In March of 2018, after a four-year journey of drafts, rewrites, notes on pieces of scrap paper, and some decent-sized edits, I published, via Kindle Direct Publishing, The Blue Gem.
A little over a year later, after taking another pass through the novel with edits, a few additions, and some deleting and tweaking, I finally got around to converting the manuscript for a paperback release.
The Blue Gem, book 1 in the "Magic of Crieo" series, is the second fantasy novel I've self-published. The first, The Dragon Princess, was published back in the summer of 2014, initially only via download but later converted to paperback in 2018.
The literary world of fantasy has been prevalent in my life, since a young age when I was introduced to the worlds created by Terry Brooks (the Shannara series) and J.R.R. Tolkien (The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings). Books by these authors have had heavy influence on my imagination as has a love of history, mostly of the medieval variety.
A hero's journey figures mightily in my stories and it's safe to say the structure of my books is similar in style to these epic fantasy novels of old. In ways, part of my youth was spent dreaming up these stories, taking shape as I grew older, and finally coming to fruition over the past five years or so.
And the journey continues with The Dragon Slayer, part two in the "Magic of Crieo" series. I started the first draft of this book in April of 2018. Editing The Blue Gem has found me in the fantasy-writing mood again as I recently completed the fifth chapter of The Dragon Slayer last weekend.
No promises as to when this third book will be available but hopefully by this time next year The Dragon Slayer will be available. I mean, the first book took me over 20 years to complete and the second book took me just over four. So two years should be a nice number to settle on.
Just don't quote me on that.
Writing in other realms
By realms, I mean other genres.
There wasn't a lot of that over the last month. Most of the month was spent editing the novel. Outside of that, I seemed to live in the world of college basketball, men's and women's.
The Boise State Broncos women's basketball team again made it to the NCAA tournament, losing a close game in the first round. And I've been deep into the world of march madness, writing quite a few articles about the men's side of things over on my blog.
I did manage a few pages on other projects, but progress was kind of sporadic in most regards.
Around the Treasure Valley in April
Treefort 2019 has come and gone, closing out a busy month of entertainment around the Treasure Valley in March.
That doesn't mean the month of April is completely quiet.
- The Gene Harris Jazz Festival is taking place at Boise State University and other local venues on April 4 and April 5.
- Story, Story Night presents: Helium. This April 30 performance is the final show of their Flagship Season and is also their 9th Birthday celebration.
- On April 8, Kegs 4 Kause is having a fundraiser in support of Dance for Parkinson's Idaho. This event will take place at Payette Brewing and 50% of beer sales between 5 pm and 10 pm will be donated to this cause.
- The world premiere of Rabbit/Moon by Dwayne Blackaller and Matthew Cameron Clark will be at Boise Contemporary Theater, running April 17 to May 4.
Thanks for stopping by this month (and for your support). We'll see you around the bend.
Be bold. Be kind.