Last year, we began publishing a series of short stories called Blood Magic here on IGC Publishing. I've written extensively about why and how I chose to do this, and the benefits it has provided me from a writing perspective, but there are things that I would like to do better, and things that I would change about how the publishing was executed if I had to do it over again. Fortunately, as I discussed in our announcement for the second season, I've given myself the opportunity to do just that.
The Frankenstory
Between working on Blood Magic and Fo'Fonas, which while very different are both larger-scale projects than anything I've attempted before, I'd like to think that I've been getting a lot better at building characters and plots. Certainly Blood Magic has forced me to stretch in this respect. Since I've been working a lot on them, I decided that I needed another, newer project to keep my writing fresh, since I find that if I sink too much into one or two projects I start to get too deep into the world and the storytelling suffers as a result.
Announcing: Blood Magic Season 2
It is my perverse hope, as an author, that you are currently on the edge of your seat after the tense ending to November's Blood Magic episode, part one of the two part season finale. Don't worry: your plight will be alleviated at the end of December, when the twelfth and final episode in Blood Magic's first season will be going live. From what I understand (which is quite a bit, since I'm the author), it's going to be quite the climax, and the Merolate you've come to know and hopefully favor over the past year will be irrevocably changed.
Fantastic Economics
As I was writing several of the scenes in the later episodes of Blood Magic's first season, I was struggling to describe what, exactly, Prime Wezzix and Borivat do all day. Specifically, I had a discussion in episode eight about Merolate's budget. As I was writing it, I was trying to make it realistic, but I found myself wondering what a budget for a nation-state at a level roughly comparable to Italy in the thirteenth or fourteenth century might reasonably include.
National Novel Writing Month
I admit that I've never participated in NaNoWriMo, despite it being one of the most popular events for the past several years for aspiring writers. The goal of it is to help people establish a writing habit, so it's not that I don't support the mission. In fact, I post writing prompts here on the site precisely because I want to encourage people to write more. And the idea of basically free-writing a short novel in the course of a month isn't a bad one. As unreasonable as it might sound, writing fifty thousand words in a month is not all that much of a stretch, if you're willing to make a routine out of it.
Blood Magic Extra: A Letter to Borivat
Remember when I promised that I was going to try to share more world-building details and background of how I go about crafting these stories? I think this is the first post to move that effort forward. Back in September, I finally got ahead on my Blood Magic writing schedule, even beginning part one of the two-part season finale (released in November and December), so it seemed a good time to release something extra.
New Novella
If I had to describe this story, I would probably say that it's whimsical surrealism in a science-fiction context, with elements of horror and metaphysics. It is, most certainly, weird. Whatever else it is, that last might be the only completely accurate descriptor, and it is still a really compelling story. Whatever meaning you decide to take, or not take, from The Hunt, I hope that you consider giving it a read soon. Available right here at IGCPublishing.com.
Read On
I admit, this post is a little self-serving. It benefits me if you read more, and if more people read; I am an author, after all. It also might be ineffectual; if you're on this site, reading this blog post, you're probably already a reader, and I don't need to convince you of the benefits and importance of continuing to read - you'll do that, anyway. However, this is not just a creative ploy to present a moralistic argument for why you should really go read more Blood Magic (although you absolutely should do that). Every now and then, I'll be telling a friend about a great book that I just read, or I'll recommend a book, or I'll be telling someone about my own most recent writing efforts, and their response will be something along the lines of "I try not to read anything more complicated than The Very Hungry Caterpillar."
Blood Magic, S1:E8 Preview
We're a little less than two weeks out from the release of the next Blood Magic episode: Who's Afraid of the Dark? Instead of subjecting you to another of my lengthy, rambling, sometimes off-topic blog posts, I'm instead going to post a preview of that episode to maybe drum up some excitement for Blood Magic. I know that, coming off of writing episode seven, I'm once again excited about writing this series. So, without any further ado, I present Doil in Blood Magic S1:E8.
Literary Murder
If you've been writing for awhile, you've probably reached a point in a story where you've had to kill off a character. I don't mean a minor character or a world character who pretty much exists just to die on a main character's sword - I mean a point where the plot and the characterization and the whole story demand that a character you have worked with and developed and followed through thousands of words must die. Maybe you knew this was something that would have to happen from the time you started writing the story, or maybe it was something you weren't expecting before you reached the scene and realized there was no other good choice. Regardless, it's never an easy thing.
IGC Publishing 