The Dragon's Den

Hello everyone!

It’s another day, another weekend, and a bit of an extended hiatus from here. I attended an event last week at Clark Park and I got to have a chance to speak about my book. I was a little underprepared– some of my products didn’t come in on time, and I was down on a few shirts. There’s one person I know who grabbed a bundle pack–the contact info was lost (I didn’t know reciepts aren’t copied to the user VIA Square), so if I saw you at the Uhuru Event and you didn’t get a shirt when you bought the bundle, reach out to me via email as soon as you can! (windteaching3[at]gmail.com)

With that said, I want to talk a little bit about the writing process.

I’ve been rereading a lot of my first book, checking critiques, reviews, etc. I know of the vision I have, but when I look back at my beginning steps… I know I can do better. There’s a lot of things that I could have presented early on in the story. I would have loved to present the antagonists sooner, maybe establish them as a threat right away. I’d love to change the story just a little so that way it builds on the characters more– gives them urgency, but being so excited that I had my first story written, I pushed really fast to get it published.

Every chance I took to look at how writers began, I noticed the same story; if they were indie authors, their debute book either went well, or went poorly. From there, they learned the skills of the trade, got editors, fixed up plots, asked for Beta readers and so on. I want to do the same exact thing– take the creation of the second installment a little slower this time around. I’d like to have the book available either close to November or December. I want to deliver a great product.

With that said, how about another preview? Mysherra’s life was never easy, but before she met Kane, she was desperately in need of something very important.

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My last memory of the outside world before the Long Sleep was of my wielder succumbing to a sickness that plagued all of the Roman Empire. 

His soul expired while I was still in his grip.

He somehow convinced himself that all he needed was to find ingredients for a potion all on his own, rather than trust the practices of a plague doctor.

“They didn’t know what they were doing,” he told me. “I won’t pay a single piece to a leech.”

Even with my own soul bound to his, he perished within a fortnight. 

His last words, “You cursed me.”

I wish I could say I was hurt by his words, but I felt nothing. I could see the end in the horizon long before he did. 

I was used to it. Hundreds of years with wielder after wielder, I became used to such sights. There was no way out of this place—magic was as dead as my kin. 

My hope for escape was gone. All I was doing was honoring a deadman’s wish of seeing humanity prosper alongside us.

Hope is but a fragile thing. 

I had hoped for generations upon generations of wielders that one would have that same shine as my first. I had withstood the pain of rejection, the pain of death and exploitation so many times. To those I grew close to, they were torn asunder. They would protect the ones they loved, and curse my name when I could not help them.

And to those that I loved, I learned very quickly that I should not, lest the scab tore open again.

This face had a life that I could not remember. This face blamed me for his death. And so that scab was pulled open once more, puss-filled and numb. 

The voices that uplifted me drowned to those that despised me. The hope that boy of Hambletone wished for was a fleeting memory just as the rest were. Names of the people I knew were a mesh of letters with no meaning.

Why was I doing this? What was the point of it all?

For him? A youngling whose name I couldn’t remember?

The next wielder never came. 

The void was cold—comforting. The silence was, at last, accepted. 

I could not die by conventional means. My only hope was that another would lift me, or those hunters—those Crusaders would finally put an end to me. 

Until that day came, I closed my eyes and I slept. 

Perhaps, in time, that light would return. 

But I could not hope for that anymore.