Hello 2020!
As I reflect back on 2019, the most gratifying events as they relate to "The Verdan Chronicles" is publishing "Whisper in the Universe" and discovering more people interested in the story. Perhaps there is a wider audience out there...maybe.
I don't normally interject my personal life into these blogs, but need to say a few things, since it will impact the ongoing story. The Verdan Chronicles was born in my head back in the early 1980s. A couple hundred pages were written and then life sort of took over. About 12 years ago I became determined to finish the story and see where it led. Ten books later I've completed the original story, but the world I created continued to evolve and thus the lives of Celecia and Dakoran continue. So here we are.
"The Verdan Chronicles" is a personal passion, but it doesn't pay the bills. For that I had a "day job" that I also enjoyed for nearly 40 years. I thought it would continue until the time was right for me to retire. My employer had other ideas and decided to move my position to another city 2 1/2 years before I was ready. Moving with the job didn't make sense, and so I'm now unemployed. The problem is that mentally I don't feel I'm in a place to devote myself to a new employer and "start over". Realistically, companies are not anxious to hire someone they feel won't be around more than a year or two. I find it hard to blame them.
The good news is that I'm blessed enough to be in a position that I can retire now, although it means living on a somewhat limited budget. The bills will be paid and that puts me in a better position than many, many people still struggling to get to where I am. So don't feel sorry for me, things could be a whole lot worse. I can still write and publish as needed, although my already very limited marketing budget will need to be cut back. So for all those entrepeneurs out there looking to sell marketing services to an aspiring author, don't bother coming here. Some of you provide great service to authors and some are scams, but you all ask for money up front and that's a non-starter for me. That's makes me all the more grateful to those of you who are so supportive. A kind word or a facebook page "like" really do mean a lot.
So what are my plans for 2020? Still trying to mentally deal with this change in my life and that doesn't help with my writing, but I'm still hoping to have the next book, "Balance of War" finished by this summer. While my head is not in the "right place" for writing at the moment, I am rereading my entire series to refresh myself of what's happened to this point. I started that several months ago and am currently on "Whisper in the Universe". I plan to do another calendar for 2021 with some new art from Amy. The 2020 calendars are no longer available. The artwork is amazing, so you should check these out when they are.
What's in a name? Well, one of my personal issues has always been keeping names straight. I'm not good with them. My own kids names can sometimes get jumbled in my head. Now, combine this fault with trying to keep straight the names of characters in Verdan. You can probably see where I'm going. So what I need to do is set the record straight and offer an apology to my readers. As I've reread the series (keep in my I've read each book at least 6-7 times before this), I found a few things. Don't panic, but I'm also a perfectionist and one mistake bothers me. It's been 5000 pages of writing and so far I've found 4. Here we go.
Early on I noticed that sometimes my fingers would mistakenly type Trevor instead of Terek or vice versa. I was conscious of this and my editor (me) caught and corrected several of these. It looks like I missed one. I didn't record where I found it, but it was somewhere back in one of the first three books. I don't think it will distract the reader too much, but if you find it, I thought I'd mention that I'm aware.
In "Broken Circle" part of the adventure takes place on a seafaring ship. The captain of the ship is named Captain Hornweather, but for some reason my brain wanted to refer to him as Captain Hornblower. Yikes! I found a few passages where I did confuse the name and not catch it in editing. Sorry. Again, it should be pretty obvious to whom I'm referring and not be too distracting.
There are two more errors I found. They are the most glaring and both seem to deal with a president of the country of Chenoa. The first president we meet in "Out of Time" is President Tyler Robinson. I'm not going to spoil any story content, but after introducing "President Robinson", I later found passages where I referred to him as "President Tyler". Huh? How did I miss that? Again, it should be obvious, but jeez. I lose sleep over stuff like this.
Later, in "Blood and Magic", an elf named Wyatt Newland becomes president. Yet for some reason in "The Fifth Age" there is a chapter or two where I refer to him as President Wyland. Double huh! I've sort of mashed his name together and can only hope he doesn't become confused with a computer technician named Mark Weiland. Maybe that's where my brain got confused. I sometimes can't fully understand what goes on in my head.
There you have it, my true confessions. The good news is that I haven't found any significant continuity errors and I worry about those the most. The above errors are mostly annoying to me, but thought I should point them out.
I hope everyone has a wonderful year ahead. If you've started your journey in Verdan, thank you so very much. I wrote this for "me", but it does completely make my day when I discover that someone else finds the story worth reading. If you haven't started the journey, I encourage you to do so. If you're having trouble getting your hands on the books, drop me a note and I'll certainly help. I hope by next blog to report more progress with the next book and you can always get the latest updates at VerdanChronicles on Facebook.
Saturday, March 21, 2020 at 8:32AM