Inquisitor part 3 published this morning

 I wrote part 3 of Inquisitor this morning and posted it to all 3 places I usually do (Inkitt, Royal Road, and Wattpad). I will eventually switch to a Monday and Thursday update schedule but in the beginning I want to be sure I have enough content while it's still considered "new" to pick up some readers.

Overall, I'm having a good time writing this story out. I had been thinking about it off and on for years but I only recently decided to place it in the same universe of my other two stories but I think it fits perfectly here.

New story: Inquisitor

 I have begun work on a new story, "Inquisitor". It follows a young man named Alexander, a member of an order dedicated to protecting the values of the Tarid Empire. He is also a Caller, born with the rare ability to subtly influence that unseen forces that govern the world. Stationed in a remote outpost with his mentor Marcus, Alexander's quiet life of dealing with petty crimes enforcing the Empire's laws is soon disturbed by rumors of disappearances, murders, and a surge in mystery cults defying the Empire's atheist philosophy. Alexander is drawn into events that threaten everything he has ever known or believed.

Cover below is something I whipped up:

It's set in the same world as my other stories around the same time as the events of A Sky Pirate's last Flight. It takes place in the northernmost province of the island ruled by the Tarid Empire, west of the kingdom of Wollema.

Current plan is to update every Monday and Thursday, though I may update a bit more frequently in the beginning just to establish a backlog of content. It's a story I've been kicking around for years.

It can be read in the usual places:

Inkitt

Royal Road

Wattpad

Isaac, the First Sky Pirate

 I've been updating my Facebook page with each new post but haven't been updating here. I'm up to 10 chapter on Isaac, the First Sky Pirate now. I changed the name from "Isaac, Shield-Bearer" over the weekend to be a bit more interesting and to be more indicative of where the story is heading.

Isaac, The First Sky Pirate can be found at the following locations:

Inkitt

Wattpad

Royal Road

Isaac, Shield Bearer part 2

 I finished part 2 of Isaac, Shield Bearer. Still need to come up with a catchier title but it'll do for now. I'm having a lot of fun writing this story and I think I've struck a decent balance between the two extremes I usually take of "just start writing and figure out where it goes along the way" and "have every detailed planned out from beginning to end before you write a word." I have the outline of where the story will go but it's broad enough I can change things as I write.

Inkitt

Wattpad

And now up on Royal Road:

Part 1

Part 2

Update on latest story

I felt the pull of perfectionism creeping in again. This morning was the third time I had sat down and wrote the first part of (working title) Isaac, Shield Bearer. I kept starting the chapter, writing a few paragraphs, then deleting everything and starting over. It's the trap I always fall into when I start writing, I want to have everything reach some impossible standard and end up posting nothing.

So I finally forced myself to go back to my original self-imposed challenge: post whatever I can write in a single sitting each morning with no chance to just leave it in draft until I polish it. I slapped together a cover and now I've got just shy of a thousand words written. I'll eventually come back and polish things, or maybe do what I did with Sky Pirate and rewrite the entire thing once the rough draft is done, but I want to at least have content coming out.

Inkitt

Wattpad

Submitted to Royal Road, pending approval

Rewriting By sun or Sword progress

 Progress on the rewrite of By sun or Sword is going well. A lot of time is being spent planning out the storyline. Historically I've tended to just get an idea and jump in, figuring things out as I go along. Sometimes this has worked for me, even in the case of A sky pirate's last Flight I 'discovered' a lot of the story in the process of writing and rewriting it. However, I think Isaac's story is going to be longer than Nathaniel's and I want to be sure I have a good outline of what's going to happen between beginning and end.

One thing I'll need is a new title. Originally, the story covered Isaac's side deciding to use a magically induced heatwave and drought to help drive out the invading Tarid empire, or soften them up to be defeated in battle. The new version of the story takes place after the Great War ended, Isaac discharged from service and trying to survive in a world dealing with the aftermath of magic interference with the weather on an unprecedented scale as well as the natural consequences of a war that started as a standard medieval "swords, shields, pikes, and bows" style of fighting and ended with guns, cannons, steam-powered vehicles, and the advent of airships. Famine caused by farmers being conscripted and killed in battle, the loss of the Callers whose magic ensured good crops, and the disrupted weather all make for a dangerous and hostile world. The story now focuses more heavily on Isaac's attempt to find a place to fit in and survive the hostile, dangerous world he finds himself in after spending decades in the army.

I'll also be getting a better quality cover for this story. Nothing too crazy but I don't want to turn people off with the low effort, slapped together covers I've been using.

Restarting "By sun and Sword" and other story ideas

 I had written part 5 of "By sun and Sword" this morning but decided to just unpublish it on my various platforms. I found Isaac lacked depth as a character and the story itself felt very dry, like a non-scholar's attempt to write a war documentary.

I unpublished the story on the various platforms I use (Inkitt, Wattpad, Royal Road) but I'll leave the drafts up here on my blog. I'm going to restart the story from the beginning, except I'm going to start a couple of years after the Tarid invasion. It will still follow Isaac but the scenario will give him more opportunity to come through as a character, and the social upheaval that will come following the introduction of steam-powered machines, new weapons, and the beginning of widespread use of Aether will allow for more interesting things to happen.

Further down the line I have more story ideas I'm fleshing out, all set in the same world. One will follow a pseudo-Viking raider named Rolog. He's one of the northmen that Isaac mentions. Rolog will be motivated by a desire to perform great deeds worth of being written in a god's book to be read to the rest of the pantheon after he dies, the record of his life determining how he fares in the afterlife. 

I have more in the works, the largest is set in the same universe but focused on the island home of the Tarid empire. Following the Great War, Tarid society experiences great upheaval as mystery cults take root in the disillusioned populace. An inquisitor attempts to maintain the values of the empire and keep order in the face of rising chaos.