Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 48

SEVENFOLD SWORD ONLINE: CREATION now in audiobook!

I am very excited to report that SEVENFOLD SWORD ONLINE: CREATION is now available in audiobook, as excellently narrated by C.J. McAllister!

You can listen to it at Audible, Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon AU, Kobo, Google Play, Payhip, Chirp, Storytel, and Spotify. (Apple should be coming soon.)

This is a good preview for the second book in the series, SEVENFOLD SWORD ONLINE: LEVELING, which I hope will be out in February or possibly March.

-JM

 

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 181: Winter 2023 Movie Roundup

In this week’s episode, I take a look at the movies and TV shows I watched and enjoyed in winter 2023.  You can listen to the show at the official Pulp Writer Show podcast site.

-JM

My ten favorite scenes of 2023

Note that this post has SPOILERS for every single thing I published in 2023, so stop reading now if you’re not caught up!

I thought it would be interesting to look back at 2023 and talk about some of my favorite scenes to write from the last year. As an added bonus, when I wrote out this list it turned out to be ten scenes, which is convenient since all the news sites run their Top 10 articles at this time of year anyway.

Reminder, SPOILERS!!!

Here they are in no particular order.

1.) Nadia bursts through the roof with Delaxsicoria in CLOAK OF DRAGONFIRE.

That was a fun one to write. I used to joke that I originally intended Nadia’s character arc to be a bad person reluctantly and against her will slowly turning into a good one, but what her plot arc actually turned out to be was Catwoman slowly turning into Gandalf.

Exploding through the roof of an athletic complex to save the day while riding a dragon was definitely one of the more Gandalf-esque things that Nadia has done.

The following scene where Nadia, Delaxsicoria, Varzalshinpol, and Tarthrunivor all chase Ferrunivar through the skies of southern California was pretty great as well.

2.) Caina deduces who Kalliope Agramemnos is in GHOST IN THE SERPENT.

I have to admit that for a while I knew it was likely Caina would have stepchildren she didn’t know about since she’s married to Kylon, who used to strive to be a model Kyracian noble, and Kyracian nobles in general tend to regard abstinence as something to be avoided at best and a disgraceful vice at worst. But for a while I didn’t know how to write it in a way that would be interesting.

If the mother died and Caina was left to raise the stepchildren, that would be lazy writing.  It would also be lazy writing if everyone got along. There’s an apocryphal story that for a while in the 2000s, all these newly remarried middle-aged screenwriters kept pitching sitcoms where a screenwriter, his new, younger wife, and his ex-wife all lived in harmony together. The studio execs, while not always known for their firm grasp upon reality, always rejected these ideas because they knew a majority of the female half of the audience would hate it. So a scenario where Caina, Kylon, and Kalliope all got along seemed likely equally lazy writing.

But what if Kylon and Kalliope couldn’t stand each other? And Kylon had further grievances against Kalliope because she had never told him about the children? But Kalliope ends up being in awe of and a little frightened of Caina? So the dynamic is that Kylon and Kalliope can’t stand each other, but Caina keeps the peace between them? I thought that might turn out to be pretty interesting to write.

Especially since this would be happening while Caina is one of the few people who know how dangerous the Cult of Rhadamathar really is.

3.) Delaxsicoria tells Nadia not to be so hard on herself in CLOAK OF DRAGONFIRE.

The unlikely friendship between Della and Nadia has been fun to write throughout the CLOAK MAGE series and side stories. From Della’s perspective of course they would be friends – Nadia caught the murderer of her uncle, and Nadia is wound up tighter than a spring and doesn’t relax very much. Nadia, of course, is a little baffled by this, especially since she doesn’t really have any interest in music, which is Della’s great passion. So they have a great dynamic, and we’ll see more of that in future books.

4.) Sir Telemachus and Niara kill Mharoslav in DRAGONSKULL: WRATH OF THE WARLOCK.

This was fun because Mharoslav always got away from or got the best of the heroes in their previous encounters, including nearly killing Telemachus in the process. Telemachus decided that he would sacrifice himself in seeking vengeance against Mharoslav

Then he met Niara. Niara comes from the General Patton school of warfare – dying for your country is a fine thing, but it’s way better to make the other jerk die for his country. Her utter loathing for all wielders of dark magic played into that as well, allowing her to show the way for Telemachus to defeat Mharoslav at last.

5.) Myotharia versus Xothalaxiar in DRAGONSKULL: DOOM OF THE SORCERESS.

I have to admit Myotharia was originally going to die in the final battle of DRAGONSKULL: FURY OF THE BARBARIANS. But she was such a great character that I felt I could get more narrative mileage out of the poor woman. I always knew from the beginning of the series that Niara was going to have to fight Xothalaxiar for the final time, and Myotharia lost everything to the urdmordar. So I realized that having Myotharia join the fight against Xothalaxiar would give her a sort of emotional catharsis, and help set Niara onto a path other than seeking her own death in battle.

6.) Thunderbolt.

I lucked out with Thunderbolt’s character in the SILENT ORDER series. I charted out the rest of the SILENT ORDER series waaaay back in 2021, which is when Thunderbolt was first mentioned in SILENT ORDER: ROYAL HAND. I originally envisioned her as the sort of classic STAR TREK Evil Sentient Computer, the sort of computer Captain Kirk would have to talk into a logic loop every other week.

But! Then in 2022 and 2023 ChatGPT and Bing Chat came along, and they were terrible! For a while, the various insane ramblings of ChatGPT and Bing Chat regularly made the news. So when it was time to write SILENT ORDER: THUNDER HAND, I based Thunderbolt’s personality off some of ChatGPT’s more hilarious public meltdowns. Though I left it ambiguous just how insane Thunderbolt actually was and how much of her behavior was just screwing with people to put them off their balance. By the end, Jack March definitely suspected the latter.

7.) The Battle of Calaskar.

The entire Battle of Calaskar sequence in SILENT ORDER: PULSE HAND was fun to write because I’ve been thinking about it for ages, since I’ve had a clear endpoint for the SILENT ORDER series in my head for a while. I liked how it was able to bring back Admiral Stormreel, the Navigators, the Calaskaran Navy, and a bunch of other elements from the series for the Grand Finale.

8.) Gareth figures out the Dragonskull.

I liked the final confrontation with Azalmora in DRAGONSKULL: CROWN OF THE GODS. Azalmora was such a self-controlled and intellectual villain that I wanted her end to be intellectual, sort of a moment of revelation that kills her. When Gareth figures out the nature of the Dragonskull itself and the way the xortami twisted it with their dark magic, he’s able to use that against Azalmora, and in her final moment she understands the true nature of the Dragonskull. Albeit briefly.

9.) Riordan MacCormac vs Michael Durst.

This was a fun scene to write in CLOAK OF EMBERS. Durst had been an arc villain over the last few books. He proudly considered himself a monster, but then he had the bad luck to start working for Maestro, who was just as evil as he was but without any of his self-destructive indulgences. So it was little wonder that Durst found himself dragged into Maestro’s orbit, even if he didn’t realize what was happening. (The scene where Durst goes to kill Maestro and instead she talks him into doing exactly what she wants was also pretty great.)

Even if Durst didn’t want to kill Nadia, Riordan would still have fought him to the death, because Durst represents a rejection of self-control and responsibility, something Riordan finds utterly abhorrent. And unlike Durst, Riordan knew that a moment of reckoning was coming, which was why he practiced and trained so much with Sir Trandor, while Durst simply went begging to the Dark Ones for power.

So the final showdown between Riordan and Durst was quite fun to write.

10.) Rivah and the Magister’s Tower.

When I plotted out Rivah’s heist of Ramarion’s tower in HALF-ELVEN THIEF, I didn’t get too detailed in my outline as to what the inside of the tower would look like. I just knew I wanted it to be as weird and freaky and unsettling as possible, with a lot of Evil Wizard Stuff cluttering up the place. Several people have told me Rivah’s venture into the tower was their favorite part of the book, so I think I succeeded!

So those were my ten favorite scenes that I wrote in 2023. Thanks for reading, everyone!

-JM

One final bonus day for the Twelve Days of Short Story Christmas!

Remember that the free twelve short stories will remain free through the end of December 31st! So this is the last chance to get them.

Also, the extra bonus is still live through the end of December 31st. This coupon code will give you 25% off every single audiobook and ebook on my Payhip store!

CHRISTMAS2023

That will get you 25% off every single ebook and audiobook on my Payhip store until December 31st, 2023. So if you’re looking for something to read or something to listen to during any upcoming holiday travels, this is the time to stock up!

Our twelve free short stories:

1.) THE FIRST SPEAR

2.) THE FINAL WAYSTONE

3.) ELVEN HONOR

4.) THE FIRST HOLDFAST

5.) DRAGON SONG

6.) GHOST CANDLE

7.) GRIEFER

8.) BRONZE GAZE

9.) GHOST NAILS

10.) THE FIRST LESSON

11.) GHOST EYE

12.) THE FINAL SHIELD

-JM

Winter 2023 Movie Roundup

2023 is almost over, so let’s take a look at the movies and TV shows I watched in winter 2023!

As usual, we will go from my least favorite to my most favorite. The grades are completely subjective and based on my own tastes and opinions and nothing else.

THE CROWN SEASON 6 (2023)

The performances were superb, the set design and cinematography excellent. Everyone involved in the show was at the top of their field and did an amazing job, and I still just didn’t like this.

For one thing, as THE CROWN has gone on, it’s become less historical and more messy soap opera with an increasingly casual relationship with what really happened in the events it describes. For another thing, I found the show’s fixation on Princess Diana’s death to be rather ghoulish. I am old enough to remember her death in 1997, and even then, when I was much younger and stupider, I thought the American media’s obsession with her death was weird and disturbing. Especially since the media fixation on her was a direct contributing cause to her death. If the media hadn’t been willing to pay vast sums for photographs of her, the paparazzi wouldn’t have chased her, and history would be different.

A while back I knew a history professor who said that history only starts between twenty to thirty years ago, and that anything that happened within the last twenty to thirty years wasn’t history yet, it was still journalism.

I think that is part of what bothers me about season six of THE CROWN. Most of the people involved in the “story” are still alive. Writing historical fiction about people who have died is one thing, especially if they have been dead for centuries or even millennia. Only God may judge the dead, so what those of us among the living think about them is quite irrelevant. But making up fiction about people who are still alive, even if they are major public figures who have unquestionably made some bad decisions, somehow seems libelous.

Especially since there have been so many articles in both the UK and the US press detailing all the things season six of THE CROWN got wrong.

So, extremely well-done, but it feels like excellent work done in a bad cause.

Overall grade: D

SHAZAM: FURY OF THE GODS (2023)

The first SHAZAM movie was actually pretty good, definitely in B+ territory. This sequel, alas, was quite a bit weaker. It reminded me of watching a really cheesy sword-and-sorcery movie from the 1980s. Fun to watch, mostly, but quite dumb.

Following up from the first movie, Billy Batson and his foster siblings are now part of the Shazam superhero family, and are handling their powers about as well as you would expect inexperienced teenagers to handle phenomenal cosmic powers. Except it turns out the wizard who gave Billy and his family their powers actually stole those powers from the Greek Titan Atlas, and Atlas’s daughters are ticked off about this and want the powers back. Since this is a superhero movie, let’s just say they’re not going to settle this dispute in probate court.

The product placement for the Skittles candy in this movie was just over the top. In fact, an entire major plot point hinges on a teenage girl’s love of Skittles. One hopes that Mars Incorporated (owner of the Skittles brand) really coughed up for that. Helen Mirren chews a lot of scenery as the chief daughter of Atlas, though she does have a very funny bit with a dictated letter. This isn’t her first time in an over-the-top fantasy movie – she played Morgana in EXCALIBUR back in the 80s – though her costume this time covers quite a bit more than Morgana’s various outfits did.

The movie also leans way too heavily in the rest of the DC movie universe.

Enjoyable to shut off your brain and watch all the sparkly fireworks and the scenery-chewing, but not very good.

Overall grade: D+

CLUE (1985)

Big swing and a miss, but definitely a miss nonetheless.

I tried to watch this about ten years ago but it didn’t have any captions and all characters talked too fast for me to understand. But I have a much better TV than I did ten years ago, and the caption situation has improved, so I gave it another go.

This is a dark comedy version of the popular board game CLUE. All the classic CLUE characters – Colonel Mustard, Professor Plum, and so forth – are summoned to Mr. Boddy’s mansion during a dark and stormy night. Mr. Boddy gloats that he has been blackmailing all of them, distributes the classic CLUE weapons of the pipe, the knife, the wrench, and so forth, and then promptly turns off the lights. When the lights come back on, Mr. Boddy has been murdered.

Mr. Boddy, to be blunt about it, doesn’t seem to have been all that bright a bulb.

Anyway, madcap hijinks ensue as the guests try to figure out who the killer is. Three alternate endings are included with the movie.

There were a lot of very funny bits in the movie, but it really didn’t work, and it had some oddly heavy-handed commentary about the Red Scare.

Tim Curry was pretty great, though. Fun fact: he did an excellent turn as Darth Sidious in what was then the final episode of THE CLONE WARS, and he also played Arl Howe, one of the chief villains in DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS, which was one of the last video games I had time to play through all the way before I spent the next fourteen years writing like 145 novels.

A remake of CLUE has been in Production Hell for like the last ten years. You just know that Hasbro wants to include CLUE in their Cinematic Universe, where Colonel Mustard and Miss Scarlett teams up with Optimus Prime and GI Joe to fight Megatron and the Monopoly Guy or something.

Overall grade: C-

MURDER MYSTERY (2019)

This was a dumb movie, but it was a fun dumb movie. Like, it’s a C- student, but it’s the sort of C- minus student who everyone likes, throws great parties, and goes on to have a very successful career as a regional sales manager.

Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston play Nick Spitz and Audrey Spitz, a NYC cop and a hairdresser. Nick has failed the detective exam multiple times and has gotten stuck in a rut, and Audrey really wants to go to Europe. So Nick takes her to Europe, and they promptly blunder into a 40s screwball-style comedy about the murder of a wealthy European oligarch and his squabbling heirs. A lot of the comedy comes from the good-natured but boorish Spitzes contrasted with the sophisticated wealthy Europeans – who promptly decide that Nick and Audrey would make the perfect scapegoats to take the fall for the oligarch’s murder. Wacky hijinks follow.

I have to respect how Adam Sandler uses his movie productions as an excuse to travel to exotic locations with his friends.

Overall grade: C-

MURDER MYSTERY 2 (2023)

The sequel to MURDER MYSTERY, and pretty much everything I said about the first one still applies. Dumb, but fun.

Overall grade: C-

INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY (2023)

Man, I was ambivalent about this one.  To be fair, it was better than KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL. There was some really good stuff, and some stuff that just annoyed me.

The opening sequence with the train during World War II was great, classic Indiana Jones stuff. The “Nazis Try To Time Travel To Change World War II” is a well-established trope of science fiction, but the twist this time that the villain thinks he understands how the time travel device works but it turns out that he actually doesn’t was pretty good. The car chases were good as well, both in New York and Tangiers.

That said, the “legacy protagonist now is an old loser getting lectured by a more competent younger woman” trope was in full force, and it’s a really annoying story trope. Disney seems to just adore this story trope – the STAR WARS sequels, SECRET INVASION, and now DIAL OF DESTINY – and a majority of audiences don’t seem to like it, which is probably one of the significant reasons the Disney corporation lost a metric gigaton of money this year. TOP GUN: MAVERICK was a much better example of bringing back a legacy protagonist. Indy also has this oddly out of character speech where he says he doesn’t believe in magic, which is rich considering he has literally seen 1.) the Ark of the Covenant melt Nazis, 2.) the power of the Holy Grail turn another Nazi to dust, and 3.) space aliens.

So, I would say it was half a good movie, and half a weak one.

Overall grade: B-

BARBIE (2023)

I did finally get around to seeing BARBIE. Greta Gerwig is clearly a genius, because she figured out how to take the existential anxiety of the modern American woman and convert it into $1.44 billion dollars. If we could work out how to apply the same principles to generating electricity, we would have limitless clean energy, flying cars, and world peace! Though I suppose the phrase “modern American woman” is a facile generalization.

Anyway, I really wasn’t in the target demographic for the movie. That said, it was quite funny. It’s a fantasy comedy that’s a bit surrealistic in places. The set design is superb and done with very little computer effects – apparently so much pink paint was used that it actually caused a shortage. As many reviews said, Ryan Gosling almost stole the movie as Ken, which was amusing on a meta level because he’s played so many Grim Action Heroes. In the third act, the movie really does beat the viewer over the head with The Message, but what else do you expect from a Barbie movie in 2023?

The funniest line: “How can she call me a fascist? I don’t control the railways or the flow of commerce!” The joke about Proust Barbie not selling was pretty funny as well. Maybe if the “Barbenheimer” meme continues, in the sequel Proust Barbie can fall in love with Oppenheimer Ken and they have grim conversations about existentialism and science.

Overall grade: B+

MUPPET TREASURE ISLAND (1996)

This is a loose-ish adaptation of the classic TREASURE ISLAND novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, with many Muppets filling the roles of the characters from the book, and Tim Curry playing Long John Silver. Like in the book, young Jim Hawkins acquires a treasure map leading to the buried treasure of a ruthless pirate captain, and sets out on an adventure to find it. However, many of the dead captain’s former “associates” likewise want the treasure, and so Hawkins and his allies must outwit their foes.

This wasn’t quite as good as MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL, but still quite enjoyable and funny.

Overall grade: A-

Now for the runner-up of the best thing I saw in winter 2023.

LOKI SEASONS 1 & 2 (2021 & 2023)

I liked the first season of LOKI when it came out back in 2021, but it was very obviously the first half of a story, so I didn’t write anything about it. However, I’ve seen the second season, and the completed LOKI show is very good. As I’ve written before, I don’t really like multiverse or time travel stories because the stakes are either too vast or utterly meaningless. Time travel stories are like homemade lasagna – if it’s not excellent and not prepared by someone who knows what they’re doing, you’ll regret eating it.

However, LOKI leans hard enough to the concepts and the stakes that it actually works. Like, I think the key question that every time travel story needs to answer at some point is why the time traveler doesn’t just go back in time over and over again until he or she fixes the problem, like reloading a save game until you finally figure out how to beat the boss. If you can time loop infinitely, why not do it infinitely until you get the perfect outcome? LOKI actually comes up with a good answer to that question that isn’t Because The Plot Requires It.

Anyway, the show starts with the version of Loki who escaped with the Tesseract from AVENGERS: ENDGAME getting captured by the Time Variance Authority. The TVA is basically the Time Cops – they guard the flow of the Sacred Timeline and prevent any alternative timelines and realities branching off from the main one. The events that make it onto the Sacred Timeline are determined by the Time Keepers, three mysterious figures who rule the TVA from the shadows. Loki manages to ingratiate himself to his captors, soon realizes that the TVA isn’t at all what it appears or claims to be, and discovers that Big Trouble is coming.

The show had good character development for Loki, and managed to wrestle with what is in fact some profound philosophical questions. Is there is a choice between determinism and free will? Must we choose between either brutal tyrannical order or destructive chaos? Or is there another way?

On a more prosaic level, some reviews said that the finale of LOKI bound Marvel to using Kang the Conqueror as their next major villain, which would be a potential problem due to the actor’s ongoing legal troubles. That said, I don’t think that assessment is correct – in my opinion the ending resolved the story while leaving things wide open for whatever Marvel wants to do (or can afford to do, given Disney’s financial woes) next.

Overall, LOKI was the best non-Spiderman thing Marvel has done since ENDGAME. It also achieved one of the rarest feats of all in superhero movies – an emotionally satisfying ending to both a story and a long character arc.

Overall grade: A

Finally, the best thing I saw in winter 2023.

THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (1940)

A romantic comedy starring Jimmy Stewart as Mr. Kravlik and Margaret Sullivan as Miss Novak.

Mr. Kravlik is the top salesman at Matuschek’s, a store owned by the somewhat erratic Mr. Matuschek, who kind of reminded me of a marginally brighter Michael Scott. One day Miss Novak comes into the shop and fast-talks her way into a job as a sales clerk. Both she and Mr. Kravlik immediately take a dislike to each other, which is ironic, because Mr. Kravlik and Miss Novak have been unwittingly corresponding with each other anonymously and falling in love over the last few months. (People used to do that in the pre-Internet age before Tinder and Match.com.) However, big trouble is on the horizon because one of the sales clerks is having an affair with Mr. Matuschek’s wife, and Mr. Matuschek mistakenly blames Mr. Kravlik, who is in fact the most loyal of his employees and the only one brave enough to disagree with him.

The movie was both very funny and had a real degree of tension with dramatic stakes. It’s a cross between YOU’VE GOT MAIL (which was partially inspired by this movie) and the UK version of THE OFFICE. It’s a very tight movie – not a single line of dialogue or shot was wasted, and the layout of the shots was nearly perfect.

In the modern mind, we think of black and white movies as being sanitized and saccharine. But that overlooks that the 1950s and the 1940s were in fact very different periods from each other in American history. Movies from the 40s really do have this hard, sometimes cynical edge to them without indulging in pointless nudity, graphic violence, or nihilism the way that modern movies often do. Like, at one point in the movie, Mr. Matuschek tries to shoot himself in despair, only for a teenage boy to stop him. That’s dark stuff for a romantic comedy! (Of course, the teenage boy is hardly traumatized by the experience – he deftly leverages the event to get himself promoted from delivery boy to sales clerk.)

I enjoyed it thoroughly. I do recommend you watch it with captions if possible, though, since sound technology has come a looooooooong way since 1940.

Overall grade: A+

-JM

Audio & short story updates

I’m still mostly off until after New Year’s, but I have some updates to share.

First, SEVENFOLD SWORD ONLINE: CREATION is officially getting an audiobook. It will be narrated by C.J. McAllister and it currently making its way through the various QA processes. If all goes well, it should be out at all the various stores by the end of January.

Second, the short story THE FINAL SHIELD (the prequel to my upcoming SHIELD OF STORMS epic fantasy novel) will be getting an audiobook version narrated by Brad Wills. I’ll be giving that away as a bonus to my newsletter subscribers later in the year.

Finally, in 2021 and 2022 I did an anthology of all my short stories, and I’m doing it again this year! 2023: THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES should be coming out shortly after New Year’s if all goes well. It will start out at $0.99 for the first month, and then will go up to $4.99.

-JM

The Pulp Writer Show, Episode 180: Did I Meet 2023’s Writing Goals & My Writing Goals For 2024

In this week’s episode, I take a look back at how many of 2023’s writing goals I met, and look ahead to my writing goals for 2024. Listen to the episode with transcript at the official Pulp Writer Show site!

-JM

Merry Christmas and progress update!

I think I’m gonna take most of the days off from now until New Year’s, so posting will be light. Though I might pop in to share amusing memes and screenshots of my (usually) ill-fated attempts to play video games.

Therefore Merry Christmas & Happy New Year in advance!

Let’s also have a progress update of current writing projects.

SHIELD OF STORMS: 40,000 words.

SEVENFOLD SWORD ONLINE: LEVELING: 51,000 words.

WIZARD-THIEF: 4,500 words.

It also looks very probable that we shall have an audiobook of SEVENFOLD SWORD ONLINE: CREATION in January. More details to come on that!

Finally, let’s have a little preview of SHIELD OF STORMS. Specifically, a conversation that ends up setting the entire plot in motion.

###

“I see you have given this much thought, Lord Ridmark,” said Niara.

“I have. I admit it weighs upon me,” said Ridmark. “I look at you and Gareth, and think about the children you might have if God wills it. The children that Joachim and Rhoanna might have one day. Do I want them to grow up in an Andomhaim conquered by the Heptarchy? Or will they one day have to face war because we failed to dislodge the Exarch from the Isle of Kordain in our time?” He shook his head. “I know I cannot govern the tides of fate and time, but I have thought long and hard upon this. If I can find a way to take the Isle from the Heptarchy, it must be done.”

They stood in silence for a few minutes.

“Maybe you should cheat,” said Niara.

“What do you mean?” said Ridmark, bemused.

“That chess game everyone plays in Andomhaim now,” said Niara. “Do you enjoy it?”

“Not particularly.”

“Why not?”

He wasn’t sure what she was driving at, but he answered. “It’s supposed to be a battle. The pawns are foot soldiers, the rooks and knights and bishops are horsemen, the king and queen are the commanders of the army. All neat and tidy with orderly rules. Battles aren’t like that. The horsemen get stuck in the mud. The footmen aren’t in proper formation. Or the horsemen charge into the footmen, but the footmen are veteran spearmen and hold the line. Maybe it snows and the entire thing turns into a confused mess.”

Niara nodded. “Or you sneak around from behind and stab the king in the back while his pawns and rooks are busy elsewhere?”

“Perhaps it would be best to phrase that differently in the court of the High King,” said Ridmark, “but I see what you mean.”

-JM

 

Did I meet 2023’s writing goals and what are 2024’s writing goals?

2023 was a year that brought many challenges and changes, though I did end up meeting most of my writing goals.

First off, I would like to thank everyone who bought and read a book of mine this year! Thanks for coming along on the adventures of Gareth, Nadia, Caina, Jack March, and Rivah Half-Elven!

That said, I have to admit from February to about mid-July was a rather challenging patch. Everyone’s got their own difficulties so I won’t ramble on about mine, but I did get Covid pretty strongly in May and that messed things up for a while. Before May, I was doing three and a half mile runs on the treadmill two or three times a week. After Covid, I could barely do two minutes before the wheezing got too bad, and most of May and June is kind of a vague haze in my memory.

One amusing anecdote to illustrate that time: about halfway through June I spent most of a day watching a very energetic three-year-old. We walked to the park in the morning, but it eventually got too hot and he wanted to go back inside. When we went back, he discovered the house’s laundry chute, and once I stopped him from hurling various small and expensive items down the chute, we compromised on dropping one of his stuffed animals down it. This delighted him to no end, and it seemed like good harmless fun that would keep him out of trouble, so obviously I followed along as he did this to make sure he didn’t decide to lock himself in the dryer or fling his parents’ iPads down the chute or something.

So he dropped his stuffed animal down the chute on the second floor, hastened down to the basement to retrieve it, and then ran back upstairs to do it again.

Over and over and over and over and over and over…

As I followed him up the stairs for like the tenth time, I had the profound realization, deep in my bones, that I had gotten very, very out of shape. For a while I wondered if I was going to fall over, and if the three-year-old in question would empty out my pockets and drop my keys and wallet down the laundry chute (which, in fairness to him, would make a very cool noise), but fortunately I kept my feet. Eventually the three-year-old got bored with the laundry chute and decided he wanted to watch YouTube instead. Fun fact I did not know before that day: apparently there are people who make YouTube videos featuring action figures fighting each other, and to judge from the millions of views, apparently toddlers love this stuff.

Anyway, the next morning, when I got out of bed and stood up, every single muscle was eager to inform me that I had reeeeeeeeeeeally overdone it yesterday.

Once the muscle aches had subsided and I had driven home, I set about things systematically. The first week in July I made myself run 1 mile on the treadmill at the gym every day, and then the week after that I raised it to 1.1. The week after that, I pushed it up to 1.2.

I am pleased to report that this week I ran 3.2 miles on the treadmill every day, and I did lose nearly all of the weight I gained when I had Covid.

Many other problems in Real Life settled down around mid-July as well, which was a pleasant change. Things improved enough that I did twelve 10k word writing days after July. Compare that to 2022 when I only had one!

So I missed some of my writing goals for 2023, but reached some and even exceeded others.

Let’s see how I did! Then we’ll take a look at what I would like to do writing-wise in 2024.

2023’s WRITING GOALS

1.) Write as many words as possible, but try to publish one million new words.

I didn’t quite make this one. The last time I wrote over a million words in a single year was 2020, when I hit 1.27 million words. In 2022, I only did 814,000, but this year I did 929,000 words. So that was a significant improvement, and probably was helped a good deal by the twelve ten thousand word days I was able to do in 2023.

2.) Continue DRAGONSKULL.

Not only did I continue the DRAGONSKULL series, I finished it with DRAGONSKULL: CROWN OF THE GODS this summer! Additionally, thanks to the hard work of narrator Brad Wills, the entire series is also available in audiobook, which is the fastest I’ve ever got a complete series of audiobooks out. DRAGONSKULL was overall the strongest selling series of 2023, so I’m glad I was able to bring it to a satisfying conclusion.

3.) Continue CLOAK MAGE.

I did get two new CLOAK MAGE books out – CLOAK OF DRAGONFIRE and CLOAK OF EMBERS. Three would have been nice, but I didn’t quite get there.

4.) Continue SILENT ORDER.

I did that! Not only did I continue the SILENT ORDER series, I decided to push onward and finish it completely for a total of 14 books.

5.) Write in a new genre of fantasy.

I did that as well with SEVENFOLD SWORD ONLINE: CREATION, which was LitRPG. It didn’t do as well as I hoped, but I’m about halfway through the sequel which I hope to put out in February 2024, so we’ll see how that does.

I also wrote HALF-ELVEN THIEF, which while not in a new genre of fantasy, did quite well out of the gate. Better than CREATION did, in fact.

So I did meet most of my 2023 writing goals, and even exceeded the “continue” goals for DRAGONSKULL and SILENT ORDER by finishing the series.

Let’s see what my writing goals will be for 2024. Bearing in mind, of course, wise words from some time ago:

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

With that in mind, here is what I would like to do next year.

2024’s WRITING GOALS

1.) Write as many words as possible while trying to hit one million new words.

I haven’t done that since 2020, but it would be nice if I could get over a million words again. We’ll see what happens!

2.) Start THE SHIELD WAR.

I want to start my new epic fantasy series THE SHIELD WAR, which will be set back in Andomhaim. I’m currently over 30,000 words into it, so hopefully the book will be on track to come out by the end of January 2024. Hopefully I can get one or two more out in the series before 2024 ends.

3.) Continue CLOAK MAGE.

I also want to continue the CLOAK MAGE series. The next up in the series will be CLOAK OF TITANS, which will be the eleventh book and which I think I will start in late spring. I’m not entirely sure how many books CLOAK MAGE will end up having, but I think it will be 15 or 16 in total.

4.) Continue GHOST ARMOR.

Next up in this series will be GHOST IN THE VEILS. I am really hoping to start writing this toward the end of February because I have a recording slot scheduled for it in the second half of April. But more on audiobooks below!

5.) Continue HALF-ELVEN THIEF.

HALF-ELVEN THIEF I basically started writing on impulse in April or so. For a while I’ve wanted to start writing shorter series that come out more quickly, and I thought about writing the entirety of HALF-ELVEN THIEF after DRAGONSKULL was done. But then I got sick in May and didn’t have the energy to anything but the bare minimum for a while, and so I set the book aside and didn’t think about it again until November, when I decided to come back to it and have it be the last book I would publish in 2023.

I’m glad I did – it had a strong response, and sold much better than the last two times I tried something really new. I’m about 3,000 words into the sequel, and will write it as a side project for a while.

6.) Continue SEVENFOLD SWORD ONLINE.

I almost walked away from the series, but I was persuaded to continue it. I’m about halfway through the second book, and I’m hoping that will come out in February 2023.

7.) New audiobooks for new books.

I think at this point I’m only going to do audiobooks for some of my new books as they come out. Like, I’ve done as many of my old books in audio as I think I want to do. FROSTBORN is completely in audio from Tantor and my ACX productions with Brad Wills, SEVENFOLD SWORD and DRAGONTIARNA from Podium Publishing, THE GHOSTS and GHOST EXILE through ACX with Hollis McCarthy. I could try to get SILENT ORDER, GHOST NIGHT, or DEMONSOULED in audio, but it would be massive amount of work that would take years to turn a profit.

Doing the DRAGONSKULL audiobooks so close to the ebooks worked pretty well, so I think I’m going to do that in the future. I have SHIELD OF STORMS and GHOST IN THE VEILS scheduled with Brad Wills and Hollis McCarthy next year, and hopefully I should have good news about SEVENFOLD SWORD ONLINE audiobooks soon. If HALF-ELVEN THIEF reaches a certain sales threshold in its first 30 days, I will consider doing audiobooks for that series as well.

So that is what I hope to do for writing in 2024!

As always, thanks for coming along and reading (and listening) to the books!

-JM

The Twelve Days Of Christmas Short Stories – one final bonus!

Thanks to everyone who downloaded short stories for The Twelve Days Of Short Story Christmas! We gave away somewhere around 450 copies of the twelve short stories in that time, and I hope you will all enjoy reading them.

Don’t forget you can still download the stories until December 31st, 2023! The complete list is below.

Meanwhile, let’s have on extra bonus! Until December 31st, 2023, this coupon code will give you 25% off every single audiobook and ebook on my Payhip store!

CHRISTMAS2023

That will get you 25% off every single ebook and audiobook on my Payhip store until December 31st, 2023. So if you’re looking for something to read or something to listen to during any upcoming holiday travels, this is the time to stock up!

Our twelve free short stories:

1.) THE FIRST SPEAR

2.) THE FINAL WAYSTONE

3.) ELVEN HONOR

4.) THE FIRST HOLDFAST

5.) DRAGON SONG

6.) GHOST CANDLE

7.) GRIEFER

8.) BRONZE GAZE

9.) GHOST NAILS

10.) THE FIRST LESSON

11.) GHOST EYE

12.) THE FINAL SHIELD

-JM