C. S. Thurman

Life, as I continually learn, is always pressing forward. That isn’t to say I haven’t learned that lesson before, but it hits differently in every stage of life. In the past I had more time for writing than I do now. Why? Probably because it has to do with giving myself the time to do it. Fitting it in at work or at home where I can.

What does this mean so far about my work? Well it means that I haven’t had the time or the energy to post on here as much as I would like.

Does that mean it’s going to change in the future? Maybe. I have been going back to school to get my Masters degree and that has certainly taken up a lot of my time. I was very optimistic during that first Fall semester of 2024. I had been working on my Aether Force novel off and on, and even back in December I was set on working on it. The problem? I have found that I have learned to trust my instincts when it comes to a story, and for whatever reason, the story was not working for me. I don’t know if it was the pace, or if there was something else happening that was keeping me from moving on, but I found that I couldn’t continue.

Now it could be said that I grew bored and moved on to the next shiny thing, but I think it runs deeper than that. Writing is hard, and if something isn’t syncing well with how I want it, then I have to ruminate on that story for a bit longer. I also think that part of it was that I was going about this in a harder way.

Before now I was trying to write one story completely for a character, and then write the second main characters story next. After that I was planning on editing and integrating the two stories together as a whole. The problem? I have neither the experience or the time to do that amount of editing. I discovered (quite recently in fact) that most authors do not do this. They usually try to write it all as one seamless book rather than two books smashed together. I definitely feel this is where the hitch in my plan failed and why it kept stalling for me. The ending, or even a certain chapter fell flat without that other character arch there to support it. By being able to switch back and forth it will free me from having to heavily edit later in the process. Another part to this was I hadn’t given it enough time to just sit on it and slowly outline the story in my mind. Hopefully by doing that I’ll allow myself the chance to outline the story in a way that will fit better narratively and that I can have a better ending to.

So what am I working on now?

For now I have stepped back into my Dark Lord series. I have been sitting on this one for over five years so I think this one is ready to begin telling the tale. It has worked out very well, and I find it refreshing to go back and forth between the different view points that I have going on. I’m shooting for a word count of around 150,000, but we’ll see where it actually ends up. Currently I’m at around 30,000 words which is about 1/5 of the way through. For now I am thinking that this will be a three book series, but don’t hold me to that. It definitely has room to be a four book series, but I don’t want to pigeon hold myself and have to do three. Christopher Paolini did this (kinda) with the Inheritance Cycle. It started off as a three books series, or trilogy, but while writing the final book Christopher realized that it needed a fourth book for him to finish it properly. Many of his already printed books were now outdated because they said they were in a trilogy instead of a cycle. While there is nothing wrong with that, I want to make sure that my readers know that it could change depending how I see fit.

I am still attending school for my Master’s degree and have about 2 semesters left so I don’t plan on being done writing anytime soon, but I do hope to get a lot done before January of next year. In January (if I haven’t gotten a teaching job by then) I will have started my Student Teaching for my Master’s and will have less time than I have now, so the more I can squeeze in the better.

For updates I am going to keep this to once every 6 months for an update since that will ensure that I don’t burn myself out from too many updates. Perhaps someday I’ll set up a progress bar for myself that I can update but for now this will have to do.

Reviews

Now for some reviews on some books that I have recently read/listened too.

This was an awesome book that really took me by surprise. I am not normally one for romance but the romantasy genre has been pretty good so far. This is the second romantasy book that I have read (The first being Dragon Ascending by Amy Beatty), and I am surprised. I’m not surprised so much by the fact that I am reading a book with dragons in it, or by the fact that there is romance, if anything I am fine with there being romance in my books. No, what surprised me was how fantastic and refreshing it was to read a book with no cussing and to have a romance that wasn’t completely tied to physical touch. As an author I am always trying to improve my craft and I love when I can learn from examples like this where it’s not all about what they look like, but how they treat one another as a person. This book is currently free on Amazon as an E-book, so I definitely say give it a try.

The second book that I’d like to talk about is A Prince’s Errand. This book is great for those who love the Wheel of Time, or are fans of large epics like The Stormlight Archives. Dan and Robert Zangari do a fantastic job creating a wonderful fantasy world to read through. The characters are relatable and the story is engaging. I know many reviewers didn’t like it, but for me the only downside was that the beginning was a bit slower than I would’ve like, but I thoroughly enjoyed the story and loved the journey that it took me on as I explored this world that they have made together.

The last book that I would like to shout out to is Dragon’s of Deceit. For me it felt nostalgic to go back to a world that I had been introduced to as a teen and to see the author’s take on it this time around. For me I think there were parts of the old books that I didn’t necessary like and this series seemed to change up the status quo of those books. I loved the rest of the books that followed this one and I am excited to see what Hickman and Weis do if they come back to Dragonlance and what the future will hold for them.