Distractions and stupid payment changes

Hello guys! After remodeling my blog and not posting anything for months, an update surely couldn't hurt. So here's one! Unfortunately, I cannot claim to have finished the revision of A Decaying World. Why? Because I haven't touched it in a month. Instead, I decided to work on other projects instead, some of which you can see in the sidebar now. All of these (except for Spam Up your Life) can be found on Kindle Unlimited ... which might not be worth it anymore. It's certainly better than selling nothing, but if the payment actually turns out to be $0.005/page, then it's simply a joke.

Sure, it means long form writers can potentially earn more (while everyone else gets peanuts), but that's assuming readers get through enough of the book. If they don't, you're also going to lose out. Having to get through 10% was a lot better in that regard. The payments might not have been sustainable, but Amazon should have come up with a better system. Like paying a flat rate for every borrow and then adding bonuses for a certain amount of pages or whatever. Would certainly be better than the stupid system they've got now.

Despite all that, I'll keep my serials exclusive to Amazon right now. Death Zone of Dheygar still needs a lot of stories before I can even think of creating a bundle anyway. The Way of Darkness might be easier in that regard, especially since I've changed my rhythm to allow for 3000-4000 words a day. No idea how long the second volume is going to be, though.

Sadly, I've already forgotten where the idea for Death Zones of Dheygar came from. Shouldn't have waited so long to post something about it. The Way of Darkness, on the other hand, has been inspired by a game I've played some time ago. It didn't have much in terms of plot, so all I took was the basic premise—a world consumed by darkness.

Since someone will surely claim I stole the protagonist's weapons from Wolverine: nope. Sure, they're almost identical, but I didn't even think of that. All I wanted was an unsual weapon, especially since most of my characters use swords.

So if you're interested in horror, why not check out Death Zones of Dheygar? And if you want more fantasy instead, The Way of Darkness will hopefully deliver! I'll try to focus on the latter now, with occasional glances at A Decaying World. So it might still take a while for the first book in the Mortaevum series to be released. But hey, it's my first actual book. One where I had to change a lot during the last two revisions. So having the release pushed back might not be such a bad thing.

The state of A Decaying World's revision

How long has it been since my last update? Two and a half months? Oh well. No point in writing any posts when I don't have much to say. You can get more updates on twitter, but still not all that many.

Anyway, what I have achieved since my last update? I've finished revising everything up to chapter 9, which means I got rid of a lot of useless exposition and hopefully tightened up the prose. It might have led to a few sudden scene transitions, but I'll see about that later on. Really need to get the revision done first.

If everything goes well, I could finish the remaining 44K words in the latter half of May. I don't expect that to happen, though. Why? Because of all the fighting going on at the end. Chapter 9 has been quite an ordeal in that regard, as it took me almost a week to get the ending done. I really wasn't happy with how the original turned out, so I had to rewrite basically the entire finale.

So yeah, I might be done in May, but more likely in June. But that's when I really need to finish this, as I also need to look over it once more (especially since I tend to omit words way too often) and hopefully get some input from beta readers. The first revision wasn't exactly fruitful in that regard. I don't think anyone read more than the first few chapters, with most never even giving any feedback.

And that's about it for now. Haven't really managed to write much else, as I'm also busy writing a lot of reviews. But I'll get to that when the revision is done. There's no need to finish the second half of the book just yet. Would be nice, of course, especially for anyone that hates cliffhangers. But I really want to get more stuff out there. Most likely on Kindle Unlimited, as it might be a better platform for short stories and novellas.

February Update

While the second revision of the first half of A Decaying World will still take some time, I've decided to slightly redesign the Published eBooks-Page. Whereas earlier, every cover would link you to a different page, they now serve as anchor-links as I've put every summary and link on the same page.

The summaries themselves will surely be changed, as some of them aren't that good, but that can wait. Might also change the way everything's displayed later on, as I'm never really satisfied.

I've also created a new twitter-account for my writing, as my main account is mostly written in German, which might not be that interesting for those of you who can't understand it.

And I've removed the link to my Patreon-campaign, as I'm not writing nearly enough to justify having it. Maybe I'll get back to it later on.

That's about it, for now. I'll try to get the revision done in less time than before, but I can't promise anything.

Plans for 2015

Guess it couldn't hurt to post something once in a while. It's only been 21 days since the beginning of the year! Anyway, there won't be any new chapters for a while, as I'm trying to focus on the second revision of the first half of A Decaying World. What will this revision entail?

• Everything written in first person will be changed to third person
• I might give Drake's sword an actual name. Constantly calling it the shadow sword doesn't sound all that interesting.
• The interlude between Chapter 4 and 5 has been removed
• Chapter 10: Calm Before the Storm will almost be entirely rewritten and tightened up, as there's too much stuff happening that isn't really necessary
• And I'm obviously trying to improve upon the writing wherever it seems necessary, like removing pointless adverbs and stuff.

I think that's about it. It could take me a month or two, if I don't keep slacking off. But I can't make any promises. Especially since I might start working on another project I've come up with some time ago. It's called Lifelines and might work well as a serial. But as with Loop, I'm not going to post it on my blog, at least not all of it. So don't expect too much new content in the coming weeks.

 

If everything goes well, I will release the first half of A Decaying World sometime this year. And maybe even the second, if I manage to finish it anytime soon. Which I'm not going to be able to do while working on the revision. 

 

I'm also trying to get Loop finished, as it's not that long of a story, which should make revising it a little bit easier. But that remains to be seen, as the Lifeline concept seems more intriguing at the moment.

So yeah, that's all for now. Till next time!

A Decaying World Chapter 22: The Asen Fall

And here's the final chapter for this year. Be aware, that this is more of a draft than any of the chapters before. I normally edit these before posting them, but there's not enough time left before my vacation. There's also going to be another short story today. Didn't want to post these all at once, but that's just how it happened.

 

Chapter 22: The Asen Fall

From atop the hill overlooking the Sanctuary, only a small fraction of Mimeidr could be seen. No tree in existence could ever have hope to challenge its splendor. Neither in a thousand years, nor in a billion. Its sprawling crown had loomed over Meceruun's soil long before life decided to crawl from the oceans. Its position had changed over the aeons, however, as was evident by the ruins crushed beneath its roots. They disturbed the tree's precarious balance and gave its form a crooked appearance. Not that anyone would have noticed from up close.

Pulsing light emanated from Mimeidr's bark, invisible to the naked eye. It traveled across the land to confront the approaching darkness. Yet halfway there, the power waned and fizzled out. The tree had simply exhausted too much of his power. And the longer it tried to hold oblivion at bay, the more of its leaves withered away.

Looking at the fields leading up to the tree revealed a more immediate threat, however. An army of darkelves had surged up from beneath. They were dressed for battle and armed to the teeth, with swords and spears and claws and flails. Similarly dressed lizards were scattered through their ranks, only made visible due to their impressive size of at least 8 feet.

A beast made of wood and earth, with white moss spread out like hair, clombered along behind the army. Its body consisted of two giant faces opposing each other, with noses long enough to impale a human from top to bottom. They had no mouths to speak of, as that area was connected to small, tendril-like arms holding onto giant spheres with eyeballs in their center. Yellow, pulsing veins covered their circumference like a net.

Corpses of their surface-dwelling brothers lay in the darkelves' wake. Most seemed to have died without being able to offer resistance. More of them were gathered in front of Mimeidr and preparing for battle, despite being severely outnumbered. A group of mages sat around the entrance to the sanctuary, with their fingers were interlocked and their eyes closed. Whatever they were planning could not yet be deduced.

The thunder of the army's footsteps suddenly came to a halt. Two pillars broke through the ground and a dome of darkness expanded from within. It remained for about five seconds before fading away, unveiling Ri'zzar's bandaged form.

Crimson light emanated from within the Splinter of Desolation and forced the army to back away, lest they be consumed by its power. Ri'zzar clenched his fist to dim its influence and peered at the elves gathered in front of Mimeidr. They talked to each other in hushed whispers and held their weapons at the ready, apparently realizing that the time of battle drew near.

“Where did these maggots come from?” said Ri'zzar into the void.

A darkelf dressed in obsidian armor squeezed himself through the ranks and stepped onto Ri'zzar's right, avoiding the Splinter.

“They must have sought shelter after seeing Golgotha rise again.”

Ri'zzar chuckled and the Splinter flashed. His voice echoed across the field like the laughter of a demon. Some of the elves backed away, looking at each other in fright.

“As if the crippled spirit of Mimeidr could save them.” He raised his left hand and stared at the fire burning within the Splinter. “I could put them out of their misery with only a thought. But I can't afford to waste the power that I need to destroy the tree.” He clenched his fist shut again and turned his head to look into the unseeing eyes of the army's commander. “Crush them and stop anyone who tries to enter the Sanctuary. I cannot afford to be disturbed.”

A wide smile crept onto the commander's face. “As you wish.” He drew his sword and raised it high. Darkness trailed behind. “They've driven us into the darkness to silence our faith. Yet we grew stronger, even when robbed of our sight. They had to sacrifice Elvone just to kept themselves afloat. But now the time of reckoning has come.” He swung his sword forward. “Kill every single one of them and the surface will be ours again!”

The bandages around Ri'zzar's mouth deformed into the hint of a vicious smile. Opening his hand once more transformed him into a flash of light that shot past the elves and penetrated the barrier erected around Mimeidr's Sanctuary. It took him only the fraction of a second, therefore preventing anyone from noticing his passing. The army now charging towards them was too much of a distraction anyway.