A preview of my new novella

A long while ago I wrote the beginning of a short story for Carissa. It was meant to be a present but because I was working under time constraints and because I am lazy, I never actually finished the story. I did end up completing the first part and presenting it to Carissa, who read it and asked for more. Well seven-hundred and six days later I delivered on my promise to complete the story.

You're probably thinking "that's a long time, Alex" or "I don't care, just let me read it." Well, in my defense I was working on finishing the Knight's Journey book. And I was doing other important things. What you should take away from this is that I have finished my novella and it will be published soon (also, this story is totally unrelated to the Knight's Journey series).

Anyways, here is a preview of the new story:

The wind picked up as Caius approached the ruins. The air was cold and biting, the ground covered by patches of frost. Even in the summer months a man could freeze to death this high up in the mountains of Tor al'Dhun, and it was not summer.

Caius shivered, wishing he were more properly dressed. He had known it would cold, but he had not expected this. There was not even snow, yet his breath could be seen on the air and his water skin had hardened, the water inside turning to ice.

"Stupid, ignorant fool. I should have been more thorough. Should have expected this." Caius muttered to himself as he walked. 

It's always the little things that get overlooked, Caius thought. 

He should have known better. In preparation for the cold, he had layered his clothing. Everything was lined with fur and insulated. Everything but his gods-damned feet. He had purchased a scarf—a woman's garment—to protect his face, and yet he had not purchased thicker socks or better boots. Now he was forced to wear his socks in layers, stretching them out and making him clumsy. And for all his trouble he still could not feel his toes. 

The wind gusted again, biting him with a cold fury. Caius cursed and shifted his scarf so that it protected his face. 

"I am going to murder Sammet when I return. His map had better be worth the price that I paid."

Caius's hand moved towards his pocket where he kept the map. Sam had claimed that it revealed a secret to the location of a Dwarven ruin. The Dwarven ruins always yielded great plunder, and this one, Caius hoped, would yield a treasure greater than any other he had visited. 

Caius was a well travelled man. He had explored many ruins and gone questing for many artifacts and treasures. He had held treasures that were rare and great enough to make him a king. He had unearthed mountains of gold and jewels. And as much as he had gained, he had lost even more. If everything went well, he hoped that this adventure would yield enough of a profit for him to purchase one of the lesser cities and retire. All that he had to do was find a great-stone for his client and a few lesser stones for himself. All other treasure could be left for another day. After all, Caius was not some average treasure hunter. He was a Hunter, and he would not lower himself and waste time on the simple treasures that others sought after. 

Within several minutes Caius topped the rise that he had been climbing and found himself staring down at the great Dwarven ruins of Dal ghar'Dhul. The location of these ruins was no great secret. This had been one of the greatest of the Dwarven settlements. The once great city, now just ruins, had been built over almost a full square mile. It was not very impressive when viewed from above, but that was how all Dwarven settlements were. By Dwarven standards, this was a massive ruin. 

The Dwarves had died out long ago, their history long forgotten and their culture and existence nothing more than a mythical shade, a memory long forgotten by the land. But many of their greater cities remained, and while the sections that had been built above ground stood in ruins, the lower levels were in much better shape. That was how the Dwarves had built. They had small above ground structures, ones built of necessity for they had not seemed to enjoy the light of the sun and moon. Below every city were caverns and tunnels that spanned great distances and went to unmeasured depths. 

All of the texts and the lore of Dwarven culture, everything that had been discovered about them, mentioned the greatness of the city of Dal ghar'Dhul. It was said that it was one of their greatest accomplishments. The city of the Dwarven forges, the place where all things were made, and the vault of their most sacred treasures. 

Naturally, the ruins had drawn the attention of every adventurer and treasure hunter from far and wide. It had taken nearly twenty years for anyone to discover the path to the underground tunnels, many of which were caved in and filled with numerous traps and intricate puzzles designed to keep safe the treasures that were hidden. But years of searching yielded no such treasures, only miles and miles of underground tunnels filled with metals and alloys and any number of worthless artifacts. The scholars had dubbed it the greatest treasury ever found, but Caius was not interested in history. The Dwarves were extinct and their culture, no matter how interesting, meant little to him. 

Now, almost a century after the underground tunnels had been discovered and a half century after the ruins had been abandoned by the likes of treasure hunters, Caius looked upon the ruins with a sense of hope and wonder and no small amount of avarice.

It was time to discover whether or not his trip would be worth the effort and the money.

Thanks for reading through to the end. That's all I have to give away for the preview. I hope that everyone enjoys the story when it finally gets published.

P.S. - If anyone thinks of a great title for this story, let me know. I've been calling it Treasure Hunter, but that's super bland and boring. I need something with more oomph! Maybe I should pay someone else to name the things I write, cause I always seem to come up with terrible titles.

P.P.S. - Any spelling errors that you find are totally on purpose. But just to verify that you found them all, call them out.

On writing my book

Ever since I started using Scrivener as my writing tool, I have been writing most of my scenes and chapters out of order. I was doing that before, but not to the extent that I am now. It has led to some interesting difficulties, but it has also proved very fun and helpful. I think it has helped my writing.

One thing that I hadn't considered/noticed until recently is that writing a scene independant of the before and after allows you to focus on what has happened and how a character should be acting at the given moment. Are they mad because they just lost a fight? Annoyed because things aren't working out for them? Are they still feeling depressed as they have throughout the book, and if so how strongly is that emotion now? Because I have to consider these things (far moreso than if I were writing chronologically) the events of the book have a more noticeable impact on a character's emotions and their emotional development is more pronounced. I like it (but then again I almost always like my own writing).

I have also run into a problem where small plot points are becoming an issue. Since I am writing scenes late in the book, I haven't finalized all of the small details of what has happened. A great example of this is that when Rowan arrives in Leor, he will find free public housing for himself. But I still haven't decided whether he starts fending for himself once he arrives or if he spends some time living with an acquaintance first. So as I write the scene where he would start living on his own (if he hadn't already) I have to pause and make a decision that should have already happened.

I know I'm an author, but sometimes I really don't like making decisions. Particularly the small, meaningless decisions. I always plan out both options and get attached to each one. So what I really need to do is plan out everything now so I don't have to deal with decisions later (side note: I have planned out the plot, just not the small details).

On another note, I was talking with Carissa last night about a minor character from book 1 who is becoming an important charracter in the second book. She made mention of how problematic it is to have minor characters develop a life of their own and grow beyond their intended role. This of course led to a discussion in which I mentioned a few other minor characters who were nameless and wouldn't ever come back. Then, in typical fashion, I grew very attached to them and found the perfect way for them to come back into the story as a relevant character. She laughs. I laugh. Then I curse myself for creating more work.

Starting Instagram for Author Life Month

A few days ago Carissa read a blog about author life month. She promptly told me about it and said I should create an Instagram account and participate.

I was a bit hesitant at first because while I have had the Instagram app on my phone since I got it, I'd never actually used Instagram. Also, I had a hard time imagining how I could post a lot of pictures relating to my book. On top of that, I am not the best at social media (Carissa says I am sporadic and will post a lot of stuff at once and then stop for a while).

But I am an adventurous person, so I agreed to participate.

The basic idea is to post a picture each day of February and tag it with #AuthorLifeMonth. Each day has a specific prompt, such as your current WIP or the cover of your book. It's actually really cool, and I've surprised myself by being more consistent with my posts. I've found it much easier to post pictures than tweets as you don't have to write anything (but if you do, the image you're posting serves as a prompt).

It definitely helps that I browse sites like Imgur and Reddit and often save posts that inspire me. I can repost old pics to instagram easily (yes, I know it's cheating).

So far I've done well on instagram in terms of book promotion and stuff. We'll see if I keep it up after February.

For those interested, my Instagram is knights_journey (same as Twitter).

Review of "Way of Kings"

I am currently listening to the audio-book of Brandon Sanderson's "The Way of Kings." I've read the book before, and I have at least a hundred other new books to read so I shouldn't be spending my reading time listening to it, but I can't help myself. It's really good. Plus, I just moved and I don't have most of my books (that's mostly true).

So while I am listening to it, I thought I would write up a book review and post it. I don't know how well this will go, as I am extremely biased because this book is just that good and I love Brandon Sanderson('s writing). But I will do my best to not just gush over the book.

The first thing I should say about Way of Kings is that it is ungodly long. Like really long. Longer than Game of Thrones. It is a massive novel and it is the first in a series that is still in-progress. Last I checked, Sanderson was planning to write ten books in the series. So yeah...there's that. It's also high fantasy, but that's kinda my thing. It's what I'm into.

Way of Kings is about two main characters: Kaladin and Shallan. It starts off, however, with a prologue featuring an assassin named Szeth (after a seperate prologue for the series as a whole). Szeth is really cool, but we get very little from him beyond the opening chapter and a few others. The story is really about the other characters.

Sanderson takes a very interesting approach in that he introduces both characters (separately) at a point in time and over the course of the books tells their relevant backstories. With Kaladin, we meet him for a chapter and then immediately jump forward several years following a significant and life changing event. The story continues from this point in time, hinting at what happened to him but focusing initially only on flashbacks to his youth that lead up to where we first saw him. This can be quite frustrating at time because you want to know what happened, but Sanderson does a great job of keeping the story interesting and never leaving out details that you need to know. His pacing is well done, if incredibly long, and his word-building is amazing. In fact, that is probably what I enjoyed the most about the book.

The world in which this story takes place is incredibly well fleshed out, and that is very apparent. We see multiple countries and cultures with numerous races. There are entire belief systems that are well defined and interesting. Culturally, people with light eyes are the nobility (an interesting concept). What I appreciate the most is that you never feel like you are just being told about the world because you need to know. There isn't any needless exposition and there isn't some foreign character who is there just to receive detailed explanations about culture, history, and other stuff. You just sort of pick up the details as you read.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys fantasy books and isn't daunted by the size of the book. It is definitely a long one, but if you are able and willing to work your way through it the story is worth it. I also recommend the audio-book for this series, as it is very well read (though it is 45 hours long).

Alex can't be trusted with money

So I bought a lightsaber as a reward for finishing Nanowrimo. This is no $20 toy lightsaber. No. I decided to buy a high end +$100 lightsaber from a website called ultrasabers.com (for those interested, I got the Dark Initiate V4). It's a red saber and it just arrived.

It's awesome and I don't regret my purchase at all. I kind of wish I had sprung for sound, but that was an extra lot of money and I am happy with what I have (though I want another one or two). This lightsaber has become the single coolest thing ever. I carry it with me most of the time and use it as the world's coolest flashlight. There is nothing more fun than walking outside in the dark and igniting a lightsaber. My neighbors probably think I am a little weird, but whatever. I have a lightsaber and they don't, so who's the real winner here?

Playing a new game

So I recently (if December is still considered recent) got some new board games. Carissa says I/we got a lot of board games—perhaps too many. I say differently, because you can never have too many board games (just like you can never have too many books). One of my new games is called Letters from Whitechapel and it is a game that I recently tried out with Carissa.

Letters from Whitechapel (LfW from now on) is a game set in old-timey London in which one person gets to be Jack the Ripper and one person (or multiple people if you have friends) gets to play as the police. It's got a massive board that looks like a city map and on every street are spaces  for movement. The goal for Jack is to murder his victims and make it back home for tea, and the police try to catch him or find out where his hideout is.

The trick is that Jack isn't moving on the board. The player tracks his movements secretly (all the spaces are numbered). The police can't see him, but they can search for clues to find out if he has visited a space or not. And because Jack leaves a body, they know where he started from. If Jack is ever surrounded, he instantly loses.

So Carissa and I start out our first game and she immediately regrets her decision to play the police. When you start out you really just have your own little police meeples on a board and you randomly start moving around and making guesses (it can be really time-consuming if you track your moves, which Carissa does).

Before I go on, I should explain one rule. When police look for Jack, they choose a space near their person and they can either search for clues to see if Jack has been there or they can make an arrest and if Jack is there he loses. You can only do one.

So back to the game, I start by moving Jack. Carissa randomly makes one move and arrests me. On the first turn. Game over. Done. End. Finished.

So that went by pretty quick.

The second game lasted much longer and was way more fun. It took a long time, but the police ended up winning the game at the very end by surrounding my (Jack's) hideout so I couldn't go home.

In summary, I bought a game and it was pretty fun. It works really well as a two player game, but definitely know that you are getting into a long and in-depth game. I would compare it to a very elaborate version of the game Mastermind.

Writing a Foreign Tongue

So throughout book two of the Knight's Journey I have been introducing a lot of new characters. With Rowan travelling to Lauratrea, many of these characters are Lauratrean. I'm having a blast with it because I can play with the new characters and give them strange cultural mannerisms and stuff. I can also make them speak in another language.

Now this was really fun at first. I got to make up a way of speaking and create new words that sound cool. I made my own curses too (obviously that was the first thing I did). But it got really difficult really fast, and not just in the obvious ways. Yes it is difficult to create a new language with its own sentence structure, words, and all the other wordy meat that makes up a language. I cheated and used English as a base and just changed the words and sentence structure. Not to hard. It's basically like writing pig-latin where you mess with the words, but can still sort of tell what was being said originally. But even so, it's really annoying to stop in the middle of typing normally and then start slowly typing a single sentence, creating about half of the words as I go.

I suppose I could just highlight those sentences as I go and translate them later, but no. I won't do that. I like to have things done as I do them so I don't have to come back later. Besides, there's the annoying hassle of having some characters who speak both languages and switch back and forth. They even do it mid-conversation sometimes. I'm actually starting to hate them for it, because they make my life difficult.

So here's the kicker: I've got like three chapters where Rowan is travelling with a group (all Lauratrean) and he doesn't know the language.

Now obviously Rowan is going to need to learn the Lauratrean language. Otherwise I am going to have an entire book with him interacting only by gesturing and drawing crude pictures (Rowan can't draw to save his life). So yeah, he needs to learn Lauratrean. It'll make his life easier and my life easier (I care more about mine than his though). Also, once he learns the language I can write dialogue that is in the language without translating it because he will understand the words (most of them at least).

But I still have a bunch of scenes where people are talking and arguing and none of it will make much sense to the reader. So I guess I'll have to do something about that.

At least now I can curse in my own language.

tch'ek