Richard Raley's Blog, page 40

"Second Take" Welf POV Novelette Released

Hey King Henry fans, I finally did it and got around to writing the long mentioned Welf POV story.  It comes in at about 14k words (or about 2 or 3 chapters worth of writing).  I'm pretty happy with it, it's got a few really good jokes and writing from a POV outside of King Henry is always a nice mirror to the experience.

Hope you guys/gals enjoy it and have a wonderful Thanksgiving...perhaps saving the story until after Thanksgiving dinner for use as a survival tool might not be a bad idea.  Especially if they throw you on Kiddy Table Orderkeeper Duty.

Cover:

Blurbage:

Most would say that for a fifteen-year-old just starting his second year at the Institution of Elements, Heinrich von Welf has the perfect life. First in his year, from a wealthy and influential family, his future prospects in career and in the heart are unmatched.

But he made one rather large mistake in his life: he made King Henry Price his rival. When Heinrich's younger sister Victoria joins him at school as a new student, King Henry is ready and waiting to make Heinrich's life one of constant terror about what the Foul Mouth is planning next.

Linkage:

Second Take by Richard Raley on Amazon Kindle
Second Take by Richard Raley on Smashwords

As always the Smashwords distribution process takes 1-2 weeks to get all the files out to Barnes and Noble and iTunes, so I'll have those links for you later.

Pre Holidays Update

We're heading in to the bestest, most awesomest time of the year and I thought I would update you lot since my last bit a few weeks ago was a wee dramatic about how the series would be changing.

So far, so good with the change.  I've already caught up with my word total from before I made the cut and have 10 and 1/2 FM4 chapters finished, which means we're exactly at 50% in the first draft.  Once again I must say I'm insanely positive about this book, in a way I'm usually never positive about books when I'm halfway through with them (usually there's rending of garments and smashing of heads against desks and walls and whatever flat surface is at hand).  Finally being able to take all the vampire inner workings from concept and placing it into a story has been very enjoyable and now that I'm working on the New New School Story with some non-filler Ceinwyn Dale focused goodness...well...you'll see.

I am a horrible tease, yes I am.

If you pay any attention to the status bar area of the blog you'll noticed that both KH Short 4 and KH Short 5 have disappeared, that's because they're mostly finished and will be sent off the betas next week.  "Second Take" the long planned Heinrich von Welf POV novella will be published some time before Thanksgiving, while "Griefing" will come out in December.

Writing as Welf was a nice change of pace, especially since he's the hero and King Henry is the villain as far as Heinrich is concerned.  It's also a proper introduction for his sister Victoria, who was briefly mentioned in FM3 but not fleshed out.  As for "Griefing", I think removing the weight of being a 8 chapter story across from what's coming in FM4 really improved it and let it be a solid 4 chapterish sized novella.

I'm currently working on "Rockets" since writing King Henry has the very bad effect of making me talk like King Henry and I actually have to have a full blown extended family Thanksgiving this year and I don't want to teach my littlest cousins new words.  So we'll stick with human on steampunk robot violence instead for the next couple weeks.

Again checking the status bar you'll notice I've put up a new work called "Gush" and listed it as a Fantasy Young Adult novel.  It's VERY much a Fantasy novel with required "cool" magic system and it is a Coming of Age novel with a 17 year old girl as the main character but it will be a Richard Raley written YA novel, so...make of that what you will.  I won't get very serious on it until after "Rockets" and FM4 are both well into editing so don't get too freaked out, please.

Anything else?  I'm writing REALLY well...33k already this month, so yeah.  If I can keep this up you guys will have lots of books from me in your future.

I Probably Shouldn't Be Telling You Guys This

I mean really...this is one of those situations where I could just shut up and you lot would never know.  I could be all mysterious and say "I planned it all like that"!  And before we continue:  please don't hyperventilate, it's all going to be okay.
So why write this and tell you guys what's up?  Well,  I also know what's it's like to be a fan sitting around waiting for the next novel in your favorite series to come out and have felt the frustration that comes from not understanding what the writer is up to.  Especially if novels are being released by said author that AREN'T in my favorite series (George RR Martin fan since 2001 here, please feel my pain!).
So I'm going to try to explain my thinking on what just happened with FM4 and with the whole King Henry Tapes series.  It basically has to do with the school timeline and my desire to not have it turn into filler story that you guys are going to be skipping to get to the really good stuff in the shop timeline.  (Aside:  I recently read Scott Lynch's new REPUBLIC OF THIEVES and I found myself doing this and thought...ruh roh)
When I originally decided on the series being 12 books, I knew the whole school timeline thing could give me trouble in the future.  I had to give myself room to work with, to either expand or contract it depending on how the novels ended up working and depending on how much I thought you guys would put up with.  That's why I spent a couple months working up a master timeline for King Henry's stay at the Asylum and then sketched out about a page or two outline for 13 different stories I could write in that window.
Some of these stories are really important and I knew they would reveal things that you guys would need to know for the mainline (like Meteyos' intro in FM2 as an example) but other ones I was less sure about.  Now that we're 3 books finished into the series we're approaching some of those questionable stories that I could tell you but do you really need 8 whole chapters on Russell Quilt's wedding and bachelor party?  And are you going to enjoy it when it's in a novel with the other timeline kicking so much more ass than some kids screwing around at the Asylum?  Or will you resent it and skip ahead?  And do I really want to spend the 2-3 months it would take writing it and give up the 30k-40k words of novel space that I could be using on the other timeline?
These are questions I've been asking myself since the start.  How far can I stretch the school timeline?  Should it go the whole series?  What to do, what to do?  Now that I'm in the middle of FM4 the beast finally needs confronting.
FM4's mainline story is shaping up to be...YOU ARE NOT PREPARED FOR ITS WONDERS!  But the school timeline story, the first of the "stretching" possibly filler stories I could have put into a book?  I've been having trouble with it.  First, it was planned that I'd go back and fill in details on King Henry stealing the Lady's staff at the end of year one (Sessions 17-24, that's right!  Taking place BEFORE the Winter War story in FM3, I skipped the damn thing and you didn't even notice, you horrible fan, you!).
But that didn't work out.  It felt like going backwards and...it just wasn't big enough.  Or interesting enough.  And it didn't introduce any new characters or tell you any info you needed to have.  It was filler and that's when I first confronted this problem with the realization that the 13 possible stories I could tell were overkill.  I don't want filler guys, I don't want to write filler, and I don't want to push filler out on you.  The only thing worst than not getting a timely book by your favorite author is getting a book from your favorite author that feels like filler...and a paycheck.  When you have a subplot about Raj getting some from Naomi...ya know you're in trouble...
So, deciding that 17-24 weren't worthy and unneeded I took another look at my 13 possible school timeline stories and removed some chaff.  We dropped down to 10 left.  I decided I'd try the story of King Henry getting over his Mom's death post Session 6 from FM1 and I wrote 4 chapters and...it's just not enough.  It's getting killed by the mainline in FM4 because the mainline is awesome and...YOU ARE NOT PREPARED FOR ITS WONDERS!
So here I was...a few days ago.  FM4 half done...4 written in the school, 7 in the shop, one was a breeze to write and so enjoyable and everything I could hope for and the other...was a pain in the ass and could be called nothing but a disappointment when compared to its brother.  It's hard to kill my lovelies and make choices like this, but I yanked the 20k out of FM4.
I then told myself:  Raley, you got to be cold and mean and as hard as you can be with these things.  So I went back to the 10 possible school timeline stories still left and I cut it down to 7.
That's final.  All we're losing is filler or things I've already told you but would have been filled (there's that word again) in more detail.  What's left are the 3 stories already in the series and 4 that contain important information you need for the mainline (ex: King Henry meeting Plutarch).  This means that the school timeline and the back to back structure will be ending in FM7.  The tapes exist, King Henry made them, you just won't "hear" them.  This is probably a good thing because these books are going to getting quite long without the extra 30k-40k words.  I mean we haven't even got to the...YOU ARE NOT PREPARED FOR ITS WONDERS!
What's this all mean?  It means I'm starting over with a different school timeline that's much more interesting and robust and holds its own weight than the last one.  I've already written a chapter in it, it's...YOU ARE NOT PREPARED FOR ITS WONDERS!  It does tack another month onto writing the novel, but I'm already ahead of schedule and it's really worth.
It also leaves me with 20k in prime King Henry Price POV story which I will be turning into a novella called "Griefing".  Strangely, what didn't work next to FM4's mainline does work by itself without all the extra stretching I would have needed to work it into 8 chapters.  It will probably be out in December so...yay, extra King Henry for Christmas!
TL;DR:  I started over on the school story in FM4 and have decided the school timeline will be ended in FM7.  There will be a new KH Short out sometime in December.  Raley is awesome.  I should tell people to buy his books.

Good News, Bad News

Good News:  This is my most productive writing month in 3 years.

Bad News:  To be this productive I've almost completely removed the internet from my life, so tweets, fan mail, and all those lovely things will take me longer to respond to, if I ever get to them at all.

Good News:  I just hit 50k yesterday and so far I'm insanely happy with how the novel is going.

Bad News:  FM4 will be longer than I originally expected, now estimated at 21 chapters and 120k words.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to return to my writing bubble...it's so nice in the bubble...

FM2 and Failure By Design

Spoilers for the KHT, don't read if you aren't up to date.
***
Even though I check far less often than I used to when I only had a handful of reviews and every single one seemed like a new and wondrous thing, I do check in on the little balls of anxiety inducing torture from time to time, since they remain a good reflection on the most vocal parts of a fan base.
FM1 breaks down to about 90% loving the creativity of the world and KH's unique voice and about 10% being confused by the double timeline and not liking the cursing in the book.  FM3 still receives universal praise, something that makes me very happy given how it really was the "Unveiling of Things to Come" for the series.
FM2, however, is the beast I wish to tackle.  I've seen some comments on "sophomore slump" and complaints that it ends very quickly, that it really comes out of nowhere, and it makes you feel like you got pulled up short.
Yeah.  It does.
Totally the emotion I was trying to drag out of you guys with writing the book.
FM2 is a novel about success and about failure and about how we handle them.  I wanted you to feel exactly how King Henry felt by doing the "civilized" thing and making peace.  The purpose of the twin stories were also to show that as a child King Henry was correct the entire time while everyone doubted him, yet he squandered being "right" and manage to accomplish nothing more than the wrongest and most quickly caught up of his classmates.  While as an adult, the dumb bastard was COMPLETELY 100% wrong about what was going on.  He made a huge mess out of everything, but...by coming to his senses he was able to still get something out of the situation:  an agreement with Vega.
So it's an odd thought:  if a book is about failure and you feel it failed, then is it a brilliant book or a bad one?  When I was just a reader I often thought of success through the prism of how pumped up or amazed the book made me feel, that feeling of the high we all want from entertainment, yet now as an author who went through the experience of writing FM2, I do wonder...
I guess in the end it's up to the fans but I just wanted to have my say about my thoughts when it came to writing the novel and how I viewed it going in.  It was frustrating for me too.  Don't think I didn't want to get to the brawl being KH and Vega in book 2?  Hell yeah, I wanted it.  But I held us all back to induce the feelings I was aiming for.  I even cut out originally planned sections of the novel to make it shorter and feel more frustratingly incomplete.  As some have pointed out:  there are no actually werecoyotes in the novel about werecoyotes.  Why?  Frustrating, ain't it?
Why not give you the rush?  I am the guy who made up King Henry Price...so I feel contrary at times.  The lows and the frustrations can enhance the highs after all and in that way FM2 proves a very important step in King Henry's journey and will affect events moving forward.
Maybe you should all just consider this my declaration of MUAHAHAHA, I GET TO TORTURE YOU FROM TIME TO TIME.

Asylum Staff List

Some people mentioned they were having trouble recalling some of the more minor staff members while beginning FM3 so I put this together really quick to possibly jog your damaged little minds...or just to confuse you more.

ASYLUM STAFF LIST

Name – Asylum Position (Mancy Type, Level)  

THE LEARNING COUNCIL 

Maudette “The Lady of the Lake” Lynch – Dean (Hydromancer, Ultra) 

Delores Dingle – Head of Mathematics, King Henry’s Math Teacher (Faunamancer, Intra) 

Christopher Erikson – Head of Languages (Cryomancer, Ultra) 

Phineas Farraday – Head of Sciences (Mentimancer, Ultra) 

Benedict Massey – Head of History (Geomancer, Intra) 

Morgana Lancaster – Head of Physical Education, Faceshifter Teacher (Corpusmancer, Ultra) 

Keith Gullick – Head of Elementalism, King Henry’s Elementalism Teacher (Floromancer, Ultra) 

Mordecai Root – Head of Physical Theories, Bonegrinder Teacher (Necromancer, Ultra) 

Antigone Hyde – Head of Mental Theories, Winddancer Teacher (Aeromancer, Ultra) 

Rudolph Meyer – Head of Electives (Faunamancer, Ultra) 

Ceinwyn Dale – Head of Recruiting (Aeromancer, Ultra) 

Russell Quilt – Head of Testing/Non-Voting (Mentimancer, Intra) 

Nigel Rowland – Firestarter Teacher (Pyromancer, Ultra) 

Paul “Plutarch” Nixon – Artificer Teacher (Geomancer, Ultra) 

Leander Marlow – Riftwalker Teacher (Hydromancer, Ultra) 

Noelle Clarke – Stormcaller Teacher (Electromancer, Ultra) 

Alberto Cervantes – Beaconkeeper Teacher (Spectromancer, Ultra) 

Rin Yukimura – Winterwarden Teacher (Cryomancer, Ultra) 

Tristan McBee – Shadeshifter Teacher (Sciomancer, Ultra) 

Leslie Van Houten – Forestplanter Teacher (Flormancer, Ultra) 

Wolfgang Von Welf – Beasttalker Teacher (Faunamancer, Ultra) 

Yuri Jakovic – Mindmaster Teacher (Mentimancer, Ultra) 

 OTHER STAFF 

Evelyn Strange – School Doctor, Head of the Infirmary (Hydromancer, Ultra) 

Kumiko Ambrose – King Henry’s History and History of Elementalism Teacher (Geomancer, Intra) 

Jethro “Jet” Smith – King Henry’s Languages Teacher (Necromancer, Intra) 

Nevada Slaton – King Henry’s Science Teacher (Cryomancer, Intra) 

Harvey Pride – King Henry’s P.E. Teacher (Corpusmancer, Ultra) 

Fines Samson – King Henry’s Survival and Defense Teacher, King Henry’s Elementalism as a Weapon Teacher, Partially Retired (Sciomancer, Ultra) 

Audrey Foster – King Henry’s Theory of Anima Teacher (Aeromancer, Intra) 

Rainbow Greenbrier – King Henry’s Elementalism as Art Teacher (Spectromancer, Intra) 

Wilbur Fisk – King Henry’s Theory of Elemental Prophecy Teacher (Faunamancer, Ultra)

I might also be doing a "Dramatis Personae" for the Present part of the story to help out there.

I absolutely refuse to use the usual big publisher series method of spending the first 50-100 pages filling in past details about every little character interaction throughout the series.  I hate reading stuff like that, it's filler, it slows the book down, it assumes I'm stupid.  I'm sure I'd hate writing it even more, so I'm going to do the horrible thing of assuming my audience is smart and has a decent memory and just give you these lists as a quick reminder/check up guide.

July Writing Update

May 10th we released FM3 to the world (or at least the internet, which is frankly better than the world) and it has so far received universal praise as being the best in the series .  Which means...I'm doing something right.  But I need to keep doing it right, so here's where we're at and where we're going.

When is the next King Henry book, FM4, coming out?
Not this year!  I know you fans want it yesterday, but I have to write it first and writing King Henry actually takes a good amount of time.  Some of this is from me having to "wear" the character while I write--this is a ton more difficult than just writing something in 3rd Person POV, especially with a character as complex and difficult as King Henry.

The rest of it is that as an Indie writer without the whole team behind me, I have two modes.  I have Writing Mode and I have Editing Mode.  One is hopeful and creative, one is extremely cynical and so so happy to tear down dreams.  When I go into Editing Mode to get a book out to you fans the instant after the first draft is done (relatively speaking), it really hurts my productivity for three to even four months.

So even if I could write FM4 in a flash and have it out to you lot in December, I'm not going to.  I want to be in Writer Mode for awhile, disappear into the laboratory, and then I'll come back with a bunch of awesome stuff when it's ALL (or mostly) done.

What's the Awesome Stuff then?
FM4, FM5, and the Steampunk novel I've been calling "Rockets" but which will have another title eventually revealed.  The goal, and I might fail but I'm trying not to, is to have all three out next year (2014).

Why do it like this for FM4 and FM5?
FM4 and FM5 were originally the other way around in the series order when I first outlined the whole thing, but early in working on FM3 I switched them when I realized it would make Val and King Henry's relationship be less chaotic if some things happened the other way around.  What I haven't decided about the switch yet, is whether the School Timeline should switch with them.

So what I'm thinking about doing is writing the Shop Timeline for FM4 and FM5 and THEN going back and doing the School Timeline for each book once I have a feel for how the stories interconnect.

In case you're wondering, this is why authors don't write complicated multi-timeline stuff and instead just pump out half-naked vampire boytoy and bastard boy with a sword stuff for you.  Woe is me!

I'm not sure I care about "Rockets" yet, but you're going to tell me about "Rockets" so just tell me about it.
"Rockets" is about half done now.  It's set in a completely new secondary fantasy world I've created.  It's a Steampunk variant called Dieselpunk with WW1/WW2 tech levels.  There's a magic in the world called The Path.  There's automation soldiers called Clockers.  There's skyships and landships and interceptors and so many fun toys.

"Rockets" itself is a very small focus action-adventure/war novel but the world will likely be one I return to in the future (5 possible books so far).  The world itself is influenced by Star Wars, Firefly, and Battlestar Galactica, but of course, Steampunk instead of SciFi, and with my own twists on everything.

I'm really happy with the chapters I have so far and think it's a pretty good roller coaster ride.  It will probably be coming out between FM4 and FM5.

Speaking of FM4 and FM5, can a fanatic get a hint?
While I first think of THE KING HENRY TAPES as one big story split up 12 times to make publication easier, the first half of the series does work well as two trilogies.  But not in the way you think as one trilogy and then a sequel trilogy but as a trilogy connected to a trilogy of sequels (say that 10 times fast for bonus points, also I haven't had coffee this morning, give me a break).  I don't really view FM2 as FM1's sequel.  Instead, it works better if you think of FM1, FM2, and FM3 all as the beginning book to their own storyline that just happens to have many of the same characters and the same world.  FM4 is FM1's sequel.  FM5 is FM2's sequel.  And FM6 is FM3's sequel.

This isn't to say they're contained.  The stories mix and mash more this time around.  And FM7 to FM12 will just be a big jumble of Crazy Awesomeness I promise, or Awesome Crazyness, whatever you prefer.

But yeah, FM4 will bring back the vampires...with a revengence.

In Conclusion
I'm going to be writing for the rest of the year, not editing.  FM4, FM5, and "Rockets" are all in the pipe and should be good for 2014.  I'll try to update you guys at least once more this year on my progress (or lack of it).

Thanks for the Reviews
Also, a special thanks to everyone who has reviewed my books!  It really helps out with spreading the word and I thank you for the support and for your time and thoughts.  We actually just hit 100 reviews on Amazon spread across all the King Henry books and shorts, believe it or not.

Cool.  Cool cool cool.

King Henry's Motto British Style

I got bored...

FM3 is FINALLY out on Nook

Sorry for the wait, cover problems with Smashword pushed it back about a week.

Linkage:  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-foul-mouth-and-the-troubled-boomworm-richard-raley/1115380773?ean=2940044528215

FM3 is Out on Apple iTunes and Kobo

More linkage!

Apple iTunes:  https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/foul-mouth-troubled-boomworm/id647708269?mt=11

Kobo:  http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/The-Foul-Mouth-Troubled-Boomworm/book-qO6dMRpc6U-MOMN3KTmOjA/page1.html?s=NMA6kftoyEegfNV1H_orJw&r=1