Well, that was an interesting month.
A new job has meant longer hours – well, hours of the same length really, just far more of them – while life also decided to throw up a few personal issues to contend with. All of which means the writing has had to take something of a backseat.
That’s okay though. Life goes on, and so will the writing.
Given the lack of progress, I thought we’d forget this month’s progress report and focus instead on the SPFBO’s big kick off, which got underway today.
For those who don’t know, I entered The Ember Child into the Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off (SPFBO) 2018 back in June, and the competition officially started today.
Basically, that means the various blogs involved (info can be found here and here) will be sifting through their groups to find the gems they want to put forward as their finalist. Reviews and summaries will be popping up all over the place, but if you’re interested in how I get on, or the fantasy genre in general, I advise you to keep an eye on booknest.eu, who were the fortunate victims inflicted with The Ember Child.
As part of the process, I was also recently interviewed by a fellow contestant, Michael Baker, on his blog thousandscarsblog. The interview, in which I talk about my writing, my submission to the SPFBO, and my future projects, can be found here.
In celebration of the big kick off, many of the authors have put their entries for SPFBO on sale at 99p/99c. Again, if you’re a fan of fantasy, you should check it out over on Andrea Domanski’s blog. Sadly, I’m unable to join the deal having already run one quite recently on Amazon myself, but I’m positive everyone could find a few books in that list to match their tastes. If not, this one is definitely worth checking out, even though it costs real monies right now:
So there it is. The game is afoot. Wish me good fortune in the wars to come, friendos!
Now, before I sign off, here are a few words from this month’s work. I spent a bit of time working on a short story offering a little background to Kirea, one of the characters in The Ember Child, with the plan being to create a collection of similar tales:
Kirea felt tears in her eyes; the kind that heralds a breaking storm. Rather than let them flow, she did what her father had taught. She wiped them away before he could see, swallowed down the emotions threatening to overwhelm her, and focused on the anger.
Tears were weakness, she knew. And there was no place for weakness in Danara.
Tony
1st August 2018
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