Happy New Year! (Just a little late)

 

Happy Belated New Year to Everyone! I know I was remiss in getting out a newsletter last month, but I plead the distraction of the holiday season including a week-long trip to Disney with my family (long overdue) and my daughter’s twice-postponed debutante ball. Both events went off as near to flawlessly as I could have hoped, but they both required the majority of my time and attention for weeks. Stuffing three of us into tuxes and ensuring my daughter looked ravishing for her debut was a challenge, and going to Disney at any time requires a lot of planning. But I learned a lot from the House of Mouse, and the ball went off without a serious hitch, so I count myself among the most fortunate of men. Of course I had Thanksgiving and Christmas and my son’s and my mother-in-law’s birthdays and the usual social whirl that this part of the year implies. To finish it off, my wife Laurin and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary with a week-long stay at the beach. We had a lot to celebrate. There are countries that haven’t existed as long as we’ve been married. This is going to therefore be a long post. There’s a lot going on in the Spellmonger universe, though, and I wanted to keep y’all informed. Recent Releases Successful launches of Shadowheist, The Mad Mage of Sevendor, and Marshal Arcane. All three books came out within a few months of each other, and each required a lot of promotion and interviews and such. I see all three releases as highly successful, both in terms of sales and by review (more on this later). Counting the release of Hedgewitch in February of 2022, that’s four books published in one calendar year. That’s an impressive record by any measure. It also took a lot out of me to hit the deadlines and get the promotional stuff right. I needed a few months recuperating from the creative process, which is why I’ve been relatively quiet. But as we sail into 2023, I’m feeling rested, relaxed, and ready to plunge into the writing schedule for this year, which will be a little less ambitious. I’m planning on only doing three books this year. I feel so lazy. Upcoming Adventures The three books will be Shadowblade (the third and final book of the Spellmonger: Legacies and Secrets trilogy), the Road to Vanador anthology (including at least four new stories in addition to the audiobook production of The Road To Vanador novella already released on Kindle), and Book 16 of the main series. I have a title for it. I don’t want to release it just yet because there’s an outside chance I’ll change my mind. Release dates will also be announced as we get further along in the process. But I’m excited about all three books. Excited and ready to work. The production deadlines are tight but manageable, and now that I’ve gotten them firmed up, I can relax (mostly) back into Composition Mode. I say mostly because I also have to devote some time to continued promotion, merchandise development, conversion of Kindle releases into paperbacks, and the eternal taxes, maps, and other minutia that occupy a professional writer’s time and attention. I can’t complain too much, as I work with great people, but at some point I have to get involved personally to provide direction and make decisions and go to cons and that sort of thing. That takes time away from composition, but it is every bit as important to the business of writing as cranking out quality prose. They don’t tell you about that part at writer’s workshops, usually, but a side effect of success is actually running a business, and running a business takes time and energy. There is only so much you can delegate to other people. It’s often difficult for an indy writer to manage all of that. You make overly ambitious plans like any small business owner until you realize just how much of your resources those plans entail. You have to interview and hire people and sometimes fire them. You have to speak to lawyers and accountants and marketers and see your books not as your precious little babies but as elements of a marketing and business plan. You have to sift out the dumb ideas (your own and others) and decide which good ideas you have the time to pursue. And then you have to compromise over and over again while you try to maintain your creative enthusiasm for your work. It's not the life for everyone. Many indy writers disdain the business end of things, and their success suffers as a result. Sometimes I wish I could just sit back and write and let other people handle everything else. But when you’re dealing with something as expansive and complex as the Spellmonger series, you’re not just writing, you’re developing intellectual property. You want to protect and nurture that and keep it from being abused or misused. You want to ensure that it’s your vision that’s being followed. You just can’t delegate that to anyone else. Fan Mail I love it. I read all of it. But it has reached a volume to where I cannot answer most of it—not and keep a productive work schedule. We’re putting together a list of FAQs we can refer people to on my author’s site, but please understand that it’s difficult for me to respond to more than a handful of them every month. I love hearing how Spellmonger has affected you and what it means to you, and I do truly read every piece of email and FB comments and IG posts. Some of them have even changed the course of the series. But I regret that I simply don’t have time to answer everyone, and for that I am truly sorry. Reviews Here’s a dirty little professional secret: all those writers who say they don’t read reviews are liars. I don’t say that to be mean, but except in rare cases I have no doubt that it is true. The ego required to do any kind of artistic endeavor is in and of itself exceptional. The ability to present a portion of your soul—however mean—to the general public for their entertainment and edification is an exceptional quality in a creator, and most just don’t want to risk that kind of vulnerability. To take that risk and not look for some kind of emotional return on your investment could easily be seen as pathological. So writers read reviews, even when they proclaim that they don’t. Good writers enjoy the praise when they do something that is liked enough by people that they are moved to tell you so. Even better writers skim past the praise and wallow in the negative results—not necessarily because they are emotionally masochistic (although that can be argued) but because they want to know where and how their work may have failed to achieve the desired effect. Or how it did achieve the desired effect, as they understand that they will, of necessity, alienate and piss off a small number of (sometimes vocal) readers who were not pleased by a particular offering. I read reviews. They are my gifts from my readers. Dear gods, I read every one, on every platform I can find. Not because I’m a raving egomaniac. (I am. I’ve made my peace with that.) But because I need the feedback on how my story is making people feel, especially when the reader feels uncomfortable. You see, I’m essentially writing serial fiction in the form of novels and short stories, and there is a definite aim in mind—telling an entertaining story that will be, I hope, transcendent at its conclusion. There is a definite plan in my narrative, a specific story I want to tell, and that story is going to drag the careful reader through a lot of places that will be uncomfortable, in one way or another. That’s a feature, not a bug. Part of that desire is understanding that there are a lot of different readers (and listeners) who are attracted to the Spellmonger series for a myriad of different reasons. That is by design. I want the series to appeal to a wide variety of people who will be fascinated by some elements, intrigued by others, entertained by some and—by necessity—bored by some of it. I confess, my least favorite part of the Lord of the Rings series is the second part of The Two Towers: the subtle, psychologically intriguing relationship between Sam, Frodo, and Gollum as they sneak into Mordor. As a writer I completely appreciate the subtle nuances Tolkien presents to us here, as well as the exploration of the nature of evil. As a reader I usually skip from the first chapter to Cirith Ungol and Minas Morgul and leave the rest of it. So I get that parts of the series—entire works—aren’t going to be popular with everyone. It’s amusing and instructive to see how many people are put off by an experimental piece like Mad Mage or a dramatic shift in narrative perspective like the Young Adult works. Everyone has their Helm’s Deep part of the series, and everyone has their endless discussion of coneys and taters with a living embodiment of weakness and evil. All of that is by design. I don’t need my readers to love all of the Spellmonger series as it develops. I just need them to love their favorite parts. What is instructive about the exercise is the thoughtful complaints about the plot or characters that strike true and tell me when I need to alter course a bit. This has happened several times, and each time the series has improved and become more complex as a result. Every writer has their blind spots, and constructive criticism about the reader experience is insanely valuable to me. The key is their insight. Alas, many readers who get upset or disappointed with a particular work don’t yet have the insight into the scope of the story I’m building to see what I am trying to do. That, too, is helpful, as it informs me when I need to add a bit of this or that to the narrative to improve the reader’s understanding of the plot or the arc of the characters. The goal is to give y’all just enough to think you know what will happen (and keep you interested in the story), and then fulfill your expectations but in ways you didn’t expect. That’s the entertaining part. The artistically fulfilling part will be when you read Book 30 and realize the entirety of the story and its meaning. That’s the transcendent part. If I do a good job then a lot of people will feel it and be moved by it. Not everyone will, though. It’s a long journey and not everyone will be pleased at the payoff. What is amusing about the exercise is to read the reviews in context. I’ve seen blistering condemnations of a particular book, assurances that I’ve “jumped the shark,” that I’m “just in it for the money,” that I’ve “run out of ideas,” that I’m “being derivative, repetitive, deceptive,” and a host of other complaints that go back to the earliest portion of the series. That’s the gold for me. Those reviews are in the minority (thank Briga), but they are an important indicator of how the series progresses. They’re my dashboard for how I’m progressing on this journey and its story, and if people complain that they’re getting thrown around a little bit along the way, well, that’s telling me that I took a curve a little hard or that hill they climbed made them a little uncomfortable. Sure, a few will bail on the ride because they got too uncomfortable, but that’s to be expected. It’s a rollercoaster. It’s not supposed to make everyone feel comfy. The goal is to make you thrilled by the experience when the ride eventually comes to a halt. Don’t misunderstand me—I’m not trying to alienate readers. I’m trying to excite readers to the point where they rave about the complexity and nuance of the Spellmonger series to their friends, loved ones, and passing strangers in airport boarding gates or Oklahoma truck stops. I want each new work to add to that complexity, exciting the majority of you while making a small (and rotating) number of you uncomfortable or even unhappy . . . until the next one. I want to build a compelling narrative of sufficient sophistication such that every new installment makes you want to go back and read earlier portions of the narrative with a different perspective that inspires a different emotional effect than the initial experience. When someone complains that things are moving too slowly or that they book was pointless or that this has nothing to do with the main story, well, those responses let me know that my attempts to obfuscate, misdirect, and make you think I’m going in one direction when I’m really about to yank you in another are working. The reward for that is the number of readers who post their delight as they realize what I was doing, in retrospect, and appreciate the sharp curves and the unexpected drops. That’s the juice I’m looking for. For now. Hopefully, by the time I get to the end, I’ll have made you weep and cheer to the point that, when the ride finally ends, you will have looked past the small parts that made you uncomfortable or, even better, appreciated their role in the entire experience. But for now, I’ll take the occasional bitter declaration that “this is the last Spellmonger novel I’ll ever read!” knowing that only a very few of you are willing to actually abandon the series, if only against the hope that it will “improve.” I strive for a seductive complexity in the story because I want to take you a lot of places, and some of those place you didn’t know you wanted to go until you get there. People who came for the goblin body count suddenly find themselves interested in medieval economics; people who came for the magic system realize that they’re quite entertained by the intricacies of feudal politics. Those who want to drink deep of a competent and expansive world-building suddenly find themselves intrigued by the subtleties of interpersonal relationships, love affairs, and the realities of marriage. Come for the magic, stay for the cheese. The truth is, I’m riffing on as many of the major fantasy tropes as I can identify and competently portray within the expansive scope of the story. At the end of the series, I want you to struggle with the fact that this is as much Pentandra’s story as Minalan’s—or Rondal’s, or Tyndal’s, or Alya’s, or Sire Cei’s, or Dara’s, or Gatina’s, or countless others. This is epic-er fantasy, in my imagination of it, and part of that epic is that your experience of it will be informed by so may perspectives and foci that are so real that you swear you lived there. I’m building a world you want to live in, like Middle Earth, Hogwarts, or Westeros. I want you to really grok the beauty of the Mindens and smell the peasants of the Riverlands and appreciate the tacky majesty of the royal palace at Kaunis and recoil in the aging decadence of Falas. And a thousand places in between. So I read the reviews—every one of them. I read every fan letter voraciously, even if I do not have time to answer a tithe of them. I delight in the positives. I carefully study the negatives. I happily discard the over-the-top on either side from serious consideration, and I listen to what the fans are saying about the ride as we’re in progress. I don’t take it personally, I take it constructively, like a professional should. At Book 15, if you haven’t figured out where I’m going (generally speaking) and what might lie ahead as we get there, well, maybe you’ll realize it as we go forward and things get more specific. And occasionally weirder. Because I want to take you there, too. Places you might not want to go. Unexpected turns and unanticipated drops and long, slow inclines that lead to a rapid descent that jars your spine and makes you clap your jaw together accidentally and—possibly—pee your pants. I want to make you laugh and make you blush and make you sad and make you thoughtful. I want you to finish a book and take a deep breath and consider the possibilities as you drift off to sleep at night. I want you to want to meet Olmeg the Green for a beer or have Gatina whisper in your ear or have Pentandra sneer at you good-naturedly. I want you to want the next installment knowing you may not like it, but afraid that if you miss it you’ll miss something important to your understanding of the series. And—let’s face it—you’ll like it at least a little bit, I know, or you wouldn’t have hung around this long. Why? It’s not the money—although I’m not complaining. It’s the professional fulfillment I get out of feeding your desire for entertainment. My ego is invested not just in creating something novel and impressive but in making you want to see how it ends . . . and making certain that when you get to the end of the ride, it will have been worth every minute of the thirty-plus book wait. Oh, and the suggestion that I somehow “pay” for good reviews or write them myself through sock puppet accounts? Ishi’s tits, that’s laughable. I don’t have the time or the money to do that. Not if I want to keep writing production at this pace. It’s just easier to write good stuff and see how you like it. And far more gratifying. New Things on the Horizon Jonathan Thompson at Battlefield Press, the company that is producing the Spellmonger TTFRP adaptation, is recovering from an unexpected surgery in which much of his left arm was amputated. This has been a huge ordeal for Jonathan, who is central to Battlefield’s publishing efforts. I cannot imagine what he is going through. But he has reached out to me recently, and plans for the release are going ahead. For those paying attention to the Wizards of the Coast debacle, we are proceeding under the original Open Game License (OGL) for the moment, from what I understand. While I don’t have a definite release date yet, it is my understanding that we are planning on launching it sometime this year. Where Will You Be? So far my con schedule for the year includes Baltimore and Charlotte, but I’m still trying to nail down the rest of it. I’d like to do one in the Midwest, one in Texas, and one on the West Coast, although I’m open to other options. If you’d like me to appear at a con you like, please have the organizers contact me through my email: tmancour@gmail.com. 📚 The paperback version of Enchanter is finally out! Get yours here! Next up, Court Wizard! More of Me If you like watching interviews with me or good reviews of my work, here’s a selection of recent uploads to YouTube. Please give these folks a like and subscribe! Enjoy! Co Gnosis Interview David Greene Review of Marshal Arcane Quick and dirty Baltimore Comic-Con Interview Also, over at the Discord server, there is a new series of discussions going back and reviewing the series book by book. They just started with Spellmonger. I haven’t listened to it yet, but from what I understand it was EPIC-er. Apropos to this, I would encourage all of my fans to recommend Spellmonger to Fantasy reviewers across all platforms. There are plenty of them over on YouTube, in particular, and if Spellmonger keeps appearing in their comments sections, they might just want to take a look. To that end, I’m always ready to talk to people or do an interview. Please direct all inquiries to tmancour@gmail.com. Thanks! Thank You January 19th was my 55th birthday, and I want to thank all of you who sent me birthday wishes on FB, IG, email, and Kudoboard. I feel profoundly blessed with the number of friends and family and fans I have during these sometimes dark and confusing times. I truly feel as fortunate as any wizard could. Thank you all for your support, and for my part, I promise I will do my level best to continue to earn it. Here’s a birthday gift my darling daughter did for me, wood burned by hand. I do so love my children, and their devotion to their father and his work is the stuff of legend.

I’d better wrap this up now, as it’s getting to novella length. Thanks for reading this long, and happy Briga’s Day (February 1st) in advance! - Terry For early access to future blog posts and all things Spellmonger, make sure to sign up for my newsletter here!