Wednesday, September 9, 2015

The second volume of The Way of Darkness has been released ... some days ago. Sorry for not writing a post back then, but I'm still too busy with lots of other stuff, which also prevents me from going through the last two chapters of A Decaying World. No idea how long it's going to take, but at the current rate, I'll expect a few more months, as I need to repay some student loans. Or rather I'm forced to do so, for the second time now, as I've suddenly never been eligible to receive them in the first place ... right~

Anyway, I wanted to release the second volume about a month ago, but then I got stuck when going through it again, went on vacation, got depressed, had to focus on working on the loans again ... so yeah, kinda annoying, especially with all those ideas floating through my head. Haven't even started the third volume yet. Would make more sense for a serial, but I simply can't spare the time till the loan-story is out of the world.

Beyond the Mist was supposed to be a rather simple continuation to the first volume. But then it got bigger. And more epic. Might seem out of the place so soon into the story, but that's simply how it went. The third might be a little more down to earth. Or maybe not ... who knows? I certainly don't, as all I've planned are some of the more important facts. Everything else is a surprise even to me. Mortaevum is similar, but has a lot more cornerstones. Mostly because it was a game before it became a novel.

And that's about everything I wanted to talk about. So if you're interested in the second volume, click on the following image. And if you'd rather wait till it's complete: be my guest. I don't like having to wait either.

http://a-fwd.com/s=Beyond+Mist+Jack+de+Nileth&asin=B014QARDTU

Sunday, July 5, 2015

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.

Horror SerialSerial HorrorDeath Zones of DheygarWay of Darkness

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.

Thursday, April 30, 2015

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.

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

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.

Wednesday, January 21, 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!