Allan Joyal: Blog

I haven't posted much in the past year, partly because I seemed to run into a period where I just wasn't writing. I think I wrote less than 30K words between December of 2017 and October of this year. My muse just wasn't driving me to write.

However things do change. I finished Seafaring on Jord finally, and have sent it off to my editors. I even have someone working on the cover art.

The sequel to A Living Dungeon is at about 63K words now. I'm still working through the final sequences of events. I want to make sure it spins out the way I want, but I do have plans on his to bring it to a close I hope fans of the first book will enjoy.

After that I expect to start 1 or 2 new series. I have several ideas that I've at least started, but I'm not sure which one will get attention next.

Heir to Silence does have a sequel planned, but I haven't seen a huge hue and cry from my readers to complete that tale. I do plan on finishing it, but I'm not sure when my muse will drive me to write.

I haven't forgotten my fans here, especially of my Swarm cycle stories. For quite a while I've had a couple of well-begun projects that just languished. I'll probably try to find time to write 1-2 chapters a week on one. If it looks like that's going to continue, I may post that one starting sometime in late December or January.

I find that I'm livid at someone, but unfortunately I have no evidence as to who caused the problem. Earlier today I received an e-mail from Amazon that they were suspending my account and pulling my books because of "illegitimate activity regarding reading or borrowing my books in an attempt to manipulate the service."
They have asked me to check on any marketing services I might have used, which is none.
However, I guess it is possible that someone has decided to see if they can manipulate my books. If you have, please stop. You are hurting me

I have done a bad thing and created a Patreon account.

For those interested in such evil things. Mine can be found at: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=7301980

As most of you know, I finished Living a CAP-based future. Yes, the ending is a bit abrupt, but as I had previously stated, my muse really wanted me to just abandon the tale completely, but I refused to do that to all of you. I may return to Crucible in the future, but right now that tale is not high on my priority list.

I had a plan to work mostly on a science fiction tale that has been in the back of my mind for a couple of years, and to finally get Seafaring on Jord finished. (Seafaring is stuck just a few chapters before the conclusion. I just can't get it to flow the way I want.)

However, after the response to A Living Dungeon my muse appears to want me to add to the universe.

Now, I make no promises on when I'll finish. I do want to offer my readers more scenes from Faestari's life, but my writing tends to be erratic at best. All I can say is that I'm hoping I'll have something to send off to my editors in September.

I'm sure some won't like the ending for Living a CAP Based Present. It isn't a definitive, there will be no more ending. Unfortunately, as I said in an earlier blog post. My muse just doesn't want to touch this tale right now, so I brought the main plot thread to an end and left open the possibility of a sequel.

I will warn, it will likely be years before I return to this tale. I feel I need to get far away from the Swarm cycle for a while. My stories in that universe amount to more than 1,000,000 words, or 10 full length novels. It's a lot of writing and I just need to do something else for a while.

Sorry that it isn't a great ending, but the truth is that in the last 2 months I wrote a grand total of only 19,000 words. That is after several months of more than 50,000 words per month. There is no question in my mind that it was time to change pace.

I do apologize to everyone I haven't responded to who has mailed recently. Honestly, I'm not the biggest fan of the new mail system. It was always a lot easier for me to go into my e-mail and answer. I do appreciate every mail I receive.