B. Throwsnaill's Blog, page 4

Virtual Inspiration

Photo by Bill Strain .  licensed under
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 GenericWhat have I been up to lately?  I've been working on the fourth Hemlock book.  Progress is slow but steady.  I recently finished reading The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett.  I think it was perfect timing for me to read that book as I'm facing the challenge of completing the finale of the Hemlock story.  In The Pillars of the Earth, Follett masterfully weaves together the tales of...

The Spice Must Flow! And Pass the Chips...

I recently went to a small convention featuring 70s and 80s pop culture.  It was pretty neat.  There was the whole cosplay thing, which I'm really not that interested in--but I do have to admit that the people in costume add to the overall ambiance quite a bit.  And then there were the vendors peddling ancient artifacts from these lost decades.  I purchased a few items.  First, I bought a box containing someone's old Dungeons and Dragons collection.  I only inten...

Hemlock and the Dread Sorceress released!

I'm very excited to announce that Hemlock and the Dread Sorceress, Book III in The Maker's Fire series, has been released!  It is available via the below links.

Smashwords
Amazon - US
Amazon UK

The book will be available on other sites like Barnes and Noble and Apple as soon as Smashwords distributes to them.  This process may take a few more weeks.  I will post an update when it is complete.

Heating Up for a Summer Release!

The heat of the summer is upon us on the east coast of the U.S.A.  But this sweltering environment hasn't prevented the manuscript for Hemlock and the Dread Sorceress from nearing its final form.  The manuscript has finally been shipped off to the editor.  I've got everything done at this point except for the final eBook formatting for Amazon and Smashwords.  This should mainly consist of creating a table of contents and re-integrating the edits once I get them back. ...

Book III Cover Art Revealed!

Here is the cover art for Hemlock and the Dread Sorceress!  As you can (hopefully) tell, Elena Dudina has outdone herself again!

I fully completed the first draft of Hemlock and the Dread Sorceress yesterday.  I had completed what I'll call the core narrative several weeks before, but I had an idea for an additional chapter to help flesh out the novel.  As often happens, the writing took on a life of its own, and I can safely say that this "bonus" chapter is now one of my favori...

More on Dread Sorceress

Early work in progress images for the cover of Hemlock and the Dread Sorceress are starting to arrive in my mailbox (teaser at left).  It's always a thrill to open up a new revision and see it getting closer to the final product.  It's also a tangible sign that a new novel is really on the horizon.  A novel may ultimately be a collection of words, but a cover somehow makes it seem more tangible--even in the case of an eBook.

I am continuing to get amazing ideas for the final par...

Hemlock and the Dread Sorceress

I've been dutifully writing over the past few weeks, and wrapping up the first draft of the new novel.  The title is going to be "Hemlock and the Dread Sorceress: The Maker's Fire, Book III, Vol I".  Quite a mouthful, huh?   It looks like the word count is going to come in at a little over 40K words.  So, as I've mentioned in previous blog posts, it's going to be a shorter work.  What can I say about this new book without giving anything away?  How about rev...

Book III Novella? Serialization and the Art of the Possible

Photo by sidewalk flying .  licensed under
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 GenericContrary to the title, this is not a post about politics.  The phrase "the art of the possible" just sprang into my mind when thinking about the actual topic of this post, which is whether to publish a version of my latest writings as a novella/short novel or wait until I complete a longer work.  When I started writing my latest manuscript, I intended it to be the final Book III of the Maker's F...

Noble Narrative

Photo by Hans s .  licensed under
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 GenericWhat is a heroic story? Is it just an epic conflict? In the case of fantasy, is it just a character running around in armor and wielding a sword--chopping down foes on the battlefield? No, it's more than that--because we need to know something about that character. Are they well-intentioned, and do we identify with and/or like them? Most folks probably wouldn't romanticize the brutal campaigns of Genghis Khan or c...

And Now for Something Completely Different...

If a retro role playing adventure game where you can construct your own dungeons sounds interesting, then you might want to check out an old browser based game I just resurrected.  It is called SourceOfMagic, and it was a project of mine from the late nineties.  It used to be live at sourceofmagic.com, but I accidentally lost the domain in 2007.  Since then it's been mostly dormant, but a recent fit of vanity and nostalgia motivated me to get it running again.  If you are...