Updates and Newsy Things

Unless you’ve sent us an email or follow us on Facebook (more on that medium later), it’s been a criminally long time since you’ve heard from us. We owe you an explanation.

First off, we haven’t disappeared, though you’d be forgiven for suspecting such. We published our last novel March of last year, and we’ve sent precious few email memos in the intervening months. Our Typo Tuesday posts on the Facebook author page continued, but those were on an automated schedule we set up ahead of time.

It started with what was admittedly a bout of burn-out after finishing Ascending Mage 7: Prairie Poltergeist just (barely) in time for the pre-order deadline.

Then, there was the whole global Covid-19 fiasco and the demoralizing series of events to follow. We distracted ourselves by focusing on a desperate attempt to keep a new planting of 1,400 baby trees alive in record-breaking drought conditions. Sadly, most of them did not survive, despite many long days spent pumping water to them and weeding one tree at a time.

The release date for Ascending Mage 8 got pushed back twice. Eventually Amazon pulled our pre-orders for that title and barred us from offering pre-orders for a year. That was rather discouraging, even if deserving, considering we were the ones to drop the ball on that commitment to our most loyal readers.

By then it was September. Our neighbors across the street retired and decided to sell their house. The property was in poor condition and would need a lot of attention, but the layout is nicer than our home. An opportunity presented itself: we would offer them a cash deal for 55% of their asking price, but they would in turn need to do zero repair work, pay no real estate agent fees, and indeed not even clean the place up.

To two retirees, that sounded like music! They agreed on the spot to our offer.

And before you think we robbed a couple of old folks out of an asset, let me disclose to you: they were hoarders. And they lived there for 18 years, collecting…stuff. Stuff they left behind for us to contend with.

We hauled out literal tons of trash from the property, even before beginning the tasks of ripping out weathered carpet, old woodgrain paneling, and a hodgepodge of ancient plumbing, wiring, and fixtures. We had to jack the center beam of the house up as someone in generations past had opted to tear out a twelve-foot section of load bearing wall in the basement. Faulty sewer lines were discovered and had to be torn out, and we’re still dealing with flooding issues whenever it rains.

We bought ourselves a “project house” alright. In a future post we’ll share more about our ongoing money pit! But for now, let’s not deviate too far off topic.

This spring, RaeLea and I endured what would prove to be a blindingly painful death, with the loss of our little 12-year-old girl-cat to cancer. We don’t have human children, but our two cats filled the role as surrogate kids for us. When my daughter’s fuzzy body went limp and her tiny head dropped into my hand, never to raise again…that remains the single most heart-rending experience of my life, I can say that without a doubt.

Even as I write this, I know I’m not quite ready to go into further detail with you. The emotions are still too raw to re-live, if you’ll excuse me on that.

And then there’s Facebook.

In response to the increasingly volatile, belligerent tone on Facebook, both of us took a year-long break from the platform. We previously spent literally thousands of dollars in ad campaigns and untold numbers of hours cultivating our author brand, so the decision to back away was not one we took lightly. In addition to the polarizing echo chambers we observed among friends and family, seemingly every week there was (and continues to be) new revelations of Orwellian-level misinformation and outright censorship at the hands of Big Tech. We just cannot fathom contributing to that ugliness, even if it was largely profitable for us to do so.

As the old country song by Aaron Tippin goes, “You’ve got to stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything.” We stand for freedom of speech and individual rights, which means we cannot in good conscience continue falling for whatever it is social media offers. We were earning easy revenue, but at what cost?

We have not taken the final step of shutting down our Facebook group, but we intend to. It’ll be unfortunate to lose many of those followers, knowing that only a fraction of them subscribe to our email list. But even in that, there’s a silver lining: more opportunity to focus on fewer marketing channels.

What’s next?

We can’t (or won’t) make a promise to you just yet for when the next installment of the Ascending Mage series will be ready. We will promise you that we’re not going to let Ember Wright’s story end prematurely. Her story deserves to be told properly.

You can expect updates in the coming weeks.

To be clear: storytelling was never abandoned by us. Over the past year, we’ve written several short stories and we’ll be sharing those with you. We are also excited to talk about our endeavors in learning 3D modeling and animated filmmaking, and in turn what will become adaptations of some of the aforementioned short stories into an audio-visual medium.

There you have an abbreviated explanation of our hiatus from novel-writing. It’s been a long time coming and we’re delighted to be back! Thanks for sticking with us.

If you pre-ordered the next novel in the Ascending Mage series (Ascending Mage 8: Arctic Front), you may have been surprised to receive a cancellation email from Amazon.

Upon postponing the release date for AM8–three times (whoops!)–Amazon made the decision to cancel the release and refund customer pre-orders. This is unfortunate for us and for readers, but within the parameters of their rules.

To be clear: we’re still continuing with writing Ascending Mage 8: Arctic Front (along with the rest of the ten-book series). It’s just now delayed to release in early 2021.

We know you’re eager to see what Ember Wright does next, and we’re eager to tell her story! Sometimes, the germination process just takes longer than planned.

Bear with us (lame pun intended, if you notice the cover art featuring Brevar, the changeling polar bear); you won’t have to wait (too) long for the Arctic Front to arrive!

All the best laid (pre-order) plans…

As the headline suggests, we’re delaying the release of Ascending Mage 8: Arctic Front…yet again.

We really dislike doing this, especially to our growing base of loyal readers, eagerly waiting the next story in Ember Wright’s journey of kicking ass. We’re sorry to make you folks wait yet another month!

I wish I could blame Covid-19 or the culture war or the other subversive events swirling around us like the opening scenes of a post-apocalyptic movie. 

The reality is that I’ve been distracted. Which, to a squirrel masquerading as a human, turns out to be easy to do.

Earlier this year, RaeLea and I planted 1,000 trees on our acreage outside of Bismarck (where we hope to build a home someday). Perfect timing, since it’s turned out to be a record drought for the county (can you detect the sarcasm?). It’s a four-hour round trip to FraeLea Pond and we’ve been making it regularly, in a desperate (and seemingly losing) attempt to keep those baby trees alive by weeding and watering them, which is a two-day affair each time. 

Because that wasn’t enough of a distraction, we also purchased a fixer-upper house from elderly hoarders. Before we can even start ripping out 1960’s wood grain paneling and repairing the leaky plumbing and faulty electrical wiring throughout, we’ve got approximately five bazillion semi-truck loads of trash to haul out to the city landfill.

Is anyone in the market for partially-decomposed taxidermy or worn out shoes, by chance? 

Anyway, the distractions are plenty and your writers are just undisciplined enough to let those distractions derail deadlines.

We’ll get this next story finished, we assure you! It’s just going to take one more month to make it happen.

Thanks for bearing with us!

And incidentally, you can still pre-order Ascending Mage 8: Arctic Front (and you always have the option to cancel the pre-order):

Saturday’s experience at the iMagicon convention in Minot, North Dakota was at least twice as active as the previous day. (Read our debriefing for Day One here).

We chatted with dozens of aspiring writers and earned some more readers. These interactions helped us refine our elevator pitch by observing reactions. The (current) best tagline seems to be:

Our stories are modern fantasy set in North Dakota, centered around Minot. 

As most of the convention attendees are from the local area, their eyes light up when they recognize sites around the area: businesses in downtown Minot, nearby small towns, farming communities, and local history. All of these very real places are woven into our fictional stories, making them accessible even as they add a sense of mystique to our surroundings.

It turns out, that’s exactly what our readers are looking for! 

While the iMagicon convention appeals mostly to gamers, we’ve been happy with the opportunity this in-person event provides us as we’ve refined the above “pitch” and connected with potential readers. 

I mentioned cosplay in yesterday’s post. Most of these costumes are homemade, and the enthusiasm these entertainment fans possess is infectious. While so many of us nerdy types are introverts, all you need to do is ask a cosplayer about the character they’re modeling, and the passion boils to the surface!

I even remembered to snap a few photos of these talented cosplayers today…

First up, we have a Valkyrie. This young lady built her costume from scratch (as with the others you’ll see here today). Each piece of scale armor was carefully molded and snipped and painted and glued.

Next up was a woman dressed as Hellboy. Or, as I told her as she walked past, “I love your Ron Perlman costume!” She had a good sense of humor and didn’t think I was an idiot (or she’s just a really great actress). She was happy to tell us how she built out the Right Hand of Doom, with individually articulating fingers (the middle finger, appropriately, preferred to stay extended while the other digits recoiled). For our part, we offered tips for removing oil-based body paint (I’m guessing she’s not going to use my suggestion of engine de-greaser).

As impressive as the Ron Perlman lookalike was, we were really blown away by this lady, who came with her own epic sound track playing on loop beneath her body armor. We heard her arrival minutes before she strolled down the aisle. She was, we were informed by another passerby, a boss-level baddie from a video game.

I’m now inspired to get my own sound track so I can announce my arrival in style. The armored skeleton dress might also have to figure into my evening wear somehow.

Badass as the above boss lady was, this insectoid-looking fellow won the day’s cosplay contest. Based on a Japanese anime character from the 80’s (or maybe it was the 90’s, forgive my brain for becoming mush), his power move was to unclasp his chest plates to reveal glowing pects. I suggested he could earn some impressive beads flashing that getup at Mardi Gras next year.

Even at a relatively small event such as iMagicon, an incredible variety of passionate creativity surrounds us.

We lost our virginity today.

You might be thinking “about damn time, loser.”  Or you might be thinking, “I’ve always suspected the 40-year-old virgin was real, and that you’d be it, Frank.”

Or, perhaps, you’re thinking, “Eww, gross. Too much information.”

But you’re reading this, so the click-bait headline must’ve worked.

You’re of course aware of Comic-Con, the global brand synonymous with gaming and comic book enthusiasts. You might be aware, too, of the many smaller conventions around the country modeled after that mega gathering. While we were aware ourselves, we’ve never attended one before.

Until now.

The iMagicon is a home-grown version of Comic-Con in miniature. It’s a celebration of the culture whose origin stories include superhero comics and console gaming. At these gatherings, devoted fans engage in cosplay (dressing as their favorite characters in movies or video games), compete in LAN parties, and meet up with like-minded friends.

Some of them even buy merchandise.

Artwork, custom-made mock-swords, and of course comic books are all peddled by vendors. We became aware of this convention when a local author friend, Bill Heinzen (if you’re into epic fantasy, check out his books), encouraged us to attend. We made excuses about being hermits and skipped last year’s convention. As we slowly built a small but loyal readership, we heard from fans who further urged us to show our faces to the public. “Your Ascending Mage series takes place in Minot, after all.”

Lobbying our egos, the conspiracy was effective. We registered for iMagicon 2020.

Of course, then the pandemic happened and the whole world went into synchronized lockdown. The convention in Minot was postponed to August, which brings us to today.

We didn’t know what to expect for our first convention, so we adopted the New Zealand tourism motto: “Don’t expect much; you’ll love it!” I’m told that’s not really their motto, but everything we know about the island nation we learned from Flight of the Conchords and The Lord of the Rings. 

Anyway, with that in mind, we were pleasantly surprised.

We were told by veteran vendors and convention organizers that Friday is the slowest of the three day event, so we were pleased to sell a couple handfuls of paperbacks on this first day. More than simply focusing on sales, however, we found this event thus far to be an excellent way to connect with readers in person.

While mostly a gamer-centric convention, a subset of iMagicon attendees are fiction readers–some of them voracious readers at that. Many of them are aspiring writers themselves. I found it satisfying to hear their enthusiasm when they shared their ideas with us and asked us about the writing and publishing process. Nurturing creators is such an important part of the process, after all.

Along the way, we may have earned a few new fans, too.

One gentleman downloaded our free prequel novel on the spot. An hour later, he returned, picking up a copy of Ascending Mage 1. He was, apparently, sold on our storytelling style. He returned later with a friend who he proceeded to pitch our series to. His friend listened attentively, read the back cover description, and bought a copy for himself.

Those are the kinds of experiences you just can’t replicate through Facebook ads.

As great as that experience was, the highlight of our first day was meeting existing readers of our series. Some of them had corresponded with us via email and social media over the past year. Getting to see them in person, to chat about our favorite TV series and authors…that was pretty magical.

Yesterday, we jested about the fantasy of being dragged away by fans wanting to buy us beer. Imagine our surprise when exactly that happened! Locals Paul and Shauna stopped by our booth and offered to buy us a beer. “Free beer” is one of the best phrases in the English language.

This lovely couple invited us to their favorite drinking hole: Ebeneezer’s, an Irish pub in downtown Minot. They had a corner table reserved where we joined them after the close of the vendor exhibits. We enjoyed Guinness (what else but Irish beer?) and a house specialty: bangers and mash. They turned out to be charming people who we’re privileged to consider our newest friends.

And that summarizes the benefit of attending a convention like this, as authors: it’s an opportunity to earn new readers and build relationships with existing fans. Book sales really just serve to subsidize travel expenses.

We may not have expected much, but we sure are surprised by the wonderful people we’re getting to meet!