Binding Roots: Available Now!

At long last, my second novel Binding Roots has been released. You can find it here!

This has been a long journey for me. I started writing this novel about ten years ago, before I started writing Twin Paths. By now, it has seen six complete rewrites. It never came out quite right.

I changed characters, added plot points, removed plot points, added them back in. It was not until my grandmother’s funeral that I had the idea to use her life as loose inspiration for the main character and framing of the story as a whole.

I am happy to finally have it at a place where I can share it.

Happy reading!

Announcement: Short Stories + YouTube Channel!

In my last update I mentioned that I had news about branching into other mediums. That news is… I am now writing short stories to supplement the novels of the Eastern Lands AND I am starting a YouTube channel, Fireside Improv! I love writing novels, and will continue to work on the planned novels for the Eastern Lands, but novels take a long time to write. But I also want to be able to create stories more regularly.

My first short story is already up. You can find it here, or through the navigation at the top. It relates to the first chapter of Twin Paths. My goal with the short stories is to explore the world through more down-to-earth stories, or through the eyes of every day people. Some of them will relate to the novels (while avoiding spoilers!), while others may explore locations and characters intended for future novels, or even places I don’t currently intend to explore.

The YouTube channel is going to be a story-based video game channel. To start with, I will be running a series with Total War: Warhammer 3. These series will be narrative-focused. I have always played games this way, and I am excited to be able to bring them to life in a more structured way!

Each series will have clearly defined main characters and goals from the outset, and we will see how the characters are challenged by the uncontrolled environments that game campaigns offer! None of the chapters are scripted, meaning I am recording the audio while playing and am not fully in control of what happens. It is all created ‘on the spot’. For those among you who enjoy Total War games, part of the goal is to inspire how you can create your own narratives as you play.

I can’t wait to get started and share these journeys with you! In the future I will be looking for ways to bring interactivity with the community to allow you to help guide the direction of the narrative. If you have any ideas, please look out for the videos and give them a comment!

See you soon!

Second Novel Update

Writing novels is hard. Writing good novels is even harder. In July of 2021 I wrote that I had a full draft of Rising Winds - and that was true! That said, my test readers provided some great feedback that I rushed to implement. The changes wound up opening the doors to further changes. I added characters, modified other characters’ journeys, and tightened up the narrative.

In the end, I wrote several new chapters and reworked several others. With a full time job, these changes took a fair while to implement, which in turn required a new set of testing and smaller changes. All of this to say - the final draft is now set.

So what is next, you may wonder?

Rising Winds has been renamed to Binding Roots, and it now needs its final touches before publishing. This includes formatting, book cover, and in-book artwork. I cannot commit to a firm release just yet, but I will provide an update as soon as I have a firm date!

Also, keep an eye out for other big news coming in the next few days! While I am fully committed to writing all seven of the planned novels of the Eastern Lands series, I also love storytelling in general and am branching into other mediums!

New Cover!

The Eastern Lands has a new Japanese inspired art direction that better fits the feel of the series!

Each novel will have its own beautiful color scheme and pattern, uniquely designed to capture the essence of that particular story. They each use the same basic style to demonstrate that while they are independent stories, they share the same world. Each starts with a block that uses a subtractive style to reveal the truth beneath.

Twin Paths utilizes a green-red scheme that evokes a clash of ideas. The mon of the Kachi Shogunate is its centerpiece. Fractured it two, it represents the fractured sisters who are at odds with one another and each on their own path.

Binding Roots utilizes a blue-yellow scheme that evokes the mix of coldness and warmth that Ieda feels as she travels north, both figuratively and literally. The roots represent the unshakable bonds of ones family and the past.

Get your copy of Twin Paths and Binding Roots with the new cover soon! Keep an eye open here for the release announcement!

Cover Design By: Ilaria Besana

Rising Winds Progress Update!

Rising Winds has a full draft!

Rather, I should say it has had four full drafts. This book has been a challenge for me as it has never felt quite right. After creating a new character to be the protagonist, the pieces have finally fallen into place for a draft I can appreciate from start to finish.

That said, Rising Winds still requires editing and polish before it is ready for release. I can’t commit to a specific timeframe just yet, but know that this new fantasy novel inspired by Nordic and Japanese culture is coming soon! I’ll be providing more information in this blog in the coming days about how the cultures are used in Rising Winds as it takes place in a very different part of The Eastern Lands than Twin Paths’ Shindo.

Remaining motivated through this project has been at the front of my mind. So how did I keep motivated to write four complete drafts of this novel? Here are my writing tips for staying motivated!:

1) Keep your eyes on the goal

I found it easy to become discouraged when my first, second, and third drafts all failed to capture what I had been intending. Each time I had to put it down and walk away for some time to attack it with fresh eyes, and each time I found some of the issues and reframed the narrative to get closer to the target. It took a lot of effort to pick it up again and again. It was having that image of a line of my books sitting on my bookshelf that got me going.

Never give up on the dream!

2) Push through

I typically write novels from start to finish, chapter by chapter. I tend to hit a bit of a wall when I reach the middle. At that point it doesn’t have that fresh new feeling of starting the project, but it isn’t far enough in to be able to taste the end. This is when I slow my pace. To get through it I simply force myself to write. I give myself a 1000 words per day minimum, and even if they wind up being heavily modified in the end, at least I am making progress instead of staring at a blank page of a chapter I can’t quite wrap my head around.

You can always go back and edit after!

3) Appreciate the accomplishment

I find this last one in particular really helpful: even if a project doesn’t turn out how you wanted, appreciate the work you put into it. Finishing a project is better than being afraid of it. Go ahead and fail! Fail again and again, but never stop being proud of the fact you attacked it head on. Accept the failure. Learn from the failure. Do better next time. Keep working through the cycle and you will find success. I’ve been writing for over ten years and am still constantly failing and growing! 

Keep pushing on!

Reviews, Reviews, Reviews!

I am currently travelling around Italy, and while I have been doing so over 300 copies of the Twin Paths eBook have been ordered! I have heard some great things in terms of word of mouth to increase exposure, and the initial marketing campaign was a decent success.

I am currently working on getting the next book in The Eastern Lands, Rising Winds, up to a standard I am happy with, but if you’d like to see it sooner rather than later, I need your help!

Twin Paths needs verified reviews on Amazon. Many potential readers who are intrigued will not make a purchase unless there are several reviews. More reviews means more income, which means more time available to work on Rising Winds. So if you would like to help me out, the best things you can do at this point is:

A) Get the book through Amazon
B) Read the book!
C) Leave a review on Amazon

Please do not leave a review unless you have actually read it. While I certainly want to see Twin Paths succeed, honestly is extremely important to me. I’d rather have fewer sales achieved honestly than many sales achieved by manipulation and misleading reviews.

Thank you to those who have already gotten a copy of Twin Paths, and I hope you are enjoying it! To those who have yet to get one and are on the fence, I hope there will soon be some reviews to help you decide one way or the other (though at 99 cents, what do you have to lose? :)  ).

Happy reading!

Twin Paths - Out Now!

The Kindle Version can be purchased on Amazon now!

The paperback version is coming soon!

Why Japanese? (And Roman...And Norse)

I love fantasy. I love dwarves and elves and dragons. I love kings and knights. I love representations of feudal Europe and the Catholic Church. My favorite book series are The Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire. As a simple glance at the earnings and popularity of the visual adaptations can attest, many people agree that they are very, very good. In my mind, they have become the definitive fantasy versions of what they contain.

When I pick up a new fantasy book that has dragons and knights, I inevitably compare them to these definitive versions. Let’s call it a vice. I do the same with any new versions of cinematic Batman. To my mind, The Dark Knight trilogy is the definitive version, and anything else is an impostor. I’m finding more and more that regardless of how well a medieval fantasy is written, they always lack the wonder I long for. It feels like I’ve been there before.

When I set out on my journey to create my own world, I wanted a breath of fresh air. I thought of several possibilities for inspiration, such as Greco-Roman, Indian, Chinese and of course, Japanese. After much deliberation and fiddling, my love for Japan won out.

Japan had everything I was looking for. A unique political system that was both different and familiar to a Western audience. An influence on North American pop culture in the form of samurai and ninja’s. And a fascinating integrated belief system that allows for new ways to understand and explore life. And most of all, while there are certainly many wonderful examples of Japanese culture used in Western stories, I feel that there has yet to be a definitive high fantasy inspired by it.

As the ideas gained clarity, some of the other cultures I had considered crawled their way back into the picture. The classic concept of Rome vs Eastern empires remained firm in my mind, and when crafting a world where both could co-exist naturally, Nordic cultures reemerged as well.

The end result is a world that is strongly based on Japanese culture, but has natural give-and-take with the other cultures to form something else entirely. The Odicians (Roman) have a touch of Japanese. The Ainoens (Japanese) have a touch of Roman. They do not feel like two worlds being forced into one, but a single world with believable social and economic flow based on a shared history.

The World

The beauty of fantasy is that it can be enjoyed for many different reasons. It provides a blank slate where anything is possible. It can explore the depths of philosophy and emotion in ways that stories based in the real world cannot. It can provide a thought-provoking reflection of the real world. It can provide the same weight of character struggles as other genres. It can excite the imagination to dream of untold possibilities.

It is the last that primarily draws me to the genre. I treasure getting lost in worlds. Nothing makes me more interested than a consistent and captivating world that I can get lost in for hours and days. It is why I am so captivated by The Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire. They have complex structures with deep histories. I can easily snuggle up for a day with a cup of tea just reading about all of the smaller stories that are mentioned and see how everything fits together like a puzzle. Tomes like the Silmarillion that are as much a history textbook as a novel fascinate me.

The idea of consistency is what resonates with me the most when I consider worlds that I love and worlds that didn’t quite do it for me. There is nothing that frustrated me more than seeing a world get a new chapter and have it contradict or nullify previous work. It brings me out of the world. It is no longer feels like something True that could really be out there somewhere that is worth my time learning about.

While these stories can still be greatly insightful and entertaining, they go from being something truly special that stays in my heart to just another story that I will go through and largely forget. Unfortunately I only have so much time in a day, so when I invest that time into a world that becomes relegated to a backdrop, my disappointment is palpable.

All that said, this is one of my primary goals with The Eastern Lands: create a living, breathing world that feels organic. All of the characters, races, and cultures share this world and craft it. Once something becomes established in a concrete manner (characters and in-world histories are fallible), it will only be expanded upon, never contradicted.

Happy reading!