Written by Benjamin Medrano

October 20th 2019 Update

This week I started writing Queen’s Move, and it’s up to a bit over 12,500 words! Not bad, considering I wasn’t sure how much writing I’d get done this week. If this keeps up, I’ll have written six or seven novels this year, which is insane to me. That’s including Webs & Wards, mind you.

Other than that, the only bit of news is that the audiobook of Sting & Song may be slightly delayed by the untimely demise of the narrator’s laptop. She bought a new one quickly, but it was going to take some time to get it set up for narration, so I’d not anticipate the audiobook until the second week of November at the earliest.

In any case, I hope everyone is having a good time! I’m mostly having to resist the urge to start up a third project, as I don’t want to risk burnout!

44 thoughts on “October 20th 2019 Update”

  7. That is very true. I have tried to write books, but I have adhd tendencies so I kinda get distracted and start on another cause I have so many ideas. Before I went and cleaned them out, I had twenty eight different books sitting in my documents that never went past chapter ten.😂 I have just kinda given up.😂 I have no clue how you do it.

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  8. I’d been trying to write a book since about… 2000 or so. At the time, I was looking for a science fantasy book and couldn’t find one, so I decided that if I couldn’t find it, I’d write it myself. That took about 10 months, and was a mere 20,000 words. It’s also *terrible*, and will never see the light of day again.

    Since then, I suspect I started at least as many stories as you’ve mentioned, and all of them died partway through. In the end, what helped me finish a book was that I had a friend reading it as I finished chapters who *liked* the book, plus my wife was encouraging me.

    After that… well, having people waiting for the next book did wonders for my self confidence, and also lit a fire under my rear.

    Writing is a job, no matter what people say. It has its good parts and bad parts, just like anything else. If you ever get the bug to write something, though… I’d say just do it. And set yourself a realistic goal, like 100 words/day to start or the like. I didn’t start at my current rate, that’s for sure!

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  9. Okay, I never thought about it like that before thank you. And if you want some good science fantasy, Jonathan Yanez has some good ones, in my opinion.😁 you could use them as some examples.

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  10. Oh, I just had a good laugh. Can you imagine what would happen if Ruethwyn tried to seduce\flirt with a guard so that others could get past? Kinda like they do in movies.😂😂

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  11. While an entertaining thought, if anyone of her little group was going to try that it’d be Korima. Rue would be flustered and terrified of flubbing it.

    Now, if she were channeling the appropriate elemental, that’s an entirely different matter. >_>

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  12. That is very true. And I gotta admit out of all the elementals she has so far, Umbra is my favorite. Luminous came in second, and Zaria the third.

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  13. On my part, I’ll admit that trying to make each elemental a distinct person was fairly difficult. One of the things I’ve noticed is that the larger the cast, the less I can focus on developing each character and make them more interesting.

    On a more personal level, I prefer Zaria, Umbra, then Luminous. That’s largely just due to how much time each has had in the spotlight, though. I like all of them, being perfectly honest.

    I *also* have plots in mind for future elementals. *cackles maniacally*

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  17. And sorry about the other message, I reread it and I fat fingered that badly, tablet keyboards are bad for typing fluently.😂

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  18. Oh do you think theoretically a powerful elemental could reverse Atavism an Elf? I mean it would make sense since an Elf can summon an elemental, why would it be a one way street?

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  20. Nope. Rules of the universe are pretty odd, but in essence, an elemental is predominantly composed of energy which allows it to be summoned. I seriously considered the idea of a mortal being able to be summoned, but decided against it.

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  22. Oh! And just before I forget. I know it probably won’t mean much, but thank you for keeping your books clean from detailed sex scenes, it makes it much easier to enjoy them without having to worry about that. Though I kinda wish your Sistana series didn’t incorporate rape so heavily like it did. But that is me personally they were still good to read despite that.

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  23. Honest truth of why I don’t do detailed sex scenes?

    They bore me to write, by and large. That, and my family buys my books at times.

    That said, I do have one novella I wrote ages ago which has some explicit bits, but if I ever decide to publish it, I’ll warn people.

    As for the parts of Ancient Dreams… I fully understand your opinion. I have a different comfort zone than other people, and I’m cognizant of that.

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  24. I didn’t know that, I must admit I am glad those scenes bore you.😂 I have stopped reading a couple authors I really liked cause of that stuff. And the reason it bothered me so much in Ancient Dreams is cause I read David Webers Honor Harrington series and the second book just put how shattered a woman can be from that into far too much light. I had started reading that book at 7:00pm and was awake till 6:00am because of it. My Autism didn’t help cause it caused me to get stuck, but it sucked. And my thanks still stands honestly.

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  25. Ahh, yeah… it’s one of those things that’s a difficult subject to handle. I’ve read most of David Weber’s work, and that… that was a particularly dark part of the series.

    Ancient Dreams, I’ll fully admit that part of the point that I was making was that the bad guys were evil. I did to the characters some of the worst things I could come up with, to show how far gone a lot of the people in the society were.

    I don’t intend to go quite that far again, but we’ll see where my writing goes. I find it ironic that Ancient Dreams is *still* my most successful series, by leaps and bounds.

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  26. Ah okay. I am kinda gifted, because my Autism gives me empathy, which isn’t normal for people with Autism, but it gives me an over abundance of empathy to the point I emotionally connect to the characters in books. It is by and large why I enjoy reading your books, your characters are very easy to connect with.

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  27. Yeah, that would definitely make it more difficult for some books. I’m a *bit* similar in some ways, but I don’t connect to characters too deeply. Unless I’m writing them, anyway. I sometimes have a really hard time writing some of my villains… Dreamer and Blue Impulse particularly come to mind, there.

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  28. 😂 That is good, shows you have a good heart! And I can understand that completely. Any of my villains that I start writing have a tendency to be like the tyranids from Warhammer 40K, if you have heard of them. They are just sentient enough to go “Hey this small two legged thing look really tasty I want to eat it.” And that is about it. Makes it easier because they have no other motive then to eat and are more animal then human.😉

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  29. Yup, I know about the Tyranids, at least to some degree. My thing is that I often want the villains to be interesting, and… well, to give the reader a reason to *really* hate their guts. At least most of them.

    On the other hand, I’m also a sucker for redemption stories, so things can get weird. It’s amusing, because Jared was *going* to have a redemption arc. Then he got killed, so go figure.

    Probably is the more popular fate for him, anyway.

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  30. True, and that sounds like a conflict of interest right there.😂 But I get it. And I love reading your books. And I also thought Hope from the Bees and Song book was adorable!😍

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  31. Yeah, not all villains need a redemption arc. In fact, I think that most shouldn’t have one. Sometimes ‘pure evil’ villains are good to have in a story, like Irethiel.

    As for the character, I suspect you mean Joy. She’s *lovely* to write, and I tends to brighten my day whenever I write about her… which is part of why I write on Webs & Wards every day.

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  32. Yeah Joy! And I agree with the villain bit. And I could see why, she is as innocent as a new born babe.

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  33. Is Queen’s Move the next is the Lilith’s shadow series and is there future books planned for Ruethwyn’s story?

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  34. James Griggs, Mr. Benjamin Medrano and I were talking about that. Yes there will be more books for Ruethwyn, just not any time soon.😂

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  35. Queen’s Move is book 3 of Lilith’s Shadow, and I have a total of 3 more beyond that planned (for a current total of six books for Lilith’s Shadow). That’s not the absolute limit of how many books will be in that series, either, but it’s a good stopping point.

    I have further books planned for Ruethwyn, yes, but they’re not currently high on the priority list. I have to balance older series with newer ones, and sadly, Through the Fire is one of my least successful series. *Hopefully* I’ll get back to it next year, but I’m not going to make any promises. I have at least a trilogy vaguely planned out.

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  36. Sorry, but I’m feeling a compulsion to “troll” and insert my 2 cents here… sorry again if i offend, if I do it is not intentional. I too enjoy a redemption story, but my internal judgement on whether to redeem or destroy is this: Is the character “wrong” or “evil”? I.e.: Jarad was raised in a society where what he did was both permissible and expected but within that society ethics he treated his slaves well and came across as truly caring about them, so while his actions were “evil” he himself was only “wrong” and reeducation could correct that (although that doesn’t take into account the emotional turmoil of both him and his victims) thusly = redeemable. Evansly was raised in a society completely opposite and chose to mistreat others out of greed and self-preservation and only conserned himself with his own greedy desire to possess showing himself to be “evil” thusly = destroy (although I will admit to some satisfaction with low to mid level evil finding redemption). I hope I didn’t offend anyone too much.

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  38. And I was just told that i was being rude when I answered that question and I was trying to monopolize your time. I am sorry that is not what I am trying to do i was just trying to help. It shall not happen again.

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  39. Personally, I entirely agree with you in this regard. I felt Jared could have had a decent redemption story, even if his death is likely more popular. I didn’t kill him because of that, though. Evansly, though… yeah, I felt like he deserved what he got. I’m not offended, anyway.

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  40. Essentially, I think in trilogies. If you’ve read David Eddings, he had the original Elenium trilogy, followed by the sequel Tamuli trilogy. It’d be similar with Through the Fire, though all would be the same ‘series’. It’d just be that I intend for them to be read in 3-book chunks.

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  41. …Why would it be rude? I choose to answer your questions, and you were just passing along information I gave you. You happened to answer as I was typing my reply, but you had no way to know that. I’m not going to be upset about it, Ghostly.

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  42. Whew! Okay that is nice to know. Still I won’t do it again cause I imagine you enjoy answering those questions.

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  43. Eh, it’s something I’m not upset about, either way. I try to respond to the vast majority of questions here, and I won’t object if people have a conversation, either!

    That said, there’ve been enough questions about Through the Fire that I also decided to talk about it in my update scheduled for tomorrow, so people don’t have to go digging through comments for it.

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