Silence is Golden

 Hey everyone. With the silence around Xenithar's Lair, you'd think I'd given up on writing, wouldn't you? Au contraire! The truth is I fight to write with all the duties I have with family, Church, and scouting, and that difficulty with getting writing in actually helps fire up my passion for my stories, even if I'm unable to sit and write everyday.

Let me share a few things on my writing projects.

I'm still revising Book IV of The Legacy Incarnate, Incarnate Key, which is my main project. Get ready for lots of heartbreak!

Sabra looking upon
one of her failures
in life.

I'm still rewriting Book 3 of The Legend of Draconite, E'lsra. I don't have as much inspiration on this one, but fortunately I created a general story outline for it, so if I'm feeling lost I have a whole story plan to refer to to get me back on track! The funnest part about this project has been expanding characterizations.

I'm writing the Legacy Incarnate anthology, with the working title Incarnate Duty, which takes place between Books IV and V and fills in the time gap with important vignettes that will tie into the main series. The written/planned stories so far include the main POVs of Sabra, Tarcua, Bix, mail-carrier Kervak, and Sabra's daughter Adair. There are more yet to come!

I've been working out the lore for a teen series inspired by my passion for scouting that will take place in Ramirra. More details on that yet to come!

Insert nasty villain
here.

Another idea I've been teasing is getting In Chaos Forged ready for publication. This takes place in the Chronicles of Libera, and is an epic story of war, friendship, loyalty, and sacrifice from the perspective of two young boys torn from their families and forced to become warriors for the very faction that once haunted their childhood stories. This story takes place over 1000 years after the Legend of Draconite and focuses on Crin and humans in southern Misten. This book is likely the beginning of a trilogy,
although it may possibly expand beyond that.

I also want to revise Founders and get that published as one book as I always intended. With the reintroduction of the character Ayaka to the Legacy Incarnate, I'm feeling this is especially important.

As you can see I have a lot to work on, and it's a gradual process. I came to a point where I was so stressed out over trying to get what I thought was a good enough amount of writing in, but I realized with all my duties at home, I was setting my expectations too high for myself, being miserable about writing, and I needed to let go of many of them. I'm trying to make writing fun, not a chore, and so I fit it in where I can, kind of like I did when I first started writing novels 20 years ago. It was fun and exciting, and now that I'm letting go of the stress, it's fun and exciting again! I just need to be more patient for the times I get to sit and write.

One of the projects
staring at me in an
accusatory manner.

I also need to be less dodgy to my readers about the material I'm writing (it's not like I'm going to be traditionally published anytime soon so I don't have to worry about handing out a publisher's bread and butter), so expect more excerpts posted on the blog, even if they're not often coming.I think the most important thing to say is thank-you to my readers. You're my tribe, and your interest in my work means a lot. Sometimes I get into a deep melancholy and think no one wants to read my stories, but that's not completely true. Just because I don't see the results of my writing doesn't mean they're not there!