Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 4

progress update

Both Friday and Labor Day Weekend are upon us, so let’s have a writing progress update!

I am 65,000 words into BLADE OF FLAMES, the first book in my new epic fantasy series, which puts me at Chapter 17 of 23. I think the rough draft will end up around 95,000 words, give or take.

I am 5,000 words into CLOAK OF WORLDS, which puts me towards the end of Chapter 1 of a planned 28.

Now I think it’s time to give FALLOUT 4 a try.

-JM

BLADE OF FLAMES progress update

I am now 50,000 words into BLADE OF FLAMES, which puts me on Chapter 13 of 23. Over halfway there!

So it’s time to share some details about the book!

It will take place in the Year of Our Lord 1588, about a hundred years after the end of SEVENFOLD SWORD: SOVEREIGN.

As you might imagine, Owyllain has changed a bit in a hundred years, as you can see from the new map attached to this post.

The book will have three point of view characters.

Talembur: the protagonist.

Marcobb: Captain of the Red Company, one of the Free Companies of mercenaries that have bedeviled Owyllain in recent years.

Ariaspa: A widow and the owner of the best (and, well, only) inn and tavern in the town of Deineria.

More details to come!

-JM

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 265: When Should Writers Change Course?

In the much-delayed final episode of our series on mindset for writers, we take a look at when writers should change course, and talk about the importance of mental flexibility.

You can listen to the show with transcript at the official Pulp Writer Show site, and you can also listen to it at Spotify, Apple Podcasts , Amazon Music, and Libsyn.

-JM

The Super Summer Of Finishing Things And What’s Next

As I mentioned earlier, I intended that Summer 2025 would be my Super Summer Of Finishing Things.

I am pleased to report that I was successful! THE SHIELD WAR, STEALTH & SPELLS ONLINE, and GHOST ARMOR are all finished. The three series are complete. So if you’re one of the people who emails me every time I publish a book to tell me that you only read completed series, well, I have three new completed series for you.

But now that those three series are complete, what is next?

My main project right now is BLADE OF FLAMES, which will be the first book in my new BLADES OF RUIN epic fantasy series. BLADES OF RUIN will be set in the realm of Owyllain from SEVENFOLD SWORD, and it will take place about a hundred years after the end of SHIELD OF POWER. Currently I’m about 36,000 words into BLADE OF FLAMES, which puts me on Chapter 9 of 23.

I will post more about that later. So far all I will say is that the main character has a dog. People like dogs, right?

My secondary project is, at long last, CLOAK OF WORLDS, and I am 2,500 words into it. I am hoping to publish BLADE OF FLAMES toward the end of September, with CLOAK OF WORLDS coming out in October.

After that I will write the next Rivah book, ELVEN-ASSASSIN.

So that means for the next year or two, if all goes well and God wills it, my writing schedule will look like this:

Month #1: BLADES OF RUIN book.

Month #2: Nadia book.

Month #3: BLADES OF RUIN book.

Month #4: Rivah book.

And I will just repeat this schedule over and over until I conclude one of those three series.

I’m going to limit myself to three unfinished series at any one time going forward. Through all of 2024 and the first two-thirds of 2025, I had five unfinished series. I concluded this was too many, because 1.) it was complicated for me to keep track of everything, 2.) it wasn’t fair to the readers, since the gap between individual entries in the series was getting longer, and 3.) it was actually bad for sales because the gap between books in the series was getting too long.

So, three series at a time.

And, as always, thanks for reading and I hope to have something new to read soon!

It is exciting to work on something new. We’ve been to Owyllain before in the FROSTBORN/SEVENFOLD SWORD books, but a lot has changed there in the hundred years since the end of SEVENFOLD SWORD: SOVEREIGN…

-JM

Coupon of the Week, 8/25/25

Once again it is time for Coupon of the Week!

This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Frostborn series at my Payhip store:

AUGUSTFROST

The coupon code is valid through September 8, 2025. So if you need a new ebook this summer, we’ve got you covered!

-JM

Do You Still Read MOBI Files?

I think this question won’t matter to 95% of you who read this, but the remaining 5% still care deeply.

My question is: do you still use MOBI files for sideloading onto your Kindle device?

I ask because I am wondering if it is still necessary to add MOBI files to my Payhip store. As those of you who buy direct from my Payhip store know (thanks everyone!), you get your choice of file formats – EPUB, MOBI, and PDF. However, MOBI is out of date. For a long time, Amazon used MOBI and everyone else used EPUB, but a few years ago Amazon decided that maintaining its own proprietary ebook format was a waste of resources, and switched the Kindle over to EPUB. Recently, Amazon stopped allowing MOBI files in its Send To Kindle service. There was some sturm and drang about this online, but to be honest it is a trivial problem, since converting MOBI to EPUB is quite straightforward. You can do it in a free program called Calibre.

That long-winded introduction aside, this summer was my Super Summer Of Finishing Things when I concluded SHIELD WAR, STEALTH & SPELLS, and GHOST ARMOR. As I start on a new series, I wonder if it still necessary to include MOBI files on my store.

Let me know if you still need MOBI files!

-JM

GHOST IN THE SIEGE now available!

I am very pleased to report that GHOST IN THE SIEGE, the sixth and final book of my GHOST ARMOR series, is now available!

You can get it at Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Amazon CA, Amazon AU, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Payhip, and Smashwords.

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An invading army. A deadly sorceress. The final stand.

Caina has at last discovered the secret of destroying the Liminal Temple, the gateway the serpent men use to travel from their world to attack Caina’s home.

But she’s running out of time.

As enemy fleets and armies encircle New Kyre, Caina must destroy the Liminal Temple before it is too late.

Yet she has overlooked the most dangerous secret of all.

The Grand Priestess of the serpent men waits hidden within the heart of New Kyre, and is working to bring about the destruction of all that Caina loves…

-JM

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 264: Finishing the SILENT ORDER Series Q&A Redux

In this week’s episode, we take a look back at Episode 205, where I talk about finishing my SILENT ORDER science fiction series. I also provide an update on current writing and audiobook projects.

You can listen to the show with transcript at the official Pulp Writer Show site, and you can also listen to it at Spotify, Apple Podcasts , Amazon Music, and Libsyn.

-JM

Coupon of the Week, 8/18/25

Once again it is time for Coupon of the Week!

This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobooks in the Dragonskull series (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store:

SUMMERAUDIO50

The coupon code is valid through September 1, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook this summer, we’ve got you covered!

-JM

Dungeon Crawling For Mice

I should preface this by saying that I strongly dislike rodents, mice and squirrels in particular. Not in the sense of a phobia, but in the way you would actively dislike someone who’s trying to steal your stuff and wreck your house.

Mice are not cute, they’re not cuddly, and they’re not our friends. They’re the enemies of human civilization and they have been so for millennia, ever since we discovered agriculture. Mice break into our homes, steal our food, and leave their disease-ridden droppings in their wake. I can just imagine some Neolithic farmer, toiling through the growing season to produce a surplus to feed his family, only for his entire family to die of various illnesses because of rodent droppings in his food storage.

In fact, I was kind of annoyed when I was reading an article about upcoming indie games and I saw that so many of them have anthropomorphic mice as protagonists.

So I don’t like mice.

I admit my dislike of mice has sharpened ever since I became a homeowner. I have an old house – it may have been built in the 1920s, but it was probably built earlier, since the region of the US in which I live did not start keeping records on houses until the 1920s. So it has an extensive crawlspace, and several areas where mice can enter. I’ve gone to vexatious and expensive lengths to seal every possible entry point, but the mice keep finding new ones.

Despite that, thanks to a lot of work and some help from various family members with experience in pest control, the problem is a manageable one. I’ve narrowed down the remaining places where mice can enter the building, and an array of various traps wait to greet them properly. In the old days, I never really liked August because I worked in higher ed and it was when the school year would start. Nowadays, it’s when the mice around here really start looking to build nests in earnest.

Now for what seems like a completely unrelated topic – this summer I started playing WIZARDRY: PROVING GROUNDS OF THE MAD OVERLORD. The game is a classic “dungeon crawl” game. Indeed, it is one of the earliest progenitors of the genre. If you’re not familiar with that kind of game, in a dungeon crawl, the adventurers descend deeper and deeper into a vast subterranean labyrinth, fighting increasingly powerful monsters and accumulating treasure and experience. Probably the earliest version of the game was ROGUE in the early 1980s. There have been clever variations on the formula – in the DUNGEON KEEPER and WAR FOR THE OVERWORLD games, you’re the dungeon lord defending your subterranean realm from invading adventurers.

As you might guess, I like dungeon crawls quite a bit, and frequently include them in my fantasy books. FROSTBORN: THE BROKEN MAGE is basically one big dungeon crawl.

Anyway, one day earlier this week I had to reset a mouse trap, and then I sat down to play WIZARDRY: PROVING GROUNDS OF THE MAD OVERLORD, and I had a realization both disturbing and amusing.

My house is a dungeon crawl for mice.

It totally fits the conventions of the genre. A vast, incomprehensible maze of a structure, built by terrifying creatures called “humans”. Should you delve deep enough into this unnatural labyrinth, you can find treasures beyond imagination – enough food to steal to feed generations of mice, and places to build warm and secure nests.

Yet there is danger around every corner, for the humans that live in the house do not like intruders, and have placed a deadly array of traps to kill unwary mice. Beware the smell of peanut butter, for it might be resting in the jaws of a lethal trap. Avoid doors of metal, for they close behind you and never open again. Be wary of floors that seem too smooth, for they are coated with a remorseless adhesive that does not release even in death.

Apparently in the early days of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS and other tabletop RPGs, some game designers enjoyed designing dungeons that were as lethal as possible to player characters.

If I am to be vexed with recurrent mouse incursions, then hopefully my house becomes the sort of place where mouse adventurers never, ever return from.

-JM