Adrian Meredith's Blog
May 24, 2024
About Eyes in the Dark
This is the last one, and the whole book is one giant finale. You know that this is the final book in a 7-book series, so you can probably guess that the whole book from start to finish is heading up to one epic finale.
I did have a lot of options for the name, and I am not going to reveal what they all are, but suffice to say that Eyes in the Dark is currently winning but it might end up being something else.
As for a cover page, here are some options:
1. Two cute-looking white mice.
2. Two mice with tails entwined.
3. Two mice inside a jail built just for them. Not a cage but a jail. A mouse jail. And there is a gap between their cells so they can't touch, not even through the bars.
4. Two dragons fighting to the death in mid-air.
5. A female elf upside-down and spinning as she is aiming a kick at three surprised-looking dragons.
6. Three dragons dying on the ground with a remorseful female elf standing over them.
7. A female elf with a giant very circular hole the size of her head covering her entire stomach.
That's all I'm willing to say here.
I did have a lot of options for the name, and I am not going to reveal what they all are, but suffice to say that Eyes in the Dark is currently winning but it might end up being something else.
As for a cover page, here are some options:
1. Two cute-looking white mice.
2. Two mice with tails entwined.
3. Two mice inside a jail built just for them. Not a cage but a jail. A mouse jail. And there is a gap between their cells so they can't touch, not even through the bars.
4. Two dragons fighting to the death in mid-air.
5. A female elf upside-down and spinning as she is aiming a kick at three surprised-looking dragons.
6. Three dragons dying on the ground with a remorseful female elf standing over them.
7. A female elf with a giant very circular hole the size of her head covering her entire stomach.
That's all I'm willing to say here.
About Liald
The name itself is a spoiler so I am not going to explain the name, only that this was the only option for this book. If you know why I called it this name then you know why I can't explain why without spoiling what the book is about.
As for a cover page, here are some options I am considering:
1. Two large thugs standing guard over a hole in the ground just large enough for a person to fit inside.
2. An ugly man with three small fingernail-sized horns on his nose sitting on a stool at a dirty, dark, underground bar.
3. A disgusting-looking slimy man serving steaks that are far too bloodied with eyeballs on them on plates at a dirty, dark, underground bar.
4. A pretty young 16-year-old girl carrying a hessian bag over her shoulder with a smile on her face, with a bloodied head inside the bag.
Yeah. It's that kind of book. This one is pretty close to full-on horror.
As for a cover page, here are some options I am considering:
1. Two large thugs standing guard over a hole in the ground just large enough for a person to fit inside.
2. An ugly man with three small fingernail-sized horns on his nose sitting on a stool at a dirty, dark, underground bar.
3. A disgusting-looking slimy man serving steaks that are far too bloodied with eyeballs on them on plates at a dirty, dark, underground bar.
4. A pretty young 16-year-old girl carrying a hessian bag over her shoulder with a smile on her face, with a bloodied head inside the bag.
Yeah. It's that kind of book. This one is pretty close to full-on horror.
About The Mirrors of Truth
This one also isn't out yet, and it's two books into the future, so I will limit this blog post to talking about what names I considered and also what cover page designs I am considering.
Potential names of the book:
1. The Mirrors of Truth
2. Mirrors of Truth
3. Earth's Tears
4. Tears of the Earth
5. End of Innocence
6. The Truth Teller
7. The Dreamcatcher
8. Dreamsight
9. Wolfchild
10. The Doppleganger
I am not very likely to go with the other names. It will be either "The Mirrors of Truth" or "Mirrors of Truth". I experimented with some of the other names but they don't really sum up the book very well. They more sum up a part of the book, rather than all of it.
As for a cover page, I have a few options. Here are some:
1. A giant mirror the size of a house.
2. A group of people looking at a giant mirror the size of a house
3. A giant mirror the size of a house being held up by two trees
4. A giant mirror the size of a house standing oddly in a forest
I think that that part of the book sums up the book a lot better than the others. But if I end up changing the name of it and focus on something else then there will be a different cover.
If I go with Wolfchild as the name then the cover page will be a picture of a wolf or several wolves, perhaps along with a child, for example.
Potential names of the book:
1. The Mirrors of Truth
2. Mirrors of Truth
3. Earth's Tears
4. Tears of the Earth
5. End of Innocence
6. The Truth Teller
7. The Dreamcatcher
8. Dreamsight
9. Wolfchild
10. The Doppleganger
I am not very likely to go with the other names. It will be either "The Mirrors of Truth" or "Mirrors of Truth". I experimented with some of the other names but they don't really sum up the book very well. They more sum up a part of the book, rather than all of it.
As for a cover page, I have a few options. Here are some:
1. A giant mirror the size of a house.
2. A group of people looking at a giant mirror the size of a house
3. A giant mirror the size of a house being held up by two trees
4. A giant mirror the size of a house standing oddly in a forest
I think that that part of the book sums up the book a lot better than the others. But if I end up changing the name of it and focus on something else then there will be a different cover.
If I go with Wolfchild as the name then the cover page will be a picture of a wolf or several wolves, perhaps along with a child, for example.
About A Dragon's Foot
This one isn't out yet, and the name might change by the time we get there, but I wanted to have a short blog post to go over Book 4 as well, even though it is a premature.
This title was pretty obvious, and the only choice was whether to call it:
1. A Dragon's Foot
2. The Dragon's Foot
3. Dragon's Foot
One of the twelve kingdoms is called "Dragon's Foot" so it was always going to be that name. I guess I could go with something cryptic like "Child of the Flames" but I think I've had enough books with "Child" in the title, and that would be referring to Ruby anyway, who is only mentioned in flashbacks. I could do something like title it "D-R-A-G-O-N" but then I think some people might think it was about something else. "Dragonlords" and "Dragonlands", are two other options. But I don't think that they really work.
As for what it's about, well, I don't think I should tell you before it's released.
What I will say is what some of my cover page ideas are:
1. A giant dragon's foot that is as big as a 20-storey building.
2. A giant dragon's footprint that can fit a thousand people inside it.
3. A spire with dozens of dragons flying around it.
4. A world-dragon holding the Earth in its claws with its tail wrapped around the Earth.
5. Someone with their arm thrust upwards, fist clenched, wearing a black ring with flames swirling inside it.
6. A black ring with flames swirling inside it.
7. Someone wearing a black ring with flames swirling inside it riding upon a dragon's back.
8. Floating islands in the sky with dragons nesting on them.
9. A metal dome with dragons clinging to the top of it, and clouds underneath.
10. A person with dragon wings flying above a crowd.
This book is definitely about dragons.
This title was pretty obvious, and the only choice was whether to call it:
1. A Dragon's Foot
2. The Dragon's Foot
3. Dragon's Foot
One of the twelve kingdoms is called "Dragon's Foot" so it was always going to be that name. I guess I could go with something cryptic like "Child of the Flames" but I think I've had enough books with "Child" in the title, and that would be referring to Ruby anyway, who is only mentioned in flashbacks. I could do something like title it "D-R-A-G-O-N" but then I think some people might think it was about something else. "Dragonlords" and "Dragonlands", are two other options. But I don't think that they really work.
As for what it's about, well, I don't think I should tell you before it's released.
What I will say is what some of my cover page ideas are:
1. A giant dragon's foot that is as big as a 20-storey building.
2. A giant dragon's footprint that can fit a thousand people inside it.
3. A spire with dozens of dragons flying around it.
4. A world-dragon holding the Earth in its claws with its tail wrapped around the Earth.
5. Someone with their arm thrust upwards, fist clenched, wearing a black ring with flames swirling inside it.
6. A black ring with flames swirling inside it.
7. Someone wearing a black ring with flames swirling inside it riding upon a dragon's back.
8. Floating islands in the sky with dragons nesting on them.
9. A metal dome with dragons clinging to the top of it, and clouds underneath.
10. A person with dragon wings flying above a crowd.
This book is definitely about dragons.
About Children of the Sun
With Children of the Sun about to be released on 7 June 2024, and already available on pre-order, this particular "About" post is going to be a bit more careful about spoiling than for the books that have already been released and have been out for a while.
I had a few different thoughts about what to title this partition, and the publisher had some of their own thoughts too.
One of the main names that I was considering was The Faerie Garden, mainly because that's what our children are searching for, and one of the main reasons I didn't use this name was because it's only really right at the end that they find it.
So then I thought that perhaps I could call this "Search for the Faerie Garden" instead, but then they find it, so that doesn't quite work.
So then I was thinking of what was a good metaphor for faeries, as I was referring to Fae as Scavengers of the Sun and the Assassins of the Gods as being Children of the Crescent Moon, so then I thought that children of the sun are summer. So then I thought to refer to Faeries as Summer Fruit.
Summer Fruit seemed like a nice metaphorical term for faeries, and my publisher even thought of Sommer Fruit, seeming to prefer the alternative spelling, though I rejected that because I don't use Sommer in my work.
I was thinking that SummerFruit all one word made more sense than making it two separate words, but I wasn't quite sure about it.
Then I can't remember who thought of it first, but then we decided on Children of the Sun, even though that's really referring to agents of the Fae, which would mean the sabre-toothed tigers themselves, or equally any other animals that are led by a Fae God or Goddess.
Children of the Sun isn't another name for faeries, but it includes faeries, and it's basically the allies of the Fae. So essentially this is meaning the Fae's side, which includes Faeries.
Of note, I was thinking of calling this Children of the Fae at one point, but I didn't like that as it was too obvious.
I also considered Children of Summer, but thought that that sounded too much like a vacation.
Children of the Sun was what we went with, but it was far from the only option.
I still like The Faerie Garden as an alternate name. I did like SummerFruit for a while but now that I've had time to think about it I'm not so sure.
Children of the Fae is probably my third option at this point.
So the book could have been called:
1. Children of the Sun
2. The Faerie Garden
3. Children of the Fae
4. SummerFruit
5. Search for the Faerie Garden
6. Summer Fruit
7. Children of Summer
8. Sommer Fruit
And, now that I've explained that this is about a search for faeries, I don't need to explain much more.
The cover page was also something we debated. These were the 4 options we narrowed it down to:
1. A 6-year-old girl dressed to look like a faerie.
2. A group of faeries standing in front of a mountain with a secret door into the mountain showing.
3. A faerie who is half-tree.
4. A tree with a human face in it.
They went with option 3. That is a faerie who is half tree.
I could explain why there is a faerie who is half-tree but I think that might spoil things a bit too much.
But it is a good choice of a cover page.
I liked all 4 options, but I am definitely happy that they went with this one.
I had a few different thoughts about what to title this partition, and the publisher had some of their own thoughts too.
One of the main names that I was considering was The Faerie Garden, mainly because that's what our children are searching for, and one of the main reasons I didn't use this name was because it's only really right at the end that they find it.
So then I thought that perhaps I could call this "Search for the Faerie Garden" instead, but then they find it, so that doesn't quite work.
So then I was thinking of what was a good metaphor for faeries, as I was referring to Fae as Scavengers of the Sun and the Assassins of the Gods as being Children of the Crescent Moon, so then I thought that children of the sun are summer. So then I thought to refer to Faeries as Summer Fruit.
Summer Fruit seemed like a nice metaphorical term for faeries, and my publisher even thought of Sommer Fruit, seeming to prefer the alternative spelling, though I rejected that because I don't use Sommer in my work.
I was thinking that SummerFruit all one word made more sense than making it two separate words, but I wasn't quite sure about it.
Then I can't remember who thought of it first, but then we decided on Children of the Sun, even though that's really referring to agents of the Fae, which would mean the sabre-toothed tigers themselves, or equally any other animals that are led by a Fae God or Goddess.
Children of the Sun isn't another name for faeries, but it includes faeries, and it's basically the allies of the Fae. So essentially this is meaning the Fae's side, which includes Faeries.
Of note, I was thinking of calling this Children of the Fae at one point, but I didn't like that as it was too obvious.
I also considered Children of Summer, but thought that that sounded too much like a vacation.
Children of the Sun was what we went with, but it was far from the only option.
I still like The Faerie Garden as an alternate name. I did like SummerFruit for a while but now that I've had time to think about it I'm not so sure.
Children of the Fae is probably my third option at this point.
So the book could have been called:
1. Children of the Sun
2. The Faerie Garden
3. Children of the Fae
4. SummerFruit
5. Search for the Faerie Garden
6. Summer Fruit
7. Children of Summer
8. Sommer Fruit
And, now that I've explained that this is about a search for faeries, I don't need to explain much more.
The cover page was also something we debated. These were the 4 options we narrowed it down to:
1. A 6-year-old girl dressed to look like a faerie.
2. A group of faeries standing in front of a mountain with a secret door into the mountain showing.
3. A faerie who is half-tree.
4. A tree with a human face in it.
They went with option 3. That is a faerie who is half tree.
I could explain why there is a faerie who is half-tree but I think that might spoil things a bit too much.
But it is a good choice of a cover page.
I liked all 4 options, but I am definitely happy that they went with this one.
About Scavengers of the Sun
I did an about blog post for Children of the Crescent Moon (even though only 2 of the 7 partitions have been released, with a third coming out on 7 June 2024) as well as the first partition, A Splintered Soul, so I thought I should probably talk about the second partition, Scavengers of the Sun, even though it has been out for quite some time now.
It took me quite a long time to think of a name for this one, compared to A Splintered Soul, as A Splintered Soul was one of the alternate names I had for Children of the Crescent Moon as a whole, so it was an obvious choice. But the second partition didn't have such an obvious answer.
I was trying to think of a name that sounded cryptic and also covered what happened, but not too specific.
I did think of a focus on one of the major things that happens in this partition, which is their time with The Raiders of the North, and then I thought about the Dragonhorses, and so those were two names I considered, but then I wondered if they were good names.
While they spend a lot of the book with The Raiders of the North, the raiders were outsiders to our main heroes, and in many ways they were antagonists, so I felt that that was a poor name for the partition as a whole.
Dragonhorses was a better name, especially if I could combine it with a nice cover page of the Dragonhorses, either both of them or just one, either one of them, because I thought that as a concept it was quite interesting, but the problem is that that only covers a small part of the novel.
There were, of course, a few other things going on, such as the various people and creatures that they meet, but none of them felt very satisfactory.
Then I thought that it was essentially about scavengers who are coming in to finish them off, as they were flushed out by what happened in the first book and so now Herald wants to kill them off, and he is sending various people to hunt them down.
So with that in mind I could call it Hunters of the Crescent Moon, but then I didn't want to put Crescent Moon in the title as I have that for the full novels, and I already have Hunters of the Crescent Moon as a book title.
But what about something to do with Mercenaries? What about Mercenaries of the High King?
That was feeling better, but then I thought about the other side, about one of my favourite scenes in the book, when our heroes are able to convince a pack of sabre-toothed tigers to attack the mercenaries who are hunting them. And the sabre-toothed tigers are led by a Fae, the Goddess of the Sabre-Toothed Tigers, who is very much a goddess. She might be called a Fae but she is very much a goddess.
And I felt like that really summed up the novel very much, as it was really about fighting back against the hunters, and showing that they were not easy-beats who Herald could just get ordinary people to hunt and expect to be able to catch them.
By focusing on one of the few positives in the partition, I felt like it was really understanding the positives of it.
As for the name, I felt like Scavengers was better than Mercenaries or Hunters, even though in this context it means essentially the same thing, and then I thought to focus on the sabre-toothed tigers, who are hunting the hunters (as well as our heroes, and just anyone they can find who looks tasty).
But then "Sun" is the interesting bit, because "Crescent Moon" is the sigil of the Gods, but "Sun" is the sigil of the Fae. So Scavengers of the Sun is referring to the Sabre-Toothed Tigers, at least those who are being guided by the Fae Goddess.
It's extremely cryptic and I don't explain that at all in the book. I was hoping that someone would figure it out and tell me, but I fear that I might have gone a bit too far with my metaphors and how cryptic it all is.
This partition is really quite scary and tense the whole way through. It's not like horror-level scary so much as it's more that feeling like you are worried that something bad might happen, tense and on edge, but that bad thing never quite happens.
That's the feeling I get when I read this partition. I don't know if others will feel the same way.
It is certainly a lot darker than the first partition, and I think it sets the scene for the whole thing, as this just gets darker and darker the further you progress into this. Just wait for book 7!
You might get a hint why I am perfectly comfortable going with a horror publisher, if you read this.
Of course, this isn't horror, not yet. But it might be by the end. At least a little bit.
It took me quite a long time to think of a name for this one, compared to A Splintered Soul, as A Splintered Soul was one of the alternate names I had for Children of the Crescent Moon as a whole, so it was an obvious choice. But the second partition didn't have such an obvious answer.
I was trying to think of a name that sounded cryptic and also covered what happened, but not too specific.
I did think of a focus on one of the major things that happens in this partition, which is their time with The Raiders of the North, and then I thought about the Dragonhorses, and so those were two names I considered, but then I wondered if they were good names.
While they spend a lot of the book with The Raiders of the North, the raiders were outsiders to our main heroes, and in many ways they were antagonists, so I felt that that was a poor name for the partition as a whole.
Dragonhorses was a better name, especially if I could combine it with a nice cover page of the Dragonhorses, either both of them or just one, either one of them, because I thought that as a concept it was quite interesting, but the problem is that that only covers a small part of the novel.
There were, of course, a few other things going on, such as the various people and creatures that they meet, but none of them felt very satisfactory.
Then I thought that it was essentially about scavengers who are coming in to finish them off, as they were flushed out by what happened in the first book and so now Herald wants to kill them off, and he is sending various people to hunt them down.
So with that in mind I could call it Hunters of the Crescent Moon, but then I didn't want to put Crescent Moon in the title as I have that for the full novels, and I already have Hunters of the Crescent Moon as a book title.
But what about something to do with Mercenaries? What about Mercenaries of the High King?
That was feeling better, but then I thought about the other side, about one of my favourite scenes in the book, when our heroes are able to convince a pack of sabre-toothed tigers to attack the mercenaries who are hunting them. And the sabre-toothed tigers are led by a Fae, the Goddess of the Sabre-Toothed Tigers, who is very much a goddess. She might be called a Fae but she is very much a goddess.
And I felt like that really summed up the novel very much, as it was really about fighting back against the hunters, and showing that they were not easy-beats who Herald could just get ordinary people to hunt and expect to be able to catch them.
By focusing on one of the few positives in the partition, I felt like it was really understanding the positives of it.
As for the name, I felt like Scavengers was better than Mercenaries or Hunters, even though in this context it means essentially the same thing, and then I thought to focus on the sabre-toothed tigers, who are hunting the hunters (as well as our heroes, and just anyone they can find who looks tasty).
But then "Sun" is the interesting bit, because "Crescent Moon" is the sigil of the Gods, but "Sun" is the sigil of the Fae. So Scavengers of the Sun is referring to the Sabre-Toothed Tigers, at least those who are being guided by the Fae Goddess.
It's extremely cryptic and I don't explain that at all in the book. I was hoping that someone would figure it out and tell me, but I fear that I might have gone a bit too far with my metaphors and how cryptic it all is.
This partition is really quite scary and tense the whole way through. It's not like horror-level scary so much as it's more that feeling like you are worried that something bad might happen, tense and on edge, but that bad thing never quite happens.
That's the feeling I get when I read this partition. I don't know if others will feel the same way.
It is certainly a lot darker than the first partition, and I think it sets the scene for the whole thing, as this just gets darker and darker the further you progress into this. Just wait for book 7!
You might get a hint why I am perfectly comfortable going with a horror publisher, if you read this.
Of course, this isn't horror, not yet. But it might be by the end. At least a little bit.
My greatest regrets
Hi everyone,
I was thinking today about my regret of how my conversation with a senior editor at Penguin Random House went in 2006 and how big an impact that has had in my life, and how it compares with some of my other regrets. This led to a bit of soul-searching, and ultimately I came up with my top 10 biggest regrets, or mistakes, in my life:
1. Not going to university straight away in 1991.
2. Quitting my high-level job in 2005.
3. Saying no to the Australian Olympic Committee when they offered to get me to try out for triple jump at a special trials for the 1994 Commonwealth Game in 1993.
4. Ghosting a girl in Grade 8.
5. Telling a girl to cut her hair in Grade 10, 1990.
6. Stealing $2.30 from my dad to buy a toasted sandwich for a girl so as to impress her in 1986.
7. Not accepting Penguin’s offer to publish my Children of the Crescent Moon novel in 2006.
8. Being too nice to a girl who cheated on me in 1995.
9. Delaying visiting my grandmother before she died in 2007.
10. Not going to my grandfather’s funeral in 1997.
So my regret about Penguin's offer to publish my novel is only number 7 in my list of greatest regrets, and I think that might be about right too. While lists like this can be a bit subjective and I might change it later, the way I am thinking right now it does sound about right.
My number 1 might not sound like much when you look at it like that, but the result of my delaying going to university by a year was that I couldn't do my maths or statistics degree that I wanted to do, as they were only offered in Melbourne and Sydney, and after I delayed going to them, my offer expired and the next year Melbourne and Sydney banned everyone coming from Tasmania for the entire year, as a result of Tasmania trying to manipulating Melbourne and Sydney's universities into taking Tasmanian high school students as locals (instead of preferencing people from their own state). I got in there in spite of the harsher requirements from being from a different state, and got in a year early too, but could not get in later. The result of this was the difference between doing a subject that I was good enough to go all the way to PhD level in versus not being good enough even to finish a degree in it, and then having to start my career as someone without a degree at all as compared to starting it with what could have been dual PhDs in mathematics and statistics. While I guess I can't guarantee that I would have definitely done that well, I was doing that well up to the end of high school, and if things continued the way they were going then that was looking very likely, and my whole career started really slowly because of it. It basically delayed my career for 30 years until 2022 when I was finally allowed to do the degree I had got into in 1991, then as a post-graduate. I got a scholarship for it and got into a special course where I could do it in 6 months, which was great, but it was still 30 years later than I wanted, and it was still just a basic degree. This was a pretty big regret. And I can't blame anyone else either, as I knew that Tasmania's high school system was fighting with Melbourne's and Sydney's. Other people in my grade went to Melbourne high school and did Year 13, or even transferred there to do Year 12. There were many ways around it. But I didn't try any of them. I just assumed that it'd work out. And then it didn't.
The second one was also work-related, as I progressed rather quickly once I got into the workforce, and by 2004 I reached what would be my highest-ever level job, which I kept until 2005. I was impressing all of the senior members of staff and was looking like going up and up and up, meaning effectively that not going to the university degree I wanted to do didn't matter, only then I had an argument with someone I worked with, and, instead of trying to work it out, I panicked and quit, and as a result I lost all of my references and basically had to start over. It took me 14 years to get back up to anything approaching the same level. If I had just stayed put and made them try to fire me if they were going to instead of just quitting before it got to that stage (and then sued them if they dared to fire me etc) then things probably would have worked out, and I would have been at a much higher-level now, most likely. Even if I had quit, I should have done it in the right way, getting references and making sure to do it with another job to go to. I just quit suddenly and lost everything. I had no idea that the corporate world was so cruel and punished you that much for quitting like that, but it is like that. Lesson learned, but it cost me a lot.
The third one is something that a lot of people don't know about me. I was pretty good at triple jump. I got into the National Under Age Athletics championship 6 times, but never actually went into it, because my parents never had enough money to send me, and because my club didn't want to spend money on sending me. A lot of people don't realise this, but if you are not living in a big city you have to pay to go for things like this. While my club sent a few people, they were people that were a lot better than just sneaking into the national qualifiers. I stopped when I was 13 and started again when I was 15, and when I was 17 I got the best results for the year nationwide, and, as underage finishes at 16, I was to go to the open championships, but again my club didn't want to send me and I didn't have enough money. I didn't have a choice about that because it was a money thing. But after the national championships were held, I was a bit surprised that the Australian Olympic Committee called me and asked me to try out for them in a special try out in Canberra, ahead of the Brisbane Commonwealth Games the next year. They were going to pay for the trip and accommodation, and all I had to do was to take some time off university (doing my computing degree, as my replacement for the mathematics and statistics degrees I wanted to do) but I was doing so badly that I was worried that if I took a few weeks off then I might fail. Bad move! I should have just gone! So what if I failed? If I knew now what a big deal that was, I would have gone. Sure, there was no guarantee that they would have accepted me, but if I'd done my best then they would have. I thought that since I hadn't trained for a few months that I might not be good enough, but considering that I haven't trained in 32 years now and I can still get close to what I could do then, I think that I probably would have been okay. If I had gone in the Commonwealth Games and done my best, I would have gotten 17th. It might not sound like much, as it's not even the Olympics, but getting to mix with real international athletes would have been a big deal for me. And money wasn't the issue as the Australian Olympic Committee were going to pay for it all for me. I was so stupid!
The fourth one might not sound like a big deal, but I had always prided myself on how kind I was, and in Grade 8 I was going out with this girl who I really liked, and I liked her family, but then when I got to meet her friends I hated them. And then they were just hanging around everywhere with us. Now, if that was me now I'd just ask if we could just hang out without her friends, and if I just couldn't stand them and she insisted that they hang out then I might say that it's either me or them, or something like that, and maybe we might have broken up over it but at least she'd know. But I got some really bad advice from a friend, and he told me to just stop talking to her. So for 3 months I said nothing to her, and then she asked me what the deal was and I told her that I had broken up with her. I was really cruel. I am not that person. It was my friend telling me what to say. I really hurt that girl and no amount of apologies can make up for it. I tried to apologise to her later and she said it was okay but I don't know if it really was. It was really mean of me.
The fifth one was due to that same friend giving me bad advice, with a different girl. This was a really pretty girl and I was worried that I was "out of my league" with her, and so I asked him what to do, and he told me to be mean to her, so I told her she had to cut her hair. That might not sound like much but I was just really controlling. She even cut her hair how I asked and coloured it and styled it exactly how I said, and wore the clothes I told her to wear, then she just got sick of it and dumped me, and I deserved that. We got back together a few more times but then it didn't work out overall, and maybe it never was going to, but I definitely hurt her, quite unnecessarily. Maybe I should put this down to having a friend who gave really bad advice! And me being a fool and listening to him! But this was the same friend that set us up so he wasn't all bad. And it was my choice to listen to him, so I have to take responsibility.
Number 6 was a bit of a weird one. My dad used to keep a jar of coins in his car for paying the parking meter and there was probably $100 worth of coins in there, so one day I was going to meet this girl and I decided to impress her by buying her a toasted sandwich, which cost $2.30, which was a lot of money for me at the time. The girl talked to me for about 30 seconds then ate the sandwich with another boy. She didn't even go out with me! My regret is not to do with the girl as it was good that I found out that she didn't like me; my regret is that I stole from my dad. It is the only time I stole anything from anyone, and I feel really bad about it. I didn't even tell my dad I did it for 6 years and when I told him he told me just to pay it back. I still think he should have punished me a bit more for it!
The 7th one is the Penguin one, and I will explain why it is so low.
Penguin never gave me a written offer, and, as the saying goes, verbal offers are worth the paper they are written on - in other words, they are useless. They never said to me oh they will definitely publish my work, here is a contract. What they said was that they would consider it. And I never said no either - I told them that I wasn't happy with my book yet. And I wasn't. If I had gone along with publishing it then, when it was still half-baked, I would have regretted it. My fear was that then people would be seeing my great work in a not-so-great state, and thinking that I don't know how to write. Don't forget that Penguin had earlier rejected me with the same book in 1999! And I just thought that if they offered it to me in 2006 that they'd offer it to me again when I finished it in 2018, and realistically they probably would have if not for the ban on publishing fantasy by new authors, which is because of an influx of authors writing Twilight-like novels so much that a lot of Australian publishers have shied away from all fantasy. But it wasn't that big a deal because I had other offers, and I eventually settled on one that I liked in 2021 when I went with Red Cape Publishing, and it's okay. Sure, Red Cape Publishing are UK-based instead of Australian and they don't have the kind of reach that Penguin has, but the book is out there and ultimately I don't think it should really matter who the publisher is long-term. It just changes how long it takes for people to realise that it exists. Plenty of authors have had big sales from small publishers. I just wish that I had explained myself a bit better to Penguin so that they knew that I was actually still wanting to publish with them. I think that they misunderstood me and thought that I wasn't interested.
Number 8 might confuse people because numbers 4 and 5 were about being too mean to girls so why is number 8 about being too nice? Well, number 8 came afterwards, and I think I was a bit too much of a doormat. This girl basically cheated on me right in front of me and I basically just said sure that's fine. A lot of really bad things happened afterwards and in many ways it was because of it. If I had it to do again, I would have maybe yelled at her a bit, maybe sworn at her a bit, and most importantly definitely broken up with her over it. I was just such a doormat. So stupid. It's bad to be too nice to someone who doesn't deserve it just as much as it is bad to be too mean to someone who doesn't deserve that either. I suppose it was an important lesson to learn, but also a big mistake, which I definitely wouldn't make again, and I didn't either. When someone else cheated on me, later on, I dumped them straight-up, and I was a lot happier with doing that.
Number 9, and 10, were both about missing funerals, but number 9 was a bit worse because my grandmother was sick, and instead of flying down straight away, I decided to move there to be with her in her final days. Even with the biggest rush I could possibly make, it took me 3 weeks to move, by which stage she was dead and they had the funeral the day before I got there. I hated them for doing that and not delaying the funeral by a single day. But I hated myself for not just flying down there straight away. I didn't have to move. I could have just flown down, taken a couple of weeks off work, say goodbye to her, go to her funeral, then go back. Sure, it was very expensive to do that, and I didn't have enough money, but I could have taken out a loan or something.
Number 10 is similar to number 9 but a bit different because I lived quite close to my grandfather, but we were arguing when he died suddenly, and so I refused to go to his funeral. It was a stupid thing, as I still could have gone to the funeral of someone I was angry with when they died. I didn't get to go to my other grandmother's funeral and I had no choice about that one, so I only went to the funeral of one of my four grandparents. But this one I easily could have gone to. It was only a short bus trip and I could have gone there on a weekend. I just refused. I should have gone.
I suppose that we all have regrets in our life, and it is good to make peace with them.
Some people tell me that I made other mistakes than that, but I refuse to let people tell me what my mistakes are. A lot of things that some people accuse me of being my mistakes were actually done by someone else, some didn't even happen, and some were things that I don't regret at all.
But these things I do regret. They are all things that, if I had them to do again, I would have done differently, and they all made a big difference to my life.
I made more mistakes than just 10, of course, and maybe I will think of a different order and put some other things in the top 10 and take some things out.
But these were 10 things that I did have a choice about and I most definitely made the wrong choice and by making the wrong choice it made a big negative difference to my life.
I have thought many times about what might have happened differently had I not made these mistakes. I suppose we don't know for sure but it is interesting.
Some people tell me that I shouldn't have written that contrary essay in the 1988 National Essay-Writing Competition, but firstly they explicitly told us that you were allowed to write contrary essays, secondly I offered to change it but they wouldn't let me, and thirdly without that I wouldn't have written Bob the Potato or Hopelessness and I would never have been inspired to write my novel. So no, I don't regret that. I do think that they were stupid to ban me though, but it worked out okay so that's fine.
I wonder what regrets other people have and if they would feel comfortable sharing them.
I was thinking today about my regret of how my conversation with a senior editor at Penguin Random House went in 2006 and how big an impact that has had in my life, and how it compares with some of my other regrets. This led to a bit of soul-searching, and ultimately I came up with my top 10 biggest regrets, or mistakes, in my life:
1. Not going to university straight away in 1991.
2. Quitting my high-level job in 2005.
3. Saying no to the Australian Olympic Committee when they offered to get me to try out for triple jump at a special trials for the 1994 Commonwealth Game in 1993.
4. Ghosting a girl in Grade 8.
5. Telling a girl to cut her hair in Grade 10, 1990.
6. Stealing $2.30 from my dad to buy a toasted sandwich for a girl so as to impress her in 1986.
7. Not accepting Penguin’s offer to publish my Children of the Crescent Moon novel in 2006.
8. Being too nice to a girl who cheated on me in 1995.
9. Delaying visiting my grandmother before she died in 2007.
10. Not going to my grandfather’s funeral in 1997.
So my regret about Penguin's offer to publish my novel is only number 7 in my list of greatest regrets, and I think that might be about right too. While lists like this can be a bit subjective and I might change it later, the way I am thinking right now it does sound about right.
My number 1 might not sound like much when you look at it like that, but the result of my delaying going to university by a year was that I couldn't do my maths or statistics degree that I wanted to do, as they were only offered in Melbourne and Sydney, and after I delayed going to them, my offer expired and the next year Melbourne and Sydney banned everyone coming from Tasmania for the entire year, as a result of Tasmania trying to manipulating Melbourne and Sydney's universities into taking Tasmanian high school students as locals (instead of preferencing people from their own state). I got in there in spite of the harsher requirements from being from a different state, and got in a year early too, but could not get in later. The result of this was the difference between doing a subject that I was good enough to go all the way to PhD level in versus not being good enough even to finish a degree in it, and then having to start my career as someone without a degree at all as compared to starting it with what could have been dual PhDs in mathematics and statistics. While I guess I can't guarantee that I would have definitely done that well, I was doing that well up to the end of high school, and if things continued the way they were going then that was looking very likely, and my whole career started really slowly because of it. It basically delayed my career for 30 years until 2022 when I was finally allowed to do the degree I had got into in 1991, then as a post-graduate. I got a scholarship for it and got into a special course where I could do it in 6 months, which was great, but it was still 30 years later than I wanted, and it was still just a basic degree. This was a pretty big regret. And I can't blame anyone else either, as I knew that Tasmania's high school system was fighting with Melbourne's and Sydney's. Other people in my grade went to Melbourne high school and did Year 13, or even transferred there to do Year 12. There were many ways around it. But I didn't try any of them. I just assumed that it'd work out. And then it didn't.
The second one was also work-related, as I progressed rather quickly once I got into the workforce, and by 2004 I reached what would be my highest-ever level job, which I kept until 2005. I was impressing all of the senior members of staff and was looking like going up and up and up, meaning effectively that not going to the university degree I wanted to do didn't matter, only then I had an argument with someone I worked with, and, instead of trying to work it out, I panicked and quit, and as a result I lost all of my references and basically had to start over. It took me 14 years to get back up to anything approaching the same level. If I had just stayed put and made them try to fire me if they were going to instead of just quitting before it got to that stage (and then sued them if they dared to fire me etc) then things probably would have worked out, and I would have been at a much higher-level now, most likely. Even if I had quit, I should have done it in the right way, getting references and making sure to do it with another job to go to. I just quit suddenly and lost everything. I had no idea that the corporate world was so cruel and punished you that much for quitting like that, but it is like that. Lesson learned, but it cost me a lot.
The third one is something that a lot of people don't know about me. I was pretty good at triple jump. I got into the National Under Age Athletics championship 6 times, but never actually went into it, because my parents never had enough money to send me, and because my club didn't want to spend money on sending me. A lot of people don't realise this, but if you are not living in a big city you have to pay to go for things like this. While my club sent a few people, they were people that were a lot better than just sneaking into the national qualifiers. I stopped when I was 13 and started again when I was 15, and when I was 17 I got the best results for the year nationwide, and, as underage finishes at 16, I was to go to the open championships, but again my club didn't want to send me and I didn't have enough money. I didn't have a choice about that because it was a money thing. But after the national championships were held, I was a bit surprised that the Australian Olympic Committee called me and asked me to try out for them in a special try out in Canberra, ahead of the Brisbane Commonwealth Games the next year. They were going to pay for the trip and accommodation, and all I had to do was to take some time off university (doing my computing degree, as my replacement for the mathematics and statistics degrees I wanted to do) but I was doing so badly that I was worried that if I took a few weeks off then I might fail. Bad move! I should have just gone! So what if I failed? If I knew now what a big deal that was, I would have gone. Sure, there was no guarantee that they would have accepted me, but if I'd done my best then they would have. I thought that since I hadn't trained for a few months that I might not be good enough, but considering that I haven't trained in 32 years now and I can still get close to what I could do then, I think that I probably would have been okay. If I had gone in the Commonwealth Games and done my best, I would have gotten 17th. It might not sound like much, as it's not even the Olympics, but getting to mix with real international athletes would have been a big deal for me. And money wasn't the issue as the Australian Olympic Committee were going to pay for it all for me. I was so stupid!
The fourth one might not sound like a big deal, but I had always prided myself on how kind I was, and in Grade 8 I was going out with this girl who I really liked, and I liked her family, but then when I got to meet her friends I hated them. And then they were just hanging around everywhere with us. Now, if that was me now I'd just ask if we could just hang out without her friends, and if I just couldn't stand them and she insisted that they hang out then I might say that it's either me or them, or something like that, and maybe we might have broken up over it but at least she'd know. But I got some really bad advice from a friend, and he told me to just stop talking to her. So for 3 months I said nothing to her, and then she asked me what the deal was and I told her that I had broken up with her. I was really cruel. I am not that person. It was my friend telling me what to say. I really hurt that girl and no amount of apologies can make up for it. I tried to apologise to her later and she said it was okay but I don't know if it really was. It was really mean of me.
The fifth one was due to that same friend giving me bad advice, with a different girl. This was a really pretty girl and I was worried that I was "out of my league" with her, and so I asked him what to do, and he told me to be mean to her, so I told her she had to cut her hair. That might not sound like much but I was just really controlling. She even cut her hair how I asked and coloured it and styled it exactly how I said, and wore the clothes I told her to wear, then she just got sick of it and dumped me, and I deserved that. We got back together a few more times but then it didn't work out overall, and maybe it never was going to, but I definitely hurt her, quite unnecessarily. Maybe I should put this down to having a friend who gave really bad advice! And me being a fool and listening to him! But this was the same friend that set us up so he wasn't all bad. And it was my choice to listen to him, so I have to take responsibility.
Number 6 was a bit of a weird one. My dad used to keep a jar of coins in his car for paying the parking meter and there was probably $100 worth of coins in there, so one day I was going to meet this girl and I decided to impress her by buying her a toasted sandwich, which cost $2.30, which was a lot of money for me at the time. The girl talked to me for about 30 seconds then ate the sandwich with another boy. She didn't even go out with me! My regret is not to do with the girl as it was good that I found out that she didn't like me; my regret is that I stole from my dad. It is the only time I stole anything from anyone, and I feel really bad about it. I didn't even tell my dad I did it for 6 years and when I told him he told me just to pay it back. I still think he should have punished me a bit more for it!
The 7th one is the Penguin one, and I will explain why it is so low.
Penguin never gave me a written offer, and, as the saying goes, verbal offers are worth the paper they are written on - in other words, they are useless. They never said to me oh they will definitely publish my work, here is a contract. What they said was that they would consider it. And I never said no either - I told them that I wasn't happy with my book yet. And I wasn't. If I had gone along with publishing it then, when it was still half-baked, I would have regretted it. My fear was that then people would be seeing my great work in a not-so-great state, and thinking that I don't know how to write. Don't forget that Penguin had earlier rejected me with the same book in 1999! And I just thought that if they offered it to me in 2006 that they'd offer it to me again when I finished it in 2018, and realistically they probably would have if not for the ban on publishing fantasy by new authors, which is because of an influx of authors writing Twilight-like novels so much that a lot of Australian publishers have shied away from all fantasy. But it wasn't that big a deal because I had other offers, and I eventually settled on one that I liked in 2021 when I went with Red Cape Publishing, and it's okay. Sure, Red Cape Publishing are UK-based instead of Australian and they don't have the kind of reach that Penguin has, but the book is out there and ultimately I don't think it should really matter who the publisher is long-term. It just changes how long it takes for people to realise that it exists. Plenty of authors have had big sales from small publishers. I just wish that I had explained myself a bit better to Penguin so that they knew that I was actually still wanting to publish with them. I think that they misunderstood me and thought that I wasn't interested.
Number 8 might confuse people because numbers 4 and 5 were about being too mean to girls so why is number 8 about being too nice? Well, number 8 came afterwards, and I think I was a bit too much of a doormat. This girl basically cheated on me right in front of me and I basically just said sure that's fine. A lot of really bad things happened afterwards and in many ways it was because of it. If I had it to do again, I would have maybe yelled at her a bit, maybe sworn at her a bit, and most importantly definitely broken up with her over it. I was just such a doormat. So stupid. It's bad to be too nice to someone who doesn't deserve it just as much as it is bad to be too mean to someone who doesn't deserve that either. I suppose it was an important lesson to learn, but also a big mistake, which I definitely wouldn't make again, and I didn't either. When someone else cheated on me, later on, I dumped them straight-up, and I was a lot happier with doing that.
Number 9, and 10, were both about missing funerals, but number 9 was a bit worse because my grandmother was sick, and instead of flying down straight away, I decided to move there to be with her in her final days. Even with the biggest rush I could possibly make, it took me 3 weeks to move, by which stage she was dead and they had the funeral the day before I got there. I hated them for doing that and not delaying the funeral by a single day. But I hated myself for not just flying down there straight away. I didn't have to move. I could have just flown down, taken a couple of weeks off work, say goodbye to her, go to her funeral, then go back. Sure, it was very expensive to do that, and I didn't have enough money, but I could have taken out a loan or something.
Number 10 is similar to number 9 but a bit different because I lived quite close to my grandfather, but we were arguing when he died suddenly, and so I refused to go to his funeral. It was a stupid thing, as I still could have gone to the funeral of someone I was angry with when they died. I didn't get to go to my other grandmother's funeral and I had no choice about that one, so I only went to the funeral of one of my four grandparents. But this one I easily could have gone to. It was only a short bus trip and I could have gone there on a weekend. I just refused. I should have gone.
I suppose that we all have regrets in our life, and it is good to make peace with them.
Some people tell me that I made other mistakes than that, but I refuse to let people tell me what my mistakes are. A lot of things that some people accuse me of being my mistakes were actually done by someone else, some didn't even happen, and some were things that I don't regret at all.
But these things I do regret. They are all things that, if I had them to do again, I would have done differently, and they all made a big difference to my life.
I made more mistakes than just 10, of course, and maybe I will think of a different order and put some other things in the top 10 and take some things out.
But these were 10 things that I did have a choice about and I most definitely made the wrong choice and by making the wrong choice it made a big negative difference to my life.
I have thought many times about what might have happened differently had I not made these mistakes. I suppose we don't know for sure but it is interesting.
Some people tell me that I shouldn't have written that contrary essay in the 1988 National Essay-Writing Competition, but firstly they explicitly told us that you were allowed to write contrary essays, secondly I offered to change it but they wouldn't let me, and thirdly without that I wouldn't have written Bob the Potato or Hopelessness and I would never have been inspired to write my novel. So no, I don't regret that. I do think that they were stupid to ban me though, but it worked out okay so that's fine.
I wonder what regrets other people have and if they would feel comfortable sharing them.
May 22, 2024
About A Splintered Soul
A lot of people ask me why, when I say that my novel is Children of the Crescent Moon, is my first book called A Splintered Soul? Did I change the name of it? Well, not quite.
When I approached Red Cape Publishing with my Children of the Crescent Moon manuscript, and told them the length, of some 350,000 words, they told me it was too long (even though that's shorter than "A Game of Thrones" by George RR Martin, and comparable with the length of "Lord of the Rings") and asked me if I could perhaps split it in two or three. I didn't like the idea of that since Children of the Crescent Moon was itself a part of a trilogy, with Eyes of the Crescent Moon as the second novel and Hunters of the Crescent Moon the third. While I haven't finished either Eyes or Hunters, I have done first and second drafts of both, and they aren't far off publishable quality. Eyes probably is at that level now, but Hunters perhaps isn't quite there yet, but it's close.
So why would I split something that is already a part of a trilogy? I hated the idea. Would I have a trilogy within a trilogy? Well, I kind of already do, as the Crescent Moon trilogy is just one of four trilogies overall, though I have only written first drafts of the second trilogy and parts of the third, and loosely planned out the fourth. The second is Gods, followed by Dragons and then finally Stars. So if I had three books within three within four then I'd have 36 in total. It made my had spin a bit to think of that many.
The problem was trying to find a sensible spot to split it, a spot where the novel naturally ends.
There is a spot, but it is fairly early on, the first part that makes me cry when I read it. But then where is the half-way mark? There was one possible point, or a second, but they were both after half-way, which would mean that I'd have to add more content to the first half to make it balanced, and that'd mean either doing flashbacks or else starting at an earlier point in the story, but I'd already theorised both of them and people don't like that. The story starts where it wants to start.
So what about having a trilogy then? Where is the one-third mark?
And again I find myself drawn to that first tear-filled moment, but it's far too early to be the first of just three. Do I add more content before then? But no. That's constant action to that point. It wouldn't make sense, not unless I add some flashbacks or start earlier on. I could add some flashbacks though. There are a few that make sense.
So then I went through and isolated the important scenes, the moments where I could end the novel happily.
I counted seven.
There were seven spots where I could happily end the novel.
They weren't neatly at one-seventh spots in the novel's progression, as some were quite close to each other while others were a distance apart, but that was okay as I could add more content to fill them in. The more that I thought about it, the more that seven made sense.
As for the names, the first one I decided would be one of my alternate names for Children of the Crescent Moon as a whole.
The first name I had for the book, as many people know, was Star Children. The reason I called it Star Children was initially because they were marked with a birthmark on their foreheads of a star. But then I changed that birthmark to a moon and eventually a crescent moon, and then in later versions got rid of it entirely and just made it a sigil. I pretty quickly went from Star Children to Children of the Crescent Moon. It was Star Children for all of 6 months, it was Moon Children and Children of the Moon for a day, and Children of the Crescent Moon for more than 30 years now.
But I had considered other names.
At one point I was going to call it Assassins of the Gods, or Assassins of the Crescent Moon, and then there was one weird one that I considered, of A Splintered Soul.
A Splintered Soul was because of Sarah, one of my two main characters, being a bit romantic and wanting to find her true love. She is in love with her tutor but he doesn't like her back, so when she finds George she decides that he is her soulmate, and she knows about the story of the splintered soul, two lovers who dive into a volcano and their souls merge so that when they are reincarnated a bit of each other's souls lives in the other body, making it physically painful to be apart.
So A Splintered Soul is kind of Sarah's idea of who Sarah and George are, because she wants to be in love, and wants this to be special. Nobody else agrees with her, and she's wrong, but that's what she thinks.
It's a poor title for the book as a whole because this is not a romance book, but it is good in terms of thinking that it is or might be. It's based on Sarah's hope that everything will work out in the end. But then it doesn't.
So this title is really aimed at tricking the reader into thinking that everything is going to be okay in the end.
And when it isn't, you realise that the book title is a lie.
You've got yourself an unreliable narrator, someone who thinks things are one way but they're not.
And finally, the readers, like Sarah herself, are left disappointed, because this is not just a fun little book that you can read safely. This is not a safe book where little bad things happen at different points but then it all works out in the end. This is not a book where main characters have plot armour and nothing bad can happen to them.
This is a dangerous book where bad things can happen, even to the main characters, even to the point where main characters who you grow to know and love, can die, and not come back.
The story of the splintered soul is a lie, imagined by some foolish romantic, and it doesn't apply to Sarah and George anyway.
If you believe that this is truly the story of a splintered soul then you, dear reader, are a fool.
This is the story of the Children of the Crescent Moon, the assassins of the Gods, who have incredible powers when they hold hands, and who must use those powers to kill the greatest hero the world has ever known before he enslaves humanity.
When I approached Red Cape Publishing with my Children of the Crescent Moon manuscript, and told them the length, of some 350,000 words, they told me it was too long (even though that's shorter than "A Game of Thrones" by George RR Martin, and comparable with the length of "Lord of the Rings") and asked me if I could perhaps split it in two or three. I didn't like the idea of that since Children of the Crescent Moon was itself a part of a trilogy, with Eyes of the Crescent Moon as the second novel and Hunters of the Crescent Moon the third. While I haven't finished either Eyes or Hunters, I have done first and second drafts of both, and they aren't far off publishable quality. Eyes probably is at that level now, but Hunters perhaps isn't quite there yet, but it's close.
So why would I split something that is already a part of a trilogy? I hated the idea. Would I have a trilogy within a trilogy? Well, I kind of already do, as the Crescent Moon trilogy is just one of four trilogies overall, though I have only written first drafts of the second trilogy and parts of the third, and loosely planned out the fourth. The second is Gods, followed by Dragons and then finally Stars. So if I had three books within three within four then I'd have 36 in total. It made my had spin a bit to think of that many.
The problem was trying to find a sensible spot to split it, a spot where the novel naturally ends.
There is a spot, but it is fairly early on, the first part that makes me cry when I read it. But then where is the half-way mark? There was one possible point, or a second, but they were both after half-way, which would mean that I'd have to add more content to the first half to make it balanced, and that'd mean either doing flashbacks or else starting at an earlier point in the story, but I'd already theorised both of them and people don't like that. The story starts where it wants to start.
So what about having a trilogy then? Where is the one-third mark?
And again I find myself drawn to that first tear-filled moment, but it's far too early to be the first of just three. Do I add more content before then? But no. That's constant action to that point. It wouldn't make sense, not unless I add some flashbacks or start earlier on. I could add some flashbacks though. There are a few that make sense.
So then I went through and isolated the important scenes, the moments where I could end the novel happily.
I counted seven.
There were seven spots where I could happily end the novel.
They weren't neatly at one-seventh spots in the novel's progression, as some were quite close to each other while others were a distance apart, but that was okay as I could add more content to fill them in. The more that I thought about it, the more that seven made sense.
As for the names, the first one I decided would be one of my alternate names for Children of the Crescent Moon as a whole.
The first name I had for the book, as many people know, was Star Children. The reason I called it Star Children was initially because they were marked with a birthmark on their foreheads of a star. But then I changed that birthmark to a moon and eventually a crescent moon, and then in later versions got rid of it entirely and just made it a sigil. I pretty quickly went from Star Children to Children of the Crescent Moon. It was Star Children for all of 6 months, it was Moon Children and Children of the Moon for a day, and Children of the Crescent Moon for more than 30 years now.
But I had considered other names.
At one point I was going to call it Assassins of the Gods, or Assassins of the Crescent Moon, and then there was one weird one that I considered, of A Splintered Soul.
A Splintered Soul was because of Sarah, one of my two main characters, being a bit romantic and wanting to find her true love. She is in love with her tutor but he doesn't like her back, so when she finds George she decides that he is her soulmate, and she knows about the story of the splintered soul, two lovers who dive into a volcano and their souls merge so that when they are reincarnated a bit of each other's souls lives in the other body, making it physically painful to be apart.
So A Splintered Soul is kind of Sarah's idea of who Sarah and George are, because she wants to be in love, and wants this to be special. Nobody else agrees with her, and she's wrong, but that's what she thinks.
It's a poor title for the book as a whole because this is not a romance book, but it is good in terms of thinking that it is or might be. It's based on Sarah's hope that everything will work out in the end. But then it doesn't.
So this title is really aimed at tricking the reader into thinking that everything is going to be okay in the end.
And when it isn't, you realise that the book title is a lie.
You've got yourself an unreliable narrator, someone who thinks things are one way but they're not.
And finally, the readers, like Sarah herself, are left disappointed, because this is not just a fun little book that you can read safely. This is not a safe book where little bad things happen at different points but then it all works out in the end. This is not a book where main characters have plot armour and nothing bad can happen to them.
This is a dangerous book where bad things can happen, even to the main characters, even to the point where main characters who you grow to know and love, can die, and not come back.
The story of the splintered soul is a lie, imagined by some foolish romantic, and it doesn't apply to Sarah and George anyway.
If you believe that this is truly the story of a splintered soul then you, dear reader, are a fool.
This is the story of the Children of the Crescent Moon, the assassins of the Gods, who have incredible powers when they hold hands, and who must use those powers to kill the greatest hero the world has ever known before he enslaves humanity.
Children of the Crescent Moon is now out
A Splintered SoulOne of my friends told me about an old blog post I had written way back in 2019 on Goodreads that I had forgotten about, and so I thought that I should update it.
This is the blog post: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
So a bit of an update is that I found a publisher who agreed to publish it, and I, importantly, agreed to go with them too. I won't go into details, but they were not the first to offer me a contract, but they were the one I was the happiest with. They are a horror publisher, but I don't mind that as I write a lot of horror and there are horror elements here.
This is my publisher's website: https://redcapepublishing.com/
They also have a bit for me here:
https://redcapepublishing.com/adrian-...
When I submitted it to them, they said it was too long, so they asked me to split it into 2 or 3 parts. Well, unfortunately, it wouldn't split neatly into 2 or 3 parts, and, as it was the first part of a trilogy of books (or actually 4 lots of 3, or 12 total), I didn't like the idea of splitting it into 3, so instead I split it into 7, as that was where it had natural break points. This also helped me with some of the pacing, as it had slowed down in bits and sped up in others, which was a problem that one of my beta readers identified in an earlier version. So I slowed down some of the later parts of the book to give it more consistent pacing, which let me explore the world a bit more and have a bit more fun with it.
Of course, since Children of the Crescent Moon covers a literal 12-year period, it was tempting to split it into 12, one for each year, but since there are some years where nothing much happens and other years when lots happens, that wasn't a very natural way to do it. It's not like they were in school doing different years or anything.
The next thing to try to work out were the titles of the 7 books, or partitions as I think of them, and these are my current titles:
1. A Splintered Soul
2. Scavengers of the Sun
3. Children of the Sun
4. A Dragon's Foot
5. The Mirrors of Truth
6. Liald
7. Eyes in the Dark
Why did I pick those names?
A Splintered Soul is the name I came up with for my heroes, George and Sarah, and this book is about them meeting and a bit of their origin story, so you can get to know them. It doesn't really tell you much about what else is going on in the background. The reason why they are called "A Splintered Soul" is because they are soul mates, destined to be together. It is an alternate name for the whole book (instead of "Children of the Crescent Moon"). Of note: I also considered "Assassins of the Gods" as another name for the book as a whole. While A Splintered Soul doesn't really work for the book as a whole, it does work for this one, and I was able to create a lovely little in-book story about the legend of the splintered soul, whereby couples would be in physical pain if they weren't near to each other.
Scavengers of the Sun was about the Fae, or one particular Fae who is in charge of the Sabre-Toothed Tigers, effectively the Goddess of the Sabre-Toothed Tigers, hence the cover page of a sabre-toothed tiger. The term "scavengers" is because, in the aftermath of the events of the first book, a lot of different people and beings are trying to clean things up, effectively trying to end things. Reading this, you might think that this is a 2-book effort, and that's deliberate. It reads like this is it, that there is no more, because a lot of groups are trying to end it here and now. This isn't meant to be stretched out. This is meant to be a two-book thing, and then it isn't, but the characters really want it to be. Nobody wants this to keep going beyond the second book.
Children of the Sun, which is about to be released on the 7th of June, is about the faeries, and in particular the search for the Faerie Garden, which is effectively the graveyard of the faeries, as they turn into trees when they die. As for why they are the Children of the Sun, it's basically because they are children of the fae, as they are half-fae. As with the second book, there are a lot of forces trying to end this, but our heroes are trying to keep it going. They are really on edge here, as they are fighting against the whole world all at once, with very few friends.
A Dragon's Foot is about a particular country which is called "Dragon's Foot", which is the home of a dragon cult of people who worship dragons as if they were Gods, and our heroes are trying to ally with them, though that proves to be even more difficult than trying to ally with the faeries. It really gets deep into the culture of the dragon cult and how extreme they are, which is highlighting just how different each of the 12 kingdoms are.
The Mirrors of Truth is about literal mirrors of truth, which are magic mirrors that show the truth that are a major part of this book. There are some other magic fae artefacts that are used here, that help to turn the tide. It also hints at the war between the Fae and the Gods, and how it is a proxy war because they are too powerful to fight each other directly, so they use humans to fight for them. This is extremely important and sets up later books beyond this lot of 7 even.
Liald is the name of a secret place. You will find out about it when you read this.
Eyes in the Dark is the final book. I don't want to spoil it too much but suffice to say that the whole book is one gigantic epic conclusion of all of this.
If you are interested in the 3 books, here are some links:
Book 1: A Splintered Soul = mybook.to/SplinteredSoul/
A Splintered Soul
Book 2: Scavengers of the Sun = mybook.to/SotS/
Scavengers of the Sun
Book 3: Children of the Sun = mybook.to/ChildrenOfTheSun
Happy reading!
This is the blog post: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
So a bit of an update is that I found a publisher who agreed to publish it, and I, importantly, agreed to go with them too. I won't go into details, but they were not the first to offer me a contract, but they were the one I was the happiest with. They are a horror publisher, but I don't mind that as I write a lot of horror and there are horror elements here.
This is my publisher's website: https://redcapepublishing.com/
They also have a bit for me here:
https://redcapepublishing.com/adrian-...
When I submitted it to them, they said it was too long, so they asked me to split it into 2 or 3 parts. Well, unfortunately, it wouldn't split neatly into 2 or 3 parts, and, as it was the first part of a trilogy of books (or actually 4 lots of 3, or 12 total), I didn't like the idea of splitting it into 3, so instead I split it into 7, as that was where it had natural break points. This also helped me with some of the pacing, as it had slowed down in bits and sped up in others, which was a problem that one of my beta readers identified in an earlier version. So I slowed down some of the later parts of the book to give it more consistent pacing, which let me explore the world a bit more and have a bit more fun with it.
Of course, since Children of the Crescent Moon covers a literal 12-year period, it was tempting to split it into 12, one for each year, but since there are some years where nothing much happens and other years when lots happens, that wasn't a very natural way to do it. It's not like they were in school doing different years or anything.
The next thing to try to work out were the titles of the 7 books, or partitions as I think of them, and these are my current titles:
1. A Splintered Soul
2. Scavengers of the Sun
3. Children of the Sun
4. A Dragon's Foot
5. The Mirrors of Truth
6. Liald
7. Eyes in the Dark
Why did I pick those names?
A Splintered Soul is the name I came up with for my heroes, George and Sarah, and this book is about them meeting and a bit of their origin story, so you can get to know them. It doesn't really tell you much about what else is going on in the background. The reason why they are called "A Splintered Soul" is because they are soul mates, destined to be together. It is an alternate name for the whole book (instead of "Children of the Crescent Moon"). Of note: I also considered "Assassins of the Gods" as another name for the book as a whole. While A Splintered Soul doesn't really work for the book as a whole, it does work for this one, and I was able to create a lovely little in-book story about the legend of the splintered soul, whereby couples would be in physical pain if they weren't near to each other.
Scavengers of the Sun was about the Fae, or one particular Fae who is in charge of the Sabre-Toothed Tigers, effectively the Goddess of the Sabre-Toothed Tigers, hence the cover page of a sabre-toothed tiger. The term "scavengers" is because, in the aftermath of the events of the first book, a lot of different people and beings are trying to clean things up, effectively trying to end things. Reading this, you might think that this is a 2-book effort, and that's deliberate. It reads like this is it, that there is no more, because a lot of groups are trying to end it here and now. This isn't meant to be stretched out. This is meant to be a two-book thing, and then it isn't, but the characters really want it to be. Nobody wants this to keep going beyond the second book.
Children of the Sun, which is about to be released on the 7th of June, is about the faeries, and in particular the search for the Faerie Garden, which is effectively the graveyard of the faeries, as they turn into trees when they die. As for why they are the Children of the Sun, it's basically because they are children of the fae, as they are half-fae. As with the second book, there are a lot of forces trying to end this, but our heroes are trying to keep it going. They are really on edge here, as they are fighting against the whole world all at once, with very few friends.
A Dragon's Foot is about a particular country which is called "Dragon's Foot", which is the home of a dragon cult of people who worship dragons as if they were Gods, and our heroes are trying to ally with them, though that proves to be even more difficult than trying to ally with the faeries. It really gets deep into the culture of the dragon cult and how extreme they are, which is highlighting just how different each of the 12 kingdoms are.
The Mirrors of Truth is about literal mirrors of truth, which are magic mirrors that show the truth that are a major part of this book. There are some other magic fae artefacts that are used here, that help to turn the tide. It also hints at the war between the Fae and the Gods, and how it is a proxy war because they are too powerful to fight each other directly, so they use humans to fight for them. This is extremely important and sets up later books beyond this lot of 7 even.
Liald is the name of a secret place. You will find out about it when you read this.
Eyes in the Dark is the final book. I don't want to spoil it too much but suffice to say that the whole book is one gigantic epic conclusion of all of this.
If you are interested in the 3 books, here are some links:
Book 1: A Splintered Soul = mybook.to/SplinteredSoul/
A Splintered Soul
Book 2: Scavengers of the Sun = mybook.to/SotS/
Scavengers of the Sun
Book 3: Children of the Sun = mybook.to/ChildrenOfTheSun
Happy reading!
November 11, 2019
Honest reviews
Over the past 4 days I have been reading and reviewing a 3-volume 32-story anthology put out by a small independent publisher called Witching Hour Press, who put out an anthology called Zodiac, stylised as Witching Hour: Zodiac. It is a horror anthology designed around the signs of the Zodiac.
I was originally a part of the anthology, and I was given Capricorn as my star sign. The instructions were to make something as scary as I could and to focus it around the Capricorn star sign. My thought went immediately to goats and Satanic rituals that can include animal sacrifice of a live goat, and something I had heard and read about called a blood orgy, which, as the name suggests, is a sexual orgy that involves blood. It often combines with some ritual or other.
I was excited about being a part of it. They sent me out a list of stages for it. There were reals for minimum and maximum lengths, and there were all sorts of rules. In addition to the 36 authors (3 x 12 star signs), there were all manner of mentors and editors and other people to help out, so I made sure to ask - and answer - a whole lot of questions.
I was worried that I was going too far with it, that it was too scary. "Is it okay to have blood and gore?" - Yes. "Is it okay to have cannibalism?" - No problems. "Is it okay to have drug use?" - That's fine. I wanted to get out my first draft as soon as possible and run it past them. I could easily tame it down a bit if needed. I just needed to know.
I had just finished Chapter 4 of my planned 13 chapters when I got a message from Shawn, one of the publishers, telling me he had cut me from the anthology. I was furious. He said that it was because I was upsetting the other authors with my questions, that I was scaring them.
I could scarcely believe it. Authors were so timid in a horror anthology that they couldn't handle someone asking questions about whether certain themes were okay.
I can't confirm that what he said was true, of course. Nobody had approached me with a complaint, and, when I asked the other authors, they said that it was a ridiculous claim that was obviously false. Even if my book was too scary, I could easily change it. It was most likely something else. More than likely, it was because Trinity, the other publisher, had let me enter without paying the $150 entrance fee, and he wanted the money.
Of course, it was kind of a badge of honour to be able to say that it was because my story was too scary, even if it wasn't really true.
I wasn't planning on buying the book, though I was curious about it. I had really wanted to be a part of it, and felt some jealousy about the people who did get to be a part of it. There was some delay in publication, then it was released on Kindle only, then it was taken out. There was some issue with Amazon with the cover page or formatting or something like that. I had the same issues with my own collection, in the end putting out a very basic cover because the one I paid for was unable to be approved.
But then they got a fake 1-star review, fake because it was giving 1 star because of it not showing up properly on his Kindle, rather than the stories themselves.
So I bought it aiming at giving a fair review. Not a 5-star review, but a fair review. Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to do that on Amazon because I haven't spent the $50 per year that you are required to spend, so I left it on Facebook, then they deleted it, so I rewrote it on Goodreads.
It was quite a long post, with some 32 stories to look through, and they varied enormously. Most of them struggled with the whole horror requirement, and some struggled to try to fit in something to do with a star sign, which is hard to do for a genuine story. Some worked really hard on their stories, and others looked rushed. Some I liked, others I didn't.
I gave 10/10 for 5 stories out of 32, which is a big deal for me, and I gave 9/10 for a few others on top of that. Then there were 8/10, 7/10, 6/10, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1. There was the whole range. I felt bad about the one I gave 1/10 for, but it was fair, I think. It just felt like they didn't really try very hard at it.
As I was reviewing it, I was imagining how I would feel if that was me, if I had just put in a whole lot of effort into a story and someone has told me it is 1/10.
How do you even review an anthology with 32 stories? It took hours to write it and even longer to read it, and I was reviewing it as I was reading it.
So many people give fake 5-star reviews. They should be able to get 32 fake 5-star reviews from the authors.
I still wish that they'd bring me back and perhaps I will one day publish that story I wrote for them.
I finished it last night, and it felt fairly good, but it's only a first draft so might need some improving. At least I can look at it later.Witching Hour: Zodiac
I was originally a part of the anthology, and I was given Capricorn as my star sign. The instructions were to make something as scary as I could and to focus it around the Capricorn star sign. My thought went immediately to goats and Satanic rituals that can include animal sacrifice of a live goat, and something I had heard and read about called a blood orgy, which, as the name suggests, is a sexual orgy that involves blood. It often combines with some ritual or other.
I was excited about being a part of it. They sent me out a list of stages for it. There were reals for minimum and maximum lengths, and there were all sorts of rules. In addition to the 36 authors (3 x 12 star signs), there were all manner of mentors and editors and other people to help out, so I made sure to ask - and answer - a whole lot of questions.
I was worried that I was going too far with it, that it was too scary. "Is it okay to have blood and gore?" - Yes. "Is it okay to have cannibalism?" - No problems. "Is it okay to have drug use?" - That's fine. I wanted to get out my first draft as soon as possible and run it past them. I could easily tame it down a bit if needed. I just needed to know.
I had just finished Chapter 4 of my planned 13 chapters when I got a message from Shawn, one of the publishers, telling me he had cut me from the anthology. I was furious. He said that it was because I was upsetting the other authors with my questions, that I was scaring them.
I could scarcely believe it. Authors were so timid in a horror anthology that they couldn't handle someone asking questions about whether certain themes were okay.
I can't confirm that what he said was true, of course. Nobody had approached me with a complaint, and, when I asked the other authors, they said that it was a ridiculous claim that was obviously false. Even if my book was too scary, I could easily change it. It was most likely something else. More than likely, it was because Trinity, the other publisher, had let me enter without paying the $150 entrance fee, and he wanted the money.
Of course, it was kind of a badge of honour to be able to say that it was because my story was too scary, even if it wasn't really true.
I wasn't planning on buying the book, though I was curious about it. I had really wanted to be a part of it, and felt some jealousy about the people who did get to be a part of it. There was some delay in publication, then it was released on Kindle only, then it was taken out. There was some issue with Amazon with the cover page or formatting or something like that. I had the same issues with my own collection, in the end putting out a very basic cover because the one I paid for was unable to be approved.
But then they got a fake 1-star review, fake because it was giving 1 star because of it not showing up properly on his Kindle, rather than the stories themselves.
So I bought it aiming at giving a fair review. Not a 5-star review, but a fair review. Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to do that on Amazon because I haven't spent the $50 per year that you are required to spend, so I left it on Facebook, then they deleted it, so I rewrote it on Goodreads.
It was quite a long post, with some 32 stories to look through, and they varied enormously. Most of them struggled with the whole horror requirement, and some struggled to try to fit in something to do with a star sign, which is hard to do for a genuine story. Some worked really hard on their stories, and others looked rushed. Some I liked, others I didn't.
I gave 10/10 for 5 stories out of 32, which is a big deal for me, and I gave 9/10 for a few others on top of that. Then there were 8/10, 7/10, 6/10, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1. There was the whole range. I felt bad about the one I gave 1/10 for, but it was fair, I think. It just felt like they didn't really try very hard at it.
As I was reviewing it, I was imagining how I would feel if that was me, if I had just put in a whole lot of effort into a story and someone has told me it is 1/10.
How do you even review an anthology with 32 stories? It took hours to write it and even longer to read it, and I was reviewing it as I was reading it.
So many people give fake 5-star reviews. They should be able to get 32 fake 5-star reviews from the authors.
I still wish that they'd bring me back and perhaps I will one day publish that story I wrote for them.
I finished it last night, and it felt fairly good, but it's only a first draft so might need some improving. At least I can look at it later.Witching Hour: Zodiac
