Wesley McCraw's Blog, page 3

A wonderful review from a book blog.

I just wanted to post that The Forgiving got a rave review from a cool book blog, El’s Reading Journal. Also, the paperback is only $8.47 right now!

The review is HERE.

Reworking My Science Fantasy Trilogy

My science fantasy trilogy about a bathhouse is my most ambitious writing project to date. It’s been an idea rattling around in my head for a long time, and I’ve written a rough draft of the first book. It was a huge amount of work, with lots of false starts. I’m a slow writer who can get bogged down in the process, so I’ve lost track of how many years I’ve been writing and rewriting it. I like the book, but now that I’ve turned forty-two this summer, I’m trying to realistically evaluate what projects I want to spend my time on.

I recently finished a beta draft of a much shorter project, The Queen in Yellow. This book felt manageable, but it still pushed me. It’s a novel full of ideas, characters, and complexity, but it’s only 70,000 words.

The rough draft of the first volume of my science fantasy series is more than 140,000 words. Honestly, I’m not sure I know how to edit an epic trilogy yet. It’s too much. My writing process might not be compatible with books that are so huge. But I also feel like I want to try. I want to grow into a writer that can do what seems impossible right now.

So, instead of focusing on finishing the drafts of the other two books in the series, or rewriting the first book again, I’m going to focus more on growing as a writer.

I have a few writing books I’d like to read. I have lots of fantasy novels on my TBR pile. I’m going to write a final draft of The Queen in Yellow and maybe start another short novel. I’m not giving up my science fantasy trilogy, but I have a lot of work to do before diving back in.

The Queen in Yellow Update

I’ve sent out The Queen in Yellow to some beta readers for feedback.

While I wait patiently for them to get back to me, I’m trying to stay busy.

I’m going through the books I own on the craft of writing that I haven’t read yet. I have quite a few. I’m assessing my horny science fantasy trilogy. It’s massive enough that it’s hard to wrap my brain around it. It might be a bit too big for me to work on while I wait. By the time I find my footing, I’ll probably get The Queen in Yellow back. I’m reading/listening to more books, like The Stranger by Albert Camus and ménage romances. I’m rearranging my workspace. I ordered a standing desk.

Generally, I don’t feel productive enough, but maybe some down time is good for me.

I’m trying to figure out what my next steps will be in my writing career and in general. I’m a little lost. So I thought I should blog about that lostness before I find my way. I’m sure I’m not the only one feeling this way.

When I feel lost, what I’ve found is that some bittersweet music helps me see that “lost” and “hope” aren’t so far apart. More things are possible when the future is unknown.

Is House of Cabal Dead?

For various reasons, I’ve unpublished my House of Cabal series from Amazon.

The idea was to write short books that came out quickly until the series ended at book six or so, but after finishing the beginning trilogy, that didn’t happen. Now there is just too much about the story I would rework. I’ve grown as a person and a writer. After all, it’s been over twenty years since I started writing them. I hope to revisit the idea at some future date, but I can’t promise anything. I have a lot of other projects that come first.

Thank you to anyone who read them. They were an important step on my writing journey.

Easy Books

I think every writer fantasizes about writing a book that is easy to write. They never are. Anything good is hard work, and it’s almost always harder than you expect, even when you think it’s going to be almost impossible.

This is not to say writing is without joy. There is pleasure in hard work.

Are other writers just as surprised and delighted as I am by their own writing when it suddenly seems good? There is just this tipping point, when the novel or short story is a mess, and then suddenly, it comes together.

To get there, you just have to have faith that your tenacity will get you there eventually. Even if sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes, the project must be abandoned for a new idea that won’t fall apart. But you have to give it your all every time. This never gets easier.

This difficulty is actually dangerous. It can use you up. It can burn you out. So be careful.

I would love to be an artist in a culture that values a work/life balance. America is very much about work and ambition. I don’t need to be rich or famous. I just want to support myself and have a quiet, humble life, making work I’m proud of.

It seems like a reasonable goal. Almost like it should be easy. But there are no easy paths in life, just like there are no easy books.

Weekly?

It seems that I said I was going to do a weekly book update back in October of last year. Hmm. It seems things got away from me. I’m still working on my horny science fantasy trilogy, but I’m taking a break from that to write a whole other book, The Queen in Yellow. It’s a mix between a book of horror short stories and a horror novel. It’s fun!

There will be a lot more updates here (I’m hoping), but the posts will probably be pretty random for a while until I figure out some kind of sustainable schedule.

Happy reading.

Horny Science Fantasy Trilogy

Weekly book update:

My horny fantasy trilogy is now a horny science fantasy trilogy. I found out on Twitter that some readers get upset when they find science fiction in their fantasy, so now people get a warning. This fantasy novel has sex and robots!

I printed out all 600 pages of the first book, and I’m almost to page 300 of the readthrough. I’m assuming my pace will slow a bit in some rougher later sections, but I’m making good progress. My goal is to have a finished draft and start writing book two before the end of the year.

Thanks for reading. Until next time,

Wes

An early look at my new dark fantasy novel.

Image by Stefan Keller

I’m working hard on my dark fantasy trilogy, and I thought I should give you an early look at the first chapter.

Chapter OneI buck off the orderlies that are trying to restrain me. Surgical instruments crash to the floor. I shove past the infirmary nurses, sprint down the hall, my bare feet slapping polished stone, and burst outside into a crowd of commoners that have filled the sprawling courtyard of Highborne Citadel.The snow is trampled slush. The winter air is bracing. I’m bare-chested, and a Spell of Forgetting has been carved into my upper back. That’s why I’m discombobulated. Despite the cold air, the sigil burns like a brand. I reach back. The cuts are stitched and bandaged.The faces out in the crowd are looking up at the Moon Tower observatory where a woman balances on a railing.My heart rises into my throat.The Moon Daughter, cultist Quelana, the woman who is my tutor and lover, balances hundreds of feet above the crowd with a noose around her tender neck.This can’t be happening.I’m Everard Kalvaitis, known everywhere as Everard the Strong, a beloved war hero, yet I watch from the courtyard with the rest of the commoners, powerless.Three orderlies burst out of the infirmary. The crowd parts, and the men see that I’m not trying to escape. They halt in their tracks.Breathing aggravates my bruised ribs.I’m not the only one injured. One of the orderlies holds a broken nose, blood dripping from his chin. Another grips a shoulder and grimaces in pain.I turn my back to them just as Quelana steps off the banister. Executioners likely force her, but the angle obscures them so it looks like a suicide. She plummets thirty feet until the rope pulls tight.Her neck doesn’t snap like it’s supposed to. It stretches like pulled taffy for another three feet. She’s still for a moment. Then her mouth gapes impossibly wide, her jaw demoniacally unhinged down to her clavicle. From even such a great distance away, I see it gapping and am horrified. And then her throat expands like a mating frog’s vocal sack, only slower. As the skin balloons, it losses its color and becomes translucent. Something swarms inside.A few isolated screams sound from the crowd as the Moon Daughter’s neck flesh keeps stretching and expanding, but mostly it’s silent anticipation. Everyone holds their breath.The bubble pops. There’s no blood. Instead, hundreds of moths whoosh out in an explosion of gray dust and sparks.Moon magic. Quelana’s last bit of dazzle for the people of Armskirk. The moths fan out over the crowd. People laugh with relief.The Eternal King will not be pleased. He ordered Quelana’s hanging to repress her spirit of rebellion, and even in death, she defies him.The crowd cheers. For the hanging or the explosion of moths, I’m not sure.I look over to the keep’s highest balcony, hoping to see the king’s reaction. He’s standing there, watching, but I’m too far away to read his expression. Chancellor Silva, draped in her finest furs, is there too, propping him up. Once the Minister of Health and a respected physician, she is now his closest adviser.The king is seven hundred years old. In his ornate silk robes, he looks no older than seventy-five. He’s eternal, but he’s no longer the muscled warrior who founded Armskirk, and Armskirk is a kingdom that prizes strength, youth, and masculinity. I guess when virility is no longer an option, longevity is the next best thing.The dukes and duchess, far removed from the commoners in the courtyard, line the balustrades of the lower balconies. I know many of the gentry personally, slept with more than a few, but they see me as an indulgence, not an equal. And now that I’m approaching fifty, I’m an indulgence past my prime.A string quartet on one of the lower balconies plays a waltz.My war buddy, Akanax Baily, claps me on the shoulder. “You didn’t need to see this.” He’s a big man, as big as me, and captain of the Royal Guard.“Yes, I did. This is justice.” Quelana was the only one who could have carved the Spell of Forgetting into my back.He waves off the orderlies, who grumble and go back inside.With the execution complete, the Eternal King sits in his wire-frame wheelchair. Chancellor Silva speaks something into his ear and wheels him back inside.The rest of the gentry remain. They drink and soak up the festive atmosphere. A few waltz. Quelana’s execution is just another social event to them. She was one of them, and yet they don’t care because her faith in Luna made her an outsider.Quelana’s body slowly turns in the wind, her head far above her shoulders, her shredded neck now a twisted cord.Akanax nudges me. “Who told you she was being executed today?”“No one. I had a feeling.” I’m numb. Quelana will be left to rot, which won’t happen until the thaw.Children, bundled in winter clothes, chase the various-sized moths. The larger moths leave trails of sparkling dust. The faster, smaller ones make whistling trills.Akanax says, “You’ll be the next entertainment if you don’t think of something.”A black and white moth, the Pangora Moth if I had to guess, lands on the back of my hand and spreads out its wings as if putting them on display.I can’t help plotting ways to get Quelana down. If I cut the rope, she’ll drop another hundred feet. Maybe I could pull her back up into the tower.“You can’t go up there,” Akanax says as if reading my mind. “The tower is off-limits because of the ongoing investigation.”Why do I even care? She betrayed me too. The moth on the back of my hand turns to ash.“Come,” he says to me. “You’re freezing.”The two of us make our way north through the crowd toward the barracks. He’s dressed in leather armor that emphasizes his musculature, and an oversized broadsword rests on his shoulder. He’s always been intimidating, and he hasn’t mellowed with age. I look like a deranged, hulking animal. I’m bearded, my hair wild, and the bandages on my back are bleeding. People make room.“Look at me,” I mutter and wince from the pain in my back. “The king knows I don’t know anything.”“How long will that buy you? A few days?”“He wouldn’t dare. There’d be an uprising. Besides, I would like to see him try.”A matronly woman makes a startled yelp and pulls her small twins out of our path.“Quelana was the Moon Daughter,” Akanax says. “She was practically your wife, and she’s hanging from a rutting tower of the citadel. No one’s safe.”He’s right, of course. Just because I’m beloved doesn’t mean the king can’t have me killed any number of ways. The Royal Guard would overwhelm me, even if Akanax defected. And an uprising by an outraged public would be quelled in a week or two. Or maybe the public would just cheer as they did for Quelana.“She wasn’t my wife,” I say, knowing that’s not his point. “She turned me down.”“You’ve mentioned.” Akanax shoves me into a room in the barracks where we can talk privately and I won’t freeze to death. “Damn it, Everard! Think! I didn’t save your ass all those times in the war for it to end like this. Quelana must’ve had a contingency plan. You have money, right?”The stone floor by the fireplace warms the soles of my frozen feet. “Yeah.” I rub my upper arms to stimulate the blood flow. “But not enough to smooth things over with a king.”“That’s not what I mean. Take a holiday in the Southern Wilds. You always liked it down there. God knows why. Out of sight and out of mind is your best bet right now.”“I’m not running.”“You don’t have a choice.” He pulls a cloak off a chair and drapes it over my shoulders.I’m not being stubborn. I’m being honest. “That’s not who I am. Besides, running would make me look guilty.”“Everard, you can’t stay here! You don’t understand how serious this is. I can’t protect you.”“I wouldn’t ask that of you.” Asking him that would be a death sentence for us both. “Armskirk is everything to me, everything we fought for. Now that I don’t have Quelana . . .” My emotional numbness is already dissolving. Despair takes its place. “If the king wants me dead, maybe that’s my fate.”“You don’t mean that.”This back and forth reminds me of a half-remembered conversation. Quelana and I were in the Moon Tower quarreling about my future. She insisted that I become the Southern Harold, that I was destined for more glory, but I didn’t want more glory; I wanted to have a family with her. It’s the last thing I can remember before waking up in the infirmary.Maybe we said our goodbyes while she was cutting the Sigil of Forgetting into my back.I notice that when the Pangora Moth turned to ash, it left a message on the back of my hand, but it’s now smudged, leaving only one legible word: “live”. I wipe it away.“Quelana brought this on herself. She betrayed the Eternal King. She knew the risks.” I shrug off the cape and pull at the bandages on my back. “She did this!” My anger comes out in a sob.“Stop! You’re bleeding.”“I don’t care!” I clutch the bloody bandages in my fists and throw them into the fire.“Everard. It’ll be okay.”“No!” I can’t breathe. “No, it won’t!”“We’ll figure this out!” He grabs onto me. The leather armor is hard and cold against my bare skin.Quelana is dead, and I can’t take it. “Our last conversation . . . The last one before she cut into me, she wanted me to become the Southern Herald. I told her no. I told her that I couldn’t leave her, but she kept insisting. Quelana didn’t want me.”“She loved you. I know she did.”I shake my head, my tears wet on the hard leather. “Her love . . . It was always out of reach. She knew how I felt. And she . . .” I choke up, too upset to speak.Akanax holds me, and I let the fight go out and rest against him, the fire crackling beside us. I feel the urge to kiss him, but his love for me is platonic. This type of intimacy is required of brothers-in-arms. Someone has to be there when the atrocities of battle resurface. Now that Quelana is dead, Akanax is my last safe harbor.After a time, he says into my ear, “That might work.”I stand straight, sniffing and wiping my eyes. “What might?” The grief is receding for now.He puts his gloved hands on my shoulders, our faces close. “You could become the Southern Herald. Who better than Armskirk’s favorite son? You’d be perfect. I can convince Silva, and she can convince the king.”“Akanax,” I say, skeptical.“No, listen. As the herald, you could sleep until the king forgets.”I sit down in the chair by the fire, suddenly exhausted. “He’s not going to forget. He’s eternal.”“Fine, sleep until he has more pressing concerns. You’ll wake during the second Dark Advent.”“The apocalypse would be pretty distracting,” I admit. I consider it more seriously, stroking my beard. “As the herald, I’d help prevent the end of the world.”“After that, he’d have to forgive you!”I watch the fire. “Quelana wanted me to become the Southern Herald so I could see Armskirk’s glorious future. She thought it was my destiny.”“Wait. You don’t think . . .”“That she sacrificed herself?”“Yeah, she thought she was holding you back from your destiny. I mean, she was the Moon Daughter. Right? She could feel the flow of time. Maybe she did this all for you.”The idea gives me hope. There’s just one problem: the sigil. I slump back down, the pain in my back suddenly more intense again.“Then why make me forget? The Sigil of Forgetting can only be carved by the Moon Daughter. She wanted to overthrow the king, and I must’ve discovered her plan. She knew that I would turn her in, that I’d never commit treason, and so she had a choice: kill me or erase my memory.”“She carved the sigil, and then she was found out anyway.”I nod. “And now she’s hanging from the Moon Tower.” It still doesn’t feel real.“At least she didn’t kill you.”“Quelana was a traitor. And I was a fool, thinking she loved Armskirk.”“She fooled everyone.” Akanax sits in the other chair, his leather armor creaking. “I thought she was good for you.”“She wanted me to become the herald so I would be asleep in stasis when she tried to overthrow the king.”“That’s diabolical.”I’m boiling with anger now. “She may have charmed the public with her Moon Magic--even made me fall for her--but she wasn’t a hero, and she damn well wasn’t sacrificing herself for my glorious future. If anything, she was an evil mastermind, fooling everyone and biding her time. We can only thank Pangora that her plans came to naught.”“Okay.” Akanax stands back up and grabs his sword. “Fuck her. Now we have to make sure you’re not collateral damage. If we can’t convince Silva that you weren’t involved, she’s going to order me to turn you over to the torturer’s guild. I’m surprised she hasn’t already.”I stand and ball my fists. “Just tell me what to do.”He puts a hand on my shoulder with a pained expression. “It’s probably best you wait here. You look deranged. I’ll have someone bring you some food and a comb. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”I say as he’s leaving, “Akanax, sorry I got you wrapped up in all this.”He looks back from the door. He shrugs. “Saving your ass never gets old.”

Creating my own Substack Logo

When you create a Substack newsletter, you get to create a logo for yourself. It must be at least 256 x 256 pixels, with a transparent background. I chose to keep mine at this minimum size to make sure I didn’t over complicate the image.

Part of my newsletter will eventually be about drawing so I didn’t want to experiment too much with graphic design programs. I wanted something handmade, so I used Procreate on the iPad to simply draw the logo. Here was my first try. I settled on the WM of my initials as my foundation, and I wanted to capture the idea that I’m trying to grow.

I liked it fine, but when I saw it small, it just sort of lost something, and it didn’t really say anything about who I am as an artist.

I tried some more Sumi Ink style lettering, but that wasn’t really me either. I experimented with different brushes, finally landing on a design I actually liked. It’s darker and grimmer but more who I am as an artist. As much as I would like to grow in the coming years, I still want to embrace the horror elements that I love.

And it looks good when it’s small.

I then emailed the image to myself and uploaded it to Substack in the settings page. I hope this helps if you are considering making a Substack newsletter. A logo can be intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be a complex process. Also, when starting out, remember that you can always change it later.

If you would like to sign up for my newsletter and see my logo in action, you can do that HERE.

Growth Mindset

You don’t know when or if an idea will change your life until you have the benefit of hindsight, but if I had to take a wild guess, I’m assuming my life changed last week.

Image by jplenio from Pixabay

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to define myself by my inability to do certain things. Some of these things, I tried them briefly and wasn’t very good at them. Others, I haven’t done them in a long time and so I’m not good at them anymore. Many others, I imagined that if I tried them I would be bad at them. However these ideas got in my head, they built up over time.

The possibilities for my life started to get very small.

Then last week I was introduced to the idea that, generally speaking, no one is good at something unless they work hard at it. For some reason, I had started to think that I should focus on the things that come easy to me, and that if I’m not good at something at 40, than I’ll never be, but practice is required of even gifted people. Not just repetition, a concerted effort to improve. Somehow, I had forgotten that I can grow and change, and that it takes work.

The possibilities for my life are much bigger now. Yes, I have limits. But there are a million things that I could be better at if I put in the time and effort. Everyone is incompetent at the beginning. Most people stop because learning is hard, but hard isn’t a bad sign. It just means you haven’t developed the skills yet for what you’re trying to do.

I can learn to draw, code a game, and write a weekly blog post, but I won’t be good at these things immediately. And that’s normal. As they say, if it was easy, everyone would do it.

What are you bad at that you forgot you could get better at? Cooking. Staying tidy. Remembering people’s names. Video games. Grammar. Talking to strangers. Being alone. Dating. Married life. Finances. Loving yourself how you are. Seeing your own potential. Everyone has their blind spots, but I promise, we can improve, and it helps to have a Growth Mindset.