Dear Inklings,
June went by in a bit of a blur. Dentist appointments. Interviews at the dentist's office, which was a little funny. Not playing Hexmark for a couple weeks and then playing it three days in a week. And writing. Lots of writing. A good bit of reading, too.
Let's start with writing. I didn't hit 30k this month, and I actually didn't surpass last month. I finished out this month at 16,666 words. Part of that, however, is because I made a return to Time's Sacrifice Book 2, which is mostly editing. Not editing a lot of new words.
So my sister and those of you who read the book in 2023 or 2024 (but mostly my sister) will be pleased to know I am, in fact, working on it.
I decided because of the slow pace over the past couple years, that I would start at the beginning of the draft again to refresh myself. And guys, there's so much of this story that I really love. The first chapter is actually beautiful and has one of my favorite scenes in the series. The character arcs go into places I love for this story.
And I'm getting back to the point where I can't wait to share it. That's a good feeling after being kind of burned out on it for a while.
This has been a good month in remembering that word count isn't everything. It's the easiest metric to measure my habits, and I'll probably keep doing it. But I think this was my best writing month so far this year, and the word count doesn't reflect that mostly because a lot of the words weren't new. They still matter, though.
I finished reading The Dragon Republic. I told a few people, this is the point in most grimdark fantasies where my brain goes, "I'm not really having fun anymore." TO BE FAIR, that probably started around 70% of the way through The Poppy War. The trilogy is based on the Sino-Japanese Wars, and uh, it is Beat For Beat that. So it can be a pretty rough read. I knew that going in, so I was prepared. It was still a rough read.
But whereas when I put down the Song of Ice and Fire book because I found I just didn't care about the characters or the plot anymore, I am still invested in The Poppy War trilogy. I want to know how it ends. I care about Rin, honestly more than I thought I would. And I definitely care about Kitay and Venka and, yes, Nezha more than I expected.
For now, though, I'm taking a break. I picked up Mistborn finally. I'm not even 200 pages of the way in, but I love it already. I would die for Vin and Kelsier both, and I'm a sucker for a scrungly little urchin and a mentor that keeps them on their toes. Plus, in this day and age, we have to love a story about overthrowing an evil empire.
Speaking of which, my beloved Kids on Brooms campaign, Hexmark's Fate, is nearing its end after two years. Cami, who started out the campaign at the age of 12, is now 20 and entering her final year of school, preparing to face her fate and take down the Emperor with her profes, her big weird family (growing increasingly weirder and bigger), and her friends. Ash and I booked a cottage for next weekend where we can play all weekend and celebrate the end of the campaign. We're also ending it in Cami's birth month -- about two weeks before her birthday!
It's been a long time coming, but I won't pretend the parts I looked forward to the most weren't the ending. And now we're almost there!
The Writer's Patch discord server is embarking on a new "Blorboverse" adventure, where we all write towards a goal while also rewarding ourselves with various characters from our stories. I'm running it this month, and it features a spooky stone castle smack dab in the middle of the ocean, with an eerie humming noise coming from upstairs...
That's about all I have for now. I hope June was kind to you all. July is probably my least favorite month of the year in terms of the oppressive heat and humidity, but I have a lot to look forward to with this one.
