Newsletter: Closing Out the Year
RABFAN Roundup, plus some exciting news for book two
Merry Christmas, folks. I know it’s not for another two weeks, but my tree’s been up since early November and I’m already halfway through my list of Christmas movies. I mailed out the last of the gifts this week, and I think I’m on my second or third carton of egg nog, so it’s safe to say that I’ve been in the spirit of the thing for a while now.
There’s a prevailing sentiment that there’s such a thing as Too Much Christmas, which is absolutely true—for people who celebrate it the wrong way. I believe, wholeheartedly, that we live in a world with Too Much Commercialism, Too Much Waste, Too Much Greed, and Too Much Canned Pop Music.
But what do any of those things have to do with Christmas?
When Ebenezer Scrooge vowed in A Christmas Carol to “honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year,” he wasn’t talking about jamming Mariah Carey tracks in September or buying cheap plastic shit for your cousin’s kids to throw away. He was talking about the basic human concepts of Charity, Generosity, and Kindness for your “fellow passengers to the grave” (one of my favorite lines in any book, ever).
Too much Christmas? Humbug. It gets cold and dark in November. Let’s put up some lights and bake each other cookies.
Read a Book, Feed a Neighbor
Speaking of charity, the numbers have started to roll in for last month’s food bank drive. For those who missed the post, a group of authors banded together and pledged their November royalties to their local food banks. We had a total of 13 participating authors across 7 states, and I’m deeply grateful to everyone who chipped in to help.
For most of us, November was a slow month, so book sales either held steady or dipped slightly compared to previous months. Most of the authors rounded up their donations, which puts us at an estimated $877, with a few folks still waiting for our sales reports to come in. I’m guessing we cleared the $1,000 mark, but probably not by much.
While that definitely isn’t quit-your-job money, even small gifts at a crucial time can go a long way. My local food bank says that it can provide two meals for every dollar donated, which puts us at about 2,000 meals (rounding up because a lot of the donations landed on Giving Tuesday). Doing some rough napkin math, that’s three meals a day for a family of four for… 166 days.
If you don’t believe that has an impact, walk up to a family of four and offer to buy their groceries for the next five months. (Warning: People will think you’re weird for doing this. But they’ll also probably thank you.)
Book Two Announcement
Last week, I announced that I’d finished the first draft of book two, tentatively titled The Hope and the Ruin. This book picks up a few years after Company of Ghosts with a mostly-new cast of characters as they attempt to build a settlement in the ruins of their abandoned homeland.
As you might expect, it goes very, very well (until it doesn’t).
Where the first book dealt with altered historical records in the immediate aftermath of a low-magic fantasy civil war, this book zooms out a lot further, delving into the cataclysm that sent the Kerrans across the ocean in the first place and their attempts to reconcile the sins of their collective past.
I decided early on that each book was going to serve as a primary, in-world source for an important chapter in this world’s history. I think it’s a cool approach, and it gives me a lot of flexibility to make changes between books, but it does come with some drawbacks.
Book two has much darker tones than the first, to the extent that it might alienate some readers who enjoyed the first book. It’s also written as a third-person account rather than a first-person memoir, and has very little overlap with the events of the first book.
I’m pretty sure any one of these points would earn a veto from an agent or a publisher, but as a self-pubbed author, I don’t have to ask anyone’s permission. I can do what I want, and this is how I want to write book two.
Upcoming Milestones
I thought I’d post a quick overview of my writing process and some milestones for next year. I’m never going to be a prolific author, but at the very least, I can try to set reasonable expectations and meet my own deadlines.
December-January: Two month break so I can reread the story with fresh eyes. Stephen King says to take two months off after the first draft, and I don’t argue with the King.
February-April: First reread and an initial pass to tweak major character arcs and sew up plot holes. At this stage, I’m mostly trying to make sure that the plot and characters coalesce around a central theme.
May: Another month off. I usually take a hiatus from posting around this time as well.
June-July: A third draft, where I focus more on language, voice, and tone. This is the draft I’ll deliver to some beta readers for feedback.
After this, the timeline starts to depend on others’ availability, and I don’t have as much say in the schedule. I’m still aiming for a Summer 2027 release date, but I’ll post here if there are any changes.
Finally, Some Personal News
I started playing the harp about two years ago (at the ripe old age of 36). I don’t talk about it much on my writing blog because I approach writing and playing music very differently. When I write, my goal is to impress. The audience’s reaction is essential to the process.
Music, on the other hand, is my safe space. I don’t want to think about posting schedules or subscriber counts or what the audience wants. I just want to play songs that I enjoy.
Most of the time, that’s traditional Irish music. I got a Turlough O’Carolan songbook for my birthday, which I’ve been working through little by little. Irish music is typically written in G or D major (or their relative minors), which means I tune the harp to C major. When I play a song in G, I flip the levers up on all the F strings. When I play a song in D, I also flip the levers up on all the C strings.
Since I only have access to naturals and sharps, I can’t play music in any key that requires a flat note. F major is out of luck, and you can forget about E-flat major.
But! One of the cool things about being a musician is that you meet other musicians, and sometimes those other musicians will let you borrow instruments. This happened a few weeks ago, when my friends dropped off a 36-string harp for me to play with.
I’ve already tuned it down to E-flat major, which opens up a huge number of keys that were impossible on my old harp. Notably: B-flat major, C minor, D minor, E-flat major, F major, and G minor (also A-flat Lydian, which has never been used in the history of music).
Unless you’re a music theory nerd, this was probably really boring to read, but it’s exciting news for some people!
Thanks for your work organizing! You should feel proud of the accomplishment 🙌. And congrats on finishing the draft of Book 2, I really need to get to reading Book 1!