Eight 4’s Book Birthday

Today is the book birthday of Eight 4: New Blood, Old Bones! 🎉🎂🎉

It’s currently available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited, with an audiobook forthcoming on Audible in 2025.

Eight 4 Available for Preorder

It’s confirmed… Eight 4: New Blood, Old Bones which will publish on December 5th!

I’ve updated the Books section of this site with the summary, but it’s also here for your convenience:

Now sixteen-years old, Eight is a fixture in both the Glen and Voorhei, helping to defend his adopted homes from the relentless monsters drawn by the Deer God’s influence. Yet, peace is fleeting in a world where magic and danger intertwine.

The arrival of Aslishtei’s nieces brings an unexpected proposition: an expedition to Old Baxteiyel. The hierophant of Albei has turned the ruins into the site of a deadly race, pitting teams against one another to claim the treasures hidden within. But Aslishtei’s nieces have a different plan. For them, the race is a distraction—a cover for their true goal of uncovering the secrets of the fabled Arc of Knowledge within the ruins.

The journey is fraught with peril. Dark warriors guard Old Baxteiyel’s mysteries, and the Maltran Empire's agents lurk in the shadows, intent on sabotage and spreading chaos. As Eight and his team delve into the ruins, they face battles not only with the ruins’ defenders but also with their own doubts and desires. For Eight, the expedition is more than an adventure; it’s a confrontation with his growing yearning for the unknown and the toll it takes on those he loves, particularly Ikfael, who cannot stray for long from her territory.

The clash with Baxteiyel’s dark warriors changes everything. The choices made and bonds tested in the ruins send ripples far beyond the battlefield, leaving Eight to grapple with the aftermath and the profound shift in his relationship with Ikfael.

Eight 4: New Blood, New Bones is a tale of daring exploration, cunning strategies, and the sacrifices demanded by ambition and love. The ruins hold secrets that could reshape the world, but at what cost? Join Eight on his most dangerous journey yet, where every step challenges not just his strength, but the very foundations of his life.

Eight 4 Date Slip and Cover Reveal

I’m sorry, y’all, but I was apparently too ambitious in setting the publication date for Eight 4. The editing process took longer than expected, and the release date is now Thursday, December 5th. A link will be shared as soon as the book’s page goes live on Kindle Unlimited.

To help make up for the gaffe, I’m offering a sneak peek at the title and cover. The art style should be familiar now; it’s once again the work of the amazing Tithi Luadthong.

New Blood, Old Bones was a lot of fun to write, and I can’t wait for y’all to read the book.

Eight 4 Coming November 2024

Today is a big day—I handed the draft of Eight 4 to my editor for line edits. I also scheduled time with the copy editor, so that means we have a time frame for when the book will be published. Expect to see it on Kindle Unlimited by mid-to-late November!

The title is Eight 4: New Blood, Old Bones.

That’s it for now. I’ll post again once the cover is ready and/or a firm release date has been set.

Eight 3 Audiobook: March 12

I'm thrilled to share the news that the audiobook version of Eight 3: Undaunted is set to publish on March 12. We’ll even have the incredible Gary Tiedemann narrating once again.

Every chapter promises an adventure, and whether you're revisiting the story or stepping into Eight 3: Undaunted for the first time—the audiobook brings a new dimension to the tale, with every emotion, twist, and turn brought to life through the power of Gary’s voice.

Pre-orders are now available on Audible, so mark your calendars.

Thank you for your support, and happy listening!

Eight 4 Under Way

I’m so, so pleased with how well Eight 3: Undaunted has been received. Shortly after launch, the book hit the number-one slots on three separate genre lists. My gratitude goes out to everyone who purchased it or read it on Kindle Unlimited. Y’all are the best.

All that’s left for the book is to wait for the audiobook publisher to set a release date for that version. Everything has been submitted, so it’s a matter of coordinating production schedules and finding a good spot in their publishing calendar. I’ll share the pre-order information once it becomes available.

I don’t have a role in any of that, so I’ve turned my attention to writing Eight’s fourth book. All the planning is done—mostly work on characters and setting—and I’m now three chapters deep into the story. Well, that’s still the shallow end of the pool, but the early indicators are that it’s going to be a fun story to write.

If you’re curious, you’re welcome to check out my Patreon page. I post the first drafts of chapters there.

That’s it for now. Thank you again for all your support; it means the world to me.

Eight 3 Pre-Order Information

It's been a busy couple of months since my last update. Both line and copy edits on Eight 3: Undaunted are now complete, and all that's left is e-book formatting. Given how quickly that process is going, I feel comfortable moving up the publishing date to October 12, 2023.

That's right—Eight 3 is now available for pre-order!

By the way, I've once again commissioned Tithi Luadthong for the book's cover. We went through so many revisions to get it just right, but the effort was well worth it, I think. You can see it below.

That’s it for now. Until next time!

Update on Eight 3

It's been a while since my last blog post, but I've been working steadfastly on the third novel in Eight's story. The first draft is now finished, however, and the manuscript is currently in the hands of my editor. I'm expecting it back any day now.
The official title is Eight 3: Undaunted.

I’m aiming to publish the book for Kindle Unlimited in October. That's an ambitious timeline, especially since I'm juggling a full-time job alongside my writing, but I'm determined. I’ll know more once I see how heavily marked up the manuscript is.

In other news, I've committed to diving straight into "Eight 4" after Undaunted publishes. Essentially, I’ll be rolling from one book to the next.

That's all for now. Just a brief update to keep you in the loop. Thank you for your continued support, and stay tuned!

Writing as a Practice for Recognizing What’s True

I was recently asked an interesting question by one of my patrons, Lhexa: "You mentioned on Twitter that you write in order to have fun and to learn truths. Would you elaborate? I find this thought intriguing, since I catch the occasional insight from Eight the book series." 

Here’s my response, focusing on the “truths” part of the question since that’s where the interest seems to be: 

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I’m a discovery writer, and the way I accomplish that is by setting the scene and then treating my characters as if they were real people. I do my best to observe them and their surrounds objectively, becoming their documentarian. 

The effects of this process are several:

First, it gives my subconscious the space it needs to generate ideas, details, and directions my conscious mind isn’t clever enough to develop on its own. And, relevant to Lhexa’s question, it also tends to create perspectives I wouldn’t normally consider. I’m able to put myself in my characters’ places, and dig into their issues. 

An easy example from Eight is how Ollie grapples with being a widower. His experience has allowed me to confront my own fears around mortality and the thought of losing someone I love. Fortunately, my wife and I are in good health, but because I love her dearly, I can’t help worrying about misfortune. Writing about Ollie’s feelings has provided me a safe way to examine my own. 

A step removed are the mindsets and cultural norms of the people of Diaksha. They appear to be necessary to survive on a fundamentally hostile world, but are they? Maybe yes, maybe no—I don’t have the answer, but I do find that exploring events through their points of view helpful for understanding our own world. 

Obviously, there are limits. It’s extremely hard, if not impossible, to fully understand another’s perspective if their life experiences are radically different. I make my best effort, though. 

So far, there’s nothing groundbreaking here—writers have done what I’ve described for centuries—and it's probably true for this next bit too: Writing also allows me to tap into the wisdom of my characters. By being creative and letting my characters be themselves, they surprise me with their actions and words. Their bravery, their debates, and even their mistakes are all grist for my mill. In a way, it’s like having an advisory board—one that communicates through modeling behaviors and simulating the consequences of decisions. 

Again, there are obvious limits—predictions and reality frequently don’t align—but writing creates more opportunities for me to be insightful, harnessing more of my mind to the task than normally available. 

Finally, one of the most valuable lessons that writing has taught me is the importance of stepping back and examining my own thoughts and preconceptions. Since I strive to be a neutral observer in my writing, it requires me to get out of the way of the story. I’ve worked to hone a sense for what’s real for my characters, which in turn has carried over into my non-writing life, i.e., learning how to recognize when my thoughts are clouding my judgment.  

Don’t get me wrong—I’ve mucked up a lot in my life, but I’ve also gotten better over the years at catching on quicker when it’s happening and correcting course. With discipline and practice, I’ve found writing to be a powerful tool for learning to filter for my own truths, to recognize when certain things ring true. 

If the above sounds a lot like mindfulness meditation, I do that too. The two practices are complementary. 

So, writing is a way for me to understand what’s real, both for my characters and for me, and I’m grateful for the lessons it’s taught me. If the above all sounds incredibly earnest, it’s because it is. But I also have fun too. I’m at the edge of my seat as I write the stories, anticipating like everyone else what’s going to happen next. 

Exploring Tokyo: A Perspective and 5 Tips

Tokyo is a favorite city of my wife and I, and we recently spent 10 days there. It's an incredible place, and not all of it is like how it's portrayed in films, anime, and travelogues. Some of the best parts are off the beaten path.

For example, one of our favorite experiences was stopping at a small neighborhood cafe near our hotel in Akasaka for a 'morning set.' That’s a coffee and simple breakfast entree, like an egg sandwich. It may not sound like much, but the pace, the taste, and sense of place were all just right.

Tokyo rewards you for wandering. If you do go, though, here are some tips to help you along:

1. If you have an unlocked phone, I highly recommend getting a SIM card while in Japan. It makes a huge difference in being able to get around. We also visited Japan in 2019, and both Google Translate and Maps have dramatically improved since then.

Being connected while on the go meant that navigating the subway was a breeze. We were also able to translate every sign and menu we encountered.

The next time we go, my wife and I plan to get two cards, so that the functionality isn't on just one phone. It was that handy.

Don't buy the SIM card at the airport if you can help it, though. The prices there will be higher than elsewhere.

2. Google reviews are a solid way to find good food, and we found the ratings to be more trustworthy than those in the United States. Also, there's an app specific to finding restaurants in Japan called Tabelog . Just don't expect the same level of mobile friendliness. Not everyone has Google's budget, after all.

Tomo in Akasaka has excellent ramen.

3. On the topic of food, the following will sound obvious, but eat lots of Japanese food. Try it all, from conveyor-belt sushi to ramen to kushikatsu (deep fried meat and vegetables on skewers).

Tokyo has the most number of Michelin-starred restaurants in the world, and that carries down to the lowliest market stalls. Not everything is great, but explore to see what you can find.

4. Also, eat other things! It may seem weird to get burgers or go to an Italian restaurant in Tokyo, but trying different cuisines lets you taste how Japanese chefs interpret those other foods. For example, my wife and I had a fantastic meal at Cafe Rigoletto, an Italian restaurant near Kichijoji Station.

5. Finally, if you're coming from the U.S., consider going in the autumn. The spring is beautiful, sure, but it's also high season. Summers can be terribly hot and humid. In the fall, though, you can take advantage of milder temperatures, cheaper airfares, and the Thanksgiving holiday. It may rain—we were lucky to only have a couple of days of showers—but I'll take that over the summer heat any day.

You can find more pictures from the trip on my Instagram page.

I hope our experience can help you plan your next trip to Tokyo and enjoy it as much as we did. Happy exploring!

On Discovery Writing and a Shocking Reveal About One of Eight's Most Beloved Characters

I'll preface this post by saying that there are as many ways of writing as there are writers, and the following is what works for me at this point in time. Also, please note that there are mild spoilers for Eight books 1 and 2. 

I’m a discovery writer, which means that while I may have the seed of an idea when I begin writing a story, I won’t know how events will play out until the story’s events have been written. My job, essentially, is to set things in motion and then get out of the way—to record events as they unfold as faithfully as possible. 

There are writers who meticulously plot their novels in advance, but whenever I’ve tried it in the past, my engagement with the story seed lessens, my curiosity falters, and my motivation languishes. The process of writing becomes rote, and more importantly, the story itself becomes smaller, limited by the scope of my cleverness. 

The reality is that my conscious, planning mind will never make the kinds of creative leaps that my subconscious can—to bring forth the kinds of things that help a story to breathe, to become textured, and to leave the bounds of the ordinary. My subconscious mind is so much better at pulling out interesting, stray details and then connecting them to what would otherwise appear unconnected. 

All that depends, though, on making room for it. If my conscious mind is full of ideas and plans, then where is the subconscious to go? If I’m lucky, it’ll sneak interesting tidbits between the cracks. If I’m unlucky, nowhere. That’s why I have to approach any story without too many overt plans, because if I’m already holding onto something, my capacity to pick up anything new is diminished. 

That’s not to say that writers who plot in advance can’t do the same. I’m sure many have. I just can’t, as there’s something about the planning process that concretizes the story for me. It becomes rigid once documented, and I have a much harder time being nimble when the characters want to travel in directions different than I’ve planned.  

Fortunately, I’m not completely sea while discovery writing. I know stories well enough to be able to look ahead and foresee at what’s coming. As such, there’s an informal list in my head of milestones, plot points, and background information that I’ve pick up along the way while traveling in the direction the story set out for me. 

And if I find myself stuck or suffering from writer’s block? In my case, that usually means I’ve gone the wrong way, and need to backtrack until I find the correct way forward. I’ve gotten pretty good at recognizing the signs too. There’s no longer the need for me to rewrite entire chapters. Novels too, but that’s a long painful story, which I may tell another day. 

So, I have a rough map in my head while writing, ephemeral but grounded in what I’ve learned of the story, and yet even so, the characters still sometimes surprise me by choosing to do the unexpected. Or they run into the unexpected—a shocking development that completely changes the story’s arc. Like, for example, Yuki. 

When I started writing Eight, I had a bunch of questions in the back of my head about what it took to survive in an isekai scenario. I wondered at how often stories fast-forwarded through the early transition to the new world they were introducing and what a fuller view of that time might look like. 

There were a lot of ideas stewing in my head, but none of them involved an intelligent lichen. I literally had no clue until Yuki’s and Eight’s first meeting—a major character with far-reaching impact on the whole series was discovered by me about two-thirds of the way writing the first novel. 

And what’s most interesting is that Yuki is a character I couldn’t have planned. They existed in a place my planning wouldn’t have been able to reach. It took approaching the story empty handed, with as few preconceived ideas as possible, to find and make room for them. 

As a result, the story became richer, at least for me. Some people were turned off by our little pink friend, but the role Yuki plays in the story is... well, it’s foundational, and now I couldn’t imagine Eight without them. 

Behind the Scenes: Portland in Eight

A reader once complained to me about Ollie’s affection for Portland. At the time, they were reading the first draft of Eight, and felt that his reminisces about the city were distracting from the story. Ollie was in a new world, after all. The focus should’ve been there, right? 

Well, yes, but the new world also needed a counterweight—something to help contrast between Ollie’s experiences before and after his arrival—and that was the role Portland played. 

The honor certainly wasn’t going to go to Ollie’s first family. They were a mess, no matter how much he cared for his grandparents. The family was dysfunctional at best, and his experiences in Sherwood weren’t any better. The wooded areas around his family home were important to his development into the man he’d eventually become, but the actual town and its people, not so much. 

No, the story demanded that Ollie have a place he could call home and where he could find happiness, otherwise there’d be no sense of loss upon his arrival. His life in Sherwood sure wouldn’t cut it, which is how Portland came into the picture. It was where he met Helen and where he raised his kids. 

In the same way Sherwood conflated with Ollie’s first family, Portland conflated with his second. He could’ve potentially moved away from Oregon entirely to find his happiness elsewhere, but I didn’t want to complicate his background by introducing an exodus to some other setting. Besides, Portland’s weirdness lended itself to the darker, more mystical aspects of Ollie’s background. 

As an aside, after writing the scene in Eight about the Midnight Man, I was dogged for months by the desire to write a series of ‘Weird Portland’ short stories featuring Ollie’s family going around town solving mysteries like Scooby Doo and the gang. If only my writing time weren’t so limited, I might’ve done it. 

Anyway, if you’ve seen maps of Portland, you know the city has a number of bridges connecting its west and east sides. That was the role I envisioned the city playing in the book—a bridge between Ollie’s early life and his new life. A place where he could plant roots, so that they could more clearly be torn out when he arrived in the new world. 

It also didn’t hurt that I’d lived in Portland, and knew the city well enough to be able to describe it decently well. 

### 

I recently just came back from visiting, and it was clear that the last few years have been hard on Portland. I still saw a fair share of characters walking the streets, and kindness too, but also many more store fronts for lease than I’d ever seen before. For nostalgia’s sake, I stopped by an old place of employment, and the building was empty and for lease. 

While I was there, I also grabbed a bunch of shots of street and found art. It’s something I do whenever traveling. 

If you’d like to see more from Portland, as well other places I’ve visited, check out my Instagram page.

P.S. Sherwood is a real place, just like Portland, and the folks I’ve met from there have been great. Don’t forget that Eight is a work of fiction.

5 Things I Learned When Editing 2 Books in 12 Months

The scene: I’d written two serialized books that’d been posted to Royal Road, and I wanted to get them ready for Kindle and Kindle Unlimited. Like, really ready, so I hired a professional editor. 

Cue the editor: Specifically, I reached out to JD Book Services for three rounds of edits on Eight (developmental, line, and copy) and two for the sequel (line and copy). 

What followed: a year of slogging through the editor’s comments, during which I frequently questioned my sanity for wanting to write, but from which I eventually emerged as a better writer. Plus, the books were much tighter and more coherent thanks to the time invested. 

Cutting to the chase, here’s what I learned: 

1. How to properly use a gods-be-damned semicolon. Before, I’d treated it as a super-powered comma, but that’s not a semicolon’s purpose; its job is to separate two independent clauses. If one of the clauses can’t stand alone, then it needs either a comma or an em dash. Unfortunately, I’d littered my novels with semicolons before I learned that lesson. 

2. That writing serially introduces certain artifacts, which can be exacerbated if there are long periods of time in between posts. For me, I post a chapter a week on Royal Road, which may not sound like a long time, but depending on the length of a book, months might pass before a thing mentioned in chapter X is referenced again in chapter Z. That necessitates reminders that sound a lot like the author repeating themselves constantly when read non-serially. 

3. To watch out for unintentional rhymes. They’re not a problem when reading, but can be distracting when the story is translated into an audiobook. 

4. Record keeping for stats and character progression has to be immaculate, so that if there are edits, you can keep it all straight and not introduce any errors when making adjustments. That went double for silverlight gains, the equivalent of experience points in my books. 

5. To let scenes breathe and to take the time necessary to flesh them out. This lesson was a hard one for me, and the editor pointed it out over and over in the text how I had a tendency to drop a big thought and then move on. It was like I wanted to prove I was a clever writer, but didn’t have the discipline to demonstrate I was a hard-working one too. 

To put it more bluntly: any stray ideas or observations that weren’t worth taking the time to fully integrate, those were distractions from the story’s flow and had to be cut. And, as the edits proceeded and the story grew stronger as a result, I learned that this way of building up scenes also enhanced the feeling of authenticity arising from them. They were so much better than before, and it became clear that if there was a choice needed between the two, authenticity beat cleverness every time.  

So, those are five things I learned when editing two books in twelve months. There’s more beyond them, but I’ve gone long enough. I hope you find these observations interesting or helpful in your own work. 

Please note: No editors were harmed in the making of this post, which was probably a mistake. It means that I am solely to blame for any errors, grammatical or otherwise.