Blog Archives

Today from Southern Ohio

Hey everyone,

Today is the first day of school in my area. My boys are off to the 5th and 3rd grade. They are growing into intelligent and well mannered young men (and they better continue to >:) haha).

I’ve been slowly chipping away at the first entry in The Hytrae Chronicles vol 2 (the vaults of Belin). Only a few more chapters to pen, then the review process will begin. I’m hoping to still get it finished this year, we will see what kind of time I find but it is very reasonable.

Also, if you haven’t had a chance to listen to my interview with 99.5 the edge, you can check it out in their archives. I was honored and excited to have a conversation with them, and I hope it is entertaining to listen too.

Thanks for taking the time to read this! May God bless you and keep you.

It’s been 10 years…

Ten years ago my first child was born, and I started to learn what it meant to be a father. Ten years ago I published my first Novel, and gained another title of Author. I went on to have another son, and write two more books to finish out the first trilogy.

Strange to think that a decade has passed, in some ways it feels longer, in others it went by too quick. My boys are growing, and learning so much. They are far more important to me than anything else that I’ve done. Their mother is still my favorite, and I make sure she knows that. The oldest plays football (American) the youngest wants to try soccer in the fall. They both get good grades, and try to learn much more (which is more important than the letter of their grade). We share interests, in video games, and hikes in the woods. If I’m outside doing something they want to be there too.

I’ve got more stories I’m wanting to finish, both at home and on the page. I prioritize the ones at home, which keeps my new books delayed. One day my tale will end, yet theirs has just begun. Ten years have passed, and the next is on the way. I hope they will love their families and that our stories together will stay.

Project update!

Hey everyone!

We are actually getting to a point of monthly project updates! That in and of itself is worth the announcement haha.

So if you’ve been following along, the New cover arts and rebranding have gone live! Update to pricing to keep things fair and all that, has happened.  I’m going with Hytrae Chronicles instead of Hytrae Collection (what I previously called it) with the larger grouping, mostly because I feel it sounds better.

“Book 4” (The Vaults of Belin is coming along, I’ve been more focused on getting all the Sage of Hytrae things that I’ve not gotten much written over the past month. But, progress is still being made, even if it’s not as much as I’d like. Still shooting to have this one written before years end, edited and published by then is the stretch goal, but we’ll see.

A website refresh is still on my radar, with a minimum of a new banner and updated info pages, and a complete redesign potentially as a goal as well but not as high of a priority.

And that’s the update! Thanks for taking time out of your busy day to read about my busy days haha.

As always, may God Bless you and keep you.

The Sage of Hytrae Refresh is Live!

Hey Everyone!

The Sage of Hytrae “rebranding” is up and public! You can now buy all three books with updated cover arts, and Hytrae Chronicles Volume 1 wording on the title page.

Related news, it might be noticed that the book prices have been elevated from their previous pricing. This is because while I wasn’t watching the costs of all the back end things increased. That resulted in some of my prices being so low that I received pennies compared to about a dollar or two per book sale (and one region I would get nothing per sale).

These new prices are back to the approximate one to two dollar range (USD) per sale that actually goes to me. I feel it’s only fair to be transparent with this as books that were $10 for years are now $12, which seems to be fairly widespread in the industry, but it didn’t feel right to not give an explanation for it.

They can be found on Amazon.com and hopefully other book seller sites again (getting listed there could take longer).

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D6PFP91M?binding=paperback&ref=dbs_dp_rwt_sb_pc_tpbk

Thank you all for following along for the ride! I’ve got more to do but that is all I’ve got to announce for today!

The Sage of Hytrae

The Sorcerer’s Gamble cover art preview

Hey everyone!

Quick note, the new artworks will be going live soon (within the next few days) with minor revision to the manuscripts and all that (collection/chronicle branding and all that). I’m afraid this sneak peek is short lived, but still wanted to share it with you all!

New cover art preview for The Candecent Vessel

Hey everyone!

The review process is going well, got another round of proofs just in. They are pretty good so only minor edits before I hit publish. I’ll get another post rounded up quicker (likely this weekend) to preview the third book’s cover art before release!

Here is that first look at the new artwork for The Candecent Vessel (kindle)!

The 2021 update!

Hey everyone,

Yeah, it’s march and I’m just now getting to releasing an update about what I’m up to. Well better late than never 😉 so let’s begin!

First, The Crystal Seal turns 6 years old this month! That book is truly the groundwork for the entire trilogy, and is worth a read if you’ve never have picked it up. As a fun aside: Children are about 4 years into their education at this point in Hytrae. Those kids will likely start spending time with the trade of work their family is involved in, and learning that trade themselves.

Next on the train of news, I am officially ready to announce the next writing project which will begin releasing later this year! Now I have made a bad habit of promising new titles in the springtime, and failing to actually finish anything that year in the past. I would love to provide you all with proof that this time will be different, but I am not blessed (or cursed) with such visions of the future. I can, however, tell you the book title, series title (yes series!), and when I am hoping to get this next title out to you all.

The next series will be set in the familiar place of Hytrae (familiar if you’ve read The Sage of Hytrae trilogy, if not you really should 😉 anyway). The first book of this series is titled (tentively) The Vaults of Belin. Yes that’s right, we are cracking into the borders of the elusive, and restrictive region in Hytrae’s south eastern kingdom. We will be exploring it and more in this new series which is titled Hytrae: Visions of Darkness. At least those are the names I’m going with for now. I don’t like to put out names too far ahead of release, so you can expect the first title as early as September 2021!

Ok, you’ve read the juicy bit now, so feel free to skip me rambling here at the end haha. Just weighing in to current events, which I’m sure won’t make me more friends unless God wills it. But anyway, here we go:

I hope every one of you have had a tolerable year. It’s been about one year since the pandemic started effecting us here in the states. A crazy and scary ride for the whole world to be sure. Mostly what I see now is hope that the collective nightmare may soon be over. With this crisis waning I remember the one that predated it. One that still exists and plagues our news and every day lives. I am of course referring to the accusations and continuous pandering of race and gender equality.

Now before I ignite more unnecessary flames. I agree and disagree with everyone on the topics equally. I’m of the mindset that every view and mindset is wrong from someone else’s opinion out there. My opinion (which I’m sure some disagree with) is God created us all, he sent his son to die for us on a tree. He did so to save us all from ourselves, and our self destructiveness and rebellion (Sin). He is, was, and has always been against discrimination, God loves us all equally no exceptions.

Which I can say is why I have left races out of my books entirely. Yep, it’s a fantasy world, on another planet, with an entirely different species, so race is not a topic of my books at all. I leave most of such imagining to the reader’s mind to fill in the blanks. In fact, one promenant character in the first trilogy I gave so little physical discription of, I doubt I could release a drawing or image of said person without someone thinking it was completely wrong. Bonus points if you know which character I’m talking about.

Oh I do describe regions, religion, social status, occupation, nationality, and culture. All important things for world building. Anyway, I’m sure what I say can and will be used out of context at some point to fuel a fire of hatred. Just please know it is not my hatred, nor is it of God.

Until next time, may God bless you and keep you.

Update for December…

Hey Everyone,

 

Sorry that I have been absent the past two months. Lots of reasons, mostly battling some mental blocks. Not writers block, but motivation issues, I could use taking some of my own advice there for sure. Mental health is so difficult to manage at times.

 

Anyway, I’m hoping to get the newsletter up and going soon, but something has caused me to not do it yet. The Original forums has been attacked by bots, I know due to repeat entries, added messages, not using anything close to a name in the name field, and such. I’ve added a drop down menu that you have to change, so I’m resetting the list so if you have signed up before please do so again. Of course, If you gave me your email in person via an event, then I still have your email and you do not have to resubmit.

 

Writing has slowed down, I’ve been doing some creative writing but nothing that could be published (more fun fan-fiction type stuff, nothing adult though, sheesh). I hope to pick up again soon with a few different ideas, mostly the title I’ve announced I’m working on already, and some Hytrae related stories and structure. I hopefully can get some more info out soon to everyone.

 

I do have plans of making my way to a con of some kind early next year. No decisions have been made on which one, and I am still looking around. If anyone has some suggestions please leave a comment down below. Doesn’t have to be a place to setup a booth or something at, just something related to the scifi/fantasy genre in some way. comic/game/anime doesn’t much matter to me, I haven’t been to a proper convention in several years and really need to get back into them.

 

I’m afraid that’s all the updates I have today, hopefully I can get my tail in gear and start the weekly blogs back up in some capacity.

 

Until next time, may God bless you and keep you.

August Update and Announcements!

Hey everyone!

So good news, I will be setting up a booth at the local street fair in Peebles Ohio once again! The festival is called Old timers days, and takes place Sept. 12th through the 15th this year. This is only the second time for me to setup a booth at OTD and I will be available to both sign physical books, and will have a supply of paperbacks you can buy there as well.

I am hoping to have some related merchandise of some kind to sell/give out at the festival as well. More details on those once I have them more solidified. At the very least I will have a new set of bookmarks to give out to anyone who wants them (maybe this time without the typos the first set I gave out had haha).

Also quick update on the newest novel. As the book has begun to really take shape I’ve been wondering if I am ready to really move it forward much more. I probably shared information on the book too soon, luckily I was also somewhat vague. I have been running into major issues with flow, and structure for the novel and have realized that to tell this story well I’ll have to rewrite everything I have written so far… This is frustrating, and I do apologize sincerely about not getting this story out there this summer.

This delay will probably push that book out a ways too, because I have been making plans for next year’s 5 year anniversary of The Sage of Hytrae Book 1 (The Crystal Seal) being released. More news on that as well at a later date, but you can expect some new writing in that world as a mininum from me. What form the new stories will take is still being worked on, I wouldn’t expect a new Novel, nothing quite that extensive to announce haha.

I feel the weekly blog posts have been going well, so those aren’t going anywhere so no worries there, the next one should be wrapping up the basics of writing series sometime next week.

I would also like to thank everyone again who snagged my trilogy for free back during the first week in July this year. Please if you have had a chance to read them by now drop a review on amazon, it really helps (that goes double if you enjoyed the books haha).

I think that’s all I have to share today. I’ll keep everyone posted if I am able to cook up some extra Sage of Hytrae goodies, or really anything of the sort. With only a month left to really get things ordered I have to be moving quick, so stay tuned.

Until next time, and don’t feed the Jacobs!