Besides being a day late with this post, that is.

The past year has resulted in a whole lot of fun things for The Afflicted Saga, quite possibly the most notable being that Defilement (Book 3 of Tale of the Fallen) is now published and waiting for you to read it! You can pick it up in paperback or Kindle ebook here. If you don’t consume your ebooks via Kindle, I am planning on going wide in the near future, but as I’m lacking in the tech skills department, it’s been taking longer than I’d hoped.

Here’s the whole Tale of the Fallen so far (I’m estimating there are three more volumes in this series, then I get to start Mathias’s. Or Veed’s standalone. Yes, that sonuvagun gets his own book.).

And while we’re on the topic of how many books are left in Nes’s series, Defiance (Book 4) is officially two scenes away from a complete second draft! Woohoo! This book has given me a bit of a struggle so far, since it went through a major overhaul between the original rough draft and where it is now, and I suppose it’d be more fair to say this is draft 2.5. I tackled the main plot line two years ago during NaNoWriMo and had to weave in what the rest of the characters were doing around it. This was more work than I’d anticipated, and I still want to do one more pass for consistency before I push it out to my alpha readers, but this draft should be done before the weekend’s through. I plant to sit on it over the next couple weeks before putting on the next coat of polish.

So what will I be up to in the meantime? Besides my visit to GenCon, I’m going to be working on cleaning up the first novella of a portal fantasy I’m co-writing. Rest assured, The Afflicted Saga is still my primary focus, and I’m serving more as an elbows-deep developmental editor for this project than the creative driving force, but I do think my readers will have a lot of fun with this world once it’s ready to make its debut. Stay tuned for updates on that front!

And speaking of GenCon… I’VE GOT NEW SWAG!

I’ve wanted neat-o totes for quite a while, and now that I have multiple books in the same series and am beginning to attend more conventions, it felt like it was time to invest in designing some. I’m super pleased with how they turned out.

I also buckled down and got bookmarks for Deception and Defilement. I had put this off for quite a while, because I wanted to make sure new-to-me readers were directed to Devotion to being their journey on Abaeloth, but now that I’ve got my books in a couple of brick and mortar stores, I hit a bit of a dilemma. One of the most frequent reactions I get from Devotion is readers worrying about whether or not there is a Book 2 (those of you who have read it understand 😉 ). I’ve also run into quite a few readers who are reluctant to start an unfinished series due to fear that the author will get bored and walk away from the story before it’s finished. Hopefully, having bookmarks for Deception and Defilement will help convey that there’s a lot more awaiting Nessix and Mathias after Devotion.

I’ve got some buttons in transit, too, but since I ordered them completely last minute, I’m holding my breath and hoping they make it here in time. If they don’t, I guess I’ll have goodies to send out to my readers when I get back!

The last fun update I have is super exciting for me, because music’s been a significant part of my life. I was a show choir kid technically from elementary school all the way through high school. I played flute and piccolo from fifth grade until my sophomore year of college. I write with music playing almost all of the time.

Toward the end of last year, I had the opportunity to commission a couple songs for The Afflicted Saga! WHAAAAAAT?! That’s right! Tale of the Fallen has its own theme song now, and Etha’s theme is currently being worked on by the amazing and talented Richard Williams. “Courage Untold: Tale of the Fallen’s Theme” is complete and awaiting some art so I can make something attractive for YouTube, and Etha’s theme is getting close to completion as well. I cannot WAIT to share these songs with you!

So, those are the big things I’ve been up to over the past year. Now that we’re all caught up, I’m hoping to get to a more conversational pace with the blog. I’ve already got a few ideas floating around for my content schedule, but am always eager to deliver my readers what they want. Do you have any requests for content? Let me know in the comments!