What am I working on?

Blade Mage – Book 9 - ?????: We’re making good progress so far! I’m about to work on chapter 9 as soon as I finish here.

And yes, I said “we.” In case you missed last month’s newsletter, I made a surprise announcement. Shhh. It’s for your eyes only. You’re the only ones I’ve told. Well, except for my dad. And my sister. And, like…people I know in my day-to-day life. But they don’t matter. You do. And this is a secret for you!

My partner in crime and forever crush, the absolutely brilliant author J.H. Fleming, is co-writing Blade Mage book 9 with me. Why for, do you ask? Well, it’s not because I have the hots for her. Which I do. This is a well-documented fact. It’s because I have something pretty special planned for book 9.

If you’ve finished Fun with Friends! you might be wondering where the heck the story is going…

No spoilers. Sorry, you’ll have to wait. But let’s just say the end of Fun with Friends! feeds right into book 9 and I’m so frikin’ excited about it. You have no idea.

And if this all makes you nervous about where things are headed, well… You have no one to blame but yourself. =)

Sort of.

See, I’ve received some wonderful messages from a great many of you. Comments about characters. Hopes for how certain things might go. All those message strongly influenced an idea, and once that idea wiggled into me, it grew like a tapeworm… Huh… Uh… Maybe not the best analogy. Ah, futz it. We’re sticking with it.

Anyway, we’re hard at work on book 9 and I can’t wait to get it to you.

Mad Maudlin: This book just won’t die. It’s close, though. I didn’t anticipate it being such a monstrous pain in the butt. Which…is entirely my own fault. I don’t know why I’m incapable of writing simple, straightforward, normal-sized books, but…I cannot. That’s all right. I think you’ll dig it when the time comes for it to release.

Spirits of Salt and Sea: I mentioned last month I was editing J.H.’s 2^nd Mari book. Well, I’ve finished my edits and I’ve got to say, I can’t wait for her to get these published. Gaslamp witch books? What’s not to love? Spirits of Salt and Sea was a fantastic sequel. Very excited to see where she goes with the third one.

Where are we going to be?

The Oklahoma Renaissance Faire

We’ll be there most weekends for all of May. If J.H. were writing this, she’d tell you that we WILL be there every weekend, but she’s not writing this, so I’ll say “most” weekends. I might ditch her to go float the river or do some fishing at some point. Or, I don’t know, finish freaking Mad Maudlin. But don’t tell her I said that. Oh, come on! The chimney cakes are GONE. My favorite band is GONE. What am I supposed to do with my time? Enjoy other things at the fair? Madness.

SoonerCon – Norman, Oklahoma – June 19 -21

I think this is the next thing on our official agenda. At least for the moment. SoonerCon is basically my homer con. Meaning, this will be my 12^th straight. Or 13^th . Or 14^th . Maybe even 15^th . We were trying to figure that out last year, but couldn’t come up with a definitive number. Or we did and I forgot.

At any rate, SoonerCon is an absolutely wonderful convention. It’s hard to describe why precisely. It’s big enough to have a healthy crowd, but still small enough to have a strong community vibe. A few years back, one of our friends came with us for the first time. He’d been to a lot of bigger media cons, and I’d struggled to explain to him why I thought he’d like SoonerCon. On the second day, he told me, “I get what you mean now. This convention just has a different sort of vibe. It’s a lot more fun than the bigger ones.” <- That is why I’ve been going for so long.

What's going on in life?

What IS going on in life?

I don’t even know. Seems like life has just been a blur recently.

We did a couple of table events that were a lot of fun. Got to meet some fun people, ate a bunch of stuff we shouldn’t, and sold a few books. That’s always nice.

Last weekend was the opening of the Ren Faire and that was pretty fun, despite my previous statements. We’ve made a lot of friends there over the years, so it’s always nice to see them.

That’s about it…

Oh, I know!

We did something really neat.

J.H.’s dad does a ton of volunteer work. Like, a ton. He helps all around his town and also volunteers to help with concerts all over the place. Anyway, because of all of his local volunteer work, his hometown’s Chamber of Commerce wanted to give him an award – Volunteer of the Year!

This was all very hush hush because they wanted to surprise him. So, they reached out to J.H.’s mom, let her know, and put her in charge of getting him to the event. By all accounts, he didn’t want to go to the Chamber’s fancy dinner party and didn’t know why his wife insisted on it. Since it was also J.H.’s sister’s birthday weekend, we had a reasonable reason to be in town, and to also go to the fancy dinner party without raising his suspicions.

The look of surprise on his face when they called out his name…

Priceless.

Wish I would have taken a picture.

Anyway, that was pretty cool! He’s a good dude and totally deserved the recognition.

What have I been reading?

Rant time.

Big rant time.

Actually, it’s a short rant but something that really pissed me off. Correction, pisses me off.

Apologies for the forthcoming F-bombs.

If you’ve been around long, you know I don’t like to shit on other authors’ work. There’s a reason my reading list is shorter this month.

And for one in particular…

Okay, so I was reading this book by a very popular author. A big name. And one I know personally. Sort of. I’ve met them numerous times. Have spent quite a lot of time around them. Not sure they remember my name or who I am. That might have bugged me before, but now I’m not so sure I ever want to speak to them again.

So, I’m reading along, enjoying their book, blah, blah, blah. One of the viewpoint characters is a 15-year-old girl. Cool. Nothing wrong with that.

Until… All of a sudden I’m reading an erotic sexual scene from her perspective.

What?

Fucking what?

No.

Fuck no. Hell no. Fuck no.

Her partner in this scene was also a female (I guess that makes it okay?) and several years older and an adult. And a nun. What the grooming fuck?

This was not a scene intended to depict something bad. This wasn’t like a, oh, look how horrible this is. No, this was a legit erotic scene.

And we’re not talking about a smut book here.

We’re not even talking about a self-pubbed title.

This is a big five MAINSTREAM TRADITIONALLY PUBLISHED fantasy novel.

How??? Why???

I don’t think I need to point this out, but just so we stay on the same page: I understand teenagers do sex stuff. I was a teenager once. I did sex stuff. I’m not bothered by the fact it happens in a book. But I absolutely NEVER want to read an erotic scene through the eyes of an underage person. If this had been a show or movie, it would have never been aired as depicted. Yet, it’s okay in a book? And this was NOT just two teens doing what teens do. It was an adult and a fifteen-year-old. Fucking… No.

When I lost the plot and started ranting to J.H. about it, she pointed out there’re quite a few highly successful mainstream authors who’ve had explicit underage sex scenes in their books. Which, I guess I’ve heard of some of them, but like, I either innocently or ignorantly didn’t realize it was commonplace. Considered acceptable.

Fucking why? How?

All the shit people get up in arms about today and this… This is all right?

I repeat – Fuck no. Hell no. Fuck no.

I looked it up, just to see if I was alone in my outrage. After scrolling through countless reviews, I can say that I am not, in fact, entirely alone. I found ONE. ONE reviewer who was equally appalled by that particular scene and quit reading it as well.

Look… I’m not an outrage person. I’m not a particularly preachy person. Nor am I strait-laced or prude, as you well know from reading my work. There aren’t that many hills I’m willing to die on. This IS one of them.

It’s weird. It’s disturbing. It’s not fucking okay.

And I’m flabbergasted that the outrage machine of today’s world couldn’t give a shit.

Whatever. I can’t fix the world. I’m just an idiot who likes stories. All I can say is…I don’t want to read that. And you certainly won’t see it in my books. Count on it.

Anyway, let’s talk about the books I didn’t hate this month…

So, it’s essentially unlucky guy urban fantasy like The Blade Mage, but instead of a sarcastic slacker, the lead is a sarcastic soldier. Also, instead of it being just wizards and monsters, it’s angel and demons. Which is a disgusting oversimplification. He still has wizards and monsters, but they’re all tied to biblical things because the story revolves around the war between Heaven and Hell.

Basically, Heaven has chosen this spec ops soldier to be one of its warriors and take the fight to demons. It’s been pretty good. The narrator is solid and the writing is pretty fun.

They’re great. Drizzt is certainly one of the best fantasy characters ever written, and his cast of friends are fantastic, too.

If you’ve never delved into these but enjoys the likes of DnD, Baldur’s Gate, or Neverwinter Nights, you’re missing out. These books take place in that universe. And Drizzt is the shit. Really.

What games have I been playing?

I DID IT.

I FINALLY DID IT.

I finally beat Fallout 4. Woot woot! It only took me… (Sorry have to look it up) 11 years. Sheesh.

Well, at least now real-life Axel will shut up about it. Maybe.

Next Up:

I’m delving into one of J.H.’s all-time favorites, one she has wanted me to play for a while. She thinks I was hesitant because it was one of her favorites, but really, it’s just that I’m typically drawn more toward geeky RPG stuffs. Anyway…

Horizon: Zero Dawn

Yeah, I’m like 10 years late to this party, too. Ah, well. Better late than never.

It is very good, though. The story is super compelling. Aloy is a solid character. The scenery is beautiful. And I enjoy that the game play isn’t just hack and slash, but that you have to strategize your battle plan on the machines or get your face ripped off. So, I’m really enjoying it.

Final Thoughts

Thank you again for supporting my work. It means everything to me. And now I’m going to get back to it. Blade Mage number 9 won’t write itself! Nor will Mad Maudlin…apparently. - Phill