword, an amulet, and a crown.
4.) The Umbarian Order.
5.) Some neutrals support the Empire, and some support the Umbarian Order.
6.) Sometimes history is like looking at an old, dusty skeleton. You look at it and think it’s dead, but then you poke at it and the skeleton sits up and reaches for your throat, and you realize that history isn’t quite as dead as you think. Some characters in GHOST NIGHT will learn that the hard way. 
March 22, 2017
FROSTBORN: THE SHADOW PRISON update
Now 30k words into FROSTBORN: THE SHADOW PRISON.
Who will be the POV characters in this one? Basically, if someone was a POV character in a previous book, and they’re still around to be a POV character, they’ll be back for the finale.
-JM
preorder the FROSTBORN: THE EIGHTFOLD KNIFE audiobook
Intrepid reader Ihab has noticed that the audiobook of FROSTBORN: THE EIGHTFOLD KNIFE is available for preorder on Audible, and it should be released on April 4th, 2017.
-JM
