And Now, Time for a Blurb

Welcome everyone!

Last week I posted the first look at the front cover of my upcoming fantasy novelette. While it only included the bottom third, it still revealed quite a bit about what the book will be about and the overall tone it will have. Today, let’s go even further. Below, you can read the blurb from the back of the book:

Now you know the name of my main character! I wanted to keep some of the names simple while others more complicated. There’s a reason for this. My setting is divided into two parallel civilizations. Whenever they meet, there is trouble. My protagonist comes from the dominant civilization. His name is simple. The other character mentioned in the blurb comes from the declining civilization. His name is ethereal and otherworldly. I imagine it’s a hard name to pronounce for you right now. 

This is a story about going through a transformation, not simply of the physical but more importantly of the mental, emotional, and spiritual. My new fantasy novelette takes the reader on a journey from a mundane and self-centered life to one where humility, integrity, and sacrifice are honored. 

The tone of the blurb above is much different than the wide-eyed adventuresome spirit of The Hunter’s Rose series. This story will be more visceral, more shocking. Without a doubt, I think this is the best thing I’ve written yet, and I hope that you, dear readers, are ready for a raw and gritty ride.

Until next time, take care of each other.

Peace,

-Troy

First Cover Sneak Peek!

Welcome everyone!

Today you get your first glance at the cover for my new book. What you see below is the bottom of the front cover and my byline:

So from this, I imagine you can infer a number of things. First, I am still writing in the fantasy genre. I’m not abandoning that at this time. Fantasy has always been my favorite, and I’m not ready to leave it behind right now. Not sure if I’ll ever be.

Second, I hope the image evokes a sense of violence and destruction. I’ve been told I’m pretty good at writing combat scenes in The Hunter’s Rose series. But truthfully, I’m really only happy with a few examples. Tristan’s duel with Drastist and then the first foray into the mines in Book 1 and also the whole incident in Tatterdemalion’s Tower are the ones I think are best. This new book, though, gave me an opportunity to practice more combat writing and to make it more visceral. You should expect a good deal more violence and gore in this one.

Finally, contrasts of light and dark are prevalent in the image above. Good and evil will always be a part of what I write, but in this book I’m going to also explore temptation. The central figure in the image above is the main character. He is shown in darkness for a reason because in the scene depicted on the cover, he has not yet found redemption for his transgression. But more on that later…

Until next time, take care of each other.

Peace,

-Troy

 

Why Project X?

Welcome everyone!

Today, I’m going to explain why I chose to write a book outside my series. There are three main reasons. #1) I wanted to grow. #2) I wanted to explore themes I’ll use later in the Hunter’s Rose series. #3) I wanted something to work on while I went back to college.

So let’s tackle issue #1 first. As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, when I finished The Huntsman and the Heretic, I knew I wasn’t ready to write book 4 in The Hunter’s Rose series. I 

needed to get better. I also realized that to get better, I needed to do something new.

Doing something new meant writing about new characters, a new setting, and a whole new approach. The important thing was the new approach. I made the hard decision to work with different coaches, editors, and beta readers than I did with my Hunter’s Rose series. In a way, I felt like I was betraying them. But the problem was, I knew the types of feedback they were going to give me before I even set down to expand my short story into a novelette. 

As appreciated and valuable as that feedback is, I needed to hear new perspectives. I needed to find out what I didn’t know. It had nothing to do with trust. I definitely still trust my Hunter’s Rose team and look forward to working with them again as I work on Book 4. For Project X, though, I wanted to hear things I’ve never heard before. And I did! And it worked! I’m a better writer now, and I can’t wait to show off my new skills to my old team.

I want everyone who I work with on my Hunter’s Rose series, all my coaches, editors, proofreaders, and beta readers, to know I have not abandoned you. I just needed to get away from my series for a bit in order to grow. I have succeeded at that.

Reason #2 is Themes. I want to quote K.M. Weiland for moment. She is a woman who has mentored many aspiring authors, including myself. In a blog post, she put, “I wrote earlier this year about shadow theory, and how a thing’s opposite is always inherent within it. There is no light without darkness; no day without night; no up without down. And so there is no hope without despair. (Indeed, what need is there for hope if there is no despair?)”

We’ve all heard this sort of thing many time: “A thing cannot exist without its opposite.” I happen to reject this point of view. You can hope for something better when you’re melancholy, when you’re bored, when you’re directionless, or even when you are successful. Many driven people who have achieved something great, hope to achieve something even greater. As another example, you can love someone without hating something else. I firmly believe that opposites don’t have to be present in order to facilitate the existence of the other.

That said, hope is most powerful when we despair. Love is most powerful when we feel most reviled. Goodness is most precious when we are the victims of evil. 

To be honest, there isn’t much despair in The Hunter’s Rose to this point. The closest I’ve come is in Book 2 with the characters of Tristan’s dad and with Thaul (Avoiding spoilers here. If you know, you know.)

So, if I was going to pull off despair in Book 4 of Hunter’s Rose, I needed practice. Project X has two key moments of despair. The first is intentionally trite. It involves leaving behind an old life and accepting a new one. The second is much more troubling. It involves a transgression that cannot be taken back. 

Tristan will face a similar challenge in Book 4, but if I’m going to pull off that moment correctly, I needed a dress rehearsal. I am very happy with how that moment turned out in Project X. I think you’ll like it too!

Reason 3 was just a practical matter. I wanted to go back to university to pick up another degree and an additional certification. While I was doing that, I just didn’t have time to work on something as complex as The Hunter’s Rose. So turning to a novelette that already had a good chunk finished (that being the aforementioned short story) seemed natural.

Alright, that’s probably enough teasing for now. Next week I’ll be back with pictures about the cover, plot, title, and more! Stay tuned!

And until then, take care of each other.

Peace,

-Troy

Major Milestone Passed!

Welcome everyone!

I was going through my files in my writing folder, and I came across the file I use to track my book sales. In all the business of summer, I kinda forgot to update it. So I logged on the Amazon and IngramSpark to check my sales and update the numbers. What a surprise! The Huntsman and the She-Wolf has passed 500 copies in sales!

It's at 505, in fact. I've had a terrific summer in sales. Overall, I've sold almost 800 copies of the books in my Hunter's Rose series. I anticipate sales for Project X will be equally as impressive. I can't wait for it to come out.

This is just a short update today to celebrate a pretty exciting threshold. I'll be back later this week with an update about my new book

Until then, take care of each other.

Peace,

-Troy

This is Project X

 Welcome everyone!

I have a confession I need to make to you. Last month I announced that my fourth book would be coming out in September. That’s true! It is. However, what I didn’t tell you was that my fourth book would not be a continuation of my Hunter’s Rose series. Instead, it will be a stand-alone story.

If there is one piece of writing advice for authors writing a series that I’ve seen over and over, it is “Don’t take a break from writing your series! Finish it before writing something else.” It’s good and honest advice that is targeted at the type of people who are excited about something new or who have trouble finishing what they start. I do not fall into either of those categories. I enjoy the familiar, and I always finish what I start.

So you might be wondering why I chose to go against the general wisdom and do a stand-alone book. The truth is, after I finished up the first draft of The Huntsman and the Heretic, I knew I was not a good enough writer to write Book 4 in the Hunter’s Rose series. Book 4 will be a dark time in Tristan’s life, and up until now, The Hunter’s Rose has been a fairly light-hearted series. It will be very challenging to hit the right tone while at the same time keep the characters consistent with the first three books. I knew I needed to get better. I had to level up.

The only way to get better at writing is to 1) read more books and 2) do more writing. I decided to start working on a short story while my editors and coaches worked on my first draft of The Huntsman and the Heretic. I created a scene where a character knew what the right thing to do was but chose to do otherwise because the reward of doing the wrong thing was just far too alluring. I wanted to explore pride, temptation, lying to one’s self, and penance. 

I finished the short story before the first set of revisions for Heretic came back. I was very pleased with it, but I put it aside and started my revisions. When my revisions were done, and I sent out my next draft to my next set of editors and readers, I resumed fixing up my short story. To keep it brief, I had the short story ready to go by the time I was publishing The Huntsman and the Heretic. 

I decided I would publish the short story alongside Heretic as a kind of surprise. I was calling it Project X at this point. However, as the publishing date drew closer and I was still fiddling with the short story, I realized I could flesh it out some more. There were other themes I wanted to explore as well such as alternative moral codes, social ostracism, kindness leading to regret, and many more. I saw that I could pack an enormous amount of conflict into a very short narrative. 

As a result, I decided not to publish Project X at that time. Instead, I went back to my computer and changed it from a short story to a “novelette.” If you aren’t sure what that is, a novelette is a work of fiction that is between 7,500 and 20,000 words. I think the new Project is right at 19,928 words. Some famous novelettes you might be familiar with are The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, and The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

This post is running long, so I will have to save more of my insights until later. Just know that I am returning to The Hunter’s Rose series. I’ve already finished the first draft of the first four chapters in the next book. I promise to give updates in my next post. I will also specifically address why I didn’t use my usual beta readers, editors, coaches, and proofreaders for this project. 

Until then, take care of each other.

Peace,

-Troy