FraeLea TV - a video journal

It’s uncomfortable to acknowledge and a little more serious than we tend to get in our videos.

In today’s episode of FraeLea Conversations, we talk about our unscheduled hiatus from writing, and the importance of persistence.

 

Transcript for FraeLea Conversations #11:

R: Hi, welcome to FraeLea Conversations. I’m RaeLea and this is Frank. It’s been a while since you’ve heard from us. At this time, we’re going to offer a little explanation. Frank, our last FraeLea Conversation was three months ago. Can you explain a little bit about where we’ve been in the last few months?

F: Sure. It’s a little bit of a difficult topic, in a way, because I think as a writer, as any creator, any creative, you’re kind of creating in a semi-public atmosphere. And, it’s kind of challenging when you drop the ball because everybody sees you dropping it. So, we’re plugging along, it’s April, we’re writing Ascending Mage 3, Buried Truth, and some of the chapters were flowing really well. And, other ones were a little bit challenging. Our Alpha Team was giving us very positive feedback. So, we were generally on the right course.

R: And, Ember was talking to you.

F: And, Ember was talking to me. Which, that will be in an episode later that we’re going to be showing you. So, a little foreshadowing for you. We’d gotten to Chapter 8 when I knew it wasn’t very good. I had rewritten it and it still wasn’t very good. And, as part of our collaborative process, it kind of gets filtered through you before we pass it onto our Alpha Team. They then give their input.

F: I had passed it on to you and I think your words were something along the extent where you were like, ‘Frank, this is not up to your usual standards.’  And, I knew that, but hearing you articulate it – It was a little bit of a gut punch.

R: Well, it was painful to say, too.

F: It’s true though. That’s the thing, it wasn’t, you weren’t saying it to hurt my feelings. It was true. And, I always tell you too, that I would rather we discover the flaws in the story now versus when it’s out in the wild. Out in the public. Which is why we have this process that we go through, multiple stages of rewrites. That was in April, and this last winter was a particularly long and brutal winter in North Dakota. I think it lasted six months.

R: Yes, it did.

F: And, it wasn’t ending. The winter that never ends. I think there was a little bit of, I don’t know, Seasonal Affective Disorder, or whatever. I’m self-diagnosing myself a little bit there. But, it was a little bit like, alright, we’re sick of this being cooped up in the house because it’s cold outside. So, when it did start getting nice out, and that combined with the fact that I was a little discouraged. It was really easy to latch onto the distraction of the nice weather. To get outside.

F: We did a ton of camping. We were spending a bunch of time outdoors. I think we’re physically healthier for it. And, we’re a little bit tanned, too. Might be hard to tell, but, we’re normally much more pale.  It’s hard to believe we’re even more pale than we are now. I think all of those things had an accumulative effect.

F: I hate to use the word ‘depression’ because I’ve experienced depression at least mild depression, years and years ago. A decade ago. And, we know people who have been depressed, or are depressed. So, I don’t like to use that term, depression, very casually, but I’d say it was kind of close to that spectrum where I was so discouraged that…Imposter syndrome, I guess is another way of calling it. Where you feel like you’re just not deserving of it or capable of it. So, that is kind of where I was at. It’s kind of like a multi-month break, which is kind of unfortunate because this is our fourth novel and we’re waiting to release Ascending Mage One and Two and Three. To release them all in quick succession. Rapid release. So, this has been kind of delaying that considerably.

R: I think that one of the best things, though, is that we persist. You need to persist in your passion and you are passionate about writing.

F: Well, definitely, you’re right. The stories are in there. Most of them are pretty good stories, I think.

R: Yeah.

F: It’s kind of recognizing that it’s okay to stumble and you pick yourself back up and you get back in the fight. It’s like a gladiator, you know everyone’s watching, and there’s a lot of pressure. But, it’s also so damn rewarding. And when you do, and I’m speaking in third person, but really, when I see something that you and I wrote and people actually like it, there’s nothing more satisfying than that.

R: It’s quite a thrill.

F: That’s a big thing. I really want to thank you, the readers, you’ve been encouraging. You’ve been like, kind of cracking the whip, saying when’s the next book coming out? We’ve had a lot of people say that. And, that’s really inspiring to us. It lets us know you actually want to read it so that makes us actually want to write it. And, I really want to thank you in this public setting here for being so supportive. Because, it would be easy to get discouraged and say alright, you don’t want this badly enough. But, I think you live with me. You see what I go through. You realize that the struggle is real, but the desire is real, too. Thank you for that.

R: Thank you. And thank you for watching. You can find us on frhurt.com and you’ll find our updates there.

F: Thanks, again.

R: Thank you.

 

Watch as we reveal the cover art for the first five novels in our Ascending Mage series! And as always, we are flawless in our delivery. Right?

Transcript for FraeLea Conversations #10:

F: Hi, and welcome to FraeLea Conversations. I’m Frank and this is RaeLea. Today we’re going to do a cover reveal.

R: Actually, five!

F: Five covers revealed. Cover reveals?

R: Covers revealed?

F: Cover reveals? Let’s go with cover reveals. Alright, we’re going to do five cover reveals.

R: We’re writers.

F: Let’s go with that, then. It’s for our Ascending Mage series which we’ve been working on for the last several months. If you’re a member of our Alpha Team, then you already know that, if not, then surprise! We’re going to try to keep this video short, it’s probably too late for that, already. Let’s jump right in. The first book, want to say the title?

R: Ascending Mage One, Spark of Justice.

F: There you go. Yep, Ascending Mage One, Spark of Justice. On this cover, with all the covers, we’re depicting scenes from each of the books. This one is depicting a key scene, kind of the climax, the black moment, actually, so pre-climax scene in the third, or late second act, really. You want to describe it a little bit, it’s on the screen already for everyone.

R: Well, we have Ember, our protagonist, our lead gal, she’s surrounded by three Changelings, and you can get a feel of that…

F: Don’t give away the story though.

R: Okay.

F: Well, we should have discussed this a little more. We’re going to do other videos here with the plot and talk about the story line a little bit more, but for now, we’re just going to talk about the cover art, so. We had the same artist do this that did Fog Over Mandaree. And, this one is kind of an action scene. That’s the way I’d describe it. Do you want to point out where the squirrel’s at?

R: Oh, I don’t know!

F: Go ahead and explain it.

R: Okay. In each of our covers we have a squirrel and if you’re familiar with us, then you realize we have squirrelish natures.

F: We’re a couple of squirrels, basically, yeah. We embrace that.

R: On this particular one, I don’t know if…usually, we were going to make people search for them, so…

F: But, not everyone is going to watch this video. In fact, almost nobody will watch this video.

R: If you will look at, we’ll just give you a hint, on one of the bad guys arms there’s a specific …

F: Well, there’s a pretty good hint right there. You shouldn’t be able to miss it. We’ll move on then, this is getting a little longer than we were hoping. We’ll move on to Ascending Mage Two, Changeling Hunter.

R: This one is pretty awesome, I like it a lot.

F: This one was one of my favorites until we got onto Ascending Mage Four, which, we’re showing you coming up so stay tuned. Now, we’re getting an assistant here who decided to join. Alright, Euley. Back to the book. Do you want to say where the squirrel is on this one?

R: Yeah, sure. Just basically, take a look out the window, in a tree and you should be able to see the next, second, squirrel there.

F: With all of these two I’ll point out we have another, I guess, I don’t know what you want to call it, a totem, an item of Ember’s, our protagonist.

R: Oh, yeah.

F: It’s the coyote pendent that she gets from someone who ends up being one of her closest friend in the series. And, so we have that depicted in every book cover. And, each book cover is reflecting kind of the progression, the Ascending Mage, that’s Ember, her progression with confidence. The first one is showing her kind of lacking confidence, acting surprised, here, she’s showing a little more grit and determination as she’s engaged in combat.

R: Yeah, I really like that one.

F: We’ll go onto the next one. Go ahead.

R: Alright, now third one is Buried Truth.

F: Ascending Mage Three, Buried Truth. You’ll get this right. That’s the whole title. Tell them where the squirrel’s at.

R: Oh, my goodness. This one was actually difficult for me to find, so, one of the characters, the gentleman, you’ll see the hat…

F: Barnaby Harrison.

R: He has an interesting feather arrangement on his hat.

F: It’s a squirrel shaped feather. Basically, is what she’s trying to say.

R: I was trying to exactly not all that. But, anyway.

F: Sorry if I said that, then. But, this is depicting a scene with the ghost, Barnaby Harrison, which you meet in the first book and he persists throughout the series as kind of a mentor. He’s basically a mentor and he’s been dead for 112 years, but our protagonist, Ember, is able to speak with the dead which is kind of a useful skill to have when you’re an investigator. So, in this one, he’s teaching her a spell, is what we’re depicting there and she’s in deep concentration. This is the midway point in these first five books. She’s going from acting to being proactive.

R: It’s kind of obvious that Barnaby’s tombstone is in the background and she’s in this graveyard, shall we say where?

F: It probably doesn’t matter. Everything is based in North Dakota. This particular graveyard is a real graveyard outside of Surrey, which is a little town east of Minot. Which is where most of the story is. But, we’ll get into the story in another video. Moving onto the next one.

R: I love this one. Ascending Mage Four, Nothing Broken, which has a pretty significant …

F: Do you want me to be your thesaurus and come up with a word?

R: Please.

F: It has significant symbolism, is maybe the word you’re looking for.

R: That’s what I’m trying to say.

F: We won’t tell you what’s going on other than it’s obvious that Ember’s engaged in a serious fight. You can kind of see the lightening bolt on the cover and she’s looking particularly fierce. This is my particular favorite cover of the five. Ember just looks so…

R: She’s coming into her own.

F: Yeah, exactly.

R: I really like that one.

F: And, there are actually two squirrels on this one.

R: Yes, I know that we have a book end …

F: It’s a book end on the shelf which is kind of covered by the title and so we had our artist add a second squirrel in. Which is on the wall, on the left-hand side of the cover, if you look at it, you can see the squirrel in a photo, yeah, painting. Because, who wouldn’t have, you know, if you had a mahogany office, wouldn’t you have squirrels framed on your walls? I know I would.

R: We should tell them about what the other photo is, right below that. It’s a real photo.

F: Yeah, you sure can, if you want to. You’re the one who discovered that.

R: I’m not sure, it’s like 1900, I’d have to get the exact year.

F: I thought it was 1800 something. (Actual date was 1886, a photo of the Parker House).

R: It was one of the first photographs we could see of Minot.

F: It was like the 1880’s or 90’s even. It was early Minot.

R: It was a real photograph of Minot, of early Minot, with dirt roads and covered wagons.

F: That is integrated into the story, too. Which, again, we’re not going to go into it at this moment.

R: You’ll have to read the books.

F: Well, we’ll tell you a little bit about it. But, yeah, you should read the books anyway. And, you should buy them and probably buy them multiple copies when they come out. Not just one. You know, they’ll make good gifts and everything. We’ll do the pitch later though, I guess. Alright, moving onto the last one, which is another favorite.

R: I think this one is my favorite.

F: Ascending Mage Five, Souris Rising. Alright, we almost said that together. We could have practiced and done this whole thing in sync.

R: This one is my favorite. She is just, I don’t know, can I say badass on here.

F: Yeah, well, you just did. We aren’t going to bleep anything here. I would say the word I would describe is defiance. And, I’ll point your attention to the squirrel pendent (actually coyote) how it’s barely hanging on.

R: Not the squirrel, the coyote.

F: Sorry, the coyote pendent. There you go, that’s why you’re here.

R: I have a reason for being.

F: You have a reason for being here. So, the coyote pendent is all but dangling, and it reflects the state of Ember, pretty much throughout this book where it’s a major conflict going on and she’s just struggling to stay alive, really.

R: And, keep her friends and family alive.

F: Right. While maintaining her integrity towards justice. It’s a big theme throughout this story, or this series, is justice.

R: The squirrel.

F: The squirrel. Go for it.

R: It’s actually on a storefront.

F: I’m going to totally butcher the name, but it’s French for squirrel, it’s Ecureuil. Ecureuil (repeated with awesome French accent!). We’ll go with that. It’s in the background, behind the floodwaters that are raging there’s a store with a sign that’s Ecureuil. So, that’s our token squirrel that’s on all our book covers. So, if you’ve watched the video, and your friends haven’t, you’ll be able to point out where the squirrels are and look like a genius. Which, you are, because you’re taking the time to watch our videos. I think that sums it up. Those are the first five books in the Ascending Mage series, the covers for them. We’re excited to get them lined up for you and release them this Summer, 2018! We’re working on them right now and we’ll be able to announce them hopefully within a few months. Thanks for watching.

R: You can find us at HRHurt.com

F: NO! FRHurt.com

R: What did I say.

F: You said HRHurt.

R: Gosh dang it!

F: Alright, we’ll, we’ve got to shoot this whole thing over again. It’s also in the bottom of the screen if you’re looking. No, you, not you. It’s not on…it’ll be post production. It’ll be, I’m sort of pointing at your chest, I realize here, too.  There’ll be a watermark here. We should just quite while we’re ahead. FRHurt.com. Thanks again for watching. And, we’ll have a company meeting here to discuss how we can be more professional. But, don’t expect anymore professional than this. Thanks for watching.

We’re so lucky to have such great friends supporting our storytelling.

I think these two pieces constitute our very first fan art!

Find them online at Vigilante Woodworks and USB Micro.

Transcript for FraeLea Conversations #9:

RaeLea: Hi, welcome to FraeLea Conversations. I’m RaeLea and this is Frank. We’d like to do a short video to express some gratitude for our fans.

Frank: Yeah, just a short appreciation video. We are so blessed to have friends, family and fans; people that we never even met, that have been helping us spread the word about our burgeoning authoring career. Back this spring, we had bookmarks made. Little mini book marks, (holds up a bookmark) that were distributed. We had quite a few people, well over two dozen people, who volunteered to help distribute those book marks.

RaeLea: Yes, and thank you very much.

Frank: We’ve over five thousand of them, out in the wild, that has resulted in subscribers from Texas and all over the U.S. I think we had at least one in Canada, so it’s kind of exciting that way. Thank you so much, to all of you, who distributed those bookmarks. And then we had a few friends that actually went a little bit further. Sam Scheer, from Vigilante Woodworks, in Montana. (Holds up wooden sign) He made this awesome, CNC cut out of our logo, Frank and RaeLea, logo, on this reclaimed lumber from a lumbermill in northwest Montana.

RaeLea: It’s pretty awesome!

Frank: Thank you, Sam, and his wife, Devenne. That was so thoughtful of you guys. We have it hanging in our living room. It’s such a thoughtful gift, so thank you for that. And, the other one we had was from Rob Severson, at USBMicro. He made this (shows the ‘Break Glass In Case Of Fog’ box) after reading Fog Over Mandaree, our free prequal novel, that’s available at frhurt.com. And, if you can’t read it, it says Break Glass In Case Of Fog. It’s a reference to a scene, or several scenes, in Fog Over Mandaree. It involves MRE’s, which he’s got a meal ready to eat, some glow sticks. So, it was a cute little…

RaeLea: You’ll get it if and when you read the book.

Frank: Yeah, when you read Fog Over Mandaree, you’ll get the joke, I guess.

RaeLea: So, thank you very much.

Frank: Yes. Thank you, Rob. Thank you, Sam. And, thank you to all of you who have been so supportive to us. We’re just getting started. We really appreciate all the support you’ve been showing us.

As authors, we’re all about authenticity.

Being the stalwart troupers that we are, we’re here today to sample the infamous British delicacy of Marmite. We did this because we thought it would be great to have our protagonist love the stuff (she’s English).

Kids, don’t try this at home.

Transcript for FraeLea Conversations #8:

Frank: Hi, and welcome to FraeLea Conversations. I’m Frank and this is RaeLea. And, what are we doing today?

RaeLea: We are doing our unboxing of Marmite.

Frank: Of Marmite. And why are we doing that?

RaeLea: Because, we have to make it authentic. Our main protagonist, Ember, is so in love with Marmite that…

Frank: Can I interrupt you a little bit?

RaeLea: Yeah.

Frank: Alright, I’m going to back up and say that in Spark of Justice, in our Magic City Chronicles, there’s a protagonist, named Ember Wright. She’s from England and one of her little quirks is that she loves Marmite. So, that’s where you’re talking about authenticity.  So, we’re going to be…

RaeLea: Okay. Right.

Frank: This is us being professionals, here.

RaeLea: (Laughs)

Frank:  So, we have a box of Marmite that we ordered on Amazon. By all accounts, if you didn’t grow up with Marmite, you’re going to hate it. I did try a little bit of it years ago, and I did hate it. But, it’s been a long time so maybe I’m going to like it now. When I was growing up, I didn’t like sauerkraut, but now I love it, so…maybe it’s the same exact thing.

RaeLea: Oh, so I’ve got a little bit of anxiety here where, it’s going to be a love it or hate it and I’ve understood that it’s an acquired taste.

Frank: (opening up bubble wrap) We probably could have prepared this ahead of time, but we thought it would be a little more authentic if we’re opening this up.

RaeLea: Well, if I can get used to lutefisk, maybe I can get used to this.

Frank: I haven’t gotten used to lutefisk. So, this is Marmite and if you’re not familiar with it, we’re going to be terrible advertising agents for this, I have a feeling. It is a British…delicacy.

RaeLea: Delicacy.

Frank: There you go, we share a brain. And, nice jar, but it’s a yeast extract. It says, ‘Rich in B vitamins, 100% vegetarian’. Um, well, we’ll see here. So, it’s a brewer’s yeast, I think by-product, what my understanding was. And our character, Ember Wright, loves this stuff. Eats it like candy. We’ve got an Alpha Team member, Ian, who’s in Scotland, and he’s kinda told us about it, too. It’s kinda fun to have…

RaeLea: Apparently, there’s not a whole lot of people who can eat a half a jar.

Frank: (opens jar) Alright, it doesn’t smell too great.

RaeLea: (sniffs) Huh.

Frank: Alright, so we’re going to try some of it. (takes spoon) So, it’s kind of…oh…well, it’s kind of a molasses texture to it. So, apparently, Ian, our Alpha Member in Scotland, says that they like to put it on toast, very thin layer on toast. Or, his dad, he said, liked to eat it on cheese, not sure what kind of cheese.

RaeLea: They do have Marmite crackers, too.

Frank: Crackers and whatnot, so…cheers!

RaeLea: Cheers!

(clinks spoons)

Frank: Marmite! (eats) Mmm.

RaeLea: (eats – face scrunch) Oh, it’s so good.

Frank: Okay. I wish I would have taken a smaller helping, I got to be honest.

RaeLea: Oh, my.

Frank: It’s kind of like you took soy and tar…

Enya (Meepy): “Smells like poo.”

Frank: …and mixed the two together.

RaeLea: And that would be the winning…oh, a lot of soy. Soy sauce, or whatever.

Frank: Yeah, it’s very salty, soy taste. It’s actually not as bad as I was expecting it to be. Quite honestly. I don’t know, but if anyone wants an open jar of Marmite…

RaeLea: Free, giveaway!

Frank: …send us your address, we’ll mail it to you. I have a feeling we’re not going to be indulging in this. In Spark of Justice, when you get to that scene, if you haven’t already read that, as it hasn’t been published yet.

RaeLea: Where’s Lucky when you need her?

Frank: We won’t give you any spoilers, but, there’s kind of our little comedic relief in that part of the book. So, Marmite—Please don’t send us any! Until next time, I’m Frank, this is RaeLea, and you can see us on frhurt.com. Thanks for watching.

In our previous FraeLea Conversations video, we talked about our writing experiment: to write and edit a full novel in one month.

Fast forward, and Spark of Justice is finished! That’s a full-length novel of 81,000 words written and edited in about 30 days. This experiment was an absolute success.

Some discoveries (some were expected, most were pleasant surprises):

• Being held accountable made ALL the difference for motivation. Knowing we had a small group of people waiting to read a new chapter each morning lit a fire under our butts.
• A much shorter feedback loop meant more agile corrections. Normally, authors write an entire novel, only then passing it along to their beta readers to receive critique. With this experiment, we were getting near real-time proofreading and story insights from our Alpha Team. As such, we’re confident that Spark of Justice and the characters within will resonate with the public.
• Each day got progressively easier. At the start of the month, it took 11 painful hours to write and edit a full chapter. By the end of the month, we were able complete three chapters in about six hours.
• Quality improved with quantity. Not only did the words-per-hour improve each week, but the story came together more readily as a “flow state” was achieved most days.
• Obsession was the key ingredient. We lived and breathed this story every hour of every day. We talked about it when we weren’t writing, dreamed about it when we weren’t awake. I’m convinced that this obsessiveness helped make the writing time more productive.

Prior to this experiment, we were averaging just one chapter per month (that’s pitiful, really). During our experiment, we were cranking out an average of one chapter per day, with bursts up to three chapters in a 24-hour period. We’re talking about edited chapters (averaging 2,350 words) requiring only minor proofreading corrections.

We’re still pinching ourselves to have accomplished so much in such a concentrated span of time. We are continuing this experiment and will be refining the process with each new novel.

Above all, we couldn’t have done this without our treasured Alpha Team. As our protagonist Ember might say, “Cheers, volunteers!”

Oh, and look for Spark of Justice (Magic City Chronicles #1) to be published by February 2018!

Transcript for FraeLea Conversations #7:

RaeLea: Hi and welcome to FraeLea Conversations. I’m RaeLea and this is Frank. About six weeks ago we started a writing experiment and I think we’re going to update you on how that went.

Frank: That’s right. It was a little more than a month and a half ago. And, for our second novel, as we announced in our last episode, we had a writing experiment where we had volunteers, called our Alpha Team. We emailed, every morning, a new chapter, sometimes two chapters. I guess, in a nutshell, it went fantastically. We had great feedback.

RaeLea: I think the number one thing was the accountability. That was perfect.

Frank: Right. We went from, basically, taking a month per chapter, to write, which is not a good speed.

RaeLea: Not sustainable.

Frank: To a chapter a day, sometimes two. At the end, we had three chapters in a day. It was fantastic and we can’t thank our Alpha Team members enough. As a way of thanking them, in fact, we renamed a lot of characters after some of our Alpha Team members. So, you’ll see some of that. We also had these awesome Spark of Justice mugs made. They’re fifteen-ounce coffee mugs that we gave to our more active Alpha Team members. Not to all of them, but to the ones who gave us a lot of feedback and a lot of useful insight.

RaeLea: Thank you very much.

Frank: This sexy little coffee mug.

RaeLea: (laughs)

Frank: Yeah, I think it’s pretty sexy. But, it features the artwork that’s going to be on the book cover for Spark of Justice. Which, is ready to be published, now at this point, and will be published in the first quarter of 2018. Along with its next successors after that.

RaeLea: Right.

Frank: So, we’re going to be continuing our experiment with our next novel, Investigator’s Creed, which is starting, like pretty much now.

RaeLea: Yes, so expect emails soon.

Frank: Yes, for our Alpha Team members. And, if you didn’t get a chance to be a part of the Alpha Team and you would like to help, or you’d like to read what we’ve written, we are going to be looking for advanced review readers. Basically, you’re going to be getting a copy of the e-book in exchange for writing a review on Amazon, or wherever when it gets published. Send us an email if you’re interested in that. A big shout out to our Alpha Team members, and thanks so much for all the help.

RaeLea: And, again, find us on frhurt.com.